the queue on the way out, ignored Satto’s confused shout of “Which way was it flying?” and nodded to Dias, who was hopefully none the wiser despite having witnessed the whole exchange. Then he hurried back to tell Albanus that the seal he had found in Asper’s office was not Asper’s seal. It was a replica of the one on the hand of Satto, the man who authenticated the bags of money stored in the strong room.
“Oh, no,” groaned Albanus, uncharacteristically despairing. “Sir, every time I start to get a grip on what’s going on here, it changes shape. So was Asper up to something himself? Authenticating fake money, perhaps?”
“Possibly. Or somebody wants us to think he was. I’m sure that ring wasn’t in here when I looked before.”
“Perhaps Asper and his brother were working with Dias and they fell out.”
Ruso shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ll try and have another go at Nico but we need to find out what’s in that strong room. Preferably not when Dias is around.”
“This evening?”
Ruso shook his head. “I’m supposed to be dining with one of the magistrates tonight,” he said. “Which reminds me, I’ve got another job for you while I’m there.”
“Sir, I may not have finished the audit by this evening.”
“Oh, you can take some records with you. This is guard duty. I want you to look after the two witnesses you saw earlier in the hall.”
“Me, sir? The ladies? Are you quite sure?”
“You’re an intelligent man with military training. I can’t think of a better man for the job.”
It was so easy to make Albanus happy. In truth Ruso could not think of any other men at all for the job, but he was not going to say so.
58
Ruso had noted before how the arrival of an infant released a deluge of washing. Rows of it were dripping into the vegetable patch behind Asper’s house, and when he queried Grata’s absence, he was told she had gone to take bedding to the laundry.
“I was hoping the three of you would stay together.”
“I asked her to stay,” replied Tilla, holding up a bone-dry linen towel and pulling it to tug out the creases before folding it and adding it to the pile beside her. “She is nothing but bad temper. I offered to help her turn out Bericus’s room this afternoon, but she says I will only get in the way.”
“She is upset,” put in Camma from beside the hearth. She had removed the baby’s swaddling to massage his limbs, just as Ruso had read in the textbook. “She has a kind heart underneath.”
Tilla reached into the basket for another towel. “I hope so. Did you find the man who sent you the strange letters, husband?”
Ruso helped himself to a stool. “Yes, but he doesn’t know who attacked you.” Their eyes met and he knew she understood that there were things he could not tell her in Camma’s presence.
Tilla grasped a crumpled linen undertunic in both hands and snapped it out flat. The sound startled the baby, who flung his arms into the air. Ruso suspected that Grata was not the only woman here who was in a bad temper. The bluebells had been received politely, but without the gratitude a man deserved for being seen carrying a bunch of flowers through the streets. He wondered if his wife was jealous. She would be returning to Londinium tomorrow, leaving Grata here with the baby and the woman who had become her friend.
He felt partly responsible for Grata’s bad temper. Her upset state was his own fault. The sight of Bericus’s body would have shaken anyone, let alone somebody who had shared a home with him. Even Dias had seized her by the wrist to try and keep her away. Later he had rebuked Ruso for allowing her forward.
Something whispered at the back of Ruso’s mind. For a moment he could not think what it was. He ran over his thoughts again, trying to catch it. It was something Albanus had said this morning. Albanus was alone in the hall with Camma because the other one left to go off and argue with your guard chap.
He looked up. “Camma, what’s the connection between Grata and Dias?”
“Who knows?” she said lightly. “One minute they are friends, the next not. He is not the sort of man to settle with one woman. Why do you ask?”
Tilla said, “That is another reason for her bad temper. Camma, where do you want me to put these clothes?”
The two women carried on discussing the domestic arrangements as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile Ruso was considering the sudden collapse of the case against Caratius. Nico had already suggested that Caratius knew nothing about the murders. Anyone could have put the body on his land. The only real evidence against him was the message luring Asper and Bericus out of town. The message that only Grata had heard. Now it seemed that same Grata was close to Dias. What if Dias had persuaded her to lie?
A further thought struck him. Grata had been in the room when they had been discussing the coin mold. If she had told Dias, then he would know they had found the evidence of forgery.
Ruso would say nothing to Camma. He might be wrong. Even so, he would warn Albanus before leaving him in charge here this evening. Grata could not be trusted.
On the way out he beckoned Tilla into the garden. Gavo’s large form stood awkwardly amid the washing as he kept guard over the back of the house. When Ruso explained that he would like a moment alone with his wife, Gavo nodded and made his way back through the alleyway toward the street. Ruso noticed he did not look at Tilla. After the way she had stalked them through the woods on the way to dinner with Caratius, he probably thought she was dangerously unstable.
When they were alone together beside the bean patch, he gathered her into his arms. He kissed her for the benefit of anyone who might be snooping before murmuring his suspicions about Grata.
“Dias is definitely involved in forging money,” he said, “but I can’t get any more names out of Nico.”
She nibbled his ear and breathed, “It must be a man. A woman working in a forge would be noticed.”
He let her think he had already considered that possibility and dismissed it.
“What about the other man Dias was with when I found them stealing the furniture?”
“What other man?”
She broke away from him. “Wait here.”
She ran back into the house, and returned to whisper, “Camma says his name is Rogatus.”
“The overseer at the stables?” Ruso stared at her. Several things fell into place. Rogatus could intercept the post. He had access to a forge at the vehicle repair workshop. It was Rogatus who had sworn that Asper said he was going to Londinium and had sent him out in a carriage without even the basic protection of a driver. At last this wretched business was starting to make some sense.
He grasped both her hands. “Promise me you’ll stay in the house till I come and collect you,” he said. “And dress for dinner.”
59
There were many reasons why Ruso was glad he was not the emperor, but one that he had never considered until this evening was that the more power you appeared to wield, the more determined people were to impress you in inappropriate ways. The conversation in the dining room of Gallonius’s town house was conducted across a fleet of little tables while the staff appeared to be carrying out an experiment to see how much could be loaded onto each one before its expensively spindly legs gave way.
It was hard not to conclude that the food and wine had been arranged by Gallonius while the delicate furnishings and the tasteful red and marble effect walls had been the choices of his wife, a small pale creature whose skin seemed barely able to stretch over her bones and whose conversation consisted mostly of, “Yes, dear.” She did manage to ask Ruso whether he was finding Britannia rather cold and should she ask for more coals on the
