Vita Brevis (18 page)

With that, the patient disappeared into the arcade remarkably quickly for a man with crippling back pain.

Ruso gazed down at the scroll, where the crabbed handwriting suggested that Tubero the Younger was not a man to waste money on professional copyists. Above it glistened the letters,
To a fine Medicus, with thanks
. Neither Ruso’s own name nor that of the poet, so it wasn’t even any use as a recommendation. He sighed, shoved a few bottles aside, laid the scroll out on the workbench, and propped it open with a mixing bowl and a bleeding cup, and then went to find out what was for supper.

Ruso had hoped that buying a slave who could cook would make mealtimes easier, but evidently he had been mistaken. For reasons he could not understand, the cook had been sent to the bar next door to fetch the dinner, while his wife was worrying about where the slaves should eat.

“I am thinking they could eat with us,” she said. She seemed to have forgiven the woman for being part of the Catuvellauni tribe. “Narina is a sensible woman, and Esico did well when those debt collectors came pretending to collect the other doctor’s things. He says he was a warrior at home.”

“I bet he didn’t smell like that at home.”

“It was worse before he washed.”

Perhaps she was hoping that if she didn’t mention the runaway, they could both forget he had ever existed.

The workbench was still covered with damp bottles and useless poetry. The operating table was the only other alternative to the borrowed kitchen furniture. It was less than ideal, even though the lad had done a fair job of cleaning up, and the waste bucket no
longer held somebody else’s teeth. Ruso said, “I think they should wait until we’ve finished.”

“Then we will have to hurry up, or they will be watching their food get cold.”

Ruso scratched one ear with his forefinger, pondering this modern dilemma. Things must have been so much easier in the old days, when an aristocrat like Cato could cheerfully assert that a farm slave only needed one new tunic and one pair of shoes every two years, and that anyone too old or ill to be productive should be sold off. But then, Cato’s wife probably hadn’t stocked his house with slaves who reminded her of home. And Cato’s wife had surely never been a slave herself.

Tilla rarely spoke of that time. Assuming she wanted to forget, he did not ask. But it struck him now that you would never forget how it had felt to watch other people eat while you were hungry.

“They can eat at the operating table tonight,” he announced. He was going to have to take charge here before his household became a little outpost of Britannia, full of barbarians all demanding the right to hot suppers. “Tomorrow we’ll get Narina to cook, and they can both wait their turn.”

“That is what I thought,” said Tilla in a reassuring show of solidarity.

Finally the traditional domestic scene was in place. One lamp was casting a gentle glow over the two remaining barbarians as they dined at the operating table. The other illuminated the kitchen, where Mara was safely propped up on her sheepskin sucking her fingers, and his wife was free to tell him what she wanted him to do.

The first thing was to check what was actually in the jar labeled
CUMIN
and something in Greek on the end of the shelf, because it wasn’t cumin at all. “And some of the other things are not right, either. I looked.”

The second, for reasons he could not fathom, was to intercept the carpenter from upstairs and tell him how marvelous their daughter was.

“Just in passing,” she added.

“What if he doesn’t ask?”

“You will think of something.”

“I don’t want him thinking I might be interested in Christos.”

“He is a carpenter. You could ask him about his work.”

Unable to imagine how that conversation might unfold, he concentrated on tonight’s stew, which tasted very much like last night’s, although he was certain the portions were smaller.

She said, “You are very quiet.”

“I’m eating.” He wondered if he ought to tell her that his visit to the undertakers’ had reinforced his suspicions about Kleitos—and raised new ones about the undertakers themselves—and that Sabella’s order of events—which he doubted she would keep to herself—contradicted the cover story they wanted everyone to believe. Still, the visit from more debt collectors suggested that their story was partly true: Kleitos really did have money troubles. And if Ruso had learned anything from the charlatan at the amphitheater, it was that the most plausible lies were the ones that contained an element of truth.

Be careful who you trust
.

He stirred the stew, watched the vegetables swirling around, and decided everything was bound to make more sense after a night’s sleep. He would not burden Tilla with everything now. This would be their first uninterrupted night together in weeks and he was not going to spend it discussing the hunt for Kleitos, and still less the unsavory side of the undertaking trade.

Meanwhile, noticing her watching him, he said, “I’m not bothering to chase that runaway.”

“I think you are wise.”

Again, this unprecedented level of respect. It was almost worth the debt he had incurred. “But don’t say that to those two out there,” he added. “We don’t want to lose any more.”

“We must treat them well.”

“Just be careful they don’t take over. They’re not visitors: They’re here to work.”

Tilla looked him in the eye, and he braced himself for her reply. But instead of arguing she said, “I heard something about Horatius Balbus’s daughter today.”

“She’s much better company than her father,” he said.

“Is she?”

“I met her over at the house. I’m supposed to be helping Accius make a good impression.”

“Accius?”

“It makes sense. She’ll have pots of money from her father’s tenants, and he’ll have the aristocratic background.” Now that he thought about it, once Horatia inherited the properties all Accius had to do was appoint agents who would treat the tenants decently for a change, and he would have ready-made popular support. Some of them might even have votes.

Tilla said, “Perhaps, but Accius is not the name I heard.”

“Oh?”

“I heard …” She paused. “Some names that both start the same. Curtius something. Phyllis’s husband works for him.”

“The carpenter?” He put down the spoon in which he had scooped up the last of the stew. “Not Curtius Cossus?”

“That is him.”

“That can’t be right,” he told her, recalling the elaborate precautions Balbus had taken against being poisoned by Cossus’s dinner. Not to mention Horatia’s description of him as
that awful old builder
. “He’s twice her age at least.”

“You have met him too?”

“Balbus introduced us. It might lead to some work, but I doubt it.” Cossus had acknowledged him with a nod and then politely excused himself to deal with a question from one of his men. He had not seemed particularly awful, but Ruso was not a teenage girl.

She said, “Phyllis seemed very sure. But Phyllis does not always think straight.”

“Too much hymn singing.” He mopped the bowl with a chunk of bread and stood up. “Where’s the patient who wants a visit? I’ll do it now.”

His wife took the bowl, stacked it on top of hers, and dropped both spoons into it. “Whatever you think is right, husband.”

“Tilla, are you feeling ill?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the matter with you?”

“There is nothing the matter with me,” she told him, turning aside to put the dirty bowls on the tray.

He sat down again. “Perhaps I’d better stay. It’s getting dark. If the debt collectors come back—”

“You will have to visit patients at night sooner or later, husband. I am not afraid of those men. We will bar the doors. If they try
to break in, the neighbors will hear, and Sabella will frighten them off.”

He leaned back out of range as she wiped the table with unusual vigor. Clearly there was some sort of problem, and he was supposed to guess what it was. “If you don’t like it here, we can look for somewhere else.” But here, apparently, was as good as anywhere else that was not Britannia. He stood again. “Well if there’s nothing the matter and you’re not worried about the debt collectors, I’ll see you later.”

“There might be robbers in the street,” she told him. “You should take Esico.”

Unable to decide whether this was a genuine suggestion or some sort of test, he chose to take her at her word. There might indeed be robbers in the street. Who knew? There was more of everything in Rome. He went into the bedroom, delved into the box under the bed, and strapped on his old army dagger. Then he stood beside the bed and listened until he was reassured by the sound of the neighbors moving about upstairs. Leaving Esico to wait at the foot of the steps, he ran up to explain to Timo and Phyllis that he was going out on an urgent call and that his wife was nervous about being on her own after dark—“But don’t tell her I told you so.” Otherwise he would be in even more trouble.

Since Kleitos had left no covered lantern behind, and there was neither a torch nor any materials for assembling one, Ruso and Esico went without. The patient lived in an apartment block farther along Vicus Sabuci, and once Ruso’s eyes adjusted to the dark he could see well enough. On the way, he tried asking Esico for more details of the debt collectors who had called this afternoon, but the slave had evidently understood Tilla’s warning about nighttime robbers and was glancing around nervously, brandishing his broom handle in such a manner as to tell any lurking thief that something in Ruso’s medical case was worth stealing. “Just walk boldly down the middle of the street,” Ruso told him in British, deciding Esico must have been a very junior warrior and possibly not a well-practiced one. As far as he knew, most of the Dumnonii beyond the reach of the legionary base had adopted a policy of ignoring the soldiers and hoping they would go away.

“Yes, master,” said Esico, obeying for a few paces and then carrying on exactly as before. Clearly Ruso would get no sense out of him until they were safely indoors.

The patient was a frail old man with the sort of cough that got
worse at night, and since the whole family lived in one room that smelled of damp, nobody was getting much sleep. Ruso tried to find a tactful way of telling the weary and exasperated son and daughter-in-law that the father was not coughing on purpose. As he did so the father tried one of the cough-mixture lozenges Ruso had given him to suck and spat it out, declaring that everyone was trying to poison him and they would be glad when he was gone.

The son shot Ruso a glance that said,
You see?
and insisted on paying for the medicine anyway, saying the father might be willing to try it again later.

Ruso left with the feeling that he had been another in a long line of disappointments. Even if his medicine soothed the cough, he was powerless to treat the underlying problem: that eight people were living in a room suitable for only two. In addition, the flights of steps that he was leading Esico down were so steep that the old man would never be able to leave the apartment unless he were carried. He wondered how much they were paying in rent and to whom.
The property business is all about demand and supply
. It certainly wasn’t about need.

On the way out he broke the news to Esico that they had another call to make. Esico managed to invest “Yes, master” with a sense of dread.

“It’s not far,” Ruso promised cheerfully.

This time, “Yes, master,” was in the tone of a young man resigned to his fate.

Even indoors Esico still looked nervous, but to a man who had served in the Legions, the headquarters of the night watch on the Via Labicana felt comfortingly familiar. The dimly lit corridor where they were told to wait smelled of leather and beeswax and unwashed humanity. From somewhere deeper inside came the sound of whistling over the rhythmic swish of something being sharpened. Through the opposite doorway Ruso could see a couple of cloaks hanging on wooden pegs and a cupboard with a stack of documents on top.

Two men in uniform with fireman’s axes strapped to their belts came out of a room farther up the corridor. Ignoring the visitors, they strode past with the confident air of trained professionals doing something that no civilian could possibly understand.

Esico was standing with his hands clamped behind his back. Ruso, unable to think of the British for
Stop chewing your lip
asked him again about the debt collectors, but it seemed Esico had concentrated on repelling rather than observing them.

Ruso said, “Thank you for looking after my family, Esico.”

It was hard to tell in the dim light, but he was fairly sure the youth’s angular face turned pink.

Esico went back to chewing his lip while Ruso gazed at the notices nailed to the board above the lone lamp.

A duty roster with scribbled alterations was followed in much larger writing by

NO MAN IS TO SWITCH DUTIES WITHOUT THE PERMISSION OF THE DUTY CENTURION.

BURIAL CLUB CONTRIBUTIONS NOW DUE.

ROOM TO RENT.

Ruso leaned back against the wall and stared down at the boots that had been tightly stitched and greased to keep out the British rain, wondering what was the matter with his wife, and if there was any chance she might have forgotten about it by the time he got back.

Thinking of Tilla reminded him that he needed to have a look at all the medicines Kleitos had left behind. If one of them was sloppily labeled, there might be others. He should throw them all away and start again. It was just as well he had smelled and tasted that poppy before dispensing it to Horatius Balbus.

A slave came hurrying along the corridor. Even in this light Ruso could make out the bloodstains on his tunic. The man bowed and announced, “The doctor will see you now, sir.”

It was apparent from Esico’s expression that he too had noticed the bloodstains, and Ruso’s assurance in British that the man they were following into the dark was a healer’s helper elicited only another glum “Yes, master.” Leaving him outside the door to worry, Ruso followed the slave into the brighter light of the treatment room.