“Apparently they can,” said Metellus. “All they have to do is appear to threaten our investigator’s wife, and he’ll do whatever they want.”
Ruso felt his fists clench. He addressed the procurator. “I did my best under the circumstances, sir.”
The procurator sighed. “I’m disappointed in you, Ruso. When you had the sense to tell me you weren’t an investigator, I assumed you were an intelligent man.”
Metellus glanced up. “Why did you say you weren’t an investigator, Ruso?”
“Because I wasn’t!” snapped Ruso. “And I’m never doing it again, either. It’s nothing but lies and deceit and making people even more miserable than they are already. Now if you’ll excuse me, sirs, I have patients to attend to.”
It was rude and disrespectful and probably pompous as well, but he managed to get out of the door with his head held high. Somehow that was all that mattered.
He was through the building site that was supposed to be a garden and halfway across the courtyard before he heard someone calling his name. The chain-mailed form of Dias was looking at him across the back of a familiar-looking horse.
Ruso said, “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Escorting the tax money,” said Dias. “Like I usually do. Haven’t you heard? We’re the town that always pays up.”
“I could say a few other things about your town.”
“Ah,” said the guard, slackening the horse’s girth, “but who’d listen? Have you thought any more about that job offer?”
Ruso glanced around, then took hold of one side of the bridle. “Since nobody’s listening,” he said, “tell me something. I can see what Gallonius got out of it, with his town house and his country estate and all his jewelry. But you’re no fool, and you’re not all that rich, either. Where did your share go?”
Dias grinned. “You think I’m no fool, but you’re asking me to incriminate myself?”
“What can I do about it?” asked Ruso. “Asper and Nico are getting the blame for everything. The procurator won’t go after you now.”
Dias considered that for a moment, then lowered his voice. “You won’t believe me if I tell you.”
“Right now, I’d believe almost anything.”
“Gallonius paid the engraver. But I had to pay Rogatus for the metalwork and a bit of occasional help.”
“Like attacking my wife?”
“I’m not proud of that,” said Dias. “But it was for a good cause. Most of the money went toward the lads.”
“You did it for the guards?” Ruso was taken aback.
Dias sighed. “You’ve got no idea, have you?”
“No.”
“Decent uniforms. Good kit. Proper pay. A man doesn’t have to be a Roman citizen to appreciate things like that.”
“They could join the army.”
Dias snorted. “And be treated like dirt? My people have been allies of Rome for generations, and you know how much our lads get paid if we join up to fight for you?”
“Auxiliaries’ wages,” conceded Ruso, knowing they were nowhere near what a legionary would receive.
“Meantime we’re paying tax to keep your men over here, and what do we see for it?”
“The army keeps the peace,” said Ruso, repeating the official line.
“In the North, maybe,” conceded Dias. “But when Verulamium needs to show a sharp edge to the neighbors, they send a bunch of old men with a blind fourteen year old in charge.”
“Our men came to help. You didn’t even know the Iceni were on the way.”
Dias was not listening. “You lot haven’t changed since you ran and left a bunch of civilians to face Boudica. Well, we learned something from her, even if you didn’t. We learned that we can’t rely on you. If the other tribes come looking for trouble, we’ve got to be able stand and fight for ourselves.” Dias vaulted up onto the horse and turned its head toward the gateway. “We could’ve taken those Iceni.”
Ruso did not doubt it. The man was a good leader, and shrewd enough to know that Rome would always put its own interests above those of its allies. He had cast himself in the role of a warrior, and he was doing what tribal warriors had always done: defending his people. Dias was almost a hero. What was a little stolen money here or there? Nobody really needed a theater, did they?
It sounded so reasonable. So honorable… until he watched the scarlet braids disappear among the rest of the traffic in the street and thought of Camma lying in the rain, and Julius Asper, and the ravaged body of Bericus, and the sleep from which Nico-and so nearly he and Tilla-had never woken.
Ruso strode back across the ruined garden and under the walkway. Swinging into the corridor, he almost collided with the expenditure clerk and barely stopped to wait for “Come in!” before bursting into Firmus’s office.
“You can’t arrest those three for forgery or murder,” he said, “but you’re responsible for inspecting milestones and tightening up on travel and transport, right?”
Firmus blinked. “Yes.”
“Does that include the Imperial post?”
“I suppose so.”
“And interfering with the Imperial post is a serious offense, yes?”
“Of course.”
“That’s how we nail Rogatus. Talk to Publius up at the mansio. Say you had an anonymous tip-off about people abusing the system and you want to help him clean it up. Dias is probably involved too, but if you can’t get him that way, have somebody check all the records of the Third Brittones. You may be able to get him for faking a medical discharge.”
Firmus’s eyes were bright. “And the magistrate-Gallonius?”
“I don’t know,” confessed Ruso. “He’s overcharging the mansio for supplies, but that’s not illegal. Maybe Metellus can come up with something.”
“It’s worth a try.” Firmus got to his feet. “Stay around in case my uncle wants to talk to you.”
Ruso doubted that the procurator would want to talk to him ever again, but he supposed he should comply. Thus he was standing on the edge of the governor’s landing stage and wondering whether any of the ships moored farther down the glistening Tamesis would take him back to Gaul when a figure materialized beside him. Metellus wanted a quiet word.
There was only one word Ruso wanted to hear from Metellus. “Is my wife’s name off that list?”
“I can’t forget what I know, Ruso.”
“Then I’m not interested in anything else you have to say.”
“I’m sorry you see it that way,” said Metellus. “I wanted to thank you. And to explain one or two things.”
75
On the way back to Valens’s house, Ruso passed the chamber where he had promised Mithras a lamb in exchange for a baby. Had that brief guardianship of another man’s child been a cruel joke? Some kind of retaliation for his neglect of the correct rituals? He didn’t know. Perhaps he should have prayed to a god who was more interested in women. And if Tilla was praying to Christos and he was praying to somebody else, would the great ones work together, or cancel each other out in a fit of jealousy? He didn’t know that, either.
What he did know now, but was still finding hard to believe, was that Metellus had been involved with the whole Asper/Camma mess from the beginning. Metellus had tried to excuse himself, of course. It had been “only prudent” to install an agent in Verulamium with orders to investigate the alarming rumor of some agreement between the Iceni and the Catuvellauni. It was not Metellus’s fault that Asper had chosen to flirt with Camma on the pretext of seeking information. It was certainly not Metellus’s fault that Asper had lost sight of his orders and instigated a full-blown affair.
“I broke off all contact with him as soon as I found out,” Metellus explained. “It was clear that the man had no idea where his loyalties lay. So when he sent the first message saying he was investigating something of interest, I didn’t reply.”
“You told me you didn’t know anything about an investigation.”
“I lied,” said Metellus smoothly. “I was hoping you would find out what it was, and you have. I suppose he was planning to expose the forgery in an attempt to redeem himself. It’s a pity we can’t execute the forgers, but it would be politically inconvenient.”