Ruth Downie - Caveat emptor

There was a thump and the rasp of a saw from the front of the house. The carpenter had cheered up. He was whistling.

Tilla gestured toward the pot of cabbage. “I spent most of the money getting the door mended, but there is food. Will you stay for supper?”

He shook his head, feeling guilty about the luxury of Suite Three while his wife was struggling to run a house, comfort the bereaved, and boil cabbage. He said, “I’ll ask the manager at the mansio if his wife knows a housekeeper.” He paused, realizing he had almost failed to pass on a major piece of news. “You won’t believe this, but Serena’s here.”

“I know this.”

“Her cousin’s married to the chap who runs the-what?”

“Valens told me this morning. He asked me to talk to her. I said he must talk to her himself.”

“You might have warned me!”

She said, “I forgot. But when there is time I will go and say hello.”

At the moment, they both had bigger things to worry about. Digging into his purse for some of the money Valens had loaned him earlier this afternoon, he tipped it onto the table and then got to his feet. “I have to go.”

“So soon?”

He bent and kissed her on the forehead. He wondered if she really was carrying his child this time. It was too soon to tell. “Get an early night,” he told her. “It’ll be a difficult day tomorrow.”

“Will you come to the funeral?”

“I’ll try,” he promised. “You never know, I might have some answers by then. Caratius has invited me to dinner.”

“Caratius? I will pray to Christos and his father to keep you safe.”

“If you must. But he’s not going to do anything to a procurator’s man.”

“If he thinks you suspect-”

“He won’t,” he promised. “Besides, I’ve got two guards and the other magistrate knows I’m going there.”

She called across the kitchen, “What if the guards are working for him?”

“Of course they aren’t,” he assured her as he stepped out into the garden, not wanting her to worry.

When he emerged into the street, the guards stationed themselves one on each side of him. It occurred to him that these men worked for the Council of which Caratius was a senior member. There was no need for Tilla to worry, because he could do enough worrying for himself.

Publius’s wife was on duty in the reception area of the mansio. She seemed unexpectedly pleased to see Ruso, declaring, “I knew I’d met you somewhere before!”

He mumbled something conciliatory. It was not the time to reminisce. It had been a long day, his hunger had overwhelmed the temporary relief of the pastries, and he was probably already late for his meal with Caratius.

“You were one of the doctors stationed at Deva. Don’t you remember me? I’m Paula. You and Valens came to our house for dinner.”

“I do,” agreed Ruso, not adding that he remembered this elegantly coiffed young woman as one of a pair of giggly girls. The dinner invitation had been part of Valens’s campaign to impress Serena, a campaign that had unfortunately succeeded.

“I always liked you best,” she said. “I told Serena, but she wouldn’t listen. You can’t trust a man who’s too good looking. He’s had other women down there while she’s been away, you know.”

Women? In the plural? He said, “Are you sure?”

“Oh, yes.”

It seemed Valens had been busy in the short space between Serena’s leaving and his own arrival. In the face of such certainty, his “I didn’t see any women” made it sound as though he had failed to notice them hiding under the beds.

“We know everything that goes on, you know,” the cousin assured him. “We’re only twenty miles away and we have friends. Why don’t you join us for dinner and we can all hear one another’s news?”

Verulamium was a remarkably hospitable town. He had been in the place only a few hours and this was his third invitation to dinner. Sadly none of them was as appealing as his original plan to wolf down something tasty and filling before catching up on last night’s lost sleep in the comfort of Suite Three.

He explained that he had been invited out this evening. He was almost at the door when he paused and turned to ask her how late the staff would be on duty. “I’m told Caratius lives out of town,” he explained, “so I may be late back from dinner, but I’ll definitely be sleeping here tonight and I’d like an early breakfast.”

Her promise to alert the night porter and the kitchen staff was doubly reassuring. Not only were several people now expecting him back this evening, but his guards, waiting out on the steps, would have overheard him telling her.

Had Julius Asper been trying to protect himself in the same way when he told Camma where he was going? Or had he been lying to confuse any pursuers while he escaped with the money?

When Ruso emerged from the mansio he found the big guard lounging against the wall by himself. Gavo snapped to attention, explaining that his comrade had gone next door to check the arrangements for the horses. Ruso was not sorry. He wanted a private word with Gavo. He wanted to know what the young man had seen while he had been escorting the magistrate around Londinium.

Making the excuse of collecting his cloak, Ruso led him back through reception and out past the garden toward Suite Three.

“So, what did you make of being invited into a postmortem?” was perhaps not the best way to start a conversation, but it turned out that Gavo was sorry he’d missed most of it. In fact, he was sorry he hadn’t been able to spend longer in Londinium. Freed from the watchful eye of his companion, he turned out to be remarkably talkative. Incredibly, since Londinium was only twenty miles away, it turned out to be his first trip. “As an adult, sir,” he added, clearly eager to make sure Ruso did not think he was some sort of unsophisticated bumpkin. “We used to go there when my father was alive.”

Ruso concluded with some relief that Gavo on his own was unlikely to be much of a threat. While he gathered up his cloak, the young man explained that his father had been a leatherworker, but he had joined the guards to better himself. “Dias says I might even be able to go for the army in a year or two,” he added. “He was on the way to being a centurion himself, sir. Till he got invalided out with his back.”

“Sounds as though you’re getting good experience,” said Ruso, locking the door once more and hoping the youth had not been too busy chatting to notice him checking his knife. “Were you Caratius’s sole escort or part of a team?”

“Just me and the magistrate’s personal slaves, sir.” Gavo looked pleased with himself. “Usually Dias gets all these-” Whatever word he was about to use, he stifled it and said, “All the Londinium duties. But he put me on the roster to go instead.”

“I don’t suppose you got much of a chance to look round, having to stay with the magistrate and then come straight back.”

“Oh, no, sir! Once the magistrate was settled in with his friend, I was off duty.”

As they clattered down the mansio steps, Ruso said, “That was very generous of him.”

“Yes, sir.” Gavo cleared his throat as if there was something he was not supposed to say. “So I went out exploring.”

Ruso wondered if he should make inquiries about Caratius’s friend. There couldn’t be that many priests of Jupiter.

“There’s a few good brewers down there, I can tell you.” The big face split into a rueful grin. “I had a storming headache on the way home.”

“You should be careful,” said Ruso, alarmed by the very naivete he was himself exploiting. “It’s not a good idea to go drinking in a strange town on your own.”