hurrying along behind it, all of the traffic was heading the other way. Sensible travelers would be settled safely in town before nightfall. Ruso, on the other hand, was following the road out across open fields to visit a suspect who had a motive for murdering Julius Asper. He was in the company of an armed man he could no longer trust and a junior guard who, if the choice came, would follow his leader.
If I were you, I’d watch my back. Publius had warned him. Tilla had warned him. He was an official employee and several people knew where he was going, but none of those things had saved Julius Asper.
He sneaked another glance at Dias, riding easily beside him. Now they were out on the open road, the man had added a long sword to his personal armory, dwarfing the wicked-looking knife he always wore on his belt. Why was the captain of the town guard bothering to perform a simple escort duty? He recalled the confused fight in Valens’s hallway, and the crater left in the plaster that might easily have been in his own head. If Dias realized he was under suspicion, then Ruso was in trouble. Besides, with Dias watching his every move, how the hell was he supposed to investigate anything? On the other hand, if he investigated nothing, that would look suspicious too.
He nudged the borrowed gelding over toward Dias’s mount. Above the gentle jingling of the fancy bridle trappings, he said, “I’m told Asper owed you money?”
“Not me. The lads. Wages for guard duty. I went to the house to find something to pay them with.”
“Any luck?”
“Didn’t have time. Some woman thought I was a burglar and went for me with a knife.”
Ruso could guess which woman that had been.
Dias carried on scanning the surrounding fields for the trouble that Ruso now suspected he was more likely to cause than to prevent. They were passing an overgrown track that led off to the left when he said, “That’s where the carriage was picked up. Stuck on a branch about twenty yards down.”
“Where does it lead?”
“A couple of farms. We asked around but nobody saw anything.”
Ruso walked his horse slowly forward between the lush grasses bowing in from either side. He stopped where the branch of an oak overhung the track. He could see no evidence of any attack that might have taken place here. The carriage could have been deliberately driven along the track to get it off the road-or the horses, with all night to wander about, could have meandered down here in search of a roadside snack.
Returning to the others he said, “While we’re out here, let’s see if we can see how Asper ended up on the river.”
Dias turned. The dark eyes seemed to be scrutinizing him, as if trying to assess how much he knew. Ruso forced himself to stay relaxed, knowing the horse might react to any tension, and Dias was not a fool.
Finally Dias said, “And what will that tell us, sir?”
Was there a whisper of insolence in the “sir”? Dias had had five years in the auxiliaries to practice being just the right side of insubordination. “Probably not a lot,” Ruso admitted. “But it’s your money, and you never know.”
Dias looked him up and down. “You haven’t got a bloody clue where the money is, have you?”
“Neither have you,” said Ruso, returning the candor, “or we wouldn’t be standing here.”
Dias’s face relaxed. “Move on!” he called over his shoulder to Gavo, the harness jingling louder as he urged his horse into a trot. “The investigator wants to look at the river.”
As the road approached the meandering river, it had been raised to cross flat watermeadows where the lowest patches were dotted with tufts of reed. Apart from the cover of the occasional willow tree, Ruso had to concede that it was a poor site for an ambush. The road was straight in both directions. The drivers of a couple of vehicles in the distance must have a clear and puzzling view of him and his escort, halting on each of the three bridges in turn. They could also be seen from the native farmsteads on the low hills around, most of which had been cleared of trees. There was a villa beyond a wood on one side of the road and, on the other, a grand stone memorial reminding travelers of some deceased landowner with plenty of money.
On the last bridge he stared into the dark water and watched long green fingers of weeds waving downstream. The river was no more revealing now than it had been when he had paused to inspect it on the way here. Still, on Asper’s last journey, it had been raining heavily. The traffic would have been lighter than usual and the visibility poor. If Asper had been attacked by men he recognized, they might have been able to get alongside before he realized he was in danger. There would have been no pursuit or ambush to alert his fellow travelers.
The water would have been higher with the rain too. High enough, perhaps, for a man to float downstream, abandoned for dead by assailants who needed to get away before someone else came along and saw what was happening. Farther along, Asper could have crawled out of the water. By morning he had gathered enough strength to frighten Lund’s children and steal his boat.
It was all speculation. The ambush-on-an-open-road theory was just about plausible, but none of it answered the question of what had happened to the missing brother.
The wooden bridge gave a dull boom as Dias’s horse stamped with impatience. Its rider said, “Tell you anything, sir?”
“Not really,” said Ruso, tossing a very small coin into the water for luck and hoping Christos, if he existed, was listening to Tilla’s prayers. “I think I’m ready for some dinner.”
They turned right off the main road soon after, Dias leading the way along a narrow unmade lane where grass sprouted between the wheel ruts. The gelding picked up its pace, recognizing the route. Ruso was aware of Gavo drawing up beside him, waving one hand to attract his attention and mouthing, “Sir?”
He slowed the horse, letting Dias draw away in front of them.
“Sir, I should never have said that about Dias. You won’t say anything to anybody, will you?”
“I’m sure he can explain,” said Ruso. “Don’t worry, I’ll have a word with him and sort it out.”
“But sir-”
“I won’t tell him who told me,” said Ruso. The youth evidently had no clue that he might be involved in covering up a murder. “With luck, he’ll never find out.”
The youth glanced at Dias, still a couple of horse lengths in front. He moved closer until his and Ruso’s knees brushed against each other and hissed, “Please, sir! It wasn’t anything bad. He just went to meet a woman.”
“I thought he spent the evening with you?”
Gavo shook his head. “In the end he had to, sir. Her husband was at home.”
“Ah,” said Ruso, who didn’t believe a word of it but could see why Gavo had been impressed.
“Please don’t tell anyone, sir. If his girl finds out, I’m dead.”
With that, Gavo drew back and left him to ride on alone. The gentle plod of hoofs on dried mud was accompanied by evening birdsong as they followed the track through fresh green woods that would have been an ideal ambush site but were implausibly far from the river.
After a couple of hundred paces the view opened to reveal the villa he had seen from the road: a two-story building with tiles on the roof, paint on the walls, and glass in several of the windows-which by British standards made it a high-class residence. Horses in the surrounding paddocks lifted their heads and trotted up to greet the new arrivals. A gray-headed figure that could only be Caratius appeared on the porch.
He had just raised one arm in greeting when there was a commotion behind them. The alarm calls of startled birds rose above the sound of someone crashing about and shouting. Ruso wheeled the horse around. Where Gavo should have been was an empty track. Dias, spear raised, yelled, “Keep back!” as he thundered past toward the woods. Over the hoofbeats, from somewhere deep in the trees, came a shrill and terrible scream.
It was all over by the time they got there. Gavo was standing triumphant, the tip of his spear pressed into the rough clothing of a prisoner who was lying facedown among the leaves.
“Got her, boss!” he announced proudly to Dias, and then to Ruso, “This woman was following us, sir.”
Ruso put both reins into one hand and swung down from the horse. As he knelt beside the prisoner, Dias approached and said something in British.
“Tell your man to stand easy, Dias,” said Ruso, relieved to see that the prisoner’s expression was one of indignation rather than pain. “There’s no danger.”
“She’s the associate of the Iceni woman,” said Dias.
“Yes,” said Ruso, sighing. “She’s also my wife. Would you mind letting her up, please?”
By the time Ruso emerged onto the track Caratius had arrived with a posse of excited farmworkers clutching pitchforks and horsewhips. His own escort was still wandering about the woods, trying to catch the horse that had
