Ruso and the Root of All Evils

by Ruso

  Lucius’ hand slapped on to the surface, splattering them both with water. ‘I tried to help! I warned you not to drag the family into a murder case, but you wouldn’t listen to me!’ He shoved himself away from the side of the bath. His voice echoed from the domed ceiling. ‘I had all this debt business under control, too, but no, you had to interfere! You’ve never listened to me. Even when we were children. You were always right!’

  ‘I was older!’

  ‘You still think I can’t manage without you!’

  ‘I’ve never said that.’

  ‘You didn’t have to! Poor old Lucius, can’t do without his big brother. You think this is all my fault and you’re going to sort it out, don’t you?’

  ‘It is your fault! If you’d just stopped to get a receipt from Severus we’d never have been in this mess!’

  ‘There never was a letter, was there? Admit it, Gaius!’

  ‘Of course there was! Ask Tilla.’

  ‘What does she know? She can’t even read!’

  The boom of their voices collided over the splashing as Lucius grabbed his brother and yelled into his face, ‘You just came home to check up on me!’

  ‘No, I didn’t!’

  It was a stupid, childish fight that turned into something worse. The kicking and splashing and grabbing and grunting and yelling, ‘Get off!’ and ‘Admit it!’ and ‘No!’ and ‘You made it up! Admit it!’ and ‘No!’ turned into heavy punches and pain.

  Lucius, shorter but heavier, had Ruso’s face within an inch of the surface, yelling, ‘No, I didn’t!’ when Ruso suddenly felt him slacken his grip. He became aware of another voice. A smaller, higher voice, calling, ‘Papa! Uncle Gaius!’

  Ruso released his hold on Lucius’ throat.

  ‘Polla!’ exclaimed Lucius as the brothers hastily pushed apart.

  ‘Papa, stop fighting,’ ordered Polla in the brisk tone she used with her younger brothers. ‘Little Lucius is up the pergola and he can’t get down, and Publius is shaking it.’

  A smaller figure appeared from behind her skirt and cried, ‘Aah!’

  Lucius wiped the thin strands of badly rinsed hair out of his eyes. ‘Where’s your mother?’

  ‘She’s busy. Papa, your nose is bleeding.’

  ‘Aah!’

  ‘Tell Publius I said to stop,’ said Lucius, wiping his upper lip and then glancing at his fingers before washing them in the bath water. ‘Then go and call Galla to put them to bed.’

  ‘Galla isn’t allowed to look after us.’

  Ruso tucked a guiltily bloodstained fist behind his back and offered, ‘Ask Tilla.’

  Polla shook her head. ‘I don’t know where she is. The laundry girl is there but the boys don’t take any notice of her. Papa, why is there black stuff on your head?’

  Lucius uttered a word not commonly used in the presence of children and rose from the bath. ‘Tell them I’m coming.’ He swore again when he realized the towels had been on the floor when the water slopped over the side. He wiped his head with a sodden towel, then flung it aside and strode naked towards the door, muttering, ‘I can’t stand much more of this. Where the hell is she now? What’s the matter with this family?’

  36

  Ruso stretched out on his bed, closed his eyes and savoured these few moments of privacy. One of the things he had forgotten about family life was that a man could never be alone. Of course he was rarely alone in the Army, either, but there he frequently found himself in the company of men who were not expected to speak to him unless spoken to, so that despite their presence he could occupy himself with his own thoughts. In a household – at least, one as ill-disciplined as this – anyone felt free to accost and interrupt him at any time. Even the study was not safe now that he knew Arria had her own key. It was a sorry state of affairs when a man had to hide in his own bedroom on a warm evening with the shutters closed and a stick wedged in the door-latch just to get some peace and quiet.

  He had spoken firmly with Arria, agreed that his sisters deserved to be confined to their room until morning and insisted that Galla must be allowed back into the house. He had also reminded her that Tilla was not a servant and would be dining with the family this evening. He had then gone down to the winery to convey this message, only to find both Tilla and Galla already eating at the long table set up in the yard for the farm slaves and sharing a joke with Cass, who was busy supervising the feeding of the staff while her children ran wild in the care of the laundrymaid.

  No, Tilla assured him as he drew her aside, she did not do these things just to embarrass him. Why was she sitting outside the bunkhouse eating stew? ‘Because I am hungry after all that work.’

  ‘But you’re supposed to be dining with the family!’

  ‘You said that last night, but then that man is dead and the stepmother says there is no dinner.’

  Ruso stared at her. ‘She meant the dinner with the neighbour was cancelled. I know there was a lot of rushing about, but there was food in the kitchen.’

  Tilla shrugged. ‘Nobody tells me.’

  He said, ‘Why didn’t you ask?’

  ‘She says there is no dinner, why bother to ask?’

  ‘Of course there was food, Tilla. You’re a guest. You should expect to be fed. It’s bad enough dealing with my family without you being deliberately obtuse.’

  ‘Being what?’

  ‘Never mind. Finish your dinner here. And don’t do this again tomorrow.’

  ‘Galla has invited me to meet her family tomorrow evening.’

  Before he could object, she added, ‘Cass has said she can go.’

  No doubt Tilla would enjoy the company of a slave’s relatives far more than that of his own. Ruso, who had not even been aware that Galla had a family, said, ‘The evening after, then.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He went back to the table to inform Galla that her banishment from the house was over: she was to return to her duties as soon as she had finished her meal.

  Galla was clearly delighted. ‘It is an answer to prayer, my lord.’

  ‘Good,’ growled Ruso. ‘It’s not often I’ve been the answer to anyone’s prayers lately.’

  As he limped back towards the house he found Cass beside him, carrying a basket of eggs. At last, a chance to talk. He was about to broach the subject of Severus’ death when she said, ‘It was kind of Tilla to go and work with Galla in the winery.’

  Ruso tried to remember if he had ever heard Tilla described as kind before. The word had never occurred to him. Perhaps he had been too hard on her.

  Cass stepped ahead of him and shooed a hen away before pushing open the gate between the farmyard and the garden. ‘How’s your foot now?’

  ‘About the same. Cass, I need to talk to you about yesterday.’

  ‘Well, you haven’t really had a chance to rest it, have you? Poor Gaius. It hasn’t been much of a homecoming for you. What a shame.’

  Ruso gave an embarrassed shrug and mumbled something about it not mattering. Indeed, until this moment, it had not struck him that nobody had bothered to thank him for coming home. Now he was about to repay Cass’s thoughtfulness by questioning her as part of a murder investigation.

  ‘Dear me,’ she observed before he could open his mouth, ‘that sage is looking very squashed. I hope it wasn’t the children.’

  Ruso followed her gaze to the battered flowerbed at the foot of the pergola and said, ‘Cass, I need to know exactly what happened when Severus came here.’

  ‘We haven’t made Tilla very welcome either, have we? I hear Arria has plans for you and Lollia Saturnina instead.’

  ‘Arria has plans for lots of things.’

  ‘Lollia Saturnina is a very nice woman, Gaius. But I don’t think she’s looking for a husband.’

  Following his sister-in-law up the porch steps, he said, ‘I doubt anyone’s looking to marry a suspected poisoner.’

  Cass giggled. ‘Oh, Gaius. Anyone who knows you knows that you couldn’t possibly have done a thing like
that.’ They crossed the hall, and she paused with her hand on the latch of the children’s room. ‘Come in and say goodnight to them,’ she urged. ‘Then we can talk.’

  They were greeted by the sight of a naked Little Gaius beaming at them from his pot. Around him was an array of beds that were all empty except the one from which the laundrymaid had just sprung up, patting her bedraggled hair back into place. Apparently Master Lucius had taken the other children to the kitchen in search of supper.

  Cass dismissed the maid, inspected the contents of the pot and informed their producer that he was a very good boy. ‘Isn’t he a good boy, Uncle Gaius? Stand up, baby, and let’s give you a nice wash.’

  ‘He’s a fine little chap,’ observed Ruso, noting with approval that all of his namesake’s parts were in the right places and wondering if one ever got to the end of a conversation once one was blessed with children. ‘Cass, I need to –’

  ‘But he doesn’t talk yet,’ replied his mother, pursuing the toddler across the room and deftly manoeuvring a tunic over his head before he could escape. ‘All the others did. Do you think we should do something?’

  ‘I don’t know much about children, to be honest,’ said Ruso. ‘He looks healthy enough.’ Judging by the all-over tan, young Gaius took frequent exercise in the fresh air, as unencumbered by clothes as any Greek athlete. ‘His hearing seems fine. He’ll probably talk when he’s got something to say.’

  She placed the pot on top of a cupboard beside a bowl of peaches, apparently oblivious to her son’s offering within, and wiped her hands on a damp cloth. ‘Bless you, Gaius. I’m sure you’re right. It’s very reassuring having a doctor in the family. Children are such a worry. You know how it is. And Lucius is under such a lot of strain, coping with everything. I’m really glad you’re home.’

  ‘Lucius isn’t.’

  She reached towards the pot without looking, realized her mistake and picked up the bowl instead. ‘He’s just worried about the money. He’s glad to have you here really.’

  Ruso marvelled afresh at the way some women could interpret their husbands’ statements to mean exactly the opposite of what they said.

  Cass was saying, ‘… none of us wants to think what could happen if we were accused of poisoning Severus.’

  ‘That’s why I need to ask you –’

  ‘Have a peach, Gaius. Tell me something. You never really got on with Arria, did you?’

  As Ruso took a peach, his namesake ran across and reached up for it, dancing on the tips of small pudgy feet and crying, ‘Aah!’ in case Ruso failed to notice him.

  ‘He can have a slice,’ suggested his mother.

  ‘Aah!’

  ‘In a minute,’ Ruso promised him, unsheathing his knife to slice round the stone and wondering whether children really should be rewarded for wandering about instead of going to bed, even if peaches were good for the digestion. ‘When you see what she’s done to the family,’ he said, twisting the two halves apart and cutting a generous slice, ‘I think I had good reason.’

  ‘Say thank you to Uncle Gaius.’

  The child looked at his mother as if she had just suggested something very odd and retreated with peach juice dripping down his chin and soaking into his clean bedtime tunic.

  He indicated the child. ‘There’s no money to bring him up, nor his brothers and sisters, because she wouldn’t stop spending, and Father wouldn’t stand up to her.’

  Cass weighed a peach in one hand and pondered that for a moment. ‘Your father once said to me that he only wanted to see her happy.’

  ‘What about the rest of us?’

  ‘He said she had a difficult time fitting in here. Everybody was very fond of your mother.’

  Ruso wondered how much Cass had been told about the arguments. About the times when he had used ‘You’re not my mother!’ as a weapon. Now he thought about it, his new stepmother could not have been much older on arrival than Marcia was now. The thought of Marcia being left in charge of two small boys was frightening. The thought of Marcia being given a limitless budget was positively terrifying.

  Marcia borrowing money. That wretched rumour was another thing he was going to have to tackle tomorrow. So far he had failed to get any relevant sense out of Cass, whom he liked and who appeared to like him. How he was going to worm any truth out of Marcia, who didn’t like him at all, he had no idea.

  ‘You were asking about Severus,’ said Cass, unexpectedly returning to the subject she had ignored earlier.

  ‘Yes.’ How did women do that, he wondered? And why?

  ‘I won’t be wasting any tears on him, despicable man. Lucius has hardly slept for weeks with all the worry.’

  ‘So yesterday …?’

  ‘He turned up not very long before you did. He said he knew you were home and not to try and make out you weren’t.’

  Ruso nodded, pretending not to notice Little Gaius spitting a lump of peach on to the floor behind his mother’s back.

  ‘I said you were in town and we’d ask you to call on him when you got back,’ continued Cass, ‘and he said no, he’d wait. I offered to go and find Lucius, but he said no to that, too.’

  ‘Did he seem ill to you?’

  ‘I thought he might have been drinking. I fetched him some water and hoped you would come home quickly.’

  ‘Where did you get the water?’

  ‘I called the kitchen-boy to fetch it from the well so it was cold. There was nothing wrong with it: I had a sip myself before I took it into the hall. Then you arrived.’

  ‘How long was he alone in the hall?’

  ‘Just as long as it took to get the water.’

  ‘And you were waiting – where?’

  She frowned. ‘In the kitchen, Gaius. If I’d had some poison handy I might well have put it in his cup while Cook wasn’t watching, but I didn’t.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I know. You have to ask. I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to find out anything about my brother?’

  ‘Not much, I’m afraid.’ There was no point in upsetting her by passing on the gossip Tilla had heard about the poor state of the Pride of the South. ‘Though I did wonder why he was on the ship in the first place. If Severus was responsible for the cargo, why didn’t he send one of the Senator’s men to look after it?’

  ‘It wasn’t anything to do with the Senator,’ she explained. ‘Severus was running the venture for himself. Justinus was there because his employer was the one who had loaned Severus the money.’

  Ruso’s attempts to disentangle this were complicated by Little Gaius’ efforts to climb up his leg in search of more peach.

  Cass prised the child off and stood on tiptoe to kiss Ruso on the cheek. ‘You’re a dear man, Gaius. We must all try not to worry. It’s lovely to see you happy with Tilla and I know you’ll do your very best to sort everything out.’

  Was he happy with Tilla? Tilla certainly did not seem happy with him.

  Ruso rolled off the bed and shoved his feet into the indoor sandals Arria had insisted Lucius lend him. The connection between Cass’s brother Justinus and Severus was bothering him, although it probably had nothing to do with the deaths of either of them. Anyway, Justinus was one of the very few people who definitely hadn’t murdered Severus.

  In the unlikely event that they might help him find out who had, Ruso decided to offer some of Lucius’ best wine to the household gods before dinner. Then, while Tilla enjoyed the company of the servants, he would eat with his family amidst the dancing cupids of the dining room.

  He did not feel like a dear man. He suspected that even his very best was not going to be good enough to sort this mess out. He recalled the way Little Gaius had run about the bedroom with peach juice dripping down his chin, oblivious to the fears of the adults whose duty it was to protect him.

  Unless Ruso could expose the real poisoner of Severus before the investigator got here, he might be too busy fighting for his life in a court case to do anything about saving the farm. If t
he family were turned off the land, the sight of Little Gaius would be one of the memories that would haunt him.

  37

  Disaster might be looming, but discipline had to be maintained. The next day, as Ruso led Marcia towards the stone bench in the garden, he was silently mourning the erosion of the power of the Paterfamilias. There had been a time – he was not sure when, but he knew there had been one – when the head of a Roman household had enjoyed absolute power as well as ultimate responsibility. When orders were obeyed without question. When women were grateful to be protected – grateful, indeed, not to be left on the rubbish dump at birth – and happy to be married off whenever and to whomsoever the family deemed appropriate. When a decent man could keep his household in order by threatening them not only with a sound beating, but with execution.

  He had to concede that the beheading of unruly relatives seemed a little harsh, but obviously one would exercise discretion. The point was, in the old days, a man had commanded respect. What would his ancestors have done, had any of them been faced with a scowling Marcia, arms folded, demanding, ‘You said you were going to talk to somebody. So have you talked to them?’

  ‘Not in the way you mean,’ said Ruso, lowering himself on to the bench.

  ‘Gaius, you promised –’

  ‘Sit down.’

  ‘But you said –’

  ‘Sit down, Marcia.’

  ‘But you promised you would –’

  ‘Sit down.’

  ‘I’m not going to sit down if you shout at me!’

  ‘I wasn’t,’ said Ruso, who hadn’t been and was not sure why he had got himself into an argument about sitting down when she could hear what he had to say quite well standing up. ‘But if you don’t listen to me, I will shout like a centurion ordering his men on a parade ground. And then your mother will come out and hear what I’m going to say.’

  His satisfaction as she slumped down beside him on the bench was short-lived. He had, he realized, effectively promised not to tell Arria. Still, Marcia was listening now. At least he assumed she was listening, although she seemed to have found something that urgently needed gouging out from beneath one of her fingernails.