Ruth Downie - Ruso and the Root of All Evils

She stepped back. ‘You look tired. I’ve told the bath-boy to light the fire. Lucius will be home soon. He’s doing some business in town. How are you? We heard about that dreadful rebellion in Britannia. Is that how you hurt your leg?’

‘Not exactly,’ confessed Ruso. ‘It was an accident.’

‘Oh, you poor thing! But is it true they had to send extra troops in?’

‘It’s mostly sorted out now,’ he assured her. He was not sure whether he was allowed to reveal that Hadrian had sent in the fresh troops not just as reinforcements, but as replacements for serious losses. ‘I haven’t seen you to congratulate you on, ah …’ He suddenly realized he did not know the name of the dribbling toddler.

‘We called him Gaius, after you — didn’t you know? Everyone says he looks just like you.’

‘Do they really?’

‘Oh, yes!’ Cass beamed at him, evidently thinking it was some sort of compliment.

‘The children seem very … lively.’

‘They’re dreadful, aren’t they?’ she agreed, as if it were something to be proud of. ‘But we’re so fortunate. Five healthy children! Every day I give thanks for them. You never know, do you? Polla had a terrible fever a while ago, then little Lucius broke his arm, and last month Sosia was ill — Arria was so cross about the cushions but she couldn’t help it, could she? We tried everything. It was a pity you weren’t here, Gaius.’

‘Mm.’

‘They’ll be so glad you’re home. They do miss their Uncle Justinus terribly.’

‘Justinus? Is he away somewhere?’

She stared at him. ‘But Lucius told you, surely?’

‘The letter must have got held up. What’s happened?’

She shook her head. ‘We don’t know,’ she said. ‘That’s the worst part. My brother went on a merchant ship from Arelate down to Ostia back in June and …’ Her voice tailed off. ‘The ship never arrived,’ she said. ‘They could be shipwrecked on an island or something, couldn’t they? Waiting to be rescued.’

Since it was now September, Ruso could not pretend that this was likely.

‘If it was pirates …’ Her voice trembled into silence.

Ruso hoped she was not going to cry. He was never sure what to do with women when they cried.

She swallowed. ‘We would just like to know.’

‘I’m sorry.’ The last time he had met Cass’s brother was in the house of Ruso’s former father-in-law, where Justinus was a respected if somewhat put-upon steward. ‘What was he doing at sea?’

‘Probus sent him to oversee some sort of business deal. You probably heard about it. The Pride of the South .’ She paused, evidently expecting this would mean something to him.

Ruso did not want to tell her that ships went down every day. That unless the Pride had been carrying something valuable, or somebody famous, it was unlikely that anyone except her owners and the families of the crew would mourn her loss or even bother to remark upon it.

‘We were on a different sea,’ he explained. ‘He’d have been going south. We came down the west coast and across.’

‘What about the men on the river barges? Didn’t anybody say anything at all?’

‘They might have thought it was bad luck,’ he said, trying to soften the blow of public indifference.

‘He was so excited about seeing Rome,’ she said. ‘He had some wine from the Senator’s estate to deliver. He dropped in on the way to Arelate to say goodbye.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Ruso, and meant it. ‘I liked Justinus.’

She hesitated, as if she was wondering whether to continue. ‘Lucius says I ought to give up hope,’ she said. ‘He says we should build the tomb and call his spirit home and let it rest.’

Ruso, scenting a marital dispute, said, ‘He’s probably worried about you.’

‘He’s right, isn’t he? If we don’t do it …’ She did not need to explain. Her brother’s spirit would be left wandering lost and alone, unable to find peace.

‘There really aren’t many pirates out there these days, Cass. If there’s been no word in three months — ’

‘I know! I know all that. I was going to say yes to having the tomb built, but … oh, now I don’t know what to do!’ She glanced round to make sure the door was closed. ‘Gaius, you know Probus better than any of us. If I tell you something, will you promise to keep it a secret?’

Ruso hoped his face did not betray his rising sense of foreboding at the mention of his former father-in-law.

‘Probus came to see me a couple of weeks ago. He wanted to know whether I was sure my brother was dead.’

Whatever Ruso had been expecting, it was not this. ‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. He seemed to be angry about something, but he wouldn’t say what.’

Ruso refrained from pointing out that, in his experience, Probus usually looked angry about something.

‘So I said to him, you were the one who told me the ship was missing in the first place, and all he said was, “Yes.” When I wanted to know why he was asking, whether he’d heard something, he just told me to forget all about it and not say anything to anybody.’

It certainly seemed odd, not to mention deeply insensitive. ‘Do you want me to talk to him?’

‘No! He’ll know I’ve told you. What’s the matter with him, Gaius? Why would he ask a question like that? It was as if he thought Justinus might have run away. So now I don’t know what to do. If we call his spirit to a tomb and he’s still alive somewhere — what would happen to him?’

Ruso, who had no idea, said nothing.

‘I wanted to go into town and ask Probus what he meant, but Lucius says fussing won’t bring my brother back, and if I’m not careful I’ll upset Probus, and then we’ll be in more trouble.’

Ruso reflected that Lucius was probably right. The familial ties with Probus might be severed, but they still owed him money, and the last thing they needed was a hostile creditor.

‘I was hoping you might know something.’

‘It’s not unusual for ships to vanish, Cass,’ he said, realizing she had probably never seen an expanse of water bigger than the swimming pool at the town baths in Nemausus. ‘You can’t imagine how vast the seas are if you haven’t seen them. It could have been hit by a freak wave, or gone too close the rocks, or …’ Catching the expression on her face, he realized this speculation was not helpful. ‘There are lots of things, really. Nobody would know until it didn’t turn up at the other end.’

‘I tried asking the fish-sellers in town,’ she said. ‘They said perhaps it was sunk by a falling star. They didn’t want to talk to me.’

‘I don’t know about the star,’ he said, ‘but I’d imagine people who earn their living on the water don’t want to spend too much time discussing shipwrecks.’

‘I don’t want to cause trouble, Gaius. I just want to know what’s happened to my brother. There’s nobody else left to look after him.’

‘Of course.’ Ruso was wondering whether he was witnessing the obstinacy of hope or whether there really could be something odd about the disappearance of the Pride of the South when a masculine voice out in the hall bellowed, ‘Gaius! Where are you, Brother?’

Cass put a hand on Ruso’s arm. ‘Please don’t say anything to him,’ she murmured. ‘He’s cross enough with me already.’ She retreated to the door. Ruso heard a brief exchange in the hallway, and a moment later she was replaced by a paunchy middle-aged man with thinning hair and bags under his eyes. Ruso opened his arms and braced himself.

The latest hug turned out to be less enthusiastic than the one from his sister-in-law. When they had clung to each other for what Ruso felt was a decent length of time, they held each other at arms’ length. Ruso politely informed the middle-aged man that he was looking well.