by Ruth Downie
“Sir?”
Pertinax said, “I’ll tell Gleva to get a room ready.”
47
Tilla stood in the tub and poured another jug of warm water very slowly over her head. On Gleva’s orders the little maid, looking puffy-eyed, had stayed to help her disentangle the strands of wool from her hair, but after that, Tilla had sent her away. It was sad enough to be offered Serena’s bed in the room where she had slept next door to her boys, and Serena’s comb, and Serena’s old blue dress with the gold edging to change into: She did not want to be a burden on staff who were now mourning the loss of the children as well as their mother. “It’s so quiet without the boys, miss!” the maid had explained, looking as though she was about to burst into tears again. “After we lost the mistress, they kept us all going with their chatter and running about. I keep wondering what’s happening to them now.”
Tilla had tried to explain that Valens had only stolen the boys because he was fond of them and that he was bound to be keeping them safe. The maid had sniffed and said, “Yes, miss,” but showed no sign of believing Valens would care for his boys. Why would he if he had already murdered their mother?
What a mess.
Tilla bent down and refilled the jug. The sun was streaming in through the window and making bright shapes across the floor and up the wall. The weight of the heavy jug strained her bruised wrist, but she forced herself to lift it one-handed and pour slowly, letting the water trickle down over her scalp and using her free hand to dangle the loose strands of hair under the cleansing stream.
The wet hair was veiling her eyes when someone came into the room without knocking and announced, “It’s me.”
This was the moment she had been dreading. Her husband had barely spoken to her on the way there. Should she say sorry now, or wait for him to say what he had to say first? That might be better. It was hard to know where to start with someone who had every right to be angry with you, especially when you couldn’t see his face.
“You look very appealing for a vegetable thief.”
Perhaps he did not know how to start, either. She wiped the water out of her eyes and groped for the towel. She was not sure why, but she wanted to have all her clothes on before the argument started.
“Feeling better?”
“Much better.” Perhaps it wasn’t starting yet. She wrapped the towel around herself and stepped out of the tub.
“Gleva’s gone out to the baths,” he told her. “Albanus has gone home, and Pertinax and Catus are in a meeting with some veterans.”
“I must go and fetch Mara.” She should have said that earlier: as soon as she was freed. If she were a proper mother, her child would have been the first thing on her mind. But then, if she were a proper mother, she would not have abandoned her family and gone out disturbing the spirits of the dead with a spade in the middle of the night.
“I’ll go across and fetch them both in a moment,” he said. “Pertinax says we can all stay here for a while.”
“Really?” She pulled Serena’s blue dress over her head. “Why?”
“Maybe as an apology for getting us thrown out of the Mercury,” he said. “With the added advantage that he’s got us where he can keep an eye on us.”
The sound of gruff voices and footsteps swelled outside and then faded. The centurion’s meeting had finished. Tilla reached for the golden-yellow belt that matched the edging on the dress. She supposed the men were all going back out to carry on the hunt for Valens and the children.
He said, “Do you want me to go and find that spade and return it while I’m out?”
He was lying on the bed now, staring at the painted ceiling, sandaled feet dangling clear of the covers. He probably didn’t know it was Serena’s bed. He certainly wouldn’t have recognized the clothes: Most evenings, if Tilla asked him what she herself had worn that day, he would have had to guess.
“It belongs to Virana’s neighbor,” she told him, wondering whether he really would leave it at that or whether he was waiting for her to explain. “The one in the pastry shop.”
“Right.”
One of them had to begin. Since he had mentioned the spade, she said, “I thought it would help if I went to look. I thought he might be buried there.”
“Terentius?”
She nodded. “They did all that thing to find him but then nobody looked to see if they were right.”
“So you decided to go and dig.”
“I knew you would think it was silly, so I thought I would do it and not tell you.”
“Hm.” Then: “In the list of—” He stopped, searching for a word. “In the list of interesting and peculiar things you’ve done since I’ve known you, wife, that has to be the most interesting and peculiar of all.”
“I thought you would be cross,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “So did I.”
She said, “So you will not ask to give Mara back?”
“What?” He rolled over and stared at her. “Back to Virana? Why would I do that?”
“Because I do interesting and peculiar things and I am not always there to look after her.”
He thought about that for a moment. “Were there mice in the shed?”
She nodded. “And rats, I think.”
He grinned. “That’s all right, then.”
“It was horrible.”
“Good.”
She gave her hair a quick rub and then draped the towel around her shoulders before sitting next to him on the bed. “I wish I had not done it.”
“Well, at least it’s satisfied you that he isn’t there.” When she did not reply, he said, “Hasn’t it?”
She let go of the edge of the towel she had been twisting tight between her fingers, and smoothed it out. “What if his spirit really is there,” she said, “and I have disturbed it?”
He sat up, pushed the wet hair aside, and put his mouth close to her ear. “He isn’t there,” he said very slowly, sounding the edges of each word. “He never was.”
“How do you know? Those lettuces could have been transplanted. I should have told you.”
He swung his feet down from the bed. “Terentius isn’t there, wife. You looked and didn’t find him. And the reason you didn’t find him is that he’s alive and well somewhere else, keeping clear of all the people who want to talk to him.”
“So it really was him who killed Serena?”
There was a longer pause than she had expected. Then he said, “I’m going to go and fetch the others and pick up the luggage. If I can find the spade, I’ll take it back. Then, if you like, we can go out and watch the parade.”
After he had gone she reached for Serena’s comb and began to tease out the ends of her hair. There had been no argument. She should have been relieved, but instead she felt confused.
48
The vegetable plots did not look at all sinister in daylight. To Ruso’s relief the borrowed spade was still lying in the mud of the lettuce bed. There was no sign of the outraged gardeners; just a couple of slaves hoeing weeds from a plot over by the wall. He guessed most of the town would have taken time off to watch the governor’s arrival.
The streets were busy as he went to return the spade to its owner. Next door, Virana was sitting behind the counter of the empty oil shop with her feet propped on a stool. She greeted him with “You’re back! Did you find Tilla? Albanus is asleep upstairs and Neena’s taken Mara out for a walk. It’s just me stuck here, and nobody tells me what’s going on. I don’t know why we’re open. There’s no customers.”
He confirmed that his wife had turned up safe and well after being looked after by some local women.
“Why was she out in the middle of the night? Did you hear that rain?”
“She’s over at Pertinax’s house,” he said, not elaborating. “Valens is—”
“What did she want a spade for?”
“To do some digging,” he told her, unable to think of a plausible lie and hurrying on to explain that Valens and the boy
s were still missing, possibly on horseback, and Pertinax and Catus and the veterans were still looking for them. No, he still did not know who had killed poor Serena or where Terentius had gone.
“So,” Virana said, shifting her weight on the chair and tugging her rumpled tunic down over her belly, “we don’t know anything we didn’t know before.”
“I’m moving everything over to Pertinax’s house,” he told her, not wanting to admit that she was right.
Virana seemed less surprised by the news of the move than he had expected. “I should think that old man ought to be nice to you,” she said. “You did cut his leg off for him.”
“If only everyone saw things that way.”
“Well, they should,” she told him. “I always tell people you are a nice man underneath.”
He said, “Can you tell Neena where we’ve moved to?”
“What’s happened to that other one? The tall one.”
“Esico?”
“That’s him.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “He does tend to wander.”
Virana reached out to dip one finger in a jar of oil and sniff it. “You should give him a good beating,” she suggested, dabbing the oil behind her ears.
“You think that would encourage him to stay?”
“Probably not,” she conceded. “You can go up and talk to my husband if you like. The Old Misery’s gone to watch the parade, so I can let in anybody I want. I’m only staying because she gets the neighbors to tell her if I close the shop. She was really horrible about being woken up last night. You’d think she’d want to help, wouldn’t you?”
“Not everyone is like you, Virana,” he told her. “When Albanus wakes up, tell him I’ll see him later.”
The Mercury was not as he remembered it. Instead of the front being wide open in welcome, two burly doormen were standing outside a row of closed shutters with their arms folded and glaring straight through anyone who dared to approach. When this didn’t frighten Ruso away, the nearest one announced, “Private party for the governor.”
“I left a trunk here.”
“All luggage has been cleared. Governor’s guests only.”
He was on the verge of arguing when he heard a familiar voice cry, “Master!”
Esico sprinted across the road, flung himself at Ruso’s feet, and cried again, in Latin, “Master! Forgive!”
Before Ruso could reply, they were both seized and manhandled away from the Mercury’s entrance.
It was over as quickly as it began. The doormen stepped back to resume their stations as if nothing had happened, leaving Ruso standing in the middle of the street and Esico sprawled on the stones. Glancing around to see who had witnessed his humiliation, Ruso saw that the old man was back in his usual seat outside the bar, not only watching, but now raising a hand to beckon him over. There were two cups beside his jug of beer now instead of one, but no sign of a companion.
“Did you come for a big wooden box?” the man asked in British.
“Yes.”
“It was in the front this morning, then Beardy came out and told his boys to take it through into the yard.”
“Thank you.” Ruso reached for his purse. There were some benefits to having nosy neighbors.
Light of a couple of coppers, he turned back to Esico, who was now hovering anxiously as if he thought Ruso might be about to run away from him. “Master—”
“Come and help me shift some luggage,” Ruso told him. “You can tell me what you’ve done and I’ll decide what to do about it.”
The trunk was indeed in the backyard of the Mercury, to which Ruso gained access by sending an unusually willing Esico scrambling over the gate to let him in. When they were safely in the back lane and he had checked that the lock on the trunk was intact, he said, “Right. Talk.”
Esico dropped to his knees on the gravel. Ruso told him in British not to be annoying and reached for one handle of the trunk. “Take the other end of this. You can talk and walk at the same time.”
Esico dusted off his knees and heaved up the other end of the trunk. “In my own tongue, master?”
“In your own tongue,” Ruso confirmed. “This is important. Do you know where Valens took them?”
“No, master. He didn’t tell me.”
“Do you know anything that would help me find out?”
“No, master. He said it was best for me not to know too much.”
He stopped. “Esico, you smell of horses.”
“Yes, master!” The lad seemed to be unaccountably proud of it.
“When did you last see Valens?”
“Yesterday morning early, master.” So before either the horses or the boys had gone missing.
“Where?”
Esico raised one long arm in the direction of the river. “We slept in the woods, master. I didn’t like it much. It’s cold at night and you wake up itchy.”
Nor for the first time, Ruso wondered what sort of a warrior Esico had been.
“Doctor Valens sent me to buy food, but after that there was no work for me to do.”
“That’s never bothered you before.”
“Doctor Valens said I could come back to you.”
“So, where have you been since yesterday morning?”
“I went for a walk, master.”
“This going for walks has got to stop. I’ve spoken to you about it before.”
“Yes, master. I am sorry, master.”
“Well, you’re here now. Get on with it.”
“I thought I might walk back to my own people. But then I was tired and hungry and all by myself in the woods, and I thought, It is a long way and it is raining, and I am a fool.”
Ruso did not argue.
“I thought, My master and mistress have been good to me, and this is no way to repay them. So I turned around to come back and prayed to the gods for some way to make amends, and this morning the gods answered my prayer and they sent—”
“Two bay mares, one with a white blaze?” Ruso suggested.
The weight of the trunk jolted in his hand as Esico turned to stare at him. “Did you have a vision, master?”
“Not exactly.”
“I found them loose on the Abona road,” Esico continued, “saddled, but with no riders. So I rode back into town to sound the alarm and the owner of the stables said they were stolen and he gave me this in thanks, master.” Esico delved into a fold of his tunic. “So I am giving it to you.” He reached across and placed something on the trunk.
To Ruso’s amazement he saw a silver denarius. “Oh, holy gods.” He snatched up the small coin, hoping no one had seen it. It would have paid a legionary for a day, and hired a slave for longer.
“It is yours, master. Because I ran away.”
He wanted to say No it isn’t. Largely because it wasn’t rightfully Esico’s, either. “They must have been good horses.”
Esico grinned. “The best.”
Ruso tried to gather his thoughts while dealing with the awkward task of shoving the denarius one-handed into his purse. Only when he had finished did he say, “Is any of that story true, Esico?”
“Oh, yes, master! It is all truth, I will swear to it!”
“Please don’t,” Ruso told him. “We’ve had enough vengeance of the gods as it is. When I asked ‘Do you know where Valens took them’ just now, you were supposed to say ‘Took who?’ But you didn’t. You already knew I was talking about the boys. You helped him take them. You were the visitor who went to their house pretending to sell onions.”
“I did not understand the question, master.”
“But we’ve already agreed that if you don’t understand something, you’ll say so.”
“I am sorry, master.”
“Stop saying sorry. It’s annoying. So again: Is any of that story true?”
There was a pause. Then, “I did buy food. And it was very cold and itchy in the woods.”
Ruso sighed. “Virana says I should give you a good beating for runn
ing away.”
“Yes, master.”
They had reached the gate that led to Pertinax’s house. Lowering his end of the trunk to the ground and gesturing to Esico to do the same, he said, “Before we go in there, I want to know what really happened.”
Instead of answering, Esico turned to face the wall and appeared to be trying to retract his head into his body like a turtle.
“What’s the matter?”
“This is not a good place to stand, master. Someone might remember me.”
Ruso pushed open the gate, and Esico shuffled sideways as they carried the trunk inside and set it down at the foot of the steps. The little maid ran down to greet them. Her face fell when she heard there was still no news, but she managed to remember her duties enough to offer to help with the luggage.
“Don’t worry,” Ruso assured her. “I just need a chat with Esico here, then he’s going to carry it up all those steps by himself.”
The maid retreated, but before Ruso could extract the truth from his slave, they were interrupted by a knock on the gate. Esico shot an alarmed look at Ruso and plunged into the shrubbery that grew against the inside of the wall. Ruso opened the gate and found himself staring into a face that was familiar and yet totally out of place.
Not only had Ruso never seen the old man anywhere other than the bar opposite the Mercury before, he had never seen him standing up. He was unexpectedly tall. And he had come, he said, to ask for his son.
Wondering if the word had a different meaning in the South, Ruso said, “Your what?”
“My son,” the man repeated. “My boy.” And then, in case Ruso was having trouble with the language, “Filius.”
So. Pertinax had lied when he said he’d never seen this man before in his life. The man had family connections at Pertinax’s house. He had been spying on them after all.
Ruso stepped aside to let him go up to the house, but the man seemed reluctant to pass.
“Where is my son?”
Ruso pointed at the steps. “You’ll have to ask up there.”
“My son is here! I saw him!”
