by Ruso
‘That bitch!’ whispered Severus.
Galla returned with a jug and the cloth. Ruso wiped the sweating forehead and wished he were back with the Legion. In Africa there would have been a poisons specialist on the staff. Even in Britannia he would have been able to shout for the pharmacist. Here, there was no time to fetch even the humblest root-cutter from town. He was on his own.
He turned to Galla again. ‘Help me prop him up,’ he said. ‘Then fetch Lucius, or one of the farm boys if you can’t find him. He’s to ride over to the Senator’s and tell them Severus has been taken ill and they need to come straight away.’
He returned his attention to his patient, tipping some of the oil into the drooling mouth. ‘We’ll get it back up, whatever it was,’ he promised. ‘Can you think of anything you’ve eaten or drunk that tasted strange? What about the rosewater?’
Severus muttered something. He tried to push the jug away.
Ruso leaned closer and grabbed the man’s arm to hold it still. ‘Say it again,’ he prompted.
‘I’m dying!’ whispered Severus. ‘The bitch has poisoned me!’
20
By the time it brought Lucius back home, the mule’s coat was mottled with dark patches of sweat. Ruso watched from the porch as it was led away by the stable lad, then glanced at the horizon and saw a second cloud of dust rising from the direction of the road.
‘They’re on the way,’ confirmed Lucius, striding up the steps to the house. ‘Claudia’s gone to town, so his sister’s coming in the carriage with the household steward. I told them you were here, but they’ve sent to town for their own doctor anyway. How is he now? Is he fit to travel?’ He paused. ‘Gaius?’
Ruso shook his head.
‘Oh, gods, he isn’t –?’
‘Just after you left.’
‘He can’t be!’ Lucius hurried past him into the hall. ‘Are you absolutely sure?’
Ruso had heard the question often enough to recognize it as desperate hope rather than an insult to his competence. He limped down the corridor after his brother. Since he was clutching the key to the study door, he was surprised when Lucius opened up and walked in before he got there. Surely he couldn’t have forgotten to lock it?
Ahead of him, he heard Lucius exclaim, ‘Holy Jupiter!’
He should have warned him. Lucius was not used to such sights. Ruso had closed the man’s eyes, but otherwise the body would be lying just as it had died.
On entering the study, though, it was Ruso’s turn to be shocked. ‘Galla! What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
Galla looked up from washing the floor. Severus’ body, now naked, had been rolled over to lie against the wall. She still looked frightened, as well she might.
‘She’s tidying up,’ replied Arria, stepping forward from behind the door. ‘Since the family are on the way and none of you boys seems to know what to do.’
‘But I locked the door!’
Arria held up an iron key identical to the one in his own hand. ‘How do you imagine the staff get in to clean the room, dear? Galla, that’ll do. The master will help you roll the body back and make it decent. You will, won’t you, Gaius? We don’t want to involve any more of the staff than necessary.’
Ruso tightened his grip on the stick. ‘Arria, I told her to leave this room exactly as it was.’
‘I know, dear. But did you really expect poor Claudia to see him in that state? He was a dreadful man, and she’ll be better off without him, but at least we can show some respect.’
‘When I give an order in this house, I expect it to be obeyed.’
Galla was kneeling motionless on the floor between them.
‘You can stop now,’ Ruso told her. ‘Leave the room and don’t say anything to anyone about what you’ve seen and heard in here, understand?’
She nodded, scrambled to her feet and ran.
‘Well, really!’ exclaimed Arria. ‘I was only trying to help!’
Ruso took a deep breath. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Lucius and I will deal with it now.’
‘I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss, Gaius.’
‘No,’ agreed Ruso, as calmly as he could manage. ‘You don’t. Now if you want to help, go and fetch me a clean tunic to put on him. Then watch for his family and when you see the carriage turn in at the gates come straight here and tell me.’
‘That was a bit harsh,’ observed Lucius after the door had slammed behind Arria. ‘She was only trying to help.’
‘She’s done enough helping,’ growled Ruso. ‘Thanks to her, it looks as though we’re the ones who poisoned him.’
‘The ones who what?’
Ruso crouched beside the body. He shifted its arm, crooked its knee to help redistribute the weight and rolled it over towards him. ‘Well, somebody did.’
There was a momentary pause before: ‘In our house?’
‘Of course not. At least, I don’t suppose so. But thanks to Arria, it now looks as if we’ve been trying to clean up the evidence.’
While Lucius took this in, Ruso hauled the body over again until it was back in roughly the right place.
‘He wasn’t poisoned,’ said Lucius slowly.
‘What was it, then?’
‘You tell me. You’re the doctor. Think of the right sort of illness and tell them that’s what killed him.’
Ruso was conscious of cicadas trilling outside the window. As if it were just another lovely day in late summer and there were nothing to worry about. ‘I can’t do that,’ he said.
‘Yes, you can,’ urged Lucius. ‘And hurry up, because they weren’t far behind me.’
21
There had been a time, early in his apprenticeship, when Ruso had assumed that breaking bad news would get easier with practice. Or at least that he would get better at doing it. The trouble was, no matter how well rehearsed the doctor, the scene was always new to the friends and relatives playing the other parts.
Over the years he had learned only two things about giving the news of a death: firstly, that it never was going to get any easier, and secondly, that it was best to ask people to sit down first. Not that it made the shock any less, but from a sitting position it was harder for them to hit him – or more likely, outside the Army, to end up clinging to him and weeping uncontrollably on his shoulder, a position from which he frequently found it difficult to extricate himself. Instead, he chose to sit and wait as words and meaning linked themselves in the reluctant minds of his hearers. He had to watch as their faces changed from fear or incredulity to realization, and to bear patiently with the occasional accusation of lying, indifference or incompetence. But never before had he been obliged to give the news to people who, sooner or later, were bound to suspect that he had deliberately murdered his patient.
The girl with the pinched features who was introduced as Severus’ sister Ennia was probably older than Marcia: something Ruso had not expected after the talk of early marriage. Unlike the steward, she did not at first seem to grasp the implications of what Ruso was telling them.
‘He was all right when he left,’ said the steward, whose small head, narrow shoulders and black eyes reminded Ruso of a weasel.
‘It came on very suddenly,’ said Ruso, aware of the need not to look shifty and aware also of Lucius listening beside him. The entrance hall was really not the right place to do this, he realized. But they could hardly loll about on dining couches, and the study was occupied by a body. He should have asked them to sit out in the garden, drains or no drains. Well, it was too late now. He cleared his throat. ‘Would you like to see him?’
‘We certainly would,’ said the steward, getting to his feet and offering an arm to the girl.
Ennia took no notice of the invitation to move. Both fists were pressed against her mouth, and her whole body trembled. She seemed to be staring at Ruso without seeing him.
‘Would you like to see your brother?’ repeated Ruso.
The steward bent forward and touched her hand. ‘I�
��ll take you,’ he murmured.
Still dumb, Ennia nodded.
When Ruso unlocked the study door – this time he had given firm instructions to Arria about keys – Ennia hurried in and kneeled beside the limp body, clutching the face in her hands and whispering, ‘Oh, Brother, Brother …’ Ruso felt a momentary relief that Arria had thought to have the scene cleaned up and then realized he must take charge here.
He bent and put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. ‘It might be best not to kiss him,’ he murmured.
‘Why?’ demanded Ennia.
Ruso straightened up. ‘I’m not sure about the cause of death,’ he confessed, not daring to look at Lucius.
‘I see,’ said the steward. He was standing with his back to the door and his arms folded. His voice was thin and sharp, the voice of a man who was used to overseeing staff and knew all the tricks they got up to.
Ruso could guess what the steward thought he saw, but any attempt to put the man straight was only going to upset the girl further. It seemed she had felt genuine affection for the charmless Severus.
‘He wasn’t wearing that when he left the house,’ observed the steward, frowning at the crisp white linen that still bore the creases of being folded away in the cupboard, and now also the marks of Ennia’s tears.
Ennia looked up, shoved her tumbled curls behind one ear and revealed a face blotched from weeping. ‘Why do you care what he is wearing?’ she demanded. ‘My brother is dead, Zosimus, look! Have you no respect?’
The steward coughed and apologized. Lucius stepped across and murmured something in the man’s ear while Ennia laid her head back down on her brother’s chest and cried, ‘Oh, Brother, what will I do here without you? Severus, don’t leave me! Please, Brother! Who will take me back to Rome now?’
Ruso cleared his throat. He felt it was up to him to say something, although there was nothing he could think of that would be helpful, and he did not want to contradict whatever Lucius had just told the steward. Finally he said, ‘If you’d like to be alone …’
‘No thank you,’ said Zosimus, answering for both of them. ‘We just want to get him home and have our own doctor take a look.’
‘Of course,’ agreed Ruso. ‘I’ll be glad to talk it over with him.’
Lucius shot him a warning look. He ignored it. Severus’ last words echoed through his thoughts: the bitch has poisoned me.
The silence was broken by a soft knock on the door. Zosimus slid aside, and Cass entered the room. Without asking, she kneeled beside the girl and put an arm around her, murmuring something and passing her a cloth to wipe her nose. For a few moments there was no sound but the trill of the cicadas and the occasional sniff from Ennia. Then Cass whispered something else. Ennia smoothed her brother’s cropped hair and got to her feet.
‘I am sorry,’ she said to Cass. ‘You must think me very weak.’
‘No,’ said Cass. ‘I think you show love and respect for your brother.’
‘I would like to take him home now.’
‘Why don’t we wait by the carriage, and the men will bring him out to us?’ suggested Cass gently.
Ruso was aware of Lucius watching his wife escort Ennia out of the room.
Zosimus immediately followed Ennia into the corridor as if he did not want to entrust her to any of Ruso’s family.
When they were gone Ruso pushed the door shut and hissed, ‘What did you say to that steward?’
‘Nothing. Only that Severus had been violently ill, and we didn’t want the family to see him in that state.’
‘Just let me do the talking, will you?’
‘You? You’ve already made them suspicious! What was that rubbish about not kissing him?’
Ruso said, ‘What was I supposed to do, watch her get poisoned too?’
Lucius clamped his hands over his balding head and leaned back against the wall. ‘As if we didn’t have enough trouble with him before.’
‘The irony is,’ said Ruso, reaching down to replace the sheet over their dead visitor, ‘we were on the verge of doing a deal to drop the court case.’
Lucius scowled. ‘Don’t try to be clever, Gaius. Nobody’s going to believe that.’
‘I know. Even though it’s true. Have we got anything that’ll do for a stretcher?’
The whole Petreius family lined up by the gates to watch the carriage pull away, with each of the children strategically placed between adults to minimize opportunities for fighting.
As the rumble of the wheels faded and Arria was saying something about upsetting Cook by cancelling tonight’s dinner, one of the nieces cried, ‘Uncle Gaius, there’s your barbarian!’
Ruso shielded his eyes and squinted at the bareheaded figure in yellow making its way along the main road. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘She’s in town with the –’ He stopped. ‘Oh, hell. Does anybody know what time it is?’
‘I’ll go and look!’ offered one of the nephews. ‘I know how to tell the time!’
‘No, you don’t!’ retorted a niece.
‘Yes, I do!’
‘He doesn’t, Uncle Gaius. He can’t read the numbers: he just looks at the shadow and makes it up.’
‘I do not!’
‘Why don’t you both go?’ suggested Cass, grabbing a child in each hand. ‘I’ll come with you.’
As their protests faded towards the far end of the garden, the carriage bearing Severus on his last journey home turned left on to the main road and swept past the walking figure. The figure hesitated at the junction. Then it turned and began to tramp down the track towards them.
‘It is your barbarian, Uncle Gaius,’ insisted a small voice.
‘Yes,’ agreed Ruso, adjusting his grip on the stick and setting off to meet her.
‘But what’s she doing here, Gaius?’ Arria’s voice floated after him, rising in alarm as he retreated. ‘Where are my girls?’
22
Tilla was moving along the track with small, deliberate steps, watching her feet as if she could not trust them to obey her. As she drew closer she stumbled. He called out to her. One hand rose to flap a faint response. Cursing his lame foot, he lurched towards her in the nearest thing he could manage to a run.
‘Tilla, what’s happened?’ He offered an arm for her to lean on. ‘You look terrible.’
When she lifted her head her face was white. ‘My lord, I lost your sisters.’
It was not only the weariness in her voice that told him she was almost at the end of her strength. He could not remember the last time she had called him ‘my lord’. He said, ‘You look dreadful. Has something happened?’
‘Are your sisters here?’
‘No.’ He interrupted her cry of despair with: ‘This is my fault. We had a crisis here and I forgot to send the cart. Have you walked all the way? Where’s your hat?’
She paused before replying, as if she was assessing whether it was worth using the energy. Finally she said, ‘The hat is lost too. My head is aching. I am sorry.’
He wanted to carry her. Instead he had to ask, ‘Can you make it to the house?’
‘Yes.’
Arria was hurrying towards them, calling, ‘Where are my girls? Gaius? Make her tell us what she’s done with them!’
‘Lost,’ Tilla whispered, ‘in the shop with the jewels. I turn around, they are gone. I look for them, then I go to the gate of Augustus, but it is past the seventh hour, and nobody is there. I think they are gone without me. But now they are not here.’
‘Gaius? Gaius! What’s she saying?’
‘She needs water, quickly. She’s exhausted.’
‘But where are my girls? I should never have let them persuade me to trust her!’
‘I forgot to send the cart,’ he explained, deciding half the truth would be enough for now. ‘Tilla’s walked all the way home in this heat to fetch it. She needs plenty of water to drink, and tell Cook I want a jug of vinegar and a mixing bowl.’
Arria bent to peer up into Tilla’s white face. ‘Oh dear. Th
is one’s not going to die as well, is she?’
‘Of course not,’ Ruso assured her, stifling a momentary panic at the memory of being unable to help Severus. ‘I know what I’m treating this time.’
Tilla was propped up on his pillows, wearing nothing but a cool sheet to preserve her dignity and a cold compress on her forehead. ‘Drink some more,’ he ordered, putting the cup in her hand and turning back to carry on pounding unguent of roses into a measure of vinegar.
‘I am well,’ she insisted, although her voice was barely stronger than her pulse had been. ‘You must find your sisters.’
‘Marcia and Flora can wait,’ he said, tipping more vinegar into the bowl and mixing it in. ‘Keep drinking.’ He was not going to leave her until he was happy that she was recovering. This was his fault in more ways than one. He should have sent that cart and he should have thought to warn her. In a town with a fine supply gushing from the street fountains, it had never occurred to him that Tilla might not stop for more than a couple of sips of water all through a hot morning. He had seen enough cases like this in his first post with the Army, when men marching under the African sun had run short of water. It began with heat and over-exertion and dehydration and, if it was not treated, it ended very badly indeed.
He dipped the sponge in the mixture and began to wipe it down her neck, across her shoulder and along one arm.
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Vinegar?’
‘In the Army they used to complain about the roses.’ He turned the compress over and stepped round the bed to sponge down the other side. ‘Any dizziness, nausea, stomach cramps?’
‘Just the headache, and I am very tired. Please. Go and look for the sisters. This is not a good way for me to start with your family.’
‘They should have had the sense to stay with you.’
‘What will I do if you do not find them?’
‘I’ll find them,’ he growled. ‘They’ll be tired of shopping by now.’
‘You are not afraid for them?’