This had the unfortunate effect of unleashing more curiosity.
‘Can she talk?’
‘Can we touch her?’
‘Is she fierce?’
‘Aaah!’ This last was from a dribbling toddler who had evidently learned early that he had to speak up to be noticed.
‘Yes, she can talk,’ said Ruso, looking around in vain for his sister-in-law to get the small interrogators under control. ‘And no, you can’t touch her. We’ve had a long journey, and she’s tired.’
One of Ruso’s sisters whispered something to the other, and they both giggled. Tilla’s expression was one he could not read and dared not speculate upon, but the child was right. Her cheeks were even pinker than the sunburn on her nose. Tendrils of hair, dark with sweat, were stuck to her forehead. ‘Sorry about this,’ he murmured to her.
Tilla grasped his hand and whispered, ‘What did you tell them about me?’
‘I’ll explain in a minute,’ he assured her.
The hastily assembled greeting party was evidently expecting a formal speech.
The eldest nephews had lost interest and begun to roll across the floor, punching each other. A niece shouted, ‘Stop it!’ while Galla made a futile attempt to intervene. Ruso glanced at the bust of his late father, impassively surveying the chaos from its niche beside the garlanded household shrine, and wondered what the old man would have made of this performance.
‘Children!’ Arria’s voice rose again over the babble. ‘Your kind Uncle Gaius has brought a real barbarian home for us all the way from Britannia. Isn’t that nice of him?’
There were confused murmurs of assent.
Ruso tried again. ‘Tilla,’ he said, gesturing towards Arria, ‘this is my stepmother, Arria — ’
But Arria had not finished. ‘We must all set her a good example and look after her,’ she continued. ‘Galla, go and tell the driver to bring in the master’s luggage. Children, why don’t you all go and take — what do you call her?’
‘Tilla.’
‘Take Tilla to the kitchen and Cook will find her something to eat and drink. I expect she would like that.’ She turned to Ruso. ‘What do they eat, Gaius?’
The words ‘Small children’ were out before he could stop them. ‘Arria, where’s Lucius?’
*
The nieces and nephews were finally ushered away to the kitchen, taking both of Ruso’s half-sisters with them to protect them from the child-eating barbarian. Ruso, faintly ashamed of himself, was left alone with his stepmother.
‘Gaius, dear, what are you doing home? Are you on leave? What’s wrong with your foot?’
Evidently Arria knew nothing about Lucius’ letter. ‘Home to convalesce,’ he explained. ‘I need to see Lucius.’
‘I’ve sent one of the servants to fetch him. I must say, that’s a very strange young woman you’ve brought with you. Why is she dressed like that in this weather?’
‘Because those are her clothes.’ As far as Ruso was aware, Tilla had two sets of perfectly adequate second- hand clothes. These, if pushed, he could describe as ‘blue’. He could differentiate between them only as The One She’s Wearing and The One That’s Being Washed.
‘She can’t wear heavy wool like that here. I’ll ask one of the staff to find her something else.’
‘Is everything all right here? Where’s Cass?’
Arria sighed. ‘Who knows? As you see, the children are quite out of control. It’s such a relief to have you home, Gaius. Poor Lucius really has no idea. He’s letting everything go to waste — Gaius, dear, are you listening?’
Ruso rubbed his tunic against the small of his back to wipe away a trickle of sweat. ‘No.’
Arria sighed. ‘You must be tired after travelling. But I have to tell you this while I have the chance. You see how things are here. Your father would be so disappointed, after all that he did. I was hoping we would have your sisters married by now — Marcia, at least — ’
‘I’ll sort out the girls’ dowries now I’m home,’ promised Ruso, hoping Lucius was not going to tell him there was nothing to settle on either of their half-sisters.
‘In the meantime your brother and his wife do nothing but breed children who run around making sticky finger-prints on the furniture. The smallest one has no idea what a pot is for, and the staff are constantly sweeping up what they’ve broken. They’ve driven away three tutors already. Cassiana just indulges them, and Lucius is too taken up with his vines and his legal squabbles to notice. Galla’s worn out, and — ’
‘What legal squabbles?’ said Ruso, suddenly paying attention.
‘He keeps telling me we can’t afford to replace Galla, but I’m sure we could — ’
‘What legal squabbles, Arria?’
‘Do talk to him about it, dear, will you? It’s such a wretched nuisance. And now he’s got your sisters involved in it.’
‘Involved in what?’
‘Oh, something about a — seizure order, is it?’
‘Holy gods, Arria! There’s someone trying to auction off everything we own?’
His stepmother put one manicured finger to her lips. ‘Please don’t shout, dear. We’re not supposed to talk about it. Do what I do — just pretend you don’t know.’
7
The shutters of his father’s old study opened with a screech that briefly silenced the chirrup of the cicadas outside. Sunlight spilled across the floor and threw the iron studs on the old wooden chest into sharp relief. Ruso crossed the room and slid one hand under the rim of the lid. Locked. Of course. Lucius would be wearing the key around his neck, just as their father had.
Ruso lowered himself on to the trunk and sat tapping out an impatient rhythm on the lid with both hands. He had travelled a thousand miles to find out exactly what sort of crisis his family had fallen into. Now the details were only inches away, but he had no access to them. Just as there had been no access to the details of the horrendous debts his father was incurring in a misguided attempt to bolster the family’s good standing and satisfy Arria’s demand for a ‘nice house’. Those, too, had been locked away in the dark secrecy of the trunk.
He got to his feet and limped across to the window. The air outside was no cooler. A couple of the cicadas had started singing again. He gazed north across the green of the vine-trellises to where distant wooded hills were dark against the sharp blue of the sky. Closer, something was shaking the leaves of the vines. He heard voices. Someone laughed. The top of a ladder appeared above the green, then sank away again. The farm slaves would be scrambling up amongst the trellises, cutting the grapes with curved knives and tossing them into baskets.
Three fat bunches dangled almost within reach of the window. Ruso wondered whether it was a good year for the vines. Lucius would know. Despite having spent most of his childhood here, Ruso had deliberately avoided learning anything about farming. It was an obstinacy of which he was no longer proud. Still, no amount of farming lore would help if the family really were about to be the subject of a seizure order.
He had once accompanied his father to the auction of a bankrupt neighbour’s property. It was like seeing an old person stripped naked in the street: all the neighbour’s battered pots and pans, ancient bath shoes, blankets and bedsteads — even a baby’s discarded feeding-bottle — lay shabby and exposed in the sunshine, while strangers glanced over them, wrinkled their noses and walked away. His father had stayed, bidding much too high for an old cart and a couple of hoes with worm-eaten handles while the neighbour stood grim-faced and his wife wept. At the time, Ruso had been too young to understand that his father was offering them the only kindness that was now
