Ruth Downie - Ruso and the Root of All Evils

Galla stopped. ‘Why would you go there?’

‘I am only thinking about it,’ explained Tilla. ‘Arelate is the place to find out about the missing ship. I was thinking, if this Brother Solemnis has a cart …’

‘You can’t go somewhere on your own with a man. And Arelate is full of sailors, and where there are sailors there are bad women.’

Tilla said, ‘But your god is everywhere.’

‘What about Master Gaius?’

‘The Medicus is a problem,’ Tilla agreed.

‘There are many things you don’t understand about the faith.’

‘I understand what it is to lose a brother.’ She also understood that if she did not find a way to avoid it, she was going to have to eat her first ever Roman dinner tomorrow night in front of the Medicus’ family and be compared with the rich and beautiful Lollia Saturnina, who knew how to read and write.

Before Galla could object, she gathered up her skirt and ran back down between the trees, past the squat boundary stone and the drying amphorae and into the yard, where the driver was standing chatting to some of the workmen. ‘Brother Solemnis!’ she cried. As his skinny neck reddened and his eyes widened in alarm she said, ‘I may need to go to Arelate. What time do you set off in the morning?’

The surface of the bench was still warm beneath her, but the late-evening air was mercifully cool. Tilla wrapped her hands around her shoulders and gazed at the house that was the Medicus’ home, but not hers. A yellow glow around the dining-room shutters reminded her of how he had changed the subject when she asked if he was thinking of marrying Lollia Saturnina.

A shape appeared in the doorway, clattered down the steps and hurried towards her. Resolving itself into Galla, it hissed, ‘Mistress Cassiana is coming!’

This was good. Cass was friendly. Perhaps they could talk over the problem.

‘I think she’s cross with us!’

Tilla frowned, wondering what she had done to offend now. Before Galla could explain, a second shape emerged from the house, and Galla fled.

Cass seated herself on the bench, folded her arms and said, ‘I hear you cursed the person who supplied the ship.’

Tilla felt her stomach clench. She wished she had said her prayer to the god in private. What had possessed Galla to relay it to her mistress? She said, ‘I was trying to help. I know what it is to lose a brother.’

‘Galla told me because she is loyal,’ explained Cass, answering her unspoken question. ‘She wanted me to know before I heard any gossip.’

When Tilla did not reply, she continued, her tone suddenly sharp, ‘What do you know about it?’

Tilla wished she could crumble away into the dry ground under her feet. Even trampling about in that slimy grape-trough was better than feeling the churning in her intestines. The only people who had shown her much of a welcome since she had arrived here were Cass, Galla and the worshippers of Christos. Galla had kept a secret from her mistress out of kindness, and Tilla had just betrayed her with that stupid prayer.

‘I know Galla is a follower of Christos,’ said Cass. ‘I don’t care about that. My brother was one too. What do you know about the ship?’

Tilla cleared her throat. There was no way out of this but to tell the truth. ‘Galla heard a rumour that it was a rotten old ship that should never have gone to sea.’

Cass seized her arm. ‘I knew there was something! I knew there was something not right!’

‘That is why I cursed the person who hired out the ship to Severus,’ explained Tilla. ‘He must have known. He deserves to die too. Your brother is dead because that person was greedy.’

‘What else did Galla tell you? Why would the captain try and get to Ostia on something that wasn’t seaworthy? Has she heard anything else?’

‘I do not know. You must ask her.’

‘But it means there are people who know things!’

‘She overheard this from the fish-sellers at the market.’

Cass’s face fell. ‘I’ve already tried them. They won’t talk to me. Lucius won’t go to Arelate and ask, and Gaius has too much to do already.’

‘Yes,’ said Tilla, wondering whether this new god could be speaking in the words of Cassiana. ‘I know.’

Tilla was nervous walking through the garden in the cool of the morning, clutching her bag in one hand and a borrowed straw hat in the other. The air around her was silent apart from the call of a bird and the plants rustling in the breeze. The screeching insects had not woken up yet.

The dog at the gate sniffed at her curiously as she slipped back the bolts, but he was trained to stop people coming in, not going out. She pulled the gate gently shut behind her and said a silent goodbye to the strange household where she had spent the last three days. She had her savings, four and a half denarii, and her comb in a little leather pouch hung around her neck. Her cloak was bundled inside her bag in case she had to sleep outdoors, and her knife was strapped to her belt.

Travelling alone and unprotected to a strange city seemed far more dangerous this morning than it had last night. She had almost lost her nerve as she watched the Medicus sleeping. She heard the steady rhythm of his breath falter. Heard him mutter something as he dreamed. Waiting, motionless, until he settled again, she told herself both their lives would be less complicated if she were away for a couple of days. Indeed, their lives would be less complicated if they had never met, but she did not want to think about that. She only knew that, if she stayed, she would have to face an evening lying across a dining couch in a borrowed dress — probably yellow again, so that her skin would look grey and her hair would look dirty — while all these foreigners wished she had not come so that the Medicus could propose to Lollia Saturnina.

She had kissed him lightly on the forehead, picked up her things and crept out of the room.

Reaching the roadside, she trained her eyes on the western approach and watched for the cart to appear. She reminded herself that she had the protection of the God Who Is Everywhere. Just in case the god needed a reminder, she lifted her hands and prayed that he would keep her safe. That he would look after the Medicus while she was away. That he would help her find out about the Pride of the South . That Lollia Saturnina would have a laugh like a donkey, or dribble down her chin. ‘Amen,’ she added at the end, remembering the formula. It was important to get the words right, or the prayer would not be heard. Everyone knew that, and besides, it would not do to get on the wrong side of a god who was everywhere and saw everything.

There was a great deal she did not understand about this Christos, and she felt no better for praying to him. But she understood that Cass’s brother had died because of someone else’s greed, and that a means of getting to Arelate to find out the truth had been presented to her while she was in the presence of the god’s worshippers. She had upset Cass last night without meaning to, and she needed to make amends. Besides, she was the only one who could help. The Medicus was too worried about debts and murder, and Cass’s husband was no use. Most of the household must have heard him shouting at her again last night. The Medicus, who had barely spoken to Tilla since she had returned from the meeting next door, had pinched out the lamp and observed that Lucius and wine were not a good combination.

‘You should talk to him.’

‘He wouldn’t listen.’

She said, ‘I hear the widow next door is coming to dinner.’

‘And Diphilus the builder.’

‘She is the one who is very pretty and very rich.’