Ruth Downie - Caveat emptor

“Yes, sir.” He was available, cheap-and expendable.

“Ask some sensible questions and see if there’s any chance of getting their money back. It’s probably long gone, but while you’re there you can take a discreet look at this connection with the Iceni. I take it that having worked alongside Metellus, you do know what ‘discreet’ means?”

“Yes, sir,” said Ruso, his spirits sinking even further.

“Last time there was trouble around here,” continued the procurator, “one of my esteemed predecessors got the blame for stirring up the Iceni with unreasonable tax demands.”

So that was it. The man was trying to find out how hard he could push the natives if the money didn’t turn up.

“Of course,” he continued, “all that business was sixty years ago. I doubt there’s anyone alive up there who remembers it.”

Ruso wondered about the quality of the briefing the procurator had received before taking up his post. Evidently nobody had suggested that he spend time listening to the locals. If he had, he would know that a lack of living witnesses made little difference to the Britons. If Camma’s people were anything like Tilla’s, the tale of How We Nearly Chased Off The Roman Oppressors would be lovingly polished, embellished, and passed around the tribal hearths for many generations to come.

“The natives have long memories, sir,” he ventured. “But the Iceni woman who came here wasn’t hostile to Rome.”

The Procurator grunted. “Hooking up with the local tax collector could have given her access to a lot of information. I’m told the first one seemed friendly enough till some idiot upset her.”

“Boudica?”

The bushy eyebrows met again. “We don’t mention that name here, Ruso. And you’d be wise not to mention it in Verulamium, either.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Our people learned a lot of lessons after that little fracas,” observed the procurator. “It pays to keep the locals sweet. Give them money to put up a few grand buildings and let them run their own affairs. That way they do their falling out with one another, not with us.”

Ruso reflected that the tribes down here must be very different from those in the North, with its dreary cycle of native raids and vicious crackdowns by the army.

“Honor the gods, obey the law, and pay the emperor,” observed the procurator. “The three secrets of success. Although since Hadrian generously made a bonfire of all the old unpaid tax bills, some of the tribes seem a little hazy over the last one. Any questions?”

“I don’t think so, sir.”

“Good. Keep in touch and watch your back. The Britons are a tricky bunch. Even the ones who speak Latin and know how to use a bathhouse. You can never tell what they’re thinking.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Ruso, remembering last night’s chicken dinner. “I will.”

Firmus must have been waiting for Ruso to leave the procurator’s office, because he appeared from somewhere and latched on to him as soon as he emerged. “So, what do we do now?”

He seemed to have decided they were a team. Ruso said, “I’m going straight up to Verulamium to try and track down the money.” And to find a way of keeping Tilla out of this business without mentioning Metellus. If there was even the slightest chance that she might be pregnant, he did not want to frighten her.

Firmus was insisting on knowing what his uncle had said about the letter.

Ruso said, “All it shows is that Asper was ill and confused.”

“I don’t agree. With all respect to my uncle, of course. I think Asper was about to expose some sort of crook who had him murdered.”

Ruso loyally defended the procurator’s position, aware that he was talking too much and it must be obvious that he was lying. Aware too that he should never have allowed Firmus to get so deeply involved in this. The lad had been sent here by his mother to work in an office, not to chase thieves and murderers, and certainly not to get within the striking range of vipers like Metellus.

Finally Firmus gave up. “So what do we do now?”

“While I’m away, I’d be grateful if you’d forward any news that comes into the office.”

The aristocratic nose wrinkled. “That sounds boring.”

“Most investigating is boring, sir,” Ruso assured him, adding the “sir” to try and reestablish the distance that he should have had the sense to keep between them all along. “It’s just collecting detailed information, and most of what you find out turns out to have nothing to do with what you want to know.”

They were almost at the gatehouse now. Seeing them approach, Albanus raised one hand and hurried toward them, cramming his official writing tablets into his satchel. “Sirs!”

“I was just explaining to the assistant procurator that investigating isn’t as exciting as it sounds,” said Ruso, noticing to his discomfort that Albanus’s eyes were bright and he was shifting his weight from one foot to the other as if he was eager to say something. “For example, you’ve just spent the afternoon recording-how many sightings of the missing brother?”

“Twenty-four, sir. Sir, I-”

“Twenty-four. And how many of them are credible?”

“Probably about three, sir. And even those contradict one another.”

Ruso fixed him with what he hoped was a meaningful stare. “So would you say investigating was exciting, Albanus?”

“It was a tedious afternoon, to be honest, sir.”

“Exactly,” said Ruso.

“Until I found out what Room Twenty-seven really means,” continued Albanus, unable to resist beaming with pride as he destroyed all Ruso’s good work in a sentence.

“Oh, well done!” cried Firmus. “I knew you were wrong, Ruso!”

At Albanus’s suggestion, they moved across to stand by the hitching rail on one side of the courtyard. Horses might hear, but they would not talk.

Apparently as he sat listening to the various accounts of sightings of men with mangled ears, Albanus had watched the stream of people going in and out of the Residence. Among them had been several couriers, most of whom delivered their items to the guard house at the gates to be distributed.

“And that’s when I thought again about the letter, sir. And about the way my aunt’s letters got forwarded on to me after I left the army, and that’s when it dawned on me. It doesn’t matter what you write on the outside. What matters is that the person who receives it knows what to do with it.”

Albanus paused here, perhaps waiting for his listeners to catch up.

“So where’s the real Room Twenty-seven?” demanded Firmus.

“We saw it earlier,” Albanus said. “But that’s not the point. The point is, when the men in the sorting room here get letters with addresses that don’t make sense, they put them all in the bottom right-hand pigeonhole. And there they stay, until somebody comes to look for them.”

So that was how Metellus did it. It was ridiculously simple.

“Or until there’s a clear-out, whichever happens sooner.”

“But that doesn’t prove that Room Twenty-seven means anything,” said Ruso, attempting to head them off. “It could just be a mistake by a dying man.”

“It could, sir,” agreed Albanus, “but the post room clerk says somebody’s been writing to it every week. And the pigeonhole hasn’t been cleared for a month, but there aren’t any Room Twenty-seven letters in there.”

“Somebody’s been collecting them!” exclaimed Firmus. “Oh, well done, Albanus! So all we have to do now is keep a watch on the post room-”

This was like trying to stop a runaway horse. “If the collector knows that Asper’s dead, he won’t come back for any more,” said Ruso, hoping the youth would not stumble over someone seeking messages from other informers. Would Metellus use the same system for several people? He had no way of knowing, nor any way to contact him and warn him.