Vita Brevis

by Ruth Downie

  “You want me to value them for you?”

  “I need to find the men he sent to ask about them. I want to tell those men we have changed our minds.”

  “It wasn’t me, lady.”

  “I know it was not you,” she agreed, “but I do not know who they were, and they did not leave a name.”

  The man dislodged a few clumps of hair with one finger, then tucked them back behind his ear. “Let me get this right,” he said. “You’ve got the furniture somebody else left behind when he moved out. He sent a man to ask you to pay for it, and you said no.”

  “Two men.”

  “And these two men went away, leaving you with the stuff.”

  “Yes.”

  “And they haven’t come back to ask for money.”

  “Not yet.”

  The man glanced at Narina, as if wondering if she might take her mistress home for a quiet lie-down. “But you’re trying to find them so you can pay anyway,” he said.

  “Yes.” Put like that, she had to admit that it did not make a great deal of sense. She lowered her head and looked up at him from under the wisps of hair that always escaped no matter what she did to tame them. “My husband was not at home when they came,” she told him. “I didn’t want to let strangers into the house, so I sent them away. But now I am afraid Doctor Kleitos will sell it all to somebody else and then they will send the men to collect it and we will lose it and I will be in trouble.”

  “Ah.”

  “So that is why I am trying to find the men who are dealing with it.” She tugged at a strand of hair in a way that she hoped would look nervous. “I was thinking if you can find them for us, you could have a commission or something.” She was not sure if that made any sense at all, but at least the man did not laugh at the idea.

  He held out one dirty hand as if he would have liked to touch her but did not quite dare. “I’ll put the word out, miss,” he promised. “Don’t you worry. I’ll see you’re all right.”

  “I hope so.” She gave him her very best silly-wife smile and said, “You are very kind.”

  “And if I can’t find them,” he said, “You come back with your husband and I’ll do you a good deal on a few things here.”

  37

  “Out?” Ruso demanded. “Out where?”

  Esico didn’t know. The mistress had only said she would not be long.

  “What are you supposed to do if patients come?”

  “I ask them to wait.” Esico pushed open the door and announced proudly in Latin, “There he is.”

  He was, but the man standing examining the contents of the shelves was not a patient.

  “Ruso!”

  “Hello, Metellus.”

  “I seem to have come at an awkward time.”

  “Sorry you’ve had to wait. I think Tilla’s been called to an emergency.”

  “Of course,” said Metellus, who probably understood enough British to know what had been said at the door. “Good to see you’ve found a place, although I was sorry to hear about your difficult start.”

  “It’s all sorted out now,” Ruso assured him, wondering if he had been here long enough to search the whole apartment or just the surgery.

  “A body. It must have been very unpleasant. Someone playing some sort of practical joke, do you think?”

  Ruso hitched himself up to sit on the table and indicated a seat to Metellus. “We suspect my predecessor was in debt.” Having started this story, he was going to have to stick to it.

  Metellus swung a leg over the patients’ stool. “I could help you find out.”

  “I think we have more urgent things to deal with.”

  “Sadly, yes. The murder of your very important patient.”

  “He hit his head on the pavement. We don’t know he was murdered.”

  “Yes we do, Ruso. We’re working for Publius Accius, and that’s what we have been hired to prove.”

  Ruso let out a long breath. “I’m surprised you were prepared to take this on, given your view of Accius.”

  “I have no particular view of Accius. I merely told you you’d need better connections to get on here. He’s a young man with very limited influence, not because he’s an opponent of Hadrian—I don’t think he is—but because ever since some of Hadrian’s rather overeager supporters executed one of his relations, people haven’t trusted him.”

  “That hardly seems fair.”

  “I agree. He was a good officer when we were in Britannia, and he needs help.”

  “And the urban prefect’s office is happy for you to do that?”

  “The urban prefect is always keen to maintain good order. The murder of a successful businessman by one of the emperor’s building contractors could lead to all sorts of difficulties.”

  “What is it you do for the prefect’s office, exactly?”

  But before Metellus could slide around the question they were interrupted by a call of “We are back!” from Tilla, who had evidently been warned that he was with a patient.

  “Metellus is here, wife!” Ruso named the visitor in a cheery tone, as if their visitor were someone she might be pleased to meet.

  A face appeared around the door. “What did you—?” She stopped.

  Metellus got to his feet and bowed.

  After a moment Tilla remembered to close her mouth. Then she said, “What is he doing here?”

  “Darlughdacha of the Corionotatae. A pleasure to see you again after so long.”

  “Is it?”

  As far as Ruso knew, this was the first time anyone had addressed Tilla by her proper name since they had said their farewells to her family in Britannia.

  “It must be—how long since Eboracum?” Metellus ventured. “A year?”

  Instead of replying, Tilla urged Narina to hurry through to the kitchen and take the baby with her. It seemed she did not even want their visitor to hear Mara’s name.

  “Metellus is working for Publius Accius too,” Ruso told her, trying to convey as much information as possible before she said something they would both regret. “We’re going to be investigating the death of Balbus.”

  She said, “Why?”

  “Accius is concerned that—”

  “I think what she means is,” Metellus put in, “why me?”

  “That is what I mean.”

  Metellus stepped aside, offering her the stool he had been sitting on. Tilla glanced at her husband, then brushed invisible dirt from the seat before using it. “Well?” she demanded, looking from one to the other of them.

  Metellus gestured to Ruso, inviting him to speak.

  “You try,” Ruso offered. “It’s beyond me.”

  “Publius Accius,” Metellus began, “believes Balbus was poisoned by a builder who wants to marry Horatia. He believes that by combining your husband’s skills as a medicus with my skills in obtaining information, we can reveal the truth.”

  “In Britannia, you tortured people.”

  Metellus nodded. “Britannia is a difficult province,” he said. “I won’t deny it: There were things that had to be done. But your people did them too.”

  Having accepted the offer of the seat, Tilla was obliged to look up to see their visitor’s face.

  “Britannia is also a long way away,” he continued. “You have no tribe to defend here, Darlughdacha. You are a citizen of Rome called Tilla, and the wife of a citizen who served the emperor in the Twentieth Legion.” He held out his hand. “None of us can forget what happened in Britannia, but now that I am working with your husband, perhaps we can agree to put the past behind us.”

  Very slowly, Tilla got to her feet. Leaving the outstretched hand untouched, she said, “This is my home for now, and the people who live here are my people. You will swear to respect us all. You will speak only the truth to us, and about us, and you will defend my daughter to the last drop of your blood.”

  It was not until Metellus said, “I swear,” that she took his hand.

  38

  Ruso and Metellus
crossed the street and went up the steps into the walled gardens of Livia to conduct their discussion. Anyone watching them would have seen two friends chatting as they strolled past the statues and fountains in the dappled shade of the elegant vine-covered portico. There would be no way of confirming this, however, because while the men kept walking there was no way for anyone to eavesdrop. Which was precisely why they were there. Given the complicated personal life of the emperor Augustus’s wife—the Livia after whom Ruso supposed the venue was named—it seemed very appropriate.

  “I’m trying to get the sequence of events straight in my mind, Ruso. Perhaps you could help.”

  Ruso glanced at a remarkably lifelike statue of a hunting hound and knew he must set aside his reluctance to tell Metellus anything at all. “Where do I start?”

  “Tell me how you came to be Balbus’s doctor.”

  Metellus often asked seemingly irrelevant questions to see what response they provoked, rather like a doctor prodding to find out where it hurt. Querying the subject would only make it look as though he had something to hide. “I’m looking after Doctor Kleitos’s patients while he’s away,” he said. “Balbus was one of them.”

  “Ah. So when I saw you at the amphitheater, and you told me there was an opportunity coming up that you couldn’t reveal—”

  “That was a lie,” Ruso admitted. The closer he could stick to the real story, the less suspicion he would arouse. “I didn’t want to tell you that I was short of work. But when I went to see Accius later, I got a note asking me to take over Kleitos’s practice.”

  “That same day? The note came from Accius?”

  “No, from Kleitos via Accius. Accius was the one who introduced us. Kleitos is his doctor too.” And none of this was relevant.

  Metellus said, “I thought you were Accius’s doctor?”

  “Kleitos has looked after the family for years.”

  “So why did Accius bring you here?”

  Ruso shook his head. “I think he thought he was doing me a favor. People who come from Rome tend to assume everyone else is desperate to live here.”

  “And it seems you were.”

  “I was flattered to be invited,” Ruso confessed, voicing it for the first time. “Weren’t you?”

  “This is my home. Britannia is a fine province to make one’s name, but only if one has a chance to return to Rome and reap the benefits of all that mud and fog. Tell me what happened after you got the note.”

  Metellus had probably been given half of this story by Accius already. He would be checking to see if Ruso’s version tallied with what he had already been told.

  “I went straight to Kleitos’s rooms. I was hardly through the door when I got called to see Balbus.”

  “He was ill?”

  “His medicine had run out,” Ruso explained, wishing he had told Accius the whole story straightaway. Now it looked as though he was concealing something. “Kleitos was supplying him with a theriac. He seemed to think he was under threat.”

  “Did he say who from?”

  “His competitors, he said. He’d trodden on a few toes.” Ruso made a mental note to ask Firmicus if the injured toes included those of Curtius Cossus. “He wasn’t popular with his tenants either, but I’d imagine most of them fantasize about murdering the caretakers or Firmicus first.”

  Metellus reached up and pulled a dead leaf from the vine. “Interesting that Balbus’s doctor vanishes on the day his medicine runs out, no?”

  “He wasn’t pleased.”

  “And the body in the barrel?”

  The switch of topic caught Ruso off guard. “That had nothing to do with it.”

  “So you gave Balbus some more medicine, and he took it?”

  Breathe normally. You are telling the truth. “I didn’t have the recipe, so I gave him something harmless that looked like it. I didn’t see him take it.” Before Metellus could ask more about the medicine itself, Ruso explained the circumstances of the handover in front of Curtius Cossus.

  “Hm. It would be interesting to know exactly how Balbus achieved his own rise in fortunes.”

  Ruso, who had never considered until now that Balbus might have something worse than cockroaches to hide, said, “What I don’t understand was why he would want to do business with a man he thought might poison him.”

  It was a moment before he realized the sound from his companion’s throat was a chuckle. “Ah, Ruso. Still the man of principle. I’d forgotten how refreshing that is. You’d be surprised what men are prepared to do when large sums of money are involved.”

  Be careful who you trust. He was beginning to wonder if anyone in this place had clean hands. “For all we know,” he said, “Balbus could have died of natural causes. Or been murdered by angry tenants.” Or accidentally poisoned by his doctor. “But here we are, talking about finding ways to have Cossus tried for murder.”

  Metellus paused. “Dear me, that’s very dramatic. I don’t think anyone has suggested actually prosecuting anybody.”

  Ruso stared at him. “Then what are we doing this for?”

  “Just so that Cossus will understand what might happen if he doesn’t back off and let Accius marry the lovely Horatia.”

  “Holy gods.” Ruso shook his head. Evidently the question of who or what really had caused the death of Horatius Balbus was of no interest. He felt a sneaking sense of relief, swiftly followed by shame.

  “Let’s come back to this body in the barrel.”

  “If you like.” He wasn’t going to insist yet again that it wasn’t relevant.

  “What was that all about?”

  “We think somebody was trying to frighten Kleitos into paying his debts.”

  “That’s your story?”

  “It makes sense. He’s cleared off and taken most of his stuff with him.”

  “He would have done that if he’d murdered the man in the barrel himself,” Metellus pointed out.

  “If he’d killed the man himself,” said Ruso, scrambling to plug a hole in the story that he and Tilla had not considered, “he wouldn’t have left the body outside the surgery. He’d have found a way to get rid of it.”

  “Let’s not waste time on this.” Metellus’s tone was suddenly sharp. “You know why it was there. You’ve made enquiries.”

  “You’ve been making enquiries about my enquiries?”

  “I don’t need to. I know you. You know exactly who the dead man was and why he was there, or you’d be making more fuss about it.”

  “Then trust me when I tell you it’s not relevant.”

  This time the chuckle was more of a laugh. Metellus had never been this jolly in Britannia. Perhaps his sense of humor had been repressed by the mud and fog. “So I did manage to teach you something about discretion after all. I assume you’re afraid Kleitos was collecting bodies to dissect, and since you’re his chosen successor, you’re worried the dirt will land on you too.”

  “If he was—”

  “You’re right. Much wiser to go with the debt-collection story. After all, whatever he was up to isn’t your fault, is it?”

  Ruso glanced across at the slaves who were scrubbing out the fountain and sweeping the stray gravel from the paving back into the central area, and decided there was much to be said for a job where you were not required to think about anything. “You know what Kleitos wrote on the end of his note?”

  “This may surprise you, but I don’t know everything.”

  “He wrote, Be careful who you trust.”

  “Very good,” Metellus said. “Now tell me what really killed Horatius Balbus.”

  “He hit his head,” said Ruso, both answering and not answering the question.

  39

  The argument with Tilla was as predictable as it was inevitable, their tempers heated further by each of them telling the other to “Keep your voice down. Do you want the neighbors to hear?” Ruso already knew all the reasons why Metellus was not to be trusted. What he did not know was why his wife insisted on making an e
nemy of him.

  “I have not! I have made an agreement with him! Did you not see me take his treacherous hand?”

  “I saw you making him swear to things, but I notice he didn’t get any promises out of you.”

  “I would not make them.”

  “And you don’t think he noticed?”

  “I am not the one who is working with— Oh, not now!”

  The new arrival was a woman trailing three small children. All peered out through pink bloodshot eyes. Ruso could not remember a time when he had been happier to see a patient.

  “It creeps,” the mother complained, rubbing her itchy eyelids and wiping her hand on her skirts. “It’s creeping up the building. First the children downstairs, now mine. We’re all using the ointment but it’s no good.”

  “I’m afraid where there’s one case, there are always others,” Ruso told her.

  “Like rats.”

  “At least this usually goes away of its own accord.”

  “I want it to go away now,” she told him. “It’s driving us all mad.”

  He lined the children up outside where the light was better, and crouched in front of the tallest one to reassure himself that it was a simple case of pinkeye and nothing more sinister. The boy said in a very small voice, “Will I go blind?”

  “No, you’ll get better soon.”

  “My friend’s cousin had it and he went blind.”

  “Your friend’s cousin must have had something different,” Ruso assured him.

  “I been practicing walking around with my eyes shut.”

  “I told you to stop that!” his mother put in. “You’ll fall over and break your neck. Then you’ll be sorry.”

  He moved to the next one in the line. “That looks sore. Can you open your eyes and look at me?”

  The child squeezed her eyes tight shut and shook her dark curls from side to side.