Caveat emptor

27

Tilla picked her way past a patch of leeks and cabbages and bean seedlings in the back garden. The shutters of the back window were open. She crouched under the rough sill to listen. Indoors, heavy footsteps were clumping about. Someone whistled a snatch of a dancing tune that pipers played at feasts. Whoever was in there was making no effort to keep quiet.

She risked a quick glance through the window. The embers beneath the fancy cooking grill were dead. The table held a bowl whose contents were now a sunken and congealed brown mass. Whatever had been poured into the delicate cup next to it had a thick skin on the top and there was a smell of rancid milk. Camma’s housekeeper had not been there for some time.

She ducked back out of sight as the footsteps grew louder. A deep voice shouted to someone in British to get a move on. Another man replied that he couldn’t manage by himself.

The first intruder gave a heavy sigh. The fading sound of footsteps suggested he had gone to help.

So. There were only two of them. She had the advantage of surprise, but that would not last long. If she cornered them, they might try to fight their way out. If she did not, they would run out of the front door and if Camma had still not found a guard to help by then, they would escape with whatever they could carry.

Tilla crouched on the hard earth between the bean patch and the wall and silently cursed the driver. If he had done the job he had been paid for, the intruders could have been dealt with by now. She was wondering what had happened to the housekeeper when she heard the shuffling and grunting that accompanies men carrying something heavy through an awkward space.

Back on her feet, she pressed herself flat against the wall and peered around the edge of the window again. She could see into the corridor, where two men were busy maneuvering a fancily carved cupboard out of a side room. They did not notice her.

In a moment they would be gone, and so would the cupboard. Tilla reached out an arm to try the latch on the back door. She unsheathed her knife and took a deep breath. Then she flung the door open, shouting loud enough to be heard across the surrounding yards and gardens, “Stop, thief!”

The second man halted.

“Thief!” she cried, turning around to shout across the neighboring gardens, “Help us, they are stealing!”

Hoping help was on its way, she strode into the abandoned kitchen. Any alarm in the thief’s dark eyes died when he looked past her and saw that she was alone. She was glad of the open door behind her. Stopping well out of his reach, she demanded, “Who are you?”

He glanced at whoever was holding the other end of the cupboard. One of the doors fell open as they lowered it to the floor.

“Who are you?” repeated Tilla. He was much better looking than a thief ought to be. “What are you doing here?”

“Who am I?” He reached down to close the cupboard door. As the black hair swung forward she saw that he had scarlet braids woven into it. “Who are you, Northerner?”

“I am a friend of Camma, Princess of the Iceni,” said Tilla, wondering if there might be something here she had misunderstood. The man did not look like someone who needed to steal. His scarlet tunic was clean and almost new. “What are you doing in her house?”

“Princess of the Iceni, eh?”

Tilla raised her knife to suggest a little more respect.

The man lifted his hands into the air and backed away in mock alarm. “It’s all right,” he assured her. “There’s no need for that.”

“You can explain to her. And to the guards.”

The man lowered his hands. His grin revealed dimples and even white teeth. “I’m the captain of the guards, miss. Put that knife away, or I’ll have to report us both to myself.”

A shadow fell across the kitchen. Camma’s voice said, “Dias? What are you doing here?”

Tilla, who had not heard Camma making her way past the vegetable patch, slid the knife back into the sheath.

“Where’s Grata?” Camma demanded, clutching the baby against her as if she thought Dias might take him away along with the cupboard.

An older man with a furrowed face appeared in the kitchen doorway.

Camma said, “Where’s Grata? What are you doing here?”

The second man raised large grimy hands to show they were empty before heading off toward the front of the house. “Sorry, miss. I was only doing a mate a favor.”

Camma looked around the abandoned kitchen, wrinkling her nose at the smell of sour milk. “What happened to Grata?”

“She left,” explained the first man, adding, “She’d had enough.” He gestured toward the baby. “I see you’ve, ah-”

Whatever he might have said was interrupted by a yell of alarm from his companion before the front door slammed shut. Tilla guessed that the second man had found Julius Asper on the threshold.

“But what are you doing with the furniture?” persisted Camma.

Dias shrugged. “Grata’s moved on, the place is deserted-”

“But I was only in Londinium! And Bericus may come home any day. What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking,” said Dias, “that your man owed my lads wages for guard duty. I’m sorry for your loss, lady, but somebody was going to clear the place. It might as well be us.”

Camma slumped onto a kitchen stool. Seeing tears welling in her eyes, Tilla put an arm around her. “Julius Asper has just arrived home,” she said. “This is not the day to be asking for wages.”

“We weren’t to know.”

“Put back what you have taken,” said Tilla. “If you help us bring him in, I will try to see that your wages are paid.”

Dias’s dark eyes widened. “And you are…?”

“I am Darlughdacha of the Corionotatae among the Brigantes,” she told him. “Sometimes called Tilla. I have come from Londinium to help.”

He eyed her for a moment, then began to retreat toward the front of the house. “Holy Sucellus, this place stinks.”

“Julius Asper was robbed and murdered when he was carrying the money from your town,” said Tilla, following him. “Why was nobody there to guard him?”

“We weren’t asked,” said Dias, leaning on the splintered front doorpost. “We only work for him when we’re asked. He went with his brother. My lads rode out to help the minute we knew he was missing.”

“Bericus is still not found,” said Tilla.

“Maybe he did it,” suggested Dias. The dark eyes looked into her own. “Maybe he’s the one you want to be calling a thief, not me.”

“If he is alive,” said Tilla, “I will. Now, are you going to help?”

When Asper had been laid out on the pinkish gray floor of the smart front room, Dias nodded to the household shrine in the corner and said, “I’ll let the cemetery slaves know. First thing tomorrow morning, all right, ladies?”

Tilla glanced over at Camma, who did not look as though she understood the question. “First thing tomorrow morning,” she agreed. The sooner it was over, the better. “Thank you.”

Safely inside with the cupboard rammed against the broken street door to keep it closed, Camma slumped against the wall. “He was not attacked for money.” She sighed. “He did not take any money. There is nobody left who will listen to me.”

“I believe you,” said Tilla. She bent down to straighten the rush mat that had been kicked aside as they carried the body in. “But you and I cannot prove anything else yet, and we need that man to help with the burial.”

“But-”

“It is always good to speak the truth, sister,” said Tilla, wishing she had left the mat hiding the pair of man-sized house shoes that she had just revealed, “but sometimes it is wiser to say what is useful.”