Vita Brevis (39 page)

The man took a deep breath, but no words came.

Ruso said, “Do you normally see the other doctor?”

“No.”

“I’ll fetch a lamp,” he suggested, “and then you can show me what the problem is.” But before he could get to his feet, the man said, “It’s not about me.”

“Ah!” said Ruso. “Is it about a friend?”

“How did you know?”

“Tell me about him,” he prompted, wondering which of the usual selection of embarrassing ailments he was about to be offered. “I’ll see what I can do to help.”

The man straightened. “You can’t help,” he said, his tone suddenly serious. “I just want to know if it was him. And I want to know where he is now and if he ever got a decent burial, because there’s nobody else in this miserable city likely to care.”

Ruso sat back.

“They said you found him here. They said he had blond hair.”

“Shorter than yours,” Ruso told him.

“A scar over his left eye,” said Quintus.

Ruso nodded. “I’m sorry. We’d have notified someone, but none of us knew who he was.” And clearly Lucius Virius had been lying through his teeth when he claimed that a family had identified and claimed the body. “The undertakers could tell you where his ashes are.”

The head jerked up. “And have them tell my master I was asking?”

Ruso said, “Who was he, Quintus?”

The man gave a bitter laugh. “He was nobody,” he said. “He was just a laborer. Overworked and underfed, like the rest of us. Last
week he had a cough. This week it was worse. Then one morning he didn’t wake up. We got sent off to work. When we came back he’d gone. The foreman told us he’d been cremated.” The man was jiggling one knee up and down, unable to sit still. “Twenty-seven. That’s all he was.” He looked up. “He was a mate. Why would somebody do that to him? What sort of sick joke was that?”

Ruso said, “I don’t know,” because there was nothing else he could say. He supposed the master and the foreman had abandoned the body and sent no one to attend the rites.

“Bastards. I hope they rot.”

“Who’s your master, Quintus?”

The stool scraped against the floor as the man got to his feet. “You don’t need to know,” he said, moving toward the door.

“Is your name really Quintus?”

“Of course not,” said the slave, snapping the latch up and dodging out past a surprised Esico.

Ruso stood beside his doorkeeper, gazing after the man who was not Quintus as he sprinted away and was lost among the pedestrians of the Vicus Sabuci.

Lucius Virius had lied in order to keep Ruso from asking more questions. The dead slave in the barrel had been buried with no name. He was, as his friend had said, nobody.

“Have you got a moment, Doctor?”

It seemed everyone wanted the doctor now they knew he was leaving, but there was something he needed to say to Timo anyway. “Of course. We appreciate the help you’ve given us. We went a long time with no children of our own, so I want to do the best for the one we chose.”

It sounded clumsy and contrived even to him. The carpenter placed his bag down beside the pillar of the arcade and straightened up before asking, “Has my wife been talking to you?”

“No,” Ruso said, truthfully. “How can I help?”

“There’s this skinny kid up on the fifth floor with a baby. I was going to ask you what you think.”

“You’d have to ask Tilla about babies.”

“About adopting. The wife said you’d know.”

Ruso thought for a moment. He had assured Metellus that parenting was marvelous, but somehow that did not seem the right
thing to say. “It’s like any other sort of parenting, I suppose. Although not having tried the other sort, I don’t really know. Sometimes, it’s exhausting. Most of the time, it’s—well, I can’t imagine being without her now.” He suspected there was a silly grin on his face as he added, “She had another tooth come through this morning. And I’m almost sure she said
Pa
.” Seeing the expression on Timo’s face he added, “Sorry. That’s not really what you were asking, is it?”

Timo nodded. “That’ll do.” He bent to pick up the bag.

Ruso was glad Tilla hadn’t been listening. He said, “Be careful with Brother Metellus. I’ve known him a lot longer than you have. He’s not everything he seems.”

Timo heaved the bag up onto one shoulder. “We’re all sinners, Doctor,” he said, turning and making his way along under the arcade to the stairs.

No sooner had he gone than a breathless figure turned up at the head of a string of porters carrying boxes and furniture. He flung his arms around Ruso. “Dear boy! This is so good of you! No stairs, not a single step! But are you sure you won’t stay?”

“The wife’s never going to be happy here,” Ruso told him.

“Ah, yes!” Simmias followed him into the surgery and made sure Tilla was not in it before adding, “Magnificent lady. Truly magnificent.”

“I like to think so.” Ruso went to the door and asked the porters to wait a moment. They lowered their burdens to the pavement, looking resigned. Another set of clients who hadn’t finished clearing out by the time they were supposed to.

Safe in the privacy of the surgery, he said, “Tell me, did Kleitos ever say exactly why he left?”

“Not exactly,” Simmias admitted. “He just said he had no choice. And then he told me to tell you to be careful of that steward. He glanced around him. Is there something I should know about this practice?”

“Nothing you don’t know already,” Ruso assured him. “But I don’t think your secret was as safe as you thought. I think Firmicus knew what was going on here. I think he was trying to blackmail Kleitos into poisoning Balbus for him.”

“Oh, dear.” Simmias blinked, perhaps for the first time seeing the wider implications of what he had been involved in.

“Kleitos had a choice all right. He could stay here and murder somebody, or stay here and be disgraced. Firmicus didn’t expect him to run.”

“But why didn’t he tell me? I’m his friend!”

Ruso shrugged. “Perhaps he didn’t want to drag you into it. There are several things I wish he’d told me about too.”

Simmias said, “Oh, dear!” and sat down on a stool.

Ruso put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right,” he assured him. “It’s over.”

He left Simmias supervising the distribution of his belongings and went to tell the magnificent lady it was time to leave. He found only Narina with the luggage outside the back door, pulling the twine taut around a box. He crouched down and put a finger on the knot. “We’ll be leaving in a moment,” he told her. “Are you looking forward to seeing Britannia again?”

It was impossible to tell from the tone of her “Yes, master” whether she really was or whether she was saying it out of duty.

The magnificent lady was bearing down upon them, carrying the three-toothed daughter who might or might not have called him Pa this morning. “I have said good-bye to Phyllis,” she said, “and I have told Sabella what she can do with her threats.”

“Just as well we’re leaving, then,” he said, noticing Phyllis and Timo strolling across the courtyard behind her. They paused to clasp hands before entering the darkness of the stairs that led to the apartment of the girl with the baby. A woman was watching them from the water fountain, and above the sour expression he recognized the frizzy hair of Sister Dorcas.

“You are not listening.”

“No,” he agreed.

“Sabella guessed what Kleitos was doing.”

Now he was paying attention. Sabella was not above spreading vicious rumors that could taint any doctor using the premises. If someone like Sister Dorcas got hold of it…

“It is all right,” Tilla assured him. “I told her we know her husband cheats on the rent collection for the landlord and we know it was her own idea to leave that body in another street and not the slaves’, because she told me that’s what we should do, and I said we are going to tell Simmias all about it. And anyway, next time she has to take one of her children to a doctor she might be
very glad of him knowing where everything inside is supposed to go.”

“Well done.”

“So I think she will be nicer to Doctor Simmias than she was to us. And if her husband makes trouble, Simmias is to ask him whether Sabella knows what he gets up to with the girl who delivers the laundry. Also, I have told Simmias that if a skinny slave from the Brigantes ever turns up and says he is sorry he ran away, tell him we are not sorry at all, and he has missed his chance to go home.”

He touched the end of Mara’s nose with his forefinger. “Your mother,” he told her, “is a magnificent lady. Everyone says so.”

Mara rewarded him with a flash of the new tooth. Top right.

As the four adults and a couple of hired men lumbered out of the courtyard with the luggage that had been brought in less than a week ago, he caught sight of the women who had come to the door to complain. He gave them a warm smile. “We’re leaving!” he called.

They scowled and turned away. There really was no pleasing some people.

Accius was waiting below the vast vaulted warehouses of the Porticus Aemilia as promised. Horatia sent her apologies: It was not appropriate for a family in mourning to be chasing about all over the city. “You don’t have to go, you know,” Accius urged, surveying the luggage being loaded onto the barge by a couple of men and a skinny boy. “I’ll need all the good men I can find when I run an election campaign. I’m sure I can find you something else in the meantime. I’ll need a personal physician, for a start, and there’s Horatia’s household…”

“You’re never ill, sir. And if you are, Simmias knows what he’s doing.”

“I hope you’re not going back to that ghastly island because of your wife. Who’s in charge here, man?”

Ruso changed the subject. “You’re standing for election?” he asked.

“Not yet, obviously. But sooner or later. It’s expected.”

It might be expected, but it was also horrendously expensive, and given Accius’s dubious standing with the emperor’s friends it might well be doomed to failure.

“You could always do something else, sir.” He was tempted to
add, something useful, but he did not have time for a debate on the usefulness of magistrates and politicians. “Who’s going to look after Horatia’s properties without her father or Firmicus?”

Accius looked as though Ruso had just slapped him across the face. “I hope you’re not suggesting—”

“Yes.” He would have liked to be more subtle, but already the boatman’s hand was steadying Tilla and Mara across the gap between wharf and tethered barge.

“There are—she will hire—there are people to do that sort of thing.”

“Yes, sir. And I’ve seen how they do it.”

“You’re offering to stay and run the rental properties?”

“I’m asking you to take an interest in how Horatia’s money is made. You’re a decent man, sir. If you saw some of the conditions people in those apartments are living in—”

“It’s their choice, Ruso. They pay very low rents, you know. And lots of them cram in far more friends and relations than they’re supposed to.”

“It was Balbus’s choice to let his caretakers exploit them, sir. It was Balbus’s choice not to keep up with repairs. It was Balbus’s choice that led to my wife and daughter sleeping in a room crawling with cockroaches.” Ruso stopped, aware that he was getting louder. “Sir.”

Accius took a long breath in through his nose. “You never told me that.”

Tilla and Narina were both on board now, unrolling a mattress along the top of a stack of red bricks. “I didn’t like to seem ungrateful, sir.”

“He said the tenants complain whatever you do.”

“Not all of them.” The boatman was shouting at Esico to get a move on—was he coming or not?

Accius said, “A man in your position can’t possibly understand what a step down that would be.”

“Probably not, sir.” Esico was standing at his elbow, and he could hear Tilla calling him from the boat. “Sir, I have to—”

“My father would have been appalled.”

He sent Esico toward the waiting boatman. “You were a good officer, sir. You’ve got a sharp clerk, and you can hire the help you need. And I’m sure if you threaten him with Squeaky, Firmicus
will be happy to brief you on how things are done while he’s awaiting trial.”

“Hm.”

“Your young lady is very well educated. I’m sure she could help.”

“Oh, no. Oh, no. We don’t all live like Britons, Ruso.”

“No, sir.” He paused with one foot on the solid wharf and the other shifting with the water.

The boatman called, “In or out, sir?”

“I can just imagine what Horatia would say.”

“Yes, sir.” Already the gap between him and his patron was widening. He made the step before it was too late, feeling himself taken up by the motion of the barge. He said, “Who’s in charge here, sir?”

Accius reached out, but the grasp was brief. “Bugger off, Ruso. And may your gods bugger off with you.”

Ruso raised a hand in salute. “It’s been an honor, sir.” Because in a strange way, it had.

Working on the barges was much better than working for Uncle Birna. For the first couple of days the boy had hung around the wharves, making himself useful. Tying a tarpaulin over bales of wool when it looked like rain. Holding a restless mule while its load was repacked. Helping to sweep up the broken bits of used amphorae and lugging them up to the top of the dump that was turning into a mountain. One night the reward for snatching up a toddler before it fell in the water had paid for his and Ma’s dinner and raisin cakes afterward.

Then someone had sent him upriver with a message to deliver to the brickworks, and on the way back he had squeezed into a gap in the cargo to rescue a lost gold coin, and the man who lost it had given him bread and bacon, and after that he just stayed on board and nobody seemed to mind as long as he did what he was told. The sight of a barrel still made him shiver, but he told himself it was only oysters in there, or maybe foreign wine, and he sent Ma a message with a smaller boy to say he had found honest work.

Already he was starting to get the hang of it: the long pull upriver to collect the bricks, then back into the stink of the city to load passengers and boxes and crates, then down the river and into
the canal to Ostia or Portus, where there were huge ships that went out all over the world. After a long time away—they went right out of sight: The sea was bigger than anyone could imagine—they would be guided back by the lighthouse, bringing amazing things. Wild animals in cages. Silks and furs and marble. Merchants with jewels on their fingers. Sandalwood and soldiers and slaves who prattled in tongues nobody could understand. Pink stacks of amphorae to be loaded up and rowed back to the city. People said, “Sometimes they bring in elephants.” People said, “Wait till the grain ships arrive from Africa. Then you’ll see a sight.”