Ruth Downie - Ruso and the Root of All Evils

‘Good,’ said Ruso, wondering why nobody else had had the decency to warn the family. ‘I appreciate you telling me.’

‘Right you are, sir.’ The man got to his feet. ‘It weren’t me what told you, though. I don’t want no trouble.’

‘Of course not,’ Ruso agreed. And then, with foreboding, ‘I’ll talk to her.’

‘Ruso!’ There was no embrace this time. Fuscus remained seated. He reached for a grape, frowned at it and tossed it aside. ‘I thought you’d be here before now.’

‘I was.’

‘Really? They didn’t tell me. What’s all this about you poisoning my relative?’

‘I didn’t.’ Ruso offered condolences on the death of Severus and briefly wondered why Fuscus was not over at the estate paying his respects. Presumably he had more important things to do. ‘Severus was taken ill at my house,’ he explained. ‘I did what I could for him, but it was pretty hopeless without knowing what he’d taken.’

Fuscus sighed and closed his eyes. ‘A great tragedy. A terrible loss to our family. A man in the prime of life. Whoever did this deserves the worst possible punishment. It’s a shame we won’t have time for a trial before the games. We could have had the murderer fed to the beasts. Very slowly.’

‘They’ve had other doctors look at the body,’ said Ruso, ‘but I don’t think they’ve come up with much. His widow and his sister have asked me to try and track down whoever did it.’ It was almost true. Just after she had told him to go away, Ennia had said she wanted to know who was responsible for her brother’s death.

Fuscus opened his eyes. ‘Last time you were in here asking about a ship. No wonder you don’t know much about poisons if you waste all your time poking about with things that don’t concern you.’

‘If I don’t concern myself with this, people will think it was me.’

Fuscus’ hand paused in mid-air. ‘Probus told me it was you.’

‘And what do you think?’

There was a pause while Fuscus popped another grape into his mouth and said round it, ‘I’m reserving judgement. Until we get instructions from my cousin the Senator.’

‘Do you still want me to talk to the veterans?’

‘What?’ Fuscus spat out the pips. ‘Of course not. Stay away from them. Don’t even mention my name. I’ll get my publicity men to paint the signs out and we’ll find somebody else.’

Signs? ‘But I didn’t do it.’

‘In fact, stay out of town altogether. It looks bad.’

‘I had no reason to kill Severus,’ insisted Ruso. ‘You know that. You were going to persuade him not to bankrupt me.’

Fuscus shifted in his chair. ‘I don’t think you understood me there, Ruso. I said I’d do my best to support you, but if you remember, I also said my hands were tied.’ He shook his head. ‘A man in my position can’t be seen to be influencing the course of the law. Not even for the son of a dear old friend. We’re dealing with principles. Principles are what raise us above the barbarians.’

‘What if I told you Severus and I were about to do a deal and he was going to abandon the seizure order, so I’d have been crazy to murder him?’

Fuscus’ eyes widened. ‘Why didn’t you say so? If there’s a witnessed and sealed agreement — ’

‘There wasn’t time.’

‘Pity,’ said Fuscus in a tone that implied he did not believe a word of it. ‘You’ll just have to explain it all to my cousin the Senator’s man. Assuming he sends one. If not I may have my own men carry out an investigation.’

‘I’m intending to get it sorted out before then.’

‘Forget it, Ruso. It doesn’t matter what the widow and the sister want. The investigation has to be independent. None of the suspects must be involved. Understand?’

‘Oh, yes,’ agreed Ruso, backing towards the door to terminate this waste of time. ‘Perfectly.’

Fuscus gestured to dismiss him as if he were brushing away a fly. ‘Stay out of it, Ruso. Go home, tend your farm, look after those sisters of yours and stay where the investigator can find you when he comes for a chat.’

Staying at home waiting to be accused of murder was the last thing Ruso intended to do. He needed to find out what poison had been used.

Moments later he was appalled to find himself facing an exhortation from G. Petreius Ruso, Veteran of the XX Victoria Victrix, urging the voters of Nemausus to support Gabinius Fuscus.

Fuscus’ publicity man had been busy with his paintbrush overnight. In the next four streets Ruso saw his own name three times. He was relieved to turn left into a narrow entrance where the walls were too grimy for election slogans and the mingled scents fell over him like a curtain: spice and vinegar and mint and roses and old wine. The street ahead widened into an area where the surrounding tall apartments trapped the babble of conversation and radiated the afternoon heat. The area was lined with the stalls of herbalists and drug-sellers. This was the place to find out about poisons.

The first stall had attracted a couple of women who were trying out cosmetics on the backs of their hands. Marvelling at the patience of shopkeepers hoping for a sale, Ruso found himself drawn into a crowd that had formed outside a booth next door. A half-naked man lay on a table under the shade, having something green and glutinous plastered on his chest by a leather-aproned physician.

One of the onlookers glanced down at Ruso’s stick and the toes poking out of his dusty bandage. ‘You’ll have to wait,’ she said, putting her arm around a thin child whose tunic was so big that he looked as though he had shrunk in the wash. ‘We’re next.’

‘And then it’s me,’ put in another voice, followed by a fit of coughing that did not sound as though it would have a happy ending.

Ruso nodded and moved on. There was nothing to be learned here beyond what he already knew: that if he survived to set up a practice in town, he would be facing stiff competition.

A wooden sign reading ‘No money, no medicine. No exceptions’ was nailed to the next stall. The welcome was similarly unfriendly, the buxom stallholder asserting that she didn’t sell poisons to people who didn’t know what they wanted. No, not even people claiming to be doctors. Rats, eh? If it was really for rats, why hadn’t he said that in the first place?

It was an admirable moral stance, but Ruso wondered how she managed to sell anything at all.

His next choice was hung with limp greenery drying in the sun and stacked with little limewood boxes and stoppered animal horns full of powders and creams. The trader welcomed him like an old friend. Ruso understood why when the man tried to persuade him that he wanted to buy frankincense.

‘Guaranteed pure, sir,’ the man added, handing over the box for examination. ‘Top quality. All the way from Arabia. Male, second harvest. Only the best.’

The man watched as Ruso held the pale lump of resin up to the light, rolled it between his fingers and sniffed.

‘It’s very expensive.’

‘I’m not saying you won’t see it cheaper elsewhere, sir,’ the man agreed, ‘but you’d be wasting your money.’ He leaned forward as if he was confiding a great secret. ‘You wouldn’t want to know what some of this lot round here put in theirs.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ promised Ruso. He closed the lid and handed the box back. ‘What I’m really interested in — ’ He was interrupted by a scream from further down the street. He turned, grasping the other end of his stick. A man who could not run was not much use in chasing a bag-snatcher, but if the culprit came this way … To his surprise, the scream was followed by cheering and applause.

‘The Marsi are in town,’ the man explained.