Ruso and the Root of All Evils

14

The buildings were grander than anything she had seen before, but the streets smelled just as powerfully as every other town of fish sauce and fresh bread, frying, warm dung, sweaty bodies and brash perfume.

‘Come on, Tilla, or whatever your name is,’ urged Marcia over the clatter of a passing hand-cart. ‘We’ve got something to show you.’

The something was a temple, its stone pillars still new enough to glare white in the sun. Marcia pointed upwards. ‘See those marks?’

Tilla shaded her eyes and squinted at the roof that projected out over the high base of the building. ‘What marks?’

‘Those gold marks are called writing,’ explained Marcia. ‘I don’t suppose you have much of that where you come from.’

‘We do not need it,’ said Tilla, who had heard enough inscriptions read aloud to know that they were usually full of lies and showing-off. ‘My people have good memories.’

‘You’re not just staying with any old family, you know,’ Marcia continued, undaunted. ‘That says, “This temple was built by Publius Petreius Largus” — that’s our father. It was hideously expensive. So everyone can see how generous we are.’

‘This,’ murmured Flora in Tilla’s left ear, ‘makes it all the more embarrassing that Gaius won’t give us a dowry.’

‘What’s that about dowries?’

‘Sh!’ hissed Flora, glancing around. ‘We don’t want everyone to know.’

‘As if they don’t already,’ retorted Marcia. ‘And Gaius isn’t even embarrassed about it, is he?’

Tilla said, ‘Your brother is a good man who is doing his best.’

Marcia sniffed. ‘Is that what he told you? I bet he’s bought himself a nice house in Britannia.’

Tilla opened her mouth to say, ‘No, just a rented room,’ then thought better of it. Discussion of where the Medicus lived might lead on to questions about herself, and she was not going to tell them that back at home she was his housekeeper.

‘Huh!’ said Marcia, taking her silence for assent. ‘I knew it!’ She grabbed Flora by the arm. ‘Come on. I want to see if those earrings are still there.’

‘Mother said we’d got to give her the tour.’

‘Oh, never mind about that.’ Marcia turned to Tilla. ‘You don’t want to see a whole lot of boring old buildings, do you?’

‘No,’ said Tilla, who did not want to see a whole lot of boring old shops, either.

‘See?’ demanded Marcia of her sister. ‘She won’t know the difference anyway. They live in mud huts over there, you know. With straw on the roof.’

Tilla wondered if the girl’s rudeness had something to do with the heat inside her unnecessary layers of clothing. ‘Are we going to look for earrings?’

‘Oh, yes!’ Marcia’s smile was surprisingly childlike. ‘The most beautiful earrings you’ve ever seen!’

They had hardly gone ten paces when there was a yell from further down the street. An announcer had stationed himself at a crossroads and was shouting something about games being given to the people by the generous benefactor the magistrate Gabinius Fuscus. After more nonsense about how wonderful this Fuscus was, the man unrolled a scroll and read out a list of attractions that could be seen at the amphitheatre in five days’ time.

Several passers-by paused to listen: most carried on about their business while the man announced the promised horrors as if he were personally proud of them.

‘And you think you are better than me!’ Tilla murmured, ashamed that she did not dare to say it loud enough to get herself into trouble. She wanted to do as she had always done back in Deva: to cover her ears and walk away. She did not want to hear what this Fuscus — one of the Medicus’ people — was planning to inflict on men and animals in the name of entertainment. But what difference would it make? One foreigner’s disgust would change nothing, and sympathy for the victims would not alter their fate.

It was Marcia who caused the commotion. It was Marcia who screamed, ‘No!’ and flung herself at the announcer, trying to grab the scroll and shouting, ‘It’s not true! Show me where it says that! You’re making it up!’

The announcer backed away and made feeble attempts to beat her off with the scroll, clearly worried about doing too much damage to a well-dressed young lady. Finally Flora and Tilla hauled her back, Tilla seizing one end of the green stole and wrapping it across Marcia’s face so she was left floundering in the middle of the street as the announcer retreated and Flora shouted, ‘Just leave her to us! She’s mad!’ to the surprised onlookers.

‘What on earth is the matter with you?’ hissed Flora as they hustled her sister around the corner and thrust her into the shade of a doorway.

Tilla released the stole, and Marcia snatched it away from her face. ‘Sharp weapons!’ she cried. ‘He said they were using sharp weapons!’

‘Oh, of course they won’t!’ Flora reassured her. ‘It’s fixed. Gladiator fights are always fixed. Everybody knows that.’

‘They are not fixed!’ retorted Marcia. ‘The best fighters win. On merit.’

‘Then he’ll be all right, won’t he?’

‘You don’t understand!’

‘Tertius will be all right,’ insisted Flora. ‘He’ll make lots of money and buy himself out. Come and look at the earrings.’

‘This is all Gaius’ fault! If he had arranged the dowries, none of this would be happening.’

‘You can’t do anything about that,’ pointed out Flora while Tilla wondered what dowries had to do with gladiators, and indeed what Marcia had to do with this particular gladiator called Tertius.

‘We might as well go and look at earrings now we’re here,’ urged Flora.

Marcia’s lips pursed as if she was considering what to do. Finally she said, ‘All right. But I shan’t enjoy it now.’