Caveat emptor

17

When Ruso finally returned the apprentices to the safety of Valens’s house, he could hear the ominous strains of Tilla singing the sort of song she sang to relieve the boredom of cooking.

He found her disemboweling a plucked fowl by lamplight while the baby lay in a wicker crib in the shadows under the kitchen table. A cauldron was bubbling over the coals and the mixture of steam and chopped onion assaulted his eyes and his lungs. No wonder the kitchen boy had taken himself off to tidy up the dead flowers and sweep the hall.

“Your medicine worked,” said Tilla, wiping the back of her hand across her forehead in a vain attempt to push a damp curl out of her eyes. “Camma went to sleep.”

He reached across the table and tucked the hair out of the way. “It’s late to be starting dinner. We could get something brought in.”

“I will boil it very fast,” she promised. “So. Have you found out what you wanted to know?”

“I’m not sure.” He explained about the boatman.

The bird’s leg joint made a sucking noise as Tilla disarticulated it. She sliced it away with a couple of deft strokes. “Camma does not know why he was on the river,” she said, holding the leg between finger and thumb to examine both sides before dropping it into a bowl. “How near is it to the road?”

“Miles away. Apparently they diverge just out of Verulamium.”

Tilla pondered this as the second leg hit the side of the bowl and slithered down to join its mate.

“Did you ask about the letter?”

“She does not know, but two weeks ago she took some of his letters to the stables for the southbound carriage to pick up, and she thinks one of them had the number of that room written on the outside.”

The southbound carriage would have been heading here. “She can’t remember any more of the address?”

“Numbers are easy. Words are hard to read.” Tilla, who could not read herself, sliced something away from the bird’s tail end and tossed it into the waste bucket in the corner.

It occurred to Ruso that his wife seemed to have a particular talent for anything involving a knife. She would probably have made a far better surgeon than she was a cook.

“It wasn’t a planned escape,” he mused. “If it had been, he wouldn’t have needed to steal the boat. It’s looking more and more as if they both took the money and then the brother murdered him for it.”

Tilla sniffed, either from disdain or from onion: It was hard to tell. “She says Caratius is lying.”

“We’ve been round this already. They looked to me like old enemies.”

“She says he must be lying because Asper was not on the way to Londinium, he was only going to visit a neighbor just outside town. And the neighbor was Caratius.”

“What? Why didn’t she say so?” Why had the magistrate himself not mentioned it? He considered the problem while Tilla hacked the torso of the bird into quarters. He was going to have to question the man again. “Maybe Asper lied to her about where he was going.”

“Or else Camma is right and that magistrate is not telling the truth.” The cauldron hissed and spat as she upended the contents of the bowl into it. “What is funny?”

“Last night you were convinced Asper was the villain because he was a tax man.”

“But now I have seen the magistrate and I do not trust him, either.”

“You hardly met him.”

“I have met men like him before.”

“That’s more or less what he said about Asper.” No wonder Albanus was reduced to dinning letters and numbers into small boys: The art of logic did not seem much prized among the Britons. Ruso leaned back against the wall, folded his arms, and watched as she wiped the table clean and wrung out the cloth.

She said, “You can tell Valens that dinner will not be long.”

Her words reminded him of another mystery. “Has he said anything about Serena coming back?”

“If you really want to know, why do you not ask yourself?”

“You know what Valens is like.”

“Hm. I expect Serena has found out what he is like too.”

Fond as he was of Valens, he had to admit that she had a point.

“I think we should listen to Camma,” Tilla continued. “She is not a fool. When we get to Verulamium I will try and find out the truth.”

“I’d rather you concentrated on looking after your patients,” he said, alarmed by the prospect of Tilla arriving in a strange town and confronting the chief magistrate. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, but get the driver to take you right to the door and be careful who you talk to. If Camma’s neighbors think her husband’s stolen their money, I don’t think you’ll be getting a warm welcome.”

Tilla raised her chin. “The Catuvellauni have always been a tribe that likes to rule over others,” she said. “A warm welcome in their hometown is not something to be proud of.”

“Stay out of trouble, Tilla.”

“I am not going there to make trouble,” she said. “I am going there to-oh!”

The Iceni woman was standing in the doorway. Even in a creased mud-colored tunic that was too short, one hand rubbing sleep out of her eyes and her hair wilder than usual, she was beautiful. She said, “There is something you must know before we go to Verulamium.”

Tilla pointed to the chair by the fire. “Come and sit while I cook.”

Camma did not move. “When I tell you, you may not want to come with me.” She paused, as if she was hoping Tilla might promise to come no matter what she said. When the silence grew awkward, Ruso offered to leave.

“No, you must know this too. I am to blame for what has happened.”

Tilla looked up from stirring the pot and assured her that nothing was her fault.

Camma took no notice. “It was my husband,” she said. “My husband put a curse on him.”

Ruso had very little faith in that sort of irrational nonsense himself, but for people who believed in its power, a curse could stir up an untold amount of trouble. “Your husband put a curse on Caratius?” he said. “What for?”

“No!” She was sounding impatient. “My husband was the one doing the cursing. He cursed Julius Asper.”

For a few seconds it made no sense. Then Tilla said, “So Asper was not-”

“Julius Asper is the father of my baby,” explained Camma. “My husband…” She stopped to clear her throat. “My husband is Chief Magistrate Caratius.”