Ruth Downie - Ruso and the Root of All Evils

Zosimus’ black eyes widened at this dubious endorsement. ‘Well, he’s a suspect in this one.’

‘So are we all,’ pointed out Claudia. ‘And he didn’t do it any more than I did, so the sooner it’s sorted out, the better. Whoever did it could poison somebody else. Me. You.’

‘That,’ said Zosimus, drawing himself up to his meagre height, ‘is a risk I’m prepared to take.’

Claudia popped in the last fragment of cake. ‘He might poison Ennia. Then you’d be sorry.’

The steward glared at her. ‘I came to tell you,’ he said, ‘there are guests waiting to offer their condolences.’

They made their way back along the gravel pathways, Claudia and Ruso lagging behind like a pair of reluctant schoolchildren.

‘When the investigator from Rome gets here,’ declared Claudia loud enough for Zosimus to hear, ‘I’m going to complain. If Severus were alive he wouldn’t dare to treat me like that!’

Ruso stepped closer to her and murmured, ‘There must be a spare key to that office. How do the staff get in to clean and fill the lamps?’

‘They wait for that horrible man to let them in,’ said Claudia.

Evidently security was not as lax here as in the Petreius household.

A large room in the west wing had been set aside for the laying-out of the body. Claudia stepped under the cypress boughs hung over the door, nodded to a couple of other women whom Ruso assumed to be neighbours paying respects and sat down with her hands folded in her lap and her eyes focused on nothing. Opposite her was a dishevelled, red-faced creature barely recognizable as Ennia. Between them, propped up against the far wall, surrounded by flickering lamps and looking a great deal calmer than everyone else in the room, was Severus.

Ruso stationed himself next to Ennia. He waited until a suitable amount of wailing had taken place before crouching to repeat his condolences and murmuring, ‘May I speak with you?’

When she did not seem to have heard, he leaned closer and repeated the question in her ear. Her expression did not change as she said, ‘You are in league with her. Go away.’

He whispered, ‘I’m not responsible for this, Ennia.’

‘Then I want to know who is!’

A hand gripped his shoulder as Zosimus breathed in his ear, ‘You heard the lady. Go.’

Ruso got to his feet and left.

As he passed the pond there was a faint ‘plop’. Leaning over, he could make out the silver flash of a fish through the ripples. A cough sounded from the direction of the house. Ruso glanced up to see the steward watching him from the top of the steps.

As if this were not encouragement enough to leave, he now recognized the purposeful stride of his former father-in-law fast approaching along the gravel walkway.

‘Probus!’

The man stopped. ‘Who let you in here?’

Evidently Probus had not mellowed with time.

At the reply ‘Claudia’, Probus’ mouth turned down as if he were refusing a loan to a potential client. ‘I don’t know what for,’ he said. ‘She’s sent for the investigators, you know.’

‘I came to see if I could help.’

For some reason this seemed to annoy Probus even further. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards the gatehouse. ‘Out!’

‘On my way,’ agreed Ruso, indicating the walking-stick. ‘It’s just taking me a bit of time.’

‘If you’re not gone in a minute there’ll be men here to help you.’

Ruso said, ‘Sorry to hear about Justinus, by the way,’ but Probus was already striding towards the west wing, calling, ‘Claudia? It’s all right, I’ve got rid of him.’

Ruso paused, leaning on his stick, to watch Probus mount the steps and give Zosimus a perfunctory nod. Then he turned and picked his way along the path towards the gatehouse with a deliberate lack of haste. It was a small and not very satisfying form of rebellion.

He told himself that at least the steward’s insistence on waiting for orders would restrain Claudia’s urge to call in professional questioners. He supposed that was good news — for the staff, if not for him. As he approached the gate it occurred to him that he should have told somebody that Severus’ horse was being tended by the stable lad back at home. He would have to leave a message with the gatekeeper.

The gatekeeper’s dog was eyeing his approach with interest when he was surprised by hasty footsteps crashing through gravel and a voice he did not recognize calling, ‘Sir! Please, doctor, sir!’

A lanky youth in a grease-spattered tunic appeared from behind the gatehouse, halted, tried to decide what to do with his hands, finally clamped them behind his back and said, ‘I’m Flaccus, sir. I used to work in your kitchen.’

Ruso stared at him. Claudia had indeed owned a kitchen-boy called Flaccus, but not one like this. Claudia’s boy was small and cheery. This one had hands and feet that were much too big for him, an anxious face made out of sharp angles and a sprinkling of acne. Ruso leaned on his stick and decided he was getting old. ‘I remember you,’ he said. ‘How are you getting on here?’

‘Very well, sir, thank you.’ Having got that out of the way, the youth took a deep breath. ‘Cook said I should come and talk to you, sir.’

Ruso beckoned him away from the ears of the gatekeeper and the teeth of the dog. Safely behind an ornamental hedge that more or less concealed them from the house, he said, ‘To do with Severus?’

Flaccus nodded.

‘Speak up,’ he urged, warmed by the thought that the boy still trusted him. ‘What do you know?’

The boy looked alarmed. ‘Oh no, sir. I don’t know anything. Nobody knows anything. Cook says to ask what’s going to happen to us, sir.’

Ruso looked him up and down. Flaccus the little kitchen-boy, no longer cheery — and with good reason. By law, all the household slaves who had been under the same roof as a murdered master should be put to death for failing to save him — even if they could not possibly have helped. The Emperor Nero, notorious for much else besides, had once called in troops to enforce the execution of four hundred men, women and children whose only crime was to be owned by a man who had been done away with by one of their comrades. It was a lesson not easily forgotten.

Ruso suspected that the law might not apply when the victim was secretly poisoned off the premises — a crime against which his staff would stand little chance of protecting him — but that was a fine distinction unlikely to comfort a household in fear of their lives. He said, ‘Flaccus, I want you to think carefully about this. Do you think anyone here was involved in the death of the Senator’s agent?’

‘Absolutely not, sir!’

Of course not. What else could the lad say? ‘Did you see him on the morning he died?’

Flaccus looked uneasy.

‘I need to know exactly what happened to him that morning.’

The boy stared down at feet that overhung the ends of his sandals. His shoulders shifted uneasily. ‘Cook didn’t say …’ His voice trailed into silence.

‘Just tell me what you know,’ urged Ruso, silently cursing Nero and every long-dead member of the Senate who had agreed with him.

‘But I don’t know anything, sir. I was bringing in the firewood when Master Severus came in.’

‘Into the kitchen?’

Flaccus nodded. ‘Please don’t go asking them, sir. Cook will kill me.’

‘Just tell me what he did in the kitchen, and I won’t need to.’ Ruso hoped, for the boy’s sake, that this was true.

‘He just came for his breakfast. Bread and cheese and an apple.’ The boy looked up. ‘There wasn’t nothing wrong with it, sir. It was the same as what everybody had.’