by Ruth Downie
Tilla was surprised to see a hand reaching toward her over the tops of the children’s heads. “Tilla! I have something for you.”
The cries turned to, “What about us?” “Have we got presents?” and “What have we got?”
“In a moment. I need to speak with Tilla first.”
“But have we?”
“Wait and see.” She reached into her bag and a shimmer of yellow silk billowed out on the breeze.
Tilla reached up and caught a corner. The silk rippled out above the children like a banner.
“We met a young woman just now,” said her sister-in-law. “Up where the track turns off the main road. She said to give you this and to say she was sorry.”
Tilla fingered the delicate fabric. There was the hole where it had caught on the nail. “To me?”
“A blond girl. Very pretty. Only wearing one earring. She said you would know who she was.”
“She was on the main road? Just now? You spoke to her?”
“She wanted to say goodbye. She is going on a long journey.”
“But—”
“A man was driving her in a little two-wheel carriage. Do you know—”
But Tilla was gone, hitching up her skirts and racing away up the farm track in a hopeless bid to catch a vehicle that was just a smudge of dust on the horizon.
24
It was late. Lucius had retreated into the study to think about farm business while his wife put the children to bed. The stable lad had gone to join the other slaves in the bunkhouse after working like a dog for most of the afternoon to keep the bathhouse fire going, because apparently the return of Lucius and his wife really was a special occasion. Now Ruso was alone in a room filled with wavering shadows cast by the one lamp he had propped on the side of the bath. He took a deep breath and then lowered himself until the water closed over his head.
Earlier this evening he had taken Corinna home to the town house, where Publius had run to embrace her and begged her never to do anything as silly as that ever again. While the staff hurried her off to her own bed, Ruso and Publius had held a private conversation that left Publius in tears and Ruso convinced that he was doing the right thing.
Tilla had been less certain. Standing in their bedroom and streaming the yellow silk through a small circle formed between her thumb and forefinger, she said, “If this rich boy thinks he can use ordinary people like he used Verax and Xanthe, and nothing bad will happen, will he not grow up to do more wicked things?”
“He might,” Ruso conceded. “Or he might have learned that he needs to use power responsibly.”
Tilla said, “Hmph,” and swirled the silk in the air so it floated down and moulded itself to the shape of her hand.
“Besides,” Ruso added, “he was right: Xanthe really did find a way to escape and start again.”
“He did not deserve to know that.”
“Perhaps.”
“So why tell him?”
“Because,” he said, “a while ago, you asked me if I could remember what I was like at that age. And I can.”
Tilla wriggled her fingers and watched the silk ripple. “If we are telling truths,” she said, “perhaps I should tell you that Titus was worse than we knew.”
“Really?”
“He really did lay hands on Flora. She told me today. It was after Verax had warned him to leave her alone. She fought him off, but she was too frightened to say anything in case Verax did something bad to him.”
“Does Verax know now?”
“She says not. I promised her we would not tell him.”
Ruso reached forward and lifted the covering of silk off his wife’s hand. “Lying to her husband is not a good way to start their marriage.”
“You think telling him she has kept a secret about another man would be better?”
“She should have said something to the family at the time! Why didn’t she tell Lucius? For all we know, warning Titus off might have saved Corinna.”
Tilla flung the silk aside. “Promise me you will never, ever say anything like that to her!”
“Of course not, but—”
“I expect,” she had continued, “she said nothing because she knew Lucius would make a big fuss and be cross with her instead of with Titus, just like you are!”
He really did lay hands on Flora.
Ruso shot up out of the water and gasped in air. What would have been wrong with making a fuss? He remembered the delicate features of the dead Titus below the wreath of flowers and he felt his fists tighten. Someone should have done something.
Publius had made a fuss. Publius had done something.
Ruso groped for a towel, rubbed the water out of his eyes and carried the lamp through into the hot room. He set the lamp on the bench and checked the temperature of the heated wall with the back of his hand before leaning against it.
Flora had done what she thought was best. They all had. Now he must make himself think about happier things. About Mara, with her toothy grin and her little fat legs. About Lucius being home to take over the farm. About there being a wedding celebration to arrange. About the warmth of the wall soaking into his skin. About—
His thoughts were interrupted by the squeak of a hinge and the clack of wooden bath sandals across tile.
“Your brother is looking for you.” Tilla seated herself beside him. “He wants to know what is the matter with the floor in here.”
Ruso groaned. He foresaw future generations of suspicious bathers regularly checking the hot-room floor, even though none of them knew what might be wrong with it.
Tilla said, “I am not sorry I was cross.”
“I wasn’t angry with Flora,” he told her. “I was angry for her.”
She said, “I know.”
He stretched out his legs, put his hands behind his head and gazed at the dim shapes of painted dolphins plunging across the walls. “One murder,” he said, “two false accusations, a dangerous stone fight and a near-drowning in the bathing pool.”
“It has been a busy time.”
“Yesterday the sister of one of our creditors nearly died under our roof.”
“And you have turned down a kind offer to forget a big loan.”
“On the other hand,” he observed, “I’ve been kissed by Flora’s boyfriend, young love has been consummated on this very bench, and nobody was wrongly executed after all.”
“It seems to me,” said Tilla, “that your brother chose a very good time to go away.”
Ruso shrugged. “For all I know, it could be like this all the time here.”
“I hope not.”
“I’m never here long enough to tell.”
“We are never anywhere for very long, husband.” She laid her head on his shoulder. “Are we?”
Whatever he might have said was interrupted by the crash of the outer door opening and his brother calling, “Gaius? Gaius! What’s all this nonsense about the floor?”
Ruso said in a low voice, “Are you saying you want to stay here?”
“Gaius, where—ah, there you are! What were you thinking, letting the boys play in here? Flora says if Verax hadn’t been here they’d have drowned. And little Lucius is lucky he didn’t lose his eye!”
“I don’t want to stay here,” Tilla whispered.
Ruso said, “Thank the gods for that.” Then, turning his attention to his brother, he said, “Let me tell you about this chap in Britannia. You’ll never believe what happened to his bathhouse floor…”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Any attempt to “do as the Romans do”—or to write about what they might have done—runs into the question: which Romans? Ruso and Tilla exist in a society riven with deep divisions – or as we might see it, social injustice. While those at the top feasted on the fruits of an extensive Empire, a large proportion of the population did not own even their own bodies.
Slavery was not based on race, and was not always forever. A lucky slave who did well might hope for freedom one day, and perhaps fo
r descendants who would inherit the full rights of Roman citizens. In the meantime, slaves’ welfare depended largely upon the whim of their owners. There were a few restrictions: Hadrian’s ruling that slaves should only be tortured for evidence if they could reasonably be expected to know something about a case was one of them. Until that point, when a serious crime had been committed, the whole household staff might be subjected to the questioners. Hadrian’s pronouncement, of course, was carefully framed so as not to impinge upon the “rights” of owners. We might view it as squirming: he probably saw it as a sensible compromise.
The social rules of Tilla’s people in Britannia are harder to pin down. We know that British women could rule tribes in their own right (not just as the wives of kings), which suggests a level of equality that their Roman sisters did not enjoy. However, finds of slave chains in non-Roman contexts suggest that at the bottom of society, things were tough wherever you were.
Finally, in case anyone’s wondering: Ruso’s professional advice is entirely based on what he believes is best for his patients in the light of his medical knowledge. It’s unlikely that anything he’s asked to do in the course of this story would have been illegal until at least a century later.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A novella seems to need just as large a backup team as a full-length book and I’m grateful to Helen Baggott for editing, Alison Samuels for checking the Latin, Bruce Aiken for another wonderful cover, and Araminta Whitley and Marina de Pass for encouragement, advice, technical help, admin and general good sense.
Bill Wahl, Ernesto Spinelli and the Barnstaple WIP group were all kind enough to read and make suggestions, and Andy Downie has nobly battled through so many incarnations of this story that he now has no idea which is the final version.
KEEP READING!
Don’t miss Ruso and Tilla’s other adventures:
MEDICUS
TERRA INCOGNITA
PERSONA NON GRATA
CAVEAT EMPTOR
SEMPER FIDELIS
TABULA RASA
VITA BREVIS
MEMENTO MORI
Find out more at www.ruthdownie.com
Praise for the MEDICUS series:
“…easily the best of the various detective series set during the Roman Empire…”
Morning Star
“Downie remains a peerless storyteller and a master entertainer. BBC's Masterpiece should take a long look at this series. It’s a winner.”
Kirkus Reviews
“Downie has a rare talent for combining great writing, razor wit and detailed historical research, and weaving them around a sharply drawn character set in a way that brings two thousand years ago into focus as clearly as if it was yesterday.”
"Lynne Patrick, Hey there’s a dead guy in the living room”
