Ruso and the Root of All Evils mi-3

by Ruth Downie

  ‘Dinner. Whatever the cook was making while you were in there. Didn’t anybody tell you?’

  The eyes that were not really blue widened in alarm. ‘Nobody said I must eat again! It is too hot!’

  ‘Just come in and have a little. I want to introduce you to the family.’

  ‘I do not think they want to meet me again.’

  ‘Of course they do.’

  ‘No, they don’t, Uncle Gaius!’ put in one of the nieces helpfully. ‘Grandmother Arria said — ’

  ‘Never mind what Arria said,’ interrupted Ruso, knowing full well who must have instructed the cook to cram Tilla with food. ‘You’re welcome to join the family for dinner.’

  ‘I will come if you want, but I am tired, and hot, and full up.’ There was a rare note of anxiety in her voice.

  To his shame, he felt relieved. As far as he knew, Tilla had never attended a proper dinner before. In Britannia she was officially his housekeeper. It had never occurred to him to invite her on the rare occasions when he dined with other officers. He had never discussed it with her, but he was certain she would not have wanted to go. That was just as well, because he would no more have been expected to bring her than he would be expected to bring the family dog.

  When he returned to the dining room he admitted none of this to Arria, to whom he explained that there had been a misunderstanding, that Tilla was weary from the journey but that in future she would be eating with the family.

  He was glad she was not there to see the expression on Arria’s face.

  By the time dinner was over, Tilla had already gone to bed.

  Something creaked out in the corridor. Footsteps passed by. Somewhere at the far end a door clamped shut.

  Ruso wondered whether to go and fetch her. He really should let her sleep. He really should sleep himself, instead of lying here going over the events of the day and wondering what he could do tomorrow to stop mess sliding into disaster.

  He rolled over and scowled at the old cupboard in the corner. It reminded him of the childhood nights when Lucius had refused to let him snuff out the lamp until he had checked that those cupboard doors were locked. It was vital that they were locked after dark, because of the monsters.

  Until now he had never thought to wonder how the monsters had installed themselves in the cupboard — or in Lucius’ mind — in the first place. They even had names: Gobbus was a male monster with matted hair, green teeth and breath that smelled of rotten eggs; Mogta was his sister, or perhaps his wife — their precise relationship, being of no interest to seven- and nine-year-olds, was never defined. What was clear was that Mogta liked to slide her sharp fingernails into the soft flesh of small boys in the night, and then skin them alive while they cried for their mothers.

  As he watched the shadow of the cupboard breathing against the pale wall with the drifting of the lamp flame, it occurred to Ruso that the monsters must have appeared at around about the time a winter fever had taken away their own mother. Lucius had lain in this room with the same fever for what seemed like weeks, although it had probably only been a few days. The house had been full of weeping and strangers. Adults whom Ruso did not recognize, but who knew his name, told him how sorry they were and how brave he was being.

  Nobody except Ruso had time to listen to a small boy’s tales of what he had seen coming out of the cupboard in the fevered night. To Ruso’s shame, he had found it funny — until Lucius kept him awake, crying and cuddling up to him for comfort. Then he veered between sympathy — now their mother was gone it was his job to protect his little brother — and exasperation. In fact, he had felt then much as he felt now. Except that this time the monsters were real.

  Gobbus no longer lived in the cupboard but on the Senator’s estate down the road, and there was no locking him away now. Ruso wondered if even Lucius appreciated just how serious this seizure business was.

  If the Praetor in Rome ruled in favour of Severus, the household would be turned off the land they had worked for decades. The men who had been cutting the grapes this afternoon would be put up for auction. Galla, the new cook, the ancient bath-boy who had been stoking the fire since Ruso was a child … all would be sold off to the highest bidder along with Arria’s treasured tables and couches and cushions.

  As for the family — his sisters would have to find husbands where they could: old goats perhaps, but unlikely to be rich ones. Lucius would have to look for work as a farm manager, one step up from slavery.

  After the sale, the profits would be divided up between the creditors. Given the size of the debts, it was obvious that no one would get as much as he was owed — and that was when the real trouble would begin. Lucius might be able to wriggle out of it, because technically it was Ruso who was their father’s heir. It was Ruso who would fail to pay off the balance of the debts. It was Ruso who would be declared infamis: the disgraced man with no rights, no legal standing, no money, no good name …

  Despite the warmth of the room, Ruso felt a sudden shiver run down his back. No good name … how could a man who was infamis serve as an officer in the Army?

  He lay back, eyes wide, staring at the shadowed ceiling as if he had never seen it before. His contract with the Twentieth ran out in January. The Legate would never bring shame upon the Legion by reappointing a dishonoured man. If Ruso could not persuade this Severus to drop the case, he might never get another posting back to Britannia. If Tilla wanted to go home, he would not be able to take her. Severus had not only enticed him home: he had trapped him here.

  He tensed, sensing movement outside the door. The latch clicked, and someone entered the room.

  ‘Your stepmother does not like me,’ announced Tilla.

  One of his hands made contact with hers in the dark. He heard a shuffle of fabric. When she slid into the bed and pressed her back against his chest, she was naked.

  ‘I thought you were asleep,’ he murmured, sliding one hand around her waist.

  ‘Your stepmother is spying on me,’ she said. ‘There is a slave sleeping outside my door.’

  He shifted one leg so it lay between hers and said, ‘Perhaps in case you need anything.’

  ‘I do not think so.’

  ‘No,’ he agreed.

  She wriggled. ‘You are too hot.’

  ‘You’re lovely and cool.’

  ‘You did not tell them about me.’

  ‘I should have,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  She rolled over to face him. ‘Are you ashamed of me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I have wrong clothes and funny hair.’

  ‘So do I.’

  She said, ‘Your sisters are taking me shopping tomorrow. They said I must ask you for money.’

  ‘Your hair can’t be that funny, then. They’re very particular.’

  She seemed to think about that for a moment, then she said, ‘What did your brother say about the letter?’

  He had expected her to be angry when she found out about the forgery. Instead she said, ‘I think the gods have made this wicked man write to you. Now you are here, you can help your brother to fight him.’

  If only it were that simple. ‘He’s from a powerful family,’ he explained. ‘And he can use the law to back him up.’

  ‘I will help you.’

  He was not going to tell her that there was nothing she could do to help, and that bringing her here had been a huge mistake. She did not need to know that, if the wicked man won, they would not be able to return to Britannia together. Instead he bent forward to kiss her, feeling her hair brushing against his face in the darkness, and tried to think of something else to talk about.

  Only as he was halfway through ‘Arria thinks I should save the family by marrying the rich widow next door’ did he realize that Tilla might not find it funny. When she said nothing he added, ‘But I said, “What about Tilla?” ’

  The silence from the other side of the bed told him that he was digging himself further into a hole.

  Outside, h
e heard the faint cry of a child and more footsteps. He had a sudden memory of Cass’s brother scrambling down that corridor on all fours with two of the nephews on his back squealing, ‘Faster, faster!’

  ‘Tilla,’ he said, clutching at a new subject, ‘while we were travelling, do you remember anybody saying anything about a ship called the Pride of the South?’

  She did not, nor did she seem interested until he explained about Cass’s brother. ‘She is the one who sent you the gloves and the socks and the olives?’

  ‘Yes.’ Justinus’ ship had vanished back at the beginning of the summer. Cass was right: it was very odd that Probus had turned up here just a couple of weeks ago to ask if he were still alive. Perhaps Probus had heard some kind of rumour about his lost ship and was trying simultaneously to follow it up and keep it quiet. It was typical of the man that he had not considered the effect of his inquiries on the dead man’s sister. He said, ‘Probably nobody will ever know what happened to him.’

  ‘It is a sad way to lose a brother, far from home.’

  ‘I’d like to get over to Arelate and ask around, but I need to get into Nemausus first thing tomorrow so I can try and stave off this bloody court case.’ He sighed. ‘Then I need to find some work. Even if this Severus is prepared to settle, we’ll have next to no cash left for the rest of the bills. The whole thing is a mess.’

  ‘You are tired,’ she said, slipping her hand into his. ‘Everything will seem better in the morning.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Perhaps not.

  She moved his hand up and placed it on her breast. ‘I have told that slave she can sleep in my bed,’ she said, wriggling closer to him. ‘That way, she will not tell your stepmother what I am doing.’

  ‘Good,’ murmured Ruso, bending forward to nuzzle her ear. ‘Neither will I.’

  13

  According to Arria, the family carriage was being repaired. According to Marcia, it had been being repaired for the last six months, but Lucius was too mean to pay the wheelwright, and that was why Ruso was having to drive them and Tilla into town this morning in this awful embarrassing thing, and why they were so hot.

  ‘You can’t blame Lucius for the weather,’ he said, reining in the mules so that they were not trotting straight into the dust kicked up by the carriage that was currently speeding past the smoking kilns of Lollia Saturnina’s amphora factory. ‘Why don’t you both sit under parasols instead of wrapping up like dead Egyptians? I’m surprised you can breathe under all that.’

  Marcia gave an exaggerated sigh that said she thought her brother was extremely stupid, but she was not foolish enough to say so. ‘Because someone might see us, Gaius. Riding around on this.’ The cart juddered as she emphasized the final word with a thud of her sandal against the footboard.

  Ruso remembered the faces of legionaries who had struggled miles across the wet British hills carrying wounded comrades: faces he might never see again if he could not find a way to get the farm out of Severus’ clutches. He said, ‘You could always walk.’

  She snorted. ‘I might have known you’d take Lucius’ side. And I don’t suppose you’ve done anything about the dowry, have you?’

  ‘Not yet,’ he agreed.

  ‘But I need it!’

  ‘Not this morning.’

  ‘When, then?’

  ‘I’m going to talk to someone.’

  ‘What? Lucius said you would sort it out! Who else do you need to talk to? You’re supposed to be my guardian!’

  ‘And you’re supposed to do what I tell you,’ he pointed out.

  Marcia flung herself against the wooden backrest with a cry of ‘Ohh! What is the matter with this family? Nobody else has to put up with this!’

  ‘No, they don’t!’ chipped in Flora from behind, where she was sitting with Tilla. ‘They don’t, Gaius. Really. If you weren’t off marching around with the Army, you’d know.’

  ‘Over in Britannia,’ observed Ruso, ‘the men pay a bride price to marry the women. Maybe I’ll ship you across there and sell you.’

  ‘How much did you pay for Tilla?’

  ‘I’m not married to Tilla,’ said Ruso, who had no intention of admitting that he had bought her as a slave in the back streets of Deva.

  ‘There are girls my age who have been married for years,’ continued Marcia.

  Ruso said, ‘Not from ordinary families like ours.’

  ‘At this rate I shall be as shrivelled as a prune by the time you get round to it. And there’ll be nobody nice left to marry.’

  They were approaching the vineyards that fringed the entrance to the estate of the absent Senator. Marcia’s hand on his arm was a welcome distraction from the tricky meeting he would face later with the Senator’s devious lying bastard of an agent.

  ‘Gaius, you wouldn’t make me marry somebody repulsive, would you?’

  There was genuine anxiety in the hazel eyes, which were the only part of her face that was visible and which seemed to be blacker around the edges than was natural. ‘No,’ he promised, wondering if he was about to shut off a useful source of income. ‘I wouldn’t make you.’

  ‘Good!’ The note of triumph in her voice alerted him to the fact that he had just helped her score some sort of point.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I might ask you to volunteer.’

  ‘Oh!’ With this final sigh of exasperation Marcia leaned back, folded her arms, and lapsed into a sulk.

  Marcia and Flora disembarked at the roadside, rearranging their stoles around their elaborately pinned curls and shaking off the dust of the road. He had offered to drive them right up to the Augustus gate, the broad stone arches of which were now visible in the town walls, but they had refused. Evidently the girls would rather traipse the last few hundred paces along the tomb-lined road in stifling heat than suffer the shame of being seen dismounting from a farm cart outside the gates.

  Ruso considered asking them who was likely to care what vehicle they arrived in. Then he remembered Claudia demanding to know why he always had to argue with people like some beardy old Greek philosopher: a complaint that was especially memorable since it had been preceded by a loud howl and the use of a make-up pot as a missile.

  So instead he limped quietly aside as Tilla refused his help to climb down from the back of the cart, then murmured, ‘Sorry about my family.’

  She plucked at the fabric of the pale yellow tunic Arria had insisted on lending her, and which did not suit her. ‘Your stepmother says I must wear this while I look after your sisters. I am going with them to see all the things my people are not foolish enough to want.’ Reaching up to adjust the brim of the battered straw hat, she added, ‘Perhaps I shall bring some of the things back with me.’

  ‘Please don’t,’ he urged and raised his voice for the others to hear. ‘I’ve got business to see to. I’ll have one of the men meet you at the seventh hour outside the Augustus gate.’

  ‘Come on, Tilla,’ urged Marcia, pausing to push one of Flora’s hairpins back into place and then flinging the green linen stole over her shoulder. ‘Leave our boring brother to get on with his business. We’re going shopping!’

  Ruso parked the cart under a tree and left it in the charge of a small boy, who promised to keep the mules in the shade. As he headed towards the town on foot, he caught a glimpse of green stole vanishing under the pedestrian archway of the Augustus gate. For the first time in his life, he wished he were going shopping.

  14

  The buildings were grander than anything she had seen before, but the streets smelled just as powerfully as every other town of fish sauce and fresh bread, frying, warm dung, sweaty bodies and brash perfume.

  ‘Come on, Tilla, or whatever your name is,’ urged Marcia over the clatter of a passing hand-cart. ‘We’ve got something to show you.’

  The something was a temple, its stone pillars still new enough to glare white in the sun. Marcia pointed upwards. ‘See those marks?’

  Tilla shaded her eyes and squinted at the roof that projec
ted out over the high base of the building. ‘What marks?’

  ‘Those gold marks are called writing,’ explained Marcia. ‘I don’t suppose you have much of that where you come from.’

  ‘We do not need it,’ said Tilla, who had heard enough inscriptions read aloud to know that they were usually full of lies and showing-off. ‘My people have good memories.’

  ‘You’re not just staying with any old family, you know,’ Marcia continued, undaunted. ‘That says, “This temple was built by Publius Petreius Largus” — that’s our father. It was hideously expensive. So everyone can see how generous we are.’

  ‘This,’ murmured Flora in Tilla’s left ear, ‘makes it all the more embarrassing that Gaius won’t give us a dowry.’

  ‘What’s that about dowries?’

  ‘Sh!’ hissed Flora, glancing around. ‘We don’t want everyone to know.’

  ‘As if they don’t already,’ retorted Marcia. ‘And Gaius isn’t even embarrassed about it, is he?’

  Tilla said, ‘Your brother is a good man who is doing his best.’

  Marcia sniffed. ‘Is that what he told you? I bet he’s bought himself a nice house in Britannia.’

  Tilla opened her mouth to say, ‘No, just a rented room,’ then thought better of it. Discussion of where the Medicus lived might lead on to questions about herself, and she was not going to tell them that back at home she was his housekeeper.

  ‘Huh!’ said Marcia, taking her silence for assent. ‘I knew it!’ She grabbed Flora by the arm. ‘Come on. I want to see if those earrings are still there.’

  ‘Mother said we’d got to give her the tour.’

  ‘Oh, never mind about that.’ Marcia turned to Tilla. ‘You don’t want to see a whole lot of boring old buildings, do you?’

  ‘No,’ said Tilla, who did not want to see a whole lot of boring old shops, either.

  ‘See?’ demanded Marcia of her sister. ‘She won’t know the difference anyway. They live in mud huts over there, you know. With straw on the roof.’