Vita Brevis

by Ruth Downie

  The slave stood out of reach while he explained that this was the place of sir’s afternoon meeting.

  “What meeting?”

  “To discuss the appeal against the levying of fines on the fishmonger by the Theatre of Marcellus, sir. Because of the regular dumping of fish guts in the street.”

  “Fish guts?” Accius ran one hand through his hair. “Let him off. I don’t care. I’ve got more important things to worry about.”

  The slave was immobile, his face carefully blank.

  Ruso said as gently as he could, “You do need to carry on as normal, sir.”

  Accius glared at him for a moment, then muttered, “Fish guts. Gods above!” and executed a perfect parade-ground turn to face the direction his staff were indicating. As Ruso walked away he heard a voice floating down the street after him, “And don’t even think about trying any of that boiled lettuce nonsense with me!”

  62

  She asked him to repeat the word, not daring to believe it the first time.

  “Home,” he said again, scanning her face as if he were keen to see how she liked this surprise gift. She threw the laundry she was folding down on the bed, gathered him into her arms, rubbed her cheek against his scratchy one and kissed him. “Home,” she whispered, breathing in the scent of him. “Thank the gods!” Then, drawing back, “Can I tell the others?”

  But she could not—not yet—because there was much he needed to say to her. About the visit to Squeaky’s boss that had unexpectedly left them with the spare cash for the journey. About the shipping agent and catching a barge to Portus. About the Notus, a ship due to sail from Portus to Massalia the day after tomorrow. About the relative safety of traveling up through Gaul by river. All details she knew she should take in, but she was longing for them to be over so she could fling open the kitchen door and announce, “There is good news!” and wait until she had the slaves’ full attention before declaring, “We are all going home!”

  He was talking about visiting his family. “I don’t suppose you’ll want to go there, but I’m sure Cass would be delighted to see you. And the nieces and nephews will all love Mara.”

  It was like a cold hand around her throat. “Me? What about you?”

  “You’ll have both the staff with you.”

  “Me?”

  “I’ll join you as soon as I can,” he promised.

  “Just …” She forced the words out. “… me?”

  “And Mara.” He cleared his throat. “I need to stay, Tilla. I can’t leave Accius in this state.”

  And then she was pounding him with her fists, crying, “You promised, you promised!” And he was trying to fend her off and begging her to listen, but that was the last thing she was going to do.

  “We stand our ground, together! This is our home! We sold all those precious things to save it!”

  And now they were both shouting, and things were said that should not have been said, and then they were both shamed into silence by the sound of Mara crying.

  So when Sabella’s husband appeared a little later to say he wanted them out by the Ides, neither of them had anything to say. He repeated himself, perhaps thinking they had not understood, and Tilla said, “We are thinking about it.”

  “It’s not a request,” he told her. “We’ve had complaints. It’ll be fifty for the rent plus damages. I’ll inspect before you go.”

  He looked around at the four adults in the kitchen and at Mara in Tilla’s arms, still red in the face from crying. Nobody answered him, so he turned and left the way he had come in, muttering something about bloody provincials.

  63

  They were both awake before dawn. All the things that could have been said had been said last night, most of them several times, and the lovemaking that followed had been desperate and sweet and sad. Now all that was left was the making of arrangements and the passing on of information, and each of them was treating the other as if they were fragile.

  “Accius will go and formally withdraw his offer for Horatia this morning,” he said, sitting on the side of the bed and leaning down to grope in the space underneath for his shoes.

  She said, “What will you do if what you say does not help him?”

  He heard the swish of her pulling off her night dress. “Then perhaps I’ll bring him to Britannia and we’ll see if your relatives can find him a job.” Except that if he failed altogether, there would be no chance of leaving Rome. Accius had not been joking when he’d said, I expect they’ll just cut your head off.

  “Promise me you will be careful.”

  “I’m always careful.” Almost always. Rather than linger on that one moment of exceptional stupidity, he said, “The agent said you’ll need to be down at the wharf outside the Porticus Aemilia by the ninth hour at the latest. He says there’ll be plenty of barges to get you down to Portus, so ask two or three to get a decent price.”

  “I will.”

  He had never before noticed that you could hear someone combing their hair. He said, “Don’t be afraid to stay at the farm as long as you want. Cass and my brother will make you welcome.”

  “It was a good letter.”

  She must have been awake during the night. Knowing she would read it—although not so soon—he had spent some time considering the phrasing, and ended up with

  Gaius to his dearest mother, stepfather, brother, all three of my sisters, my brother by marriage, my nieces and nephews, fondest greetings.

  That just about covered everyone. His stepmother would be pleased to be called mother, the idiot she had married was unlikely to care what he was called, and his sister-in-law Cass would be glad to be ranked with his two half-sisters. Families were a complicated business, especially when it was important to please them.

  Unfortunately our stay in Rome has had to be cut short and we are returning to Britannia

  (That would disappoint his eldest sister, who had been expecting him to find her husband a job here.)

  but I am detained by some business. I am very much looking forward to seeing you, but in the meantime I am sending you this news via my most precious wife and daughter and our two slaves, who are looking after them.

  Holy gods, he hoped he was right to trust her to the slaves. He had known them only four days. If things went badly for him here, they would be her only protection on the journey.

  I know you will look after my household well until I am able to join you, and that if Tilla decides to travel on to join her people before then, you will give her every assistance.

  Then all the usual waffle about everybody’s health.

  There were other letters that he had not told her about: the just-in-case ones he would leave with Accius to be sent via the Legion in Britannia: one to Valens and one to Albanus, entrusting his wife and family to their care.

  They ate the morning’s porridge from the pan. As Tilla pointed out, the sale of the crockery meant there would be one less box to carry. Then when Esico was out fetching water and Narina was changing Mara’s smelly cloths in the surgery, she made one last attempt.

  “I am not arguing,” she whispered, “but I still think you have no reason to stay behind. It is not your fault you gave medicine when you were asked.”

  “There’s a chance I’ll learn something new from Balbus’s bodyguard,” he told her, choosing to offer a hope so faint he had forgotten it himself rather than return to the old battleground. “I haven’t spoken properly with Latro yet. He was there: He might have spotted something no one else saw.”

  She shook her head. “It is too late to talk to Latro. He ran away.”

  “Really?” With everything else going on, he had not even noticed. “There’s a lot of it about.”

  “What?”

  “Running away.”

  “He is a coward. He is the reason that slave girl is pregnant. His master promised he would be freed in the will, and he was not, and he cannot face the trouble he is in.”

  He upended the pan to scrape out the last of the porri
dge and tried not to envy the audacity of a man who ran away from his mistakes. “You won’t forget to ask about Simmias?”

  “I will go to the night watch,” she promised. Simmias’s flight was something they both felt guilty about. “He must have a family or something.” But they both knew that if he had vanished as completely as Kleitos, the savings they needed to give back to him would never get there.

  He could hear Narina talking to Mara in that singsong voice that women used to reassure children that whatever-it-was was almost done.

  “Promise me you’ll keep all of the business about Balbus’s death quiet,” he said. “Wherever you are, whoever you’re with. If the accusation gets out, Accius is ruined whether or not there’s a court case.”

  Tilla took the pan from his hands and placed it on the table. “You have all those magistrates for making laws,” she said. “Great bronze plaques with letters stamped into them as if they speak the truth and nothing can be changed. But this place is just like anywhere else. Everything depends on rumors and lies.”

  “I’m not even supposed to have told you.”

  “I shall keep it secret,” she promised as Narina entered with a better-smelling baby. “I shall only tell one person, as you have. How about Sister Dorcas?”

  His attempt at a smile felt exhausting. “I should never have brought you here.”

  “I could have said no,” she told him. “I wanted to see what Rome was like.”

  He said, “I do love you, you know,” as if there might have been some doubt about it, and then thought how strange it was that he could not remember ever telling her that before.

  64

  Cossus was not there, of course. According to Horatia, who looked pale and exhausted, he had dropped by earlier to remind the cousin how happy he would be to help deal with any business that might arise during the period of mourning. “As if we didn’t know that.”

  Accius was not there, either. Having visited the cousin first thing this morning and regretfully withdrawn his offer to marry Horatia, he was banned from the house both for upsetting her and for interrupting the privacy of the family’s grief. On the way out he had seized Ruso in a clumsy embrace and promised to hurry across to the Palatine Hill and make an offering at the temple of Apollo to pray for his success: a promise which left Ruso even more nervous than before.

  Guessing that the battle over Horatia would take place without either of the contenders present, Ruso had already sent a message to Metellus, who hurried into the inner courtyard not long after Accius had left.

  “So you really can be contacted via the urban prefect’s office,” Ruso observed, to which Metellus replied that he had never spoken anything but the truth.

  Ruso was sure that must be a lie in itself, but could not be bothered to work out why.

  “I hope this is something important? I’m having a busy morning.”

  “I need a witness for Cossus,” Ruso told him. “You’ll have to do.”

  At Ruso’s request the five of them gathered in Balbus’s old study: Horatia, the cadaverous cousin—clearly annoyed at this latest disrespectful intrusion—and Firmicus, still loyally performing his role as Balbus’s right-hand man despite his freedom. For once Metellus did not blend in: The plain tunic marked him as an outsider against the uniform black of the household’s mourning.

  The cousin said, “Well?”

  Ruso took a deep breath. “I’m sorry to trouble you all with this,” he began, ignoring the sudden thought that he might be the one who was sorry before long, “but I’m aware that the sad loss of the master of this house has been made even more difficult for everyone by the uncertainty over how he died.”

  He had their attention. Now for the difficult part.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” he said.

  “Then get on with it,” put in the cousin.

  So he did.

  When he got to the end he looked ’round at their faces. Metellus betrayed nothing as usual, although surely even he must have been surprised to hear Ruso confess his uncertainty about the medicine. The cousin was looking even more furious and bewildered. Firmicus looked stunned. Horatia, clutching the bracelet around her wrist, said, “It was you? All along, you knew it was you?”

  “No, and I still don’t know,” Ruso repeated. “But I can’t be sure what was in that jar labeled poppy, and I can’t trace the man who put it there. And I can’t go on listening to the sort of damaging accusations that are being spread around.”

  “Well that’s not much help, is it?” demanded the cousin. “You don’t know.”

  “I’ve come to ask your permission to find out. We need to take the medicine to an expert and have them check it. I think it’s still—”

  “It’s in the master’s study,” put in Firmicus. “I’ll fetch it.”

  Horatia said, “I’ll go with you.”

  The bottle was still almost full. Cold now, of course, and the solids had settled into a dark sludge that undulated with the motion of the murky liquid above. It had not been one of his better efforts. Looking at this, Xanthe would probably classify him among those who knew nothing at all.

  “There’s an expert over at Trajan’s baths.” He had thought this part through, realizing they would believe nothing he said now. “But if you’d rather appoint your own …”

  The cousin said, “That won’t be necessary.”

  It was a small encouragement. Ruso turned toward the door. “She should be there now,” he said. “She’s called—”

  “How much did you tell him to take?”

  Ruso pointed to the label. “One small spoonful every evening.”

  “Then you can take four,” the cousin told him.

  Ruso froze. “But—”

  “Four.”

  Only now did he realize he should have insisted on having another medic present. Not that he knew anyone who would have obliged. Both the doctors who had offered him friendship had fled. “It really does have poppy tears in it,” he explained. “Four spoonsful could be a dangerously high dose.”

  “Cousin!” Horatia urged. “Cousin, if the doctor is telling the truth—”

  “He should have told the truth a long time ago,” Firmicus said before the cousin could answer. “My master might still be alive.”

  She said, “Perhaps an animal could be given it, or—”

  “Four,” repeated the cousin. “A dog proves nothing. And I’m not wasting a slave.”

  When he had drunk it they put him on an old couch in a bare little room off the garden courtyard. Stretching out, he wondered what Tilla was doing now, and if they were singing British songs in the kitchen. He was glad he had bought her those slaves. Even the one that had run away. It was not much to ask to please a wife whom you’d wrenched away from her own people. From everything she had grown up with or grown to love. A wife whom you had dragged around from one set of rented rooms to the next, eating food from cheap bars and living out of bags and boxes.

  At least I mended her arm, he thought. And I gave her Mara. After a fashion. I did something good.

  If he died tonight—which he might, even if it really had been just poppy all along, because he was drowsy already—it would all be fine. That was the thing with poppy. Everything was fine as your breathing slowed to a halt and you drifted away. Everything was fine. The trip to Rome had not worked out the way he expected, but Tilla and Mara would be safe. She was taking Mara home to family and friends. Sailing across the wine-dark sea.

  His throat was dry. He could do with a drink, but that would pass.

  There were faces above him, and they were looking much too worried. It was a shame for them. He tried to tell them he needed to sleep now, but they didn’t seem to understand. A girl’s voice said, “He’s going!” and she sounded upset.

  So he smiled and whispered, “No, fine. Really.” He knew at last that the gods did indeed bring truth in dreams. He could see now how Horatius Balbus must have died, and if he hadn’t been feeling so sleepy
he would have done something about it.

  65

  Tilla dragged an empty wooden box out from under the bed and carried it into the surgery. Everything would be all right. Her husband would tell the truth about the medicine and people would understand. Even if it had been a mistake, it was an honest one, and who could condemn him for that? A healer who had tried to do good should surely not be treated like a criminal. Then, once they knew the whole story the family would have to agree that none of what had happened was Accius’s fault. That would mean her husband had more than fulfilled his duty and could leave. Accius would renew his offer of marriage and things would follow whatever course the gods might choose.

  There was a heavy price to pay, though. People would not trust her husband to treat them anymore. Not here. Perhaps not anywhere, if the story spread, and she had no doubt that Metellus would help it on its way. But that was a problem for the days ahead. With luck the business about the medicine would all be settled by tonight. Horatius Balbus’s family would see that neither her husband nor Accius had tried to murder him. After that surely Accius could sort out his own problems? Tomorrow her whole household might go together down to the river and load their belongings onto a barge to travel down to Portus. The Notus would take them from Portus to Massalia, and from there it could not be more than two or three days to his family’s farm. The nieces and nephews would play with Mara, and the sisters and the stepmother would make catty remarks, but the sister-in-law was a friend. The two brothers would greet each other with warm embraces and within the day they would be arguing again. That was what families were like, and suddenly she was desperate to be among them.

  She was packing linen dressings around the weighing scales to protect them when the girl with the baby wandered in and sat on the stool to feed him and complain about the meanness of her mother. The baby, Tilla noticed, was called he now. It was progress.