own father had been educated in Rome…
Ruso supposed that explained the fluent Latin. Firmus, who must have heard this tedious preamble once already, sat on the other end of the couch and appeared to be more interested in keeping his lunch down.
Ruso tried to look as though he cared about the size of the Town Forum and the Council’s plans to build a theater and wondered how soon an investigator was allowed to interrupt a man who was the modern equivalent of a tribal chief. He was bracing himself to steer Caratius back to the point when he turned toward it by himself. It seemed the new men on the Council had refused to listen to the voice of experience when they voted to give Julius Asper the contract to collect the town’s taxes. They had allowed themselves to be dazzled by Asper’s glowing references, which were obviously forged, and-
“You mean that was obvious at the time?” interrupted Firmus, “or just after he’d disappeared?”
“Some of us never trusted him from the start.”
Ruso said, “When was the last time anybody saw him alive?”
Caratius’s account confirmed much of what Ruso already knew, except that his version of events included Asper removing the tax money from the town strong room before he set out. He had then collected a vehicle from the stables and headed south. The following morning the carriage had been found abandoned and there was no sign of either collector or cash. After the local inquiries had led nowhere, Caratius had come to the procurator’s office in the hope of hearing that the tax bill had been paid. “But I was right!” he announced, sounding more satisfied than stricken. “The man’s tried to make off with the province’s money.”
“Verulamium’s money,” Firmus corrected him.
Ruso said, “Isn’t it more likely that he was robbed on the way here? I can’t see why he would bother to steal from you. He must have been making a good living.”
Caratius gave Ruso a look that he had probably honed on rash young newcomers at Council meetings. “You didn’t know him as I did. I knew something was wrong as I soon as I heard he hadn’t taken any guards with him.”
“There was the brother.”
“Bericus was only his clerk.” Caratius indicated the chain-mailed native who was standing in the corner looking bored. “Normally he asked for three or four of our trained men to escort him to Londinium. This time, he left himself free to disappear with the money.”
“The woman says he didn’t have the money,” put in Ruso.
Caratius cleared his throat. “I’m afraid the woman is not reliable, investigator.” He turned to Firmus. “As I said before, I must apologize for the unfortunate way in which you were informed about the problem.”
Ruso pulled the writing tablet from his belt and offered it to Firmus. “I found this under Asper’s bed at the inn, sir,” he said. “It’s addressed to a Room Twenty-seven, but we don’t know where, and the content doesn’t appear to make any sense.”
Firmus held the wax close to his nose, frowned at it, and angled it to catch more light from the window. As he ran one finger along the squiggles and muttered to himself, Caratius’s pale eyes were fixed on the tablet with the gleam of a dog waiting to snatch someone’s dinner. Finally Firmus confessed that he could make no sense of it, and handed it over. Caratius held it at arm’s length, then turned it upside down. Ruso had been hoping for enlightenment, but all Caratius had to offer was, “It must be a coded message.”
Firmus said, “Wouldn’t a code be legible numbers and letters?”
“I’ll have it looked at,” Ruso promised, not wanting to admit his ignorance of spying techniques.
Caratius said, “When you find out what it says, I want to be told straightaway.” He swiveled on the couch to address Firmus. “As I said earlier, sir, it’s a great relief to know that the procurator’s office is already looking into this. If we can help in any way, the Council and the people of Verulamium are at your service.”
“And as I said,” put in Firmus, tactfully refraining from pointing out that the most helpful thing they could do was to send more cash, “our investigator’s already found your missing tax collector for you.”
“But not his accomplice, and not the procurator’s money.”
Ruso got to his feet. He had more important things to do than listen to them sparring over who was going to pay up if the money could not be found. Tilla was right: He should have told Camma about the death straightaway. “Excuse me a moment, will you? I’ll go and see if the doctor’s found any-”
He stopped. There was a living statue blocking his path. He heard a wine cup shatter on the tiles as the statue glided farther into the room, its long red hair flowing over white drapery. Firmus gave a squeak and dodged around to the far side of the couch. The native guard drew his dagger.
The realization that the statue was Camma and the drapery was a sheet did not lessen Ruso’s alarm. This was exactly what he had wanted to avoid. Where was Tilla?
The magistrate was demanding to know what this woman was doing here. The guard stepped between them, dagger leveled at Camma’s throat.
Caratius motioned him back. “It’s all right, Gavo.”
Camma pushed past the guard to stand over the couch. “Where is he?”
The magistrate placed both hands on the couch and got slowly to his feet without taking his eyes off her. Middle-aged man and pale young woman faced each other, their noses almost touching.
“This is a private meeting,” he told her. “You have no right to be here.”
“I know your voice when I hear it. What have you done to him?”
“What have I done? I have done less than I should, woman!”
Only when Ruso seized her by the arm did he realize she was trembling. “Come with me,” he urged. “There’s something we need to tell you.”
Camma looked at him as if she had only just noticed there were other people in the room. “What have they done to him?”
“Come,” he repeated.
“What have they done?”
He managed to persuade her to the doorway, where she spun around and stabbed a finger toward the magistrate. “You will be sorry!”
Tilla was hurrying down the stairs, a bundle of swaddled baby clasped against one shoulder and her spare hand reaching for Camma’s arm. She said something in British. Camma answered in the same tongue. Ruso did not catch all of the Iceni woman’s words as Tilla escorted her back up to her room, but beyond the accent he recognized the repetitive form of a curse.
13
What we think happened, sir-”
“Stop!” ordered Valens. “Don’t start by telling him what we think. Tell him what we know.”
The short apprentice’s face turned pink. He took a deep breath, glanced at the oddly angled form of Julius Asper lying facedown on the table, and started again. “The patient looks to have been in good health, sir. Well, I mean not that good, obviously, not in the end, otherwise…”
Ruso, who had already spotted the damage previously hidden by the hair and the foul mud of the alleyway, wondered how Tilla was coping with the woman who had become a mother and a widow on the same day. Across the hall in the dining room, Firmus and the outraged magistrate were being plied with more wine by Valens’s only remaining slave. In here, the apprentice cleared his throat and struggled on. “There are some bruises on his back and his right forearm, and a depressed fracture to the rear of the left temporal bone, sir. We think-” He stopped and looked at Valens, who murmured, “Carry on.”
“The injuries look two or three days old, sir, but he hasn’t been dead for more than a day. The head injury was-I mean, it could have been-” The youth stammered to a halt.
“Could have been what?” prompted Valens.
“I don’t know how to do this, master,” the youth confessed. “I mean, we know what it looks like, but we can’t be certain, can we? Or am I supposed to say we are?”
“No,” said Valens. “Well done. You’ve said what you can see. Now state your conclusions with enough confidence to show that you know what you’re talking about, but not so much that you get the blame if you turn out
