He got her as far as the exit before she stopped dead. This, he supposed, was some sort of achievement, although the man who shoved past them both with ‘Get out of the way, will you? Bloody foreigners!’ was clearly unimpressed.
He drew her aside. Standing in the shade of a massive pillar as the lunchtime crowds flowed out into the sunshine, he decided to cut short the inevitable argument. ‘I can’t do anything about it, Tilla. There are twenty thousand people here who — ’
‘I want to see it.’
‘No, you don’t. Come and tell me about Calvus and — ’
‘Do not tell me what I want!’
‘Trust me. You don’t.’ He knew it would be useless to explain to her that the victims were all criminals sentenced to death in a fair trial. Useless even if it were true, which it probably was not.
Standing close so as not to obstruct the exit, he noticed for the first time how the sun had bleached her hair. How unfashionably and delightfully freckled her face had become. He said, ‘Why would Calvus and — whatever their names are — why would they come to Nemausus?’
From somewhere inside the arena came a shrill scream, followed by a ripple of laughter.
The familiar eyes gazed into Ruso’s own. Instead of the determination he had expected, he saw fear.
‘Come and get something to drink,’ he urged her, annoyed at being made to feel responsible for whatever ghastliness was going on in there. ‘You can tell me all about Arelate.’
‘If it was me,’ she said, ‘would you be there to see me die?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ The words came out more harshly than he had intended. ‘What I mean is, you wouldn’t — ’
She was gone before he reached the end of the sentence, dodging round the wandering spectators and back into the shadowed entrance tunnel.
‘Tilla!’ he yelled, plunging after her, apologizing as he stabbed a passing foot with his stick. ‘Tilla, wait!’
He need not have worried. By the time he got there she had already been grabbed by an usher and was being firmly escorted back down the steps. The usher looked relieved to see him. ‘I was just saying,’ the man said as another hideous shriek issued from the arena and the crowd yelled advice and abuse, ‘military veterans only in these seats. Women and slaves is round to the right and higher up.’ Evidently the man could not decide which category Tilla fell into and was taking no chances.
Tilla said, ‘I must see.’
‘Why?’ asked Ruso.
‘Because it is what your people do.’
‘Yes, but — ’
‘I want to understand.’
More spectators brushed past them, voices rising and fading down the corridor. A couple of men sharing a joke. A small boy wailing and his mother demanding: ‘Why didn’t you say you needed a wee before we sat down?’
Tilla said, ‘Your family come to these games?’
‘They’re up there,’ said Ruso, pointing vaguely in the direction of the women’s seats and adding, ‘Marcia thinks she’s engaged to one of the gladiators. He’ll be on later.’
‘So you let your sisters watch this?’
‘Everybody watches it.’
‘That is why I must see.’
‘Please don’t.’
‘If you are ashamed, why are you here?’
It was not a question he wanted to consider. He took her by the arm and led her back up the steps. ‘I’m a veteran,’ he informed the usher. ‘Twentieth Legion, served in Britannia.’ He tugged open his purse and handed the usher a coin. ‘Just let the lady stand at the top of the steps for a minute, will you?’
A naked man and woman were chained to a post in the middle of the arena. The man had a placard hung around his neck which read ‘TEMPLE ROBBER’. The woman’s pale rolls of fat wobbled as she caught sight of the bear. Someone in the crowd shouted an insult, and laughter rippled around the stadium. The men with whips stepped forward to encourage the bear to do its duty.
The deaths he had paid for Tilla to watch were deliberately hideous. ‘It’s supposed to discourage crime,’ he heard himself saying as the crowd mocked the woman’s frantic efforts to burrow under the corpse of her companion.
Tilla did not seem to hear him. Her eyes were fixed on the execution. Beneath the freckles, her face was an odd colour, and he suspected she was about to be sick.
‘It’s finished,’ he said, taking her by the arm as if she were the only one needing support. ‘Come down now.’
As she turned to descend the steps without arguing, he glanced across at the seats of honour. Resplendent in a dazzling white toga, Fuscus was leaning sideways to chat to his companions, leaving one hand holding a silver winecup in the air as if he were saluting the prisoners dying beneath him.
It was only as he followed Tilla down the steps that Ruso’s mind registered who he had seen up on the balcony talking to Fuscus. The two men who were not really from Rome, not really investigators, and not really called Calvus and Stilo.
75
The two heavyweights protecting Fuscus and his guests from the common herd did not look impressed. Between them they were wide enough to bar access to the flight of steps that led up to where the great man was apparently holding a lunchtime meeting on the balcony.
‘This is urgent,’ explained Ruso, recognizing one of the gang who had helped Stilo search the house.
‘Can’t be interrupted,’ said the second man. ‘Gabinius Fuscus is a busy man. Things to do, people to — ’
‘People to kill,’ put in Tilla, who had almost recovered her normal colour.
Ruso shifted his stick sideways and planted it on her foot. She jabbed him with her elbow and spoke up again. ‘We want to stop your master making a very big mistake,’ she informed the guards. ‘Even though he does not deserve it. When he finds out that he is made a fool of because you have not let us save him, what will he do to you?’
The men looked at each other.
‘My father was an old friend of his,’ said Ruso.
‘And I am Darlughdacha of the Corionotatae, amongst the Brigantes,’ said Tilla.
‘Who of the what?’
She repeated her British name and tribe.
‘Dar …’ The man frowned. ‘Oh, bugger it. Come up and tell him yourself.’
Ruso had expected some reaction from the dozen or so occupants of Fuscus’ cushioned and perfumed private balcony, but the magistrate’s cry of ‘Ruso! Just in time!’ was unexpectedly welcoming.
He surveyed the row of people enjoying a light lunch beneath the cool waft of ostrich-feather fans. A scattering of bald pates and togas was interspersed with richly jewelled and colourful figures whom he assumed to be wives, and a couple of young lads who must be Fuscus’ sons. Most had swivelled round in their seats and were staring at Tilla: the women with alarm and the men with interest. Nobody seemed very concerned about the proceedings in the arena below, where the bear had been recaged and Attalus’ costumed men were dragging the remains of its victims away through the sand.
‘Very timely, Ruso,’ continued Fuscus, waving a slice of melon in the direction of Calvus and Stilo and almost poking it into the eye of a bored-looking girl next to him whom Ruso assumed to be his latest wife. ‘Come over here and listen to this.’
Calvus and Stilo were standing awkwardly at the far end of the balcony. Evidently they had not been invited
