Caveat emptor

21

By the time Ruso entered the Forum it was approaching midday, but the sky was dark and the air cool. The buildings that surrounded the vast rectangle of open ground on three sides provided little shelter, and a fresh breeze was flapping the covers of a handful of market stalls huddled in a corner by the Great Hall. Ruso had barely begun the search for Albanus’s School for Young Gentlemen when he felt a cold splash of rain. Within seconds stallholders and shoppers were rushing to take cover.

Ruso heard the shrill chant of childish voices above the drumming of raindrops on roof tiles. He could not make out the words, but from somewhere among the ragged assortment of sounds rose the indomitable rhythms of poetry.

He found a dozen or so small boys seated cross-legged beneath a colonnade that, in another time and another place, would be there to protect them from the sun. They were facing an expanse of lime-washed board on which Albanus had painted the lines they were supposed to be reciting. Fluency and volume reached a crescendo as Hercules grabbed a half-human monster so tightly that its eyeballs fell out. Once the violence was over, the class lost interest. There was a scuffle at the back.

“Stop!” cried Albanus.

The chant faltered into confusion.

Through the downpour Ruso could make out Hadrian’s statue high on its plinth, holding out one dripping hand as if he were commanding the rain to cease. He was having no more effect than Albanus.

“I said, stop!” Albanus stabbed a finger at the board. “Start again from here. Vattus, if you pull his hair again I shall make everyone stay behind while I beat you.”

By the time the class was dismissed, the shower had passed. Albanus looked startled as Ruso emerged from behind a pillar. “I’m afraid I haven’t found your missing men, sir.”

“Never mind,” said Ruso. “I can see you’ve been busy. And one of them’s turned up dead, anyway.”

Albanus dipped a brush into a bucket of water and began to scrub Virgil and lime wash off the boards. “Frankly, sir, I don’t seem to be having much success with anything. My father hardly ever had to resort to beating. He just gave his pupils The Look and they did what he told them.”

“The Look?”

“I don’t seem to have inherited it, sir.” Albanus emptied the bucket into the nearest drain and tossed the brush back inside.

“Never mind,” said Ruso. “Recommend a good bar and I’ll buy you a drink. I want to show you something.”

Albanus, who had downed his wine with remarkable speed, put his wooden cup back on the stained counter of Neptune’s Retreat and perused the new copy of the letter with “To Room XXVII” clearly legible at the top. The apprentice had carefully transcribed it onto a fresh tablet: one that bore no references to kissing. “It’s a bit messy,” he observed.

“The man was on his deathbed when he wrote it,” explained Ruso. “And this is a second-generation copy. So if it doesn’t make any sense, don’t worry. But do you think it’s a language, or just gibberish?”

Albanus looked up. “Well, yes, sir. It’s certainly a language. It’s Latin.”

“Latin?” Ruso was incredulous. He had seen some terrible writing in his time, much of it produced by his own hand, but never anything this bad. “Can you make any sense of it?”

Albanus squinted at the wax and held it at the right angle for the light to fall across the surface. “Urgent help needed. Inn of the-” He hesitated. “Something to do with the moon?”

“Blue Moon. How the hell can you read that?”

“Inn of the Blue Moon. I have now seized conclusive and incriminating proof… oh dear. That’s frustrating, isn’t it, sir? That’s where it ends. We don’t know what he had proof of.”

Ruso snatched back the tablet and peered at the lettering. “I still can’t see it.”

“No, sir. You wouldn’t. It’s shorthand.”

“Shorthand?” repeated Ruso, incredulous. In response to Albanus’s warning glance, he turned and realized a couple of sailors farther along the bar had paused to listen. “Why,” he continued, lowering his voice, “would anyone send a message begging for urgent help in shorthand?”

Albanus looked confused. “I’ve no idea, sir. And where’s Room Twenty-seven, and what did he have proof of?”

“It’s not as useful as I’d hoped,” admitted Ruso.

“Perhaps if your second man turns up, he’ll be able to help us,” suggested Albanus. “I did some thinking last night, and while the children were copying their lesson this morning I sent a message around to all the city gates and I’ve had a notice posted over at the fort.”

Ruso swallowed.

“I hope that’s all right, sir? It didn’t cost much.”

“Absolutely,” said Ruso, who had forgotten how thorough his former clerk could be when given an order. “Well done. If anybody’s seen him, we’ll find out.”

And even if they had not, the procurator’s office would shortly be besieged by members of the local garrison reporting sightings in the hope of extra pay. He needed to get back and warn young Firmus before he had a clerical mutiny on his hands. He downed the rest of his drink and clapped the cup back on the counter. “You’ve been a great help, Albanus.”

The clerk’s pinched face creased into a smile. “It’s good to be working with you again, sir. If there’s anything else I can do…”

Ruso said, “You don’t happen to know how to sweet-talk the clerks over at the procurator’s office, do you?”

“I’m afraid not, sir.”

“Never mind. I was just hoping you might know one or two of them.”

“I do know them, sir,” said Albanus. “I’ve just threatened to beat one of their sons.”