Caveat emptor

76

Ruso’s guess about Dias was more accurate than he had expected. Not only had Dias not received a medical discharge from the Third Brittones: His description along with his real name was found on a list of deserters stored among the records at the Residence. In the meantime Firmus had unearthed evidence that Rogatus was guilty of taking bribes and interfering with the Imperial post. The procurator was recommending that the governor condemn the pair to work in the Western mines, where lead and silver were extracted in conditions so poisonous that it was tantamount to a death sentence.

Firmus delivered this information to Ruso in person, looking very pleased with himself. “It was my idea,” he said, shifting sideways in an attempt to get comfortable on Valens’s couch. “And Uncle agrees that it’s very appropriate. He’s going to clamp down on traveling officials demanding things they aren’t entitled to, as well. He says he’s glad I brought it to his attention. In fact, he’s written home to tell Mother I’ve made a good start.”

“What about Gallonius?”

“Oh, he’s more useful left where he is.”

“But-”

“He’ll tell the Council to offer Albanus the job of quaestor.”

“But-”

“Gallonius will do exactly what he’s told from now on, Ruso. Metellus has put his name on some sort of list.”

“I see.”

“He knows if he doesn’t behave, we’ll dig up your report and execute him for forgery.”

We. Firmus might have meant Rome, but more likely the word was shorthand for the procurator, the governor, Metellus-and me. The men who had agreed to leave a corrupt and murderous Briton in place because he was useful to them. Ruso hoped Albanus would think long and hard about that job offer.

“So as you see,” continued Firmus as he was leaving, “it’s all worked out rather well. Even though you really weren’t an investigator, were you?” He bent to squint at the pile of letters on the hall table. “Have you taken up clerking now?”

“Just writing to a few acquaintances,” explained Ruso. “Don’t worry, I won’t be using the official post.”

He stood in Valens’s doorway and watched the youth and his escort of guards strut off in the direction of the footbridge that led across the stream to the Residence. Pyramus was hobbling along behind. At this rate, Firmus would go back to Rome a success.

As for Ruso-he was living in a backward province with a barbarian wife whose name was probably on several security lists. They were both mourning the loss of a baby who belonged to neither of them, and of the other children who had existed only in their own imaginations. Instead of using his training and his ingenuity to help live patients, he had been wasting inordinate amounts of time investigating suspicious deaths and disappearances for the benefit of men who didn’t deserve it, and his career was no further forward than it had been when he first joined the army. He glanced down at his stack of requests for jobs in Britannia. He could not impose on Valens for much longer. He needed either to send them, or to burn them and go back to Gaul.

Valens had taken the apprentices out on a house call. Serena and the twins were visiting a friend for the afternoon. He found Tilla kneeling beside a freshly dug patch of earth in the garden. Her hands were smeared with wet mud. He crouched beside her, watching as she gently teased apart a web of delicate roots. The seedlings they belonged to looked as though they were clinging together in the last stages of exhaustion.

Finally she had several safely detached and lying limp and pale on the soil. “Lettuce,” she explained, stabbing a grimy finger twice into the earth before reaching for the jug behind her and filling the holes with water. Lifting a seedling by its undersized leaves, she lowered it into position and carefully firmed the mud around the wilting stem.

“They don’t look too happy,” he observed.

“Serena’s neighbor gave her a pot of seedlings,” she said. “She is not a gardener and cook is too busy, so they were left to starve on the windowsill.”

“Will they survive?”

She shrugged. “Lettuces do not like being moved. If they grow, there will be pigeons and slugs and small children. But the kitchen boy says he will water them, and I am glad they will have a chance.”

He stabbed more holes in line with the ones she had made, and trickled in more water. “I think I’ve made a bit of a mess of everything,” he confessed. “We did all that running around in Verulamium to get Metellus to take your name off that list, then when he talked about doing it, I threw him in the river. “

She lowered the next seedling into its new home and pressed the soil down. “I wish I had been there to see it.”

“Anyway,” he said, “I’ve come to apologize. You had a right to expect better of a husband.”

She looked up. “What do you think I should expect?”

He pondered the question. “Security?” he suggested. “Protection? Enough to live on and a roof over your head. Now the only way I can make sure you’re safe is to ask you to come back to Gaul with me, and I know you don’t want to live there.”

She sat back on her heels. “This is what you think marriage is? Having no enemies and somewhere to put the crockery?”

In the silence that followed, he felt her reach for his hand. “What I expected,” she said as the mud squelched and grated between their fingers, “was this man who tries to do the right thing even when it is foolish.”

For a few moments they were so still that a robin flew down and stabbed at the soil in front of them before darting off to safety.

“Right.” Ruso got to his feet.

“You could stay here and help.”

“I’ll be back soon,” he promised. “You carry on saving lives. This foolish man needs to wash his hands and send out a big pile of letters.”