Ruso and the Root of All Evils

53

Ruso slammed the gates so hard that they rattled. He shoved the bolt across and turned to the dog. ‘Next time,’ he instructed it, gesturing towards the gate that shut out the departing investigators, ‘bite them.’

The enthusiasm with which the dog wagged its tail did not inspire confidence.

Rubbing his sore elbow and feeling ten years older than he had this morning, Ruso turned to limp back towards the stables. Already the shadow of the pergola was stretching its legs across the garden. Tilla and his sister-in-law were somewhere far beyond the safety of the estate, and there was no way anyone could catch up with them before dark.

The crunch of footsteps announced someone behind him. ‘If my vintage is ruined,’ announced Lucius, ‘it’ll be your fault.’

‘Is everyone all right?’

‘If you couldn’t keep that bloody woman under control you had no business bringing her here.’

There was no time to argue. ‘We’ve got to get to Arelate tonight, Brother. Cass and Tilla don’t know what they’re walking into.’

‘It’s bad enough you getting us all accused of poisoning. Now my wife’s run off because your fancy woman’s filled her head with rubbish, and you send a slave to come and tell me!’ Lucius kicked open the yard gate, sending a couple of hens fluttering away in alarm. ‘You don’t know how it feels to have to lie to your own children, do you? To tell them their mother’s gone for a holiday and you don’t know when she’s coming back? Did you see the faces on those nosey bastards just now? Even you suspected her of being a poisoner: what must they think?’

‘Are the mules fast enough, or can we borrow some horses?’

‘I’m in the middle of supervising the vintage, remember? Good old reliable Lucius, here every year — ’

‘We’ve been through this. We need to — ’

‘I stay here and work while you float around the Empire picking up women. You don’t have the faintest idea what responsibility really means, do you? Now I’m going to be gone for who knows how long, because somebody who can walk on both legs needs to go and get my wife out of the clutches of that woman so she can come back here and do her duty!’

Lucius paused for breath, and Marcia’s voice floated across the yard. ‘Are you two going to have another fight?’

The unified ‘No!’ was one of the few things they had agreed on since Ruso’s return.

‘I’ll take the cart,’ growled Lucius to the approaching stable lad. ‘The farm will have to manage without it because my brother’s wrecked the only fast animal we’ve got our hands on and that woman he brought — ’

‘Yes, all right!’ snapped Ruso. ‘If you’d taken your wife seriously in the first place, you wouldn’t need to chase after her now.’

‘Hah! You’re advising me about marriage?’

Ruso took a deep breath, consciously unclenched his fists and said, ‘Neither of us did anything to help, so Cass and Tilla have gone to Arelate by themselves to see what they can find out about the Pride of the South. Now I’ve found out Severus had a man in the port who — ’

‘What man?’

‘All I know is that his name is Ponticus, and if he finds out why they’re there, he’ll try to silence them.’

Lucius ran a hand through his thinning hair. ‘I can’t believe this. You knew my wife was in danger and you didn’t even tell me?’

‘If we leave now — ’

‘Oh, no. This time we is just me. You’ve made enough mess.’

‘But — ’

‘I’ll take the stable lad. You can stay here and do all the work for a change. You can have the old mule that’s left, and that horse will want delivering back to the estate in the morning.’

‘But — ’

Lucius’ fist shot out and grabbed a handful of his tunic. ‘Just for once, Gaius, just once — will you bloody well let me make my own decisions?’