Ruth Downie - Caveat emptor

The pot-bellied man was the local doctor, and he was not happy in his work. Yes, he agreed as he put away the bronze probe with which he had been investigating the corpse, the deceased could have been dead for five or six days. Any fool could see that he hadn’t died yesterday. Probably being severely battered around the head would have killed him. It tended to do that. Now if that was all, there were live patients waiting back in town.

Having made a courtesy gesture to the local man, Ruso was about to finish the job himself when there was a disturbance among the gawpers. A small dark woman was being manhandled away by one of the guards. Instead of admitting defeat she was shouting, “Let me through!”

Ruso recognized the person Tilla had been talking to by the water fountain yesterday. “Isn’t that Asper’s housekeeper?”

The doctor ordered Dias to keep her back. “This is no sight for a woman.”

“I’d like to talk to her,” said Ruso.

“Absolutely not!” said the doctor. “We know who this is. You can still just about make out the damage to the ear. I don’t need a fainting female on my hands as well.”

Ruso leaned out and beckoned to a cemetery slave who was passing with a basket load of kindling. “Hand me up that sheet over there, will you?”

“I won’t allow this!” insisted the doctor. “I am the doctor here, and that woman is one of my patients.”

“And I’m the investigator,” said Ruso, his respect for the doctor rising. If the roles had been reversed, he would have been just as indignant. He turned to Dias. “Give me a minute and then have her brought over.”

“I protest!”

“I’m not enjoying this, either,” conceded Ruso, standing up and shaking the folds out of the rough linen sheet. “But I once knew somebody who went to her husband’s funeral only to have him turn up alive and well three weeks later.” It was an exaggeration: He had never met the apocryphal woman, but it had been one of his uncle’s favorite stories. “Let’s have her make sure, shall we?”

The doctor clambered down from the cart, still complaining as he left. Ruso flung the sheet over the body. Then he retrieved one of the sandals that had been placed in the corner of the cart, loosened his neckerchief, and jumped down.

Grata wrenched her arm out of Dias’s grasp as Ruso approached. Dias said something but if she heard it, she did not reply. Ruso dismissed him and said quietly, “I’m the investigator. We think this is your master.”

In a small voice, as if she was not sure it was true, Grata said, “I want to see.”

“He is not how you remember him.” He produced the sandal from behind his back. One of the thongs had snapped and been retied, the sole needed restitching at the toes, and the whole thing was swollen with damp. “If you can identify this, there’s no need for any more.”

She put one hand over her mouth.

He had to be certain. “Did this belong to Julius Bericus?”

She nodded.

“I am sorry.”

She nodded again, as if she did not know what else to do.

“If there’s anything you can tell me that might help me find out-”

“No! No, I know nothing.”

She had lived in the same house as the dead man. Perhaps they had been fond of each other. He said, “I heard there was a message from someone inviting the brothers to visit.”

“A message for Asper,” she said. “From Caratius.”

“Who brought that message, Grata?”

She gathered up her skirts. “One of his servants.”

“Which one?”

She did not answer. He thought she was about to walk away. Instead she moved toward the cart. The doctor in Ruso wanted to go after her: to head her off with a warning about the dangers of bad air and the news that she could pay her respects at the pyre in a few minutes and

… and anything that would stop her from seeing what she was about to see.

There was a murmur from the gawpers as she reached the cart and lifted the sheet. The investigator in Ruso left her there-alone, one hand clamped over her mouth and nose, taking in what man and nature had done.

The doctor in him told the investigator he should have stopped her.

Grata turned and walked straight back the way she had come, arms tightly folded, battered boots kicking her skirts out of the way. Her face was set like a wax model.

As she passed him Ruso murmured, “If you think of anything, speak to Tilla. Nobody will know who told me.”

His gaze followed her lonely progress between the graves to the road. The investigator in him had done rather well. The doctor in him warned the investigator that he couldn’t stand much more of this.

He turned to find Dias at his shoulder. He took a breath and said brightly, “Right. I’ve finished here.”

“You bastard,” Dias said, so softly so that no one but Ruso could hear. “You didn’t need to do that to her. You evil bastard.”

There was no funeral feast, either at the cemetery or afterward. The women returned to a silent house. No neighbors called to ease the long wait between the burning and the hour tomorrow when the ashes would be cool enough for burial. The empty shoes were still in a pair by the door, ready for a man who no longer needed them.

Camma was still in this world, but her eyes were dull and her mind was filled with dark clouds. She lay slumped on the couch, seemingly unaware of the baby at her breast. Tilla clattered the shutters open and apologized to the household gods for leaving them with the smell that still lingered despite yesterday’s efforts with the scrubbing brush, and then apologized to Christos for paying attention to them. Over the sea in Gaul, people would have said she ought to choose one or the other. Here, she was not so sure.

Camma said suddenly, “We should have stayed to say good-bye to Bericus.”

“The men will look after him.”

“Poor Bericus. I prayed to Andaste, but it was too late. He was already gone.”

Tilla said, “The brothers will be together in the next world,” and Camma’s eyes filled with tears.

When the baby drifted off to sleep, his mother settled him in the box and wandered down the gloomy corridor toward the bedroom. Tilla stood over him, watching the flicker of his eyelids and marking each tiny rise and fall of the blanket with his breathing. She tried to imagine how desperate a woman would have to be to leave a helpless baby in the care of strangers and follow her man to the next world.

He might not sleep for long. She must use the time well. She began to count on her fingers all the jobs that needed to be done. Suddenly overwhelmed, she reached for a darned sock that had fallen behind the couch. It was too big to belong to Camma. She went to the little room where Bericus had slept and added the sock to the loincloths and spare trousers and three tunics and an old belt lying in an untidy jumble on the bed. Asper’s clothes must be in the next room with Camma. All of that, like naming the baby, was a problem for later.

She must do one job at a time.

First, water.

She walked down to the corner water pipe clutching the buckets and pretended not to notice the way the conversation died as she approached. In response to her question, the women said they did not know of any followers of Christos in the town. In fact they had never heard of Christos.

Back in Gaul, the brothers and sisters would have seized this chance to share the good news. Tilla, feeling she had enough problems already, decided to leave Verulamium in ignorance for a while longer.

She had let the water fill too high. Trying not to spill any, she crouched to pick up both buckets and made her way slowly back along the uneven cobblestones of the street, all the while wrestling with the problem of how, now that she had gotten herself into this, she was going to get out of it again.