Ruso and the River of Darkness

by R. S. Downie

  It was no good worrying about that now. ‘Give courage to all these people who have come to honour him,’ she cried. ‘Make them speak the truth! Make them tell how an enemy lured Julius Asper to his death, so that there will be justice!’

  The flames were roaring now. She could feel sweat breaking out on her back. The wool of her tunic felt prickly. It was a relief to say, ‘Amen!’ and step away. Without waiting to see the reaction, she collected the baby from the slave who was holding it as if it might bite him, and took Camma by the hand.

  ‘Come, sister,’ she said, leading her away through the cool spring grass. ‘He is gone, and you have a son to look after.’

  41

  Ruso strode through the cemetery with his fists clenched, ignoring Dias and Gavo, who were hurrying to keep pace with him. Tilla had just flouted all his instructions. Thanks to that bizarre – not to mention illegal – public prayer, the whole town would soon know that the wife of the Procurator’s man was taking Camma’s side in the dispute. She had more or less accused Caratius of murder.

  She had undermined the credibility of his investigation. She had put him in an impossible position. She had … he was running out of words to describe what she had done. What was more, he knew that, when he objected, she would come up with some irrational way of justifying it.

  Get out of town as fast as you can.

  He would like nothing better than to get out of town, but he had accepted the job and besides, if he abandoned the investigation, what would Metellus do?

  He didn’t want to find out.

  Word must have spread about the discovery of Bericus’ body: at the far end of the cemetery a gaggle of adults, youths and even half a dozen scruffy children were gathered just beyond the reach of the guards. There was a murmur of interest as he passed between them on his way to the cart that had been parked well away from the pyres. When he turned they were craning to see what he would do next. He restrained an impulse to tell them that the dead man had not been brought here for their entertainment.

  A pot-bellied man with straggly grey hair and a tunic spattered with old blood was crouching in the back of the cart. He was reaching forward with one hand and clutching a cloth over his nose with the other. Ruso paused to tie his neckerchief over his own nose and mouth before swinging up to sit backwards on the worn wooden seat, tuck his feet well out of the way and observe what was happening.

  The pot-bellied man was the local doctor, and he was not happy in his work. Yes, he agreed as he put away the bronze probe with which he had been investigating the corpse, the deceased could have been dead for five or six days. Any fool could see that he hadn’t died yesterday. Probably being severely battered around the head would have killed him. It tended to do that. Now if that was all, there were live patients waiting back in town.

  Having made a courtesy gesture to the local man, Ruso was about to finish the job himself when there was a disturbance among the gawpers. A small dark woman was being manhandled away by one of the guards. Instead of admitting defeat she was shouting, ‘Let me through!’

  Ruso recognized the person Tilla had been talking to by the water fountain yesterday. ‘Isn’t that Asper’s housekeeper?’

  The doctor ordered Dias to keep her back. ‘This is no sight for a woman.’

  ‘I’d like to talk to her,’ said Ruso.

  ‘Absolutely not!’ said the doctor. ‘We know who this is. You can still just about make out the damage to the ear. I don’t need a fainting female on my hands as well.’

  Ruso leaned out and beckoned to a cemetery slave who was passing with a basketload of kindling. ‘Hand me up that sheet over there, will you?’

  ‘I won’t allow this!’ insisted the doctor. ‘I am the doctor here, and that woman is one of my patients.’

  ‘And I’m the investigator,’ said Ruso, his respect for the doctor rising. If the roles had been reversed he would have been just as indignant. He turned to Dias. ‘Give me a minute and then have her brought over.’

  ‘I protest!’

  ‘I’m not enjoying this either,’ conceded Ruso, standing up and shaking the folds out of the rough linen sheet. ‘But I once knew somebody who went to her husband’s funeral only to have him turn up alive and well three weeks later.’ It was an exaggeration: he had never met the apocryphal woman, but it had been one of his uncle’s favourite stories. ‘Let’s have her make sure, shall we?’

  The doctor clambered down from the cart, still complaining as he left. Ruso flung the sheet over the body. Then he retrieved one of the sandals that had been placed in the corner of the cart, loosened his neckerchief and jumped down.

  Grata wrenched her arm out of Dias’ grasp as Ruso approached. Dias said something, but, if she heard it, she did not reply. Ruso dismissed him and said quietly, ‘I’m the investigator. We think this is your master.’

  In a small voice, as if she was not sure it was true, Grata said, ‘I want to see.’

  ‘He is not how you remember him.’ He produced the sandal from behind his back. One of the thongs had snapped and been retied, the sole needed restitching at the toes and the whole thing was swollen with damp. ‘If you can identify this, there’s no need for any more.’

  She put one hand over her mouth.

  He had to be certain. ‘Did this belong to Julius Bericus?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I am sorry.’

  She nodded again, as if she did not know what else to do.

  ‘If there’s anything you can tell me that might help me find out –’

  ‘No! No, I know nothing.’

  She had lived in the same house as the dead man. Perhaps they had been fond of each other. He said, ‘I heard there was a message from someone inviting the brothers to visit.’

  ‘A message for Asper,’ she said. ‘From Caratius.’

  ‘Who brought that message, Grata?’

  She gathered up her skirts. ‘One of his servants.’

  ‘Which one?’

  She did not answer. He thought she was about to walk away. Instead she moved towards the cart. The doctor in Ruso wanted to go after her: to head her off with a warning about the dangers of bad air and the news that she could pay her respects at the pyre in a few minutes and … and anything that would stop her seeing what she was about to see.

  There was a murmur from the gawpers as she reached the cart and lifted the sheet. The investigator in Ruso left her there – alone, one hand clamped over her mouth and nose, taking in what man and nature had done.

  The doctor in him told the investigator he should have stopped her.

  Grata turned and walked straight back the way she had come, arms tightly folded, battered boots kicking her skirts out of the way. Her face was set like a wax model.

  As she passed him Ruso murmured, ‘If you think of anything, speak to Tilla. Nobody will know who told me.’

  His gaze followed her lonely progress between the graves to the road. The investigator in him had done rather well. The doctor in him warned the investigator that he couldn’t stand much more of this.

  He turned to find Dias at his shoulder. He took a breath and said brightly, ‘Right. I’ve finished here.’

  ‘You bastard,’ Dias said, so softly that no one but Ruso could hear. ‘You didn’t need to do that to her. You evil bastard.’

  42

  There was no funeral feast, either at the cemetery or afterwards. The women returned to a silent house. No neighbours called to ease the long wait between the burning and the hour tomorrow when the ashes would be cool enough for burial. The empty shoes were still in a pair by the door, ready for a man who no longer needed them.

  Camma was still in this world, but her eyes were dull, and her mind was filled with dark clouds. She lay slumped on the couch, seemingly unaware of the baby at her breast. Tilla clattered the shutters open and apologized to the household gods for leaving them with the smell that still lingered despite yesterday’s efforts with the scrubbing brush, and then apologized to Christos
for paying attention to them. Over the sea in Gaul, people would have said she ought to choose one or the other. Here, she was not so sure.

  Camma said suddenly, ‘We should have stayed to say goodbye to Bericus.’

  ‘The men will look after him.’

  ‘Poor Bericus. I prayed to Andaste, but it was too late. He was already gone.’

  Tilla said, ‘The brothers will be together in the next world,’ and Camma’s eyes filled with tears.

  When the baby drifted off to sleep his mother settled him in the box and wandered down the gloomy corridor towards the bedroom. Tilla stood over him, watching the flicker of his eyelids and marking each tiny rise and fall of the blanket with his breathing. She tried to imagine how desperate a woman would have to be to leave a helpless baby in the care of strangers and follow her man to the next world.

  He might not sleep for long. She must use the time well. She began to count on her fingers all the jobs that needed to be done. Suddenly overwhelmed, she reached for a darned sock that had fallen behind the couch. It was too big to belong to Camma. She went to the little room where Bericus had slept and added the sock to the loincloths and spare trousers and three tunics and an old belt lying in an untidy jumble on the bed. Asper’s clothes must be in the next room with Camma. All of that, like naming the baby, was a problem for later.

  She must do one job at a time.

  First, water.

  She walked down to the corner water-pipe clutching the buckets and pretended not to notice the way the conversation died as she approached. In response to her question, the women said they did not know of any followers of Christos in the town. In fact they had never heard of Christos.

  Back in Gaul, the brothers and sisters would have seized this chance to share the good news. Tilla, feeling she had enough problems already, decided to leave Verulamium in ignorance for a while longer.

  She had let the water fill too high. Trying not to spill any, she crouched to pick up both buckets and made her way slowly back along the uneven cobbles of the street, all the while wrestling with the problem of how, now that she had got herself into this, she was going to get out of it again.

  Be careful how much help you promise.

  Helping a woman in labour was only natural. Supporting a woman who had been bereaved and wronged – especially by the Catuvellauni – was a good thing to do. But should she have waved Camma and her baby goodbye at the gates of Londinium with good wishes and a blessing and gone back to minding her own business?

  You can’t fight her battles for her, Tilla.

  He was wrong: she had not wanted to get involved. She had wanted to believe that Julius Asper was faithless and that Camma would have a better life without him. Instead, she had somehow ended up demanding justice for him in public and helping to curse the local Magistrate.

  Once the word spread about Camma and the pyre, it would be even harder to find someone to take on the job of housekeeper. Perhaps a message could be sent to the Iceni about the baby. Maybe if they understood how desperate their princess was, they would relent and allow her back.

  In the meantime, the neighbours here were unlikely to be much help. The workshop next door was owned by a pair of elderly bronzesmiths. On the other side, the woman had grudgingly given her a light when she could not find the flint yesterday and insisted on telling her that, if anything was wrong next door, it was not their fault. ‘You tell that woman if she’s got any complaints, it’s nothing to do with us.’

  ‘What sort of complaints?’

  ‘It’s not enough we have to put up with the tax man and his fancy woman,’ the neighbour had said, ramming Tilla’s proffered stick of kindling into the fire and waiting for it to catch. ‘You should have heard the goings-on in there the other night. I never heard anything like it. That other one – what’s her name?’

  ‘Grata?’ Tilla suggested.

  ‘Voice like a fishwife. Language. They even woke Father up.’

  ‘She was all alone, and there were frightening people outside.’

  The woman leaned across the hearth to shout at a pile of blankets in the corner, ‘Didn’t they, Father?’

  The blankets shifted, and a white head emerged. ‘What?’

  ‘All that shouting next door. They woke you up.’

  ‘What’s she doing here?’

  ‘Nothing. She’s just leaving.’

  And that was before Camma had tried to join Asper in the next world. It seemed that, even if her mind were restored to order, an incomer who had betrayed a local husband and allied herself with a tax-collector believed to be a thief would be at the wrong end of any queue for help.

  43

  Ruso knew that the tongue of the Britons boasted a rich vocabulary of insult. He was unable to translate much of it, since his wife used it chiefly when she was too exasperated to continue in Latin, but he recognized it being shouted across Verulamium’s Council Chamber as the door guards moved aside to let him enter. His arrival went unnoticed by the thirty or forty quarrelling men within, who between them were wearing more togas than he had seen together for years. It struck him that, unusually for the Britons, there was not a woman in sight.

  Ruso lingered just inside the entrance, letting the din wash over him while he waited for a suitable moment to present himself. The air smelled of hair oil and musty wool. The plain walls around him were adorned with a series of engraved bronze plaques crammed with what he supposed were the rules of the Council: presumably the constitution dictated by Rome when the town had been granted permission to govern itself. It was an illustration of how far these remote island peoples had come. Or been led by the nose. He was not sure which.

  A pale clerk was standing to one side, stylus poised to note any decisions. It looked as though he would be waiting a long time.

  Ruso managed to catch odd phrases about the honour of the Magistrates, the honour of the town and something to do with When the Emperor Comes. Finally, ‘… You were there when it was decided!’ was followed by a familiar voice shouting, ‘Against my advice!’

  A couple of councillors sat down in disgust, allowing him to see Caratius seated in a metal-framed chair at the front. His expression was grim. Gallonius, less exposed and more authoritative than he had been at the baths, rose from a seat beside him and clambered up on to a small podium. His rich voice was impressive, but his words were drowned by the furore, and in the circumstances a toga had not been the best choice of garment. In fact, a toga was not the best garment for anything that Ruso could immediately think of, and Gallonius was having trouble keeping his under control. Every time he forgot it and raised both hands to emphasize his point, the heavy wool slid over his arm towards the floor, and he had to grab it to maintain some dignity. Someone had attached it to his elegant cream tunic with a secret pin, but the pin was now exposed as the fulcrum of a lopsided tangle of fabric hanging off one shoulder. As he tried to wrench it back into position, someone shouted, ‘Just take it off, man! You’re only a butcher!’

  Gallonius must be the councillor whose country estate supplied overpriced meat to the mansio.

  He raised both arms again and bellowed, ‘Silence!’ but nobody took any notice.

  ‘The question is,’ insisted someone else above the confusion, ‘what are we going to do?’

  ‘Silence!’ shouted Caratius, leaping out of his chair to intervene at last. ‘This is –’

  His voice was drowned beneath a cacophony of shouts and jeers. He gesticulated to the clerk, who reached behind the podium and produced a horn. Finally a blast of noise cut through the babble. ‘I insist we wait for the Procurator’s man,’ declared Caratius.

  ‘Why?’ someone demanded, adding something that sounded like, ‘What does he know that we don’t?’

  Ruso, who had no idea, took a deep breath and stepped forward.

  Moments later, he was regretting it. Under the guise of introducing him, Caratius had seized him by the arm, led him up on to the podium and abandoned him there with the whispered w
ords, ‘Tell them it wasn’t me!’

  Ruso looked around the hall. He was surrounded by Britons whose ancestors must have been barbarian chiefs and druids and rabble-rousing warriors. Now they were arrayed on their benches, many of them draped in the garb of Roman citizens, all watching him and waiting for him to speak on behalf of the Imperial Procurator. Not only that, but Caratius was demanding to be defended.

  He cleared his throat. The sound died away into an unnerving silence. Inside his head, a small voice urged him to say … something. Gods above, he had heard enough speeches! Why could he not remember anything from any of them?

  Caratius was sitting very upright in his seat. Gallonius was standing with his arms held wide while a slave struggled to restore some dignity to his toga. He recognized one or two faces from yesterday’s trip to the bath-house.

  His mouth was dry.

  Say something.

  ‘Speak in Latin!’ urged someone at the back who had misunderstood the problem.

  Dias was standing in the open doorway, listening.

  What would Cicero do?

  Perhaps he should start by declaring how venerable and wise this assembly was and how, despite being inexperienced and feeling daunted by the magnitude of the task that lay before him …

  Perhaps not. Gazing out at the expectant faces of the Catuvellauni, Ruso had the feeling that a man who tried that sort of smooth talking here would very soon regret it. He was conscious of an awkward shuffling amongst his audience: of sidelong glances and whispers. Say something.