Vita Brevis

by Ruth Downie

  “That must have been strange. Wasn’t he a slave here once himself?”

  The steward’s drawn face eased into half-smile. “Pa used to send him to run errands. I was there when he got his freedom. I can see the look on his face now.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “Reward for catching one of the clerks dipping into the master’s money chest.” He looked up. “People said he was a hard bastard, and he was, but he wasn’t bad to work for. To be honest the old master let things go a bit. Wouldn’t make decisions, wouldn’t let anyone else do it, either. Balbus got the place for a fraction of what it was worth and turned everything around. We’ve done very—” He stopped. “Up till now, we’ve done very well. The gods alone know what’ll happen after this. The cousin is the nearest male relative. He runs a butcher’s shop out in Fidenae. Hasn’t a clue about the business.”

  “But won’t all the property go to Horatia?”

  Firmicus sniffed. “She’ll have to learn fast if she’s going to manage it. There’s not much call for Greek poetry in the rented property business.” He folded his arms. “Between you and me, Doctor, right now I think I’m the only one who realizes how much of a disaster this is.”

  “Could you manage the business for her?”

  “I’d do my best, if the cousin agrees. I’m guessing he’ll want to hand her over to a husband and get rid of the responsibility. Which brings us to why you’re here, doesn’t it? Publius Accius wants us to tell you that the master was poisoned by Curtius Cossus.”

  He hoped Accius had been more discreet outside the household. “Would Cossus have any reason to want him dead?”

  “A lot of his competitors wanted him …” Firmicus paused, searching for the right word. “Under control.” Before Ruso could ask what that meant, he went on, “I keep going over what happened. Trying to work out what the boss was trying to tell us.”

  Ruso was not going to tell him that Latro thought Balbus had said he felt ill. “Would you mind going over it again?”

  Firmicus had not heard or seen a missile, but he agreed that such an attack was possible. The street, too narrow for traffic, had been quiet and there was a chance someone could have identified Balbus’s voice from above. He had no doubt the caretaker of the building could name tenants who thought they may have had a grievance, but as to murder … “Aren’t you supposed to be asking about poisoning?”

  “I’m considering the possibilities.”

  “The boss spent a fortune on that medicine.”

  “I need to talk to Kleitos. He would know better than me.”

  “Any sign of him?”

  “There’s a possible connection I’m going to follow up tomorrow.”

  Firmicus sighed. “Poor old boss.”

  Ruso said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Maybe he was right after all: Someone was out to get him.”

  “Perhaps it was an accident,” said Ruso, forgetting he was supposed to be proving that it wasn’t. “Or natural causes.”

  “You and I might want to believe that,” Firmicus told him, “but they won’t. With all Horatia’s money up for grabs, they’d rather pick over the carcass and fight.”

  Ruso walked back through the darkening streets without paying much attention to his surroundings, which was probably why he missed the right turn to the Vicus Sabuci and ended up making a circle of the block.

  Firmicus had told him nothing new about the death, but he had learned something completely unexpected about the circumstances. In response to, “Is it true Curtius Cossus made an offer for Horatia?” the man had replied without hesitation, “As far as I know, it was the boss who made the approach.”

  “But what about Accius?” And what about Horatia, who clearly had her heart set upon him?

  “I’d guess Accius was being kept in reserve in case Cossus wasn’t interested. The boss wasn’t known for being sentimental. And to be honest, your patron’s name isn’t the best in the city.”

  “It’s still a big step up for a freedman’s daughter,” Ruso pointed out, feeling aggrieved on Accius’s behalf. “And Balbus didn’t trust Cossus.”

  “You mean he wanted it to be obvious that he was taking an antidote in case Cossus was thinking of poisoning him,” said Firmicus, as if this were a normal way of going about things.

  Always stay one step ahead of your enemies. Ruso was beginning to feel like a country bumpkin. “But why in the gods’ name would anyone offer his daughter to a man he thought was capable of murdering people?”

  Firmicus yawned. “The boss wanted to play with the big boys. And Cossus has no living children.”

  Ruso said, “I’m a simple medic. You’ll have to explain. Some other time, if you’d rather.”

  “I’d rather stay here than go out there,” Firmicus said. “How much do you know about the building trade?”

  “Nothing.” Nothing good, at least. This was not the time to talk about the temple his father had decided to donate to his hometown in Gaul, which had practically bankrupted him and driven him to an early grave.

  “Getting a building project funded is a complicated business,” Firmicus explained. “Past a certain point, unless you’re the emperor, you need other people to split the costs. They share the risk in exchange for a cut of the profits. Are you with me so far?”

  “Yes.” It was a pity nobody had told his father that.

  “The boss is—was—keen to expand, but we don’t have the right connections with investors. Cossus does. He’s got a lot of money in property himself and he’s already got the contract to clear that massive site for the emperor’s new temple down by the amphitheater. The boss got the attention of Cossus and his cronies by buying a property he knew they wanted over on the Aventine. That gave him the chance to tell Cossus about all the other development opportunities he could get his hands on if they pooled their resources.”

  “Through a marriage with Horatia.”

  “Yes.”

  Poor Accius. It seemed he too had no idea what men were prepared to do if there were large sums of money involved. When he said of the dinner that I imagine they were going to discuss some sort of deal he could have had no idea that Balbus would be offering Horatia as part of it.

  “If the gamble paid off,” Firmicus explained, “any future grandson could climb way beyond rent collecting. He’d inherit a substantial and respectable business. From slave to top man in two generations.”

  “And if Cossus and his associates didn’t want to let Balbus in?”

  “Balbus would carry on as a competitor, still watching his back, and use the other route to the top. Accius is from a reasonably good family. With the boss’s money behind him, the grandson could be making speeches in the Senate.”

  And Balbus would have pleased his daughter, although that did not seem to have been a priority.

  Firmicus had no idea what had been discussed at the dinner, or indeed if the match had even been mentioned. The visiting staff had been sent to the kitchen to sample the leftovers.

  “Whoever else was there will know,” Ruso suggested.

  “It wasn’t a big affair. Just a couple of Cossus’s cronies.”

  “Names?” Metellus would no doubt find them out, but it would do no harm to have confirmation.

  Firmicus reached for the writing pad tucked into his belt and flipped it open. “You’re welcome to try,” he said, scratching in the wax, “but you’re wasting your time.” He tapped the first name. “That one’s a shipping insurer.” He wrote again. “This one’s a junior politician. Both of them are Cossus’s backers for the work on the temple site. They’ll say whatever he wants them to.”

  Publius Accius had seemed far less happy than Firmicus to be called away from the mourners to hold a conversation in a storeroom. He was even less pleased when he heard what Ruso had to tell him. But as Ruso pointed out, Firmicus had no reason to lie about Horatia’s suitors. And if Balbus had offered his daughter to Curtius Cossus, then Cossus had no reason to murder him. �
�This investigation has to stop, sir. You need to find some other way of winning the lady. You’re in danger of making some powerful enemies.”

  “So Cossus has paid off Firmicus.”

  It was not the response Ruso was hoping for. “Sir, what if Firmicus is telling the truth?”

  Accius snorted. “He’s got you fooled too.”

  Ruso lowered his voice to whisper, “Sir, this is Horatius Balbus we’re talking about. You know what his business methods were like. If he saw some advantage in allying his own family with Cossus’s, are you certain he would pass it up for the sake of his daughter’s happiness?”

  But Accius did not even draw breath before telling him the idea of Balbus offering Horatia to another man was ridiculous, adding, “I’ve known him and his daughter far longer than you have.”

  “I’m advising you to stop and think, sir.”

  Accius drew himself up to his full height in the gloom of the storeroom. “And I’m advising you, Doctor, not to offer opinions on matters about which you know nothing. Just trust me and continue with the investigation.”

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you, sir, but—”

  “But what?”

  Ruso took a deep breath. “I think we’re all shocked by the death, sir, and—”

  “You’re questioning my judgment.”

  “Yes.”

  “In that case, get out. I’ll leave it to Metellus.”

  “Sir—”

  “Out!”

  Ruso paused in the corridor to smack one fist against his head. He should have left Accius to come to his senses slowly, instead of pushing a man who was so irrational that he seemed to have mistaken a junk room for his personal office. He strode away, slapping his feet onto the concrete floor to make as much sound as possible, so that Accius would know it was safe to come out of the room—in which he had just marooned himself—with some shred of his dignity intact.

  42

  By the time Ruso got back to the Vicus Sabuci the glazed windows of the occupied rooms above him had become dull orange shapes against black. Elsewhere, pale streaks outlined ill-fitting doors and shutters. Announcing, “Esico? It’s me!” he groped for the latch and plunged into the surgery only to find himself in utter darkness. Not in silence, though. The followers of Christos were flouting the law again upstairs.

  “Master!” Light spilled in from the kitchen and Esico’s silhouette appeared in the doorway. “Food is here.”

  Food was indeed there, although not a great deal of it. There was a salad, a chunk of bread, and two hard-boiled eggs. Tilla was absent. So were his daughter and his baby-minder. “Where is everyone?”

  Esico raised a forefinger toward the sound of the singing.

  “All of them?”

  “Yes, master.”

  The singing had stopped by the time he got there. From the other side of the door he could hear a lone male voice raised in prayer. Ruso hesitated, not keen to interrupt. The lord was being implored to remove the demon that cast Brother Justus’s boy down in fits, to rise up against the evil of the Games that would be upon them at the end of the month, to comfort the family of Horatius Balbus and bring fairness and justice to his tenants, and to bring healing to Sister Phyllis, because the lord knew what a heavy burden she carried. Apparently so did everyone else, because her name brought a chorus of “Amen!” from others in the room.

  Ruso’s limited experience with the followers of Christos back in Gaul—the neighbor’s farm was infested with them—suggested that this could go on for ages. Besides, he had specifically asked Tilla not to get involved with these people. Perhaps that was why his fist hit the door more forcefully than he had intended, and more than once.

  The praying stopped. There was a frantic whispering instead, and then a woman called out, “Christos is with us! We are not afraid!”

  Deciding that Tell Christos I want my women back! might not go down well, he tried, “It’s the doctor. Is my wife in there?”

  Moments later he found himself looking ’round at a surprising number of alarmed faces. Figures were crammed together on the floor, sitting cross-legged or hugging their knees. Others were perched on the couch, and more were standing against the walls. The two youths lolling on the windowsill were probably the only ones breathing fresh air.

  Two figures rose from the crush on the floor: Tilla and Narina. Narina stood where she was, looking anxious. Tilla stepped carefully over the legs of strangers to reach him, and he could not help thinking that she was holding Mara in front of her as a form of shield. The bright “What is the matter, husband?” had undertones of, Why are you embarrassing me like this?

  “There’s nobody downstairs,” he said, still clutching the lamp he had used to light his way up the dark steps and aware that he sounded like a small boy who was missing his mother.

  Instead of apologizing, Tilla frowned. “No? Esico should be there.”

  “I mean, apart from—”

  “Did he not give you the message?”

  He was saved from replying by a cry of “Come in, Doctor! Come and say hello!” from Phyllis, who scrambled up from somewhere on the floor to stand beside him. Tilla gave him a look that said it would be churlish not to comply. “Everybody!” Phyllis announced, “This is our new neighbor, the doctor. Tilla’s husband, Mara’s papa, Narina’s master.”

  “Ruso,” he announced to all the resolutely cheerful faces. Sensing that more was required, he gave his “Doctor Kleitos asked me to help out” speech, but it appeared everyone knew this already. Then he remembered that his family had been the subject of an appeal for spare furniture.

  From the couch, a beaming woman with frizzy hair poking out from under her head covering declared, “We have just been praying for you, Doctor!”

  “Really?”

  “We have been asking the Lord to help you find Doctor Kleitos.”

  “Oh,” he said, taken aback. “Well, let’s hope the Lord knows where he is.”

  “I’m sure he does,” the woman assured him as Tilla’s foot moved to press on his toe. “And we have been giving thanks for—”

  Tilla’s “Have you eaten, husband?” cut across whatever was coming next.

  “Oh, yes!” Phyllis leapt back to her feet and indicated the scattered remains of food on the table. “We should have offered, Doctor. I am so sorry.”

  He held out one hand in refusal, making a retreat toward the cooler air of the corridor. “My wife left my supper downstairs for me.”

  “We were so sorry to hear about your difficulties,” put in the woman with the frizzy hair. “First no furniture, then the man in the barrel, and all that trouble with the neighbors, then your slave running away, and—”

  Phyllis tried to interrupt with, “Sister Dorcas, he already knows—”

  “And now poor Horatius Balbus,” continued Sister Dorcas, unabashed. “Your wife has told us all about it.”

  Tilla had the grace to look embarrassed.

  “You’re welcome to stay and pray with us,” put in the man he recognized as Phyllis’s husband, Timo the carpenter.

  Ruso shook his head. “It’s not really my area, I’m afraid.” He turned to his wife. “Tilla? Narina, it’s time to go.”

  Narina moved toward the door immediately, as ordered. To his surprise, so did Tilla. Perhaps the Roman wife had remembered her duties after all.

  There was a jolly chorus of good-byes and then they were squinting into the dark of the corridor, with only the swaying lamp flame to guide them.

  “What the hell have you been saying to them?” Ruso hissed.

  “Nothing!”

  “Nothing?”

  “They asked everyone to share needs for prayer. I said you would like to talk to Doctor Kleitos so that you could treat his patients better.”

  “What?”

  “I am trying to help! One of them might know where he is!”

  It was a good idea, but he was not in the mood to say so. “What about all the other things she knew?”
/>   “I don’t know! People hear gossip and then they want to talk to you about it. Do you want me to say it is not true?”

  “I want you not to mix with them.” The lamp picked out the shape of the next door: a room occupied by strangers. When they were past he took her by the arm to murmur in her ear, “If word gets around that you’re part of a group that prays against the emperor’s Games …”

  “But it is true, husband. The Games are evil. You know what goes on.”

  The singing had started up again. He wanted to go and strangle them. Especially Sister Dorcas. “I also know,” he hissed, “that if you pray against the Games in front of the wrong people, you’re liable to end up starring in them.”

  They broke off the conversation at the end of the corridor: negotiating a steep flight of concrete steps with only one lamp between them required concentration. That was why, even when they heard the crash from downstairs and Esico shouting, they could not fling themselves down the steps to find out what was happening. Grabbing at the wall to steady himself as he reached a foot out into the dark, Ruso yelled, “Esico! What’s going on?”

  The only response they could hear above the singing was another shout and the smash and tinkle of breaking glass.

  43

  Ruso got there first, swinging the door back so hard that it crashed against the wall of the surgery. “What’s going on?” he demanded. “Where’s my slave?”

  Even in the lamplight the squeaky-voiced giant from the undertakers’ yard was unmistakable. The muscular stranger standing beside him was not much smaller. Each had a knife at his belt and together they seemed to fill the room. Ruso was unarmed, because who took a weapon to a prayer meeting?

  The followers of Christos launched into a new tune as Squeaky slid down from his seat on the operating table. “We’ve come for a talk.”

  “What have you done with Esico?” demanded Tilla, trying to push aside the arm that Ruso had put out to protect her. “What is happening?”

  Ruso moved to block the space between her and the men, but Squeaky reached out and hauled him aside. His companion seized Tilla and dragged her in, almost jerking Mara out of her arms. The door was slammed shut behind her. There was no sign of Narina.