Ruso and the Root of All Evils

68

Arria paused on her way across to the bath-house and informed Ruso that there was no sign of poor Lucius coming back from Arelate. No, there was no word of Cassiana or That Girl either. ‘The staff keep asking me to decide things. Why don’t they know how to do it themselves? What’s the point of buying slaves if we have to do all the work? As if I don’t have enough to do!’

Ruso, preoccupied, let the wave of complaint wash over him and only surfaced to hear ‘… and join us in the baths. All the young people are there. The children have hardly seen you since you’ve been home.’

‘I need to go and check on the farm staff,’ he said, suspecting it was Arria rather than the children who wanted some adult company. ‘Then I’ve got to get ready for the games tomorrow.’ He ran his fingers over the soft leather of his purse, feeling the circle of the iron ring inside. ‘Could you tell Marcia to come and find me as soon as she’s free?’

The mindless rhythm of the iron blade sliding along the sharpening-stone usually soothed whatever agitation Ruso might be feeling, but this afternoon it had not had time to work its magic when there was a knock on the study door. He laid the scalpel back in the linen roll where he now kept his instruments and hid them behind the desk. Then he retrieved the ring from his purse and called, ‘Come in!’

Marcia closed the door behind her and leaned back against it. ‘Did you give him my letter?’

Ruso nodded, trying not to stare at the rags tied around the curls in his sister’s damp hair, which gave her the odd appearance of a cavalry horse being prepared for parade.

‘Did he tell you it was respectable?’

‘Yes.’

She attempted a smile as she said, ‘I knew you’d be too stuffy to read it!’ but he saw the way her fingers were twisted around each other.

‘He looks in good shape,’ he told her. ‘He’s very confident. That’s half the battle.’

Marcia seemed to find that more reassuring than she would have done had she realized how little her brother really knew about gladiators.

‘They’ll be having the grand dinner tonight,’ she said. ‘They do that, you know. Before the games.’

‘I know.’

‘And then tomorrow there’ll be the sacrifices to Jupiter, and he’ll be in the procession.’ There was no need for her to explain what came next.

‘He didn’t have time to write a reply,’ he said, holding out the ring, ‘but he asked me to give you this.’

She took it. Instead of slipping it on to her finger she turned it around, examining it. ‘I have been thinking,’ she said. ‘If he is not dead, but horribly mutilated, what will happen?’

‘I’ll do my best. Men often recover far better than you expect.’

‘I mean, what shall I do? With a cripple?’

He could not answer that.

She gave a sudden howl of grief, ran forward and flung her arms around him. ‘Oh, Gaius!’ she sobbed, her ragtied head pressing hard against his chest. ‘I can’t bear it, I really can’t!’