by Ruth Downie
It was true, but the words must have been painful to hear and even worse to recall.
“I wanted to go with her,” Valens said. “I wanted to meet him man-to-man. But she begged me to stay out of it and not make a scene.” He paused to pull the blanket straight. “I knew where he worked, of course. So I decided I’d think about it overnight and confront him in the morning, without her around.”
“She went out on her own? None of the staff went with her?”
“Apparently not.”
Ruso said, “And after she’d gone, what did you do?”
“Obviously I couldn’t stay in the house. I came here to the Repose and I sat in the bar downstairs. Just me and a large jug of fairly indifferent Rhodian. And then someone came running in, shouting about a fire, so I thought I’d abandon the wine and go and see if I could help.”
Ruso said, “And you didn’t see Serena after she left the house?”
Valens fingered a stain on the corner of the blanket. “The next time I saw my wife,” he said, “was when they called me in to do a postmortem examination.”
“They asked you? Or you told them you would do it?”
“Does it matter?”
“It might.”
Valens put the blanket down. “To be honest, I can’t recall. I can remember not wanting to do it. But then I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else doing it, either.”
There were no words that would help. Ruso didn’t even try.
“It was obvious they weren’t going to let me get involved with planning the funeral, so it was the last thing I could do for her.”
A final, sad token of respect. A major tactical mistake. Ruso said, “Tell me what you found.”
“A single knife wound. Not much to see on the surface but it was something long and thin that penetrated the heart. Judging from the angle, it was done by somebody right-handed. As Terentius was, I’m told.”
So were most people, and military training added to their numbers. You couldn’t have men in formation wielding swords in whichever hand they chose. “Anything else?”
“There was nothing else suspicious that I could see.” Valens cleared his throat. “No sign of self-defense, no cuts or bruising to the hands or forearms, that sort of thing. But she’d been in that water for some time. You can imagine.”
Ruso, who didn’t want to imagine, said nothing.
“My wife was stabbed”—the voice was flat—“and she must have seen the man who did it; but as far as I could tell, she didn’t resist. So either he took her by surprise, or she knew him.”
The strains of a popular song floated up the stairs. Down in the bar, people were enjoying a jolly evening.
Ruso said, “Perhaps whoever it was—”
“Terentius. Who else?”
“But why?”
“I’ve been thinking about that a lot,” said Valens, leaning back against the wall. “I think she must have changed her mind when I said she couldn’t keep the boys. She didn’t tell me because she was too angry, but I think she went to tell him that it was over. And I left her to deal with it on her own.”
Ruso was reminded of his conversation with Serena’s uncle: I would have said something … I didn’t want trouble … And with the young woman at the bar by the vanished Little Eagle: If I’d done something different … “You couldn’t have known what would happen.”
Valens said, “There are rare moments when I find that a useful thought.”
Ruso adjusted his position and decided that when Esico reappeared he would send him around any unlocked rooms to scavenge some furniture. This sitting on the floor was ridiculous. “I’m stiff,” he observed, easing his shoulders. “Dragging all that luggage about. I’ll go for a massage tomorrow. Is there anyone you’d recommend?”
But there was not: Valens did not live here and had only nipped over to the baths for a quick cleanup before the day of his visit turned into a disaster.
“Yes, I heard you smelled of bath oil when you arrived at Serena’s.”
“Who told you that?”
“I’ve been making inquiries, as you asked me to.”
“It smelled all right in the bottle,” Valens observed. “Young Virana was very excited about it. Hot off the delivery boat and the latest thing. Which it probably is if you’re her age. What’s the matter?”
Ruso lifted his head from his hands and eyed his friend for a moment in the lamplight. “I’ve traveled hundreds of miles to get here,” he said. “Albanus has done the journey twice. My family took the risk of being drowned at sea, and we all did it willingly because you said you needed help.”
“I’m more than grateful to you. I’m hugely indebted. I wish I could offer you a decent place to stay, but you see how it is.”
Ruso was aware of footsteps on the stairs. “That’s the problem,” he said. “I don’t see how it is.”
The footsteps stopped, and someone with exquisitely bad timing knocked on the door. Ruso called, “Just a moment!” and turned back to Valens. “I thought I saw,” he said, “but now I don’t know what to believe.”
Before Valens could answer, there was another knock at the door and Esico’s voice called, “It is food and … the other thing, sir!”
When the lad entered, Valens helped himself to the mirror—for which Esico had forgotten the Latin already—and scowled at his beard. Ruso peered at the contents of the two bowls on the tray. “What is it?”
The bony shoulders rose toward the large ears. “I wait in a line. I ask for food. This is what they give.”
Esico had forgotten to fetch anything to drink, which was a good reason to send him back down the stairs immediately for wine and a water jug.
When he was gone, Valens sat up straight. “So. What don’t you understand?”
“After the argument, you came here and sat drinking mediocre Rhodian.”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t know where Serena went.”
“I assume she went to the temple courtyard.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Well, that’s where they found her, isn’t it? It’s right next to Terentius’s workplace.” He paused. “It would be a good place to meet him after dark.”
“Was there anyone else there?”
“No, only—” Valens stopped. Then, very softly, he said, “You bastard.”
For a moment neither of them spoke. Then he said, “I didn’t do it, Ruso.”
“So you said.”
“I thought you were my friend.”
Ruso said, “You thought I would believe everything you told me.”
“I swear, on the lives of my children, I never touched her!”
“You followed her, didn’t you? You followed her to see where she went and who she met.”
“I followed her to make sure she was safe!”
“Then why—” Ruso scrambled up and stood over his friend. “Why wasn’t she safe? What else haven’t you told me?”
“Nothing!” Valens was up now, standing eye to eye with him. “She went into the temple courtyard. She hung about under the portico near the spring. That evil bastard turned up. I watched them for a bit and then—”
“And then what?”
“And then, to my eternal regret, I went away.”
“You went away?”
“Yes!” Valens lowered his voice. “She was always complaining that I never did what she asked. This time I thought I should try.”
“I see.” Ruso wished he could believe it. “Was Terentius armed?”
“I don’t know. It was dark under the portico.”
“What about you?”
“Me?” Valens put a hand on his own chest as if he needed to clarify who Ruso was talking about. “We’re wasting time here, Ruso. You need to be going after Terentius.”
“Were you armed?”
“Talk to the people who know him. Find out if there’s anywhere he would go. Ask if any of the temple staff know anything. Come on, man. You’ve done th
is sort of thing before. You know what to do much better than I do.”
“So when you followed her you didn’t take a weapon with you?”
The dark eyes met Ruso’s own, offering an expression of outraged innocence. Ruso grabbed his friend by the shoulders, yanked him forward, and crashed his head back into the wall plaster. “Just tell me the truth!”
Valens rested against the wall, staring at him in apparent amazement. Blood was oozing from a bitten lower lip. Ruso stepped back, breathing heavily. “Well?”
Valens wiped his mouth with his fist and examined the smear of blood. “I told you the truth,” he said. “I saw them and I walked away. That’s it.”
“Other people might believe that.” Ruso kept his voice as steady as he could. He had the feeling that if he once lost control, he would not know where to stop. “I’ve known you too long. You were seen in the courtyard with a drawn knife. You’re not the sort of man to walk around with weaponry on display just in case somebody shouts ‘Boo’ from the shadows.”
“Who told you I was armed?”
“Never mind.”
“Bloody Catus. He’d say anything to back up his brother. The veterans were meeting in a bar, you know. Find out how much he’d had to drink.”
Ruso deliberately unclenched his fists. He took a step backward. “That’s it,” he said softly. “I came to help. I thought you deserved it. I thought Serena deserved it. But I think her father’s managing pretty well on his own.” Under his hand the door latch snapped up like the crack of a whip.
“All right!” Valens called him back. “I’m sorry. I haven’t been thinking clearly. Please, Ruso, don’t—”
“Show me the knife.”
Valens sank into a crouch and ferreted under the mattress again. This time he handed over a full-sized military dagger with a decorated scabbard and heavy hilt. “Do you know I could legally have killed Terentius if I’d caught him in my house?”
“He wasn’t in your house.”
“But I bet he’d been in Pertinax’s.”
Ruso slid the dagger out of its sheath and turned the blade so it glinted in the lamplight. It was long enough to run a man through from front to back.
“Legally speaking,” Valens continued, “if Pertinax caught them together in his house, he could have put them both to death. His married daughter and her seducer.”
Ruso stared at him. “You’re not suggesting that’s what happened?”
“Of course not. But it wasn’t me, either. Look at that blade. Any wound from that would be twice the size of the one I found.”
Ruso put the knife away and handed it back to Valens. “Who else saw Serena’s injuries?”
Valens swallowed. “Her family laid her out. But I didn’t lie.”
“You know you should never have done the postmortem. What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t thinking! Would you be thinking if something like that happened to Tilla?”
Ruso conceded that he would not.
“You need to go after the boyfriend.”
“I will. But I need to know exactly what I’m up against.”
Valens pressed the back of his fist against his lower lip again and glanced down to check that the bleeding had stopped. “I had the knife out because I was afraid if he saw me, he’d go for me,” he confessed. “But they were too busy kissing to notice anybody else. And then I heard footsteps, and I thought, This is madness.” He lifted the dagger. “So I put this away and hid until whoever it was had gone. And I went to get drunk instead. That’s the truth.”
“You didn’t approach Serena or Terentius?”
“I swear, they never knew I was there.”
Ruso said, “Why didn’t you say that in the first place?”
Valens shoved the knife back under the mattress. “Because I knew even you wouldn’t believe me.”
20
Ruso sat with his elbows propped on his knees and his feet dangling from the bench. He could feel his head sagging lower and lower but could not summon the energy to raise it. His dry lips tasted of salt. He was vaguely aware of the sweat trickling down his forehead and dripping from the end of his nose. He wished somebody would bring him a drink, but asking would mean lifting his head and taking a deep breath of scalding air, and he could not be bothered.
The wooden bath sandal slid off his left foot and hit the tiles with an irritating clatter. It had landed sideways and he stared at it, considering the angle at which he would have to bend his foot in order to get the sandal back on without burning himself on the hot floor. Perhaps he should stretch his foot out now and try to flip the sandal upright. But perhaps instead of flipping over as he intended, it would slide across the floor, out of reach. Then he would have to hop across on the other sandal to pick it up. Best to do nothing. Leave it for later.
He knew he should get up and clear his head in the cold plunge, but it was all too much effort.
Besides, if he got up, it would be the first step to going back to the room at the Mercury, and Tilla would be there, and there would be questions. She would be full of ideas and expect him to comment on them. She would be trying to work out who had really killed Serena, and he didn’t want to have to tell her that it might be better not to know.
He had come into the hot room for some solitude, in order to think. But other late bathers had insisted on clumping in and out and talking just for the sake of making noise, and when they weren’t talking they were grunting and complaining about the heat, and sitting next to him, and saying hello. As if he looked like someone who wanted to engage in conversation.
Three of them—or it might have been more; he didn’t look beyond the feet within his line of vision—had lumbered in and sat comparing ailments. Each seemed determined to prove that he had a more serious and intractable complaint than the man before. None of them had a good word to say about the expensive doctors who had failed to cure them. Each was now enjoying the benefits of a detailed personal prescription from the goddess herself.
How, exactly, did the goddess communicate the words figs in goats’ fat? Or boil together pepper, wax pitch, and olive oil? Ruso was on the verge of asking when her patients left and some off-duty legionaries arrived and sat bemoaning the loss of their comrades. They were convinced the natives had set the fire at the inn. One of them declared that the natives’ choice of a woman for a priest was downright provocation, and someone else pointed out that they’d deliberately picked one that reminded everybody of Boudica, and they all agreed that it shouldn’t be allowed. Somebody ought to do something about it before that lot took over again and had everyone living in mud huts and murdering each other. When some bold soul in the corner piped up that Aquae Sulis was a place of peace and reconciliation, one of the soldiers agreed that nobody wanted trouble, “but if they keep starting it, they’ll have to take what’s coming.”
Ordinarily Ruso might have felt obliged to slip some challenging question into the conversation, but at the moment he was no longer sure what he thought about anything.
And now there was a voice saying, “Sir?”
He ignored it, but instead of going away it said more loudly, “Sir?” and when he didn’t respond, its owner had the nerve to tap him on the shoulder. “Sir?”
“I’m busy.”
“Sir, are you feeling all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“You look a bit warm, sir. Let me help you to the other room.”
Ruso pushed away the proffered arm. “I’m fine. I’m thinking.”
To his relief the attendant said, “Very good, sir. Just call if you need us,” and retreated.
Ruso lifted a corner of the towel he was sitting on, dabbed at the drip on the end of his nose, and discovered to his annoyance that the towel would not stretch far enough to wipe his forehead even though he sagged forward to the point of overbalancing. He considered lifting his backside off the bench to release more towel, but that was too much bother. He let the linen drop and wiped his forehead with
one sticky arm.
One sandal on.
Valens had murdered his wife. He, Ruso, the man sitting in the bathhouse, staring at his feet, was a gullible fool.
One sandal off.
Valens hadn’t murdered his wife. He, Ruso, the man sitting in the luxury of the bathhouse while Valens was trapped in a dingy room apart from his family and in fear for his life, was a traitor.
Valens had definitely lied to him, though. He had lied about following Serena, and he had tried to lie about carrying a knife. There was no way of avoiding it. All you could do was speculate on the reasons. And the trouble was, Tilla would want to speculate. At length. Whereas he himself …
He licked his lips again, savoring the salt. He didn’t want to have to think about it, let alone talk.
“Sir, the baths are closing in a moment.”
He wanted to sit here all night, staring at his feet and pretending Serena wasn’t dead: just somewhere else. In a world where none of it had happened.
“Sir, are you feeling all right?”
“No,” he said, stretching out one foot to retrieve the sandal. “No, I’m not.”
21
Ruso crouched down behind the stack of crates in the backyard of the Traveler’s Repose and thanked the gods that Kunaris relied on the heavy bar across his gate and not on a guard dog. The landlord probably didn’t expect intruders to stand on an empty barrel in the yard of the Mercury next door and scramble over the wall. But then, when Ruso had decided on this plan just before dinner, it hadn’t occurred to him that the back door of the Repose would be left open on a fine night. Now he just had to trust that the vision of anyone glancing out into the yard would not have adjusted to the dark.
From where he was hiding, he was close enough to hear the clatter of crockery and the hiss of hot fat from the kitchen. A silhouette appeared in the doorway. Ruso peered through a gap between the crates, hoping to see either Valens or the gangling form of Esico. Instead it was something far more solid, which swiftly resolved itself into a burly bar slave with an amphora resting on one shoulder. The slave walked straight past him. There was a loud crack and a clatter at the far end of the yard. He must have dumped the empty container on the pile by the gate.