Ruth Downie - Caveat emptor

They passed between gateposts where deep gouges at axle level bore witness to overoptimistic steering, and turned into the street. Rogatus explained that the carriage had been found the following morning, abandoned by the side of the road two or three miles out of town.

“Still with all the horses?”

“We were very lucky, sir.” Perhaps in case this sounded too cheerful, he added, “Not like that Julius Asper.”

Shooing a couple of children aside with a cry of “Make way for the procurator’s man!” he led Ruso toward a long low building. Its pristine white limewash gleamed, its glass windows glittered, and it seemed to occupy most of the rest of the block. Ruso’s hopes rose.

“Tell me something,” he said. “Asper was on a busy road: Do you think a carriage could be ambushed without anybody seeing it happen?”

Rogatus raised a grimy hand to scratch the back of his neck. “Hard to say, sir. It was a wet old afternoon. Nobody would be out if they could help it, and if they were, they’d be trying to keep under cover.”

Ruso paused at the foot of the low stone steps leading up to the reception doors of the mansio and tried not to be distracted by the smell of frying chicken. “If the horses were spooked, how far do you think they might bolt?”

This appeared to be some sort of insult. “We got our animals well trained here, sir.”

“I’m just wondering where the men and the carriage actually parted company.”

Rogatus, mollified, confirmed that it was “a heavy old vehicle” and was unlikely to have gone far without a driver.

Ruso said, “I’ll need to look at it.”

Rogatus looked at him as if he had just suggested interviewing the horses. “It’s out at the moment, sir. I’ll tell the boys you’ll be needing to see it.”

“I’ll need to talk to his, ah-where can I find a woman named Camma?”

The stable overseer’s face brightened. “She’s just turned up this afternoon, sir. I hear she’s back at Asper’s house with another young lady.” Ruso supposed the man was well placed to hear all the gossip of comings and goings. Reassured, he decided there was no need to rush across there.

“It’s a bad old business, sir.”

Ruso agreed. His foot was on the bottom step when he heard, “What do you think the procurator will do about it?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” he said. He had a feeling he was going to be repeating that many times over the next few days.

The manager of the mansio, a lean and gray-haired retired cavalry officer called Publius, was also expecting the investigator. In fact he brought his young wife out to greet him as well. The wife looked refreshingly bored at the prospect of meeting a tax man and disappeared as soon as the formalities were over. Ruso dismissed a vague feeling that he had seen her somewhere before and followed her husband through the reception area and out under a covered walkway that led around a series of rooms forming three sides of a formal garden.

“You’ll have to make the most of us as we are, I’m afraid, sir.” Ruso noted the encouraging smells and clattering sounds from the kitchens as Publius was waving his walking stick toward the garden wall and explaining about the improvements he had hoped to put in place in time for the emperor’s visit. “I can’t see them being agreed until the missing money turns up, sir.”

“I’ll do my best,” agreed Ruso, who had never been called “sir” by a cavalry officer before and decided he liked it.

“You’re in Suite Three, sir.” Publius paused under the walkway to unlock a door that led into a dim corridor. “That leads out to the alley by the stables,” he said, aiming the stick at the streaks of light that outlined an exit straight ahead. “The key’s on the hook, so you can come and go as you please.”

Ruso was less interested in the hefty iron key hung above the lintel than in seizing the chance to talk while there were no servants or wife around to overhear. “Tell me,” he said, “what do you make of the locals?”

“They’re a fine bunch of people, sir. Good to work with.”

Ruso sighed. “Not the official line, Publius. If I’m going to find this money, I need to know the truth. What do you make of the locals?”

The cavalryman paused, then said, “Ambitious. The emperor allows them to run their own Council and town guard. The town’s on a junction of two main roads, so there’s a lot of lucrative trade comes through here. They’re talking about building a theater.”

“Friendly?” prompted Ruso hopefully.

“When it suits them.”

Ruso suspected that if he asked too many difficult questions, it would not suit them for long. “Who would you trust?”

Publius cleared his throat. “I’m probably not the best person to ask, sir.”

“Because?”

“Because, sir, you work for the procurator’s office, and the procurator’s office is in charge of mansiones and transport, and if I tell you what really goes on, I’ll be getting myself and a lot of other people into trouble.”

“I’m not inspecting anything,” Ruso promised him. “Just hunting for the money.”

The stick clunked against the wall as Publius leaned back and folded his arms. “I’m appointed by Londinium,” he said, “but I’ve got to get along with the suppliers who are near enough to deliver. So I’m not going to tell you about the councillor who overcharges us for the horses he breeds, or how the stable overseer declares them unfit two years later even when they aren’t and sells them at a nice profit to himself. I’m certainly not going to tell you that the same overseer takes bribes to slip ordinary letters in with the official post, because doing that would be illegal.”

“Absolutely,” said Ruso, recognizing the descriptions of Caratius and Rogatus. “It’s best that I don’t know about any of that. Anything else you’re not going to mention?”

“There’s the other important councillor whose country estate supplies us with wildly overpriced meat for the kitchens and animal feed that we could get a lot cheaper twenty miles up the road. I won’t be telling you about him.”

“No, don’t.”

“Because if I do, then to be fair I’ll have to complain about the number of jumped-up officials who come through here demanding services they don’t have the warrants for and threatening to report me if they don’t get them. And then I’ll be in trouble with everybody for not clamping down on it, as if they think I’m some sort of miracle worker.”

“I can see that.”

“Frankly, sir, once you’ve been in this job awhile you stop trusting anyone. But from what I can gather, it’s no worse here than anywhere else.”

“What do you think’s gone on with Asper and the tax money?”

“I haven’t a clue, sir. But if I were you, I’d watch my back.” Publius reached for his stick. “Now that I haven’t told you anything, sir, if you’d like me to show you your rooms?”

Publius resumed his well-practiced introduction about keys and bathing and arrangements for dinner. “Your dining room and kitchen are through this door on your right, sir. Since you haven’t brought your staff, we’ll serve your meals from the main kitchen.”

His dining room?

Staff?

“I’m afraid at this hour we can’t really make changes to the menu-”

“As long as there’s plenty of it,” Ruso assured him.

“And this-” The man flung open a door on his left with a flourish. “This is the rest of Suite Three.”

Ruso had been surveying the rest of Suite Three for some time before he remembered to close his mouth.

While Publius was saying something about notifying reception of any guests, Ruso was gazing across the expanse of scrubbed floorboards to the open door beyond and wondering how many cavalrymen Publius would have billeted in a space that size in his former career. Even in the civilian world there would be room for a doctor, his wife, several putative children, and as much crockery as any respectable citizen could accumulate.