Memento Mori

  For Lynda Hammond, Jean Reid, and Jennie Bewick.

  One day we’ll find a walk where all the hills go downward.

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  Medicus

  Terra Incognita

  Persona Non Grata

  Caveat Emptor

  Semper Fidelis

  Tabula Rasa

  Vita Brevis

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Author’s Note

  Further Reading

  Acknowledgments

  A Note on the Author

  Britannia hodieque eam adtonita celebrat tantis caerimoniis ut dedisse Persis videri possit.

  Britain today performs the rites [of magic] in such an awestruck manner and with such grand ceremonies that you would think it was they who had given it to the Persians.

  Pliny the Elder, Natural History

  Tot aquarum tam multis necessariis molibus pyramidas videlicet otiosas compares aut cetera inertia sed fama celebrata opera Graecorum.

  With such an array of vital structures carrying so many waters, compare, if you will, the idle Pyramids, or the useless—though famous—works of the Greeks!

  Frontinus, On the Aqueducts of Rome

  MEMENTO MORI

  A NOVEL

  IN WHICH our hero, Gaius Petreius Ruso, will be …

  Accompanied by

  Tilla, his wife

  Mara, their adopted daughter

  Narina/Neena, a British slave bought in Rome

  Esico, another British slave bought in Rome

  Informed by

  Conn, Tilla’s half brother

  Albanus, his former clerk

  Virana, now wife of Albanus and the birth mother of Mara

  Catus, chief engineer at the baths

  Exasperated by

  Valens, an old friend and former colleague

  Justus, a slave with an undesirable job

  Saddened by

  Serena, Valens’s wife (deceased)

  Attacked by

  Pertinax, Serena’s father and brother of Catus. A retired chief centurion

  An unknown assailant

  Surprised by

  Gleva, a woman with designs on Pertinax

  Confused by

  Twin boys, the sons of Valens and Serena

  Brecc, brother of Gleva, otherwise known as that bloody native

  Puzzled by

  Terentius, Catus’s young assistant and lover of Serena

  Warned by

  Memor, a haruspex, interpreter of the will of the gods

  Dorios, a worried chief priest

  Impressed by

  An old soldier and his elderly slave woman

  Assisted by

  Latinus, a bathhouse manager

  Gnaeus, a retired dispatch rider

  Kunaris, a landlord with aspirations

  1

  SEPTEMBER, A.D. 123

  It was barely light when the man leaned his elbows on the stone window ledge, stared out at the steam drifting above Sulis Minerva’s miraculous hot waters, and wondered how best to frame last night’s disaster.

  The roar and the heat of the blaze had been frightening. Worse were the screams that still echoed in his memory, cutting across the frantic shouts of the rescuers who were slapping at the flames with useless beaters and flinging buckets of water that had no effect at all.

  The fire had been terrible, but that was not the reason Latinus was here to consult the goddess in the chill before the sun awoke. The problem was that two of the three people who had perished in it were visitors.

  Of course, the deaths were nothing to do with his baths. Nor with the sacred spring in front of him, nor the temple beyond it. But as the news spread, no one would remember the hundred paces that separated the smoking ruins of the lodging house from his own safe and comfortable bathing establishment. No one would care that the visitors who had died, soldiers on leave, had been carousing all evening and were said to be so drunk that even if they had heard the shouts of warning they would not have understood them. No: The only word that would get around was that Aquae Sulis, the greatest healing shrine in Britannia, was a dangerous place. The gods were angry. The sick—who tended to be nervous types anyway—would think twice about coming here. They would take their ailments and their devotion and their money to other shrines: sacred places where the water might be drearily cold but at least the guests wouldn’t be burned in their beds.

  “What should I do, holy mistress?” he asked the steam, very quietly, because the sound of a stifled cough out in the temple courtyard told him Catus hadn’t been able to sleep, either.

  The goddess did not reply.

  Raising his voice, Latinus called out “Hello?” It was something he had taken to doing ever since he had so startled one of Sulis Minerva’s priests that the man tripped on his robe, stumbled over the railings, and nearly baptized himself in her waters.

  The tall figure of the chief engineer strode into view.

  “Morning.”

  Catus grunted, which was only to be expected from a man with no manners. Still, having started a conversation, Latinus felt he was owed a reply. “Did you find your niece?”

  “Not yet.”

  Since Catus’s niece was currently having a fling with a man who wasn’t her husband, it was unlikely she wanted to be found, especially by her male relatives. Still, they had persisted in searching for her last night lo
ng after the fire was under control.

  Having expressed his polite and insincere concern, Latinus moved on to the subject any normal person would be eager to discuss. “Terrible business last night.”

  But all he got was “Uh” and then “If you see the lad, tell him I’ve started the rounds.”

  “I will.” Although since the lad was the one who had likely spent the night cavorting with Catus’s niece in some secret love nest, the chances of him turning up at this hour were slim.

  Latinus heard the jingle of keys and then the service door slammed: Catus presumably heading into the bath suite to check the furnace and then around to admire the smooth flow of the eternal spring waters as they ran into the Great Bath, around the system, and then out and away down the drains. With luck, he would be long gone by the time the visitors flocked in to bathe. The last thing anyone needed today was to be greeted by a bad-tempered water engineer.

  Latinus gazed into the gently rising steam. Behind him he could hear the sound of scrubbing and the scrape of cold ash being raked out of the furnace, and Catus’s voice issuing orders to the slaves. As if Catus owned the place. As if any of this would last for long without the visitors. And as if the visitors would be here without Latinus, the manager who made his living—and that of most other people around here—by bringing them in, keeping them happy, and keeping them spending. Latinus had once tried to point this out, but the chief engineer tartly reminded him that without someone to control the waters, the place would still be a weed-infested bog with a few hairy natives peering at each other through the mist.

  Today, though, it would fall upon Latinus to protect Sulis Minerva—and, coincidentally, his own business—from the fears that would send her worshippers elsewhere. No doubt the council of magistrates, the priests, and all the various associations would meet and argue over how to mitigate the damage. Meanwhile, Latinus had to get on with it.

  He would have to call his staff together before opening time. He would tell them—as if they might not know already—about the terrible events of last night and warn them that the visitors might be a little nervous today and in need of gentle handling. If asked about the fire, the staff were to stress the number of lives saved. The alertness of the terrier that had sounded the alarm. The demolition of the workshop next door to the stricken inn: a bold act that had created a firebreak. The quick thinking and bravery of the local residents, especially the Veterans’ Association, who had been meeting nearby and had been determined to protect the town’s honored guests at all costs. Perhaps—

  He frowned, distracted by something on the surface of the water. The bubbling of the spring made many strange patterns, but he had never seen one like that. He leaned farther out into the poor light, craning his neck and trying to squint through the shifting vapor. Possibly some prankster with no respect had thrown something unsuitable into the pool. He would have to tell the priests. The temple slaves would fetch the net and fish it out.

  For a moment he thought it might be a sudden rush of the black sand that the goddess sometimes sent up from the depths with her sacred water, but it was more tangible than that. Something was drifting about in there. It was as though the figure of the goddess herself were rising up from the depths! It was …

  The steam shifted sideways, moved by an unseen current of air.

  “Oh, holy Minerva!” he whispered. And, before he could stop himself: “This is a disaster!”

  “What is?”

  Catus must have finished with the furnace and was passing through the hall on his way to inspect the main bath.

  Slowly, Latinus extended one finger toward the gently bubbling surface of the pool. He was aware of Catus clambering up beside him, leaning out to get a better look. The engineer gave a stifled cry and drew back from the window. Latinus heard the door crash against the wall and Catus reappeared outside. For a moment the engineer bent across the railings, staring into the pool. Then he stepped over the barrier and sat at the water’s edge. Finally, ignoring the dangers, he took a deep breath, slid in, and began to swim.

  Latinus made no effort to help, or to interfere. He was transfixed by the sight of the dead woman floating facedown in the steaming water.

  Catus had found his niece.

  2

  “Somebody asking for you at the gate.”

  Gaius Petreius Ruso, who had been butchering a slaughtered sheep with unnecessary precision, looked up to see his wild-haired brother-in-law standing over him. A large axe dangled from the brother-in-law’s hand, the sharpened blade glinting in the afternoon sun.

  Conn sniffed. “You here or not?”

  The sniff was deliberately annoying. On the other hand, Conn’s offer to protect him from unwanted visitors was a kind of favor. Doubtless leaving the new arrival waiting at the gate had the added advantage, from Conn’s point of view, of making them feel uncomfortable. That was how Ruso deduced that the visitor must be a Roman. “Did he give a name?”

  “He was at your wedding. The skinny one.”

  Ruso frowned. An alarmingly large number of people had turned up to help him and Tilla celebrate their marriage anew in the way of her tribe, and almost a year later it was hard to remember any of them. The only especially skinny Roman he could call to mind was now living three hundred miles away.

  Conn said, “He’s in a bit of a state.”

  Ruso cleaned the scalpel, placed it back in his medical case, and wiped his hands on his leather apron before flinging a cloth across the carcass and heading for the front gate.

  “Albanus,” offered Conn, when it was clear Ruso wasn’t going to beg for the name.

  Albanus? He quickened his pace. He could think of no reason why Albanus would turn up at a native farm on the northern border of civilization unless it was bad news. He glanced around the cobbled yard to reassure himself that his wife had not returned unexpectedly from market. What if his friend had come to ask for the baby back?

  It was hard to determine exactly what Albanus had come to do, because he was indeed in a bit of a state. The thinning black hair was plastered to his skull with sweat, his tunic was filthy, and he was clinging to the giant oak tree by the gate as though he might collapse without it. Nevertheless he managed to inject some pleasure as well as relief into the cry of “Sir!”

  Ruso pulled the gate open and Albanus mustered the energy to stand up straight and salute. Ruso flung off the apron, stepped forward, and clapped his exhausted and smelly friend in a warm embrace. For a moment Albanus held onto him like a man afraid of drowning, then let go and said, “I’m so terribly sorry, sir.”

  Only Albanus could turn up unexpectedly after so long and begin with an apology. Ruso said, “It’s good to see you.”

  Albanus eyed the discarded apron and the bloodstained hands. “I do apologize, sir. Are you in the middle of operating?”

  “Not exactly.” Ruso reached for the traveling bag that was lying in the grass by the gate and led his former clerk to a bench in the sun beside the nearest of the round houses that squatted in the yard under their heavy cones of thatch.

  Albanus, who seemed to be having some difficulty walking, lowered himself gingerly onto the bench and leaned back very slowly until he was resting against the wall.

  “Something to drink?”

  “In a moment, please, sir. I should tell you the news first. You may remember that earlier this year Doctor Valens offered me the post of tutor to his boys in Aquae Sulis.”

  “You wrote and told me. Has something gone wrong?”

  “Sir, I’m sorry to have to tell you that Doctor Valens’s wife”—Albanus’s throat convulsed as he swallowed—“Doctor Valens’s wife is dead, sir.”

  Ruso sat down faster than he’d intended. “Serena?” As if he were hoping his old colleague might have some other, unknown wife whose passing he need not mourn.

  “I’m afraid so, sir.”

  “What was it?”

  Albanus shook his head. “Doctor Valens is very distressed, sir.”

/>   “Of course he is. This is terrible news. How are the boys?”

  “Very distressed also, sir. Although they’re being shielded from the worst of the details.” Albanus paused until one of Ruso’s other relatives by marriage had crossed the yard carrying a bucket of milk and disappeared under the porch of the main house. “I’m afraid there was some unhappiness between Doctor Valens and Mistress Serena, sir.”

  “Well, we all knew that. But he was always fond of her in his own way.”

  Albanus’s “Yes, sir” sounded more dutiful than heartfelt. “Unfortunately Centurion Pertinax is …” The long pause suggested that he had run out of words.

  “I can imagine,” Ruso said. There had always been a shortage of words to describe Serena’s father.

  “Centurion Pertinax is accusing Doctor Valens of murdering her.”

  “What?” Ruso stared at him. “That’s ridiculous!”

  “Quite, sir. But the centurion is talking of hiring a prosecutor. He plans to demand a trial when the governor comes to celebrate the Feast of Sulis Minerva in twelve days’ time.”

  “How could he possibly think Valens would do a thing like that?”

  Before Albanus could reply, the brother-in-law strolled into view, still clutching the axe, and inquired in British, “Everything all right?”

  “I’ve had some bad news,” Ruso told him in the same tongue. “I have to go to Aquae Sulis straightaway.”

  “Oh,” said Conn. Then, with just the right balance of sarcasm and solicitude, he added, “There’s a shame.”

  Refreshed by several cups of water—he had turned down an offer of the local beer—Albanus was now finding other things to apologize for, including disturbing Ruso’s stay with the in-laws.

  “Not at all,” Ruso assured him. “You did the right thing in coming here.” He glanced around to check that Tilla had still not returned and then added, “To be honest, it’s a bit of a challenge living with the wife’s family.”

  Albanus tucked his feet under the bench, away from the beak of an inquisitive chicken, and glanced around at the huddle of native houses. A goat wandered into the yard and stood on its hind legs to snatch a mouthful from the haystack.

  “Get off!” Ruso strode across to chase it away. A barefoot boy appeared from behind the house, hauled the goat down, and waved cheerily to them both. Ruso returned to the bench. “Bloody thing. You wouldn’t believe the amount of work that went into making that stack. Scything all that grass, turning it over and over to dry, lugging it in …” He stopped. “Sorry.”