He made his way down the steps and turned to address his household. ‘These men have come to ask us all some questions about the visitor who died here the other day,’ he said. ‘They’re representing the Senator, and I want you to answer them as fully and as truthfully as you can.’
He turned to Calvus, whose long dark eyes were surveying the family with an expression that reminded Ruso of a predator choosing its next meal. He said, ‘You can use the study when you’ve finished inspecting it,’ and, lowering his voice as he drew closer, added, ‘My people are witnesses. They’ll do their best to help you, but most of them don’t know a thing. They don’t need to be frightened and they certainly don’t need to be hurt.’
Calvus raised one eyebrow. ‘What an interesting idea.’
It occurred to Ruso that what the man lacked in height he made up for in arrogance. ‘You didn’t need to bring a bunch of thugs with you.’
‘The suspect telling me how to carry out the investigation.’
‘It’ll never catch on,’ said Stilo.
Ruso felt his muscles tense. He made a conscious effort to relax his shoulders before saying, ‘I’m warning you not to do anything you’ll regret later when you find out the truth.’
‘Nice of you to care,’ said Calvus. ‘But I’ve been in this business a long time — ’
‘A very long time,’ put in Stilo.
‘I’ve been in this business a very long time,’ repeated Calvus, ‘and I don’t often suffer from regret.’
Ruso turned on his heel and limped away towards the garden seat. If he did not put himself out of reach of Calvus immediately, he would hit him. And that would do his case no good at all.
53
Ruso slammed the gates so hard that they rattled. He shoved the bolt across and turned to the dog. ‘Next time,’ he instructed it, gesturing towards the gate that shut out the departing investigators, ‘bite them.’
The enthusiasm with which the dog wagged its tail did not inspire confidence.
Rubbing his sore elbow and feeling ten years older than he had this morning, Ruso turned to limp back towards the stables. Already the shadow of the pergola was stretching its legs across the garden. Tilla and his sister-in-law were somewhere far beyond the safety of the estate, and there was no way anyone could catch up with them before dark.
The crunch of footsteps announced someone behind him. ‘If my vintage is ruined,’ announced Lucius, ‘it’ll be your fault.’
‘Is everyone all right?’
‘If you couldn’t keep that bloody woman under control you had no business bringing her here.’
There was no time to argue. ‘We’ve got to get to Arelate tonight, Brother. Cass and Tilla don’t know what they’re walking into.’
‘It’s bad enough you getting us all accused of poisoning. Now my wife’s run off because your fancy woman’s filled her head with rubbish, and you send a slave to come and tell me!’ Lucius kicked open the yard gate, sending a couple of hens fluttering away in alarm. ‘You don’t know how it feels to have to lie to your own children, do you? To tell them their mother’s gone for a holiday and you don’t know when she’s coming back? Did you see the faces on those nosey bastards just now? Even you suspected her of being a poisoner: what must they think?’
‘Are the mules fast enough, or can we borrow some horses?’
‘I’m in the middle of supervising the vintage, remember? Good old reliable Lucius, here every year — ’
‘We’ve been through this. We need to — ’
‘I stay here and work while you float around the Empire picking up women. You don’t have the faintest idea what responsibility really means, do you? Now I’m going to be gone for who knows how long, because somebody who can walk on both legs needs to go and get my wife out of the clutches of that woman so she can come back here and do her duty!’
Lucius paused for breath, and Marcia’s voice floated across the yard. ‘Are you two going to have another fight?’
The unified ‘No!’ was one of the few things they had agreed on since Ruso’s return.
‘I’ll take the cart,’ growled Lucius to the approaching stable lad. ‘The farm will have to manage without it because my brother’s wrecked the only fast animal we’ve got our hands on and that woman he brought — ’
‘Yes, all right!’ snapped Ruso. ‘If you’d taken your wife seriously in the first place, you wouldn’t need to chase after her now.’
‘Hah! You’re advising me about marriage?’
Ruso took a deep breath, consciously unclenched his fists and said, ‘Neither of us did anything to help, so Cass and Tilla have gone to Arelate by themselves to see what they can find out about the Pride of the South. Now I’ve found out Severus had a man in the port who — ’
‘What man?’
‘All I know is that his name is Ponticus, and if he finds out why they’re there, he’ll try to silence them.’
Lucius ran a hand through his thinning hair. ‘I can’t believe this. You knew my wife was in danger and you didn’t even tell me?’
‘If we leave now — ’
‘Oh, no. This time we is just me. You’ve made enough mess.’
‘But — ’
‘I’ll take the stable lad. You can stay here and do all the work for a change. You can have the old mule that’s left, and that horse will want delivering back to the estate in the morning.’
‘But — ’
Lucius’ fist shot out and grabbed a handful of his tunic. ‘Just for once, Gaius, just once — will you bloody well let me make my own decisions?’
54
Ruso left his brother strutting about, shouting orders. He was making his way back past the dead fountain when his thoughts were interrupted by a wail of ‘Gaius!’
It was time to see what he could do to clear up the rest of this afternoon’s chaos.
‘They’ve been through our underwear, Gaius!’ shouted Marcia, leaning out over the porch balustrade, clearly eager to get her complaint in first.
‘Not while we were in it,’ added Flora.
‘Really, Flora!’ This last was from Arria, who was positioned at the top of the steps like a legionary about to defend a breach in the garrison walls. As he lurched unevenly up towards her, she said, ‘You must send a complaint to the Senator, Gaius! They’ve upset everybody and broken one of the best bowls.’
‘Only one?’ asked Ruso, relieved. While Calvus questioned the household, Stilo and three of Fuscus’ thugs had been searching the house for — he was not sure what. Poisons, he supposed. Stilo had emerged still clutching the knife in his disfigured hand. Perhaps he imagined that, if he found the poison, someone was going to force him to swallow it.
‘It was one of a set. A beautiful set. Your poor father bought them for me.’ She sniffed. ‘On our first anniversary.’
As he climbed the steps, he saw that his stepmother’s eyes were glistening with tears. The girls, noticing the same thing, retreated into the house.
‘It’s all right,’ he assured her, putting an arm around her shoulders and realizing this was probably the first time he had ever touched her voluntarily. ‘We’ll get another one.’
‘But they’ve been through all our lovely things!’
The lovely things were of secondary interest. ‘Is anybody hurt?’ The fourth member of the gang had been ordered to prevent him from leaving the garden. Ruso had been forced to wait out the questioning, limping back and forth along the gravel paths, listening for any sounds from the house and planning to beat Fuscus’ man aside with his walking-stick if he heard anyone scream. He had heard nothing, but he was still relieved when Arria confirmed that Calvus and Stilo had done no worse than frighten their victims.
‘And they’ve upset Cook! I knew they would. Goodness knows what we’ll get for dinner now, and we can’t cancel Lollia again. Those dreadful men made him open all the jars in the pantry and then they made the kitchen-boy eat something out of every one of them. No wonder he was sick.’
Ruso scowled, trying to stifle the guilty awareness that he might have spared them all of this by giving the investigators the evidence about Claudia buying rhododendron honey. ‘What about the others?’