Terra Incognita

90

Ruso entered the bathhouse alone. At the sight of him, Claudius Innocens stood up so fast that he almost knocked over his table and smashed his bottles of potions on the hall floor. “Doctor, sir!” he exclaimed, hastily steadying the table and shifting a couple of pots to the back of the display before rearranging the strands of his hair across his bald patch. “What a pleasure to see you again!”

“If only it were mutual,” said Ruso, observing that Innocens seemed greasier than ever. “What are you selling?”

The man’s smile was probably supposed to be encouraging. “Tonics for every condition, sir. All guaranteed recipes from the great healers and using only the purest ingredients. Special prices for you, sir, of course. What would you like to try?”

“Have you got any Doctor Ruso’s Special Love Potion?”

Innocens’s smile froze. His gaze dropped to the pots and bottles. “I’m not sure we’ve got anything like that, sir. But if you give me the recipe I’d be pleased to get it made up and we’ll come to an arrangement about the profits.”

Ruso reached for one of the pots Innocens had moved to the back. Clumsily chalked on the side was a phallus. “Is this it?”

“That’s, ah, that’s-”

Ruso turned the pot around to find his own name chalked on the opposite side.

“Somebody gave them to me, sir,” Innocens protested. “But they haven’t gone very well. I won’t be selling any more of them. Once I’ve got rid of these last few-”

“No more.”

“No more, sir. Of course.” Innocens picked up a similar pot, spat on it, and began to rub at the chalk inscription. “Perhaps a new name would be the thing.”

“If you must do it, at least pick the name of somebody long dead,” suggested Ruso. “Like you did with Scribonius.”

“Ah, yes, sir! Now that is a good seller. As used by centurions-I’ll be able to say, ‘As used by legionary doctors,’ as well now, sir, won’t I?”

“Not if you want to live,” said Ruso. “And that reminds me. You remember the slave girl you sold me?”

“The blond girl? You got a bargain there, sir. I hope you’re still happy with her?”

Ruso was not going to answer that. “There’s a native in town who used to think he owned her,” he said. “A very violent man from the north who got home one day and found out his wives had been persuaded to sell his favorite serving girl to a dodgy trader. That native’s probably talking to the governor’s men right now.”

Innocens’s eyes widened. “Really, sir?”

“Really,” said Ruso.

Innocens bent down past his belly and pulled out a wooden box full of straw from beneath the table. “As ever, sir,” he said, swiftly stacking his bottles in the straw, “it’s been a pleasure to do business with you.”