by Ruso
‘People to kill,’ put in Tilla, who had almost recovered her normal colour.
Ruso shifted his stick sideways and planted it on her foot. She jabbed him with her elbow and spoke up again. ‘We want to stop your master making a very big mistake,’ she informed the guards. ‘Even though he does not deserve it. When he finds out that he is made a fool of because you have not let us save him, what will he do to you?’
The men looked at each other.
‘My father was an old friend of his,’ said Ruso.
‘And I am Darlughdacha of the Corionotatae, amongst the Brigantes,’ said Tilla.
‘Who of the what?’
She repeated her British name and tribe.
‘Dar …’ The man frowned. ‘Oh, bugger it. Come up and tell him yourself.’
*
Ruso had expected some reaction from the dozen or so occupants of Fuscus’ cushioned and perfumed private balcony, but the magistrate’s cry of ‘Ruso! Just in time!’ was unexpectedly welcoming.
He surveyed the row of people enjoying a light lunch beneath the cool waft of ostrich-feather fans. A scattering of bald pates and togas was interspersed with richly jewelled and colourful figures whom he assumed to be wives, and a couple of young lads who must be Fuscus’ sons. Most had swivelled round in their seats and were staring at Tilla: the women with alarm and the men with interest. Nobody seemed very concerned about the proceedings in the arena below, where the bear had been recaged and Attalus’ costumed men were dragging the remains of its victims away through the sand.
‘Very timely, Ruso,’ continued Fuscus, waving a slice of melon in the direction of Calvus and Stilo and almost poking it into the eye of a bored-looking girl next to him whom Ruso assumed to be his latest wife. ‘Come over here and listen to this.’
Calvus and Stilo were standing awkwardly at the far end of the balcony. Evidently they had not been invited to sit and were doing their best not to turn disrespectful backs on Fuscus, his guests or the entertainment he had so generously provided.
Ruso beckoned Tilla forward. Below them, the musicians’ horns blared, and a couple of tumblers performed cartwheels across the arena, while the maintenance slaves scurried to rake over the sand before the next event. Ruso slipped in front of Fuscus’ elegantly carved chair and perched himself on the balustrade, blocking the view of several of the dignitaries.
A familiar voice said, ‘Stand up, man! At least show some respect!’ and Ruso realized that one of the bald pates in the less prestigious seats belonged to his former father-in-law.
Probus was looking even less pleased to see him than usual. Ruso ignored both him and the guards, who were clearly waiting for instructions to throw these interlopers out. Leaning forward, he murmured to Fuscus, ‘This woman has some information you need to hear straight away, sir.’
The ‘sir’ had slipped out inadvertently, but Fuscus did not appear to be listening anyway. ‘My cousin the Senator’s men,’ he announced, waving the melon in the direction of Calvus and Stilo, ‘have completed their investigation. They’ve come here to give us all a summary of the report they’ll be delivering to Rome.’
Tilla’s ‘No, they will not!’ from behind was a surprise to everyone including Ruso, who had intended to approach the matter with more subtlety.
Fuscus, ignoring her, turned to Calvus and Stilo. ‘I’m listening.’
The row of dignified heads turned to face the far end of the balcony. Calvus squared his shoulders, waited to make sure everyone was paying attention and opened his mouth to speak just as Tilla cried, ‘He is not an investigator!’
‘Control that woman, Ruso!’ demanded Probus.
‘Yeah,’ agreed Stilo, exchanging a glance with Calvus. ‘Shut up and listen, Blondie.’
The dignified heads swivelled again, and a murmur of protest arose. Fuscus snapped his fingers, and more guards stepped forward.
‘You need to listen to her,’ urged Ruso, ducking away from the balustrade before the approaching guard could push him over it. ‘These two are impostors.’ Ignoring protests from Stilo, he pointed to Calvus. ‘He’s a middle-man who provided a rotten ship, and that’s the captain who –’
‘Nonsense!’ cried Probus, leaping to his feet. ‘These men have carried out a full and fair investigation into a suspicious death, and it has nothing to do with ships.’
‘D’you lot want to hear who done it, or not?’ shouted Stilo over a growing cacophony of horns from the musicians’ enclosure. One or two of the dignitaries half rose from their seats, looking around for reassurance.
‘Shut up and listen, Ruso,’ ordered Fuscus.
One of the guards had positioned himself behind Tilla. Ruso motioned to her to be quiet.
Calvus had a restraining hand on Stilo’s shoulder. ‘Gentlemen, ladies – please excuse my friend. He’s not used to civilized company. I keep him to deal with the low and dangerous types I have to mix with in the course of my investigations.’
Fuscus glanced both ways along the row at his guests, assured himself that Tilla was under control and ordered the musicians to be toned down and a slave to refill the drinks before he said, ‘Carry on. We want to know the result of the investigation. We can’t have poisoners running loose around the town.’
Calvus bowed and began, ‘Magistrates, ladies …’ He cleared his throat. ‘I came to Gaul on the orders of the cousin of Magistrate Gabinius Fuscus, Senator Gabinius Valerius –’
‘You are a liar!’ shouted Tilla, squealing as the guard grabbed her and flung her over his shoulder.
Before Ruso could intervene the other guard seized his arm and wrenched it up parallel with his spine. As he was dragged further away from Fuscus he was aware of Tilla yelling, ‘You are both liars!’ as she was carried away.
‘Mad bitch!’ shouted Stilo as the words ‘You murdered Justinus!’ echoed back up the steps.
‘She’s telling the truth,’ Ruso gasped as the guard forced his wrist up between his shoulder-blades. He hoped Tilla had not made a terrible mistake.
Fuscus drained his wine in one gulp. ‘You’d better have a good reason for this performance, Ruso.’
‘You need to know. They’re swindlers and murderers. They killed my brother-in-law. They might have killed Severus as well.’
Fuscus turned back to Calvus for an answer, but whatever denial Calvus was about to make was interrupted by Stilo’s ‘Your honours don’t want to listen to them lies. That barbarian’s protecting him.’
The row of dignified heads was now turning frantically in an effort to take in Calvus and Stilo at one end of the balcony, Ruso at the other end and Fuscus lumbering to his feet in the middle, calling for order as if this were an unruly council meeting. The roar of the crowd said something was happening in the arena, but nobody on the balcony was watching.
‘It was him what done it!’ announced Stilo, pointing at Ruso. ‘The doctor and the wife, in the kitchen with the honey. We know about the red hair and the pink shoes!’ He turned to Calvus for confirmation, but Calvus was gone. The commotion in the crowd beyond the balcony marked the point where he had leaped over the side and was now forcing his way along a row of bewildered spectators.
Stilo glanced down, thought better of it and made a lunge for the nearest serving-girl. Her tray crashed to the floor as he pulled her back against him, and a knife appeared at her throat.
Fuscus and a couple of the dignitaries clutched at the nearest women. The dignitaries appeared to be trying to protect their wives, Fuscus to use his as a shield. The guards backed away as Stilo dragged the terrified serving-girl back towards the exit.
‘Don’t just stand there!’ cried Fuscus, knocking the fan from the hand of the nearest slave. ‘Defend us!’
The grip on Ruso’s arm fell away. Stilo reached the exit, flung the girl into the arms of the approaching guard and clattered away down the steps.
The guard who had evicted Tilla from the balcony was returning up the steps as Ruso stumbled down. ‘You’re welcome to her,
mate. Little cow nearly had my ear off.’
By the time Ruso reached the corridor neither Tilla nor Stilo was in sight, but the direction of one or both was marked by a series of complaining spectators who had been shoved aside. Forcing himself to ignore the stabbing pain in the side of his foot, Ruso followed the trail up the steps, swerved round a furious vendor and narrowly missed slipping on a scattering of pastries the man was trying to pick up. As he raced along the upper corridor he realized none of Fuscus’ men was with him. He was not even sure who he was chasing. All he knew was that if Stilo decided to take on Tilla, she was in serious trouble.
An usher was trying to block his path, shouting something and holding up one hand in a ‘stop’ sign. Ruso charged straight for him, yelling, ‘Where did they go?’ The man faltered, leaped aside and flapped the hand to send Ruso straight on.
Ahead, the curve of the gallery was almost empty. To his right, the open archways offered a fine view of the town, but it would be a brave man or woman who would risk the leap down to the sunlit street. To his left, on the inside of the curve, shadowy flights of steps rose and fell from the gallery every few paces.
‘Where did they go?’ he yelled to an old man squatting in the shade of a pillar.
The man pointed a skinny finger towards the next flight up. Ruso hopped towards it, grabbing at his injured foot. The brief massage made no difference: every step up was a fresh wave of pain.
‘Tilla!’ he shouted, knowing his voice would not reach her over the sound of the crowd. ‘Tilla, wait for me!’
Emerging into a narrower corridor, he gasped to the usher, ‘I’m looking for a blonde woman!’
‘Aren’t we all?’
‘Which way?’
The usher, still grinning, pointed to his left.
‘Is there a man with her?’
‘No, he’s in front.’
The upper corridor was a lame man’s nightmare: barely a few yards level at a time before more steps down into a dip, a junction with another gloomy stairway that Tilla or Stilo might have descended, and more steps back up the other side. By the third or fourth dip Ruso was beginning to feel exhausted. All those weeks of limping about had left him seriously out of condition.
‘Tilla!’ he yelled, forcing himself to keep going. By the next dip he knew he was never going to catch up with her. She might not even be ahead of him any more. She might have followed Stilo down any of the exit routes he had hurried past. They might have gone into the cheap seats above, with the slaves and the sailors who operated the awnings. They might have gone around to the women’s area. He glanced down, and up, and ahead, and back, and did not know which way to run. Finally he leaned back against the wall, feeling his heart pounding and his breath rasping in his chest. Wherever Tilla was, he could not help her. Surely any passers-by would defend a lone woman against a male attacker? Even if she was obviously a barbarian? Of course, whether they would defend a female barbarian who seemed to be attacking a local man was another matter entirely.
Outside, the crowd held its collective breath and then burst into wild cheering. Alone in the cool gloom that smelled of urine and fried food, Ruso curled up one leg and nursed his foot, trying to think past the pain. It was a moment before he registered the voice saying, ‘Doctor Gaius Petreius, sir?’
He looked up. ‘Tertius?’ The youth who should have been arming himself with net and trident in the gladiators’ cells was trotting up the steps towards him in military boots and a sweat-stained tunic. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
Instead of replying, Tertius seized him by both shoulders. ‘Thank you, sir! I never thought you’d do it, but thank you! I won’t let you down, I promise!’
‘Do what?’
‘Find the money! I can’t believe it!’
‘Nor can I,’ said Ruso, too breathless to argue.
‘Are you all right, sir?’
Ruso gesticulated vaguely around him. ‘There’s a blonde woman –’
‘Dressed in blue, chasing a man in a green tunic?’ Tertius pointed back the way he had come. ‘They went down towards the animal cages.’
Ruso was already racing down the steps as the words ‘Sir, what’s going on?’ echoed around him.
76
Tilla tried to steady her breathing, but the stench of animals made her gasp. The row of smoky torches stretching down the tunnel ahead did little to lift the gloom, barely revealing the figures of slaves moving about between arched recesses on either side. From somewhere deeper inside, beneath the middle of the arena, she heard a clang of metal, then the shout of an order and the squeak and grind of something being hoisted on a winch. An animal howl echoed down the tunnel. Tilla shuddered.
This must be where the creatures were kept before they were lifted up and thrust into the arena through trapdoors. As her eyes adjusted from the sunlight outside, she could make out the stripes of cage bars in some of the recesses.
She tightened the grip on her knife. There was no other way the man could have come. She was not far behind him, and if he had run away down that tunnel she would have seen him pass through the torchlight. He must have ducked into one of those black recesses. But even if she found him, what was she going to do?
It seemed nobody on the balcony except the Medicus had believed her. Nobody else had given chase when she ran after Stilo. She was sure the Medicus had been behind her, but even he had disappeared now. Whatever was down here, she was facing it alone.
Someone – not Stilo, it was the wrong height and gait – emerged from a side entrance hauling a trolley. As the slave approached, the eyes that glanced out of the filthy face suggested that she should not be here, but that he did not dare tell her so. She said, ‘There is a sailor in there. He is wearing a green tunic and he has two fingers missing. Have you seen him?’
The slave’s expression did not change. ‘No, miss.’ As he plodded past she tried not to look at the mangled and smeary creatures piled on the trolley.
She turned her head away from the source of the stench and took a deep breath. Then she murmured a prayer and ventured into the place where the spirits who lived under the ground were appeased with blood.
The stones beneath her boots were slippery and uneven. The first recess on each side was empty: she had been able to see that from the entrance. Beyond them, she flattened her back to the wall, trying not to think of the filth that might be crusted on it, and crept sideways. Beneath the gloomy arch opposite, she could make out the poles of brooms and shovels. Nothing rounded enough to be human. Nothing moving.
The roar of the crowd echoed through the tunnel, sounding like another great animal.
She slid one hand further along the wall. Her fingers rounded a corner stone with something cold set in it. Cage bars. Down at floor level she could make out pale wisps of straw. She waited, hardly breathing, but nothing moved. She checked the tunnel and then shifted further along towards the next recess, moving away from the bars in case there was something behind them with claws and a long reach.
What happened next was over almost before she realized it. The hand clamping on her wrist. The hopeless struggle not to be dragged in between the bars. The pain of her shoulder rammed against the cage. The screech of metal on stone tangling with the echo of her own scream: the weight of the body pressing her against the cage and the shock as the knife was knocked out of her hand. Then the smack of something hitting flesh. The grunt of pain and the sudden release. The footsteps, the shouts of ‘Miss!’ and ‘Let her go!’ as the two silhouettes that were racing towards her from the outside world became the Medicus and another man, both asking if she was all right.
‘I think so,’ she said, shaking off the filth of the cage and rubbing the pain in her shoulder. The man handed her back her knife and said something about being sorry and having to go. The Medicus had already set off down the tunnel, dodging round a couple of slaves with trolleys. ‘Wait for me!’ she shouted, running after him, ashamed to recognize it was because she wanted his protectio
n, not because she wanted another fight with Stilo.
Beneath one of the far torches, the Medicus was shouting something at a slave carrying buckets. She heard the slave try to tell him he shouldn’t be there, and the Medicus say, ‘Never mind. Did you see him?’
Tilla jumped over the stream of water the slave had just sloshed down the tunnel floor. ‘What did you just tell that man?’
The slave looked baffled. ‘I said the one he’s chasing run out the far end, miss.’
When Tilla caught up with him the Medicus had already emerged at the far end of the underground chambers and clambered up on to the end of a row of seats. He was standing with one hand shading his eyes, squinting out across the packed terraces. A couple of spectators were complaining and leaning round him to get a clear view of the arena. Tilla tried to get up on to the seating opposite. She glimpsed hundreds – thousands – of dark heads along the curving rows before a couple of men shouted at her and tried to push her off.
‘Can you see him?’
The Medicus shook his head and jumped down to join her, wincing even though he landed on his good foot. ‘We’ve lost him. Are you sure you’re all right?’
She said, ‘Where will he go?’
‘A long way from here. Put that knife away, you’re frightening everyone.’
She looked round and saw the approaching steward.
‘It’s all right,’ the Medicus explained, taking her by the arm and steering her firmly towards an exit. ‘She’s with me. She just got a bit overexcited. It’s her first time.’
The steward said, ‘Yes, sir.’ He did not look surprised.
She said, ‘What will we do now?’
He took a left turn. ‘Go back to work.’
‘But what about that man?’
He steered her towards another staircase. ‘He’ll leave town. Maybe the Senator will send somebody after him.’
And maybe not. All her effort had come to nothing. The man who had murdered Cass’s brother had escaped. The Medicus was right: he could be anywhere out there among thousands of people. They would never catch him now.