Ruso and the Root of All Evils

18

Ruso turned the cart left off the main road about a mile short of his own house. The slaves working in the stony vineyards and olive groves that stretched out to either side of him would all be the property of My Cousin The Senator down in Rome. The man had a country estate this size, and yet his agent was prepared to seize the only home another family owned. No wonder the Gabinii were one of the richest families in town.

Ruso drove for several minutes before a graceful villa came into view. It was large enough to be grand without being ostentatious, and neatly positioned to catch the breeze and make the most of the view south across the plain. Between the house and the surrounding countryside was a long garden wall, and in that wall a pair of gates was opening to allow a carriage to exit.

Ruso narrowed his eyes and peered past the matched pair of bay horses. Someone was sitting in the seat behind the driver. Perhaps he was about to meet Severus earlier than he had expected. He wiped a trickle of sweat off his forehead and shifted his grip on the reins.

As the vehicles closed on each other he slowed the mules, then felt the tension in his shoulders ease as he realized the passenger under the sunshade in the other carriage was a woman. She was repaying his interest by staring back at him from beneath an arrangement of orange curls that seemed to be frozen to her head. He nodded an acknowledgement and returned his attention to the road just as he heard her cry, ‘Stop!’

The carriage rumbled to a halt, and he found himself sitting no more than six feet away from its passenger. A pair of perfectly made-up dark eyes gazed at him from an artificially pale face. The reddened lips parted to emit the word ‘Gaius!’

‘Claudia!’ Ruso was not sure how a man should address his former wife after three years of separation, but he was confident that ‘You’ve put on weight’, and ‘What have you done to your hair?’ were not appropriate.

Claudia seemed to be having the same difficulty, because she repeated, ‘Gaius!’

She was immaculately turned out as usual, from the clusters of pearls dangling beneath her ears, down past something pale pink and floaty to the soles of her delicate coral-pink sandals with matching pearls stitched at the join of the toe-straps. The whole effect looked effortlessly elegant, and to achieve it she would have had the servant-girl messing about with combs and tongs and pots of make-up for hours while she dealt with the strain by helping herself to a platter of cakes.

‘I heard you were home,’ she said.

He had forgotten how she fiddled with the hair at the nape of her neck when she was nervous. He said, ‘You look well.’

‘Thank you, Gaius. I am well.’ She pointed to his bandaged foot. ‘I hear you’ve been in Britannia.’

‘I’ll be fine in a couple of weeks,’ he assured her, realizing as he said it that Fuscus would be expecting a more heroic account of his injury.

Claudia sighed. ‘Well, you always did like those dreadful sorts of places.’

Ruso drowned out the faint echoes of an old argument with ‘I hear I have to congratulate you on your marriage.’

‘Thank you. I take it you haven’t …?’

‘No.’

‘No, of course not. Well, who would you meet over there?’

Since he was not about to enlighten her, there was another awkward pause before they both spoke at once.

‘How is your father?’

‘Did you finish writing your book?’

Her smile revealed one front tooth very slightly in front of the other. ‘You first.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I gave up with the book. So how’s Probus?’

‘My father is very well, thank you. He and my husband are in business together.’

Ruso heard the echo of another criticism: the one about his own lack of ambition. Even if he had stayed here, he knew he would never have been deemed worthy of involvement in Probus’ financial affairs. He said, ‘I was sorry to hear about Justinus and the ship.’

‘Ships sink, I’m afraid. Severus has travelled himself; he understands these things.’

‘I see,’ said Ruso. If Claudia had heard any rumours about the loss of the Pride, she was clearly not intending to share them with him.

‘Severus is from Rome,’ she said, as if that explained his superior understanding.

‘I see.’ In a moment she would probably tell him that Severus was more handsome than he was and better in bed, too. Not that she would be likely to recall much of Ruso’s performance in bed, since it had frequently been curtailed by the room being too hot or too cold, or it being the wrong time of the month at least once a fortnight, or just ‘Not now, Gaius!’

Ruso cleared his throat and reminded himself that, if Claudia’s husband and her father were in business together, they were not doing it to spite him. ‘You know he’s trying to ruin us?’

The lines of her frown were deeper than they used to be. ‘He’s only doing his job, Gaius. He has to represent the Senator’s interests. It isn’t personal.’

‘Isn’t it?’ said Ruso. ‘I must have been misinformed.’

Claudia pursed her lips. ‘It isn’t up to me what Severus does.’

‘Lucius has children to feed,’ he said. ‘And Cass was always a good friend to you.’

‘I hear Lucius is drinking too much,’ she said. ‘And I haven’t seen his wife for years. I hardly saw her when we were married, with all that gallivanting around the East.’

Ruso took a deep breath. If he was not careful, everything would be his fault again. He said, ‘I’m just asking if you think what Severus is doing is fair.’

He saw her shoulders stiffen. ‘What I think doesn’t matter, Gaius. You must talk to my husband.’ She leaned forward. ‘Drive on!’

As the driver urged the horses forward she called over her shoulder, ‘If you’ve come to see him, don’t bother. He’s gone out. He’s gone to see you.’