Prima Facie

by Ruth Downie

  Prima Facie

  A Crime Novella of the Roman Empire

  Ruth Downie

  Copyright © Ruth Downie 2019

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Nuptiae consistere non possunt nisi consentiant omnes, id est qui coeunt quorumque in potestate sunt.

  A marriage cannot exist without the consent of all parties, that is, of those who come together, and also of those under whose authority they are.

  - Julius Paulus

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1: Roman Gaul, AD123

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  ABOUT THIS STORY

  Roman Army medic Ruso was only meant to exist for three chapters of a “start a novel” competition. The British slave he reluctantly rescued in those chapters didn’t even have a name—but when the story began to extend into a whole novel, it was clear that he couldn’t keep calling her “you”. Nor could he pronounce her native name. Between them, they settled on “Tilla”.

  Ruso and Tilla’s adventures in Roman Britain and elsewhere have now filled a series of eight crime novels, and they have made friends in lands they never knew existed. Some of their friends have asked what happened between their trip to Rome in VITA BREVIS and their arrival back in Britannia in MEMENTO MORI. Did they call in to see Ruso’s debt-laden family in the south of France?

  Indeed they did. This is the story of that visit. Regular readers will meet some familiar faces here. Readers who have never spent time with Ruso and Tilla before will, I hope, enjoy the story without needing to know anything about what happened beforehand.

  PRIMA FACIE

  IN WHICH our hero, Gaius Petreius Ruso, will be…

  assisted by

  Tilla, his wife

  Publius, a young aristocrat

  accompanied by

  Mara, his daughter

  interrogated by

  Marcia, his eldest sister

  told that he is horrible by

  Flora, his youngest sister

  unexpectedly kissed by

  Verax, boyfriend of Flora

  informed by

  Bushy, Wispy and Patchy, three bearded young aristocrats

  saddened by

  Sabinus, a local landowner

  Corinna, sister of Publius the aristocrat

  puzzled by

  Titus, son of Sabinus the landowner

  importuned by

  Arria, his stepmother

  confused by

  Xanthe, a working girl

  Too many nieces and nephews

  outshone in all aspects of farming and family administration by

  Lucius, his brother

  1

  Roman Gaul, AD123

  Verax glanced at the trio of slaves lolling against the walls of the courtyard and wondered how they put up with this. Were they impatient? Bored? Angry? In the uncertain torchlight, he couldn’t tell. Maybe spending a summer evening outside someone else’s party was better than serving in their masters’ homes. It certainly wasn’t better than the plans he’d been forced to set aside himself.

  He drank his share of the vinegary wine when the jug came around. A kitchen girl appeared with a tray of leftovers. After she had gone, Verax and the slaves entertained themselves by guessing what they were eating.

  The laughter from the dining room grew louder. The slaves discussed where their owners would be going to escape the summer heat, and who would win the town wrestling championship: an event someone had made more interesting by setting up an illicit betting ring. Verax declined the offer to join.

  He had passed some of the time by whittling the rough shape of an olive-wood hairpin for Flora, but the daylight had faded hours ago and now there was nothing to do but stand around, like the carriage horses waiting patiently in their harness to take Titus home.

  There was a brief distraction when two of the young masters staggered into the courtyard and vomited over the rose beds. Their slaves abandoned a dispute about racing teams, cleaned them up, and steered them back indoors.

  Verax wondered what he was missing at Flora’s house. There would surely have been time to snatch a few moments alone with her before one of her small cousins barged in to ask what they were doing. Instead, here he was in town, watching rich boys throw up. And was his own young master grateful? Of course he wasn’t.

  Instead of thanking Verax for stepping in this evening, Titus had leaned out of the carriage window and shouted at him to get the horses moving faster. The horses had not gone faster enough, and Titus complained that at this rate the fun would be over by the time they got there.

  “I don’t drive often, sir,” Verax had pointed out, biting back do it yourself if you think it’s so easy. “I’m your father’s wheelwright.”

  “I know who you are, boy. I’m not blind.”

  And I’m not your boy, you pampered shrimp.

  None of this would have been necessary if the pampered shrimp hadn’t been banned from staying in the town house after the wreckage of the last party.

  Verax perched himself on the step of the carriage and yawned. “If he doesn’t come out soon,” he remarked, “I might just drive home to bed and leave him to walk.”

  There was an awkward silence in the courtyard. Someone unhooked the wine jug that had been hung over the hand of the statue of Bacchus, god of the grape harvest, and passed it across. “Have another drink.”

  He had embarrassed them. Whatever the slaves thought of the young men who routinely left them waiting for hours in the dark, they weren’t going to say it out loud. Perhaps because they were loyal. Perhaps because you never knew who might be listening, and who might spill your unwise words into the wrong ears. Perhaps because they were slaves and he wasn’t.

  Verax passed the wine on, and rubbed the soft nose of the nearest horse. He was wondering how much longer it would take for Titus to get so obnoxiously drunk that he was asked to leave when there was the sound of footsteps. To his delight a familiar voice slurred, “I’m sure I left a carriage here somewhere.”

  Verax stepped forward. “Over here, sir!”

  The slight figure that reeled into the torchlight wearing a garland tipped over one ear was indeed Titus. But what was Verax supposed to do about the half-naked girl who was clambering into the carriage behind him?

  “You need to get down, miss.” When she took no notice, he grabbed one braceleted arm. “Miss—”

  “Who are you?” The black make-up against the pallor of her face made her eyes look enormous. “Titus? Make him go away!”

  “Sir, I have to take you—

  “Get away, you fool!”

  Something—he guessed later it must have been the
young master’s foot—hit him in the chest and sent him sprawling back across the paving. Grazed, winded and stunned, Verax was vaguely aware of the carriage door slamming shut above him.

  Someone said, “He’ll learn.” It was a moment before Verax realized the slaves were talking about him, and not about Titus, whose habits they probably knew only too well.

  “It’s all right,” someone else assured him as he picked himself up and rubbed his bruised backside. “Xanthe’s a regular.”

  Indeed, to judge from the sounds that were clearly audible across the courtyard, Xanthe was not only a regular but a professional. She and Titus were holding their own private party inside his father’s second-best carriage.

  Verax leaned back against a pillar, folded his arms, and tried to imagine he was somewhere else. When the carriage door finally creaked open, he did not bother to offer a helping hand. To his disappointment, neither the girl nor her shambling client fell down the step. Xanthe turned and blew Verax a kiss before linking one slender arm through Titus’s, and guiding him back around the rose beds.

  When she opened the door Verax heard shouting and a gust of drunken laughter from somewhere deeper inside the house. He yawned, slumped down against the wall where he was safely hidden by the carriage, and closed his eyes.

  He must have drifted off to sleep because there were running feet, and men yelling and whooping, and girls shrieking, “Faster, faster!” and somebody shouting “Stop!” and he had no idea what was going on. He leaned sideways to peer around the back of the carriage. In the uncertain torchlight he saw party guests cavorting around the flower beds with girls clinging to their backs and kicking them on like cavalry riders. Somebody was running around waving something above his head. Verax caught a brief glint of silver just as the figure stumbled and swore, and something hit the paving with a metallic clang.

  A voice yelled, “You idiot!”

  The “horses” raced through the gap between the carriage and the wall. “Mind the animals!” cried Verax, ducking between the humans to hold the real horses as they tossed their heads and stamped in alarm. “Whoa now,” he murmured into the nearest whiskery ear. “Steady. Just a few daft lads having some fun.”

  Across the courtyard someone was yelling, “Not that way! Mind the—oh, for pity’s sake!”

  “Look out!”

  “Oh, shit!”

  Verax glanced across in time to see Bacchus crash onto the paving. The tinkling sound that followed suggested that parts of the god of wine had broken off. The harness jingled as the animals shied.

  “You clumsy arse!”

  “Sorry!”

  “That’s it! Out! Get out of my house, the lot of you! Piss off home!”

  At last, Verax’s prayers were answered. The party was over. He carried on murmuring to the horses as a flailing white figure was hauled past them: a young master who had been deftly grabbed by his slave and wrapped in his toga as if he were a dangerous beast. Other staggering youths were being urged towards the open gate with assurances that their fathers would be worrying about them. There was no sign of Titus, but Verax dared not let go of the horses to go and look for him.

  The swaddled guest who was stumbling out into the street had managed to get an arm free. He raised one hand as if he were making a speech, announced, “It’s all right, everybody! I’ll get Pa to pay for it!” and fell over.

  That much remained clear in Verax’s memory. But he did not recall the sound of the gate being closed, nor the host going back into the house. Later he reasoned that he must have gone to light the carriage torch and then put it in the bracket. He could remember the yellow light spilling onto a pair of feet sticking out of the carriage door. He could remember thinking, ah, there he is, and climbing inside to rearrange his drunken master so they could go home.

  And then there was someone screaming, very close by. Because the white shape sprawled awkwardly at his feet was indeed Titus, and there was a dark patch beside Titus’s head that shouldn’t be there, and the kitchen girl was backing away from the door and crying, “He’s killed him!”

  “Not me!” he gasped, feeling panic rising in his chest. “It wasn’t me!”

  But the heavy wine jug was in his own right hand and, on the base of the jug, there was blood.

  2

  Gaius Petreius Ruso’s eldest sister reached him first as he helped to haul the baggage in through the gateway. She wasted no time on sentimental greetings. “There you are, Gaius!” was swiftly followed by, “Did you find a job for my husband?”

  “You’re looking well, Marcia.”

  “I am, aren’t I? So, did you?” When he did not reply she said, “Did you even ask anybody, Gaius?”

  Ruso was too hot and grimy from the journey to want a quarrel. “Rome is a marvellous place,” he told her. “I’d thoroughly recommend it for a holiday. But—”

  “Some of us can’t afford holidays!”

  He glanced around the sunlit garden. Four years had passed since his last trip home to Gaul, but the fountain basin was still cracked and now the vine-clad pergola was leaning towards it as if trying to see where the water had gone.

  Over in the farmyard he heard a shout of, “Master Gaius is here!” From the house came the crash of shutters being flung open, the thunder of footsteps on floorboards and scattered cries of, “Uncle Gaius!” and “They’re here!” and “It’s Uncle Gaius and that Tilla!”

  “Believe me,” Ruso told Marcia, “you’re better off staying here.”

  She folded her arms. “Well you would say that, wouldn’t you?”

  He was saved from having to reply by a cry of, “Oh, thank the gods!” from his stepmother. She was hurrying down the steps from the house with one arm clutching her stole and the other outstretched as if to seize him before he could escape. He was surprised to see tears of joy in her eyes.

  Children and adults were now converging from all directions upon the small party of new arrivals. Ruso caught himself staring at a young woman who must be one of the family, but surely his oldest niece couldn’t be that shape yet? Whoever it was looked very much like his sister Flora had looked on his last visit, but Flora must have changed by now. As the pack closed in, he tried desperately to work out which of his younger relatives was which.

  “Uncle Gaiuth! Remember me?”

  “Of course!” The nephew who had fallen off a fence and knocked his front teeth out. Someone had mentioned the accident in a letter. “How are you?”

  “Marthia thed you never bother with family any more but I knew you would come!”

  Ruso shot a glance at his wife—Tilla was good at names—but she was already showing off the baby to one of the nieces. Beyond her, their two slaves stood amid the pile of luggage, waiting to be told what to do.

  “Oh, Gaius!” His stepmother flung both arms around him, weeping. “Here you are at last! You’ll do something, won’t you?”

  Ruso, who knew better than to agree to anything suggested by Arria without knowing the details, kissed her damp cheek and told her she hadn’t changed a bit. She pushed him away, wiping her tears on her stole. “You’ll need to wash before you go, dear. You smell like a farm hand. But do please be quick.”

  A scatter of slaves had gathered just beyond the main circle: a couple of women drying wet hands on their skirts, the family nursemaid with somebody’s baby, the stable boy, and a knot of farm hands grubby from working in the fields. Ruso searched in vain for any sign of his brother or his sister-in-law.

  The babble died away. The assembled household seemed to be waiting for some sort of speech. Ruso stepped back, surveyed his audience, and announced, “Thanks, everybody. It’s good to be home,” just as his own small daughter gave a wail of distress that sent several of the womenfolk hurrying across to offer sympathy and advice. To his stepmother, who was showing no interest in the British baby he had adopted, he said, “We’ve been on the road since dawn: everyone’s tired. Where should we take the luggage?”

  “Oh, the staff will se
e to all that, Gaius! What about poor Flora?”

  He glanced around again. None of the crowd could plausibly be his youngest sister. “What about Flora?”

  “You will help, won’t you, dear? My husband is away and your brother’s just gone off and left us. What sort of man takes his wife away to a friend’s wedding and leaves his children behind?”

  A man seizing the chance for a rare holiday, Ruso supposed.

  “My husband can’t help either, because he’s at work,” put in Marcia. “Although for what he gets paid, it’s hardly worth the bother. And I can’t go, can I? I’ve got a family to look after now too.” She pointed to the infant watching them from the arms of the nursemaid. “You’re not the only one with a baby, Gaius. You might think of saying congratulations.”

  “Congratulations,” he told her. “Where’s Flora?”

  His stepmother’s “I don’t know!” was more of a howl than a statement. “We thought she was in her room, but she isn’t there. The staff have been looking everywhere for her. Nobody’s seen her since this morning. You sister has gone missing!”

  Marcia rolled her eyes. “She’s not missing, Mother. She’s just not here.”

  Ruso said, “So where is she?”

  “It’s obvious.”

  “Why is it obvious?” cried her mother. “Your sister could have been stolen by slave traders and you don’t seem the least bit worried!”

  “It’s obvious,” Marcia repeated. “Flora’s gone to try and rescue her stupid boyfriend.”

  “Oh, no!” wailed Arria. “All the way to that awful man’s estate, and she hasn’t even taken her hat!”

  “Flora’s boyfriend owns an estate?” Ruso was more surprised by the boyfriend’s wealth than by his apparent awfulness.

  “No, silly, that’s where he works,” Marcia explained. “For that hideous old lecher—what’s his name?”

  “Sabinus,” supplied her mother.

  “Sabinus,” agreed Marcia. “The one who used to come and visit Pa and leer at me instead.”

  3

  Less than half an hour before, Ruso’s small party had heaved themselves and their luggage down from amongst a load of cloth bales being carried from the river port at Arelate to Nemausus. It struck him that if he had stayed with the cart, he might have passed Flora on the road. She must have gone on foot, because he could see their own farm vehicle standing unattended while the mules munched on the weeds growing out of the ditch. Had his sister planned to walk the couple of miles to Sabinus’s estate? What if some stranger had stopped to offer her a lift?