Ruth Downie - Caveat emptor

Satto retrieved his treasure, glancing at it before he lowered the lid as if to make sure that Ruso had not performed some cunning sleight of hand and exchanged his valuable antique for some worthless modern bauble. “Not everything with Nero’s head on it is worth more. You have to know which is which.”

It was clear that there was more to coin exchange than Ruso had realized. It was not, after all, simply a matter of raking off a percentage of the bronze people used to buy bread as a reward for giving them the silver or gold they needed to pay their taxes. “So would there be any of these coins in the tax money?”

“Only if I was having a bad day when I checked it,” said Satto. “It should be all modern.”

Ruso returned to the center of the Great Hall deep in thought. There was no doubt that many things weren’t what they used to be, but he had always assumed that silver was silver and that a coin was worth what it said, no matter how old it was. Yet now it seemed that silver was not really silver despite bearing the emperor’s name and the stamp of the official mint. Passing beneath the plaque over the main entrance, he was reminded that Domitian had really been a murdering bastard despite all the toadying inscriptions that had been erected during his lifetime. You couldn’t trust a word you read.

He was beginning to think Tilla’s ancestors, obstinately illiterate and coinless, might have had a point.

The Council session had just broken up when Ruso returned to the chamber. Several toga-clad figures were striding toward the doors. Others were clustered in groups. The urgency of conversation and the way the groups were eyeing one another suggested that the meeting had ended in disagreement. One or two men approached Ruso to thank him, but nobody offered any new information. The clerk gathered up a collection of scrolls and hurried away with his head down, as if he was hoping to escape without being noticed.

Caratius abandoned what appeared to be an argument, raised his hand to acknowledge Ruso’s presence, and advanced toward him. Immediately Gallonius broke away from another group on the far side of the hall, gathered up fistfuls of toga, and set off in the same direction. For a moment it looked like a race down the chamber, with Ruso as the finishing post.

Caratius got there first and opened his mouth only to be drowned out by Gallonius with, “Sorry about the lively debate earlier.”

“Outrageous!” put in Caratius. “No respect. Can’t even let a guest speak without interrupting. This place is a disgrace. I’m sorry, Investigator. You and I are trying to find out why men lie murdered and money is missing, and these people are interested in nothing but petty squabbles about who’s allowed to be seen where.”

“Since it turns out Asper wasn’t the thief my fellow magistrate has been making him out to be,” said Gallonius to Ruso, “it’s just as well some of us went to pay our respects.”

“An action for which you did not have the Council’s approval,” said Caratius.

Gallonius turned on him. “The quaestor and I went to the funeral as private individuals. It’s not at all the same thing as illegally representing the Council to the procurator, as you well know.”

Caratius looked as though he was considering punching his fellow magistrate, then managed to get himself under control. “The investigator isn’t here to waste his time on this kind of nonsense,” he said. “I know what kind of game this is. Ruso, I’m counting on you to find out the truth. If not, I shall appeal to the governor. One way or another, I will have justice!” He turned to Gallonius. “In the meantime I suggest you stop talking nonsense and concentrate on finding something useful to tell him.”

Ruso watched the tall, straight-backed figure march out of the chamber, gray hair flowing over the folds of the toga. He had to admit it was an impressive exit.

When his rival was gone, Gallonius took Ruso by the elbow as if he were an old friend. He steered him into an alcove and gestured him toward one elaborately carved chair while squeezing himself into the other. “Sorry about that, investigator. It’s been a difficult morning. Do sit down.”

Ruso sat. It was almost as uncomfortable as Valens’s couch.

“Would you believe the man refused to resign?” continued Gallonius, “even though the brother’s body turned up on his land.”

“He says he knows nothing about it.”

“Of course. But it doesn’t look good, does it?” Gallonius’s expression suggested it was not especially bad, either.

Ruso wondered if Caratius’s enemies on the Council had retained Asper’s services out of spite.

“On behalf of the town, I apologize for the way he came bothering the procurator. It’s beginning to look as though we should have dealt with this ourselves.”

Ruso’s insistence that there was no need to apologize was brushed aside with a wave of the hand. “He’s always been a difficult man. Doesn’t listen. Rushes in without thinking. We’ve tried to get rid of him before on the grounds that he doesn’t live in the town, but until now he’s always managed to wriggle round it. This morning we’ve finally done it.”

“But I haven’t finished my-”

“Oh, nothing to do with the theft and the murders, even though everyone can see what happened there. No, we’ve finally nailed him on a technicality.” The chair squealed in protest as Gallonius leaned back. “Caratius took money for overseeing drainage repairs outside the meat market eighteen months ago. The work’s not finished, I’m still getting flooding into my property, and the money’s not accounted for.” He lifted a pudgy finger toward one of the brass plaques on the far side of the Hall. “It’s clearly laid out in the Constitution. Tablet six, halfway down, The Sending Of Ambassadors. No man who has not accounted for public funds-you know the sort of thing.”

Ruso neither knew nor cared, but he was wondering whether Caratius was in the sort of financial trouble that would tempt him to steal the town’s money.

‘The man’s a menace,’ continued Gallonius. “No matter how the Council votes, he does as he likes. Things would never have come to this if he’d listened to the rest of us about the Iceni.”

“The Iceni?”

“Oh, he was all for some sort of alliance. The Council refused to get involved. Everyone could see the woman would be a disaster, but he went ahead and married her anyway.” Gallonius sighed. “And now we have two men murdered and the procurator sending a man to chase our tax payment.”

So Verulamium’s suspicious alliance with the Iceni had been nothing more than the ambitions of a rogue politician. The procurator would be relieved to hear it. “I just came to help,” Ruso said. “I’m not involved in the politics.”

“Please thank the procurator for his understanding. We’re sorry you’ve been troubled. You can assure him we’ll deal with it from here. Caratius will be paying up.”

“He will?”

Gallonius ground his palms together as if he had his rival trapped between them, and intoned, “Any ambassador who knowingly acts contrary to the rules shall be liable to pay the value of the case.” It sounded as though it was his favorite quotation. “The value of this case,” he added, “is seven thousand five hundred and thirty-two denarii.”

Ruso was confused. “But I thought it was the Council who sent him to Londinium in the first place?”

“That was Caratius’s argument too, but the Council took the view that he should have reminded us that he was ineligible. Instead he insisted on going.”

“I see,” said Ruso, appalled at the way in which a double murder had been reduced to an unsavory squabble about Council regulations.