Ruth Downie - Ruso and the Root of All Evils

‘Bisobol gum in wine,’ he said, identifying part of the disgusting taste. He nodded to the patient. ‘Good for toothache and gum disease.’

‘What else?’ demanded Gnostus.

Ruso tried another dip. ‘Poppy.’

‘And?’

‘Not a clue.’

Gnostus grinned. ‘It’s a new recipe I’m trying out. Excellent results so far.’

One of the apprentices leaned forward to sniff it. The patient mumbled something indistinct, which might have been gratitude and might have voiced the suspicion that the doctors were lying to him.

As they watched the apprentices escort the shambling patient out across the courtyard with his jaw cradled in one hand and the cup in the other, Gnostus said quietly, ‘Sometimes I wonder why I bother. He’ll probably be dead in a couple of days.’

‘You just have to patch them up and send them back out there,’ said Ruso, seizing a chance to emphasize his credentials. ‘Exactly what I’ve been doing with the Legion.’

Gnostus closed the door. ‘You gave me a shock, Ruso. How long is it?’

Ruso felt his shoulders relax. ‘Fifteen years?’

‘And more,’ agreed his companion.

‘So why are you calling yourself Gnostus?’

The creases were deeper, but the lopsided grin that formed them was still the same. ‘Bit of a misunderstanding about the labels on bottles,’ he explained. ‘Angry relatives. It wasn’t my fault, but you know how it is.’

‘I do now,’ said Ruso.

‘New name, new town … I hear you’ve had a few problems. You should try it.’

‘I’m hoping it won’t come to that. In the meantime I was wondering if you’d need an assistant surgeon for the games.’

‘I’ll be needing a bloody miracle-worker,’ observed Gnostus glumly, sinking down on to a stool. ‘But at least you’ll have some idea which bits to stitch together. Unlike some. I’ll say one thing for Fuscus, he knows how to draw a crowd.’

‘They’re gathering around the gates already,’ observed Ruso, settling himself on the treatment table. ‘What is it women see in gladiators? Most of them are slaves and they’re nearly all filthy ugly.’

‘Who knows?’ agreed Gnostus. ‘You wouldn’t believe the offers the gate staff get.’

‘They don’t allow women in here, surely?’ asked Ruso, hoping there was nothing else he did not want to hear about Marcia.

‘Only the women who pay enough,’ said Gnostus, ‘and sometimes we have to house the ones due for execution. But they’re chained up, of course.’

Ruso pondered this grim prospect for a moment. He needed the work. Just as, faced with Fuscus, he had needed the man’s influence. He said, ‘How much do you know about poisons?’

Gnostus observed that poisoning did not make for much of a show and suggested, ‘The people you want to ask are the Marsi.’

‘I’ve tried,’ explained Ruso. ‘They were insulted.’

Gnostus grinned. ‘I’ll bet. Next time, ask for Valgius and tell him Gnostus still doesn’t want to buy his snake.’ He pointed at Ruso’s stick. ‘So. War wound?’

‘Not exactly.’

When Ruso told him, Gnostus was incredulous. ‘They let you home with just a cracked metatarsal?’

‘Long leave,’ explained Ruso, not entirely truthfully. He was adding, ‘And I was missing the sunshine,’ when there was a knock at the door.

The new arrival was a youth of about eighteen who might have been handsome in a thin and poetic way had it not been for the jagged scab that ran from eyebrow to hairline.

‘Afternoon, Tertius,’ said Gnostus, not bothering to get up from the stool. ‘What is it this time?’

The youth glanced at Ruso and then back at his own doctor. ‘Please, sir, I’d like to consult doctor Gaius Petreius.’

Gnostus sighed. ‘He’ll only say the same as me.’

‘It’s a personal matter.’

‘You don’t have personal matters,’ Gnostus pointed out, ignoring the pained look on the youth’s face. ‘You won’t have any personal matters for the next two and a half years. If you last that long.’ He turned to Ruso, who had got to his feet, and murmured, ‘Whatever he thinks he’s got, he’s going in the arena. Otherwise the pairs will be one short, and the boss won’t want to refund the hire money to Fuscus.’

‘I can’t sign you off sick,’ Ruso explained to the youth. ‘You’ll have to — ’

‘I don’t want to be signed off sick, sir!’ the lad exclaimed. ‘I just want to know if there’s a message.’

Ruso blinked. ‘Message?’

‘From Marcia.’

‘I thought that’s why you were here, sir,’ said Tertius, clearly frustrated at Ruso’s bafflement. ‘She said you were coming home to settle her dowry at last so she could buy me out.’

Ruso did not know which part of this sentence to pick on first. ‘Marcia knew I was on the way home?’

‘She said you’d be back soon.’

At last the mystery of the letter was solved. It had not been sent by Severus at all. Marcia had taken up forgery and then lied to him about it. Restraining a momentary flash of fury at the thought that he had been dragged into this whole mess by his own sister, Ruso said, ‘Why would I give her a dowry so she could borrow money to go around buying gladiators?’

Tertius coughed. ‘She wasn’t going to tell you that part, sir. But we’re running out of time. I was hoping you were here to see to it yourself.’

Ruso, perched on the edge of Gnostus’ operating table, looked the stringy youth up and down and wondered if young men were getting stupider or whether he had been just as much of a fool at that age. He understood how it felt to be desperate to leave home, albeit for different reasons. He had been lucky enough to have a childless uncle in search of an apprentice. Arria — equally keen for Ruso to leave — had managed to persuade his father that medicine was not such a terribly disreputable trade for a decent citizen’s son, even if it was mostly the province of slaves. She had avoided adding ‘and Greeks’ since Uncle Theo was in the room at the time.

If Ruso had been in the position Tertius now described to him — parents honest but dead, no money and no connections — would he have considered selling himself to a gladiator trainer?

No, he would not. ‘You could have joined the Army.’

‘But then I couldn’t marry Marcia,’ pointed out Tertius, as if this made sense.

‘You couldn’t marry her if you were carried out of the amphitheatre on a funeral bier, either,’ pointed out Ruso and then regretted it when he saw the look on Tertius’ face.

‘I was a bit drunk at the time, sir.’

‘Ah.’

‘There were three of us.’

Evidently it was true: young men were getting stupider. ‘What happened to the other two?’

‘When they sobered up they sent for their fathers to buy them out.’

‘Leaving you stuck here for three years.’

‘Only two and a half now. I’ve been training ever since.’

‘So this will be your first real fight.’

Tertius nodded. ‘I’m good. Ask anybody. I’m only a Retiarius now, but everybody says I’m Samnite material. I’m fast and I reckon I can entertain the crowd.’

‘I see.’ If Tertius was going into the arena armed only with a net and a trident, he would certainly have to be fast.

‘I thought if I was good, the trainer wouldn’t want to lose me.’ He paused. ‘To be honest, I always thought the fights were fixed.’

Ruso wondered what Tertius could possibly have imagined would be going through the head of any designated loser in a ‘fixed’ fight. Perhaps he had expected to be pitted against a lesser — and less valuable — man. And to be fair, many of the professional bouts in the local amphitheatre ended in battered defeat rather than death. Until someone like Fuscus came along with too much money and demanded more excitement.