'Positive,' said Ruso. 'He was shouting at them.'
Valens chuckled. 'I don't know which is more amazing. Priscus and a secret assignation, or Priscus stealing the hospital bedclothes. Dear me. What a shame you couldn't see who it was. Male or female, do you think?'
'I couldn't tell. All I had was a glimpse of a shadow in the doorway.'
There was a crash from the kitchen. Ruso winced. Valens said, 'Don't be too hard on her, old man. It must be tricky washing up with one hand.'
'She's got some use in the right hand now,' pointed out Ruso.
'Which you very kindly saved for her,' acknowledged Valens. 'And I suppose she has got all evening to do the pots.' He leaned back on the couch, yawned, and stretched his arms above his head as the dog scrambled out from behind him. 'Do you realize,' he observed to the ceiling, 'this is the first time we've both had dinner at home? You are a remarkable chap under that dour exterior, Gaius Petreius.'
Ruso poured himself more wine and maintained the silence of his dour exterior.
'First you wander down a back alley and find us a housekeeper, then you pay a visit to the hospital administrator and-gods, I wish I'd seen the expression on his face. Silly old fart!' Valens, who was on call this evening, bent forward and poured a generous amount of water into his own wine before raising it to his lips. 'So, he tried to pretend he was just having his dinner delivered?'
'Well, there was certainly food involved.'
'Dear me. He can't have imagined you'd believe him.'
Ruso swilled the wine around in his cup. 'I don't want to guess what might be in Priscus's imagination,' he said. 'He's probably crouched in a corner of his web right now, plotting revenge.'
'Well. Old Priscus, eh?'
'I'd be grateful if you'd keep your mouth shut for a while. He's got it in for me already.'
'Me? Soul of discretion. But I must say, it's all quite wonderful.
Priscus! The last man I would suspect of having a wild private life.'
'He does have that wolf on his wall.'
'I'd always assumed he bought that from a hunter. Well. Perhaps I'm wrong about that too. Maybe there's more to our diligent pen-pusher than we all thought.' Valens took a long drink from his cup.
Ruso said, 'Do you know a roofer named Secundus? His centurion's called Gallus.'
Valens frowned. 'I can't recall him. Why?'
'He dropped a trowel on my head this afternoon. From the top of the scaffolding.'
'Why didn't you say so? Want me to take a look?'
'He missed,' explained Ruso. 'He said it was an accident. But I'm starting to wonder.'
'Really? You're usually such a sensible sort of chap.'
'After that business with the fire…'
'You've just had a run of bad luck, that's all. Go and offer a pigeon to Fortuna if you're that worried.'
'Do you really think that would help?'
Valens grinned. 'Of course not. But it might make you feel better.
You're probably a bit out of balance. Have you tried a purge?'
'No.'
'Are you watching your diet?'
'No.'
'Getting enough sleep?'
'Not really'
'There you are, then. I don't go around thinking somebody was trying to poison me with those oysters. It was just an accident. It doesn't do to brood on things, you know.'
There was another crash from the kitchen. This time it sounded as though something had broken.
Ruso shouted, 'Be careful in there, Tilla!'
The only reply was the swish and tinkle of a broom chasing broken crockery across the floor.
'Never mind,' said Valens, indicating the wine jug. 'We've got the important stuff in here. Drink up, you're not on duty'
Ruso rocked the front legs of his favorite chair off the ground-he had moved it in here for dinner-and put his feet up opposite Valens's.
'I must say,' observed Valens, 'your Tilla may be a bit ham-handed but she's not doing a bad job with the cooking. For someone who hasn't done it before.'
'She has done it before,' Ruso corrected him. 'Just not our sort of food.'
'Really?' Valens's brows lowered in puzzlement. 'That's funny, because she told me-'
He was interrupted by the sound of someone banging on the front door. 'Damn,' he muttered, swinging his feet down from the table.
There was a brief and largely inaudible conversation at the door, then it closed and Valens reappeared clutching his cloak. 'Got to go,' he said, 'Tribune with a tummy ache. Tell the lovely Tilla she can warm up my bed if she wants.'
'What was it she told you?'
'What? Oh.' Valens flung his cloak over his shoulders. 'Before her home was raided by some rival tribe or other, her family owned a cook.' His voice distorted as he squinted to see where he was pushing the fastening pin. 'So, she never bothered to learn. I thought you knew.'
After Valens had clattered the door shut, Ruso remained in his chair, gazing at the lamp. 'I thought I knew too,' he informed it. Well. He hoped the army would investigate Claudius Innocens very thoroughly.
Preferably with a sharp implement. Innocens had promised him that Tilla could cook.
Which reminded him. He needed to talk to her.
He paused in the doorway. Tilla carried on drying a spoon with a cloth and then flung it down with such force that it bounced.
'The chicken stew was very good, Tilla.'
'Thank you, my Lord.' She snatched up another spoon and gave it a swift wipe.
'I have some news for you.'
The second spoon clattered down beside its mate.
Ruso cleared his throat. 'Is something the matter?'
She glanced at him. 'No, my Lord. I am very lucky.'
'Indeed you are.'
She tossed the cloth over the hook by the hearth. 'I am very lucky not to be Phryne.'
'That's what I came to tell you about,' he said. 'When I saw you this afternoon I was on the way back from reporting the problem. I've been assured there will be some action very soon.'
She turned. 'Tonight?'
'Not that soon.' It was hardly the sort of emergency that would persuade the second spear to miss his dinner.
'So Phryne is still at Merula's tonight.'
Ruso had not expected thanks, but he had expected that his slave would be pleased. 'She will be a lot safer there than she would be out on the streets,' he said.
'With the men.'
'Yes,' said Ruso, exasperated. 'With the men. Who are unlikely to do her serious harm, because if she's laid up she can't earn any money for Merula. Now stop throwing our things about.' As Tilla opened her mouth to speak he said, 'And don't start wailing and cursing either, because I have work to do.'
He snatched up his wine in one hand and his chair in the other. He was heading toward his room when he heard her say, 'I will be silent. I will control my tongue.'
'Good!' A leg of the chair banged into the wall and the wine lurched toward the side of the cup. 'Get on with your work, and don't break anything else.'
'I know what happens to slaves who talk too much!'
'Yes!' he shouted back. 'And I'm beginning to understand why!'
Ruso placed a lamp on his desk, kicked the bedroom door shut, and blew the dust off the pile of writing tablets. He flipped open the first one and sat down. 'Treatment of Eye Injuries.' Gods above, he had been on this
