Ruso and the Root of All Evils

58

Brother Solemnis’ mules clopped over the long wooden bridge into Arelate as if they had not noticed that it was only held up by a row of boats moored to two posts. His passengers were wide-eyed: Cass staring at the gleaming expanse of river flowing beneath them, and Tilla wondering what would happen if the mooring-ropes broke.

‘Everything’s bigger than I thought,’ whispered Cass. ‘We should never have come.’

Tilla, who was feeling the same way, was not going to admit it. ‘If we had never come,’ she said, ‘we would not know about the beautiful wide river and the strange bridge that will still live in our minds when we are old and grey and our teeth fall out.’

As she spoke the cart lurched over a bump, and she grabbed at the side to steady herself.

Relieved to be safely across, she shook the dust of the journey off her borrowed straw hat, scowled at the sight of yet another amphitheatre rising above the red roofs of the town and observed, ‘My friend and I need beds for the night.’

She saw a blush spread up the back of Brother Solemnis’ neck. He only just halted the mules in time to avoid ploughing into four slaves carrying a litter out of a side street. She tried again. ‘Brother, we need beds.’

Brother Solemnis seemed to be having trouble speaking. Finally he blurted, ‘But what will Mother say?’

Cass leaned forward and explained gently, ‘My friend is hoping you can recommend an inn where we will be safe.’

The blush grew deeper. Finally the lad managed to stammer out a name. ‘Run by a woman,’ he added, as if this might make it safe for them, although not for a defenceless young man. As if to make sure he was rid of them, he said, ‘I’ll take you.’

The woman at the Silver Star Inn seemed delighted to welcome them. She was probably bored with only a sleeping cat and cobwebs for company.

Tilla had long since discovered that the price and quality varied in a place like this, but the basic offering did not. During the journey through Gaul, she had once sighed over yet another insipid cup of watered wine and asked whether there wasn’t something else. The owner, who seemed pleased to be asked, took so long to list the wonders of all the other wines on offer that she wished she had kept quiet. Even the water had to be praised. It was from his own spring, fit for the gods themselves, with the very taste of ambrosia. Realizing he had not understood the question, she had asked if there might be beer, or mead? How about sweetened milk?

The bartender had looked at her as if she had just insulted his children, and said, ‘This is Gallia Narbonensis, madam. We are not in the north now.’

This rejection of beer seemed a peculiar form of obstinacy, especially now that Tilla had found out how wine was produced. But even Cass, to whom she had confided her quiet longing for a long draught of barley beer, had reacted as though her boredom with the subtle and complicated tastes of Gaul were something about which she would do well to keep quiet. So when the usual watery offering turned up in cups that were none too clean, Tilla accepted it with a smile. Then she admired the cat, kicked Cass to stop her staring apprehensively at the cobwebs and began to ask questions.

The innkeeper was very sorry to hear of the loss of the lady’s brother.

‘We are looking for anyone else whose man died on the Pride of the South, so my friend can grieve with them. She is thinking of raising a monument to him by the river.’

Cass’s face betrayed surprise. Tilla, who had only just invented the monument, was rather proud of it.

‘My brother was an honourable steward of a wealthy man,’ explained Cass.

‘His master wants to help pay for the monument,’ said Tilla, voicing the lie that Cass had only implied. ‘But we want an inscription. A very long one, in big gold letters. We want to find out the date of his death, and where his body might lie.’

The woman shook her head. ‘I wish you luck,’ she said, ‘but there is a great deal of sea beyond the end of the river, and one ship is very small.’

Later, when Cass had slipped out to use the latrine and probably inspect the kitchen for cleanliness, the woman leaned closer to Tilla and whispered, ‘Is she gone?’

Suddenly realizing why the woman was oblivious to the state of her surroundings, Tilla said, ‘Do you want to tell us something else?’

‘It is none of my business.’

‘I will not be angry,’ promised Tilla

‘The brother’s master,’ whispered the woman. ‘Do not commit yourself to paying a lot for that monument on his behalf.’

Tilla frowned. ‘You know him?’

‘I know his type,’ insisted the woman. ‘If he sent that poor man to sea in an old bucket like the Pride, then he did not care much about him. And if he has money, he is not prepared to spend it.’

Tilla put a hand on the woman’s arm. ‘What else do you know about this ship?’

‘It is a very unlucky ship.’

‘We know this.’

‘They say the dealer who bought it sailed on it and drowned with all the crew.’

Tilla fingered the chipped edge of her cup and wondered if this was going to be a wasted trip. ‘Perhaps there is nobody left to tell us anything.’

‘There is someone who might know,’ continued the woman, ‘if you aren’t too fussy. Go to Phoebe’s bar in the Street of the Ropemakers.’

Tilla repeated the name. ‘Who shall we say sent us?’

The woman sniffed. ‘If you say it was me, she will tell you nothing. Nobody speaks to Phoebe since she cannot keep her hands off other people’s husbands.’