Caveat Emptor (21 page)

42

T
HERE WAS NO
funeral feast, either at the cemetery or afterward. The women returned to a silent house. No neighbors called to ease the long wait between the burning and the hour tomorrow when the ashes would be cool enough for burial. The empty shoes were still in a pair by the door, ready for a man who no longer needed them.

Camma was still in this world, but her eyes were dull and her mind was filled with dark clouds. She lay slumped on the couch, seemingly unaware of the baby at her breast. Tilla clattered the shutters open and apologized to the household gods for leaving them with the smell that still lingered despite yesterday’s efforts with the scrubbing brush, and then apologized to Christos for paying attention to them. Over the sea in Gaul, people would have said she ought to choose one or the other. Here, she was not so sure.

Camma said suddenly, “We should have stayed to say good-bye to Bericus.”

“The men will look after him.”

“Poor Bericus. I prayed to Andaste, but it was too late. He was already gone.”

Tilla said, “The brothers will be together in the next world,” and Camma’s eyes filled with tears.

When the baby drifted off to sleep, his mother settled him in the box and wandered down the gloomy corridor toward the bedroom. Tilla stood over him, watching the flicker of his eyelids and marking each tiny rise and fall of the blanket with his breathing. She tried to imagine how desperate a woman would have to be to leave a helpless baby in the care of strangers and follow her man to the next world.

He might not sleep for long. She must use the time well. She began to count on her fingers all the jobs that needed to be done. Suddenly overwhelmed, she reached for a darned sock that had fallen behind the couch. It was too big to belong to Camma. She went to the little room where Bericus had slept and added the sock to the loincloths and spare trousers and three tunics and an old belt lying in an untidy jumble on the bed. Asper’s clothes must be in the next room with Camma. All of that, like naming the baby, was a problem for later.

She must do one job at a time.

First, water.

She walked down to the corner water pipe clutching the buckets and pretended not to notice the way the conversation died as she approached. In response to her question, the women said they did not know of any followers of Christos in the town. In fact they had never heard of Christos.

Back in Gaul, the brothers and sisters would have seized this chance to share the good news. Tilla, feeling she had enough problems already, decided to leave Verulamium in ignorance for a while longer.

She had let the water fill too high. Trying not to spill any, she crouched to pick up both buckets and made her way slowly back along the uneven cobblestones of the street, all the while wrestling with the problem of how, now that she had gotten herself into this, she was going to get out of it again.

Be careful how much help you promise.

Helping a woman in labor was only natural. Supporting a woman who had been bereaved and wronged—especially by the Catuvellauni—was a good thing to do. But should she have waved Camma and her baby good-bye at the gates of Londinium with good wishes and a blessing and gone back to minding her own business?

You can’t fight her battles for her, Tilla.

He was wrong: She had not wanted to get involved. She had wanted to believe that Julius Asper was faithless and that Camma would have a better life without him. Instead, she had somehow ended up demanding justice for him in public and helping to curse the local magistrate.

Once the word spread about Camma and the pyre, it would be even harder to find someone to take on the job of housekeeper. Perhaps a message could be sent to the Iceni about the baby. Maybe if they understood how desperate their princess was, they would relent and allow her back.

In the meantime, the neighbors here were unlikely to be much help. The workshop next door was owned by a pair of elderly bronzesmiths. On the other side, the woman had grudgingly given her a light when she could not find the flint yesterday and insisted on telling her that if anything was wrong next door, it was not their fault. “You tell that woman if she’s got any complaints, it’s nothing to do with us.”

“What sort of complaints?”

“It’s not enough we have to put up with the tax man and his fancy woman,” the neighbor had said, ramming Tilla’s proffered stick of kindling into the fire and waiting for it to catch. “You should have heard the goings-on in there the other night. I never heard anything like it. That other one—what’s her name?”

“Grata?” Tilla suggested.

“Voice like a fishwife. Language. They even woke Father up.”

“She was all alone and there were frightening people outside.”

The woman ignored her and leaned across the hearth to shout at a pile of blankets in the corner, “Didn’t they, Father?”

The blankets shifted and a white head emerged. “What?”

“All that shouting next door. They woke you up.”

“What’s she doing here?”

“Nothing. She’s just leaving.”

And that was before Camma had tried to join Asper in the next world. It seemed that even if her mind were restored to order, an incomer who had betrayed a local husband and allied herself with a tax collector believed to be a thief would be at the wrong end of any queue for help.

43

R
USO KNEW THAT
the tongue of the Britons boasted a rich vocabulary of insult. He was unable to translate much of it, since his wife used it chiefly when she was too exasperated to continue in Latin, but he recognized it being shouted across Verulamium’s Council chamber as the door guards moved aside to let him enter. His arrival went unnoticed by the thirty or forty quarreling men within, who between them were wearing more togas than he had seen together for years. It struck him that, unusually for the Britons, there was not a woman in sight.

Ruso lingered just inside the entrance, letting the din wash over him while he waited for a suitable moment to present himself. The air smelled of hair oil and musty wool. The plain walls around him were adorned with a series of engraved bronze plaques crammed with what he supposed were the rules of the Council: presumably the constitution dictated by Rome when the town had been granted permission to govern itself. It was an illustration of how far these remote island peoples had come. Or been led by the nose. He was not sure which.

A pale clerk was standing to one side, stylus poised to note any decisions. It looked as though he would be waiting a long time.

Ruso managed to catch odd phrases about the honor of the magistrates, the honor of the town, and something to do with “when the emperor comes.” Finally, “You were there when it was decided!” was followed by a familiar voice shouting, “Against my advice!”

A couple of councillors sat down in disgust, allowing him to see Caratius seated in a metal-framed chair at the front. His expression was grim. Gallonius, less exposed and more authoritative than he had been at the baths, rose from a seat beside him and clambered up onto a small podium. His rich voice was impressive but his words were drowned by the furore, and under the circumstances a toga had not been the best choice of garment. In fact, a toga was not the best garment for anything that Ruso could immediately think of, and Gallonius was having trouble keeping his under control. Every time he forgot it and raised both hands to emphasise his point, the heavy wool slid over his arm toward the floor and he had to grab it to maintain some dignity. Someone had attached it to his elegant cream tunic with a secret pin, but the pin was now exposed as the fulcrum of a lopsided tangle of fabric hanging off one shoulder. As he tried to wrench it back into position, someone shouted, “Just take it off, man! You’re only a butcher!”

So Gallonius must be the councillor whose country estate supplied overpriced meat to the mansio. He raised both arms again and bellowed, “Silence!” but nobody took any notice.

“The question is,” insisted someone else above the confusion, “What are we going to do?”

“Silence!” shouted Caratius, leaping out of his chair to intervene at last. “This is—”

His voice was drowned beneath a cacophony of shouts and jeers. He gesticulated to the clerk, who reached behind the podium and produced a horn. Finally a blast of noise cut through the babble. “I insist we wait for the procurator’s man,” declared Caratius.

“Why?” someone demanded, adding something that sounded like, “What does he know that we don’t?”

Ruso, who had no idea, took a deep breath and stepped forward.

Moments later, he was regretting it. Under the guise of introducing him, Caratius had seized him by the arm, led him up onto the podium, and abandoned him there with the whispered words, “Tell them it wasn’t me!”

Ruso looked around the hall. He was surrounded by Britons whose ancestors must have been barbarian chiefs and druids and rabble-rousing warriors. Now they were arrayed on their benches, many of them draped in the garb of Roman citizens, all watching him and waiting for him to speak on behalf of the Imperial procurator. Not only that, but Caratius was demanding to be defended.

He cleared his throat. The sound died away into an unnerving silence. Inside his head, a small voice urged him to say …
something
. Gods above, he had heard enough speeches! Why could he not remember anything from any of them?

Caratius was sitting very upright in his seat. Gallonius was standing with his arms held wide while a slave struggled to restore some dignity to his toga. He recognized one or two faces from yesterday’s trip to the bathhouse.

His mouth was dry.

Say something.

“Speak in Latin!” urged someone at the back who had misunderstood the problem.

Dias was standing in the open doorway, listening.

What would Cicero do?

Perhaps he should start by declaring how venerable and wise this assembly was and how, despite being inexperienced and feeling daunted by the magnitude of the task that lay before him …

Perhaps not. Gazing out at the expectant faces of the Catuvellauni, Ruso had the feeling that a man who tried that sort of smooth talking here would very soon regret it. He was conscious of an awkward shuffling among his audience: of sidelong glances and whispers.
Say something.

He opened his mouth.

Even as the words came out, he knew that “If only Julius Caesar could see this” was not the most tactful way to start. There was a tense silence. Then someone at the back called out, “We’d show him!”

There was a roar of agreement. The Britons were cheering. He let out his breath. They seemed to think he had given them the cue for a joke.

Encouraged, he squared his shoulders and told himself that this was just like giving a report on a patient. He had to tell the truth while avoiding the parts the relatives didn’t need to know. “I’m sorry to have to confirm,” he said, “that your tax collector and his brother have both been killed. Asper was found dead in Londinium two days ago. Last night the body of his brother was—”

“We know all that!” called a voice from the back while someone else yelled, “And we know who did it!” and one or two shouted, “Where’s our money?”

“I haven’t found it yet,” said Ruso.

“Who’s going to pay if you don’t?” demanded a lone voice over shouts of “Ask Caratius!” At least one of the men now accusing Caratius had insisted to Ruso only yesterday that the money had been stolen by Asper.

His voice rose to penetrate the din. “The question of who’s going to pay is up to the procurator to answer, not me. I’ll be trying to trace the money—”

There was a shout of “So are we all!” and “Ask Caratius!” and one ominous “Ask your wife, man, she knows more than you do already!”

Gallonius roared something in British which sounded like, “Shut up and let the man speak! Do you want him thinking we’re barbarians?”

There followed more confusion during which everyone seemed to be telling everyone else to be quiet. Gallonius made another attempt to impose order and was shouted down. The clerk’s desperate blasts on the horn only added to the cacophony. Anyone listening outside would think a riot was in progress.

Ruso stood his ground, folding his arms and surveying the rabble with what he hoped was conspicuous impatience. If he could identify him, the man who had made that remark about Tilla would soon be one very sorry Briton.

Finally the din died away. He let the silence build for a moment before starting again, his voice deliberately quiet. “I’ve already spoken to Chief Magistrate Caratius,” he said, “and I’ve examined the bodies of Asper and Bericus. I advise you not to make any hasty judgments about what happened to your tax collector or where the money went.” That was as much defense as he was willing to offer Caratius, and neither the magistrate nor the rest of the Council looked satisfied with it. “I’ll be trying to trace the money from the moment it was last seen, so I’ll be asking plenty of questions. I need to talk to anybody who knows anything about the movements of Asper and his brother on that last day or who saw anything suspicious. If you can help, don’t leave the Forum today before you’ve spoken to me.”

He had reached the end without interruption. It had gone better than he had feared. He was about to thank them and step down when Caratius said, “What about Asper’s letter?”

“Asper’s letter,” repeated Ruso. “Ah, yes. Thank you for reminding me.” Damn. He should have expected this. Even if it was Caratius who had arranged for the Room Twenty-seven letter to be stolen, the man needed to pretend that he didn’t know anything about it. He would probably have asked last night if dinner had not been interrupted.

The men on the benches remained silent, waiting to hear something new. “Some of you may have heard that Asper wrote a letter before he died.” He paused, fingering one ear. If he told them it had been stolen, it would make him—and by implication, the procurator—look careless. If he didn’t, they would want to see it. “We had it decoded,” he announced, “but it was no help at all.”

“What did it say?” Caratius again.

Did he already know? Perhaps he was pushing to find out how much had been deciphered before it was stolen. The last thing Ruso wanted at the moment was for anyone here to suspect that Asper had been in touch with the governor’s security service and tried to alert Metellus to some sort of crime.

Get out of town as fast as you can.
He looked around at the expectant faces. Was the wellwisher among them?

Say something.
“It was just a couple of unfinished lines,” he said, “scribbled when Asper was on the verge of death.”

“But what did it say?”

“Nothing of any use.”

He was stalling for time, and they all knew it.

“Tell us, man!” urged a voice.

Caratius said, “It might mean something to us, if not to you.” His acting, if that was what it was, was impressive.

Say something.
Ruso cleared his throat. “It said,” he began, “Dearest girl. When your sweet lips meet my eager—”

There was a fresh shout of laughter. Caratius looked as though someone had just slapped him across the face.

Gallonius stepped up and stopped chuckling for long enough to call for order. When he could make himself heard, he thanked the absent procurator for his understanding, congratulated the investigator on his work so far, and urged everyone to cooperate as fully as possible in the hunt for the money. Then he called upon the clerk to remind them of the rest of the business for the meeting.

Ruso retreated to the sound of the clerk reciting, “The continuing problem of flooding behind the market halls. The behavior of unruly youths on market days. The appointment of ambassadors fit to represent this Council.”

“I object!” shouted Caratius, who had come back to life.

Stepping out into the fresh air of the Forum, Ruso decided that the leaders of the Catuvellauni might be accused of many things, but being dull was not one of them.