Ruth Downie: Medicus

"No, sir."

"Then don't come bothering me with any more of this rubbish. The pen-pusher from the hospital killed himself for reasons I know but you needn't, and from what I hear, the doorman was a nasty piece of work who could cheerfully have been knifed by a couple dozen suspects. And since the woman who owns the place has run off, it's pretty bloody obvious which one of them did it."

"Sir, with respect-"

But the look on the face of the second spear told Ruso that respect was not required. What was required was to shut up, go away, and stop being a nuisance.

It occurred to Ruso that only he, Tilla, and possibly Merula would ever know the real story behind Priscus's suicide. Ruso had been ignored, Tilla had gone away, and Merula, wherever she was, was certainly not going to say anything that would reveal her own failure to protect the Roman citizen whom they had all known as Saufeia. As for Asellina, the slave put to death by her owner for having a fit of the giggles-Ruso tried to find something comforting to say to Decimus, and failed.

In the absence of fact, speculation was both rife and confident. Even Albanus could not resist hinting to Ruso that irregularities had been found in the hospital accounts and in the Aesculapian Thanksgiving Fund. "And when you hear what's in his will, sir, you'll see what I mean."

At Priscus's request the funeral had been attended by all the hospital staff. As instructed, a clerk read the will to the assembled company. The wish that his manservant be granted his freedom was of scant interest to the mourners. The desire that all his property be sold for the benefit of the Aesculapian fund, however, caused raised eyebrows and the exchange of more than one knowing glance. Ruso caught Albanus looking at him before both resumed a dutifully funereal expression. The camp prefect, who was turning out to be a more perceptive man than Ruso had imagined, described Priscus in his funeral oration as "an outstanding administrator and a man of many contradictions."

To Ruso's intense relief, the money loaned to Stichus had been repaid shortly after Stichus and Chloe reappeared from wherever they had been hiding. He had waited in vain, though, for a demand to pay it back to the Aesculapian fund. Finally his conscience sent him to see the unfortunate clerk who had been given the task of wrestling Priscus's outstanding administration into a shape presentable to the imperial auditors.

The man hunched over onto one elbow while he ran a chewed fingertip down the accounts. Finally the finger paused.

"You did have a loan," he agreed. "It was paid back on the twelfth before the Kalends of October."

"No, that's not right."

"Well, that's what it says."

"There must be some sort of mix-up."

The man sighed, swiveled the record around, and slid it across the desk, the finger pointing to an entry in Priscus's precisely-spaced hand.

"Look."

Ruso read it twice. The meaning was unmistakable. About the same time as the administrator had persuaded him to sign over Tilla as guarantee, Ruso's loan had been repaid in full. There was no mention of a slave in the fund records. The only explanation Ruso could think of was that Priscus had chosen to take over the debt himself. If Ruso failed to pay up, Priscus would take Tilla for his own purposes-and as he must have guessed, when he tired of her she would still be worth far more than the loan had cost. But if the loan had been paid, Priscus would merely have broken even… Ruso paused. He had never been able to settle the business of the fire in his own mind, nor that accident under the bathhouse scaffolding. But now that he thought about it, the fire had happened just after he had signed the loan guarantee. Priscus had been in the hospital that night and could have slipped out to push something burning through the shutters of the bedroom window. He had not been on the building site, but he had been a man of wide influence. Perhaps Ruso would go and have a chat about him with Secundus from the century of Gallus. Because, of course, if Ruso had burned to death or had his skull split by the trowel, he would never have paid and Priscus would have had his signature on the document handing over Tilla… A document that he had not bothered to read before signing it. Had he signed Tilla over to the fund itself, or to its administrator?

"Satisfied?"

"Mm." Ruso scratched his ear. "I suppose," he said, "as all Priscus's money was bequeathed to the fund, I'm morally obliged to consider paying it myself anyway."

The man looked horrified. "You can't do that! I've only just got it to balance. You'll mess up the whole system."

So instead, he had sent the money to another good cause: a family in southern Gaul.

Ruso wiped out the final line of "in cases of fever" and reflected that truth might be an honorable concept, but very few men actually wanted to hear it. And of those who did, some would regret having asked. He leaned back in his chair and eyed the pile of tablets waiting to be erased. Months of work. Ahead of him, several tedious and penny-pinching hours saving the cost of tablets he would never need again because he was not going to write a book. Ever. He reached forward, scooped them up, pulled his feet from under the dog, and strode into the kitchen.

The embers in the kitchen hearth were still glowing. The first tablets were beginning to smoke as he threw the last one on. A yellow flame popped up through a gap, wavered, and grew tall.

The Concise Guide was illuminating the kitchen with a merry blaze when the main door scraped open and Valens called, "Darling! I'm home!" before appearing in the kitchen doorway and giving an exaggerated sniff. "What's that you're burning?"

"Just some rubbish I didn't need."

"Well, burn some more and perhaps we'll be rehoused sooner than we thought." Valens, his ambition for the CMO's house thwarted, was now eagerly trying to engage better lodgings. He bent to peer at the contents of the fire. "That reminds me. I was supposed to bring you a letter."

Ruso reached out his hands to warm them over his disappearing masterpiece. "From?"

"Londinium. That chap you sent to get his cataracts looked at. Albanus gave it to me and I left it in the surgery. Big handwriting. Did it himself, apparently. They're naming their son after you. The worst eye's been done and it seems to have worked."

"Good."

"They'll discharge him anyway, you know. The sight will never be up to much."

"I know," said Ruso, recalling the battle with Priscus about the cost of the operation. The administrator had been right, but for all the wrong reasons.

Valens lifted the lid of the bread bin.

"It's empty," said Ruso, reaching for the poker to prod at the settling flames.

Valens lowered the lid with a disappointed sigh. "I can't eat out, I'm on call. I'll have to wander back to the kitchen and see what I can scrounge up. We're going to have to do something about another slave, Ruso."

"Yes," agreed Ruso, not adding that they had agreed this more than once, but neither of them had done anything about it. They needed a slave to go and find them a slave.

"Oh, and there was another message. Apparently Albanus thinks I've become his assistant. He said to tell you something about a girl being home safe."

Ruso stopped. "Tilla?"

Valens looked pained. "I would have remembered if it was the lovely Tilla, Ruso, whom you so rashly allowed to abandon us with an empty bread bin. No. This is another of your many women. Let me think

… something Greek."

"Phryne?"

"That's it. Phryne."

"Who brought the message?"

Valens shrugged. "Some urchin brought it to the gate, apparently."

The poker clattered back on the hearth. Ruso snatched up his cloak from the chair where he had thrown it. "I've got to go out."