by Ruso
He made his way across to the surgery, where the assistants were ripping up linen rags and rolling them into bandages. Gnostus was perched on the operating table by the window, running one finger along the script of a writing-tablet. At the sight of Ruso, he leaped up and thrust the tablet under his nose. ‘Anything I’ve missed off?’
Sponges, plenty of ligatures, splints, needles … Ruso scanned the list, mentally rearranging it into a more logical order. It would be no good remembering something vital tomorrow.
‘There could be as many as twenty casualties in here,’ pointed out Gnostus. ‘And we’ll have to patch up the animal hunters, too. But of course some will go straight to the undertakers.’
Ruso nodded. ‘Looks fine to me,’ he said, handing the list back. ‘As long as your boys know where to find it all.’
Gnostus glanced round to make sure there was nobody but the slaves in earshot, then admitted, ‘I’ve never done anything as big as this before. Any advice?’
Ruso watched a slave chase a long strip of linen along his knee until it became a fat roll of bandage and wondered what he could possibly offer that would help. ‘Talk to your men beforehand,’ he suggested. ‘Make sure everybody knows who’s doing what. Split the roles into examination, surgery and dressing, get the porters organized and delegate the simple stuff.’
‘That’s how they do it in the Legions?’
‘That’s how I do it. Once things hot up, you just have to try to keep going without yelling at the staff or falling asleep over the patients. So, what do you want me to do?’
Gnostus thought about that for a moment. ‘Right now,’ he said, ‘look confident while I get the team together for a briefing.’
‘Do they know I’m the town poisoner?’
‘You haven’t met my lads,’ said Gnostus. ‘You’ll fit in nicely.’
Ruso spent most of the briefing wondering what was happening to Tilla and Cass, and the rest trying not to speculate on the tales that could be told by the half-dozen scarred and ragged individuals summoned to support the medical staff. Gnostus introduced him as a veteran surgeon from the Twentieth Legion. If any of them had heard anything else about him, their faces did not betray it. Despite looking as though they had just been scraped out of a gutter, they also seemed to know what they were doing.
As the men shuffled out, Gnostus grinned at Ruso. ‘I s’pose this is like tying your bootlaces to you, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, gods above,’ muttered Ruso, glancing out of the door and seeing Tertius approaching across the yard. Then, in answer to Gnostus’ question, ‘No, not really. No, it isn’t. I’ve never done anything quite like this before either. Excuse me a minute.’
Tertius stopped and stood to attention as Ruso approached.
‘Tertius, I’m sorry –’
‘I’d like to thank you for trying to help, sir,’ said Tertius stiffly. ‘And to request a small favour.’
While Ruso was hoping a small favour would not mean smuggling him out through the gate, the lad held out one fist, turned it over and opened it to reveal an iron ring and a couple of fat sestertius coins on his palm. ‘I’d be grateful if you could give the ring to Marcia and the money to my aunt, who works at the amphora factory of Lollia Saturnina.’
Ruso took the ring and the coins and slipped them into his purse. ‘Of course.’ He pulled out the writing-tablet that was tucked into his belt and said, ‘Marcia asked me to give you this.’
The youth took the writing-tablet that Ruso had eventually accepted from Marcia late the previous night and refrained from unsealing and reading. Initially she had been so unrepentant over the ‘come home’ letter that he had refused to take it. But she had pointed out that Tertius had done nothing wrong and he might be dead in two days’ time, and did Ruso want to make his last hours on earth even more miserable than they already were? Didn’t he want to make him happy and confident and give him the best possible chance in the arena?
Tertius snapped the thread and ran his finger along the lines of text, his lips forming the words as he deciphered them. He swallowed hard, then held out the tablet to Ruso.
‘I want you to know that your sister’s letter is completely respectable, sir.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ said Ruso, motioning it away with his hand. In the circumstances he felt the lad deserved something passionate rather than respectable, but preferably not from his own sister. ‘I wish I could help.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘We haven’t got the money,’ explained Ruso, feeling irrationally guilty that he had not tried to raise it. ‘At the moment, nobody would want to lend it to me.’
‘That’s all right, sir,’ declared Tertius, raising one arm in a good imitation of a military salute. ‘I wish you good fortune.’
‘And I you,’ said Ruso, returning the salute and noting how much more mature Tertius seemed to be now that there was no hope of escaping the arena tomorrow. He said, ‘I hope we’ll be in a position to discuss this again in the future.’
Tertius dropped his arm. ‘You can count on it, sir,’ he said, his face lighting up in a grin that would have broken Marcia’s heart.
65
‘I hear you young ladies are looking for Copreus.’
The grin was predatory, and the breath stank of cheap wine and onions, but he had the deep tan and the muscled forearms of a mariner. Tilla resisted Cass’s tug on her arm. There was a chance he might know something.
‘We are looking for anyone who knows the crew who sailed with my friend’s brother,’ she said, reaching along the counter and pouring him a drink from their own jug. They had worked their way down to the seediest of the side-street bars now: the sort where nobody bothered to sweep up the cockroaches after they squashed them.
Cass had grown paler and quieter with every place they entered. Tilla was beginning to feel more and more light-headed despite her efforts to drink mostly water. ‘The brother was lost on the Pride of the South,’ she explained, glancing across to judge the distance to the door. ‘We want to raise a memorial.’
‘A memorial, eh?’ Dark creases of embedded grime appeared on the man’s neck as he raised the cup and drained a long, slow draught of wine. ‘Next time I see old Copreus, I’ll tell him. He’ll like that.’
Tilla felt Cass’s fingers dig into her wrist. She tried to keep her voice calm as she said, ‘You have seen him?’
He held out his cup. When he had drunk the refill the foul breath wafted closer until their heads were almost touching. ‘Large as life,’ he whispered. ‘Sitting over in that corner there.’
Both women turned to peer into the dingy corner, where an old man was hopefully not as dead as he looked.
Cassiana whispered, ‘Real, or a ghost?’
‘Ah,’ said Onion-breath, ‘who knows? It was the end of a long day, I was tired, the wine was cheap.’
‘Did he speak?’ demanded Cass at the same time as Tilla tried, ‘Did you see him eat or drink?’
‘No speaking,’ said the man, shaking his head. ‘No eating, no drinking.’ The breath surrounded them again. ‘Come here and listen carefully, ladies, and I’ll tell you exactly what I saw that night.’
Trying not to think about headlice, Tilla leaned closer. Cass did the same.
‘What I saw,’ he murmured, ‘was old Copreus sitting over there where Grandad is now, just quiet, watching me from the corner. I said, “You’re drowned,” and he lifted up his arm and pointed at me.’ The man leaned back and extended two fingers to point first at Tilla and then at Cass, who flinched, ‘and then he got up out of that chair,’ the man stood up, ‘and there was a flash of light …’ he raised his hands in the air, ‘and then, poof, he vanished!’
Seeing their reaction, the man burst into harsh laughter.
The two women’s eyes met. Without further discussion, they both bent to pick up their bags. For a moment they glanced around the empty floor, bewildered. Then Cass said, ‘Oh, no!’
‘Something the matter, ladies?’ a
sked Onion-breath. The half-dozen other drinkers at the nearby tables all seemed preoccupied with their own business. None appeared to notice the distress of the two women at the bar. None was holding a blue-and-green-striped bag like Cass’s, or a plain brown one like Tilla’s own that had now vanished with it.
‘We have been robbed!’ cried Cass.
A couple of players glanced up from a board game.
‘I know how you feel, love,’ offered another man, raising his cup. ‘The prices in here, we’ve all been robbed.’
The players resumed their game.
Tilla turned to the man behind the bar. ‘This sailor kept us talking while we were robbed. You must have seen! Who was it?’
The barman’s face was blank. Tilla seized Cass by the arm and made for the door. One of the drinkers got up off his stool and stepped across to stand in their way. The old man in the corner coughed, opened his eyes and went back to sleep.
Cassiana said, ‘We are going to report this place to the authorities!’
A large hand landed on Tilla’s shoulder, and the breath wafted around her again. ‘No need for that, ladies. We’ll look after you. Won’t we, lads?’
The pair at the board game looked up and grinned.
One moment Tilla was standing captive by the bar: the next moment her knife was out and Onion-breath was yelling and clutching at his hand while Cass snatched up a jug and ran to stand beside her.
Someone said, ‘You shouldn’t a’ done that, girl.’
Tilla glanced around the room. The man was right: she had made a foolish mistake. She had run in the only direction open to her, and now they were cornered. They could not fend off six men for long with one knife and a winejug. She muttered a prayer to Christos, but the Briton had been right. Heaven was not much comfort when you needed rescuing here and now.
‘Help us!’ she demanded, looking at the barman, but his attention was fixed on Onion-breath, who had seemed so friendly just a few minutes ago.
‘You’re closing early today,’ Onion-breath told him. ‘Take the afternoon off.’
The barman glanced at Tilla and Cass, then dropped his cloth and fled out into the street.
‘We’ll have a private party.’ Onion-breath shut out the sunlight and swung the wooden bar up to drop it across the door. ‘I’m first with Blondie,’ he announced. ‘Steady on there, Grandad. You’ll get your turn.’
66
Ruso presented himself at the gates of the Senator’s estate without much hope, but to his surprise a slave escorted him into the garden, where Claudia was sharing the shade of a summerhouse with her sister-in-law. Both were sitting with their hands in their laps and their backs very straight. As Ruso approached, Claudia’s expression betrayed a warmth of welcome he had rarely experienced when she was his wife, while Ennia’s pinched face grew even tighter. In response to his polite inquiry, Ennia burst out, ‘Of course we are not well! What do you expect? My brother is dead!’ She turned to the slave who had escorted Ruso across the garden. ‘Why was he allowed in?’
The slave mumbled that he did not know.
‘He is here,’ put in Claudia, ‘because I left instructions that, if he called, I would see him.’
‘My brother would never have allowed him in!’
‘Your brother is not here.’
Ruso said, ‘I’d like to talk privately with Claudia, Ennia.’
Claudia replied, ‘Of course,’ at the same moment as Ennia said, ‘Well, you can’t.’
In the silence that followed, the girl looked from Ruso to Claudia and back again. ‘Oh, all right,’ she said, and got to her feet.
She was still within earshot when Claudia said, ‘Really, she’s such a child!’
Ruso waited until he heard Ennia’s footsteps retreat along the gravel path behind the tall cypress hedge before saying, ‘She’s bound to be upset.’
‘She doesn’t have to be completely unreasonable. Even if she does think you poisoned her brother.’
Ruso seated himself on the bench Ennia had just vacated and said, ‘We both know that’s not true, don’t we?’
Claudia gave a dramatic sigh. ‘Gaius, what is the matter with you? Daddy keeps saying do I want to tell him something, but I don’t. You’re as bad as the investigators, both of you.’
‘Claudia, I know what happened.’
‘They’ve been crawling all over us like lice. They’ve turned out all the bedrooms, and the farm buildings, and you wouldn’t believe the chaos they caused in the kitchen. Zosimus is furious. The staff had been getting the preserves in for the autumn, and that Stilo opened up every single jar and made the kitchen-boy eat some.’
‘Flaccus?’ asked Ruso. ‘Is he all right?’
‘They even went through my make-up.’
‘I hope they didn’t make you eat that.’
‘Don’t be silly, Gaius. They got one of the girls to do it. And of course she was sick too. I did warn them.’
‘Do you want me to look at them both?’
‘They keep saying I must know where Severus kept his money. I’ve already told Zosimus to show them the strongbox in the office, but they keep saying there’s more hidden somewhere.’ She gestured towards the elegant garden with its tranquil fishpond. ‘Severus didn’t own any of this, you know. He wasn’t rich. Besides, I’m the victim. They’re supposed to be nice to me.’
Ruso was beginning to wonder whether Calvus and Stilo were reaching the same conclusions about the murder as he had himself. He said, ‘So they tested the honey, then?’
‘They tested everything.’
‘They wouldn’t be able to tell from the taste,’ Ruso continued. ‘And you’d need a substantial dose.’ He had proved that himself.
Claudia’s ‘So you really have found something out!’ seemed excited rather than alarmed.
‘Of course, if the victim was known to have a weak heart …’
‘You have found something! Oh, Gaius, bless you, I knew you would!’
This was hardly the reaction he had been expecting. Maybe his wife was much cleverer than he had ever realized.
It would not do to dwell on that thought. ‘I didn’t come here to play games, Claudia. I spoke to the man you bought the honey from. He sold it to a woman wearing the same sandals as you, and she had …’ Even now he could not bring himself to upset her by calling it orange. ‘She had hair the same colour as yours. It’s hard to mistake.’
All around them the air was live with the singing of the cicadas. Claudia tightened one hand around the edge of the wooden bench and then released it again. When she said, ‘You really do think I did it!’ her voice was husky.
‘The bitch has poisoned me.’
The neatly plucked eyebrows drew closer together. ‘I can’t understand …’
‘You were seen buying the poison. There’s a witness. If I tell the investigators, your father will ruin my family. Please, Claudia. You can still do something good for other people. Confess.’
‘But it wasn’t me. I told you that.’
He sighed. ‘I wanted to believe you.’
‘Then believe me! Anyone can buy a pair of shoes. Dozens of girls have hair this colour. It’s very fashionable.’
Ruso shook his head. ‘It’s too much of a coincidence. Severus was unfaithful, he’d lost your father a lot of money, you didn’t love him –’
‘I didn’t love you either,’ she retorted, tearing the pins out of her hair in distress, ‘but I didn’t murder you!’
To Ruso’s surprise, Claudia’s strength of feeling was such that she grabbed the top of her head and began to tug at her curls. He was even more surprised when the curls came detached from the head and she flung them at him.
‘There! Anybody can buy my hair too!’
He stared in disbelief at the dark cropped head that now faced him. Claudia’s hair was not very much longer than his own. More interestingly, the tips of the hair were olive-green. He lifted up the wig, shook it and pretended to examine it while he struggled not t
o laugh.
‘I had the hairdresser flogged,’ said Claudia. ‘But it won’t bring my hair back any faster. Well, what’s the matter with you? Haven’t you ever seen a wig before? I can show you the other one if you like, still tousled from the funeral. Anyone can buy red hair too! It wasn’t me.’
Ruso was still considering his reply when they heard footsteps and looked up to see Zosimus striding towards them, followed by several garden slaves brandishing hoes and scythes in a manner that did not look horticultural. Ennia emerged from behind the hedge to join them. Claudia snatched back the wig and crammed it on to her head, whispering, ‘Perhaps it was Ennia in disguise!’
Ruso said, ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know, do I? Because she’s a horrible little toad and she hates me. Shush. If you mention my hair I’ll kill you.’
The steward stopped at a safe distance and announced, ‘The investigators have forbidden any contact between the suspects.’
So Claudia was a suspect. Ruso reached for his stick and got to his feet. ‘I was just going.’
As he joined Zosimus to be escorted back to the gate, he heard Ennia say, ‘I told my brother he was a fool to marry you!’
Suddenly Ruso wondered how long the girl had been lingering behind that hedge. He had heard her footsteps retreat along the gravel, but that would be easy enough to counterfeit. Distracted by the arrival of Zosimus, he had not noticed the sound of her approach. How much had she overheard?
67
The door-bar had barely clunked down into its socket when Tilla heard someone outside hammering on the wood and yelling, ‘Open up! Man needs a drink!’
Onion-breath called, ‘We’re closed!’ at the same time as Cass cried, ‘Help us! We’ve been –’ It ended in a scream as Onion-breath stepped across and hit her in the face.
Too late, he remembered about Tilla’s knife. As he staggered backwards, staring at her in disbelief, there was a crash from across the room. The door, frame and all, collapsed inwards with two men on top of it.
The men tried to get up but were knocked aside by drinkers clambering over them to flee into the sunlit alleyway. The old man in the corner rose from his seat and staggered out after them.