Ruso and the Root of All Evils

by Ruth Downie

Ruso turned the corner to find another election slogan – genuine, he supposed – that told him he was not the only one who owed Fuscus some sort of favour. Evidently the local silversmiths did too. He shivered, despite the heat of the day. After that meeting, he felt in need of a wash. And a drink.

  There was a snack bar on the next corner. Hunched over a cup of watered wine, he ran over the conversation again. How was he going to explain to Lucius that, in exchange for a vague promise of possible support, he had agreed to become one of Fuscus’ yes-men? He had even managed to get himself warned off asking questions about the sinking of the Pride of the South.

  Ruso took a long swig of the wine. He had always supposed that, when a man made a sacrifice in a good cause – and his family was, he supposed, a good cause despite its manifold eccentricities – he would feel proud. But he had never imagined that the sacrifice would be one of self-respect.

  He had expected Fuscus to ask for some kind of private favour. Something medical and embarrassing and strictly confidential. The last thing he had anticipated was being held up in front of the whole town as some kind of military hero. The thought of any genuinely invalided veteran seeing him showing off up on the grand balcony at the public games made him shudder.

  He was not a hero. He had chosen to rush home and desert his remaining patients in the Legion. He had wriggled out of his sworn loyalty to his Emperor with a half-truth. He should never have listened to Valens. He should have gone to his superior officer, explained the situation, and …

  … and been told to leave his domestic affairs outside the gate and get back on duty.

  Sometimes, no matter how hard a man tried, it was impossible to do the right thing.

  He swilled the remainder of the wine around the cup. In Britannia, the work had been gruelling, but at least his duty was clear. Here, he was expected to stave off bankruptcy and ruin while helping with a political campaign and taking an interest in dowries, drains and dinner parties. In the midst of it he had foolishly promised to help find out about Cass’s missing brother.

  He glanced out into the street in the faint hope that Tilla might be passing with the girls. Tilla, the barbarian woman who consorted with rebels and thieves, believed in ridiculous gods and cheated at board games. She had no clue about elections or dinner parties and was unlikely to know much about drains, but he drew some comfort from the thought that he could talk to her about them later in the privacy of a shared bed. In the meantime, he hoped her morning was turning out to be more enjoyable than his own.

  The barman raised his eyebrows, offering a refill. Ruso shook his head and paid up. He would go and do now what he should have done in the first place. He would bypass Fuscus and all his slippery promises and machinations. He would go and announce his return to Severus and deal with him, man to man.

  Chapter 17

  ‘Not that one. The big one on the left – no, not that big! – down a bit.’

  Tilla marvelled at the patience of shopkeepers. At first she had feared the girls were about to spend money the Medicus did not have. But by the time they had left a second salesman to reconstruct his disrupted display, she began to understand the game. In the faint hope of a sale, the shop staff would be obliged to pass over shoes and hairpins and earrings and necklaces and wait while the girls tried them on, craned their necks to see the effect in mirrors, giggled and then declared that this wasn’t quite what they were looking for: how about that one just above it?

  ‘This would suit you, Tilla,’ suggested Marcia, holding up a delicate gold chain with blue and green stones.

  Tilla shook her head. ‘I am not buying today.’ Or any other day.

  ‘Try it on,’ urged Marcia, reaching across to drape it around her neck. ‘It’s just right with your hair. Go and look in the mirror and tell me that isn’t made for you.’

  Tilla took off her hat and picked up the shop mirror. She was conscious of the salesman’s cynical gaze from behind the counter. They both knew she was only being allowed to sample the goods because he did not want to offend the young ladies. Still, it was not every day she had a chance to wear costly jewellery. She straightened her shoulders and eased down the neck of the dreadful yellow outfit with her forefinger so the stones would lie flat against her skin.

  It was not a good mirror. Careless customers had damaged the polished brass surface, and the serious young woman staring back at her was softened around the edges by a thousand tiny scratches.

  ‘So,’ she said, watching herself frown and trying to repress the smile that followed, ‘you think a barbarian should wear one of these?’

  ‘Very nice, miss,’ offered the salesman. The girls said nothing. She wondered if she had offended them with the ‘barbarian’ remark. She put the mirror back on its ledge and glanced around, seeking their opinion.

  They were not there. She blinked and looked around again. It was a small shop – just a lock-up booth built into the front of a house – and there was nowhere to get lost. Apart from the man behind the counter, she was quite alone. It seemed the girls had grown tired of waiting for her and moved on.

  She stepped out into the street to look for them. A heavy hand landed on her shoulder. ‘Forgot something, miss?’

  She had not noticed the guard outside the door. His grip tightened as she squirmed, trying to catch sight of Marcia’s green stole. To her surprise there seemed to be hardly anybody about. A rattle of shutters told her that the coppersmith’s shop opposite was closing. ‘I must go,’ she said, reaching behind her neck to grope for the fastening of the necklace.

  ‘Cash only,’ said the voice behind her. ‘No credit, and our master don’t take offers.’

  ‘I don’t want to buy it,’ she explained, struggling to find the fastening.

  Behind her was a shuffle of leather soles on flagstones. ‘Let me help, miss.’

  She felt a hand lift one of her plaits. ‘That’s a very expensive item, miss,’ said the salesman. ‘You don’t look to me like you could afford to buy it.’

  ‘I am not stealing,’ she insisted loudly, wondering where the sisters had gone. How long would it be before they realized she was missing? ‘I don’t want to steal. I forget I am wearing it. I have to go with those girls.’

  ‘Third one this week,’ said the doorman.

  ‘A lot of ladies forget to take off expensive items and wander out by mistake. That’s what we keep the door staff for, see?’

  ‘Well, now I am remember,’ said Tilla, her frustration spilling over into a struggle with the Latin. Arguing was so much easier in British, when she did not have to think about the words. In British, she would be able to tell this man what she thought of him. But there was nobody for hundreds of miles who could translate. ‘Keep your necklace,’ she said. ‘Let me go.’

  ‘Funny accent,’ said the salesman. ‘Can you understand what she’s saying?’

  ‘Nah,’ observed the doorman. ‘We don’t talk like that round here, miss.’

  ‘We’re about to put the shutters up for lunch,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘You can stay and explain it to us.’

  Tilla took a long, slow breath. They were probably just teasing her, but in a strange land she had no way of guessing from their tone. Keeping her voice as steady as she could manage, she said, ‘Let me go. My friends will vouch for me. Their family is very important.’

  ‘Really?’

  Was that a note of doubt in his voice? ‘Their father is Publius Petreius who built a big temple with an inscription. When everyone hear that you make one of their guests prisoner alone in this shop, how many rich ladies will want to come here and buy things?’

  She hoped the fumbling at the back of her neck was undoing the fastener and not a prelude to something worse. Moments later she felt the stones slither across her throat as the necklace was removed. ‘There you go, miss,’ said the salesman, as cheerfully as if he had been trying to help her from the start. ‘Try and remember next time. If your friends come back we’ll tell them you were looking.’

/>   Tilla stood on tiptoe at the crossroads. There was no green stole in sight. Neither of the women she stopped to ask had seen two girls answering the right description.

  She turned right by the shrine on the corner, hurried on to the next crossroads and then right again. She thanked whatever gods might be listening that the Romans were so fond of squares and rectangles. If she kept choosing the same direction in this ants’ nest of narrow lanes, she would find herself at the other end of the jewellers’ street, and perhaps meet the girls coming back to find her.

  She glanced into the few shops that were open as she passed: a weaver’s, a merchant selling perfumed oil, a meat stall, a scribe bent over his copying … no green stole in any of them. No green stole on any of the customers lolling at the shady counter of the bar, either. She passed a narrow alleyway where someone was playing a tune on a whistle. All she could see in the shadows were three curious dark-eyed children and a hen peering at her from behind a line of limp laundry.

  The next open door had a picture of a smug-faced man painted on the wall beside it. The man was attached to an eager phallus which appeared to be beyond his control and, at the far end, beyond his reach as well. The Medicus’ sisters definitely wouldn’t be in there, and Tilla felt a momentary pity for the girls who were.

  She could understand neither where the sisters had gone nor why. It was hard to believe that they would walk off in the middle of a conversation, or that they could vanish so completely and so quickly. She had heard tales of young women being stolen, of course: everyone had. Snatched up by gods, or ghosts, or more likely by humans with evil intent. But surely someone would have noticed two people disappearing at once? And surely Marcia would have had something to say about it?

  It was hard not to conclude that the girls had deliberately run off and left her.

  None of the figures chatting on the communal seats of the latrine was familiar. Back out in the glare of the street, she realized she was no longer wearing the straw hat that the Medicus had bought her. After a moment’s thought she remembered taking it off in the jeweller’s shop. She sighed. She was not going back there. The hat was lost.

  The slave-girl sweeping the paving stones in the grand square of the Forum knew nothing. The knot of women standing on the fringe of a poet’s audience told her they had no money for beggars. Neither the silversmith’s slave nor the boy selling fancy sandals knew anything. If Marcia and Flora had passed this way by choice, Tilla was certain they would have paused at those stalls. According to the attendant, who refused to let her in to look around without payment, they were not in the bath-house, either.

  Pausing at the next fountain, she borrowed a cup from a friendly young woman with a black eye and gave herself a long drink. Then she asked which local god might be inclined to help a foreigner who had lost something she was supposed to be looking after.

  ‘You could try Isis,’ suggested the woman, pointing across the street at a small shrine gifted with several bunches of lavender. ‘I pray to her for protection sometimes.’

  Tilla glanced at the black eye. ‘And does she answer?’

  The woman ran her forefinger lightly along her bruised cheekbone. ‘Well,’ she conceded, ‘he hasn’t killed me yet.’

  With nothing else to give, Tilla unfastened the knife from her belt and laid a lock of blonde hair amongst the lavender before setting off again on her search.

  The city slaves who had the unenviable task of dredging the sacred spring had no more idea about Marcia and Flora than the ducks preening their feathers under the balustrades. (Even the sacred spring, Tilla noticed, had been trapped into a rectangular stone pond. The god of the spring had taken his revenge by turning the water pea-green and cursing it with a bad smell.) ‘Try going up the hill, miss,’ suggested one of them. ‘You’ll get a better view.’

  The view after she had slogged up the hill was indeed better, but no more useful. The guards at the nearby tower had no information to offer except that, for a special price for pretty girls, they could let her climb up to the top and enjoy a finer view still.

  Tilla threw herself down in the shade of a pine tree, pausing to straighten out the creases from Arria’s cast-off tunic. She surveyed the vast sprawl of red roofs stretching out in front of her. The pale oval in the distance must be the amphitheatre, where men would soon be trying to murder each other for the entertainment of the townspeople. Down there, somewhere in that cruel city, were two girls whose mother had sent them out under her protection.

  She stood up, brushed away the dead pine needles that had made patterns on the backs of her calves and decided there was no point in wandering about. If the girls had been taken, they would be hidden. If they had drifted off, they knew their way far better than she did. She would go back to the Augustus gate and hope they turned up in time for the cart the Medicus was sending to fetch them. If they did not, she would stay there to wait for them and send the driver hurrying home with the message that they were lost.

  She could imagine what the stepmother would have to say about that.

  Chapter 18

  Ruso turned the cart left off the main road about a mile short of his own house. The slaves working in the stony vineyards and olive groves that stretched out to either side of him would all be the property of My Cousin The Senator down in Rome. The man had a country estate this size, and yet his agent was prepared to seize the only home another family owned. No wonder the Gabinii were one of the richest families in town.

  Ruso drove for several minutes before a graceful villa came into view. It was large enough to be grand without being ostentatious, and neatly positioned to catch the breeze and make the most of the view south across the plain. Between the house and the surrounding countryside was a long garden wall, and in that wall a pair of gates was opening to allow a carriage to exit.

  Ruso narrowed his eyes and peered past the matched pair of bay horses. Someone was sitting in the seat behind the driver. Perhaps he was about to meet Severus earlier than he had expected. He wiped a trickle of sweat off his forehead and shifted his grip on the reins.

  As the vehicles closed on each other he slowed the mules, then felt the tension in his shoulders ease as he realized the passenger under the sunshade in the other carriage was a woman. She was repaying his interest by staring back at him from beneath an arrangement of orange curls that seemed to be frozen to her head. He nodded an acknowledgement and returned his attention to the road just as he heard her cry, ‘Stop!’

  The carriage rumbled to a halt, and he found himself sitting no more than six feet away from its passenger. A pair of perfectly made-up dark eyes gazed at him from an artificially pale face. The reddened lips parted to emit the word ‘Gaius!’

  ‘Claudia!’ Ruso was not sure how a man should address his former wife after three years of separation, but he was confident that ‘You’ve put on weight’, and ‘What have you done to your hair?’ were not appropriate.

  Claudia seemed to be having the same difficulty, because she repeated, ‘Gaius!’

  She was immaculately turned out as usual, from the clusters of pearls dangling beneath her ears, down past something pale pink and floaty to the soles of her delicate coral-pink sandals with matching pearls stitched at the join of the toe-straps. The whole effect looked effortlessly elegant, and to achieve it she would have had the servant-girl messing about with combs and tongs and pots of make-up for hours while she dealt with the strain by helping herself to a platter of cakes.

  ‘I heard you were home,’ she said.

  He had forgotten how she fiddled with the hair at the nape of her neck when she was nervous. He said, ‘You look well.’

  ‘Thank you, Gaius. I am well.’ She pointed to his bandaged foot. ‘I hear you’ve been in Britannia.’

  ‘I’ll be fine in a couple of weeks,’ he assured her, realizing as he said it that Fuscus would be expecting a more heroic account of his injury.

  Claudia sighed. ‘Well, you always did like those dreadful sorts of places.�
��

  Ruso drowned out the faint echoes of an old argument with ‘I hear I have to congratulate you on your marriage.’

  ‘Thank you. I take it you haven’t …?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No, of course not. Well, who would you meet over there?’

  Since he was not about to enlighten her, there was another awkward pause before they both spoke at once.

  ‘How is your father?’

  ‘Did you finish writing your book?’

  Her smile revealed one front tooth very slightly in front of the other. ‘You first.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I gave up with the book. So how’s Probus?’

  ‘My father is very well, thank you. He and my husband are in business together.’

  Ruso heard the echo of another criticism: the one about his own lack of ambition. Even if he had stayed here, he knew he would never have been deemed worthy of involvement in Probus’ financial affairs. He said, ‘I was sorry to hear about Justinus and the ship.’

  ‘Ships sink, I’m afraid. Severus has travelled himself; he understands these things.’

  ‘I see,’ said Ruso. If Claudia had heard any rumours about the loss of the Pride, she was clearly not intending to share them with him.

  ‘Severus is from Rome,’ she said, as if that explained his superior understanding.

  ‘I see.’ In a moment she would probably tell him that Severus was more handsome than he was and better in bed, too. Not that she would be likely to recall much of Ruso’s performance in bed, since it had frequently been curtailed by the room being too hot or too cold, or it being the wrong time of the month at least once a fortnight, or just ‘Not now, Gaius!’

  Ruso cleared his throat and reminded himself that, if Claudia’s husband and her father were in business together, they were not doing it to spite him. ‘You know he’s trying to ruin us?’

  The lines of her frown were deeper than they used to be. ‘He’s only doing his job, Gaius. He has to represent the Senator’s interests. It isn’t personal.’