Caveat emptor

66

Ruso stood on the podium. One or two of the councillors crammed onto the benches had taken the time to dress in their togas but most were in their everyday clothes. He looked over their heads to the ordinary men and women crowding all the way to the back of the chamber. He recognized the bronzesmiths who lived next to Camma. Nico’s landlady. The masseur with the mole on his nose. These Britons with their shaggy hair, their bright stripes and checks and their legs encased in workaday trousers, were once more waiting for him to make a speech.

The chief magistrates were watching him from one side, seated in their metal-framed chairs. At the far end of the chamber, Dias was standing in the open doorway, well placed both to hear what was being said and to issue orders to his men outside.

Those were the listeners he could see, but whatever he said here would have wider consequences. Other people had expectations of him. Metellus. Firmus. The procurator. Camma. Tilla.

Ruso cleared his throat and glanced at the magistrates. They knew what he was about to say. They had called him into a side room to discuss it as the chamber was beginning to fill.

Gallonius had been the more apologetic of the two, saying, “We had hoped it would not come to this.”

Caratius had insisted that if he had known what was going on, he would have put a stop to it. But both were agreed that there was only one way forward.

“Nico had threatened suicide before, you know,” explained Gallonius.

“Really?”

“On the day he confessed to me about all the false coins he had slipped into the theater fund to replace the money he took out.”

Ruso stared at him. “You knew?”

“He came and told me all about it after we heard that Asper was dead. Nico was planning to slip the stolen tax money back in to replace the false coins, but when your investigations began, I think he realized there was no way out.”

“I knew none of this when I came to Londinium,” put in Caratius.

Ruso said, “But all the time I was here, you knew-”

“ He knew,” said Caratius, glaring at Gallonius. “I was only told the whole sorry tale this morning. It’s an utter disgrace.”

“And have they told you where my wife is?”

“Your wife is in good hands, Investigator,” Gallonius assured him. “All you have to do is make your final report to the Council as we’ve agreed, explain that the money has been found and the investigation is over, and I’m sure our guards will bring her back safely to you.”

“I’m representing the procurator. I can’t lie.”

Caratius said, “Nobody is asking you to lie.”

Gallonius’s face softened into a smile. “We are simply asking you not to announce wild conclusions that will do nothing but stir up trouble. We asked the procurator for help, we have received it, the money is found, and we are satisfied that the investigation is over.”

Ruso turned to Caratius. “I think Dias and Rogatus murdered Asper and his brother and tried to put the blame on you. I’m sure Dias killed Nico and he nearly killed me. If you don’t get him under control, you could be next. Why the hell are you covering this up?”

Gallonius said, “If I were you, Investigator, I wouldn’t be making wild accusations about our guards while they are looking after your wife.”

Caratius held up a hand to silence him. “Your complaints have been noted,” he said. “And we’re grateful to you for pointing out the problem. But this town paid a very large price for its independence and we don’t intend to lose it by calling in Rome’s help for an internal problem.”

“We don’t want anyone saying we can’t control our own affairs,” said Gallonius.

Caratius said, “We’ll deal with our own people in our own way after you’ve gone. Please make your report and leave.”

“Exactly,” said Gallonius.

Shut away in the side room, listening to the babble of natives gathering outside, Ruso realized he had achieved a small and unwelcome miracle. The quarreling Britons had finally managed to unite in the face of a common enemy.

The hubbub in the Council chamber had fallen silent now. Ruso cleared his throat again and wished there were something in front of him to hold on to. He should have made notes. He should have done many things. Now that it was too late, he was beginning to see what they were.

Someone coughed.

A voice shouted, “Get on with it!”

Ruso glanced across to make sure Satto was still in the side room, where he had been advised to keep out of the way. He took a deep breath and set out across the tightrope. “My name is Gaius Petreius Ruso,” he announced. “I was sent here by the procurator at the request of Chief Magistrate Caratius to help your Council find out what had happened to a missing consignment of tax money. As you know, the money has turned up.”

There was a general cheer, prolonged by the catching-up of people who needed his words translated by their neighbors or repeated into deaf ears.

“As you also know, both of the men who were supposed to deliver it were found murdered, and this morning we’ve all been told about the sad death of your quaestor, Nico. He was suffocated by the fumes from a brazier during the night.”

The low volume of the murmur that followed suggested most of his audience had already heard this. Someone shouted, “Tell us something we don’t know!” The ripple of laughter around the hall did not disguise the sound of the scuffle at the back. Ruso waited until the guard had hauled the heckler out past Dias, and began again.

“The missing money was found in the quaestor’s room by his doctor.” Ruso glanced at Gallonius. “The circumstances of his death were consistent with suicide. We know he went into the strong room with Julius Asper on the day the tax money was taken out, but we’ll probably never know how it ended up under his bed.”

Undeterred by the fate of the previous heckler, someone called out something in British, and there were cries of agreement. Someone helpfully translated, “He pinched it!”

“Anyway, the point is, you’ve got it back,” said Ruso. “But I’m afraid there’s more bad news.” He beckoned to the Council clerk, who stepped forward and handed him the clay mold. He held it up for everyone to see, glanced down the hall in the hope of catching the expression on Dias’s face, and stopped. Camma and Grata had just appeared in the doorway with Albanus. Camma had the baby tied in a shawl against her chest. Dias was letting them in but Albanus remained outside, shaking his head from side to side, his hands raised in a gesture of hopeless confusion that said he had not yet found Tilla. Ruso gave a nod of acknowledgment. Albanus stepped back and disappeared from view.

Camma’s height and her bright hair made her easy to follow in the crowd, and he watched as the women edged along the back wall to find a space. Albanus had probably brought them here to keep them safe, but he had done it at the worst possible moment.

“Get on with it, man!”

There was no time to explain.

“Some of you will know what this is,” he said, returning his attention to the mold. “If you don’t, it’s a mold for making coin blanks. But of course coins can only be made with the approval of the emperor.” He held up something else. “This looks like a denarius. It isn’t. Your money changer has confirmed that it’s a fake. The silver is just a coating.”

There was a murmur of unrest around the room.

“I’m sorry to say that a proportion of the money in your theater fund is made up of this sort of thing,” said Ruso.

The unrest swelled to outrage and disbelief. The words money changer and fraud rose from the general hubbub.

“It isn’t-” Ruso stopped, waiting for quiet. “It isn’t your money changer’s fault,” he said. “The coins were switched after they had been counted and checked and stored in the strong room.”

The uproar he had been expecting erupted. Everyone was either talking to his neighbor or shouting at Ruso. One voice was demanding, “Why the theater fund?” That was when Satto appeared and shouted, “Because you idiots will never get round to spending it!” and was engulfed in a storm of accusations and demands to know why he hadn’t spotted it before. “Because it was stashed away in the theater fund!” did not seem to satisfy anyone. Dias’s hand rose in a signal to a group of guards. They pushed their way forward to drag Satto and a couple of councillors apart before a fight started.

Gallonius lumbered onto the podium and raised both hands in the air, shouting, “Order!” to little avail. The clerk appeared with the horn and blew an off-key blast that had to be repeated three times before anyone took any notice.

When Ruso could finally make himself heard, he said, “The unfortunate death of the quaestor means he can’t shed any light on how this was done.”

“He was the one doing it,” prompted Gallonius, squeezing back into his seat.

“Not alone,” Ruso said. “He wouldn’t have enough hands. Forging money is at least a two-man job. And if he was putting false coins into the theater fund so he could steal the real money, what was he doing with it? Did anyone see any evidence of him being wealthy?”

For once, nobody had anything to say. Gallonius glared at him. This was a departure from the script.

“I think Nico was forced to help,” Ruso said, “by someone who had some power over him. Someone who had caught him out in some way, or threatened him.”

Both magistrates were listening intently now. Ruso tried to look over the heads of the crowd, to catch Camma’s attention. Their eyes met. He was about to say more or less what he had been told to say, and he willed her to understand that he had no choice. He hoped Albanus had warned her that Tilla was being held hostage. He hoped the guards here would have the decency to protect her when he had finished speaking. Lifting up the evidence again, he hoped he wasn’t about to make things worse for everybody. “I found these things,” he said, “including this copy of the money changer’s seal, in with the possessions of Julius Asper and his brother.”

Camma’s scream of “No!” penetrated the uproar. Someone yelled, “Where’s our money, bitch?” Caratius was shouting, “I warned you about him! Didn’t I warn you?”

People were crowding toward the back of the room. He could not see her now. He felt a sudden lurch of panic. What if the Dias’s men stood back and refused to intervene?

He leapt down from the platform shouting, “Keep away from her!” and was instantly surrounded by a gang of councillors. As he struggled to push past them, an elbow landed in his ribs, a boot on his toes, and he had to grab at someone’s arm to avoid being knocked over. By the time the guards reached him, he had barely made it as far as the second bench. Shouting, “Keep them away from her!” and “Where’s my wife?” he was hauled back toward the platform. Breathless, unable to yell above the din, he gazed out over the chaos and saw a commotion going on at the far end of the hall. Dias and a couple of his men were blocking the doorway with their shields, sticks raised to beat anyone who dared to approach. Ruso scanned the crowd but could not see Camma or Grata anywhere.

“It’s all right, Investigator.” Gallonius’s voice in his ear made him jump. He had not noticed the magistrate joining him on the platform. “We’re not barbarians. Our guards allowed the women to leave safely.”

“Where’s my wife?”

“I’m sure she can’t be far away. Finish your speech and we’ll send someone to look for her.”

“I’ve got no more to say.”

“That was a good speech, but you left out who murdered Julius Asper.”

He had left out a great number of things. It was just as well that logic was not the Britons’ strong point. His listeners had leapt to the conclusions they were supposed to reach, despite the fact that much of his statement was equivocal and there were wide enough gaps in it to drive one of Boudica’s chariots through. Ruso looked Gallonius in the eye. “I’m not going to tell anybody Nico killed Asper,” he said. “You might have got them believing Asper was a forger, but they’d never fall for that. Just remember that Camma’s got the procurator’s protection, so if anything happens to her, you’ll be getting more visits from investigators. Where’s my wife, Gallonius?”

Gallonius beckoned to the clerk. “Have the guards escort the investigator back to the mansio, will you?” He turned to Ruso and smiled. “Thank you, Investigator. I think you’ll find that, as I said, we are not barbarians.”