Memento Mori

by Ruth Downie

  Ruso tried to follow this and gave up. All he could manage was “There’s got to be something extra Dorios thinks will come out at a trial that he doesn’t want people to know.”

  “What can a lawyer find out that you have not already found yourself?”

  “I don’t know. We’re going to have to go over everything again.”

  “Yes,” she said, and then: “Finished!”

  “Thank the gods for that.”

  “Did you notice how I took your thoughts somewhere else?”

  “I noticed how your mind wasn’t on what you were doing.”

  A small pair of shears appeared, very close to his head. “Next time,” she said as she squeezed the blades together to snip the ends of the thread, “you can do it yourself and see how that goes.”

  56

  Ruso would willingly have sat recuperating in the relative peace and cool of the maintenance stores all evening, but no sooner had his wife put the needle away than they heard a female voice outside declare, “In here!” and the door burst open.

  It revealed a young man who had dealt with the perpetual toga problem (there was always too much of a toga if you planned to use both hands for something else) by gallantly draping one half of it around the shoulders of a female in clothes that were unsuitable for an outdoor party. Ruso recognized her as the girl who had been writhing under the caresses of the old man by the sacred spring.

  The girl eyed the man and woman sitting in the pool of lamplight. “Have you two finished?”

  Tilla wiped the shears on the wine-soaked cloth and picked up the bowl. “We have.”

  “Watch your step,” Ruso murmured to the youth on the way out. He gestured toward his stitches. “Look what that one did to me.”

  He left Tilla in the care of Virana and Neena, who were dutifully waiting for her where the pastry stall had been. All three women were keen to head out into the courtyard to join in the dancing. When he said, “What about Mara?” and then explained that he was too busy to look after her, he was told that Albanus would do it. “It will give him a good excuse not to dance,” Tilla added.

  “And good practice,” put in Virana. When Tilla asked Ruso where he was going, he said, “To ask some questions.”

  Out in the courtyard the figures of Gnaeus and his wife whirled past him, Gnaeus dancing like a bear and clearly enjoying himself despite his earlier misgivings.

  Dorios was not hard to find, because the first slave whom Ruso asked told him the chief priest was with the governor, and the governor was not hard to find, because the official party had all trooped up the temple steps to watch from a safe distance as the happy people of Aquae Sulis celebrated Roman rule by dancing around the courtyard. The governor was in the middle of the group. The torches held aloft by his guards illuminated a bald head that gleamed only marginally less than his polished breastplate. He was chatting to a less shiny companion on his right, while on his left, the glum wife was gazing out from within a warm woolen wrap. What was visible of her face showed no emotion at all. There was no sign of Gleva in her role as native priestess, but Ruso could just make out Dorios beyond the governor and to the left. So not in his immediate circle, then. Disappointing for the priest, but good news for anyone wanting to speak to him.

  Up on the podium, out of the glare of the torches, four temple slaves still stood guard outside Sulis Minerva’s closed doors. Ruso wondered how Valens was getting on in his ornate prison. He pushed his hair back so the stitches were clearly visible, and set off up the damp steps. He took it slowly, with his gaze fixed on Dorios. He was almost certain the priest had identified him before one of the governor’s guards stepped sideways to block his progress.

  “Urgent message for the chief priest,” Ruso told the guard. As expected, the words had no effect whatsoever. He craned past the man’s shoulder to try and catch Dorios’s attention. “It’s about something we discussed earlier.”

  “Not now,” said the guard.

  “Ah, well, never mind,” said Ruso. “When would be a good time to talk to him?”

  “Not now.”

  “Perhaps you could give him the message?”

  “No.”

  Another guard stepped across to stare through him.

  Ruso shrugged. “Fair enough.” He glanced back in the direction of the priest, then turned to head back down the steps to where three small children had formed a breakaway dance and were twirling around with their arms wide and their eyes shut, shrieking with delight as their balance began to fail and they staggered sideways.

  By the time he reached ground level, Dorios had arrived, leaning on his stick and smelling of something expensive. “What is it? I’m supposed to be with the governor!”

  “Sorry about that,” said Ruso, reaching to grab one of the children and sit her down before she fell and cracked her head on the steps, and steadying the others before they did the same.

  “Actually, Doctor,” Dorios murmured as Ruso led him toward the back of the courtyard in search of a quiet place to talk. “I do need a brief word with you. But I can’t stop. I’m hosting the governor’s dinner.”

  “This won’t take long,” Ruso promised, steering him away from an alcove that he now saw held a courting couple. The dancers had abandoned their circuit of the temple and several of the torches on the back wall of the colonnade had died. They retreated into the shadows, from where they could see anyone who might be approaching to listen in.

  “You don’t want a trial,” Ruso began.

  “The Sulis Minerva Association has never been opposed to a trial in principle,” said Dorios, “but—”

  “But you are opposed to Pertinax prosecuting Valens.”

  “I’m opposed to one man being executed for another man’s crimes.”

  “You really think Valens is innocent?”

  Dorios said, “Don’t you?”

  “Of course,” said Ruso, feeling his toes curl involuntarily inside his sandals.

  “One has only to see him with those boys to know he should be left to bring them up in peace. Which is why I suggest you don’t trouble yourself with any more investigations, Doctor. I think it’s safe to say that by the time the sun rises tomorrow, your friend will be elsewhere and your defense won’t be needed.”

  “You’re going to get him out?”

  “It was a mistake to allow him to be brought back. I see that now. The veterans’ claim that he was a child snatcher was unacceptable. If that’s going to be the standard of the centurion’s conduct in the trial, I think it’s better for all of us that it doesn’t happen.”

  “I’ve had a bang on the head,” Ruso told him, “so excuse me if I’m a little slow, but … you’re prepared to let an accused man escape because you like the look of him and you don’t want a fuss?”

  “If you put it that way, yes.”

  Ruso fingered the line of stitches. “Maybe when my head clears, that will make sense.”

  “I’m sure it will,” the priest agreed. “Of course, if you mention this conversation anywhere else, I shall deny every word.”

  “As it is,” Ruso said, “someone tried to kill Valens in his room at the Repose. How do I know the attack wasn’t ordered by you, trying to avoid a trial? How do I know that you won’t just order your guards to get rid of him during the night and then tell me he’s run away?”

  He was aware of Dorios shifting position against the wall. “That bang on the head certainly is affecting you, Doctor. Your friend and the children can be released to you if you like. Just as long as he goes away. It’s time this wretched business was over.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not? I thought it was what you came all this way to achieve.”

  Ruso said, “What will you do with Pertinax?”

  “I’ll deal with Pertinax.”

  Ruso gazed at the back of the temple, silhouetted by the rising moon. “There’s just something not quite right about it.”

  Dorios sighed. “Doctor, please try to understand. Aqu
ae Sulis is not just a town with a shrine. We are a beacon of hope to light a troubled province. On an island with a history of war, we are a symbol of peace. We show that this is how it can be.”

  Ruso said, “I see,” but the priest was not finished.

  “Not only the province, but her people.” He was clutching Ruso’s wrist now. “Sulis Minerva can heal even when the best of doctors cannot. She offers consolation when the light of hope has burned dim. I won’t allow that comfort to be snatched away.”

  “You really think all of that would be destroyed by one murder trial?”

  “Yes.”

  Ruso loosened the man’s grip on his wrist. “It’s no good. I still don’t see it.”

  “Trust me, Doctor. I’ve served at the temple here for a long time. I know what our visitors expect. Our goddess doesn’t want them to see a trial.”

  And that, of course, was the problem. Dorios was prepared to do a deal with anyone in order to avert a trial. His current offer to release Valens and the boys into Ruso’s custody seemed generous enough, but he had made a totally different proposition to Pertinax earlier this evening. He was prepared to snatch the boys away from their father and hand them over to Pertinax, breaking all promises of sanctuary in exchange for the withdrawal of the murder charge.

  “You’d better go and take the governor to his dinner,” Ruso told him. As soon as the governor’s party had cleared the steps, he must find some way of warning Valens that the goddess might be offering him and the boys a safe haven, but her chief servant definitely wasn’t.

  “We can provide your friend with safe passage to Abona,” said Dorios, sounding desperate. “You and your family can go with him if you want. Then you can pick up a ship going north.”

  “I don’t understand exactly what you’re trying to hide here,” Ruso said, beginning to move back toward the light, “but the more you try and hide it, the more I think a trial would be a very good idea.”

  “No! You must believe me, Doctor … the damage it would do … and you yourself a healer!”

  “I’ll think about it,” Ruso promised, not sure the man was entirely in his right mind and not wanting to put Valens at any further risk. If the temple slaves were ordered to turn nasty, a ceremonial sword and an ancient shield would do almost nothing to protect him.

  “There are things I can’t tell you.”

  “Never mind,” Ruso said. “Go and have your dinner and you can not tell them to me again tomorrow.”

  The hand grabbed his wrist again. “I need you to promise—”

  “It’s been a long day,” Ruso told him. “I don’t think I can make any promises tonight.”

  “But you must! Your friend is in danger! If this doesn’t stop, I don’t know what they’ll do!”

  Ruso leaned back against the wall. “Who?”

  “Everybody!”

  Ruso folded his arms and waited.

  “I mean, everybody will suffer. The temple, the sacred spring—ruined!”

  “Really?” said Ruso. “How?”

  There was a long pause, then a whisper of “You must swear not to tell anyone.”

  Ruso said nothing.

  “At least swear not to tell the centurion. There’s no telling what damage his men might do if they knew.”

  Ruso decided it was better to hide behind silence than betray his confusion by opening his mouth.

  He was aware of the fat little priest pressing up against him. A voice whispered in his ear, “It’s the water.”

  57

  “Tilla!” Gleva’s voice cut across the music and the laughter and the sound of Tilla’s own breathing as the dance spiraled away from the torchlit columns and back out into the courtyard. “Daughter of Lugh! Pertinax is asking for your husband!”

  “My husband is busy!” Tilla shouted over her shoulder. Neena’s hand tugged at her own and the dance swirled them both away. When the steps led her back round, she caught a fresh glimpse of Gleva standing under the light, pushing damp hair out of her eyes and looking annoyed. Well, she could look as annoyed as she liked. Tilla’s feet carried her out across the courtyard with the others, friends and strangers alike, each following the dancer in front. Her husband was not under Pertinax’s orders now. And he certainly wasn’t obliged to come running at the request of a woman like Gleva, who for all Tilla knew might be trying to lure him into a trap. Anyway, what business did she have using the name Tilla’s family had given her? How did she even know it? They were not old friends. They were not friends at all.

  “She’s still standing there!” Virana called over the wail of the pipes as the line of dancers wound its way back around the columns.

  This time Gleva shouted, “Pertinax is ill!”

  Tilla dragged her hand free of Virana’s and waved an arm about her. “There are plenty of doctors here!”

  “I told him, but he wants your husband!”

  The dance took them again, but there was no pleasure in it anymore. Tilla knew her husband would be angry if he found out she had ignored a call to a patient. Even one that came from a woman like Gleva. Ducking out of the line, she made her way back to where the priestess was waiting and admitted, breathless, that she did not know where he had gone.

  “What is the matter with Pertinax?”

  “We are both supposed to be dining with the governor,” Gleva told her, “but he can hardly stand up. I have looked for your husband already. And that tutor does not know where he is, either.”

  There was an answer to this, and it was not one Tilla liked. “I will come myself.”

  “You are not what the centurion asked for.”

  “Then find somebody else.”

  Gleva sighed. “I suppose we can see what he says.”

  The strange couple of the priestess and the old soldier had one thing in common: They were both very rude.

  Albanus must have been watching, because he appeared out of the darkness with Mara asleep on his shoulder and said, “Your husband said I should look after you.”

  “She will be safe with me,” Gleva told him. “You can look for the husband and send him over as soon as you find him.”

  Albanus, who found it difficult to refuse an order no matter where it came from, said, “You’ll bring her back?”

  “I am not a parcel,” Tilla told them both. “Or a child.”

  As she and Tilla hurried along the dark street together, Gleva seemed too worried about Pertinax to care that she had just ruined everyone’s evening. “I have never seen him like this,” she confided.

  “You have not known him long.”

  If Gleva noticed the barb, she pretended not to. She put a hand on Tilla’s arm. “Mind the step on this corner.” And then: “Pertinax asked for your husband because he does not trust the doctors from the temple. He has made enemies in this place.”

  Tilla hoped Albanus would find her husband quickly. What if this was not an illness but an attempt to harm Pertinax, just as someone had tried to attack Valens in the room at the inn? Her husband would never claim to be an expert on poisons, but he knew a great deal more than she did. “When did the centurion fall ill?”

  “On the way back from town to get ready for the dinner. He felt faint and giddy and now he has pains in the stomach.”

  It did not sound good.

  58

  Alone in the dark at the back of the portico, Ruso wondered what would happen if all these people who had come together to celebrate the Feast of Sulis Minerva knew what Dorios had just told him. No doubt the reputation of the shrine could be rebuilt, but it would be a struggle. People had long memories. What had happened here was the sort of gruesome tale that would be told around smoky fires in native houses for generations.

  And all because a couple of well-intentioned slaves had used their initiative.

  It was easy to see how it had happened. When customers were banging on the bathhouse door at way past the usual opening time and your boss had been called away to a meeting and left no instructions, what shoul
d you do? Leave the doors locked and dissatisfied customers grumbling outside until his return? Or, since everyone knew where the key was kept, go and fetch it from his office and open up?

  The answer had seemed obvious. As answers often did when the people in search of them didn’t have all the information. The slaves had no way of knowing that this was a morning like no other, nor that the meeting had just agreed to announce an immediate closure of the bathing halls for emergency repair work. When the slaves finally dragged the main doors open, a couple of the waiting women even took the trouble to thank them. Everyone was relieved to be able to relax in the pleasant surroundings of the baths after the terrible business of that fire the night before.

  The thanks, more than anything, were what had struck fear into the heart of Chief Priest Dorios and the few other officials who knew the real reason for the closure. That was why they were doing their utmost to prevent a trial. And as soon as the truth about Serena’s killing became public, every woman who had entered the great bath at Aquae Sulis on the morning after the fire would realize she had spent her leisure time wallowing in the very same hot water that had marinated a corpse through the long hours of the night.

  As for anyone who had swallowed it … that didn’t bear thinking about.

  The healing waters of Aquae Sulis, the great symbol of Roman peace in Britannia, would gain a new and unwanted reputation. The officials who had allowed it to happen would be ruined.

  Ruso had tried to assure Dorios that there must be some way around the problem. That both sides could be asked to swear not to mention the circumstances of the death in court. That the governor could be asked to hear some of the case in private. That if Pertinax understood what was at stake, he might be persuaded to … No, Ruso had to agree that any scheme involving the persuasion of Pertinax would never work. And Dorios was right: The quarrel over Valens’s children was so bitter that whatever promises were made, there was no telling whether they would be kept in the heat of battle.