Vita Brevis (38 page)

She had picked the wrong fight. Even Squeaky could not be a money-grabbing bully all of the time. Now the big man was grinning down at her, and she was clearly wrong-footed. He knew he should say something, but
Be nice to my wife
didn’t sound quite right.

Fortunately Accius took charge. “Nobody’s to leave until we’ve cleared up what happened to Horatius Balbus.”

Horatia looked up at him adoringly. Squeaky glanced ’round to see if anyone was going to tell Tilla to get out of the way, then backed into a corner. Ruso leaned against a cupboard and stifled a yawn. He was feeling faintly queasy, but he must stay alert. This was important.

Accius turned to address the cousin, who was looking more weary than impressed. Ruso guessed he would rather be back in his butcher’s shop, hacking up carcasses.

“Sir,” Accius began, “perhaps you’d allow me to inform our friends here of your kind acknowledgment that I had absolutely nothing to do with the sad death of the man I had hoped to call father-in-law and neither did my man Ruso.”

This is what we need at a time like this,
Ruso wanted to say.
A man who can make speeches.
For a moment he wondered if he had actually said it. But Accius was still talking, so probably not.

Then Firmicus said, “The tribune is innocent, sir, but the doctor isn’t. My master collapsed and suffered a fatal injury after taking that man’s fake medicine.”

The cousin turned to Ruso and raised one eyebrow.

“The only potentially dangerous ingredient was poppy, sir,” Ruso told him, stifling an urge to agree that making medicine with a dubious ingredient was a very stupid thing to do, and trying to remember where he had intended to go with this statement. Fortunately Tilla guessed.

“Horatius Balbus had been taking small amounts of poppy daily,” she said. “Anyone who knows about poppy will tell you that if you take it every day, it is bad to stop, but if you take it that way it has a weaker effect. My husband does not take it often, and you made him swallow many times as much as his patient, and look! He is still here.”

In body, at least. He was not sure where his mind was. “In any case, sir,” he began, then paused. It was very distracting to be stared at by everyone like that. Ah, yes. “In any case, we’ve only got the steward’s word for it that his master collapsed.”

“Not true!” snapped Firmicus, not bothering to address the cousin. “Latro was there. He saw it too.”

“But he’s not here now,” Ruso pointed out.

Tilla said, “You both thought you would be freed if Balbus died.”

“The street was full of people!”

“You know, it’s very odd,” Ruso said, genuinely puzzled. “I couldn’t find a single person who saw him before he fell. I spent a long time looking.”

That sent Firmicus into a long speech about his lifetime of service here and how Ruso had blown in from the provinces only yesterday. Ruso could not understand why anyone was bothering to listen to this bluster, but he suspected he was still slightly adrift on the receding tide of the poppy. There was something else he needed to say, and it was important, and in a minute he would remember what it was.

“You waited till you were in the dark with nobody looking,” Tilla interrupted, “And—”

“Sir!” Firmicus demanded. “Why are we listening to this—this woman?”

The cousin said, “Let her speak,” but Tilla was already talking.

“In the dark,” she insisted, “with nobody looking, you and Latro knocked your master down and killed him!”

What a woman he had married! She really was marvelous. This was like watching a boxing match.

Firmicus, on the other hand, thought she was talking nonsense and said so.

“You lied to Latro,” Tilla went on. “You told him he would be freed when the master died, and he saw his chance to buy Gellia and marry her. He wouldn’t have helped you otherwise.”

Surely Firmicus would be floored by that? But no. When the cousin said, “Well?” he rallied. He had, he agreed, not been telling the whole truth. The fault did not lie entirely with the incompetent doctor, although he deserved to be punished for carelessness anyway.

Absolutely right,
Ruso thought, then realized when everyone turned to look at him that he had spoken aloud.

Firmicus had not wanted to say this in front of the family, but that woman—why did people insist on calling Tilla
that woman
?—had forced him into it.

The whole thing, it seemed, had been planned by Latro. Firmicus himself had suspected nothing until they were passing
the shoemaker’s door and Latro suddenly stepped back and cracked his master on the side of the head with his club. Asked why, Latro said Balbus had refused to grant him his freedom, and if Firmicus didn’t shut up and play along, he would get the same. To Firmicus’s great shame, he had been too shocked and afraid to speak up at the time. Then later he had taken the difficult decision not to say anything out of loyalty to the family.

“Loyalty?” put in Horatia, incredulous.

“You need me, mistress.” He looked around the room. “You all need me. Nobody else knows how the business works.”

“What did Pa ever do to hurt you?”

“Nothing,” Firmicus told her. “He was going to free me next year. The loss of me as well as him would have destroyed everything he built up for you to inherit.”

A silence fell over the little room and this time it seemed even Tilla had nothing to say. It was too late now for
Doctor Kleitos said you weren’t to be trusted
.

Finally the cousin turned to Horatia. “Is that three or four versions we have now of how your father died?”

Accius put his hand on her arm. “Let me deal with this. Sir, this is distressing for the young lady and we don’t need all these other people here, either. I suggest you and I remain here with the steward and we’ll get to the truth.”

Or at least, thought Ruso as the rest of them trooped out onto the sunlit balcony, a version of the truth that would suit Publius Accius. Which was probably no bad thing.

Gellia had not gone back to work. She was leaning over the side of the fountain again, staring at a dozen silver bodies floating and bobbing in the water.

“The fish!” cried Horatia, running down the steps. “All the fish are dead! We are cursed! First Pa, then Latro, now this!”

This seemed the wrong way around to Ruso: Surely the gods would start with the fish and work their way up?

Gellia stepped away from the fountain. This was a very different Gellia from the nervous creature he had first met, or the screaming fury who had thrown over the table, or the cowed servant expecting punishment. This was a young woman who clasped her hands over her pregnant belly and, with a clear voice, asked permission to speak.

Horatia said, “Of course.”

“Firmicus did it, mistress.”

Horatia frowned. “Firmicus struck the fish dead?”

“The water that he brought for the doctor,” the girl said, pointing at the fish. “The water the doctor wouldn’t drink. They said to take it away, so I tipped it in the fountain.”

The queasiness returned as Ruso realized how close he had been to never waking up again.

“But why?” Horatia demanded of no one in particular. “Why did he do all these terrible things? Pa was going to free him next year anyway!”

Gellia said, “Your pa said that every year, miss.”

Horatia was still staring at the fish. “We would have thought it was the medicine,” she said, following the same train of thought as Ruso. “The doctor would have been blamed for everything, and poor Accius, and—”

At that moment they heard Accius yell, “Stop him!” but Firmicus leapt over the side of the steps and was past them and ducking in behind a trellis at the far end of the garden.

As they ran Tilla cried, “The door!”

But instead of the rattle of a lock there was a howl of pain, and a violent rustling of leaves as something hit the trellis, and a high-pitched voice shouted, “No you don’t, pal!”

The surprise was not so much that Firmicus had escaped from Accius and the cousin—who probably hadn’t thought to guard him—but that Squeaky, suddenly helpful, had known where the garden door was. It was where the undertakers had collected the other body. “The one he’s just paid me for.”

Ruso said, “What other body?”

Looking ’round at the baffled faces, Squeaky said, “Big muscular lad.” He shook the immobilized Firmicus. “Matey here said he done himself out of shame ’cause he couldn’t protect his master.”

Firmicus said, “Latro was full of remorse. He took poison. I found the body.” He looked ’round as if trying to find a sympathetic listener. “I was trying to protect the family from more tragedy.”

In the silence that followed, Gellia stepped up to him and spat in his face. She watched the saliva trickle down the side of his nose for a moment. Then she walked away.

“I should’ve known he was lying,” said Squeaky, who seemed to be enjoying his newfound celebrity. “He lied about you and all, Doctor. You never did say any of them things about us, did you?”

“I told you I hadn’t,” said Ruso, hoping Squeaky wasn’t about to go into detail about the sale of bodies in front of the household.

Squeaky gave Firmicus another shake. “What did you do that for, then? Didn’t you like him?”

It seemed Firmicus had run out of excuses.

“He didn’t like me asking questions about his master’s death,” Ruso said. “He was hoping you’d provide a distraction.” The poppy must be wearing off. Now that he thought about it, he had never liked Firmicus much, either.

“It’s my belief,” Accius told Ruso as they strolled back toward the inner courtyard, “that Firmicus had been jealous of Balbus for years. Horatia’s cousin says they started out as equals, you know. Then Balbus is freed and ends up owning the whole place, including Firmicus himself. Apparently Balbus made him several false promises of freedom, and Firmicus must have finally had enough. Just think, Ruso—if I hadn’t demanded an investigation, none of this would have come to—ah.”

Ruso caught sight of a figure slinking down past the statues toward the entrance hall.

“There you are, Metellus!”

The figure paused, turned, and bowed as it approached. “Sir. Congratulations. I hear the young lady’s guardian has promised to look with favor on your renewed proposal.”

“No thanks to you. I’m deeply disappointed, Metellus.”

Metellus’s apology sounded genuine. Nobody, it seemed, could be happier than he was to be proved wrong. “I’m afraid the steward had me completely fooled, sir. And I felt compelled to protect the young lady—”

“You weren’t supposed to listen to the steward,” said Horatia, who had appeared from somewhere inside the house.

“I’ll protect the young lady myself, thank you,” put in Accius.

Horatia said, “You were supposed to be working for Publius Accius.”

Metellus said again that he was sorry. “But the evidence did seem to be pointing in a very worrying direction, sir.”

Accius linked arms with Horatia. “I’ve come to the conclusion,” he said, “that evidence is a very slippery substance.” Then he turned and escorted her away into the house.

Tilla was somewhere indoors tending to Gellia, who had collapsed into fresh weeping at the news about Latro. Ruso was surprised to be beckoned into the middle of the courtyard by Metellus.
Wondering if he was actually about to receive an apology, Ruso complied.

What he heard was, “Do you still want me to look for this Kleitos chap?”

“No.”

“Good,” said Metellus. “I would have done it before, but I’ve been rather busy.”

Ruso said, “Lots of prayer meetings to attend?”

Metellus smiled. “Interesting people, the followers of Christos. When they’re not squabbling, the best of them go to surprising lengths to support one another. I can see the attraction for freed slaves, people with no families, that sort of thing.”

Ruso wondered if Metellus had a family anywhere. It seemed unlikely.

“Unfortunately there’s also a core of fools who are stubborn to the point of self-destruction. Refusing to sacrifice to the emperor does nobody any good.”

“So that’s your real job? Infiltrating the followers of Christos?”

“My duty—the duty of any citizen—is to support the city prefect in keeping the peace on behalf of the emperor. For example, I took your recommendation about that charlatan causing trouble outside the amphitheater.”

“You were the one who got rid of him?”

“Not me personally. A report was submitted. Decisions are taken much higher up.”

“And who decided that you should undermine Accius?”

Metellus sighed. “Really, Ruso. You don’t expect me to answer that, do you?”

“No,” Ruso told him. “Not now that the poppy’s worn off.”

“Can you see them, Doctor?” enquired the patient as Ruso conducted a silent and fruitless search for head lice.

Ruso ordered Esico to bring a comb, and the patient asked to have the door shut.

“I’m not going to be able to see nits in the dark, Quintus.”

The patient shifted unexpectedly, leaning his head of graying curls closer. Ruso recoiled—head lice were notoriously agile—but Quintus turned his face toward Ruso’s left ear and whispered, “It’s all right, Doctor. There aren’t any.”

Realizing he would get no sense until they were alone, Ruso sent Esico to wait outside. “So,” he said, turning back to peer at his patient in the poor light cast by the small windows above the doorway, “How else can I help?”

The man was still whispering. “If anyone asks, swear you will tell them I came because of the nits.”

“I wouldn’t tell them anything,” he said.

“Swear!”

“You came because of the nits,” he said. “Did I find any?”

“Would I have to pay extra for medicine?”

“You’d have to go shopping for radish oil or alum. I haven’t got any in stock.”

“Then you told me it was just dandruff,” said the man.

“It
is
just dandruff,” Ruso pointed out, baffled.

“Good.”

Whatever this was, Ruso hoped it was not going to take long. Out in the kitchen, he heard the crash of cutlery being dropped into a box and the scrape and thump of luggage being moved about. They needed to be on a barge heading down the Tiber by the ninth hour. “So what can I do for you, Quintus?”