Vita Brevis (23 page)

“I’m trying to get the sequence of events straight in my mind, Ruso. Perhaps you could help.”

Ruso glanced at a remarkably lifelike statue of a hunting hound and knew he must set aside his reluctance to tell Metellus anything at all. “Where do I start?”

“Tell me how you came to be Balbus’s doctor.”

Metellus often asked seemingly irrelevant questions to see what response they provoked, rather like a doctor prodding to find out where it hurt. Querying the subject would only make it look as
though he had something to hide. “I’m looking after Doctor Kleitos’s patients while he’s away,” he said. “Balbus was one of them.”

“Ah. So when I saw you at the amphitheater, and you told me there was an opportunity coming up that you couldn’t reveal—”

“That was a lie,” Ruso admitted. The closer he could stick to the real story, the less suspicion he would arouse. “I didn’t want to tell you that I was short of work. But when I went to see Accius later, I got a note asking me to take over Kleitos’s practice.”

“That same day? The note came from Accius?”

“No, from Kleitos via Accius. Accius was the one who introduced us. Kleitos is his doctor too.” And none of this was relevant.

Metellus said, “I thought you were Accius’s doctor?”

“Kleitos has looked after the family for years.”

“So why did Accius bring you here?”

Ruso shook his head. “I think he thought he was doing me a favor. People who come from Rome tend to assume everyone else is desperate to live here.”

“And it seems you were.”

“I was flattered to be invited,” Ruso confessed, voicing it for the first time. “Weren’t you?”

“This is my home. Britannia is a fine province to make one’s name, but only if one has a chance to return to Rome and reap the benefits of all that mud and fog. Tell me what happened after you got the note.”

Metellus had probably been given half of this story by Accius already. He would be checking to see if Ruso’s version tallied with what he had already been told.

“I went straight to Kleitos’s rooms. I was hardly through the door when I got called to see Balbus.”

“He was ill?”

“His medicine had run out,” Ruso explained, wishing he had told Accius the whole story straightaway. Now it looked as though he was concealing something. “Kleitos was supplying him with a theriac. He seemed to think he was under threat.”

“Did he say who from?”

“His competitors, he said. He’d trodden on a few toes.” Ruso
made a mental note to ask Firmicus if the injured toes included those of Curtius Cossus. “He wasn’t popular with his tenants either, but I’d imagine most of them fantasize about murdering the caretakers or Firmicus first.”

Metellus reached up and pulled a dead leaf from the vine. “Interesting that Balbus’s doctor vanishes on the day his medicine runs out, no?”

“He wasn’t pleased.”

“And the body in the barrel?”

The switch of topic caught Ruso off guard. “That had nothing to do with it.”

“So you gave Balbus some more medicine, and he took it?”

Breathe normally. You are telling the truth.
“I didn’t have the recipe, so I gave him something harmless that looked like it. I didn’t see him take it.” Before Metellus could ask more about the medicine itself, Ruso explained the circumstances of the handover in front of Curtius Cossus.

“Hm. It would be interesting to know exactly how Balbus achieved his own rise in fortunes.”

Ruso, who had never considered until now that Balbus might have something worse than cockroaches to hide, said, “What I don’t understand was why he would want to do business with a man he thought might poison him.”

It was a moment before he realized the sound from his companion’s throat was a chuckle. “Ah, Ruso. Still the man of principle. I’d forgotten how refreshing that is. You’d be surprised what men are prepared to do when large sums of money are involved.”

Be careful who you trust
. He was beginning to wonder if anyone in this place had clean hands. “For all we know,” he said, “Balbus could have died of natural causes. Or been murdered by angry tenants.”
Or accidentally poisoned by his doctor
. “But here we are, talking about finding ways to have Cossus tried for murder.”

Metellus paused. “Dear me, that’s very dramatic. I don’t think anyone has suggested actually prosecuting anybody.”

Ruso stared at him. “Then what are we doing this for?”

“Just so that Cossus will understand what might happen if he doesn’t back off and let Accius marry the lovely Horatia.”

“Holy gods.” Ruso shook his head. Evidently the question of who or what really had caused the death of Horatius Balbus was of
no interest. He felt a sneaking sense of relief, swiftly followed by shame.

“Let’s come back to this body in the barrel.”

“If you like.” He wasn’t going to insist yet again that it wasn’t relevant.

“What was that all about?”

“We think somebody was trying to frighten Kleitos into paying his debts.”

“That’s your story?”

“It makes sense. He’s cleared off and taken most of his stuff with him.”

“He would have done that if he’d murdered the man in the barrel himself,” Metellus pointed out.

“If he’d killed the man himself,” said Ruso, scrambling to plug a hole in the story that he and Tilla had not considered, “he wouldn’t have left the body outside the surgery. He’d have found a way to get rid of it.”

“Let’s not waste time on this.” Metellus’s tone was suddenly sharp. “You know why it was there. You’ve made enquiries.”

“You’ve been making enquiries about my enquiries?”

“I don’t need to. I know you. You know exactly who the dead man was and why he was there, or you’d be making more fuss about it.”

“Then trust me when I tell you it’s not relevant.”

This time the chuckle was more of a laugh. Metellus had never been this jolly in Britannia. Perhaps his sense of humor had been repressed by the mud and fog. “So I did manage to teach you something about discretion after all. I assume you’re afraid Kleitos was collecting bodies to dissect, and since you’re his chosen successor, you’re worried the dirt will land on you too.”

“If he was—”

“You’re right. Much wiser to go with the debt-collection story. After all, whatever he was up to isn’t your fault, is it?”

Ruso glanced across at the slaves who were scrubbing out the fountain and sweeping the stray gravel from the paving back into the central area, and decided there was much to be said for a job where you were not required to think about anything. “You know what Kleitos wrote on the end of his note?”

“This may surprise you, but I don’t know everything.”

“He wrote,
Be careful who you trust
.”

“Very good,” Metellus said. “Now tell me what really killed Horatius Balbus.”

“He hit his head,” said Ruso, both answering and not answering the question.

The argument with Tilla was as predictable as it was inevitable, their tempers heated further by each of them telling the other to “Keep your voice down. Do you want the neighbors to hear?” Ruso already knew all the reasons why Metellus was not to be trusted. What he did not know was why his wife insisted on making an enemy of him.

“I have not! I have made an agreement with him! Did you not see me take his treacherous hand?”

“I saw you making him swear to things, but I notice he didn’t get any promises out of you.”

“I would not make them.”

“And you don’t think he noticed?”

“I am not the one who is working with— Oh, not now!”

The new arrival was a woman trailing three small children. All peered out through pink bloodshot eyes. Ruso could not remember a time when he had been happier to see a patient.

“It creeps,” the mother complained, rubbing her itchy eyelids and wiping her hand on her skirts. “It’s creeping up the building. First the children downstairs, now mine. We’re all using the ointment but it’s no good.”

“I’m afraid where there’s one case, there are always others,” Ruso told her.

“Like rats.”

“At least this usually goes away of its own accord.”

“I want it to go away now,” she told him. “It’s driving us all mad.”

He lined the children up outside where the light was better, and crouched in front of the tallest one to reassure himself that it was a simple case of pinkeye and nothing more sinister. The boy said in a very small voice, “Will I go blind?”

“No, you’ll get better soon.”

“My friend’s cousin had it and he went blind.”

“Your friend’s cousin must have had something different,” Ruso assured him.

“I been practicing walking around with my eyes shut.”

“I told you to stop that!” his mother put in. “You’ll fall over and break your neck. Then you’ll be sorry.”

He moved to the next one in the line. “That looks sore. Can you open your eyes and look at me?”

The child squeezed her eyes tight shut and shook her dark curls from side to side.

“Probably best to keep them shut,” he agreed. “Otherwise you might see what I’m doing.”

Moments later the eyes were shut again, but he had seen all he needed to see.

The final child squinted at him and said, “Can we look at the man in the barrel?”

The mother grabbed the child by the shoulder. “What did I tell you? Say sorry to the doctor!”

“It’s all right,” Ruso said, wishing it was, and aware that his cover story was not suitable for children. “Somebody put him outside to play a trick on the doctor who lived here before, but he’s gone now. Tell me, is there a fountain near where you live?”

The boy nodded, while his mother pointed out that it was down four flights of stairs.

“I want you all to splash your eyes every morning and evening with cold water. It’ll help to relieve the itching. Make sure it’s fresh out of the fountain so it’s as cold as you can get it. And try not to rub. It just makes the soreness worse.”

“Do we do the water before or after we use the ointment?” asked the mother.

“What ointment is it?”

She groped inside the folds of her tunic. Ruso had been hoping for something with an identifiable oculist’s stamp on it. Instead she produced a round lump of something that looked like lard. It was covered with dust and wool fibres.

“I wouldn’t use that at all,” he told her.

“I paid the other doctor good money for it!”

“Then you need to keep it clean inside its own pot,” he explained. “Otherwise you’re just adding to the problem. I’d stick with the cold water. Lots of illnesses aren’t helped by medicines. You should all be clear in a couple of weeks, but if not bring them back and we’ll try something else.”

“Just cold water?” The woman sounded offended.

“As often as you like, but at least morning and evening.”

She shrugged. “Ah well. At least it’s free. Come on, you lot.”

He said, “I’ll count you all as one consultation, so that’ll be one sesterce.”

“What for?”

“For the examination and the advice.”

“But you didn’t give me any medicine,” she pointed out. “Doctor Kleitos always gives me medicine.”

“Do you know where Doctor Kleitos is?”

She bridled even further. “There’s no need to be like that about it. You should be glad we came here. A lot of people wouldn’t have, after what we’ve heard.”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” he said, wondering what she had heard. “All I meant was—”

But she was gone, trailing her pinkeyed offspring behind her. He washed his hands and searched out a blank tablet to write a brief and pointless note about the children. Having left owing money, the family would not be back. He pushed aside a wave of nostalgia for the Legion, where the doctors were protected from time wasters by centurions with short tempers and large sticks, and where nobody had to extract his salary from his patients one coin at a time.

The Britons were singing another war song in the kitchen, Tilla comforting herself with tales of past glories. He suspected that the quarrel about Metellus had left her just as drained and anxious as
he was himself. Already he regretted his anger. The truth was, she was voicing his own fears.

Be careful who you trust
was good advice, but following it was exhausting. Especially when one of the people you weren’t sure you could trust was yourself. If Curtius Cossus did not take kindly to being threatened—and who would, especially with a lot of money at stake?—he might well strike back, and before long someone was going to ask exactly what had been in that bottle of medicine.

He needed to know what really had happened to Horatius Balbus.

He needed to know exactly what that black lozenge had contained.

He needed to find Kleitos.

The men who had tried to collect the absent family’s furniture had not returned. Tilla had apparently been out trying to trace them when Metellus arrived. Maybe her efforts would be more successful than his own. Maybe he should enquire which god, from the many on offer here, might be willing to help for a reasonable fee. Maybe he should have been politer about Christos.

He dropped the pointless note into the chaos of Kleitos’s records box. The war song fell silent as he entered the kitchen to find Narina scattering olives across a bowl of lettuce and his wife slapping an unappetizing lump of grease around a mixing bowl.

“Linseed in oil and goose fat,” she said, answering his unasked question.

If this was some obscure dish she and Narina had dredged up to remind them of home, he would buy a snack while he was out. “Supper?”

“Suppositories. For women’s monthly pains.” She nodded toward the shelf, where he was relieved to see a basket of eggs. “
That
is supper.”

“Ah. Do we need anything fetched while I’m out?”

The slapping stopped. “You are going out again?”

“There aren’t any patients waiting.”

“They must have heard that the new doctor is never here.”

He said, “Can I put in a request to have the Roman wife back?”

On the way out he told Esico that the mistress would be at home to deal with visitors. Esico nodded, and said in Latin, “There are not many …” He searched for a word. “Sick people.”