Terra Incognita (44 page)

The prefect’s eyes flicked across to the other man. “Metellus?”

“She’s got a motive for discrediting Trenus, sir. And last time she was questioned she said nothing about seeing this man before.”

“I do not lie,” insisted Tilla, concentrating her gaze on the prefect and wishing the snaky one would stop interfering. “If you trust Trenus, you will be a very sorry officer. He is pretending to be your friend while he is supporting this man who stirs up my people against you.”

Again the two men looked at each other.

“Do you know where we can find this storyteller with the horse?”

“No, sir. He is very careful. But Trenus must know someone who can tell you.”

The prefect beckoned the snaky one to him again. There was another whispered conversation.

When they had finished she said, “Now can the people go?”

The snaky one stepped aside. The prefect sat looking at her, tapping a thumb on the edge of his desk. “Rome has no quarrel with the Votadini,” he said. “Why would Trenus want to cause trouble here?”

“I only tell you what I know, my lord. I do not know what is in his mind.”

The thumb tapped the desk again. Finally he said, “You were a slave to him for how long?”

“Two years, my lord.”

“You know his people.”

“Some of them.”

“You could be very useful to us.”

“But my lord—”

“Give us something definite on Trenus’s connection with the Stag Man and we’ll release your people. You have my word.”

82

R
USO AND THE
nymph were watching the rising sun gilding the top tiles of the prefect’s roof when two people emerged from his office.

“Tilla!”

She turned to look at Ruso as the guard hustled her along under the portico.

“Are you all right?”

“Eyes front!” snapped the guard, giving her a shove that made her stumble, and they were gone.

Moments later another familiar figure emerged. Metellus strode past the nymph and accosted him. “Your girlfriend,” he said, “is nothing but trouble.”

“What’s she done now?”

“Amazing how taking hostages jogs their memories, isn’t it? She’s suddenly remembered where she saw Stag Man before.”

“She’s what? Let me talk to her!”

Metellus snorted. “If I were you, I’d stay well away. You don’t want to be dragged down with her. Try thinking with your head for a change, Ruso.”

Before Ruso’s head could come up with a reply, the house steward approached.

“Prefect Decianus will see you now, sir,” said the steward, his tone suggesting that if it were up to him, he would have told Ruso to come back sometime next year.

In the light of what Metellus had just said, Ruso wished he had.

“You were supposed to report back in time for Metellus to organize a prosecution case,” said Decianus, lifting his arms while a crouching slave adjusted the folds of his tunic, “Instead of gallivanting over the hills getting yourself taken prisoner by barbarians.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“Are you injured?”

“Not really, sir.”

“I hear your deputy’s been arrested for trying to murder your clerk. You haven’t exactly restored order in the infirmary, have you?”

“The clerk was investigating a fraud in the infirmary accounts, sir.”

“What else have you got for me?”

What Ruso had had, until moments ago, was a plea for mercy on behalf of the undeserving Rianorix and an insistence that both he and the innocent Tilla had been trying to restrain the crowd last night.

Now it seemed that Tilla was not so innocent after all. And if she had been lying to him all along about knowing the Stag Man, perhaps she had lied about Rianorix. Perhaps he really had murdered Felix. On the other hand, Catavignus had a motive, and he had an opportunity, and . . . And Ruso was suffering from lack of sleep and a headache and he did not know what to say about any of this. He could not come up with any words until he had had a chance to unscramble Metellus’s latest revelation.

“I’m told,” prompted Decianus, “that you now think Catavignus the brewer carried out the murder. I take it we have evidence?”

“I was hoping to get something this morning, sir.”

“You mean no?”

“Not yet, sir.”

The slave finished tweaking and lifted the prefect’s breastplate from the stand. Decianus motioned him to wait. “I’ve got the governor arriving in a matter of hours,” he said. “I’ve still got one man who’s confessed to a murder and another one who probably did it. You’ve had days to sort this out, and we’re no farther ahead.”

“You’ve got Rianorix in custody again, sir.”

“We could have done that whenever we wanted. We’d have the Stag Man as well by now if it weren’t for you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So have you got anything useful to tell me?”

“The infirmary’s been cleaned out and tidied up and is ready for the governor’s inspection, sir.”

“I heard you had to bring in reinforcements.”

“A professional colleague volunteered, sir.”

“So you didn’t even manage that by yourself.”

“No, sir.” There was no point in arguing. “Sir, I need to ask you something.”

Decianus sighed. “Go on.”

“I was hoping you could release the girl Tilla—the one you just saw— to help me gather evidence this morning.”

Decianus lowered his head and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. Looking up, he said, “Is this some sort of practical joke?”

“Sir?”

“Did she put you up to this?”

“No, sir.”

“I suppose you’d like me to release the basket maker as well?”

“No, sir. We can do that if we find some evidence against Catavignus.”

“Catavignus is on our side, Ruso, and it’s time you learned to stand on your own feet instead of calling on colleagues and women to help you out. You’ve already told Metellus that your deputy did it. Next you’ll be telling me it was you. I’m not surprised the legion thought they could spare you. You’re as mad as the Greek and twice as useless. Now clear off, I’ve got more important things to do.”

83

V
ALENS, WHO HAD
evidently abandoned all hope of sleep, looked up from examining an ulcerated leg. “Successful visit?”

“Not exactly,” said Ruso.

“Thessalus is asking for you.”

“Tell him I’m trying to sort something out.”

“He said to remind you the governor’s due at midday.”

“Not now he isn’t,” put in the owner of the leg.

“Really?” said Ruso, his hopes lifting.

“My mate just saw a dispatch rider who said he passed them about an hour ago out on the south road.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s true, sir,” put in the orderly. “Only it’s less than an hour now because I heard it three patients ago.”

“Miss Aemilia is at the baths, sir.”

“No matter,” said Ruso. “It’s you I want to talk to. It’s about laundry.”

He followed Catavignus’s housekeeper into the kitchen. He was rewarded with the sight of limp garments festooned across the back of the room. “We’ve got no space for any more,” said Ness, surveying the drooping lines of twine. “There’s a woman you could talk to down on the bridge road. We sometimes send out there when we’ve got too much.”

“It’s not for me,” said Ruso, trying to ignore the feminine underwear draped across the nearest line and examining the tunics beyond for the vestiges of bloodstains. “I’m trying to find out something about the laundry here. Whether you’ve been asked to wash anything—unusual.”

“Unusual?”

“Ah—unusually soiled. Or perhaps you’ve found something that somebody’s had a go at washing by themselves. In the last few days.”

The woman frowned.

“I wouldn’t be troubling you with this if it weren’t very important.”

“I’ll have to ask the master, sir.”

“I’m asking you.”

She folded her arms. “I couldn’t answer questions about the household without the master’s permission, sir. Or Miss Aemilia.”

“I know,” said Ruso. “Which normally would be admirable, but it’s vital that you tell me right now.”

“Shall I wake the master, sir?”

“No!”

The woman looked relieved.

“I’ve been given the prefect’s authority,” insisted Ruso, not adding that it had now been rescinded.

“I don’t answer to the prefect about my laundry. If the master or Miss—”

“I’ll find Aemilia.”

As she followed him to the door the woman said, “Sorry not to help you, sir,” and actually sounded as though she meant it.

The elderly bath attendant raised a hand to halt him in the doorway. “Sorry, sir. This is the women’s session.”

“I know,” said Ruso, “It’s a woman I’m after. Aemilia, daughter of Catavignus the brewer. Can somebody fetch her for me?”

The man looked around nervously. “Are you family, sir?”

“Yes,” lied Ruso. “And it’s urgent.”

The man shook his head. “I don’t think you are, sir. I—oh!”

Ruso had grabbed him by the arms and lifted him off the floor. “Sorry,” he said, putting the man down again to one side, “but I really haven’t got time to argue.”

The female scream was a ghastly sound at the best of times, but when several of them did it together in a room with a bad echo, the effect was hideous. Ruso clapped his hands over his ears and shouted, “Has anyone seen Aemilia?” over the cacophony, but nobody seemed to be listening.

A glance around the hall revealed that he would have to go deeper into the female sanctuary that was the Coria bathhouse before the sounding of the midday bell.

The cold room was empty. It was in the warm room that the real trouble started.

“A man!”

“Get out!”

“Aemilia?” ventured Ruso with his head around the door, his gaze darting about wildly in an attempt not to settle on any undressed females except the one he needed to talk to.

“Go away!” shrieked a woman whose vast and dimpled thighs seemed to be keeping her anchored on the bench as she lunged at him with a towel.

“Could somebody please—”

“Help!”

“Help, a man!”

The crashing open of the cold room door behind him warned Ruso that the attendant had fetched reinforcements. He ignored the shrieks as he strode across to enter the hot room.

The heat and the additional screaming—they had obviously heard what was going on next door and got themselves ready—both hit him at the same time. They were followed by a splatter of hot water in the face, a hail of bathing equipment, and a flurry of buffeting towels.

“Out!” screamed his tormentors. “Out, out, out!”

“Where’s Aemilia?” yelled Ruso, ducking to one side and trying to shield his head with his arms.

“Out!”

He finally retreated when they started to beat him over the head with their wooden bath shoes.

Back in the warm room he was seized by three bath attendants and a couple of scantily clad women. The bath attendants were apologetic and applied no more force than necessary. The woman weren’t and didn’t.

“I was told she was here,” he insisted as they bundled him back through to the hall. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Stop!” called a female voice. “Please, stop! Doctor, it’s me!”

Ruso and his handlers paused. One of the women gave him a final kick to remind him not to do it again.

“I was having my hair washed,” explained Aemilia, wrapping the towel tighter around her ample frame.

“I need your permission to talk to your housekeeper.”

Aemilia pushed a strand of wet hair behind one ear. “I knew you would come sooner or later,” she said sadly. “I’ll get dressed. You can talk to me.”

They were standing in the meadow behind the bathhouse, far enough away from the buildings for only the grazing horses to hear what they were saying. Aemilia’s hair was lank and dark with damp, and her eyes looked hollow. He realized she was older than he had thought.

“I need to know what happened, Aemilia.”

She lifted her skirts above the grass and began to walk slowly along the top of the meadow. “I have tried to believe that the doctor did it,” she said, “Or the Stag Man. But I can’t.”

Ruso, in step beside her, said nothing.

When she said, “What will they do to him?” he knew she was talking about her father.

“Tell me what happened.”

“I met Felix through Daddy. Felix was interested in investing some money in the brewery. Then he lent Daddy the money to start the new house and introduced him to the builder. But the builders had hardly got going when they raised the price. Daddy was cross and said if he’d been told the truth about how much it was all going to cost in the first place he would never have started.”

This sounded horribly like the tale of Ruso’s family shrine to Diana.

“Felix said Daddy should have asked the builder for proper figures right from the start.”

It was exactly what Ruso and Lucius had said to each other when they found out the extent of the debt.

“Daddy told me to stay away from him, but by then I thought I was having a baby. I didn’t dare tell Daddy. But Daddy was still being nice to him because Felix had a lot of business connections and he didn’t want him to cause trouble in the guild. That’s why I couldn’t believe Daddy would do anything to hurt him.”

“Did your father know that Felix had come to see you after he left the bar that night?”

“I have thought about this,” she said. “I thought he was asleep in bed but he must have heard us.”

“Did you hear your father leave the house after that?”

“No. But I woke up later to hear him banging on the door. Ness had locked up and gone to sleep, and he couldn’t get in. I got up but she was already there. So I went back to bed.”

“Did you see him come in?”

“No. It was dark. Ness was just carrying a small lamp. I heard her say something, and he told her not to make a fuss.” Aemilia’s fingers crept toward her mouth. “He said it was only a nosebleed and he was all right now.”

“I see.”

She hung her head. “When I first heard about Felix I was frightened that he might have done something terrible. Then I told myself I was being silly. He is my father! And then the doctor confessed and I thought I must be wrong.” She turned away from him, gazing down across the meadow to where the horses were swishing their tails against the flies.