by Ruth Downie
“I can’t forget what I know, Ruso.”
“Then I’m not interested in anything else you have to say.”
“I’m sorry you see it that way,” said Metellus. “I wanted to thank you. And to explain one or two things.”
75
On the way back to Valens’s house, Ruso passed the chamber where he had promised Mithras a lamb in exchange for a baby. Had that brief guardianship of another man’s child been a cruel joke? Some kind of retaliation for his neglect of the correct rituals? He didn’t know. Perhaps he should have prayed to a god who was more interested in women. And if Tilla was praying to Christos and he was praying to somebody else, would the great ones work together, or cancel each other out in a fit of jealousy? He didn’t know that, either.
What he did know now, but was still finding hard to believe, was that Metellus had been involved with the whole Asper/Camma mess from the beginning. Metellus had tried to excuse himself, of course. It had been “only prudent” to install an agent in Verulamium with orders to investigate the alarming rumor of some agreement between the Iceni and the Catuvellauni. It was not Metellus’s fault that Asper had chosen to flirt with Camma on the pretext of seeking information. It was certainly not Metellus’s fault that Asper had lost sight of his orders and instigated a full-blown affair.
“I broke off all contact with him as soon as I found out,” Metellus explained. “It was clear that the man had no idea where his loyalties lay. So when he sent the first message saying he was investigating something of interest, I didn’t reply.”
“You told me you didn’t know anything about an investigation.”
“I lied,” said Metellus smoothly. “I was hoping you would find out what it was, and you have. I suppose he was planning to expose the forgery in an attempt to redeem himself. It’s a pity we can’t execute the forgers, but it would be politically inconvenient.”
“So why are you telling me this?”
Metellus’s sigh sounded genuinely regretful. “Because you seem to think I’m some kind of magician, Ruso. You seem to think that I know everything and I’m in control of everything. And I want you to understand that I’m not. Frankly, sending in Asper was a bad decision, and I’m grateful to you for sorting out what was going on up there. So I promise to do my best to have your wife’s name taken off the lists, but you must realize these things are widely circulated and copied and to be honest, I can’t guarantee to catch every-what are you- Ruso!”
It was too late: Neither the arms milling in the air nor the shriek of “No!” could halt his fall from the edge of the landing stage. Ruso was only sorry the tide was in.
Back at the house, Valens was working his way through a queue of patients while Serena was scolding the nursemaid and the cook for letting a sticky twin hide under the couch with the honey jar. He found Tilla upstairs clearing out the box of baby clothes. Leaning casually against the doorpost, he said, “I’ve just thrown Metellus in the river.”
For a moment there was no reaction. Then she put the little pair of sheepskin boots down on the bed and stared at him. “What did you say?”
“I’m sure I’ll regret it, but not yet. How did he know you’d been given stolen money last autumn?”
He was not fooled by the blank look.
“I told you to get rid of it,” he said. “What did you do with it?”
She picked up one of the boots and slid a couple of fingers inside. “We needed food for the journey.”
“But I specifically told you-”
“Yes. But we were leaving, and it was a waste to throw money away.”
He bent and snatched the boot away from her. “Listen to me! This is important. Somebody must have reported you. Now he’s put your name on one of his bloody security lists and he doesn’t seem to know how to take you off it.”
There were tears welling up in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said, thrusting the boot clumsily back into her hand. “I didn’t mean-it’s just that if I don’t frighten you, you don’t take me seriously.”
She picked up both boots and a soft woolen tunic and placed them back in the box. “I have let you down.”
He pushed the door shut behind him. “I asked you to do something, Tilla, and as usual you did the opposite.”
She did not answer.
“I’ve been trying to buy off Metellus by sorting out this mess in Verulamium, only that didn’t work, either, because when I asked you to stay at the mansio, you went off with the guards. Why do you do this to me?”
“Did he drown?”
“I doubt it. It wasn’t deep enough, unfortunately.” He slumped down on the bed beside her. “I can’t go on like this.”
She said, “There is something else I must tell you. Then we will decide about going on.”
He closed his eyes and lay back on the bed. He was not sure he wanted to hear anything else, but she began to speak anyway.
“After my family died and I went to live with the Northerners,” she said, “there was a man who would not leave me alone even though he had a wife already.”
“I know.”
“You do not know all of it. I found out I was with child. I told his wife. She brought a woman to help me.”
Help. A small word with a world of meanings.
“Afterward I was very ill. I think this is why you and I have no baby, and perhaps we never will, and I should have told you this before.”
He was conscious of his own breathing. It was almost hesitant, as if any sudden movement would shatter the fragile bond between them. He knew what she must be hoping to hear: something like, It doesn’t matter, or I don’t mind, or You are still a good wife to me. But it did matter, and he did mind, and he wished she had not told him. Metellus’s words came back to him: I can’t forget what I know.
“The Iceni said if I want to look after the baby I must go to live with them,” she said. “So now I am asking what you want. Because if you want a child of your own, and somebody who does what she is told, you must find a new wife.”
“Is that what you want?” he asked, his eyes still closed. “To go and live with the Iceni and bring up Camma’s baby?”
When she did not answer, he opened his eyes and sat up. “Is that what you want to do?” he repeated.
“I am asking what you want,” she said.
“I don’t think I can live with the Iceni, Tilla.”
“You were not invited.”
He shook his head. “I’ve never really… I always just assumed that somewhere in the valley of the unborn there was a son or a daughter waiting…” He stopped. “I need to think about it.”
“Yes.” She got to her feet. “I shall give the clothes to Serena. I expect she will be needing them before long.”
“I didn’t mind him, you know.” He scratched one ear. “He was a fine little chap.”
“Yes.”
“He would have done quite nicely, really. I’d have gotten used to the hair.”
“Yes.”
From somewhere in the garden came a burble of childish laughter. He reached forward, put his arms around her waist, and rested his head against the belly that was not holding his baby, and perhaps never would. “Everyone else,” he said. “Why not us?”
76
Ruso’s guess about Dias was more accurate than he had expected. Not only had Dias not received a medical discharge from the Third Brittones: His description along with his real name was found on a list of deserters stored among the records at the Residence. In the meantime Firmus had unearthed evidence that Rogatus was guilty of taking bribes and interfering with the Imperial post. The procurator was recommending that the governor condemn the pair to work in the Western mines, where lead and silver were extracted in conditions so poisonous that it was tantamount to a death sentence.
Firmus delivered this information to Ruso in person, looking very pleased with himself. “It was my idea,” he said, shifting sideways in an attempt to get comfortable on Valens’s couch. “And Un
cle agrees that it’s very appropriate. He’s going to clamp down on traveling officials demanding things they aren’t entitled to, as well. He says he’s glad I brought it to his attention. In fact, he’s written home to tell Mother I’ve made a good start.”
“What about Gallonius?”
“Oh, he’s more useful left where he is.”
“But-”
“He’ll tell the Council to offer Albanus the job of quaestor.”
“But-”
“Gallonius will do exactly what he’s told from now on, Ruso. Metellus has put his name on some sort of list.”
“I see.”
“He knows if he doesn’t behave, we’ll dig up your report and execute him for forgery.”
We. Firmus might have meant Rome, but more likely the word was shorthand for the procurator, the governor, Metellus-and me. The men who had agreed to leave a corrupt and murderous Briton in place because he was useful to them. Ruso hoped Albanus would think long and hard about that job offer.
“So as you see,” continued Firmus as he was leaving, “it’s all worked out rather well. Even though you really weren’t an investigator, were you?” He bent to squint at the pile of letters on the hall table. “Have you taken up clerking now?”
“Just writing to a few acquaintances,” explained Ruso. “Don’t worry, I won’t be using the official post.”
He stood in Valens’s doorway and watched the youth and his escort of guards strut off in the direction of the footbridge that led across the stream to the Residence. Pyramus was hobbling along behind. At this rate, Firmus would go back to Rome a success.
As for Ruso-he was living in a backward province with a barbarian wife whose name was probably on several security lists. They were both mourning the loss of a baby who belonged to neither of them, and of the other children who had existed only in their own imaginations. Instead of using his training and his ingenuity to help live patients, he had been wasting inordinate amounts of time investigating suspicious deaths and disappearances for the benefit of men who didn’t deserve it, and his career was no further forward than it had been when he first joined the army. He glanced down at his stack of requests for jobs in Britannia. He could not impose on Valens for much longer. He needed either to send them, or to burn them and go back to Gaul.
Valens had taken the apprentices out on a house call. Serena and the twins were visiting a friend for the afternoon. He found Tilla kneeling beside a freshly dug patch of earth in the garden. Her hands were smeared with wet mud. He crouched beside her, watching as she gently teased apart a web of delicate roots. The seedlings they belonged to looked as though they were clinging together in the last stages of exhaustion.
Finally she had several safely detached and lying limp and pale on the soil. “Lettuce,” she explained, stabbing a grimy finger twice into the earth before reaching for the jug behind her and filling the holes with water. Lifting a seedling by its undersized leaves, she lowered it into position and carefully firmed the mud around the wilting stem.
“They don’t look too happy,” he observed.
“Serena’s neighbor gave her a pot of seedlings,” she said. “She is not a gardener and cook is too busy, so they were left to starve on the windowsill.”
“Will they survive?”
She shrugged. “Lettuces do not like being moved. If they grow, there will be pigeons and slugs and small children. But the kitchen boy says he will water them, and I am glad they will have a chance.”
He stabbed more holes in line with the ones she had made, and trickled in more water. “I think I’ve made a bit of a mess of everything,” he confessed. “We did all that running around in Verulamium to get Metellus to take your name off that list, then when he talked about doing it, I threw him in the river. “
She lowered the next seedling into its new home and pressed the soil down. “I wish I had been there to see it.”
“Anyway,” he said, “I’ve come to apologize. You had a right to expect better of a husband.”
She looked up. “What do you think I should expect?”
He pondered the question. “Security?” he suggested. “Protection? Enough to live on and a roof over your head. Now the only way I can make sure you’re safe is to ask you to come back to Gaul with me, and I know you don’t want to live there.”
She sat back on her heels. “This is what you think marriage is? Having no enemies and somewhere to put the crockery?”
In the silence that followed, he felt her reach for his hand. “What I expected,” she said as the mud squelched and grated between their fingers, “was this man who tries to do the right thing even when it is foolish.”
For a few moments they were so still that a robin flew down and stabbed at the soil in front of them before darting off to safety.
“Right.” Ruso got to his feet.
“You could stay here and help.”
“I’ll be back soon,” he promised. “You carry on saving lives. This foolish man needs to wash his hands and send out a big pile of letters.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Verulamium’s theater was finally built about twenty years after this story is set, and its remains can still be seen. The site of the Great Hall lies just across the road, but its foundations are buried deep beneath Saint Michael’s Church, and with them the putative location of the strong room. Sadly, no details of the town Council’s business-unruly or otherwise-survive. The more respectable of the proceedings here are based on bronze tablets recording the constitution of the Roman town of Irni in Seville.
Anyone who shares my delight in obscure facts will be pleased to know that there really was a crackdown on abuses of the transport system in the early years of Hadrian’s reign, including a survey of British milestones, although the name of the procurator who would have been in charge of them is not known. Nor is the location of his office, but it seemed reasonable to place such an important man in one of the grandest buildings in town.
A couple of good books for anyone wanting more detailed background are:
Verulamium: The Roman City of St Albans by Rosalind Niblett
The Coinage of Roman Britain by Richard Reece.
Many readers will already have had the pleasure of visiting Verulamium Museum and park, the British Museum, and the Museum of London. For those who cannot make the trip, all have good Web sites, and at the time of writing, the Museum of London’s Online Collections include a fascinating microsite exploring Roman London at: http://www. museumoflondon.org.uk/English/Collections/OnlineResources/Londinium/.
Finally, for anyone lucky enough to stumble across something our ancestors left behind, or who wants to see what others have found, www.finds.org.uk is the place to look.
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