Ruth Downie - Ruso and the Root of All Evils

‘If you’d listened to me in the first place, nobody would be investigating anything.’

‘What would have happened if Severus’ own doctor discovered he was poisoned and I’d said he wasn’t?’

Whatever Lucius might have said in response was lost below a clatter of footsteps along the hallway and Arria’s cry of ‘Oh, Gaius, this is dreadful!’

‘We’ll sort it out,’ he promised. ‘We just need to stay calm and — ’

‘Oh, never mind that! I mean, nobody’s been to tell Lollia we’ve cancelled dinner, and she’ll be getting dressed!’

Lollia Saturnina’s establishment was a model of neatness. The drying amphorae were laid out in military ranks to catch the late-afternoon sun. The fuel was in stacks of uniform height. Vegetables were standing to attention in their beds, and beyond them, past a row of freshly painted outbuildings, a slave was stationed by the entrance of a kiln that towered above two blackened fire-holes. She was busy emptying a trolley of wide-shouldered amphorae, heaving them up to a man whose voice boomed around the hollow oven in which he was stacking them ready for firing.

Ruso approached the woman and indicated the house on the far side of the yard. ‘Do you know if your mistress is in?’

‘No,’ said the woman, wiping her fingers on her worn brown tunic. ‘I’m here.’

Ruso swallowed. ‘You’re Lollia Saturnina?’

‘Yes.’

He had not made a good start. Ruso took in the ancient tunic, the battered sandals, the hair tied back with a simple braid. She was wearing neither jewellery nor make-up, but neither did she need them. To his consternation, beneath the pale smears of dried clay was a very attractive woman.

The woman leaned forward, called, ‘Just a minute!’ into the entrance of the kiln and was rewarded with an echoing ‘Right-oh, mistress!’

‘Perhaps,’ she prompted, moving away from the entrance, ‘when you’ve finished staring, you could tell me who you are and why you’re here.’

‘Ruso,’ he explained. ‘I live next door.’

‘Ah, Gaius Petreius, the famous medic! Your stepmother’s very proud of you.’

‘Really?’

‘Don’t worry, she did warn me.’

‘About what?’

‘That women make you nervous. But apparently you’re a nice chap underneath. So could we get underneath fairly soon, do you think? I’m no good at social chit-chat either, and I need to get this finished and clean up.’

Ruso cleared his throat. ‘Do you need a hand?’

‘No, I do this all the time.’

‘I just wasn’t expecting you to be so …’

‘Scruffy? Don’t worry, I will dress up for dinner.’

Ruso bit back the honest but inappropriate ‘attractive’ and substituted ‘forthright’.

She smiled. The gap between her front teeth only added to her charm. He wondered why nobody had told him and then remembered that Arria had tried: he just hadn’t believed her.

‘Now, what did you want to say to me?’

Ruso had practised various ways of describing the problem on the walk through the olive grove that adjoined Lollia’s property. All explanations of the afternoon’s events sounded either evasive or callous. In the end he settled for: ‘Arria’s sorry, but we can’t do dinner tonight because a man who came to see us this afternoon died in my study.’

‘Oh dear.’

It was not clear whether she was expressing regret about the death or the dinner.

‘He wasn’t a patient,’ Ruso added, then wished he hadn’t. ‘Not that that matters, of course.’

‘No. Who was it?’

He explained.

Lollia said, ‘Poor Claudia.’

‘Poor Claudia,’ he echoed, silently recalling the bitch has poisoned me .

There was an awkward pause, then Lollia bent to heave up the next amphora.

‘I expect Arria will want to rearrange,’ he said.

The gap-toothed smile appeared again. ‘I expect so.’

‘You might as well know,’ he said, ‘I think he was poisoned. But it wasn’t us who did it.’

‘I don’t doubt it.’

‘That he was poisoned, or that it wasn’t us?’

‘Both,’ she said, looking at him over the neck of the amphora. ‘I met Severus several times. Frankly, Claudia’s made some very bad decisions in the last few years. Now if you’ll excuse me, we need to get this fired up before it gets dark. Ready, Marius? Next one coming up!’

While Tilla slept beside him, Ruso lay staring into the darkness and wondering what he was supposed to do with the bitch has poisoned me . Despite consulting his medical textbooks and questioning most of the household, he was no further forward with finding out what had killed Severus, nor how it had been administered. Everyone had been going about their usual business, and hardly anyone had noticed the visitor before he drew attention to himself by dying. Arria had been having her hair done in her room and was only disturbed by the commotion in the study. Ruso could find only one additional sighting of the live Severus, but the laundrymaid had paid little attention as she passed through the hall and noticed him sitting on a stool. In reply to ‘How did he look?’ she said, ‘I think he was wearing a brown — ’

‘I mean, did he look well?’

The girl thought about this for some time before venturing the opinion that the visitor had been looking hot and cross.

‘But he didn’t look ill?’

‘No, sir. Just hot and cross, like you.’

The only person he had not yet questioned was Cass, who had arrived home late with the children, organized the farm slaves’ supper, dealt with a tantrum from Little Gaius and invited Tilla to join her in a late retreat to the bath-house. He would talk to her tomorrow.

The bitch has poisoned me.

At the time he had assumed that Severus was accusing either his wife or his sister, but now he realized those words could equally well have been directed at Cass. Of course, it was ridiculous to imagine that Cassiana would poison anybody, but …

‘I know you are not asleep,’ came a voice from the other side of the bed. ‘Are you angry with me about your sisters?’

‘Uh? No. It was obvious they were lying.’

‘You are thinking about the man who is dead,’ she guessed. ‘How everyone will think you killed him because you owe him money and he married your old wife.’

‘Everyone would be wrong.’

‘I know this.’

‘Good. Go to sleep, Tilla.’

‘I know, because killing him here would be very stupid.’

‘Killing him anywhere would be very stupid.’ He sighed, rolled over and reached a hand around her. ‘I’m glad someone married my old wife,’ he murmured in her ear. ‘Go to sleep.’

She shifted to get comfortable against him. ‘What sort of poison he is dead from?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did you catch his last breath? What did he say?’

When he did not answer she said, ‘You are still not asleep. Are you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell me what he said.’

‘Did Cass say anything about it while you were in the baths?’

‘We talked about her brother. She does not know what to do. Her husband says she must make her mind up.’

He said, ‘I promised her I’d try to help, but I haven’t had time.’

‘She understands. What will happen about the money you owe, now the man is dead?’

He said, ‘While you were over at the baths I went through the chest in the study. There’s a stack of bills from traders in town that haven’t even been opened. And a tax assessment. None of them’s big enough to prompt a bankruptcy, but word gets round. Some of the bigger creditors might start calling their loans in.’

He felt the tremor of a giggle. ‘Not if they think you will poison them.’