Persona Non Grata (27 page)

62

R
USO WOKE, STARED at the ceiling, and remembered why there was no one in the bed beside him. One by one, all the other things he was supposed to be worrying about sidled into his mind and drifted around it like unwelcome guests. Thus it was something of a relief to realize that he had something to celebrate. He was not poisoned.

He swung his feet to the floor, stood up, stretched, then bent and touched his toes, wincing at the stiffness from yesterday’s accident with the horse. He flexed his fingers, shook his head, and spent a quiet moment assessing the state of his interior. Then he slapped his thighs, punched both fists in the air, and went in search of breakfast.

“Galla!”

She changed course, eyes wide with apprehension.

“You promised to give me something. Where is it?”

She swallowed. “I cannot, my lord.”

“While you are part of this house hold, Galla, you are to do as I say.”

She lowered her head and said, “Yes, my lord.” Her stance as well as her voice betrayed her misery.

“You might think it doesn’t matter,” he explained. “But you see where all this secret society business has led to with Tilla. If this sort of thing carries on they’ll decide to start rooting out the Christians again. Don’t you think this family’s in enough trouble?”

“We would never want to cause you trouble, my lord.”

“Not
we
,” prompted Ruso, “
they
. Now what is it, and where is it?”

Moments later Ruso was in the study with the door wedged shut, munching on an apple and running one finger along a line of Greek lettering. When he reached the end of what appeared to be the first sentence, he threw back his head and laughed.

All slaves under the yoke must have absolute respect for their masters.

What a shame it was that Galla could not read this document she had been hiding inside Little Lucius’s mattress. The rest of it was a denunciation of philosophy, a shrewd observation that a fondness for money was at the root of most of the world’s troubles, and some sort of rant about fighting a good religious fight in order to win eternal life.

That, as far as he could recall, was the original problem with the Christians, even before they had started enticing women away from home. They saw religion as a fight. They upset everyone else by refusing to sacrifice to the normal gods on the grounds that their own wouldn’t like it, ignored polite requests to be a little more open-minded, and then refused to be coerced, in the belief that clinging stubbornly to their faith in this world would win them happiness forever in the next one.

On the other hand, “absolute respect” surely meant obedience? He would read this to her and translate it before he burned it. As an obedient slave with absolute respect for her master, Galla would do what she was told and stop fooling around with foreign religions.

63

Y
ESTERDAY’S BREAD WAS dry, but cheaper. The two women were washing it down with a jug of watered vinegary wine, leaning over the ramshackle bar that opened onto a side street where two slaves were laying out a great length of fat rope. As Cass explained about the drowned brother, Tilla wondered how the grim-faced woman behind the counter could possibly have managed to lure away somebody else’s husband.

“The only thing I know,” said Phoebe, not looking up from stirring one of the huge pots set into the counter, “is that the dead don’t come back.”

Cassiana straightened her shoulders. “But we can remember them.”

“What I’m saying,” continued the woman, “is, you don’t want to listen to drunks and layabouts. So if you’re chasing this rubbish about ghosts, you’re wasting your time.”

“Ghosts?” Cass’s hands on the counter turned into fists. “Who has seen a ghost?”

The woman lifted out the spoon. “They all drowned. The captain and the owner and the crew and your brother. Don’t waste your time.”

“Tell us about the ghosts,” said Tilla.

“A couple of fools who reckon they saw the captain and the own er. Late at night in a bar, of course.”

“What are their names?” Cass was almost on top of the counter now. “Which bar was it?”

“I told you, it’s rubbish.”

Tilla handed her too much money for the breakfast, and said, “You knew this captain and this owner?”

“I’ve seen them once or twice. They reckoned they were too good for us in here.” The woman counted the coins and did not offer to return any change.

“And these two were the only ghosts anyone saw?” asked Cass again.

“Copreus and Ponticus.”

“Tell us what these men looked like,” urged Tilla. When the woman looked her in the eye she handed over another coin. At this rate they would be walking home.

Moments later a fat man who walked with two sticks rolled up to the bar and maneuvered himself onto a stool. The woman abandoned her attempts to describe the missing Copreus and Ponticus, and moved away to greet her latest customer by name

Tilla said, “One last question. Where do I find someone who has seen these ghosts?”

“One of them cheap whore houses downstream,” said Phoebe, without turning around. “I wouldn’t know which. I’m a decent woman.”

Evidently the time Tilla bought had run out.

Beside her Cass murmured, “How can we go into places like that? What will Lucius say?”

“It is not going in that is difficult,” said Tilla, gathering up the two extra loaves she had bought to give to the chained slaves. “It is getting out. Besides, in a town this size we could spend all day finding them all.” She weighed the purse slung around her neck. “We will have to buy more bad wine and make do with talking to bar girls.” She glanced at her companion. “We will find out everything there is to know, Cass. Now we know that Captain Copreus is a muscly man with tattoos, and that this Ponticus wears a bronze ring with a ruby set in it. If they are alive, we will find them. I promise. Don’t cry.”

“I am not crying for myself.” Cassiana rubbed her fist across her eyes. “I am crying for my brother, here alone with all these wicked people.”

64

O
UTSIDE THE GLADIATORS’ barracks, groups of rival supporters had taken to trading insults and chanting the names of their favorites in an atmosphere that suggested a party rather than a fight. Inside, half a dozen men Ruso did not recognize were sparring with wooden practice weapons under the eye of a trainer. The yard smelled of beef stew, grease, and fear.

He made his way across to the surgery, where the assistants were ripping up linen rags and rolling them into bandages. Gnostus was perched on the operating table by the window, running one finger along the script of a writing tablet. At the sight of Ruso, he leaped up and thrust the tablet under his nose. “Anything I’ve missed?”

Sponges, plenty of ligatures, splints, needles . . . Ruso scanned the list, mentally rearranging it into a more logical order. It would be no good remembering something vital tomorrow.

“There could be as many as twenty casualties in here,” pointed out Gnostus. “And we’ll have to patch up the animal hunters too. But of course some will go straight to the undertaker.”

Ruso nodded. “Looks fine to me,” he said, handing the list back. “As long as your boys know where to find it all.”

Gnostus glanced around to make sure there was nobody but the slaves in earshot, then admitted, “I’ve never done anything as big as this before. Any advice?”

Ruso watched a slave chase a long strip of linen along his knee until it became a fat roll of ban dage, and wondered what he could possibly offer that would help. “Talk to your men beforehand,” he suggested. “Make sure everybody knows who’s doing what. Split the roles into examination, surgery, and dressing, get the porters orga nized, and delegate the simple stuff.”

“That’s how they do it in the Legions?”

“That’s how I do it. Once things heat up, you just have to try to keep going without yelling at the staff or falling asleep over the patients. So, what do you want me to do?”

Gnostus thought about that for a moment. “Right now,” he said, “look confident while I get the team together for a briefing.”

“Do they know I’m the town poisoner?”

“You haven’t met my lads,” said Gnostus. “You’ll fit in nicely.”

Ruso spent most of the briefing wondering what was happening to Tilla and Cass, and the rest trying not to speculate on the tales that could be told by the half dozen scarred and ragged individuals summoned to support the medical staff. Gnostus introduced him as a veteran surgeon from the Twentieth Legion. If any of them had heard anything else about him, their faces did not betray it. Despite looking as though they had just been scraped out of a gutter, they also seemed to know what they were doing.

As the men shuffled out, Gnostus grinned at Ruso. “I s’pose this is like tying your bootlaces to you, isn’t it?”

“Oh, gods above,” muttered Ruso, glancing out of the door and seeing Tertius approaching across the yard. Then, in answer to Gnostus’s question, “No, not really. No it isn’t. I’ve never done anything quite like this before, either. Excuse me a minute.”

Tertius stopped and stood at attention as Ruso approached.

“Tertius, I’m sorry—”

“I’d like to thank you for trying to help, sir,” said Tertius stiffly. “And to request a small favor.”

While Ruso was hoping a small favor would not mean smuggling him out through the gate, the lad held out one fist, turned it over, and opened it to reveal an iron ring and a couple of fat sestertius coins on his palm. “I’d be grateful if you could give the ring to Marcia, and the money to my aunt who works at the amphora factory of Lollia Saturnina.”

Ruso took the ring and the coins and slipped them into his purse. “Of course.” He pulled out the writing tablet that was tucked into his belt and said, “Marcia asked me to give you this.”

The youth took the writing tablet that Ruso had eventually accepted from Marcia late last night and refrained from unsealing and reading. Initially she had been so unrepentant over the “come home” letter that he had refused to take it. But she had pointed out that Tertius had done nothing wrong and he might be dead in two days’ time, and did Ruso want to make his last hours on earth even more miserable than they already were? Didn’t he want to make him happy and confident and give him the best possible chance in the arena?

Tertius snapped the thread and ran his finger along the lines of text, his lips forming the words as he deciphered them. He swallowed hard, then held out the tablet to Ruso.

“I want you to know that your sister’s letter is completely respectable, sir.”

“I’m sure it is,” said Ruso, motioning it away with his hand. Under the circumstances he felt the lad deserved something passionate rather than respectable, but preferably not from his own sister. “I wish I could help.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“We haven’t got the money,” explained Ruso, feeling irrationally guilty that he had not tried to raise it. “At the moment, nobody would want to lend it to me.”

“That’s all right, sir,” declared Tertius, raising one arm in a good imitation of a military salute. “I wish you good fortune.”

“And I you,” said Ruso, returning the salute and noting how much more mature Tertius seemed to be now that there was no hope of escaping the arena tomorrow. He said, “I hope we’ll be in a position to discuss this again in the future.”

Tertius dropped his arm. “You can count on it, sir,” he said, his face lighting up in a grin that would have broken Marcia’s heart.

65

I
HEAR YOU young ladies are looking for Copreus.”

The grin was predatory and the breath stank of cheap wine and onions, but he had the deep tan and the muscled forearms of a mariner. Tilla resisted Cass’s tug on her arm. There was a chance he might know something.

“We are looking for anyone who knows the crew who sailed with my friend’s brother,” she said, reaching along the counter and pouring him a drink from their own jug. They had worked their way down to the seediest of the side street bars now: the sort where nobody bothered to sweep up the cockroaches after they squashed them.

Cass had grown paler and quieter with every place they entered. Tilla was beginning to feel more and more light-headed despite her efforts to drink mostly water. “The brother was lost on the
Pride of the South
,” she explained, glancing across to judge the distance to the door. “We want to raise a memorial.”

“A memorial, eh?” Dark creases of embedded grime appeared on the man’s neck as he raised the cup and took a long, slow drink of wine. “Next time I see old Copreus, I’ll tell him. He’ll like that.”

Tilla felt Cass’s fingers dig into her wrist. She tried to keep her voice calm as she said, “You have seen him?”

He held out his cup. When he had drunk the refill the foul breath wafted closer until their heads were almost touching. “Large as life,” he whispered. “Sitting over in that corner there.”

Both women turned to peer into the dingy corner where an old man was hopefully not as dead as he looked.

Cassiana whispered, “Real, or a ghost?”

“Ah,” said Onion Breath, “who knows? It was the end of a long day, I was tired, the wine was cheap.”

“Did he speak?” demanded Cass at the same time as Tilla tried, “Did you see him eat or drink?”

“No speaking,” said the man, shaking his head. “No eating, no drinking.” The breath surrounded them again. “Come here and listen carefully, ladies, and I’ll tell you exactly what I saw that night.”

Trying not to think about head lice, Tilla leaned closer. Cass did the same.

“What I saw,” he murmured, “was old Copreus sitting over there where Granddad is now, just quiet, watching me from the corner. I said, ‘You’re drowned,’ and he lifted up his arm and pointed at me.” The man leaned back and extended two fingers to point first at Tilla and then at Cass, who flinched. “And then he got up out of that chair—” The man stood up. “And there was a flash of light . . .” He raised his hands in the air. “And then, poof, he vanished!”

Seeing their reaction, the man burst into harsh laughter.

The two women’s eyes met. Without further discussion, they both bent to pick up their bags. For a moment they glanced around the empty floor, bewildered. Then Cass said, “Oh, no!”

“Something the matter, ladies?” asked Onion Breath. The half dozen other drinkers at the nearby tables all seemed preoccupied with their own business. None appeared to notice the distress of the two women at the bar. None was holding a blue and green striped bag like Cass’s, or a plain brown one like Tilla’s own that had now vanished with it.

“We have been robbed!” cried Cass.

A couple of players glanced up from a board game.

“I know how you feel, love,” offered another man, raising his cup. “The prices in here, we’ve all been robbed.”

The players resumed their game.

Tilla turned to the man behind the bar. “This sailor kept us talking while we were robbed. You must have seen! Who was it?”

The barman’s face was blank. Tilla seized Cass by the arm and made for the door. One of the drinkers got up off his stool and stepped across to stand in their way. The old man in the corner coughed, opened his eyes, and went back to sleep.

Cassiana said, “We are going to report this place to the authorities!”

A large hand landed on Tilla’s shoulder and the breath wafted around her again. “No need for that, ladies. We’ll look after you. Won’t we, lads?”

The pair at the board game looked up and grinned.

One moment Tilla was standing captive by the bar; the next moment her knife was out and Onion Breath was yelling and clutching at his hand while Cass snatched up a jug and ran to stand beside her.

Someone said, “You shouldn’t a’ done that, girl.”

Tilla glanced around the room. The man was right: She had made a foolish mistake. She had run in the only direction open to her, and now they were cornered. They could not fend off six men for long with one knife and a wine jug. She muttered a prayer to Christos, but the Briton had been right. Heaven was not much comfort when you needed rescuing here and now.

“Help us!” she demanded, looking at the barman, but his attention was fixed on Onion Breath, who had seemed so friendly just a few minutes ago.

“You’re closing early today,” Onion Breath told him. “Take the afternoon off.”

The barman glanced at Tilla and Cass, then dropped his cloth and fled out into the street.

“We’ll have a private party.” Onion Breath shut out the sunlight and swung the wooden bar up to drop it across the door. “I’m first with Blondie,” he announced. “Steady on there, Granddad. You’ll get your turn.”