Ruso and the River of Darkness

by R. S. Downie

  When the knock on the door finally came, he was tempted not to respond. To spin out these last few moments of peace for as long as possible. Then the rapping grew louder, and he heard Dias announce, ‘Visitor for you, sir,’ and in response to his ‘Who is it?’ one of the last voices he had expected to hear replied, ‘It’s me, Ruso. Can somebody tell me what on earth is going on?’

  Ruso almost fell over the desk in his hurry to open the door. ‘Valens! What the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘Frankly,’ said Valens, seating himself on Asper’s desk as Ruso shut the door behind him, ‘I have no idea. There’s nothing wrong with Marcus. Did Tilla put you up to this?’

  ‘Up to what?’

  ‘Writing to say my son was ill. I’ve just ridden up here like the wind only to find that nobody’s expecting me, the place is in chaos, half the staff are in tears, and my wife’s too busy fussing about Tilla to bother thanking me. So the guard fellow with the dangly bits in his hair brought me over to ask you what the hell’s going on.’

  ‘What’s the matter with Tilla?’

  ‘I don’t know. Albanus caused some panic because he came to find her, but she’d already gone off somewhere to meet you.’

  ‘I told her to stay with Serena!’

  ‘Yes, but then you sent a couple of chaps in chainmail to fetch her.’

  ‘No I didn’t.’

  ‘No? And you didn’t send me an urgent letter either? Well obviously somebody’s got it all arse about face.’ He stopped. ‘Is there something the matter? Where are you rushing off to?’

  Dias wasn’t expecting to be grabbed by the throat. He wasn’t expecting to have his fancy hairstyle slammed back against the wall and Ruso yelling in his face, ‘Where’s my wife?’

  Dias’ spear clattered to the floor. He looked stunned. Ruso heard his own voice echoing round the hall. There were hands grabbing him, hauling him backwards. People were clustering round. Dias was stepping away from the wall and rubbing the back of his head.

  ‘Where is she?’ Ruso yelled, struggling to free his arms and stay on his feet. ‘What have you done with my wife?’

  Dias looked up. ‘I don’t know anything about your wife.’

  ‘Yes you do, two of your men took her!’

  Valens was there now, approaching with his hands held up in a gesture that was supposed to be calming. ‘Steady on, now, old chap. There’s no need to go attacking people.’

  ‘He’s taken Tilla,’ said Ruso flatly.

  ‘Gentlemen, I’m sure if you let him stand up …’

  Dias gave the order. Instantly, they let him drop. Ruso staggered, then regained his balance. Both Chief Magistrates were hurrying across the hall towards him. He looked at Dias. ‘Where is she?’

  Dias said, ‘He’s out of his mind. I don’t know what he’s talking about.’

  Valens was saying something soothing and trying to steer him back towards the privacy of the office. Ruso shook the hand off his arm. ‘I’m not one of your bloody patients!’

  ‘Then try and behave like a sane man!’ hissed Valens. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  Ruso reminded himself to breathe. The shaking would stop if only he could breathe properly. ‘They tried to kill us last night,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, come on. I’m sure nobody –’

  Ruso spun round and seized his friend by the shoulders. ‘Make sure Serena’s safe with her cousin.’ he said, ‘Tell her not to leave the mansio. Then get some of your own slaves and find Albanus and Tilla. Try the guard headquarters in the Forum. Try the stables. Try Asper’s house. Try anywhere you can think of. If I don’t meet you at the mansio, take everyone back to Londinium and say …’ He paused, realizing he could be overheard. ‘Just take them home,’ he said. ‘I’ll be along as soon as I can.’

  Valens frowned. ‘Are you quite sure you’re all right on your own?’

  Ruso took a deep breath. He wasn’t going to be all right until he found her, but he had to stay in control. It might be the only thing that was keeping her safe.

  66

  Ruso stood on the podium. One or two of the councillors crammed on to the benches had taken the time to dress in their togas, but most were in their everyday clothes. He looked over their heads to the ordinary men and women crowding all the way to the back of the chamber. He recognized the bronzesmiths who lived next to Camma. Nico’s landlady. The masseur with the mole on his nose. These Britons with their shaggy hair, their bright stripes and checks and their legs encased in workaday trousers were once more waiting for him to make a speech.

  The Chief Magistrates were watching him from one side, seated in their metal-framed chairs. At the far end of the chamber Dias was standing in the open doorway, well placed both to hear what was being said and to issue orders to his men outside.

  Those were the listeners he could see, but whatever he said here would have wider consequences. Other people had expectations of him. Metellus. Firmus. The Procurator. Camma. Tilla.

  Ruso cleared his throat and glanced at the Magistrates. They knew what he was about to say. They had called him into a side room to discuss it as the chamber was beginning to fill.

  Gallonius had been the more apologetic of the two, saying, ‘We had hoped it would not come to this.’

  Caratius had insisted that, if he had known what was going on, he would have put a stop to it. But both were agreed that there was only one way forward.

  ‘Nico had threatened suicide before, you know,’ explained Gallonius.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘On the day he confessed to me about all the false coin he had slipped into the theatre fund to replace the money he took out.’

  Ruso had stared at him. ‘You knew?’

  ‘He came and told me all about it after we heard that Asper was dead. Nico was planning to slip the stolen tax money back in to replace the false coin, but when your investigations began, I think he realized there was no way out.’

  ‘I knew none of this when I came to Londinium,’ put in Caratius.

  Ruso said, ‘But all the time I was here, you knew –’

  ‘He knew,’ said Caratius, glaring at Gallonius. ‘I was only told the whole sorry tale this morning. It’s an utter disgrace.’

  ‘And have they told you where my wife is?’

  ‘Your wife is in good hands, investigator,’ Gallonius assured him. ‘All you have to do is make your final report to the Council as we’ve agreed, explain that the money has been found, and the investigation is over, and I’m sure our guards will bring her back safely to you.’

  ‘I’m representing the Procurator. I can’t lie.’

  Caratius said, ‘Nobody is asking you to lie.’

  Gallonius’ face softened into a smile. ‘We are simply asking you not to announce wild conclusions that will do nothing but stir up trouble. We asked the Procurator for help, we have received it, the money is found and we are satisfied that the investigation is over.’

  Ruso turned to Caratius. ‘I think Dias and Rogatus murdered Asper and his brother and tried to put the blame on you. I’m sure Dias killed Nico, and he nearly killed me. If you don’t get him under control, you could be next. Why the hell are you covering this up?’

  Gallonius said, ‘If I were you, investigator, I wouldn’t be making wild accusations about our guards while they are looking after your wife.’

  Caratius held up a hand to silence him. ‘Your complaints have been noted,’ he said. ‘And we’re grateful to you for pointing out the problem. But this town paid a very large price for its independence and we don’t intend to lose it by calling in Rome’s help for an internal problem.’

  ‘We don’t want anyone saying we can’t control our own affairs,’ said Gallonius.

  Caratius said, ‘We’ll deal with our own people in our own way after you’ve gone. Please make your report and leave.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Gallonius.

  Shut away in the side room, listening to the babble of natives gathering outside, Ruso realized
he had achieved a small and unwelcome miracle. The quarrelling Britons had finally managed to unite in the face of a common enemy.

  The hubbub in the Council chamber had fallen silent now. Ruso cleared his throat again and wished there were something in front of him to hold on to. He should have made notes. He should have done many things. Now that it was too late, he was beginning to see what they were.

  Someone coughed.

  A voice shouted, ‘Get on with it!’

  Ruso glanced across to make sure Satto was still in the side room where he had been advised to keep out of the way. He took a deep breath and set out across the tightrope. ‘My name is Gaius Petreius Ruso,’ he announced. ‘I was sent here by the Procurator at the request of Chief Magistrate Caratius to help your Council find out what had happened to a missing consignment of tax money. As you know, the money has turned up.’

  There was a general cheer, prolonged by the catching-up of people who needed his words translated by their neighbours or repeated into deaf ears.

  ‘As you also know, both of the men who were supposed to deliver it were found murdered, and this morning we’ve all been told about the sad death of your Quaestor, Nico. He was suffocated by the fumes from a brazier during the night.’

  The low volume of the murmur that followed suggested most of his audience had already heard this. Someone shouted, ‘Tell us something we don’t know!’ The ripple of laughter around the hall did not disguise the sound of the scuffle at the back. Ruso waited until the guard had hauled the heckler out past Dias and began again.

  ‘The missing money was found in the Quaestor’s room by his doctor.’ Ruso glanced at Gallonius. ‘The circumstances of his death were consistent with suicide. We know he went into the strongroom with Julius Asper on the day the tax money was taken out, but we’ll probably never know how it ended up under his bed.’

  Undeterred by the fate of the previous heckler, someone called out something in British, and there were cries of agreement. Someone helpfully translated, ‘He pinched it!’

  ‘Anyway, the point is, you’ve got it back,’ said Ruso. ‘But I’m afraid there’s more bad news.’ He beckoned to the Council clerk, who stepped forward and handed him the clay mould. He held it up for everyone to see, glanced down the hall in the hope of catching the expression on Dias’ face and stopped. Camma and Grata had just appeared in the doorway with Albanus. Camma had the baby tied in a shawl against her chest. Dias was letting them in, but Albanus remained outside, shaking his head from side to side, his hands raised in a gesture of hopeless confusion that said he had not yet found Tilla. Ruso gave a nod of acknowledgement. Albanus stepped back and disappeared from view.

  Camma’s height and her bright hair made her easy to follow in the crowd, and he watched as the women edged along the back wall to find a space. Albanus had probably brought them here to keep them safe, but he had done it at the worst possible moment.

  ‘Get on with it, man!’

  There was no time to explain.

  ‘Some of you will know what this is,’ he said, returning his attention to the mould. ‘If you don’t, it’s a mould for making coin blanks. But of course coins can only be made with the approval of the Emperor.’ He held up something else. ‘This looks like a denarius. It isn’t. Your moneychanger has confirmed that it’s a fake. The silver is just a coating.’

  There was a murmur of unrest around the room.

  ‘I’m sorry to say that a proportion of the money in your theatre fund is made up of this sort of thing,’ said Ruso.

  The unrest swelled to outrage and disbelief. The words ‘moneychanger’ and ‘fraud’ rose from the general hubbub.

  ‘It isn’t –’ Ruso stopped, waiting for quiet. ‘It isn’t your moneychanger’s fault,’ he said. ‘The coin was switched after it had been counted and checked and stored in the strongroom.’

  The uproar he had been expecting erupted. Everyone was either talking to his neighbour or shouting at Ruso. One voice was demanding, ‘Why the theatre fund?’ That was when Satto appeared and shouted, ‘Because you idiots will never get round to spending it!’ and was engulfed in a storm of accusations and demands to know why he hadn’t spotted it before. ‘Because it was stashed away in the theatre fund!’ did not seem to satisfy anyone. Dias’ hand rose in a signal to a group of guards. They pushed their way forward to drag Satto and a couple of councillors apart before a fight started.

  Gallonius lumbered on to the podium and raised both hands in the air, shouting, ‘Order!’ to little avail. The clerk appeared with the horn and blew an off-key blast that had to be repeated three times before anyone took any notice.

  When Ruso could finally make himself heard he said, ‘The unfortunate death of the Quaestor means he can’t shed any light on how this was done.’

  ‘He was the one doing it,’ prompted Gallonius, squeezing back into his seat.

  ‘Not alone,’ Ruso said. ‘He wouldn’t have enough hands. Forging money is at least a two-man job. And if he was putting false coin into the theatre fund so he could steal the real money, what was he doing with it? Did anyone see any evidence of him being wealthy?’

  For once, nobody had anything to say. Gallonius glared at him. This was a departure from the script.

  ‘I think Nico was forced to help,’ Ruso said, ‘by someone who had some power over him. Someone who had caught him out in some way, or threatened him.’

  Both Magistrates were listening intently now. Ruso tried to look over the heads of the crowd, to catch Camma’s attention. Their eyes met. He was about to say more or less what he had been told to say, and he willed her to understand that he had no choice. He hoped Albanus had warned her that Tilla was being held hostage. He hoped the guards here would have the decency to protect her when he had finished speaking. Lifting up the evidence again, he hoped he wasn’t about to make things worse for everybody. ‘I found these things,’ he said, ‘including this copy of the moneychanger’s seal, in with the possessions of Julius Asper and his brother.’

  Camma’s scream of, ‘No!’ penetrated the uproar. Someone yelled, ‘Where’s our money, bitch?’ Caratius was shouting, ‘I warned you about him! Didn’t I warn you?’

  People were crowding towards the back of the room. He could not see her now. He felt a sudden lurch of panic. What if Dias’ men stood back and refused to intervene?

  He leaped down from the platform, shouting, ‘Keep away from her!’ and was instantly surrounded by a gang of councillors. As he struggled to push past them an elbow landed in his ribs, a boot on his toes and he had to grab at someone’s arm to avoid being knocked over. By the time the guards reached him he had barely made it as far as the second bench. Shouting, ‘Keep them away from her!’ and ‘Where’s my wife?’ he was hauled back towards the platform. Breathless, unable to yell above the din, he gazed out over the chaos and saw a commotion going on at the far end of the hall. Dias and a couple of his men were blocking the doorway with their shields, sticks raised to beat anyone who dared to approach. Ruso scanned the crowd, but could not see Camma or Grata anywhere.

  ‘It’s all right, investigator.’ Gallonius’ voice in his ear made him jump. He had not noticed the Magistrate joining him on the platform. ‘We’re not barbarians. Our guards allowed the women to leave safely.’

  ‘Where’s my wife?’

  ‘I’m sure she can’t be far away. Finish your speech, and we’ll send someone to look for her.’

  ‘I’ve got no more to say.’

  ‘That was a good speech, but you left out who murdered Julius Asper.’

  He had left out a great number of things. It was just as well that logic was not the Britons’ strong point. His listeners had leaped to the conclusions they were supposed to reach, despite the fact that much of his statement was equivocal and there were wide enough gaps in it to drive one of Boudica’s chariots through. Ruso looked Gallonius in the eye. ‘I’m not going to tell anybody Nico killed Asper,’ he said. ‘You might have got them believing Asper was a forg
er but they’d never fall for that. Just remember that Camma’s got the Procurator’s protection, so if anything happens to her, you’ll be getting more visits from investigators. Where’s my wife, Gallonius?’

  Gallonius beckoned to the clerk. ‘Have the guards escort the investigator back to the mansio, will you?’ He turned to Ruso and smiled. ‘Thank you, investigator. I think you’ll find that, as I said, we are not barbarians.’

  67

  Someone had been in Suite Three again. It had happened while she was out, this time, and for the best of reasons. After the guards had finished their searching the floor had been swept, the lamps filled and the unmade bed straightened out. Still, it made Tilla uneasy. She hoped the Medicus would finish his speech soon. Once he had explained what he had found out, they could leave.

  She moved one of the chairs close to the open window, sat back, kicked off her boots and yawned. She did not want to be in this room, but she was tired of all the questions and the sympathy. Besides, she wanted to leave Valens and Serena on their own.

  So far, her plans had not gone well. It seemed the weedy clerk Albanus had arrived with a message for her from the Medicus just after she had been called away by the soldiers, and the clerk had created a terrible fuss because she was not there to receive it. Then minutes after Albanus had hurried away to hunt for her, Valens had arrived on the fast carriage to find that neither of his children was ill, but instead everyone was in a panic looking for Tilla. So he had left Serena alone with the children yet again while he rushed off to track down the Medicus and find out what was going on.

  Now she finally had Valens and Serena in the same building, she had retreated and left them to find ways of talking to each other.

  There were plenty of women who envied Serena her charming and handsome husband, but Tilla was not one of them. Valens was like a polished surface: everything slid off him. As she retreated from their company she had whispered, ‘You must pay some attention to her!’ and Valens had beamed and said, ‘Of course!’ as if it was what he had intended all along.