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 isn’t here, can I?”
9
As Ruso lifted the covers and fell into Valens’s spare bed, it dawned on him that not only had he eaten too much, but that he and Valens must have drained the amphora deeper than he had realized. From where he lay, his wife now appeared to be clutching a glass vial in one hand and tiptoeing around the bed with the exaggerated gait of a slave about to deceive a master in a silly comedy.
He closed his eyes, told his slithering mind to get a grip, and looked again. Now she was standing with her loosened curls haloed in the lamp, swirling sludgy gray liquid around in the vial and apparently mouthing words to it.
There would be an explanation. There was always an explanation with Tilla, but not necessarily a logical one and not one he wanted to listen to after a long day. He had a vague memory of wanting to ask her something, but whatever it was could wait. He let his eyes drift shut and left her to carry on. Thus he was totally unprepared to be woken by a rush of cold air, a warm body straddling his overfull stomach, and a voice announcing from above, “I am ready for you, husband!”
“Huh?”
“Now. While the medicine is working.”
He opened his eyes and surveyed his naked and wild-haired wife with more alarm than desire. “What medicine?”
“It is spring, and the moon is waxing. It is a good time to make a child.”
He swallowed. “Right now?”
The eyes that were not blue but were not really green, either, fixed on his own. “Right now,” she declared, and reached across him to pinch out the bedside lamp.
Sometime later, vaguely aware that it was still dark despite the screech of a neighbor’s cockerel, he heard her say, “And another thing. This bed is too hard.”
He mumbled, “Perhaps the beds will be better in Verulamium.”
“I hope many things will be better.” He guessed this referred to their latest attempt to produce an heir, which had been swiftly concluded and followed-as far as he could remember-by his drifting off to sleep while she was still talking. She said, “I have told Camma she can travel with us tomorrow.”
He grunted his assent.
Outside, the cockerel again shrieked the start of a nonexistent dawn. He said, “Somebody ought to put that bloody bird in the pot.”