Caveat emptor mi-4

by Ruth Downie

  “She is tired and upset and the neighbors want to rob her. She says Asper was trying to get them both out of here but he never told her how.”

  He glanced at his wife, noting the delicate lines of strain around her eyes. This was definitely not the right time to tell her about Metellus.

  He felt a surge of anger with Camma. If he had known the full story at the beginning, he might have been able to sort this business out before Metellus got involved. Now the best he could hope for was to extricate them both without Tilla ever knowing her name had been on that list.

  As they passed an expanse of weedy gravel being grazed by a tethered goat, he gave her a version of events in Londinium that gave no hint of Metellus’s involvement. Finally they stopped outside a two-story house where a carpenter was measuring up to replace a splintered door jamb. The man responded to Tilla’s greeting with a grunt of, “It’s a job,” as if he was justifying himself to someone who was not there.

  Ruso told his guards to wait outside. Tilla led him down a gap between the house and a bronzesmith’s workshop. “That man should not complain,” she said as he followed her out into a garden where a few scraps of laundry were dripping onto the vegetable patch. “I paid him double to work late so we can lock up when we go to the funeral.” She paused with one hand on the back door. “I told you, nobody wants to help.”

  The kitchen smelled of cabbage, which must be what was bubbling under a layer of scum in the pot. Ruso looked around in vain for a more appetizing snack, then pulled a stool up to the table and tried to imagine what it must be like to be the owner of this comfortably appointed house. The chair by the hearth was elegantly carved and the walls had a fresh coat of cream paint with no signs of damp. Asper had done well for himself here.

  He had then undermined his success by seducing the wife of a powerful man. Instead of fleeing town with her, he had stayed and carried on his business under the husband’s mustached nose while the unfaithful wife grew large with his own illegitimate child. What sort of man did a thing like that? He couldn’t imagine. Nor could he imagine any innocent reason why the husband might invite Asper to visit him, nor why Asper might take the tax money with him if he were bold enough to accept.

  Tilla returned and closed the door quietly. “They are both sleeping in the front room.” She gave the pot a stir and then sat down heavily in the chair by the fire. “She does not want to go to an empty bed.”

  “Is she helping, or are you doing all the work?”

  Tilla shrugged. “She needs to rest. She has many problems and a baby to look after. Perhaps she will be better after the funeral.”

  “You aren’t arranging that as well, are you?”

  She stifled a yawn as she said, “The captain of your guards said he would do it in the morning.”

  “I’m glad one person’s helping.”

  Tilla said, “He is helping because he is embarrassed. We caught him stealing the furniture.”

  “Dias?” Ruso wondered if she had misunderstood something. The guard captain was supposed to arrest thieves, not act as one.

  “He says Asper owed him money.”

  There was a lot here he did not understand himself. “I really need to talk to Camma again.”

  “Not now,” she said. “But I have tried to ask her some questions for you.”

  It seemed that on the day they disappeared, Asper and his brother had been to work as usual in the morning. A message had arrived just before midday asking them to visit Caratius, and later on they had changed into their best clothes and set off with no luggage and no mention of taxes or guards. As far as Camma knew, they had been planning a trip to Londinium the day after.

  “She told him not to go,” Tilla said before he could interrupt, “but he thought it was to agree on a price to pay for the dishonor. He had been waiting for Caratius to ask. She offered to go with him, but he said seeing her would make Caratius even more angry.”

  That made sense.

  “At home when something like this happens, there is a…’ She paused. “What is the word? Someone who comes in between who does not take sides.”

  “Arbiter?” he suggested.

  “Yes. He thought there would be somebody there with Caratius. He took Bericus to represent him.”

  He said, “Who brought the message?”

  Tilla paused. “I think the housekeeper took it. I should have asked her.”

  “We can do that later. I want to ask her how the brothers got along, as well. I’ve been told that they argued.”

  Tilla nodded. “Bericus said he should stay away from Camma.”

  His wife had certainly been busy. He said, “Is it possible the brother took a bribe to attack Asper and then run away?”

  Tilla shrugged. “Camma says no, but I do not know the man.”

  “And if he did,” he said, “where did the tax money go?”

  “Perhaps it was the brother’s reward.”

  “Really? How much do you imagine it costs to get someone murdered in a place like this?”

  “At home it can be done for two cows. If you know the right person.”

  She might have been discussing the price of a loaf of bread.

  “Here, they are greedy. And a brother would cost a lot more.”

  “Even so,” he said, “it can’t possibly run to seven thousand denarii.”

  “Who knows?” She shrugged. “Perhaps Caratius and the brother shared it. Perhaps both brothers are dead and Caratius has it.”

  “Or it’s gone to someone else entirely. This is getting us nowhere.”

  There was a thump and the rasp of a saw from the front of the house. The carpenter had cheered up. He was whistling.

  Tilla gestured toward the pot of cabbage. “I spent most of the money getting the door mended, but there is food. Will you stay for supper?”

  He shook his head, feeling guilty about the luxury of Suite Three while his wife was struggling to run a house, comfort the bereaved, and boil cabbage. He said, “I’ll ask the manager at the mansio if his wife knows a housekeeper.” He paused, realizing he had almost failed to pass on a major piece of news. “You won’t believe this, but Serena’s here.”

  “I know this.”

  “Her cousin’s married to the chap who runs the-what?”

  “Valens told me this morning. He asked me to talk to her. I said he must talk to her himself.”

  “You might have warned me!”

  She said, “I forgot. But when there is time I will go and say hello.”

  At the moment, they both had bigger things to worry about. Digging into his purse for some of the money Valens had loaned him earlier this afternoon, he tipped it onto the table and then got to his feet. “I have to go.”

  “So soon?”

  He bent and kissed her on the forehead. He wondered if she really was carrying his child this time. It was too soon to tell. “Get an early night,” he told her. “It’ll be a difficult day tomorrow.”

  “Will you come to the funeral?”

  “I’ll try,” he promised. “You never know, I might have some answers by then. Caratius has invited me to dinner.”

  “Caratius? I will pray to Christos and his father to keep you safe.”

  “If you must. But he’s not going to do anything to a procurator’s man.”

  “If he thinks you suspect-”

  “He won’t,” he promised. “Besides, I’ve got two guards and the other magistrate knows I’m going there.”

  She called across the kitchen, “What if the guards are working for him?”

  “Of course they aren’t,” he assured her as he stepped out into the garden, not wanting her to worry.

  When he emerged into the street, the guards stationed themselves one on each side of him. It occurred to him that these men worked for the Council of which Caratius was a senior member. There was no need for Tilla to worry, because he could do enough worrying for himself.

  35

  Publius’s wife was on duty in the recept
ion area of the mansio. She seemed unexpectedly pleased to see Ruso, declaring, “I knew I’d met you somewhere before!”

  He mumbled something conciliatory. It was not the time to reminisce. It had been a long day, his hunger had overwhelmed the temporary relief of the pastries, and he was probably already late for his meal with Caratius.

  “You were one of the doctors stationed at Deva. Don’t you remember me? I’m Paula. You and Valens came to our house for dinner.”

  “I do,” agreed Ruso, not adding that he remembered this elegantly coiffed young woman as one of a pair of giggly girls. The dinner invitation had been part of Valens’s campaign to impress Serena, a campaign that had unfortunately succeeded.

  “I always liked you best,” she said. “I told Serena, but she wouldn’t listen. You can’t trust a man who’s too good looking. He’s had other women down there while she’s been away, you know.”

  Women? In the plural? He said, “Are you sure?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  It seemed Valens had been busy in the short space between Serena’s leaving and his own arrival. In the face of such certainty, his “I didn’t see any women” made it sound as though he had failed to notice them hiding under the beds.

  “We know everything that goes on, you know,” the cousin assured him. “We’re only twenty miles away and we have friends. Why don’t you join us for dinner and we can all hear one another’s news?”

  Verulamium was a remarkably hospitable town. He had been in the place only a few hours and this was his third invitation to dinner. Sadly none of them was as appealing as his original plan to wolf down something tasty and filling before catching up on last night’s lost sleep in the comfort of Suite Three.

  He explained that he had been invited out this evening. He was almost at the door when he paused and turned to ask her how late the staff would be on duty. “I’m told Caratius lives out of town,” he explained, “so I may be late back from dinner, but I’ll definitely be sleeping here tonight and I’d like an early breakfast.”

  Her promise to alert the night porter and the kitchen staff was doubly reassuring. Not only were several people now expecting him back this evening, but his guards, waiting out on the steps, would have overheard him telling her.

  Had Julius Asper been trying to protect himself in the same way when he told Camma where he was going? Or had he been lying to confuse any pursuers while he escaped with the money?

  When Ruso emerged from the mansio he found the big guard lounging against the wall by himself. Gavo snapped to attention, explaining that his comrade had gone next door to check the arrangements for the horses. Ruso was not sorry. He wanted a private word with Gavo. He wanted to know what the young man had seen while he had been escorting the magistrate around Londinium.

  Making the excuse of collecting his cloak, Ruso led him back through reception and out past the garden toward Suite Three.

  “So, what did you make of being invited into a postmortem?” was perhaps not the best way to start a conversation, but it turned out that Gavo was sorry he’d missed most of it. In fact, he was sorry he hadn’t been able to spend longer in Londinium. Freed from the watchful eye of his companion, he turned out to be remarkably talkative. Incredibly, since Londinium was only twenty miles away, it turned out to be his first trip. “As an adult, sir,” he added, clearly eager to make sure Ruso did not think he was some sort of unsophisticated bumpkin. “We used to go there when my father was alive.”

  Ruso concluded with some relief that Gavo on his own was unlikely to be much of a threat. While he gathered up his cloak, the young man explained that his father had been a leatherworker, but he had joined the guards to better himself. “Dias says I might even be able to go for the army in a year or two,” he added. “He was on the way to being a centurion himself, sir. Till he got invalided out with his back.”

  “Sounds as though you’re getting good experience,” said Ruso, locking the door once more and hoping the youth had not been too busy chatting to notice him checking his knife. “Were you Caratius’s sole escort or part of a team?”

  “Just me and the magistrate’s personal slaves, sir.” Gavo looked pleased with himself. “Usually Dias gets all these-” Whatever word he was about to use, he stifled it and said, “All the Londinium duties. But he put me on the roster to go instead.”

  “I don’t suppose you got much of a chance to look round, having to stay with the magistrate and then come straight back.”

  “Oh, no, sir! Once the magistrate was settled in with his friend, I was off duty.”

  As they clattered down the mansio steps, Ruso said, “That was very generous of him.”

  “Yes, sir.” Gavo cleared his throat as if there was something he was not supposed to say. “So I went out exploring.”

  Ruso wondered if he should make inquiries about Caratius’s friend. There couldn’t be that many priests of Jupiter.

  “There’s a few good brewers down there, I can tell you.” The big face split into a rueful grin. “I had a storming headache on the way home.”

  “You should be careful,” said Ruso, alarmed by the very naivete he was himself exploiting. “It’s not a good idea to go drinking in a strange town on your own.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t on my own, sir,” the lad assured him. “Dias showed me round.”

  Ruso felt his whole body tense. As casually as he could he said, “So your captain was in Londinium as well?”

  The youth looked uncomfortable. “It was a personal matter, sir. Nothing to do with the magistrate. You won’t mention it to him tonight, will you, sir?”

  They turned in at the stable gate. Ruso glimpsed another chain-mailed figure bending to tighten a girth as he chatted to the stable overseer. He said, “Is there a reason you don’t want me to mention it to Caratius?”

  “Not to Caratius, sir-”

  The other guard straightened up and Ruso saw who it was.

  “I’d rather you didn’t say anything to Dias, sir. He’s the other half of your escort tonight.”

  36

  They rode out beneath the arch of the south gate, Ruso automatically returning the gatekeeper’s salute as they passed. It was a scene that, captured in a painting, would have said all the right things about the benevolent rule of Rome. The procurator’s man on a gleaming bay gelding, accompanied by his smart native escort, all riding out of town on a spring evening to enjoy dinner with an influential Briton in his country house.

  The painter could not have depicted the thud of Ruso’s heart as they left the safety of the town and headed out past the cemetery that would soon hold the remains of the murdered Julius Asper. Dias had been in Londinium all along. No picture could have captured the turmoil in his mind as he eyed the lithe form on the horse beside him and tried to recall the shape he had grabbed in Valens’s hallway. Was that a bruise just visible under the scarlet sleeve? Had that hood been hiding not a mangled ear but a flamboyant hairstyle shot through with red threads?

  Dias was about the right height and build. There was no evidence now of any back problem that might prevent him from climbing in through the kitchen window. Either he had met a good doctor, or he had made one of the miraculous recoveries that disaffected soldiers sometimes enjoyed after medical discharge.

  If Dias had been secretly working for the magistrate in Londinium it was not clear why he had bothered to take Gavo out drinking, but perhaps he was genuinely concerned to keep his protege out of trouble. In any case, the youth’s presence might not have restricted him for long. Already flattered at being chosen for the Londinium trip, Gavo must have been thrilled to be offered a tour of the town in the company of his hero. He could have been too drunk to know when the evening ended or what either of them had been up to.

  They were topping the gentle rise beyond the cemetery now. The spring sun was still above the trees but he was glad of his cloak: The sky was clear and it would be cold later. Apart from a donkey cart and a shawled woman hurrying along behind it, all of the traff
ic was heading the other way. Sensible travelers would be settled safely in town before nightfall. Ruso, on the other hand, was following the road out across open fields to visit a suspect who had a motive for murdering Julius Asper. He was in the company of an armed man he could no longer trust and a junior guard who, if the choice came, would follow his leader.

  If I were you, I’d watch my back. Publius had warned him. Tilla had warned him. He was an official employee and several people knew where he was going, but none of those things had saved Julius Asper.

  He sneaked another glance at Dias, riding easily beside him. Now they were out on the open road, the man had added a long sword to his personal armory, dwarfing the wicked-looking knife he always wore on his belt. Why was the captain of the town guard bothering to perform a simple escort duty? He recalled the confused fight in Valens’s hallway, and the crater left in the plaster that might easily have been in his own head. If Dias realized he was under suspicion, then Ruso was in trouble. Besides, with Dias watching his every move, how the hell was he supposed to investigate anything? On the other hand, if he investigated nothing, that would look suspicious too.

  He nudged the borrowed gelding over toward Dias’s mount. Above the gentle jingling of the fancy bridle trappings, he said, “I’m told Asper owed you money?”

  “Not me. The lads. Wages for guard duty. I went to the house to find something to pay them with.”

  “Any luck?”

  “Didn’t have time. Some woman thought I was a burglar and went for me with a knife.”

  Ruso could guess which woman that had been.

  Dias carried on scanning the surrounding fields for the trouble that Ruso now suspected he was more likely to cause than to prevent. They were passing an overgrown track that led off to the left when he said, “That’s where the carriage was picked up. Stuck on a branch about twenty yards down.”

  “Where does it lead?”

  “A couple of farms. We asked around but nobody saw anything.”