As the remains of Julius Asper were maneuvered into the surgery, a thump on the ceiling told Ruso that Tilla had just dropped one of the bags on the bedroom floor. While the body was being unloaded onto the table, a series of smaller thumps and bangs told him she was unpacking. Valens was observing, “Notice the rigidity? You may need to cut the clothes off,” when something screeched across the floor above him. Ruso guessed the box of crockery had been rammed back under the bed.
The short apprentice was approaching the body as one might a dangerous animal when a fierce knocking shook the outside door of the surgery. The clothing shears in his hand clattered onto the tiled floor.
Valens sent the tall boy to get rid of the caller.
“Very sorry, sirs,” Ruso heard the lad say. “The doctor’s-”
The door was flung open with a force that knocked the boy sideways. A voice bellowed, “The assistant procurator of the province of Britannia and Senior Magistrate Caratius of Verulamium!’
After this grand announcement, Firmus’s entry was something of a disappointment. He sidled in, shoulders hunched as if he was afraid he might brush against something unpleasant, and squinted at the body. He was followed by a tall man in a deep blue traveling cloak pinned by a magnificent enameled brooch in the shape of a prancing horse. The dusty sandals below and the grim expression above suggested he had come a long way to see this, and he was not impressed. Behind him, a massive native wearing chain mail ducked in under the lintel before Firmus’s elderly slave closed the door.
Firmus backed away to stand against the shelves. The grimfaced one who must be Senior Magistrate Caratius approached the table and leaned over the body of Julius Asper. A heavy gold earring glinted through the gray hair that had escaped the braid and straggled around his jaw.
“That’s one of them,” he confirmed. Despite his appearance, his Latin had no trace of a native accent. “Which of you is the investigator?”
Ruso introduced himself. He was about to offer condolences when the man interrupted with, “No sign of the money, I suppose?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“But you have men out looking for it?”
Wishing the magistrate would keep his voice down, Ruso glanced at Firmus for some guidance on how to proceed. The youth’s face was pale beneath the tan. He was gazing in the direction of Julius Asper’s feet. The elderly slave leaned forward and began to describe the body.
“Not now, Pyramus!” snapped his master. “I can see quite enough.”
Their presence made Ruso aware of how the mingling aromas of a doctor’s surgery and an unwashed dead body might strike an outsider and what his audience might be making of the saw cuts scarring the sides of the operating table. “We’re about to examine him in the hope of confirming what’s happened,” he explained. “Then if the magistrate could fill me in on-”
“Will that help you find the money?” interrupted Caratius.
“Possibly.” Ruso nodded to Valens to get on with it. He was about to usher the spectators to a position where they were no longer obstructing the medics and blocking the light when he caught the expression on Firmus’s face. He grabbed him by one arm and swung him around toward the internal door. “I think we’re a bit in the way here,” he announced, struggling to pull the pin out of the latch and wondering if his spare hand would have been better employed holding a bowl in front of the assistant procurator.
Behind him he heard Valens giving orders and the magistrate saying, “I think we should watch.”
“It’s very tedious, sir,” Ruso assured him, putting one knee to the door and jolting the pin out of place. He dragged Firmus through the lobby into the fresh air of the hallway. “If you could just keep your voices down, gentlemen, there are patients asleep upstairs…” Finally, with the door of Valens’s dining room safely closed, he continued, “Perhaps you could brief me about what’s been going on in Verulamium?”
Sipping a cup of Ruso’s wedding-present wine, Caratius sat very upright on one end of Valens’s uncomfortable couch and began to explain that he had been on the Council for many years just like his father before him, a man who was a respected leader of his people, eager to blend local tradition with modern ways, and whose 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.”