Memento Mori Page 19

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  Ruso was stretched out on a couch having his back trampled by a small elephant when a slave in the red-trimmed tunic of the temple staff appeared at eye level and explained that his master would like a word. Ruso held up the hand on the end of the arm that didn’t hurt, and the masseur made a final attempt to crush his kidneys before pausing.

  A summons to the chief priest was the perfect excuse to abandon the couch before the masseur had finished testing his resolve not to howl in pain. Easing himself upright, he answered the man’s “How was that for you, sir?” with “Remarkable!”

  Remarkable was turning out to be a useful word in Aquae Sulis.

  He followed the slave into the main bathing hall, padding barefoot along paving that was slick with other bathers’ wet footprints. The slave led him past a scribe and a snack vendor and a wizened doctor with a queue of patients to the corner of the pool opposite the entrance. He looked down at a pale round head and a bony brown one bobbing on the rippling surface, like buoys marking the positions of submerged dangers on the steps beneath. The slave bowed to the heads and murmured, “Doctor Ruso, master,” before stepping back to stand in the corner—just out of earshot, but close enough to deter eavesdroppers.

  The round head belonged to Dorios. Ruso recognized the bony one from the parade on his first night in Aquae Sulis. The deep eye sockets and sunken cheeks could have been the model for one of those artistic reminders of death that were supposed to encourage dinner guests to enjoy themselves while they could. Although Ruso’s first wife, once obliged to dine above a mosaic of a skeleton serving drinks, had insisted that the sight of it gave her terrible indigestion.

  Somehow it was no surprise to learn that this present apparition in the pool was Lucius Marcius Memor, the town haruspex, interpreter of signs from the gods.

  Memor’s voice was a disappointment, though. Ruso had been expecting something deep and sonorous, but the greeting and the expression of sympathy about the prior night’s attack were delivered with the blurred consonants of a man whose false teeth were not well attached. As he spoke, Ruso caught a glimpse of gold wire and wondered why whoever had replaced the central incisors hadn’t chosen a better match with the yellow teeth on either side.

  The two men shuffled in opposite directions along the steps, making more space between them for Ruso to sit in the corner. From where, he noted as he tossed his towel aside and stepped into the warm water, he could not see both of their faces at once.

  “Do submerge yourself as far as possible, Doctor,” Dorios urged. “The water will be marvelous for that arm.”

  It would also hide the bruising from the curious stares of the other visitors. Wondering how many of his fellow bathers knew that a guest had been assaulted the night before, Ruso slid down to the priests’ level and lifted his chin well clear of the water. He might be sitting in it, but he wasn’t going to drink it.

  When he was settled, Dorios explained to his companion that “the doctor has agreed to help us with this sad business of the lost wife.” As if Serena had been mislaid and might be found at any moment in a cupboard or tucked away under the bed. Turning to Ruso, he added, “I hear you had a visit from the centurion. I hope he wasn’t violent.”

  Ruso looked from one to the other of them. “You’re spying on me?”

  Dorios smiled. “No. This is a small town. People notice things.”

  There was a thunderous splash from farther up the pool as someone jumped in. One of the attendants shouted a reprimand and they all rose to ride the ensuing wave before Ruso said, “Pertinax and I had a discussion. I’ve told him about the evidence that Terentius left town, and he knows that Valens has gone too.”

  “I hope he apologized for that dreadful business last night.”

  “He says the attack was nothing to do with him.” Ruso wiped a drop off the end of his nose. “If you want to know what he plans to do, you’ll have to ask him.” However misguided Pertinax might be, Ruso was not going to inform on him to a pair of civilians he barely knew.

  Memor’s lips were closed, but his jaw moved as if he was waggling his false teeth up and down.

  Dorios said, “Might we be able to hope that—”

  “I wouldn’t rely too heavily on that slave’s testimony if I were you. I went up to the wharf before I came here, and nobody seems to know anything about a missing boat.”

  Dorios’s eyes widened. “Who did you ask?”

  “A man and a woman who smelled of fish.”

  The two priests looked at each other. “I’m afraid that’s our fault,” Dorios explained. “We warned the locals not to say anything unnecessary about that night to any visitors. It seems they were listening after all.”

  Memor said, “I take it there’s been no news.”

  “None,” Dorios confirmed. To Ruso he said, “We alerted the port, put the word out around the local area, informed Londinium and Isca, and sent letters to several towns with a detailed description, but so far …” Pale, dimpled shoulders rose out of the water and sank away again.

  Ruso said, “Did you tell them you’re looking for him in connection with a murder?”

  “We told them he left town owing money. We thought that would have the added advantage of making people reluctant to take him in.”

  “Perhaps just as well,” Ruso observed, “since I don’t think any of us can actually prove that he was the murderer.”

  Memor gave a particularly energetic waggle of his teeth before addressing Dorios. “I thought you said our friend was here to defend the husband?”

  “I’ve been trying to think what a lawyer would say,” said Ruso, who had been mulling over Pertinax’s arguments just now in an attempt to take his mind off the efforts of the small elephant. “Given the failure of the veterans’ building project, I think he would say Terentius had other reasons to leave.”

  Memor sniffed. “A failure that was entirely predictable.”

  “Really?” Ruso said. “I got the impression most of the veterans were very confident.” Apart from Catus, who had refused to help.

  Dorios said, “My colleague here saw very early on that the omens were not good for enclosing a second spring.”

  “I certainly did,” Memor agreed. “But I’m sorry to say that the investors failed to consult as widely as they should have before starting the work.”

  Ruso supposed this was priest-speak for I told you so. Or, rather, I could have told you if you’d bothered to ask, which was even more irritating. “You must have been in demand lately,” he observed, unable to resist. “What with Serena being found in the pool.”

  “Please!” Dorios’s head swiveled back and forth as he reassured himself that no other bathers were within earshot. “The matter is dealt with.”

  “That was not an omen,” the haruspex corrected Ruso. “That was an appalling human act of sacrilege.”

  “And the spring has been fully restored to purity,” Dorios added. “The appropriate steps were taken immediately.”

  “The veterans’ project,” said the haruspex, who was clearly still annoyed about it, “was flawed from the start. The goddess denied any blessing to such an exclusive development.”

  “Sulis Minerva freely offers her healing waters to all,” put in Dorios, as if he were quoting from a speech to visitors. “The veterans were trying to claim that spring for themselves and their friends. Not only divisive, but deeply offensive to some of our more traditionally minded locals. I advised young Terentius against taking it on, but he was dazzled by the prospect of fame.”

  Ruso tried to gather his thoughts. It was not easy when he was having to bob up and down like a cork to avoid getting water in his nose and mouth. He said, “I’ve come a long way for this, and I’m grateful for your help, but I don’t seem to be a lot further forward. What do you suggest I try next?”

  Again the priests exchanged a glance.

  “Many of us feel the same way,” Dorios told him. “A sad business for the family and very frustrating f
or everyone. But now we think it’s time to turn our attention to the future. The governor should arrive tomorrow. He’s bringing a new deputy engineer from Londinium. The new man will help Catus oversee the building of the eastern baths. Memor here has read the signs, and they’re very good.”

  “I have,” the haruspex agreed. “All the signs from the sacrifices suggest that if we honor the goddess, she will relent and grant her blessings to the town once more. We will be able to put this terrible business behind us and move forward, just as Rome intended when the shrine was built.”

  If they were waiting for Ruso to agree that he too would abandon the search for Serena’s murderer, they would be disappointed. On the other hand, he needed their cooperation. “Do you think Pertinax will agree to move forward?” he asked. “What if either Terentius or Valens turns up?”

  Dorios sighed. “If a trial would bring the young lady back, believe me, both the Sulis Minerva Association and my fellow magistrates would give their full support.”

  “But as things are,” Ruso said, “would you rather there wasn’t a trial of anyone?”

  “That is our considered position,” the chief priest agreed. “That’s why we were hoping you could persuade the centurion to see sense.”

  “He’s not a man open to persuasion.”

  “But you should know it would be in the best interests of your friend not to stand trial too.”

  Ruso frowned. “I thought you were confident Terentius was guilty?”

  The two priests exchanged a glance. Memor had stopped chomping. Dorios said, “You might want to consider exactly what the witness who saw them at the fire has to say.”

  “The woman at the snack bar? But I thought—”

  “You might not want her full testimony made public.”

  “Why not?”

  “Nothing we can do will bring back the dead, Doctor. But we can do our best for the living. You of all men should know that.”

  Ruso said, “Are you saying she’s not reliable?”

  “She is entirely reliable, as far as we know. You should speak to her.”

  “I have.” It seemed he had not probed deep enough.

  The priest gave as much of a bow as he could manage without putting his face under water. “Doctor. You brought your family a great distance to help your friend. Out of respect for the deceased young lady and acknowledgment of your great inconvenience, the Sulis Minerva Association will be pleased to pay for your passage home.”

  Ruso looked from one to the other of them again. “You’re asking me to leave?”

  “Not at all,” the priest assured him.

  “The next ship north will leave Abona in four or five days, weather permitting,” announced the haruspex. Ruso assumed this prediction had come from the port authorities rather than the gods.

  “In the meantime,” put in the priest, “we hope you’ll make the most of your stay. We’re merely asking that you and your wife help us to recover, rather than dwelling on past events and causing further distress. Does that seem reasonable to you?”

  “Entirely,” Ruso agreed, admiring the man’s fond assumption that he could answer on Tilla’s behalf. “I don’t think it will go down well with Valens’s boys in years to come, though.”

  “It must be very distressing for the children,” agreed Dorios.

  “We have the greatest sympathy for the bereaved family,” put in the haruspex.

  “We do,” Dorios said. “Which is why we don’t want any more tragedies. We desperately need the favor and protection of Sulis Minerva. It’s my responsibility to order things in a way that will please her.”

  “I see that,” Ruso conceded. “But those boys are being denied the love and protection of their father.”

  The silence that followed was filled with the sound of the water lapping against the steps and the echoing voices of the afternoon bathers. Finally, Dorios said, “This is a little awkward.” He looked at Memor, who was chomping so furiously that the teeth would surely break away from their moorings at any moment. “We had hoped not to have to raise this.”

  Raise what? There was more? Ruso wondered if Virana’s garbled account of her relationship with him was about to come full circle. Although what a minor family scandal had to do with a couple of priests was beyond him.

  “It’s only fair to warn him,” the haruspex pointed out.

  “My friend is right,” Dorios said. “If word were to get out, then it’s quite possible that it would reach the ear of someone who would make a powerful enemy.”

  Ruso said, “Really?”

  “Of course, nobody would want to make trouble for the wife of an honorable veteran like yourself, or for her young friend.”

  He sensed that they were enjoying his confusion. “If you want to threaten me,” he said, “you’ll have to be more specific.”

  Dorios looked hurt. “We’ve no intention of threatening anyone. This is a friendly, welcoming town and we’re delighted to have you here. But for your own sakes we don’t want it widely known that your wife has been making inquiries about illegal activities.”

  “Illegal activities?”

  “We’d rather not make a fuss.”

  Ruso stifled a groan. He had thought there might be gossip after Tilla’s conversation about love potions with the hairdresser, but he hadn’t expected it to reach the chief priest. Or to be taken so seriously. He lifted his chin and took a deep breath of steamy air. “My wife has already told me all about it,” he said. “I’ve explained to her that it wasn’t a wise thing to discuss with a stranger, but she did it purely in the interests of justice for our murdered friend.”

  “Doubtless she had the best of motives,” the haruspex observed, managing to pronounce the word doubtless as if it denoted a thin crust over a pit of uncertainty. “But if the news of her intentions were to reach the ears of the potential victim, there could be serious consequences.”

  Ruso was about to say, But the only potential victim was me, when Dorios said, “Rest assured, the scribe has been sworn to silence and we are the only two other people who know. But scandal has a habit of escaping and spreading.”

  The scribe? Why would you need a scribe for a love potion? Was there some other possible scandal that Tilla had not told him about?

  “So”—the chief priest placed a wet pink hand on Ruso’s shoulder—“I hope we understand each other now.”

  “I think we’re nearly there,” Ruso agreed, looking from one to the other of them. “How’s the search going with the black ewe?”

  “Black ewe?” The haruspex frowned.

  At that moment another wave washed across from the center of the pool and Dorios’s words were lost in the splutter of a man who had opened his mouth at just the wrong moment. When he had stopped coughing, the haruspex said, “Well?”

  For the first time Dorios looked disconcerted. “I’m afraid I don’t know …”

  “A black ewe. This afternoon. Walking through the streets with two men and a boy following it.”

  Dorios said, “Probably on the way to the butcher.”

  “They were walking past the Mercury,” Ruso told him. “There’s no butcher nearby.” In truth he had not thought to check, but if there was nowhere to buy a cabbage among the souvenir shops, there was probably nowhere to buy a lamb chop, either, and the only other animals he could recall in the street were a couple of ponies on their way to the stable. “The men were temple slaves dressed in off-duty clothes, but they were out there in daylight, so I assumed they were doing it with your knowledge.”

  “I expect they were preparing a beast for sacrifice. I shall make inquiries.”

  “Was it Terentius they were hunting for, or some other unquiet spirit that the visitors haven’t been told about?”

  “What?” The haruspex turned to his companion. “You didn’t tell me about this!”

  Ruso said, “Plenty of people will have seen what was going on, even if they didn’t know what it meant.”

  The haruspex said
, “I should have been consulted!”

  “But if neither of you knows,” Ruso continued, “it doesn’t matter. I’ll ask around until I find somebody who can tell me.”

  The chief priest shifted closer to Ruso. The haruspex did the same, chomping as he leaned forward to listen.

  Dorios said, “This is confidential.”

  “So it would seem,” muttered the haruspex.

  “As you know,” Dorios continued, ignoring him, “we have failed to find any trace of Terentius either here or anywhere else. Some of the magistrates have decided—”

  “What do the magistrates know of these things?” the haruspex demanded. “None of them has any training at all! The signs should have been read beforehand!”

  Dorios glared at his erstwhile ally, who muttered, “Ridiculous!” before adding “Go on. We may as well hear the worst.”

  “The magistrates have decided,” Dorios repeated, “that just in case Terentius drowned before reaching Abona, we should seek out where his unfortunate spirit might be and put it to rest.” He paused briefly to allow this to sink in.

  The haruspex said, “And?”

  “The ewe led our men to a site by the river. It’s being sacrificed in private at this moment. The full ceremonies will be carried out later.”

  Ruso said, “So you’ll be needing me to keep that quiet?”

  “We would rather you didn’t spread rumors that would cause further panic and distress amongst the visitors.”