Caveat emptor

24

The room smelled of liniment. The procurator’s portly middleaged form was propped up on a couch instead of sitting at the desk, but the crisp white tunic suggested he was of the no-nonsense school that believed it was necessary to dress properly even when in pain.

“So,” the man said, “you’re my nephew’s investigator.”

“Yes, sir.” But not, if he could find an escape route, for much longer.

The man’s breathing was shallow and quick, as if he did not dare take a full-size breath for fear of splitting open his cracked ribs. Ruso guessed that he too had been awake for much of the night.

The procurator’s gray eyes moved to his nephew. “Thank you, Firmus. I’ll have you called if I need you.”

“But sir, I-”

“Have you finished looking through the ingot ledgers?”

Firmus had not.

The man shifted slightly and gasped. Ruso guessed he was waiting for the pain to subside before continuing. “I understand the local magistrate’s blaming the dead man for everything.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And what do you make of that?”

“The magistrate has a personal grudge against Asper,” said Ruso, realizing that in all the excitement over Room Twenty-seven he had failed to tell Firmus about Caratius’s broken marriage. “So it’s hard to say. He claims Asper left town with only his brother for security. The brother’s still missing and so is the money. Perhaps they were both robbed, or the brother turned on him. The woman says he never had the money in the first place, but if he was planning to leave her and run off with it, he’d hardly tell her beforehand.”

“It’s an odd business altogether,” said the procurator. “We’ve never had any trouble with Verulamium before. They usually pay up straightaway. They’re more enthusiastic about being Roman than most of Rome is. Firmus tells me you have a codes man tackling a mystery letter?”

Ruso explained. To his relief, the procurator was not impressed. “Sounds like his mind was going. Don’t waste any more time on it. I want you to concentrate on helping the magistrate track down the money.”

Ruso realized he had also failed to tell Firmus that someone thought the letter worth stealing. With luck, it would be quietly forgotten. Metellus’s name would never need to be mentioned.

The procurator extended one arm at an awkward angle, then winced as he lifted the drink off the table. “Tastes disgusting,” he observed after a long drink. “Wretched medic says I’ll be like this for weeks. Not much he can do except strapping up and doping, he says. When I asked how much I was paying him for doing nothing, he said he was saving me from all the other quacks who’d make it worse.”

Ruso could imagine that conversation. “There’s not much else can be done for ribs, sir.”

“Ah. Yes. Young Firmus tells me you were working undercover as a medic.”

There it was. The escape route. If he were dismissed by the procurator, he would be of no use to Metellus. The security man would lose interest in him, and in Tilla. Ruso took a deep breath and fixed his gaze on a point on the far wall just above the procurator’s head. “I think there’s something you should know, sir,” he said. “I’m not really an investigator. I’m just a medic who happens to have gotten involved in a few things by mistake. This has all been a misunderstanding.”

To his surprise, the procurator did not react. Ruso was baffled. Had he not made it plain enough? The combination of pain and medicine must be slowing the man’s brain. He stood at attention and tried again. “I’m not an investigator at all, sir,” he repeated. “I never have been. I accepted the job under false pretenses.”

The procurator downed the last of the drink, then put both hands on the edge of the couch and gasped as he lifted himself into a slightly different position. “So have you worked for Metellus, or not?”

Ruso cleared his throat. “Only as a medical officer when he was dealing with an incident up on the border, sir.” It was near enough to the truth. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”

“So you should be.” There was a pause while the procurator seemed to be considering what to do next. Finally he said, “Strictly speaking, none of this is our problem. We could insist that the Catuvellauni pay up. The magistrate knows that as well as I do, but he’s pretending he doesn’t. And frankly, I’d rather pretend I don’t too. We have enough trouble with the difficult tribes without upsetting the ones who are supposed to like us.”

Ruso waited. He had expected to be punished, or dismissed in disgrace. He had not expected to be offered the procurator’s views on fiscal politics.

“I hear you did a good enough job with the body. Just go up there, look helpful, and try not to annoy them or make me look a fool.”

Ruso swallowed. “You still want me to carry on, sir?”

The man frowned. “Am I not making myself plain? I’ve promised them an investigator. I don’t have anyone else to offer, so you’ll have to do. Consider yourself seconded to the Council at Verulamium.”

“Yes, sir.” He was available, cheap-and expendable.

“Ask some sensible questions and see if there’s any chance of getting their money back. It’s probably long gone, but while you’re there you can take a discreet look at this connection with the Iceni. I take it that having worked alongside Metellus, you do know what ‘discreet’ means?”

“Yes, sir,” said Ruso, his spirits sinking even further.

“Last time there was trouble around here,” continued the procurator, “one of my esteemed predecessors got the blame for stirring up the Iceni with unreasonable tax demands.”

So that was it. The man was trying to find out how hard he could push the natives if the money didn’t turn up.

“Of course,” he continued, “all that business was sixty years ago. I doubt there’s anyone alive up there who remembers it.”

Ruso wondered about the quality of the briefing the procurator had received before taking up his post. Evidently nobody had suggested that he spend time listening to the locals. If he had, he would know that a lack of living witnesses made little difference to the Britons. If Camma’s people were anything like Tilla’s, the tale of How We Nearly Chased Off The Roman Oppressors would be lovingly polished, embellished, and passed around the tribal hearths for many generations to come.

“The natives have long memories, sir,” he ventured. “But the Iceni woman who came here wasn’t hostile to Rome.”

The Procurator grunted. “Hooking up with the local tax collector could have given her access to a lot of information. I’m told the first one seemed friendly enough till some idiot upset her.”

“Boudica?”

The bushy eyebrows met again. “We don’t mention that name here, Ruso. And you’d be wise not to mention it in Verulamium, either.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Our people learned a lot of lessons after that little fracas,” observed the procurator. “It pays to keep the locals sweet. Give them money to put up a few grand buildings and let them run their own affairs. That way they do their falling out with one another, not with us.”

Ruso reflected that the tribes down here must be very different from those in the North, with its dreary cycle of native raids and vicious crackdowns by the army.

“Honor the gods, obey the law, and pay the emperor,” observed the procurator. “The three secrets of success. Although since Hadrian generously made a bonfire of all the old unpaid tax bills, some of the tribes seem a little hazy over the last one. Any questions?”

“I don’t think so, sir.”

“Good. Keep in touch and watch your back. The Britons are a tricky bunch. Even the ones who speak Latin and know how to use a bathhouse. You can never tell what they’re thinking.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Ruso, remembering last night’s chicken dinner. “I will.”