Ruso and the River of Darkness

by R. S. Downie

  She sat in the wicker chair, relieved that this house did not have those terrible dining couches to go with the foreign food. She had never understood how people could eat lying down. It was against all common sense. A slave poured her watered wine, then offered her olives and oysters. She knew it was an odd combination. She might be a Northerner but she had travelled across the sea to places that most men like Caratius could only dream about. She supposed he was trying to impress.

  Perhaps she had been worrying about nothing. Caratius did not know he was under suspicion. Besides, the man had spent money on the dinner. He would not do that if he were planning to attack his guest. He had just brought the Medicus out here to tell him what to think.

  She glanced at her husband’s bowl. He had stayed with the oysters. She helped herself to a couple of olives. The taste reminded her of Gaul. Caratius was boasting about his wine specially imported ‘from a man I know in Aquitania’, and how their grandfathers had been friends and how he was thinking of inviting him over here to help set up a vineyard. The Medicus very politely did not say that his own family had been making wine back in Gaul for years and that anyone – even a British woman who preferred a good beer – could tell that it was better than the rubbish the grandfather’s friend was sending over.

  Caratius carried on gulping down oysters and ignoring her. He was too busy explaining why the Council would do well to listen to him in future and how the Medicus ought to go about his investigating. The Medicus was saying very little, perhaps waiting for Caratius to give something away by mistake.

  Her hand slipped down to massage her bare toes. She could have outrun that big lad. She had been watching them for most of the journey. Neither of the so-called guards had paid any attention to a woman in a nondescript shawl hurrying along the along the road to get home before dark. None of them had noticed her slip into the woods. Even when she had startled a magpie and the big one had spun round and spotted her, she could have got away. She flexed her toes and rubbed away a sliver of grazed skin. If only she had noticed that tree root.

  She shivered. The evening air drifting in through the window was chilly, and Grata’s shawl was damp after its roll in the leaves. Outside, she could see the Medicus’ guards leading the stray horse up the track from the woods.

  One of the slaves came in to light the lamps. Caratius stopped talking for long enough to grab another oyster and order the shutters closed. Before he could start again she said, ‘Have you told the investigator that you invited Julius Asper here to see you on the day he was killed?’

  The point of Caratius’ spoon skidded off the edge of the oyster and narrowly missed stabbing his thumb. The Medicus glared at her. Later on, no doubt, he would tell her he had a plan and she had wrecked it, when really he was trying to find a way to ask, and not doing very well at it.

  Caratius put the oyster down. ‘I think you are mistaken.’

  ‘I have been told,’ she said, ‘that he was not going to Londinium at all. He had a message to come here and see you. I have spoken to the housekeeper who took it.’

  ‘Here? No, no, no. I never wanted to go near the man. Absolutely not.’

  He turned to the Medicus. ‘This is the sort of thing I was telling you about earlier. False rumours. Cursing in public places. Vindictive behaviour. I wasn’t even at home that day.’

  That, of course, meant nothing at all. He could still have sent the message and ordered the murder. She said, ‘Asper thought you wanted to talk about –’ She stopped. Outside in the hall, an old woman was shouting in British for help.

  As they all leaped to their feet Caratius was saying, ‘Please don’t disturb yourselves!’ and heading for the door. It burst open before he got there. A little woman with sparse white hair was shouting in a cracked voice, ‘They are here! Warriors in the woods!’

  Caratius moved to put himself between her and his guests. He said in British, ‘It’s all right, mother.’ He took hold of one thin arm and tried to steer her back out of the room. ‘They’re just guards from town rounding up a loose horse. They won’t hurt anybody. Mother, have you been hiding food again?’

  ‘Let go of my bag!’ Her hands were like claws, clutching a grimy sack to her chest. ‘I need my bag!’

  The waft of roasting beef from the kitchen mingled with something more pungent.

  ‘Just go to your room, Mother. Nobody wants your bag. Where’s that dratted girl?’

  The woman peered past him. ‘What are those people doing in my house? Are they the ones who stole our silver?’

  ‘They’re visiting, Mother. Guests come to share a meal. It’s nothing to worry about.’

  A maid hurried in, flustered, and took the old woman by the arm. As she was led away she was still saying, ‘There are men in the woods!’ and the maid was trying to reassure her.

  Caratius turned to the Medicus. ‘I’m sorry. My mother is having a bad day.’ He cleared his throat. ‘You may have understood her talking about stealing. Please don’t take offence. She’s not well.’

  Tilla said, ‘Have you lost some silver?’

  Caratius shook his head. ‘My mother remembers many things, but not in the right order. My grandfather’s stock of silver was lost sixty years ago. If it ever existed. I’m sorry you were disturbed.’ He clapped his hands and a servant stepped out of the corner to stand at his shoulder. ‘We’ll have the beef.’ He turned back to his guests. ‘Now, as I was saying –’

  As he went back to talking about the Council, Tilla was distracted by a whispered conversation in the doorway behind her. The servant who was supposed to be fetching the beef hurried back in to his master and murmured something in his ear. Caratius hissed in British, ‘Can’t it wait?’

  The servant did some more murmuring. Caratius’ body jolted as if someone had just shot an arrow into his back. He looked at the Medicus. Suddenly efficient, he said, ‘Investigator, you need to come with me.’

  Before she could say anything the Medicus gave her a look that said, if she tried to follow, he would be very angry indeed. On the way out she heard Caratius giving someone orders to bring lanterns. She needed her shoes.

  The hall was empty. Behind the furthest door she could hear the mother’s anxious voice and the maid still trying to calm her. The main door was open. Servants and farm workers had clustered together out in the yard. All had their backs to the house and were standing looking towards the darkening woods.

  What had the servant done with her shoes?

  As she entered the kitchen a tabby cat leapt off the table, on to the sill and out of the open window. The steaming joint of beef sat abandoned on the table in a pool of congealing grease. The platter held the small clean wipes of tongue-marks.

  She found the shoes set back from the fire. The damp leather was cold and clammy around her feet. She had just closed the window shutters to keep the cat out when Caratius’ mother wandered into the kitchen. The maid was close behind, looking almost as desperate as her charge. ‘Your little boy is a man now, mistress. He will make sure you are safe.’

  ‘You’re lying to me!’ insisted the mother. ‘Everybody lies to me. What have they done with my son? Where’s my bag? I saw the warriors!’

  ‘Your bag is here, mistress. You have everything you need. Your son is safe. We’re all safe now. Come back and eat.’

  ‘Where’s Father? Father is still down there. He thinks he can talk to them.’

  The maid shot Tilla a look of despair across the gloom of the shuttered kitchen.

  ‘Your da is in the next world with mine, Mother,’ Tilla assured her.

  The woman backed away. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘A friend,’ Tilla told her. ‘Your da and mine are in the next world talking about the breeding of horses, and my brothers are arguing with them, and my mother is asking why they always have to shout.’

  ‘We don’t care about horses. Father is a silversmith. We live behind the workshop. Who are you?’

  ‘She’s a friend, mistress,’ said the
maid.

  ‘A friend?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The old woman’s grip was surprisingly strong. ‘Where are your children?

  Tilla said, ‘I have no children.’

  The woman shook her head. ‘No, no. Always know where your children are. Always have a bag behind the door. See?’

  She held out the bag. It did not smell good. ‘Bread and cheese, a blanket and a … a –’

  ‘A comb,’ prompted the maid.

  Trying to coax her towards the door, Tilla said, ‘Very good.’

  ‘Yes. Somebody will always take you in if you comb your hair and look respectable. Mother says so.’

  As they passed, the maid murmured in Tilla’s ear, ‘I think it’s seeing those men set her off. She thinks she’s a child again. Her father was killed when the Iceni raided the town.’

  ‘What’s that? What is she saying?’

  There was nothing wrong with the old woman’s hearing. ‘We are all safe here, Mother,’ Tilla assured her.

  ‘That’s what they told us. The warriors will never come here. The Army will stop them.’

  ‘The Army have stopped them.’

  ‘Put your shawl over your nose when you run through the smoke. Hold Mother’s hand.’ The bag fell to the floor as the thin hands went up over her face. ‘Don’t smell the man with his clothes on fire. Don’t hear them calling for help.’

  ‘It is over now.’

  ‘Can you hear the other mothers?’ The vein-tracks on her hands glistened with tears. ‘Listen! They are calling for my lost friends who went out to play.’

  Tilla swallowed. She put an arm around the thin shoulders.

  ‘Always keep a bag by the door,’ whispered the old woman. ‘Always know where your children are.’

  By the time Tilla and the maid had settled the mother with a large cup of strong beer (sometimes, according to the maid, it was the only way) it was dark. Tilla went out on to the porch. She could hear the voices of the men returning from the woods. There were three lanterns bobbing about by the track. A couple of them headed off towards the stables. The third came back towards the house. She unfastened the safety strap on her knife. In all the fuss with the mother she had forgotten the Medicus altogether. Anything could have happened. ‘Who is there?’

  ‘It’s all right, Tilla.’

  She relaxed her grip on the knife. ‘What is happening?’

  She could make him out now, on the left of a group of five or six men. Dias was one of the two supporting a stumbling Caratius. Caratius, unusually, seemed to be having trouble with his words. ‘I still can’t believe … To think that … Out there all this time … How terrible this must … I never thought anyone would stoop to this!’

  The Medicus was talking to him in the way he spoke to his patients. ‘Don’t worry about it tonight,’ he was saying. ‘Just go indoors, keep warm and have a hot drink with some honey in it.’

  ‘Whoever did this has no fear. No fear of gods or men. We are all in danger.’

  As he came into the light Tilla could see a leaf caught in the long grey hair and mud smeared across his face. All of the men seemed to have muck on their clothes and boots, and there was a smell about them that she did not like. The Medicus followed them into the house. As he passed Tilla he murmured, ‘I’ll just get him settled, then we’re going straight back to town.’

  ‘But what –?’

  ‘While they were rounding up that horse in the woods,’ he said, ‘they found the remains of the missing brother.’

  38

  Ruso woke to a sense that there was a heavy burden lurking just beyond the comfort of his bed, and that when he opened his eyes he would have to get up and shoulder it. Sooner than he wished, the sound of a horse whinnying across in the stables brought back the memory of last night: the ghastly journey to town in the dark, enveloped in the smell that none of them would ever forget. Gavo driving the borrowed cart with a subdued Tilla beside him. Dias riding next to Ruso, quietly taking charge of transporting the body in a manner so professional that Ruso began to wonder if he had been mistaken about him. Maybe Dias was no more than an ambitious young man with an over-active love life.

  There had been no thought of taking Bericus’ remains to lie indoors next to Asper. The cart had been left in the cemetery all night with a pair of lanterns for company. Dias had observed that nobody was going to steal it, and if anyone but Ruso had felt a slight chill at the thought of ghosts and murderers, or imagined they glimpsed some movement in the darkness as they glanced back over their shoulders, they had not spoken of it. Dias had promised to alert the local doctor and ask him to join them in the morning to see what they could find out before a hasty cremation. Finally, once Tilla had been safely delivered back to Camma’s house with the bad news, Ruso had returned to the mansio, dismissed his guard and made sure the doors of Suite Three were securely locked.

  He swung his feet on to the floor, stretched and yawned before splashing his face with water from the bowl. Then he wandered barefoot out on to the wooden walkway and told the passing slave that he would not be needing breakfast after all. Before long he was going to have to face the remains of Bericus in daylight. He leaned out over the rail that separated the walkway from the garden and took a deep breath of chilly air. The sun was not fully up, but the sky was clear. It would be a fine morning.

  A servant emerged from the main kitchen, carried a pail across to one of the flowerbeds and carefully ran a stream of water along a row of seedlings. Another appeared further along the walkway with a bundle of bedding clutched to her chest and threw it over the rail. Ruso wondered whether Asper’s funeral procession had set off yet. Tilla had promised to break the latest bad news to Camma and the housekeeper last night.

  He wished Tilla were not caught up in this wretched affair. She was only trying to help, but her presence was a further complication. Her courage was beyond doubt. But courage and loyalty would not be enough. He needed to be impartial, objective and highly alert if he was to steer a safe course for them both between the Procurator’s politics, Metellus’ scheming and whatever the hell Caratius – and possibly Dias – had been up to. He did not need the distraction of worrying about his wife.

  Ruso frowned at a beetle scurrying along the edge of a flowerbed and tried to order his thoughts. Caratius had strenuously denied any involvement in the murder, but he had no explanation for why Julius Bericus had been found on his land. It must be the work of ‘some enemy’ or ‘that woman’s curse’. The servants and labourers whom there had been time to question seemed as shocked as their master.

  Camma had been right about Bericus all along. He was not responsible for the death of his brother. Ruso wondered briefly if events might have happened the other way around – if Asper had been injured while murdering Bericus for his share of the money – but digging even Bericus’ pathetically shallow grave would have been beyond the strength of a man with a serious head injury.

  There seemed to be three versions of events, and not all of them could be true. He pressed his right forefinger on to the rail as if to hold down the first version while he considered the others.

  Asper and his brother had taken the money, intending to deliver it to Londinium.

  Second finger.

  Asper and his brother had taken the money, intending to steal it.

  Third finger.

  Asper and his brother had not taken the money at all, as they were intending to visit Caratius and then go home.

  This led to three possibilities. Left hand.

  Asper had lied about his intentions.

  Second finger.

  Someone was mistaken about what Asper had said and done.

  Third finger.

  Someone was lying to him.

  Perhaps the answer lay in whatever Asper had been trying to tell Metellus in that ill-fated letter to Room Twenty-Seven. That was unfortunate, because he still had no idea what it was. He was going to have to recheck everyone’s story. He also needed to go to a f
uneral, examine a body, report officially to the Council, get into Asper’s office, talk to the local moneychanger …

  Further along the walkway, a door opened. A child’s voice was raised in complaint. A slave emerged with both hands full of bags. Behind her he heard the child insisting that she wanted to stay here. Ruso shrugged his shoulders a couple of times to loosen them before he turned and headed back into Suite Three to get properly dressed and face the day.

  That was when he noticed the pale rectangular shape lying just inside the street door. He flipped open the thin leaves of wood. Neatly penned across them in a bland script were the words:

  Get out of town as fast as you can.

  From a well-wisher.

  He snatched the key from the hook, sliding it back and forth in the lock with an unsteady hand and swearing as the prongs failed to find the holes. Finally he wrenched the door open.

  Dias was leaning against the stable wall opposite. The rest of the alley was empty except for a couple of hens scratching in the dirt.

  Ruso forced himself to stay calm. ‘How long have you been there?’

  ‘I came to take you to the cemetery, sir. The doctor’s on his way out there now.’

  ‘Why didn’t you knock?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Did you see anybody put a note under my door?’

  ‘No. Is there a problem?’

  Ruso retreated. ‘No. I’ll be ready in a minute.’

  Get out of town as fast as you can.

  Why? And how long had Dias been standing there? Had he put the note there himself and then waited calmly for Ruso to find it?

  He should have checked the street door as soon as he got up. Instead, he had wandered out to the garden with his mind full of the day ahead. The note could have been there all night.