by Ruth Downie
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?’ asked 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.’
‘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 to 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.
Onion-breath was slumped beneath one of the tables. He was not moving. Tilla stared at him. Was that it? Was that how easy it was?
A voice was saying, ‘Are you all right, miss?’
She leaned back against the wall, waiting for her heart to stop thudding.
‘Miss?’
She knocked the hand away from her arm, then realized it was meant in friendship. ‘Sorry,’ she said to a curly-haired youth she vaguely recognized. She was aware of a strong smell of horse as he took the bloodied knife from her hand.
The second rescuer was still sprawled along the length of the door, largely because Cass was on top of him, wiping blood off his chin with her skirt and crying, ‘Lucius! Oh, Lucius, my love, where are you hurt?’
Tilla rubbed her eyes in confusion. What was Lucius doing here? And was that the Medicus’ stable lad?
Lucius was not so badly hurt that he could not cling to his wife and gasp, ‘Cass! When we saw that thief running down the street with your bag I thought — ’
‘Oh, my darling, you’re so brave!’
The stable lad looked at the reunited couple, then at Tilla. ‘Master Lucius knocked the thief down and took your bags back, miss. Then he made him tell us where he got them. I don’t know if everything’s in them.’
Tilla moved one hand to indicate the body of Onion-breath. The lad stepped across the fallen door and bent to peer at him.
Lucius lifted his head and noticed Onion-breath for the first time. ‘What happened to him?’
‘It is the sort of thing that happens in a place like this,’ said Cass, suddenly decisive. She got to her feet and took the knife from the stable lad. ‘None of us saw anything.’
Tilla was still staring at the body, vaguely aware of Cass bustling about with water and a cloth. The stable lad touched her arm. ‘We ought to go, miss’ he murmured.
Tilla looked up. Lucius seemed to be suffering from no more than a bitten lip. His wife had a red mark on her cheek that was already beginning to swell. ‘That will teach you,’ Lucius announced to Onion-breath, ‘to mistreat the wife of an honest farmer.’
‘Yes,’ said Cass. She handed Tilla the knife, now clean, and picked up the striped bag that the stable lad had retrieved. ‘I would like to go home now, please, husband.’
They stepped out into the narrow street. Apart from a long rope and a stray dog, it was empty. Evidently the ropemakers had decided not to see anything either.
68
Arria paused on her way across to the bath-house and informed Ruso that there was no sign of poor Lucius coming back from Arelate. No, there was no word of Cassiana or That Girl either. ‘The staff keep asking me to decide things. Why don’t they know how to do it themselves? What’s the point of buying slaves if we have to do all the work? As if I don’t have enough to do!’
Ruso, preoccupied, let the wave of complaint wash over him and only surfaced to hear ‘… and join us in the baths. All the young people are there. The children have hardly seen you since you’ve been home.’
‘I need to go and check on the farm staff,’ he said, suspecting it was Arria rather than the children who wanted some adult company. ‘Then I’ve got to get ready for the games tomorrow.’ He ran his fingers over the soft leather of his purse, feeling the circle of the iron ring inside. ‘Could you tell Marcia to come and find me as soon as she’s free?’
The mindless rhythm of the iron blade sliding along the sharpening-stone usually soothed whatever agitation Ruso might be feeling, but this afternoon it had not had time to work its magic when there was a knock on the study door. He laid the scalpel back in the linen roll where he now kept his instruments and hid them behind the desk. Then he retrieved the ring from his purse and called, ‘Come in!’
Marcia closed the door behind her and leaned back against it. ‘Did you give him my letter?’
Ruso nodded, trying not to stare at the rags tied around the curls in his sister’s damp hair, which gave her the odd appearance of a cavalry horse being prepared for parade.
‘Did he tell you it was respectable?’
‘Yes.’
She attempted a smile as she said, ‘I knew you’d be too stuffy to read it!’ but he saw the way her fingers were twisted around each other.
‘He looks in good shape,’ he told her. ‘He’s very confident. That’s half the battle.’
Marcia seemed to find that more reassuring than she would have done had she realized how little her brother really knew abo
ut gladiators.
‘They’ll be having the grand dinner tonight,’ she said. ‘They do that, you know. Before the games.’
‘I know.’
‘And then tomorrow there’ll be the sacrifices to Jupiter, and he’ll be in the procession.’ There was no need for her to explain what came next.
‘He didn’t have time to write a reply,’ he said, holding out the ring, ‘but he asked me to give you this.’
She took it. Instead of slipping it on to her finger she turned it around, examining it. ‘I have been thinking,’ she said. ‘If he is not dead, but horribly mutilated, what will happen?’
‘I’ll do my best. Men often recover far better than you expect.’
‘I mean, what shall I do? With a cripple?’
He could not answer that.
She gave a sudden howl of grief, ran forward and flung her arms around him. ‘Oh, Gaius!’ she sobbed, her ragtied head pressing hard against his chest. ‘I can’t bear it, I really can’t!’
69
Lucius had hardly spoken to Tilla from the moment he had burst into the bar until they had turned the cart off the road to settle here under the trees for the night. She knew that he blamed her for his wife’s sudden rebellion. When she had said she would sleep under the cart beside the stable lad there had been no offer of a more comfortable night with Cass up under the leather canopy.
Rolled in their cloaks on the hard ground, Tilla and the stable lad both seemed to be pretending that the other was not just two feet away in the darkness. Inside the black bulk of the cart above them, Cass was asking Lucius about the children. Had Sosia’s tooth come out yet? Did Publius eat his dinner? Had they gone to bed without a fuss? When they asked where she was, what had he told them? Had they been upset?
Listening to the replies, Tilla felt sadness weighing down on top of night-time chill and exhaustion. Cass and Lucius had a home to go to, and a family waiting for them. Tilla was no longer even sure that her family were waiting for her in the next world. It seemed that heaven, like God, was everywhere, but not everyone was allowed to go to it. None of her people had worshipped Christos. Perhaps they had been rejected at the gates, like soldiers who did not know the password.