Ruth Downie - Caveat emptor

“So it may not have been resolved in the way any of us expected, but you can go back to Londinium with the news that the money will be paid as soon as possible.”

Ruso said, “You should know that somebody sent me an anonymous note this morning warning me to get out of town.”

It took a moment for the words to puncture Gallonius’s self-satisfaction. When they did, his throat wobbled as he swallowed. “You’ve received a threat?”

“Yes.”

“A threat against a senior-oh, dear! This is terrible. Do the guards know?”

“I’ve told Dias.”

Gallonius shook his head in disbelief and repeated, “Terrible. Whatever was he thinking of? This is a civilized, law-abiding town. The governor says we’re an example to our neighbors. We’re hoping for a visit from the emperor.” The squabbling politician had vanished. The man looked genuinely upset. “A guest being threatened. I really can’t apologize enough. That a magistrate should stoop so low! Not to mention murder and theft from his own treasury! Shameful!”

“You think it was Caratius?”

“We’ll deal with him, don’t worry.” The magistrate sighed. “If only we had made Asper leave town after the scandal.”

“Yes,” agreed Ruso, getting to his feet. “If only.”

As he came out of the Council chamber he saw that a sizeable crowd had gathered around a cart parked in an open area of the Forum with a hefty wooden frame set up inside. A gangly youth dressed only in a loincloth and blindfold was manhandled up to it by a couple of guards, who stretched out his arms and roped them to the horizontal beam of the frame. One of the men stepped down. The other remained.

There was a pause while Dias’s voice made the announcement. This man had been caught with a ewe and a lamb stolen from his neighbor. Moments later the thin black tail of a whip flashed against the white of the Forum columns. A cry of pain rose above the murmurs of the crowd.

Ruso counted fifteen lashes: plenty of time for the guilty party and his audience to consider the folly of stealing their neighbors’ sheep. He wondered what they did to women who stole cockerels. As for magistrates who murdered tax collectors…

It dawned on him that as soon as he could prise Tilla away from Camma and the red-haired baby, he could follow the well-wisher’s suggestion and get out of this decent law-abiding town. Clearly the locals were embarrassed about the whole fiasco and desperate to clear up as much of the mess as possible for themselves. It was all very well for Caratius to say he was counting on Ruso to “find out the truth,” but Ruso had been sent here to serve the Council, and Caratius was no longer a councillor. Those who were wanted no further investigation.

Caratius would be accused and tried before the governor. Camma would have revenge, Metellus would have the name of the man who had murdered his agent, the Council would finally be free of a difficult man, and the procurator would get the cash. Ruso could go back to being a doctor and Tilla would never need to know that her name had been on that list. By the time Hadrian decided to visit, the town would probably have recovered its dignity. And Ruso might have recovered from the uneasy feeling that there was something wrong with all this, and that he had just been used as a weapon in someone else’s political war.

He turned away from the crowd, shrugging the tension out of his shoulders. He had not done much to be proud of here. The discovery of the incriminating body had been the result of chance rather than investigation. Still, it was hardly his fault. If they had wanted a real inquiry, they should have hired someone who knew what he was doing. He would just pin down one last piece of information to satisfy himself that he had done as much as he could, and then he would face the challenge of extricating Tilla.

He turned to his guards, who were watching the youth’s supporters struggling to untie him and bathe his wounds. “I need to go to Julius Asper’s house,” he said.

To his surprise he did not need to ask where to find the housekeeper. She was already standing over the kitchen table with her hair scraped back from her face and an old tunic flung over her dress, pounding a pungent mix of garlic and coriander with a pestle.

This was not the time to discuss Tilla’s behavior at the funeral. Instead he exchanged good news with the women: on his side the fact that the Council would deal with Caratius, and on theirs the return of Grata and the fact that Camma had found forty-seven denarii and some bronze hidden in a box upstairs. Tilla, perhaps trying to make up for her performance earlier, meekly agreed to be ready to leave in the morning. He did not even need to tell her about the anonymous note. For once, everything seemed to be fitting into place.

The way Camma flung her arms around his wife and cried that she had saved her life left him feeling guilty for all his dire predictions about the folly of getting too involved. To his surprise Camma then flung her arms around him as well. Somewhere beyond his embarrassment and his desire to stop her hair from tickling his nose, he felt a warm glow of satisfaction.

“It was nothing,” he assured her, disentangling himself after a suitable interval. “Actually, it’s not quite over. There’s one last thing I need to check before I’m finished. Grata, the Council are bound to ask you to identify the person who brought the message from Caratius.”

Grata crushed a clove of garlic into submission against the grits in the surface of the bowl. “One of his slaves,” she said, not looking up. “I don’t know his name.”

“Could you pick him out?”

“Whoever it is will deny it,” said Camma. “You will have to beat him to get the truth.”

“I don’t suppose the message was written down?”

All three women eyed him with varying levels of scorn. “We don’t bother with all that here,” explained Grata. “We remember things.”

It was a speech he had heard before from his wife, when he had assured her that she would have no trouble learning to read. “So what was the wording, exactly?”

She shrugged. “Just asking him to visit later that day to talk.”

“Did it say what about?”

The scornful expression returned. “No, but I think he could guess.”

When Ruso did not reply, she turned to Tilla. “So, now your man has asked all his questions, when are you leaving?”

Ruso did not listen to Tilla’s response. So, now your man has asked all his questions…

Seen from the outside, his trip had been remarkably successful.

Extraordinarily successful.

Unbelievably successful.

The vague doubts that had been drifting around the edges of his mind had finally reached the front. He had not asked nearly enough questions.

What were the chances of a man stumbling across a body in the woods on the very evening that the investigator was visiting?

Come to that, why had it been possible to stumble across it at all? If it had been buried by the landowner, why had it not been properly hidden? There would have been plenty of time. Moreover, surely a murderer who lived near the scene of his crime would have wanted to dispose of his victim thoroughly lest he rise up and haunt him?

Camma was talking now, holding something out to him and looking as though she was waiting for an answer.

It appeared to be a badly formed burned tile with holes stamped into one side. Camma said, “I thought it might be a doctor’s mold for drying out pills in an oven, but Tilla says no.”

He took it from her with a sense of foreboding. As the only man in a house full of women, he seemed to be expected to know instinctively what this piece of equipment was. “It looks more like something to do with the kitchen,” he offered. He turned it over, exploring the pocked surface with a forefinger that would not fit into the holes. “Some sort of fire brick?” he suggested. “Something to set hot dishes on?”