Caveat emptor

47

The Council session had just broken up when Ruso returned to the chamber. Several toga-clad figures were striding toward the doors. Others were clustered in groups. The urgency of conversation and the way the groups were eyeing one another suggested that the meeting had ended in disagreement. One or two men approached Ruso to thank him, but nobody offered any new information. The clerk gathered up a collection of scrolls and hurried away with his head down, as if he was hoping to escape without being noticed.

Caratius abandoned what appeared to be an argument, raised his hand to acknowledge Ruso’s presence, and advanced toward him. Immediately Gallonius broke away from another group on the far side of the hall, gathered up fistfuls of toga, and set off in the same direction. For a moment it looked like a race down the chamber, with Ruso as the finishing post.

Caratius got there first and opened his mouth only to be drowned out by Gallonius with, “Sorry about the lively debate earlier.”

“Outrageous!” put in Caratius. “No respect. Can’t even let a guest speak without interrupting. This place is a disgrace. I’m sorry, Investigator. You and I are trying to find out why men lie murdered and money is missing, and these people are interested in nothing but petty squabbles about who’s allowed to be seen where.”

“Since it turns out Asper wasn’t the thief my fellow magistrate has been making him out to be,” said Gallonius to Ruso, “it’s just as well some of us went to pay our respects.”

“An action for which you did not have the Council’s approval,” said Caratius.

Gallonius turned on him. “The quaestor and I went to the funeral as private individuals. It’s not at all the same thing as illegally representing the Council to the procurator, as you well know.”

Caratius looked as though he was considering punching his fellow magistrate, then managed to get himself under control. “The investigator isn’t here to waste his time on this kind of nonsense,” he said. “I know what kind of game this is. Ruso, I’m counting on you to find out the truth. If not, I shall appeal to the governor. One way or another, I will have justice!” He turned to Gallonius. “In the meantime I suggest you stop talking nonsense and concentrate on finding something useful to tell him.”

Ruso watched the tall, straight-backed figure march out of the chamber, gray hair flowing over the folds of the toga. He had to admit it was an impressive exit.

When his rival was gone, Gallonius took Ruso by the elbow as if he were an old friend. He steered him into an alcove and gestured him toward one elaborately carved chair while squeezing himself into the other. “Sorry about that, investigator. It’s been a difficult morning. Do sit down.”

Ruso sat. It was almost as uncomfortable as Valens’s couch.

“Would you believe the man refused to resign?” continued Gallonius, “even though the brother’s body turned up on his land.”

“He says he knows nothing about it.”

“Of course. But it doesn’t look good, does it?” Gallonius’s expression suggested it was not especially bad, either.

Ruso wondered if Caratius’s enemies on the Council had retained Asper’s services out of spite.

“On behalf of the town, I apologize for the way he came bothering the procurator. It’s beginning to look as though we should have dealt with this ourselves.”

Ruso’s insistence that there was no need to apologize was brushed aside with a wave of the hand. “He’s always been a difficult man. Doesn’t listen. Rushes in without thinking. We’ve tried to get rid of him before on the grounds that he doesn’t live in the town, but until now he’s always managed to wriggle round it. This morning we’ve finally done it.”

“But I haven’t finished my-”

“Oh, nothing to do with the theft and the murders, even though everyone can see what happened there. No, we’ve finally nailed him on a technicality.” The chair squealed in protest as Gallonius leaned back. “Caratius took money for overseeing drainage repairs outside the meat market eighteen months ago. The work’s not finished, I’m still getting flooding into my property, and the money’s not accounted for.” He lifted a pudgy finger toward one of the brass plaques on the far side of the Hall. “It’s clearly laid out in the Constitution. Tablet six, halfway down, The Sending Of Ambassadors. No man who has not accounted for public funds-you know the sort of thing.”

Ruso neither knew nor cared, but he was wondering whether Caratius was in the sort of financial trouble that would tempt him to steal the town’s money.

‘The man’s a menace,’ continued Gallonius. “No matter how the Council votes, he does as he likes. Things would never have come to this if he’d listened to the rest of us about the Iceni.”

“The Iceni?”

“Oh, he was all for some sort of alliance. The Council refused to get involved. Everyone could see the woman would be a disaster, but he went ahead and married her anyway.” Gallonius sighed. “And now we have two men murdered and the procurator sending a man to chase our tax payment.”

So Verulamium’s suspicious alliance with the Iceni had been nothing more than the ambitions of a rogue politician. The procurator would be relieved to hear it. “I just came to help,” Ruso said. “I’m not involved in the politics.”

“Please thank the procurator for his understanding. We’re sorry you’ve been troubled. You can assure him we’ll deal with it from here. Caratius will be paying up.”

“He will?”

Gallonius ground his palms together as if he had his rival trapped between them, and intoned, “Any ambassador who knowingly acts contrary to the rules shall be liable to pay the value of the case.” It sounded as though it was his favorite quotation. “The value of this case,” he added, “is seven thousand five hundred and thirty-two denarii.”

Ruso was confused. “But I thought it was the Council who sent him to Londinium in the first place?”

“That was Caratius’s argument too, but the Council took the view that he should have reminded us that he was ineligible. Instead he insisted on going.”

“I see,” said Ruso, appalled at the way in which a double murder had been reduced to an unsavory squabble about Council regulations.

“So it may not have been resolved in the way any of us expected, but you can go back to Londinium with the news that the money will be paid as soon as possible.”

Ruso said, “You should know that somebody sent me an anonymous note this morning warning me to get out of town.”

It took a moment for the words to puncture Gallonius’s self-satisfaction. When they did, his throat wobbled as he swallowed. “You’ve received a threat?”

“Yes.”

“A threat against a senior-oh, dear! This is terrible. Do the guards know?”

“I’ve told Dias.”

Gallonius shook his head in disbelief and repeated, “Terrible. Whatever was he thinking of? This is a civilized, law-abiding town. The governor says we’re an example to our neighbors. We’re hoping for a visit from the emperor.” The squabbling politician had vanished. The man looked genuinely upset. “A guest being threatened. I really can’t apologize enough. That a magistrate should stoop so low! Not to mention murder and theft from his own treasury! Shameful!”

“You think it was Caratius?”

“We’ll deal with him, don’t worry.” The magistrate sighed. “If only we had made Asper leave town after the scandal.”

“Yes,” agreed Ruso, getting to his feet. “If only.”

As he came out of the Council chamber he saw that a sizeable crowd had gathered around a cart parked in an open area of the Forum with a hefty wooden frame set up inside. A gangly youth dressed only in a loincloth and blindfold was manhandled up to it by a couple of guards, who stretched out his arms and roped them to the horizontal beam of the frame. One of the men stepped down. The other remained.

There was a pause while Dias’s voice made the announcement. This man had been caught with a ewe and a lamb stolen from his neighbor. Moments later the thin black tail of a whip flashed against the white of the Forum columns. A cry of pain rose above the murmurs of the crowd.

Ruso counted fifteen lashes: plenty of time for the guilty party and his audience to consider the folly of stealing their neighbors’ sheep. He wondered what they did to women who stole cockerels. As for magistrates who murdered tax collectors…

It dawned on him that as soon as he could prise Tilla away from Camma and the red-haired baby, he could follow the well-wisher’s suggestion and get out of this decent law-abiding town. Clearly the locals were embarrassed about the whole fiasco and desperate to clear up as much of the mess as possible for themselves. It was all very well for Caratius to say he was counting on Ruso to “find out the truth,” but Ruso had been sent here to serve the Council, and Caratius was no longer a councillor. Those who were wanted no further investigation.

Caratius would be accused and tried before the governor. Camma would have revenge, Metellus would have the name of the man who had murdered his agent, the Council would finally be free of a difficult man, and the procurator would get the cash. Ruso could go back to being a doctor and Tilla would never need to know that her name had been on that list. By the time Hadrian decided to visit, the town would probably have recovered its dignity. And Ruso might have recovered from the uneasy feeling that there was something wrong with all this, and that he had just been used as a weapon in someone else’s political war.

He turned away from the crowd, shrugging the tension out of his shoulders. He had not done much to be proud of here. The discovery of the incriminating body had been the result of chance rather than investigation. Still, it was hardly his fault. If they had wanted a real inquiry, they should have hired someone who knew what he was doing. He would just pin down one last piece of information to satisfy himself that he had done as much as he could, and then he would face the challenge of extricating Tilla.

He turned to his guards, who were watching the youth’s supporters struggling to untie him and bathe his wounds. “I need to go to Julius Asper’s house,” he said.