Ruth Downie - Caveat emptor

“Stop!” cried Albanus.

The chant faltered into confusion.

Through the downpour Ruso could make out Hadrian’s statue high on its plinth, holding out one dripping hand as if he were commanding the rain to cease. He was having no more effect than Albanus.

“I said, stop!” Albanus stabbed a finger at the board. “Start again from here. Vattus, if you pull his hair again I shall make everyone stay behind while I beat you.”

By the time the class was dismissed, the shower had passed. Albanus looked startled as Ruso emerged from behind a pillar. “I’m afraid I haven’t found your missing men, sir.”

“Never mind,” said Ruso. “I can see you’ve been busy. And one of them’s turned up dead, anyway.”

Albanus dipped a brush into a bucket of water and began to scrub Virgil and lime wash off the boards. “Frankly, sir, I don’t seem to be having much success with anything. My father hardly ever had to resort to beating. He just gave his pupils The Look and they did what he told them.”

“The Look?”

“I don’t seem to have inherited it, sir.” Albanus emptied the bucket into the nearest drain and tossed the brush back inside.

“Never mind,” said Ruso. “Recommend a good bar and I’ll buy you a drink. I want to show you something.”

Albanus, who had downed his wine with remarkable speed, put his wooden cup back on the stained counter of Neptune’s Retreat and perused the new copy of the letter with “To Room XXVII” clearly legible at the top. The apprentice had carefully transcribed it onto a fresh tablet: one that bore no references to kissing. “It’s a bit messy,” he observed.

“The man was on his deathbed when he wrote it,” explained Ruso. “And this is a second-generation copy. So if it doesn’t make any sense, don’t worry. But do you think it’s a language, or just gibberish?”

Albanus looked up. “Well, yes, sir. It’s certainly a language. It’s Latin.”

“Latin?” Ruso was incredulous. He had seen some terrible writing in his time, much of it produced by his own hand, but never anything this bad. “Can you make any sense of it?”

Albanus squinted at the wax and held it at the right angle for the light to fall across the surface. “Urgent help needed. Inn of the-” He hesitated. “Something to do with the moon?”

“Blue Moon. How the hell can you read that?”

“Inn of the Blue Moon. I have now seized conclusive and incriminating proof… oh dear. That’s frustrating, isn’t it, sir? That’s where it ends. We don’t know what he had proof of.”

Ruso snatched back the tablet and peered at the lettering. “I still can’t see it.”

“No, sir. You wouldn’t. It’s shorthand.”

“Shorthand?” repeated Ruso, incredulous. In response to Albanus’s warning glance, he turned and realized a couple of sailors farther along the bar had paused to listen. “Why,” he continued, lowering his voice, “would anyone send a message begging for urgent help in shorthand?”

Albanus looked confused. “I’ve no idea, sir. And where’s Room Twenty-seven, and what did he have proof of?”

“It’s not as useful as I’d hoped,” admitted Ruso.

“Perhaps if your second man turns up, he’ll be able to help us,” suggested Albanus. “I did some thinking last night, and while the children were copying their lesson this morning I sent a message around to all the city gates and I’ve had a notice posted over at the fort.”

Ruso swallowed.

“I hope that’s all right, sir? It didn’t cost much.”

“Absolutely,” said Ruso, who had forgotten how thorough his former clerk could be when given an order. “Well done. If anybody’s seen him, we’ll find out.”

And even if they had not, the procurator’s office would shortly be besieged by members of the local garrison reporting sightings in the hope of extra pay. He needed to get back and warn young Firmus before he had a clerical mutiny on his hands. He downed the rest of his drink and clapped the cup back on the counter. “You’ve been a great help, Albanus.”

The clerk’s pinched face creased into a smile. “It’s good to be working with you again, sir. If there’s anything else I can do…”

Ruso said, “You don’t happen to know how to sweet-talk the clerks over at the procurator’s office, do you?”

“I’m afraid not, sir.”

“Never mind. I was just hoping you might know one or two of them.”

“I do know them, sir,” said Albanus. “I’ve just threatened to beat one of their sons.”

It seemed Albanus had never learned the first lesson of military life and was continuing to volunteer for things. When Ruso explained the problem, he happily offered to stand at the gate of the Residence and spend the afternoon noting down the details of everyone who claimed to have seen a dark-haired man with part of one ear missing and recording any possible sightings of Julius Asper before yesterday.

Indoors, the tomblike chill of Firmus’s room seemed less noticeable this afternoon. Evidently the plaster was drying out. The welcome was warm too. Firmus invited Ruso to sit and offered him an olive from the bowl on the desk.

The reason for his relaxed demeanor became clear when the youth said, “That awful magistrate has pushed off, and my unc- sorry, the procurator, says I was right to hire you. He wants to talk to you straightaway. He did want me to check one thing first, though. You aren’t working for Metellus now, are you?”

“Absolutely not, sir,” Ruso assured him. “That was just an isolated case.” He might have added that the less he had to do with the governor’s security man, the happier he would be.

“Good. So have you found the missing brother?”

“Not yet,” said Ruso, “but there are other developments. There’s a complication with the woman. That’s why I need to talk to Caratius.”

Complications with women were evidently of little interest to Firmus. “Any luck with the letter?”

Hoping the procurator did not know he was chatting to the assistant instead of obeying the order to report in straightaway, Ruso told him.

Firmus’s attempt to conceal his disappointment was not entirely successful. “What does he mean, incriminating evidence? And what’s the point of writing in shorthand if any clerk can read it?”

“We don’t know. But my man’s had a few thoughts about the destination.”

Ruso repeated what Albanus had just explained to him on the way over: that the only buildings in town big enough to have twenty-seven rooms were the fort, the Forum, the amphitheater, and possibly the Official Residence. Between them they had eliminated the first three before arriving here, so the only remaining possibility was-

Firmus was out from behind his desk before Ruso had finished the sentence. “The guard room will know where it is.”

“I’m supposed to be reporting to-”

“Oh, uncle has plenty of other things to do. And this way you’ll be able to tell him the whole story.” Ruso hoped Firmus was right. At least locating Room Twenty-seven would not involve another visit to the procurator’s clerks.

Firmus was almost in the corridor when the elderly slave who had been hovering beside him managed to catch up and whisper something in his ear. “I know he does,” replied the youth, irritated. “Ruso will go and see him as soon as we’ve finished.” He rebuffed the slave’s attempt to follow him with, “It’s all right, Pyramus-Ruso can tell me everything.”

The slave did not look impressed. On the way through to the gatehouse, Firmus said, “Sorry about that. I’m sure Mother made Pyramus promise to write home and tell her everything I get up to.”

“Ah,” said Ruso, wondering what Firmus’s mother imagined she could do about it.