Caveat emptor

31

The manager of the mansio, a lean and gray-haired retired cavalry officer called Publius, was also expecting the investigator. In fact he brought his young wife out to greet him as well. The wife looked refreshingly bored at the prospect of meeting a tax man and disappeared as soon as the formalities were over. Ruso dismissed a vague feeling that he had seen her somewhere before and followed her husband through the reception area and out under a covered walkway that led around a series of rooms forming three sides of a formal garden.

“You’ll have to make the most of us as we are, I’m afraid, sir.” Ruso noted the encouraging smells and clattering sounds from the kitchens as Publius was waving his walking stick toward the garden wall and explaining about the improvements he had hoped to put in place in time for the emperor’s visit. “I can’t see them being agreed until the missing money turns up, sir.”

“I’ll do my best,” agreed Ruso, who had never been called “sir” by a cavalry officer before and decided he liked it.

“You’re in Suite Three, sir.” Publius paused under the walkway to unlock a door that led into a dim corridor. “That leads out to the alley by the stables,” he said, aiming the stick at the streaks of light that outlined an exit straight ahead. “The key’s on the hook, so you can come and go as you please.”

Ruso was less interested in the hefty iron key hung above the lintel than in seizing the chance to talk while there were no servants or wife around to overhear. “Tell me,” he said, “what do you make of the locals?”

“They’re a fine bunch of people, sir. Good to work with.”

Ruso sighed. “Not the official line, Publius. If I’m going to find this money, I need to know the truth. What do you make of the locals?”

The cavalryman paused, then said, “Ambitious. The emperor allows them to run their own Council and town guard. The town’s on a junction of two main roads, so there’s a lot of lucrative trade comes through here. They’re talking about building a theater.”

“Friendly?” prompted Ruso hopefully.

“When it suits them.”

Ruso suspected that if he asked too many difficult questions, it would not suit them for long. “Who would you trust?”

Publius cleared his throat. “I’m probably not the best person to ask, sir.”

“Because?”

“Because, sir, you work for the procurator’s office, and the procurator’s office is in charge of mansiones and transport, and if I tell you what really goes on, I’ll be getting myself and a lot of other people into trouble.”

“I’m not inspecting anything,” Ruso promised him. “Just hunting for the money.”

The stick clunked against the wall as Publius leaned back and folded his arms. “I’m appointed by Londinium,” he said, “but I’ve got to get along with the suppliers who are near enough to deliver. So I’m not going to tell you about the councillor who overcharges us for the horses he breeds, or how the stable overseer declares them unfit two years later even when they aren’t and sells them at a nice profit to himself. I’m certainly not going to tell you that the same overseer takes bribes to slip ordinary letters in with the official post, because doing that would be illegal.”

“Absolutely,” said Ruso, recognizing the descriptions of Caratius and Rogatus. “It’s best that I don’t know about any of that. Anything else you’re not going to mention?”

“There’s the other important councillor whose country estate supplies us with wildly overpriced meat for the kitchens and animal feed that we could get a lot cheaper twenty miles up the road. I won’t be telling you about him.”

“No, don’t.”

“Because if I do, then to be fair I’ll have to complain about the number of jumped-up officials who come through here demanding services they don’t have the warrants for and threatening to report me if they don’t get them. And then I’ll be in trouble with everybody for not clamping down on it, as if they think I’m some sort of miracle worker.”

“I can see that.”

“Frankly, sir, once you’ve been in this job awhile you stop trusting anyone. But from what I can gather, it’s no worse here than anywhere else.”

“What do you think’s gone on with Asper and the tax money?”

“I haven’t a clue, sir. But if I were you, I’d watch my back.” Publius reached for his stick. “Now that I haven’t told you anything, sir, if you’d like me to show you your rooms?”

Publius resumed his well-practiced introduction about keys and bathing and arrangements for dinner. “Your dining room and kitchen are through this door on your right, sir. Since you haven’t brought your staff, we’ll serve your meals from the main kitchen.”

His dining room?

Staff?

“I’m afraid at this hour we can’t really make changes to the menu-”

“As long as there’s plenty of it,” Ruso assured him.

“And this-” The man flung open a door on his left with a flourish. “This is the rest of Suite Three.”

Ruso had been surveying the rest of Suite Three for some time before he remembered to close his mouth.

While Publius was saying something about notifying reception of any guests, Ruso was gazing across the expanse of scrubbed floorboards to the open door beyond and wondering how many cavalrymen Publius would have billeted in a space that size in his former career. Even in the civilian world there would be room for a doctor, his wife, several putative children, and as much crockery as any respectable citizen could accumulate.

His reverie was interrupted by a question about his men.

“I’ve allocated a room just across the garden, sir, unless you’d like some bedding moved into here?”

“I haven’t brought any men,” he confessed. The surprise on Publius’s face recalled the disappointment of the stable overseer. “I prefer to work alone.”

“Well, you know best, sir. I’ll have some water brought over for washing. If there’s anything you want, you just have to ask.”

“Thank you. I’ll try not to demand any services I’m not entitled to.”

The cavalryman grinned. “Oh, demand away, sir. We’ve got orders to give you every assistance. The Council wants you kept sweet.”

Several minutes later, Publius’s confidence that Ruso knew best might have been dented by the sight of him throwing his traveling clothes into the corner, standing on tiptoe with his fingers stretched toward the plastered ceiling, and then giving a “Hah!” of delight as he flung his naked form across the bed.

The sheets smelled of lavender. The water in which the slave had just washed his feet smelled of roses, and he himself would cease to smell of horse just as soon as he had finished testing the bed, consuming the drinks and pastries thoughtfully laid out on the table in his reception room, putting on the clean tunic provided, and taking himself out through his own private exit to visit the public baths. He wasn’t even going to have to pay. The foot-washing slave had just trotted off to fetch a baths token.

He was deciding that there was, after all, something to be said for being the procurator’s man, when he heard the slave tapping on the reception room door.

“It’s open,” he called, not bothering to move. He heard the hinges of the outer door creak as he took another sniff of the sheets. A man could get used to this. “Just leave it on the table.”

There was no reply. Instead of retreating, whoever was out there was striding across the floorboards toward the bedroom.

If I were you, I’d watch my back.

What if it wasn’t the servant?

Someone lifted the latch.

Where the hell was his knife?

Ruso was off the bed, across the room, and flattened against the wall just as the door opened to hide him.

A broad-shouldered figure entered the room, looked around, then closed the door and said, “So it is you, Ruso.”

“Serena!” His hands clamped over his groin as his eyes met the piercing gaze of a woman, who, had she been male, would have been considered handsome. He swallowed. “What are you doing here?”

“My cousin thought she recognized you.” The thick brows met in puzzlement. “Why are you hiding behind the door?”

“I thought you were a slave,” he explained with a lack of clarity that he felt was excusable in a man who had just found himself naked in a bedroom with his best friend’s wife. “Then I thought you might not be. Uh-how are you?”

Serena looked him up and down and gave a sigh that suggested the weariness of a woman who was used to dealing with naughty boys. “Put some clothes on, Ruso.”

As he fumbled his way gratefully into the clean tunic, he heard, “I suppose he’s sent you to ask me to come home.” Before he could reply she said, “Well, don’t bother. I shan’t listen.”

Finally emerging into daylight, he said, “To be honest, I didn’t know you were here.”

She pondered that for a moment. “But he knew you were coming?”

“Valens?”

“Who else?”

Ruso, seeing where this was heading, tried, “Possibly.”

“Possibly,” she repeated, as if she was trying the word to see whether or not she liked it. “Well, did he, or didn’t he?”

Ruso straightened a crease across his shoulder. “Yes.”

“So,” concluded Serena, raising the eyebrows and arching her neck in a way that reminded him of an intelligent horse, “my husband knew you were coming here, and he knows I am here, but he didn’t even trouble himself to send a message.”

Ruso reached for his belt. “I wouldn’t say he didn’t trouble himself, exactly…”

“No,” said Serena, seizing the door handle. “I don’t suppose you would. But then, what do you know about it?”

Before he could answer, the door slammed shut. “Not a lot,” he confessed, gazing past the space where she had just been standing and wondering if that crack in the plaster had been there before.