Ruth Downie - Ruso and the Root of All Evils

The woman’s sunken eyes held no expression.

‘We are nobody,’ said the girl chained next to her. ‘We are prisoners. Leave us alone.’

‘You must have a tribe. Your accent is — what? Selgovae?’

‘We have no tribe.’

‘Of course you do! Selgovae? Anavionenses?’

‘What does it matter?’ demanded the girl. ‘In a few days we’ll dock in Ostia, and they’ll put us up for sale like cattle.’

‘What is she saying?’ demanded Cass, crouching beside Tilla. ‘Does she know my brother?’

The girl looked at them both, asking in British, ‘What does that one want? Why are you here?’

‘Tilla! What is she saying?’

Tilla put a hand over Cass’s. ‘She doesn’t know your brother. She has her own troubles.’ She turned back to the girl. ‘I cannot help you,’ she said, ‘and our own gods cannot hear you from here. But I have found out there is a great god who is everywhere, a god with no name who answers if you call him Father.’

Several of the nearby slaves were paying attention now. The guards were watching too.

‘My friend needed to travel to this place, and straight away this Father God sent a man with a cart to bring us,’ continued Tilla. She glanced round before adding. ‘He is more powerful than the Emperor. He has a son called Christos, and the Romans tried to kill him, and he came back to life. You should try praying to him.’

The girl held out both palms. ‘We have nothing to give.’

‘He does not want your gifts. He likes …’ Tilla paused, wondering exactly what this God the Father did want. ‘He likes songs and long prayers,’ she said, ‘and sharing food and — oh, you must stop doing sins and you have to forgive people, and then Christos will come back from heaven and fetch you.’

‘What are sins?’ asked a woman.

‘Forgive which people?’ demanded one of the men.

Tilla, who was not exactly sure what sins were herself, said, ‘People who need forgiving, I suppose.’ Somehow this new way of life did not seem as attractive here as it had in the company of the other believers.

‘So,’ said the woman, ‘if we honour this Father God and forgive the guards, will he help us escape?’

‘I don’t know,’ admitted Tilla. ‘But they say that if you love this god and obey him, he will take you to live with him in the next world when you die.’

‘Huh,’ retorted the man. ‘We’d like a bit of help before then.’

Tilla got to her feet. ‘You will never know till you try,’ she said. Turning to the girl, she said, ‘Courage, Sister. I have been a slave to a Roman. He is a good man. It may not be as bad as you fear.’

‘I hope not,’ agreed the girl, ‘because what I fear is very bad indeed.’

As Tilla and Cass began to walk away the man called after them, ‘Oi! What tribe did you say you were?’

‘Corionotatae. Of the Brigantes.’

‘I might have known!’ retorted the man. ‘Trust a Brigante to be playing both ends against the middle.’

‘That’s enough!’ called the guard, putting his bread down. ‘No more talking!’ He turned to Tilla. ‘If you’re not buying, don’t interfere with the stock.’

Tilla sighed. ‘My people,’ she said sadly, gazing out between the masts to where a lump of driftwood was swirling on the current. ‘Always the same.’

‘What is the matter with your people?’

‘Nothing,’ said Tilla, setting out once more along the wharf. ‘They are clever and brave. But when you offer them something good they can always find a reason why it will not work. I tried to tell them about Christos.’

‘Justinus believed Christos would take him to heaven,’ Cass mused, falling into step with her. ‘But how will Christos find him when his body is not buried?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Tilla. ‘I have only been to one meeting. I think there are some things I have not found out yet.’

Ruso woke, stared at the ceiling and remembered why there was no one in the bed beside him. One by one, all the other things he was supposed to be worrying about sidled into his mind and drifted around it like unwelcome guests. Thus it was something of a relief to realize that he had something to celebrate. He was not poisoned.

He swung his feet to the floor, stood up, stretched, then bent and touched his toes, wincing at the stiffness from yesterday’s accident with the horse. He flexed his fingers, shook his head and spent a quiet moment assessing the state of his interior. Then he slapped his thighs, punched both fists in the air and went in search of breakfast.

‘Galla!’

She changed course, eyes wide with apprehension.

‘You promised to give me something. Where is it?’

She swallowed. ‘I cannot, my lord.’

‘While you are part of this household, Galla, you are to do as I say.’

She lowered her head and said, ‘Yes, my lord.’ Her stance as well as her voice betrayed her misery.

‘You might think it doesn’t matter,’ he explained, ‘but you see where all this secret society business has led to with Tilla. If this sort of thing carries on they’ll decide to start rooting out the Christians again. Don’t you think this family’s in enough trouble?’

‘We would never want to cause you trouble, my lord.’

‘Not we ,’ prompted Ruso, ‘ they . Now what is it, and where is it?’

Moments later Ruso was in the study with the door wedged shut, munching on an apple and running one finger along a line of Greek lettering. When he reached the end of what appeared to be the first sentence, he threw back his head and laughed.

All slaves under the yoke must have absolute respect for their masters.

What a shame it was that Galla could not read this document she had been hiding inside Little Lucius’ mattress. The rest of it was a denunciation of philosophy, a shrewd observation that a fondness for money was at the root of most of the world’s troubles and some sort of rant about fighting a good religious fight in order to win eternal life.

That, as far as he could recall, was the original problem with the Christians, even before they had started enticing women away from home. They saw religion as a fight. They upset everyone else by refusing to sacrifice to the normal gods on the grounds that their own wouldn’t like it, ignored polite requests to be a little more open-minded and then refused to be coerced, in the belief that clinging stubbornly to their faith in this world would win them happiness for ever in the next one.

On the other hand, ‘absolute respect’ surely meant obedience? He would read this to her and translate it before he burned it. As an obedient slave with absolute respect for her master, Galla would do what she was told and stop fooling around with foreign religions.

Yesterday’s bread was dry, but cheaper. The two women were washing it down with a jug of watered vinegary wine, leaning over the ramshackle bar that opened on to a side street where two slaves were laying out a great length of fat rope. As Cass explained about the drowned brother, Tilla wondered how the grim-faced woman behind the counter could possibly have managed to lure away somebody else’s husband.

‘The only thing I know,’ said Phoebe, not looking up from stirring one of the huge pots set into the counter, ‘is that the dead don’t come back.’

Cassiana straightened her shoulders. ‘But we can remember them.’

‘What I’m saying,’ continued the woman, ‘is, you don’t want to listen to drunks and layabouts. So if you’re chasing this rubbish about ghosts, you’re wasting your time.’

‘Ghosts?’ Cass’s hands on the counter turned into fists. ‘Who has seen a ghost?’