by Ruth Downie
Dorios and the other keepers of the secret—the haruspex and the bath manager—believed they were fighting not only for their own livelihoods and reputations but for the honor of the goddess, the future of the town, the sense that peace was restored in the province, and the welfare of everyone here who depended upon the visitors for an income. With that kind of motive, Ruso was beginning to wonder just how far they would be prepared to go.
He headed back to where the dancers were still cavorting about in front of the temple, waited until Gnaeus appeared in the line, then ran out to grab him and explain what he wanted.
“Something very thin?” The scribe squinted up at his new customer in the dim light of his booth, and Ruso wondered how the man could see to write anything at all.
“Something very thin,” Ruso repeated. “And I need something to write on it with. Quickly.”
The man scratched his head. “It’s an all-in-one price per sheet, sir. I do the writing, discount for the second side, curses extra because of the cost of the lead. No charge for writing backwards.”
Ruso, who did not have time to argue, said, “I’ll pay for the writing, then. But I’ll do it myself.”
“I don’t supply pens, sir. I’ve only got two and I need both of them.”
Ruso placed a hand upon the man’s shoulder, slid his finger and thumb into position, and squeezed.
“Ow!” The scribe glanced around wildly for someone who might come and rescue him, but everyone was too busy dancing, drinking, and gossiping.
“I’m a customer,” Ruso told him. “I’m the only one you’ve got, and I’m in a hurry.”
If the slaves leaning against the temple pillars were surprised to see Ruso return, they hid it well. He thanked them for looking after Valens and agreed with them that it would be out of the question to open the doors without an order from the chief priest: He would not even consider asking.
The exchange of glances that followed his next question told him that nobody had told them what to do with a man who just wanted to chat to his friend through the closed doors. So, after warning him not to try anything, they stood back and let him approach.
There was no need to call out: A muffled voice from the other side said, “Is that you, Ruso?”
“It’s me.”
“What’s happening out there?”
“Dancing.”
“The boys heard the music. I thought they might ask to go and join in, but they’re frightened of the crowd.”
It was sad but hardly surprising. “All the officials have gone off to dine with the governor in the Mercury,” Ruso told him. “They’ve left you four men out here to guard the door.”
“Good.”
It wasn’t necessarily good, and Valens needed to be told that, but without alerting the guards themselves. Fortunately, even though the skies had cleared and the moon was up, the gloom under the temple porch was such that none of them noticed Ruso slipping a thin leaf of wood through the gap between the bronze-covered doors. Only when he had shoved it out of reach did it strike him that the doors were thick and it might not be long enough to emerge on the other side. Hoping the guards would not understand him, he said in Greek, “Read the note in the door.”
Valens asked, “What note?” in the same tongue, and then, “Oh. Wait a moment …”
Ruso felt the doors shift and jolt, and then: “I knew that sword would come in handy for something.”
Ruso leaned back against the doors, listening to the pipes wailing around the rhythm of the drums and gazing at the patterns of figures moving about in the moonlit courtyard. The Britons, he had to admit, knew how to throw a party. He was willing to bet that Pertinax’s mad priestess would rather be out here than dining with the governor.
From behind the door there was another “Oh” and then: “You’re absolutely sure about this?”
“Yes.” He switched back into Latin. “How’s the eye?”
“Bloody awful. How’s the head?”
“Tilla stitched it.”
“Tilla?” A pause, then: “This is turning into quite an evening.”
“How are the boys?”
“Gone back to sleep. The temple slaves brought some food in.” Then, back into Greek: “I suppose we’d better not eat the next lot.”
“I don’t think anyone would poison the boys.”
“No. Of course they wouldn’t.” The words were confident, but the tone was not. Now that he knew how desperate Dorios and his pals were to cover up their unsavory little secret. Ruso was not sure, either. He had spared Valens the detail about the polluted water but made clear his suspicion that if it would avert a trial, either Valens or Pertinax might be silenced by morning.
He was reassured to hear the scrape of furniture being moved. Valens was replacing the barricade that would help to keep out any potential assassins. He put his mouth to the gap between the doors again. “Have you got everything you need in there?”
“We’ll manage,” Valens assured him. “I’ll have a word with Sulis Minerva. She’s looking very lovely in here, back up on her pedestal.”
Ruso turned and leaned back against the doors. From there he could see the view that the goddess enjoyed when her temple doors were open. It stretched way beyond the confines of her courtyard. The moon was up above the eastern hills, and the river was a wide streak of silver beyond the angular silhouettes of the buildings.
The words of the fishermen came back to him: Neptune rises to greet the goddess of the moon.
“Did you say,” he murmured to the door, “that there was no moon on the night Serena died?”
“Did I? There wasn’t, anyway. Just the stars.”
Something didn’t make sense. He said, “I’ve got to go.”
“You aren’t planning to dance, are you? You know it’ll end badly.”
“I’ll be back,” he promised.
“Be careful, Ruso.”
“Yes,” he said. “You too.”
On the way back down he was pleased to see that Gnaeus had several veterans casually gathered around him at the foot of the steps, clutching drinks. If Gnaeus had thought about it, he might have wondered why Ruso had asked him to protect Valens from the same temple guards who had saved him and the boys from the crowd earlier that evening. Fortunately the continuing enmity between veterans and temple meant that Gnaeus and his friends were unlikely to trust anyone in a temple tunic.
If Ruso had any doubts himself, they had just been silenced as he walked across the temple porch and glanced at one of the slave guards leaning against a column in the moonlight. The odd shadow down one side of the man’s face was not a shadow but a burn. Valens was being guarded by the mystery attacker from the Traveler’s Repose. And that man, it was now clear, worked for the chief priest.
“I’ve told my friend you’re here to keep an eye on him,” Ruso murmured to Gnaeus as he passed.
“Don’t you worry, sir,” Gnaeus replied. “I brought him back here for a fair trial. I’m going to see to it that he gets one.”
59
If Tilla had ever wondered about Pertinax’s bedroom—which she had not—she would have imagined it just like this. Stark white walls, looming chest of drawers that smelled of beeswax polish, one pale little island of rug on the floorboards, and above it, crammed against the wall, a narrow bed that looked as if the owner had only put it there out of duty and would be just as happy sleeping on the floor. Tilla supposed Gleva slept somewhere else and was only summoned when required.
The figure under the striped covers opened his eyes as they approached. “What’s she doing here?”
Gleva set the lamp on top of the chest. “You need a healer and I could not find the husband.”
“Uh.”
“You said not to bring one of those temple types. There are not many left to choose from.”
Pertinax sighed and closed his eyes for a moment before dragging himself up the bed. Gleva tried to help him, but even so it was a struggle. By the time he was sitting with
his back propped against the one pillow, his head hung forward and the broad shoulders were heaving with the effort.
It frightened Tilla to see him looking so old. She tried to remember what she needed to check, but after she accepted Gleva’s invitation and perched awkwardly on the edge of the bed, she could not think beyond I am sitting next to Centurion Pertinax!
Don’t alarm the patient, her husband would have said. Stay calm. Ask questions. Give yourself time to think.
“So,” she began, as brightly as she could manage. And then, in desperation: “What is the matter with you?”
The head lifted. “You tell me.”
She reached for his hand, turned it over, and ran her fingertips along the thick wrist in search of a pulse.
The pulse was rushing and it felt somehow wobbly. His breathing was quick and shallow, but he had no fever. She remembered some better questions, asking how long he had been feeling ill, how he would describe how he felt, whether or not it was getting worse …
“You are worse,” Gleva told him before he had a chance to answer. “You are sure the priests or their men gave you nothing? Did nothing?”
“Nothing.”
She glanced at Tilla. “He said he ate an apple pastry from a stall and drank wine at a bar he often goes to. And now he has pains in the stomach.”
“Apple pastry from Albanus,” mumbled the patient.
Tilla shook her head. “I ate from that stall too. It is not the pastry.” Although, if it had been, all those women in the cold plunge room had eaten them too. It would have served them right.
“What is it, then?” said Pertinax. “Can’t lie here. Me and her are supposed to be …” His voice trailed off, as if he was having trouble remembering where they were supposed to be. “The governor. Arse Face from the temple is having a dinner for him.”
When Tilla did not reply, he said, “Well? What is it, then?”
Tilla thought of all the medical wisdom that was stored in her husband’s luggage just across the courtyard. The scrolls might as well have been on the moon: She could barely read a word of Greek. “I don’t know yet,” she confessed. “I do not think you will be going to the dinner.”
He sighed and looked up at Gleva. “Find me a proper doctor.”
“I’ll wake your brother to sit with you.”
“Catus is sicker than me with that cough, or he’d have been at Arse Face’s dinner. Let him sleep. I want a doctor. I’m dying.”
Gleva reached for her cloak. “I’ll go back and look for the husband.” It would have been hard to tell which of the three of them was the most desperate to see a proper doctor, and quickly. But in the meantime Tilla was glad of a few moments alone with her patient. There was a question she needed to ask.
“Has Gleva given you anything?”
“No.”
“No medicine? No drinks or special foods for strength?”
“Fresh air and exercise. Best medicine. Always tell the men.”
This was not a time for polite silence. “I was told,” she said, “that your daughter thought Gleva was giving you love potion.”
Pertinax said, “Gleva?”
“I was told your daughter was very worried about you and Gleva.”
“I’m ill.”
Tilla was wondering if she dared search the room for medicines, when there was a faint tap on the open door behind her. The cook bowed to her master and in response to Tilla’s question assured her that, no, nobody had given her anything to put in the master’s food. No, the food and drink were never left anywhere where someone could tamper with them.
It seemed nobody could have poisoned Pertinax, and yet that was the only explanation Tilla could think of. She beckoned the cook out into the corridor, where she found the rest of the staff lined up to listen.
The houseboy shook his head sadly. “Forty-seven years, and I’ve never seen the master like this.”
“I wouldn’t put anything past that woman,” hissed the cook. “Mistress Serena never trusted her.”
The maid’s thin hands were gripping a cleaning rag as if she were hoping to wring the truth out of it. “Will he die?”
“First the mistress,” muttered the houseboy, “now the master.”
“He’s not dead yet,” the cook pointed out.
Tilla looked around the group. “Does anyone know if he’s been given anything unusual?”
Half a dozen blank and frightened faces stared back at her in the lamplight.
The maid had her lips pressed close together. The rag was twisted so tightly, it was dripping on the floor.
“And just when we’d got the boys back,” sighed the cook.
Tilla placed a hand on the cook’s arm. “Could you watch him for a moment? I have just thought of something.”
“Me?”
“Send someone to fetch me if you need me.” She snatched up the lamp from the bracket and beckoned to the maid. “I need you to come and help.”
Moments later, in the privacy of Serena’s old room, she demanded, “What do you know?”
She had guessed well. There was a wail of “I can’t tell you, miss!”
“This is not a time for secrets!” Tilla hissed, holding the lamp close to the girl’s face. “Your master is very ill. If you know something, you must speak.”
The girl shrank away, shaking her head. “I swore not to tell.”
Tilla stepped forward and lifted the girl’s chin. “And I swear to you,” she said, looking into the frightened eyes that blinked in the bright light, “that if you don’t tell, and your master dies, I will make sure you get the blame.”
60
Neptune rises to greet the goddess of the moon.
The musicians were still flinging wild tunes into the night air, but the crowd was changing now: Young children were being taken home to bed or settled in small huddles of blankets under the portico. The child snatcher tales had had their effect: As Ruso peered at a sleeping toddler to reassure himself it was not Mara, a shawled old woman hissed, “What are you looking at? Clear off!” from the shadows.
Dodging the dancers and gossipers and the altars now providing useful support for drunks, Ruso made his way across the courtyard and retrieved the straw hat from the head of a statue. With the alarming stitches thus hidden, he was just in time to catch the oyster stall. A man was lifting one of a row of barrels while a woman was tying a length of rope around a stack of wooden lids. She glanced up at his approach. “All gone, sir, sorry. We’ll have a fresh lot up from the coast in a couple of days.”
“It’s not really oysters I wanted,” Ruso told her. “I’m hoping you can give me some information.”
The smile was tired, but it was there. “Right-oh, sir. How can we help?”
That, Ruso thought, was the difference between visiting an ordinary town and visiting one that depended on tourists for a living. “It’s about the tide,” he said. “In the river. I thought you might know.”
“It’s in.” The man sounded less accommodating than his partner.
“Yes,” Ruso agreed. “I’m told it follows the moon.”
The man eyed Ruso’s straw hat, gave the woman a what-have-you-got-me-into? look, and said, “Of course.”
Ruso indicated the row of barrels. “Need some help?”
He was on his way back from loading a cart and less enlightened than he had hoped, because the oysterman had been down at the coast on the night of the fire, when he heard, “Master!”
It was Neena, carrying his sleeping daughter and looking more than a little weary. “I have been looking for you!”
For some reason Tilla had gone back to the centurion’s house without taking Mara, and Virana had gone off to return trays to the bakery. Having totally ignored his suggestion that they all stay together for safety, Tilla had left Neena with a message for him to follow her to the centurion’s house as soon as possible. It was more than a little annoying, but it was not Neena’s fault. So, rather than argue, he sent Neena back there to put their d
aughter to bed and assure Tilla that there was no need to worry: His head was fine now and he would be back just as soon as he had finished what he was doing.
“And Albanus is looking for you as well, master.”
Probably to warn him that Tilla had wandered off on her own. Sometimes people could be too helpful. “I’ll try and find him before I come back,” he promised, striding away in pursuit of the oysterman and the information that was proving much harder to get than he had imagined.
Apparently the timing of high and low water could indeed be calculated, but it was a tricky business, partly because it involved both the moon and the sun while daylight hours were getting shorter and night hours getting longer all the time, and partly because Ruso’s lack of sleep was starting to catch up with him.
In the end it was the woman who told him what he wanted to know. “Oh, the tide was on the way out that evening,” she said. “I remember because it was a lovely sunset and my little girl was watching the birds feeding down on the mud and she said how it looked all pink with the glow on it, and then a bit later she called down from her bed to say the sun had turned his chariot round and come back. Only it wasn’t, was it? It was the Little Eagle.”
“So the tide wouldn’t be up again till late into the night,” explained the oysterman, who, after his initial reluctance, now seemed determined not to let Ruso go until he had completed his education. “And the moon must have been waning, so she was late up too, see.” Ruso did not see, but he did not care, either. He had found out what he needed to know. He thanked them both, dumped the second barrel in the cart, and sprinted back to the baths.
The bathhouse was less crowded than before, but a couple of stallholders were still pouring drinks and little clusters of guests had gathered in the alcoves to chat. Others had decided to bathe by the fitful light of the surrounding torches, men and women keeping to the spirit of the emperor’s ban on mixed bathing by not bothering to undress first. The slaves standing in attendance were doing nothing to stop them. Ruso was not surprised: Apparently the manager was dining with the governor. After the disaster with the water, he guessed that any use of initiative in the manager’s absence had been strongly discouraged. However, the nearest man did provide the answer to his question: Justus, the malodorous little slave with the stoop, had gone to retrieve something dropped in the latrine.
