Bassus glanced around. The bar held four members of the staff, three customers, and, in a cage beside one of them, a jackdaw. Bassus jerked a thumb toward the door. "Outside."
On the way out they passed Stichus. "You're getting soft," Bassus told him. "Letting bloody caged birds in."
"It talks," retorted Stichus.
"Show me something round here that don't."
"Daphne," suggested Stichus, with what he clearly thought was wit.
"Take a walk a minute, Stich? Me and the doc have got business."
Stichus retreated into the bar. Bassus leaned against the painted wall, folded his arms, and glowered at the woman behind the bakery counter as if he were daring her to eavesdrop. "Make it quick," he said. "I'm a busy man."
"So am I," said Ruso. "But you said next time I had a problem to come to you. So here I am."
Bassus sighed. "What is it now?"
"I still haven't found Tilla."
"How many times have I got to say it? I don't know where she is! If I knew, I'd tell you. I got a couple of nice buyers lined up. If she don't turn up soon I'm going to have to let them down."
"But in the course of looking for her, I've run across some troubling information."
There was barely a hesitation before he said, "And this information would be?"
"I'll get to that in a minute. I'm trying to stop Tilla from meeting the same fate as the other two runaways. Tell me, is it true that Saufeia wasn't much good at her job?"
"What's that got to do with it? She was useless. Even when she was trying, which weren't often."
"And what do you do with girls who don't please the customers?"
"Sell them, of course."
Ruso nodded. "That's what I thought."
"Sounds to me like you thought we take them out back and strangle them."
"What I can't understand," said Ruso, "is why her hair was all shorn off. She wouldn't do it herself if she was planning to work the streets or run away with a lover, and Merula certainly wouldn't do it if she was planning to sell her."
Bassus shrugged. "Sorry. Can't help you there."
"What I'm thinking," explained Ruso, watching him carefully, "and correct me if I'm wrong, is that it must have been done after she was dead. Perhaps not by the murderer, but by someone else who knew him. Who might be able to point me in his direction." He paused. "Someone who then went and sold the hair."
Bassus was staring at the pavement opposite, scratching his neck with one finger.
"If something's happened to Tilla," said Ruso, "I want to know about it."
Bassus continued to ponder for a moment. Finally he gave a sigh.
"All right. This is it. I don't know nothing about Tilla but I know a bit about the other thing. You keep your mouth shut, agreed?"
"Agreed."
"When Merula noticed Saufeia weren't around, me and Stich took a couple of torches and went to look. We found her in a back alley."
"Which back alley?"
"Over by the amphitheater. Propped sitting up in a corner like she was waiting for somebody. The bastard had only just got away. I reckon he heard us coming. She was still warm."
"You didn't call for help?"
Bassus looked him in the eye. "I know dead when I see it, Doc. Besides… I'm not known for being a patient man. Twenty-five years in the legion, I believe in discipline, see? People don't know what we have to put up with, with these girls. Strangled runaway, dark night, back alley-who'd have believed us?"
"But she was your own slave." Executing one's own slaves was officially frowned upon, but fellow slaves were not in a position to complain and it was hard to see who else would bother.
"She weren't ours," explained Bassus. "She belonged to the business.
And if Merula thought we'd done it she'd have gone mad." He paused. "I know what you're thinking. We should've just walked away. I wish I had. Only Stich, he decides to be clever."
This seemed an unlikely proposition, but Ruso let it pass.
"He says, if we just leave her here, then some greedy bastard's going to find her and nick all her fancy clothes and everything. What all belong to the bar. That hair was worth something too. So we took what was ours and we give her a decent send-off."
"In the river?"
"We weren't to know she'd come back, were we? But we didn't kill her. I swear. And I don't know who did."
Ruso nodded. "And would you know anything about an accident happening to someone who asked too many questions?"
Bassus folded his arms. "Could be arranged. Who you thinking of?"
"Never mind." If the man had known anything about the fire or the incident with the trowel, he was a good actor. "One last question. Do you knowT anything about a letter?"
There was a slight pause before he said, "What letter?"
"There's a rumor that Saufeia wrote to somebody. I know she was telling everyone she wouldn't be here much longer. I assume she was arranging to meet someone."
Bassus shook his head. "I don't know nothing about no letter," he said. "And she wouldn't have been here much longer 'cause we'd have traded her on. But your Tilla couldn't be writing to nobody, that I do know. Look. Asellina was unlucky. Saufeia run into a customer what didn't want to pay, and whoever he was he didn't bother taking her far to finish her. If he'd got your Tilla you'd have found her by now. I reckon she's run off, like it says in the notices. You ask me, you want to stop wasting time poking around with dead tarts and hire yourself a slave hunter."
67
Payday dawned at last. There was still no sign of Tilla. Ruso spent the morning trying to do justice to the needs of his patients, which were as pressing as ever. Outside, however, it was apparent that the Twentieth was working itself up to a level of excitement that heralded a busy night for the medical service. The enthusiasm raised by the quarterly arrival of cash had been swelled by the anticipation of at least the first installment of Hadrian's bonus to his loyal troops. The bathhouse scaffolding was abandoned, its occupants presumably waiting in other jostling lines like the one he was now passing outside a centurion's quarters. A neglected noticeboard at the head of a barracks block announced an inter unit sports event this afternoon in the amphitheater-a gallant but probably doomed attempt to direct the Twentieth's payday energy into useful channels. If this unit was anything like any of the others Ruso had known, by evening the real entertainment would be in full swing. The bars would be overflowing with off-duty soldiers, and men who ought to know better would be doing things they would very much regret in the morning. If Tilla was still somewhere in the town, he hoped she would have the sense to stay behind closed doors.
Minutes later, he walked away from the camp prefect's office still staring at the bottom figure on the copy of his account. Perhaps you'd like to take some time to check the figures, sir. This couldn't be right. There must be some mistake.
She had not miraculously returned to the house while he was out. He sat on his one chair and ignored the puppy that scrambled up his leg and danced around before settling on his lap. Outside, a shout of laughter echoed along the street from one of the barracks blocks. Ruso dipped his hand into the jar Valens had been given by a grateful patient and groped around for the last of the olives.
The figure at the top of the sheet was fine. The "Brought forward" figure was correct. Miraculously, the army had managed to send his records across two seas and two continents in time for the clerks to do the arithmetic. The down payment on the gift to celebrate the accession of the noble emperor Hadrianus was most welcome, except that a large chunk of it had been compulsorily diverted into his savings account. "Deductions," read the line underneath. That was where the trouble started.
Following all the usual deductions for his keep and the legionary celebration at Saturnalia was a figure for "Loan repayment"-they'd taken the whole advance back at once, of course-and an item called "Expenditure." The amount defied all his attempts to live frugally. The details were listed on a separate sheet and included "Meals taken at the hospital" and "Private use of hospital facilities."