by Ruth Downie
He closed his eyes, told his slithering mind to get a grip, and looked again. Now she was standing with her loosened curls haloed in the lamp, swirling sludgy gray liquid around in the vial and apparently mouthing words to it.
There would be an explanation. There was always an explanation with Tilla, but not necessarily a logical one and not one he wanted to listen to after a long day. He had a vague memory of wanting to ask her something, but whatever it was could wait. He let his eyes drift shut and left her to carry on. Thus he was totally unprepared to be woken by a rush of cold air, a warm body straddling his overfull stomach, and a voice announcing from above, “I am ready for you, husband!”
“Huh?”
“Now. While the medicine is working.”
He opened his eyes and surveyed his naked and wild-haired wife with more alarm than desire. “What medicine?”
“It is spring, and the moon is waxing. It is a good time to make a child.”
He swallowed. “Right now?”
The eyes that were not blue but were not really green, either, fixed on his own. “Right now,” she declared, and reached across him to pinch out the bedside lamp.
Sometime later, vaguely aware that it was still dark despite the screech of a neighbor’s cockerel, he heard her say, “And another thing. This bed is too hard.”
He mumbled, “Perhaps the beds will be better in Verulamium.”
“I hope many things will be better.” He guessed this referred to their latest attempt to produce an heir, which had been swiftly concluded and followed-as far as he could remember-by his drifting off to sleep while she was still talking. She said, “I have told Camma she can travel with us tomorrow.”
He grunted his assent.
Outside, the cockerel again shrieked the start of a nonexistent dawn. He said, “Somebody ought to put that bloody bird in the pot.”
“It is good we are not at home in Brigantia.”
In the silence that followed, he wondered what the Brigantes did with poultry.
“Nobody at home will find out I have married a tax man.”
Ruso sighed. There was, he decided, a fundamental incompatibility between women and men. Women could not just get on and do things. They had to decide how they felt about doing them, and then they had to tell you how they felt, and then they expected you to do something about it, no matter how irrational their feelings might be. He had tried to explain to her that modern living needed money, that for ordinary people money came from taking a job, and that a job inevitably involved a man going where he was told and doing what he was paid to do when he got there. There were times when the question of whether his wife would approve was not uppermost in his mind.
“I’m not a tax man,” he pointed out, deciding it would not help to admit that he could not care less whether the Britons paid their taxes. “I’m an investigator. Besides, you were the one who wanted me to look for the missing husband.”
“I have been thinking about that. Do not look too hard.”
“What?” He rolled over to face her in the dark. “It’s too late now. I’ve got everybody from the procurator’s office downward on the lookout. Even Albanus is spreading the word.”
“He does not deserve her, or his beautiful son. What sort of a man leaves his family for a bag of money?”
“She says he hasn’t taken the money.”
“Of course she says this. He is a tax collector. He has lied to her and run away with his brother. She will be better off without him.”
Ruso lay on his back with his eyes closed and marveled at the speed with which his wife could change her mind.
Outside the window there was a soft pattering of rain, followed by the unsteady rhythms of dripping from the eaves. Farther along the landing he could hear the rasping cry of the newborn child keeping its mother awake in the room usually occupied by Valens’s children. Tomorrow, he vowed, he would go and find the temple of a suitable god. He would give thanks for a safe journey and offer whatever the priests thought might be appropriate in exchange for an heir. It could do no harm.
He was just beginning to drift back to sleep when the cockerel jolted him awake with another fanfare. He felt a flash of irritation. Somebody ought to wring that feathery neck. He would cheerfully do it himself. But that would mean leaving a warm bed, groping for his boots, creeping down the stairs, and prowling wet lanes and gardens in the dark. Instead he said, “There should be a law against keeping a bird like that in town.”
“He should be in a house with a good low roof to keep his head down,” said Tilla. “When you find proper work and we have a home, I shall keep hens.”
“It’ll be easier to get work as a medic now I’m here,” he promised her. “I’ll start writing to people in a day or two.”
“Perhaps they will want a doctor in Verulamium.”
He said, “Don’t say that to anybody up there, will you?”
“You are proud to work for the tax man and ashamed to be a healer?”
“I can’t get on with inquiries if people keep asking me to look at their bunions.”
“Be careful, husband. It is bad enough this Julius Asper is a tax collector, but a man who would leave a wife like that will do anything. If they are still around and they know you are chasing them, they will try to stop you.”
He slid one arm around her waist, drawing her close so that her hair tickled his nose. “I’ll be safe,” he promised. “I’ve got a fierce British warrior-woman to defend me.”
Tilla said something that sounded like, “Hmph.”
He remembered what he had wanted to ask her earlier. “Has Valens said anything to you about Serena?”
“She was a fool to marry him.”
Ruso assumed this insight had originated from Tilla rather than Valens. A worrying thought crossed his mind. “You haven’t been talking to him about us, have you?”
“You think I would talk to Valens?”
He had to admit it was hard to imagine. “So where did you get that medicine?”
There was a pause, then, “From somebody I met.”
Clearly she was not going to tell him. “And did this somebody tell you what was in it?”
After a moment’s hesitation she said, “Ashes of hare’s stomach in wine.”
“Ah.” He had heard hare recommended as a treatment for barrenness. “Anything else?”
“Roast sparrow.”
Another cure more often endorsed by rumor than by experience. “Let’s hope it works.”
“She would not tell me the other things.”
“Probably just as well,” he said, glad that they would be leaving in the morning. Whoever had sold Tilla that concoction would have to find some other desperate woman to exploit.
10
The guardians of the sunken chamber of Mithras did not seem to think the god would be overeager to help a man who had never bothered with him during all his years in the army. In truth, the officers’ favorite god would not have been Ruso’s first choice, but he did not have time to hunt around for another deity this morning. Finally the guardians sized him up and agreed that an unblemished lamb would be a sufficient offering to make should the great one grant him a son, although unless Ruso were to go through the proper initiations, divine assistance was unlikely. Ruso duly descended into the gloom and made his promise to the god. Stepping over a wide puddle outside the exit, he crushed the unholy thought that the guardians might be partial to roast lamb. He had more important things to think about.
He could not understand why Camma was convinced the Council was behind her husband’s disappearance, nor why they in turn seemed to suspect him and his brother of running off with the money. Tax collection was a form of licensed theft anyway. It was hard to see what Asper might gain by becoming a real criminal when he could sit comfortably where he was, charging over the odds and growing legally rich on a fat percentage of the receipts. It was the only reason for anyone to take on such an unpopular role in the first place. If the red-haired Icen
i wife had been the problem, he could have divorced her. It was surely far more likely that the men had been attacked by robbers on the road.
He would find out the real story when he got to Verulamium. In the meantime, he needed to collect the warrants and get across to the stables before other travelers booked all the vehicles.
Over at the Residence, the builders were tying another layer onto the scaffold. Behind a stack of poles he found the office of the underclerk whose job it was to issue warrants for the use of official transport. No, the warrants were not ready. Yes, the request had been sent across yesterday. But no permits could be issued to a new user before he turned up in person. Procedures had been tightened up. The emperor had given orders to crack down on abuse. Not that the clerk was suggesting in any way, of course… but since the other traveler appeared to be a native woman…
“She’s my translator,” explained Ruso. “I’ll vouch for her.” He would also pay the fee of a sestertius that might, like the new rules, be official. On the other hand, it might be the clerk’s drinking money. He did not have time to argue. He would put the money on his list of expenses for Firmus, along with the name of the man who had demanded it.
As he handed over the cash the man said, “Oh, and there’s a message for you from the assistant procurator, sir. He needs to see you urgently.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that straightaway?”
“You said you wanted your permits immediately, sir.”
Crushing the warrants in his fist, Ruso strode across the courtyard. With luck, Firmus was about to tell him that the missing men had turned up, the cash had been delivered, and he could get on with finding somebody who wanted to hire a surgeon.
In fact, what Firmus wanted to tell him was that someone had just reported the discovery of a body that fitted the description of Julius Asper. “He tried to claim some sort of reward, but the staff sent him packing.”
“Ah,” said Ruso, wishing he had remembered to warn Firmus about the reward.
“But even if the body is one of our men, it seems he didn’t have the money with him.”
“I see,” said Ruso, wondering whether Firmus had really imagined that the finder might hand over the cash.
“Let’s hope the other one turns up soon,” said Firmus cheerfully. “Verulamium will have to talk to the procurator about the money, but at least our problem will be solved.”
“That depends on how he died,” said Ruso, hoping it was not Asper at all. No matter what Tilla said, the wife clearly did not think she would be better off without him.
“Does it matter how he died?”
“I’ll let you know,” promised Ruso.
The body was in a narrow and vile-smelling alleyway that ran up from the docks between the yard of the Blue Moon-the inn he had seen from the ship yesterday-and the back wall of a stable block. It was indeed that of a tallish, thirtyish, brown-haired man who was graying at the temples and had a crescent-shaped scar under his right eye. Apart from a flushed complexion and the awkward angle of his head, he looked as though he had chosen this soft patch of mud at the foot of a damp wall to settle down, close his eyes, and worry about his problems. After shooing off a gaggle of curious children, Ruso crouched beside him and slid two fingers behind the jaw in what he knew would be a futile hunt for a pulse. The chill of the clammy skin and the stiffness of the corpse suggested the man had been dead for hours. Despite that, neither his cloak nor his sturdy new boots had been stolen.
“Is that him, then, boss?” The innkeeper who had reported the find was one of the people Ruso had approached during yesterday’s search: a round-shouldered optimist who seemed to think that combing the remains of his hair forward would hide its retreat underneath.
Ruso pulled the thin blanket up again so that only the head was showing. He beckoned to one of the procurator’s income clerks, who was standing in the sunshine at the foot of the alley with a couple of porters. The man picked his way through the mud with obvious reluctance, gave a quick look, and confirmed that this was the man who had delivered taxes from Verulamium. Moments later Ruso watched him hurry away with orders to tell Firmus that Asper had been found, and that a full report would arrive later. He would give the wife the bad news himself. Then he would have to resume the hunt for Bericus.
“Glad to be of service, sir,” said the innkeeper. “I thought he was a drunk to start off with, but he looks too good, don’t he?”
Good was a relative term. “It was you who found him?”
“First thing this morning, when I come out to empty the slops.”
No wonder the alley smelled so bad.
“We sent a message straight off, in case it was your man.”
Instead of replying, Ruso bent to examine the pattern of nails in the victim’s boots. Then he checked to remind himself what his own footprints looked like and surveyed the mud of the alleyway. “Show me your shoes.”
“Very clever, sir,” observed the innkeeper. “I can tell you’re an investigator. Looking for footprints, eh?”
Ruso walked the short distance to the top of the alley, looked both ways along the street, and strolled back again.
“Any luck, sir?”
“Can’t say,” lied Ruso. Any footprints that might have led to a villain had been obscured, either by himself, the procurator’s man, the curious children, or the innkeeper. The innkeeper seemed to have circled the body several times to view it from different angles and run up and down the alleyway, perhaps in search of help.
“Can you get him moved, sir? I got work to do and the wife don’t like cooking with a body around the back.”
Ruso got to his feet and beckoned to the slaves he had borrowed from the procurator’s office. They were carrying one of the builder’s ladders, pressed into service as a stretcher. “You found him first thing this morning? So he’d been out here all night?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir.”
“Did you hear anything out here after dark?”
“Not a thing, sir. Well, no more than usual. Usually something or other sets the dog going, but they clear off once he starts.”
“And you’ve never seen him before?”
“Never, boss. I’d have told you yesterday.”
“I see,” said Ruso, reaching up to trail one finger along the soft moss growing on the high wall of the inn yard. As he did so, a furious deep-throated barking erupted. He withdrew the hand as something began to scrabble at the wall from the other side.
“It’s all right, Cerberus!” shouted the innkeeper. “Settle down!”
The din subsided and Ruso turned to help his stretcher bearers. “Doctor Valens’s house,” he ordered them. “Go straight to the surgery entrance, not the main door. Tell whoever answers that it’s from Ruso and not to say a word to the rest of the house. I’ll sort everything out when I get there.”
The slaves set off to carry the remains of Julius Asper down the alleyway. Ruso examined the area where he had been lying. It was just as wet as the ground around it.
“Now that you’ve found him, sir,” prompted the innkeeper, “who do I see about the reward?”
Ruso leaned back against the wall and checked that his knife was in place before folding his arms in a deliberately casual stance. “You won’t be getting the reward,” he said. “It’s more likely you’ll be tried for murdering him.”
“Me, sir? Oh no, you’ve got that all wrong!”
“What was he doing in your yard?”
The innkeeper opened his mouth to protest further. The only sound that came out was a faint squeak. He gestured toward the mud as if expecting it to answer for him. Finally he exhaled. “It’s not how it looks, sir. I swear.”
“I hope not.”
“It’s the wife, sir. I told her not to get involved, but she’s softhearted. Three-legged dogs, pigeons with broken wings-you name it, she takes it in. She’s soft, see? I keep telling her, it’s no good being too soft. Now look what’s happened.”
“I’ll need to tal
k to both of you.”
“Me, I said we should tell you the truth straight off. It was her what said nobody would believe us. And we was only trying to help him, poor bugger.”
Whatever their intentions, Asper was beyond help now.
The innkeeper was shaking his head. “I knew it would never work,” he continued. “I told her, we don’t know nothing about this sort of thing. Footprints and so on. We never thought about footprints.”
Ruso said nothing. They had not thought about the man’s clothes, either, which had been dry despite the rain in the early hours of the morning. Nor had they noticed that the efforts to heave Julius Asper over their yard wall had scraped off some of the moss, which had landed in the mud beneath him. Since nobody else could have got past the dog, they were the only plausible culprits.
The man ran one hand through his hair, then hastily smoothed it forward over the bald patch. “How much trouble are we in, sir?”
“That depends on what you’ve done,” said Ruso. “And don’t waste my time with any more tales, because you’re an even worse liar than I am.”
11
Since coming back to Britannia, Ruso seemed to have discovered an ability to frighten people. Yesterday he had scared off two small boys in the street, and today he had managed to terrify an innkeeper’s wife. She now sat opposite him, weeping over a kitchen table still scattered with vegetable peelings and cat hair. The husband sat next to her, grimfaced. His defense for dumping a dead man and then pretending to find him again seemed to be that they were only trying to help and, “We didn’t know what else to do.”
Privately Ruso felt that this sentence would have been more honest if it had ended, “We didn’t know what else to do to get the procurator’s reward,” but for the moment he was more interested in finding out what the elusive Julius Asper had been doing here all alone in the first place.
“One of the boatmen sent him here yesterday morning,” said the innkeeper.
