by Ruth Downie
‘Never mind,’ said Ruso, heading towards the winery. It was a shame the boy was not a year or two older. Before long, he would have no difficulty remembering whether he had seen a young woman like Tilla.
The winery contained only his brother. Lucius did not look well enough for a trip to Arelate, even if he could be persuaded that anything useful might be found out when they got there.
Ruso leaned on one of the tree-trunks that supported the press and watched the precious juice ooze out and trickle down the sides of the slats. Deliberately casual, he said, ‘How’s the head?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with my head,’ growled Lucius, squinting at the angle of the massive main beam and checking the pulley ropes that held it in position. ‘Why is it if a man has a few things to say, everyone assumes he’s drunk?’
Ruso moved away from the press and began to pick his way between the rows of jars set in the floor. The magic of fermentation had begun. Yesterday’s juice had vanished beneath a froth that sparkled in the streak of sunlight from the double doors. By contrast, the black pitch that coated the insides of the empty jars made them look like the openings of tunnels into a dark underworld. He said, ‘I take it Tilla’s somewhere around with Cass?’
‘Cass has been avoiding me all morning. I don’t know what the fuss is about. If people would listen in the first place, I wouldn’t have to shout.’
Ruso reached the far wall and turned. From here, his brother’s bulk was dwarfed by the colossal apparatus of the press. He said, ‘The investigators have turned up.’
Lucius glared at him across the jars. ‘You said we had weeks!’
Ruso explained the coincidence of them being over in Aquae Sextiae.
‘Why?’
‘There must be something else going on that we don’t know about. Maybe the Senator sent them to keep an eye on Severus.’
Lucius gave a sigh of exasperation. ‘They’ll be crawling all over us here before you can blink. How far have you got with saving the family by geometry?’
Ruso wove his way back between the jars, realizing he knew very little that he was yet prepared to tell anyone.
Lucius dipped a scoop into one of the jars and tasted the contents. ‘Well?’
‘When I was in Britannia –’
‘You told me. Gaius. Does it ever occur to you to wonder why you get tangled up in this sort of business?’
‘I was only going to say, things often get worse before they get better.’
Lucius gave a grunt. ‘I hope that comes out with a bit more conviction when you say it to your patients.’ He took another sip from beneath the froth in the scoop. ‘Mm. That’s about ready for the concentrate.’
Ruso, feeling he should take an interest, tipped the scoop and savoured the rich juice that slid out from beneath the froth.
Lucius pulled the cloth cover off a jug and tasted the contents before pouring the rest into the jar he had just sampled and giving it a vigorous stir. He said, ‘Let’s hope they turn up tonight.’
‘Who?’
‘The Senator’s men. Arria’s invited that Diphilus to dinner. I’m surprised anyone dares to eat here.’
‘She’s invited the widow next door as well.’
Lucius tapped the last drops off the scoop. ‘Lollia Saturnina?’ he said, dipping it in a rinsing-bucket and wiping it dry. ‘Might not be so bad, then. As long as nobody mentions bankruptcy or poisoning.’
‘Or the Pride of the South?’
The silence that followed revealed more about the depths of the previous night’s marital row than the shouting had. Ruso was about to change the subject when Lucius said, ‘This thing with Justinus has sent her odd in the head. Your Briton hasn’t helped, telling her Severus as good as murdered her brother by hiring a rotten ship. What’s the matter with these women?’
‘I haven’t got time to speculate.’
‘Now she’s got some mad idea about me going round interrogating sailors. As if I’ve got time to rush off to Arelate in the middle of the vintage!’
So that was what the argument had been about. Grateful for the cue, Ruso said, ‘I’ll go.’
Lucius looked at him oddly. ‘You?’
‘If the investigators turn up while I’m gone, don’t say anything about the ship unless they ask. If they do ask, make it clear that Cass didn’t know what state it was in before yesterday, so she had no more reason to dislike Severus than the rest of us.’
‘You mean you knew as well? Gods above! How many other people has that woman of yours told? It’s complete rubbish. I tried to explain to Cass last night, but she wouldn’t listen. If you want to get rid of someone you do it secretly on dry land. You don’t go paying for a ship and drowning a whole lot of sailors as well. She’s not thinking straight.’
‘I’ll try and sort it out,’ promised Ruso.
‘I won’t need the cart tomorrow,’ said Lucius. ‘You can take that bloody interfering barbarian as well.’
‘I could ride across this afternoon.’
‘Justinus can wait, Brother. He’s dead. And so will you be if you don’t turn up tonight for Arria’s dinner.’
Chapter 48
Ruso was applying himself to the clumsy process of climbing the porch steps when he found himself facing his stepmother.
‘There you are, Gaius! Where have you been? We need to talk about the seating plan.’
‘Have you seen Tilla anywhere?’
‘You will shave before dinner, won’t you? We want Lollia to think you’ve made an effort. When I think of the wonderful dinner parties we used to have when your poor father was alive …’
‘Have you seen Tilla?’
‘Now, the seating plan –’
‘Tilla?’
‘No, dear. I expect she’s with the farm slaves.’
Arria was as surprised as everyone else when he told her the Senator’s investigators had arrived.
He said, ‘They’ll probably want to question us all.’
‘But we don’t know anything!’
‘We know what happened. We’re the only ones who do.’
She sighed. ‘Oh, Gaius. I do wish you hadn’t made such a fuss. Why can’t you just tell them you’ve changed your mind, and you’ve just realized he was ill?’
‘Why would I say that?’
‘Well, dear, I would have thought that was obvious.’
It was, but he did not want to admit it. He said, ‘If you were poisoned, would you want somebody to pretend you weren’t?’
‘Really, Gaius! There’s no need –’
‘I’m trying to do the right thing, Arria.’
‘So are we all, dear. So what shall I say to them?’
He said, ‘Tell them what you know.’
‘But what I know looks so bad! There you are, shut up in a room with him, and the next thing that happens –’
‘Had nothing to do with me,’ said Ruso, edging past her in the direction of the kitchen. ‘If it did, I’d make up a better story. What’s for lunch?’
Arria put a restraining hand on his shoulder. ‘Please don’t upset Cook, dear. You can’t imagine what it does to the pastry. And by the way, what did you say to Marcia yesterday? She was terribly cross.’
‘We talked about a dowry,’ he said, not in the mood to go over what he had since learned about Tertius the gladiator. ‘I’ll explain later.’
‘Well, you’ll have to settle something on her now, dear. Who’s going to marry her when everybody thinks you poisoned Claudia’s husband?’
Ruso knew quite well that the yolk of hard-boiled egg was prone to disintegration. He should have brought a bowl. Instead, he was seated in front of the pile of unpaid bills and making an undignified attempt to lick scattered grey and yellow crumbs out of his cupped hands when someone tapped on the study door.
‘What?’ he demanded, slapping the remains of the egg from his hands and wiping them on his tunic in a manner of which his mother would not have approved.
The end of Galla’s
‘Please, sir, may I …’ was inaudible.
‘Open the door, woman!’ he called, wondering whether her common sense had finally deserted her or whether he really was as terrifying as she seemed to think.
He clapped a bill from the wheelwright shut and looked up to see her standing in the doorway, clutching a tray of dirty wooden bowls and grubby napkins. ‘Is this important? I’m busy.’
Galla shuffled in and pushed the door shut with her foot. ‘Yes, sir.’
He leaned across the desk and helped himself to a small loaf of bread from the corner of the tray. Failing to find any sign of teethmarks or dribble on it, he said, ‘Has this been anywhere it shouldn’t be?’
‘No, sir. Miss Polla didn’t want it.’
Ruso sat back and tore off a chunk of bread. ‘Well?’
‘Thank you for letting me back in the house, sir.’
‘It was only sensible. Is that what you came to tell me?’
‘No, sir.’ Galla appeared to raise herself to her full height – which was not great – before taking a deep breath and announcing to a point just below his chin, ‘Tilla is gone to Arelate, my lord.’
‘She’s what?’ The bread landed on top of the wheelwright’s bill.
The repeat of this surprising statement was mumbled to the tray, as if Galla had used up all her courage in saying it the first time.
‘Gods almighty! Why didn’t you come and tell me this earlier? When did she go?’
‘I couldn’t find you, sir. I think she went just after dawn. She told me to say she was sorry not to say goodbye.’
‘But what in Jupiter’s name does she want to go there for?’
Galla gripped the outside of the tray and pushed the edge back into the folds of her tunic as if it were a protective barrier between them. ‘I asked her not to go, my lord.’
‘This is ridiculous. I thought she’d got over this sort of wandering off. It’ll take her all day to walk that far in this heat, and she’ll probably be robbed on the way. Where’s she going to sleep?’
Galla cleared her throat. ‘She was hoping for a lift. She talked to a man with a cart.’
‘Which man?’
‘Solemnis, my lord.’
‘Never heard of him. Who does he work for? What the hell does he think he’s playing at?’
Galla looked as though she was going to burst into tears. ‘He is … a friend of a friend, sir.’
‘Can he be trusted?’
‘He is a follower of Christos, my lord.’
‘You mean she’s run off to join some weird religion?’
‘No, sir. They have gone to find out about the ship.’
‘They?’
‘Mistress Cassiana is gone too.’
Ruso stood up and flung the first stack of bills back into the trunk. ‘Put that bloody tray down,’ he ordered, snatching up his stick. ‘Lock the rest of this stuff away, then take the key down to Lucius in the winery. Tell him his wife’s run off to Arelate with Tilla and a – no, leave out the religious bit. Tell him I’ve gone to get them back before they get into trouble.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘As if we haven’t got enough problems! Why didn’t you send me a message? Why didn’t you tell somebody?’
The girl opened her mouth as if she were about to speak, then closed it again.
‘Don’t stand there gasping like a fish! Say it!’
Galla swallowed again. ‘I’m sorry, my lord,’ she said, lifting a pile of documents from the desk. ‘I couldn’t find you, and I did not know who else to tell.’ She knelt to tidy the jumble of tablets and scroll cases in the trunk.
She had a point. Who would she tell? Arria, who had let Tilla tread grapes? The girls, who had abandoned Tilla themselves?
‘You could have told my brother.’
‘Mistress Cassiana told me to look after the children and not to say anything, sir.’
Of course. Rocking sideways to rest his weight on the stick, Ruso said, ‘There must be times, Galla, when you wish you were part of a different household.’
‘Never, my lord.’
‘Really?’ Swinging round to head for the door, he muttered, ‘It must be just me and Marcia, then.’
From the top of the steps, he could see over the wall to where the stable lad was lugging buckets of water across the yard. ‘I need Severus’ horse tacked up!’ he called. ‘Now!’
Chapter 49
Brother Solemnis had hardly spoken a word since they had set off this morning. Tilla watched him from her none-too-comfortable seat on a bundle of hides in the back of the cart and wondered if he was praying for the protection of his god. On top of the usual carter’s worries about lame animals, breakdowns, bad roads, damaged goods and bandits, he had now been accosted by a barbarian woman and a stranger, demanding a lift to Arelate. She suspected he had only taken them because he was too frightened to refuse.
Cass was not much better company. She had chattered nervously as the cart first rattled and jolted them away from the farm. She had never been to Arelate. It was a big and beautiful town. The river was said to be huge. This would be an adventure.
As the sun rose higher, her excitement faded. When they passed a milestone she read ‘Nemausus, eleven miles’ as if it were a mark of loss rather than a sign of progress.
Tilla reflected that more and more these days she was thinking it might be useful to be able to read. Somewhere amongst the other letters chipped into the tall stone must be the good news of the diminishing distance to Arelate.
The milestone must have inspired Cass’s sudden ‘We won’t be back tonight, will we?’
‘We will find an inn.’ Had Cass only just thought of this? How fast did she imagine a mulecart could make a trip of over twenty miles?
Cass was chewing her lower lip. ‘What if they wake in the night?’
‘Galla will deal with them,’ said Tilla, guessing she was talking about the children.
‘I’m their mother.’
‘They will manage. They are used to Galla and they are not babies.’
Cass fell silent again. Tilla leaned back, closed her eyes and tried to pretend that she was still travelling with the Medicus to a peaceful land of blue skies and gentle breezes where she would be welcomed into a new family.
‘Lucius will be furious.’
‘Lucius will have to learn to treat you better,’ insisted Tilla, secretly disappointed that so far neither the Medicus nor his brother had come after them.
Cass was saying something about ‘… divorces me?’
‘Of course he will not divorce you. He cannot afford a slave to do your work and nobody else would marry him.’
In the silence that followed, there was plenty of time to wish she had thought about that before she said it.
Cass said, ‘I hope somebody remembered to collect the eggs.’ When Tilla did not answer she said, ‘What if the slaves eat all the provisions?’
‘Then they will go hungry later.’
‘We should never have left home.’
‘We are doing a good thing,’ Tilla insisted, pushing aside the urge to explain that, if Cass had not turned up at the last minute, she would have abandoned the trip herself and been at the dinner to face the widow and all her money and watch the Medicus trying to make his difficult choice. ‘We will go and find somebody who knows about your brother’s ship.’
‘But what if –’
‘Most of what if never happens. Pray to Christos for help. Galla says you can do it anywhere.’
‘If Galla hadn’t told you about Christos, we wouldn’t be here. When I get back Lucius will have her whipped.’
Tilla was glad she was not Galla. Somehow, everything was always her fault.
‘Anyway,’ continued Cass, ‘I can’t pray to Christos. You’ll have to do it. You’re not married.’
‘Does that matter?’
‘Christos’ followers are supposed to obey their husbands.’
Tilla tried to picture the women who had been at t
he meeting and wondered if they had all been there with male permission.
‘I told my brother Lucius would never let me follow a foreign religion when we’ve spent all that money building Diana’s temple, so it was no good him telling me any more about Christos.’
The cart jolted in and out of a pothole. Cass pushed back one of the bundles that had slid sideways beneath her. ‘I should have let Lucius build a tomb.’
‘You can build a tomb when you go home.’
‘I tried to explain to him, but he wouldn’t listen.’
Tilla yawned and lifted Galla’s hat in the hope that some cool air might circulate around her head. She wished Cass would keep her worries to herself. It had all seemed so straightforward last night, in the enthusiasm of the singing and the cries of Amen, Sister!
‘We are doing a good thing,’ she repeated, wishing she was not doing it at all.
Chapter 50
The leather water-bottle thumped against his side as the horse thudded across the burned stubble of the wheat-field, cutting off the corner where the track led up to the main road. Ruso jammed his fluttering hat lower on his head and glanced down to check that he had fastened the safety strap on his knife. He urged the horse to leap the ditch and flung it into a sharp turn to veer past a train of startled pack mules. Ignoring the angry yells of the driver, he dug his heels into the grey flanks and headed along the verge at a gallop.
He could hear nothing around him: only the rush of air and the thump of hooves. Ahead of him, a flock of sheep scattered at his approach. He yelled an apology to the shepherd – who should have had more sense than to use the road anyway – and urged Severus’ horse on. It responded with a further burst of speed that would have set the stable lad laughing with delight. This was as near as a man could get to flying. At this rate, he might even catch them before they reached Arelate. Whatever transport this Solemnis had to offer, it would not be as fast as his own.
With luck, all that would be needed was to make Solemnis one very sorry carter and deliver a lecture on why women should never travel with strange men, even in a civilized country. If they were unlucky … Severus’ contact might be in the port. He did not want to dwell on what the man might do to silence two women who were asking the wrong questions.
