unusual, since the town always paid on time.
“Unlike some,” added one of the clerks, eliciting murmurs of agreement. Ruso suspected that complaining about the lateness of tax collectors was a regular office pastime when they did not have the whereabouts of missing ones to ponder.
Nobody had known anything about Julius Asper’s wife until she had arrived this morning, which was hardly surprising. There was an enthusiastic discussion about where two men with a lot of money might have gone, but when Ruso probed further it was clear they did not know how Asper might have traveled, or anything about his usual security arrangements. In the past he might have had one, perhaps two, or possibly three henchmen, but nobody had paid much attention and none could recall any names. To the staff’s obvious disappointment, Ruso thanked them and declared that he would not take up any more of their time.
The gate guards could not remember anything at all about Julius Asper but confirmed Ruso’s impression that no sensible tax collector would wander around with a large sum of money and no proper security. No, they could not remember ever seeing a man with only half of one ear, but if he were guarding the tax money, might he not be wearing a helmet?
Having confirmed at least some of Camma’s story, Ruso spent what was left of the afternoon on a fruitless but necessary round of visits to ships and warehouses, offices and inns, a cheerful brothel and a depressing one, and the local baths. Despite the offer of a reward-something he had forgotten to warn Firmus about-nobody could remember a man with graying brown hair and a scar beneath the right eye, who might or might not be calling himself Julius Asper. Nor could they recall Julius Bericus, or his mangled ear.
The sun was beginning to slide down toward the horizon, and Ruso was hungry. For all he knew, the brothers might have avoided the obvious route south and fled in some other direction. He would have to go to Verulamium tomorrow and start again from there.
He turned away from the river and headed back to find out where Valens was thinking of buying tonight’s dinner. He hoped it was none of the places he had visited so far.
He would not have noticed the slight figure approaching along the street but for the two small boys who were following and imitating his gait. It was a moment before he realized the figure was calling to him.
“Doctor Gaius Petrieus, sir!”
Ruso stopped. “Albanus?”
He blinked in surprise at his former clerk. Neither seemed to know whether to embrace the other. Albanus solved the problem with a snappy military salute that was immediately parodied behind him. Ruso returned the salute and glared at the boys, who fled.
Invalided out of the army, Albanus was attempting to make a living by teaching boys like the ones Ruso had just frightened away. Although, as he observed, most of the boys were even less eager to learn than their parents were to pay: a fact which was borne out by the patches on his tunic. “I get by, sir. But if you need a clerk, I’d be very happy to help.”
“Not at the moment, I’m afraid. I’ve got a temporary job with the procurator’s office. They seem to have a clerk in every corner.” He explained about the hunt for the missing brothers. “But if I hear of anybody who needs a good man, I’ll mention your name.”
The smile was pathetically grateful. “Thank you, sir. They can find me at Albanus’s School for Young Gentlemen. We’re in the southwest corner of the Forum every morning. Reading, writing, and mathematics as standard; Greek, logic, and rhetoric by special arrangement. In the meantime I’ll spread the word about your tax men. And if I hear of anybody who needs a good doctor, I’ll tell them you’ll be available shortly.”
Ruso grinned. “Thank you.”
“You will be careful, won’t you, sir? People can turn very nasty when there’s money involved.”
Ruso’s smile faded as he watched Albanus walk away down the street. He had always felt vaguely responsible for the head injury that had ended Albanus’s career in the army, but at the moment he barely had the resources to look after himself and Tilla, let alone employ a clerk he didn’t need. It was unlikely they would ever work together again, and he suspected both of them would be the poorer for it.
8
Tilla was eating upstairs with the new mother. Down in the dining room, Valens poked at the wick on the lamp with the sharp end of his spoon. The flame rose higher. He wiped the spoon on the couch, seemingly unaware of the oily streak it left behind. He poured himself another generous helping of Ruso’s wedding-present wine while Ruso helped himself from the platter of salmon that the boy had just fetched from the inn around the corner.
“This is the life!” Valens observed, adjusting the cushions behind him before lifting his feet onto the couch. “Just us chaps together. It’s a pity you’ve got to rush off to Verulamium in the morning. You know”-here he took a mouthful of salmon and carried on talking around it-“sometimes I miss the old place back in Deva.”
Ruso licked the overspiced sauce from the spoon. “Didn’t we spend most of our time in the old place looking for ways to get out of it?”
“Ah, Ruso,” said Valens, “how I’ve missed your delightfully glum presence.” He grinned. “I never thought I’d say this, but it’s more fun with you around.” Seeing Ruso’s surprise he added, “It’s an honor to tend the great and the powerful, but frankly it’s not very entertaining.”
Ruso took another swig of wine and marveled at how Valens’s life must have changed if this evening was his idea of fun. He said, “I ran into Albanus this afternoon.”
“We should have invited him,” said Valens. “I didn’t think.”
Ruso was about to say, “He’s looking for a job,” and then considered what it might be like to work for Valens and kept quiet.
If Tilla were here, she would be hinting that this was the time to ask about the mysterious absence of Serena.
“So,” said Valens in a tone that implied he was about to say something that had been on his mind for a while. “Women, eh?”
“Women,” agreed Ruso, hoping Valens would get to the subject of Serena without any embarrassing prompting.
“Tell me, what do your family make of Tilla?”
Perhaps he was approaching the topic by a roundabout route. “Some of them quite like her,” he said. “The rest are somewhere between horror and resignation.”
“Ah,” said Valens. “Well, as long as you’re happy.”
“Mm.” Ruso glanced down at his cup. “Pass the jug over, will you?”
Valens refilled his own cup before complying. Eyeing his old friend over the top of the jug he said, “What do women want, exactly?”
Ruso felt a faint twinge of alarm. This was not supposed to happen. Valens had always been the man with the answers. “You’re asking me?”
“Well, you married two of them. You must know something.”
Ruso watched the stream of wine cascading into the cup and pondered the question. “Tilla wants to settle down and have children,” he said. He was about to ask what Serena wanted when Valens said, “And Claudia?”
Ruso pondered that for a moment. “I tried asking her once.”
“And?”
“She said it was obvious.”
“If it were obvious,” said Valens, “surely you wouldn’t have been asking?”
“That’s exactly what I said.”
“And then?”
“She told me I’d just proved her point.”
Valens frowned. “So what was her point?”
The wicker chair creaked as Ruso leaned back in it. “I don’t know.” He made a careful attempt to sound casual as he asked, “What about Serena?”
Valens appeared to ponder this for a moment, then said, “Well, whatever it is, I can’t do much about it if she
