Ruth Downie - Ruso and the Root of All Evils

Ruso’s attempts to disentangle this were complicated by Little Gaius’ efforts to climb up his leg in search of more peach.

Cass prised the child off and stood on tiptoe to kiss Ruso on the cheek. ‘You’re a dear man, Gaius. We must all try not to worry. It’s lovely to see you happy with Tilla and I know you’ll do your very best to sort everything out.’

Was he happy with Tilla? Tilla certainly did not seem happy with him.

Ruso rolled off the bed and shoved his feet into the indoor sandals Arria had insisted Lucius lend him. The connection between Cass’s brother Justinus and Severus was bothering him, although it probably had nothing to do with the deaths of either of them. Anyway, Justinus was one of the very few people who definitely hadn’t murdered Severus.

In the unlikely event that they might help him find out who had, Ruso decided to offer some of Lucius’ best wine to the household gods before dinner. Then, while Tilla enjoyed the company of the servants, he would eat with his family amidst the dancing cupids of the dining room.

He did not feel like a dear man. He suspected that even his very best was not going to be good enough to sort this mess out. He recalled the way Little Gaius had run about the bedroom with peach juice dripping down his chin, oblivious to the fears of the adults whose duty it was to protect him.

Unless Ruso could expose the real poisoner of Severus before the investigator got here, he might be too busy fighting for his life in a court case to do anything about saving the farm. If the family were turned off the land, the sight of Little Gaius would be one of the memories that would haunt him.

Disaster might be looming, but discipline had to be maintained. The next day, as Ruso led Marcia towards the stone bench in the garden, he was silently mourning the erosion of the power of the Paterfamilias. There had been a time — he was not sure when, but he knew there had been one — when the head of a Roman household had enjoyed absolute power as well as ultimate responsibility. When orders were obeyed without question. When women were grateful to be protected — grateful, indeed, not to be left on the rubbish dump at birth — and happy to be married off whenever and to whomsoever the family deemed appropriate. When a decent man could keep his household in order by threatening them not only with a sound beating, but with execution.

He had to concede that the beheading of unruly relatives seemed a little harsh, but obviously one would exercise discretion. The point was, in the old days, a man had commanded respect. What would his ancestors have done, had any of them been faced with a scowling Marcia, arms folded, demanding, ‘You said you were going to talk to somebody. So have you talked to them?’

‘Not in the way you mean,’ said Ruso, lowering himself on to the bench.

‘Gaius, you promised — ’

‘Sit down.’

‘But you said — ’

‘Sit down, Marcia.’

‘But you promised you would — ’

‘Sit down.’

‘I’m not going to sit down if you shout at me!’

‘I wasn’t,’ said Ruso, who hadn’t been and was not sure why he had got himself into an argument about sitting down when she could hear what he had to say quite well standing up. ‘But if you don’t listen to me, I will shout like a centurion ordering his men on a parade ground. And then your mother will come out and hear what I’m going to say.’

His satisfaction as she slumped down beside him on the bench was short-lived. He had, he realized, effectively promised not to tell Arria. Still, Marcia was listening now. At least he assumed she was listening, although she seemed to have found something that urgently needed gouging out from beneath one of her fingernails.

‘Are you particularly short of money for some reason, Marcia?’

‘We’re all short of money in this family. Lucius is mean and so are you.’

‘Because I’ve been told,’ he said, ‘that you’ve been trying to borrow against your dowry.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Never mind. Is it true?’

‘Is it true?’ The wide hazel eyes that reminded him of Arria met his own in an expression of innocence and outrage. ‘Of course it’s not true! How could I? I haven’t got a dowry. That’s the whole point!’

‘That would be one of the reasons you’ve been refused, I expect,’ he ventured, still unable to believe that Probus’ guard would have invented such a tale.

‘I haven’t — I can’t believe I’m hearing this!’

‘So you can assure me you haven’t been trying to raise money on the quiet? Because obviously that would be very embarrassing. Not only for me as your guardian, but for the whole of the family.’

‘You’re always trying to raise money. You and Lucius. Everybody knows.’

‘That’s different.’

‘Well, I haven’t! And I think you’re horrible even to think I might. What would I need money for?’

‘You tell me.’

‘Who was it? I bet it was that barber, wasn’t it? I bet he said it just to stop you complaining about that haircut.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with my haircut, and it wasn’t the barber. Look, I’m sorry about the dowry. Maybe I should have explained what’s going on.’

‘I know what’s going on, Gaius. Lucius made a mess of paying Claudia’s husband, so he was threatening to take us to court in Rome to get all of our money — not that we’ve got any, according to Lucius — then he came over here and dropped dead, and now everybody’s saying you poisoned him.’

Ruso cleared his throat. ‘Well, I suppose that’s more or less it.’

‘But I shan’t believe them, Gaius. Do you know why? Because I don’t go round listening to gossip.’ She got to her feet. ‘And neither should you. Can I go now?’

He watched his sister stalk back towards the house, the sunlight filtering through the leaves over the pergola and dappling the linen of her tunic. Perhaps, prejudiced by the mother’s past excesses, he had misjudged the daughter. That must be the answer, because the other possibility was not fit to contemplate. Surely a veteran of his wide international experience could not have been so easily outmanoeuvred by an almost-sixteen-year-old girl?

Ruso seemed to be doing no better at finding out who had poisoned Severus than he had at disciplining Marcia. ‘Who, how and why?’ might be the right questions, but he did not like the answers he had found so far and he was running out of places to search for new ones. He had even toyed with the idea that the man might have poisoned himself, only to dismiss it as a sign of his own desperation.

He scowled at the crack in the side of the pond. The news of the death would not even have reached Rome yet. There was still time for him to sort out this mess. Meanwhile, he needed to clear his head. He needed a change of scene. He needed to get back to work. He might be a man hovering on the brink of ruin, but he knew how to wield a scalpel. There was one man in town who might be glad to see him, and just possibly that man might know something about poisons.

As he was reaching for his stick, a figure he did not recognize strolled in through the gate, patted the dog on the head and made for the house. Arria appeared in the doorway and bustled down the steps to meet him, crying, ‘There you are!’ and holding out a hand to be kissed.

Moments later Ruso found himself being introduced to Diphilus the builder, a man on the oily side of handsome. He was, as Arria announced with joy, available for dinner tomorrow evening. Ruso suspected Diphilus was the sort of man who was available for dinner any evening as long as he wasn’t paying for it.

‘Are you available for clearing drains this morning?’