So instead he limped quietly aside as Tilla refused his help to climb down from the back of the cart, then murmured, ‘Sorry about my family.’
She plucked at the fabric of the pale yellow tunic Arria had insisted on lending her, and which did not suit her. ‘Your stepmother says I must wear this while I look after your sisters. I am going with them to see all the things my people are not foolish enough to want.’ Reaching up to adjust the brim of the battered straw hat, she added, ‘Perhaps I shall bring some of the things back with me.’
‘Please don’t,’ he urged and raised his voice for the others to hear. ‘I’ve got business to see to. I’ll have one of the men meet you at the seventh hour outside the Augustus gate.’
‘Come on, Tilla,’ urged Marcia, pausing to push one of Flora’s hairpins back into place and then flinging the green linen stole over her shoulder. ‘Leave our boring brother to get on with his business. We’re going shopping!’
Ruso parked the cart under a tree and left it in the charge of a small boy, who promised to keep the mules in the shade. As he headed towards the town on foot, he caught a glimpse of green stole vanishing under the pedestrian archway of the Augustus gate. For the first time in his life, he wished he were going shopping.
14
The buildings were grander than anything she had seen before, but the streets smelled just as powerfully as every other town of fish sauce and fresh bread, frying, warm dung, sweaty bodies and brash perfume.
‘Come on, Tilla, or whatever your name is,’ urged Marcia over the clatter of a passing hand-cart. ‘We’ve got something to show you.’
The something was a temple, its stone pillars still new enough to glare white in the sun. Marcia pointed upwards. ‘See those marks?’
Tilla shaded her eyes and squinted at the roof that projected out over the high base of the building. ‘What marks?’
‘Those gold marks are called writing,’ explained Marcia. ‘I don’t suppose you have much of that where you come from.’
‘We do not need it,’ said Tilla, who had heard enough inscriptions read aloud to know that they were usually full of lies and showing-off. ‘My people have good memories.’
‘You’re not just staying with any old family, you know,’ Marcia continued, undaunted. ‘That says, “This temple was built by Publius Petreius Largus” — that’s our father. It was hideously expensive. So everyone can see how generous we are.’
‘This,’ murmured Flora in Tilla’s left ear, ‘makes it all the more embarrassing that Gaius won’t give us a dowry.’
‘What’s that about dowries?’
‘Sh!’ hissed Flora, glancing around. ‘We don’t want everyone to know.’
‘As if they don’t already,’ retorted Marcia. ‘And Gaius isn’t even embarrassed about it, is he?’
Tilla said, ‘Your brother is a good man who is doing his best.’
Marcia sniffed. ‘Is that what he told you? I bet he’s bought himself a nice house in Britannia.’
Tilla opened her mouth to say, ‘No, just a rented room,’ then thought better of it. Discussion of where the Medicus lived might lead on to questions about herself, and she was not going to tell them that back at home she was his housekeeper.
‘Huh!’ said Marcia, taking her silence for assent. ‘I knew it!’ She grabbed Flora by the arm. ‘Come on. I want to see if those earrings are still there.’
‘Mother said we’d got to give her the tour.’
‘Oh, never mind about that.’ Marcia turned to Tilla. ‘You don’t want to see a whole lot of boring old buildings, do you?’
‘No,’ said Tilla, who did not want to see a whole lot of boring old shops, either.
‘See?’ demanded Marcia of her sister. ‘She won’t know the difference anyway. They live in mud huts over there, you know. With straw on the roof.’
Tilla wondered if the girl’s rudeness had something to do with the heat inside her unnecessary layers of clothing. ‘Are we going to look for earrings?’
‘Oh, yes!’ Marcia’s smile was surprisingly childlike. ‘The most beautiful earrings you’ve ever seen!’
They had hardly gone ten paces when there was a yell from further down the street. An announcer had stationed himself at a crossroads and was shouting something about games being given to the people by the generous benefactor the magistrate Gabinius Fuscus. After more nonsense about how wonderful this Fuscus was, the man unrolled a scroll and read out a list of attractions that could be seen at the amphitheatre in five days’ time.
Several passers-by paused to listen: most carried on about their business while the man announced the promised horrors as if he were personally proud of them.
‘And you think you are better than me!’ Tilla murmured, ashamed that she did not dare to say it loud enough to get herself into trouble. She wanted to do as she had always done back in Deva: to cover her ears and walk away. She did not want to hear what this Fuscus — one of the Medicus’ people — was planning to inflict on men and animals in the name of entertainment. But what difference would it make? One foreigner’s disgust would change nothing, and sympathy for the victims would not alter their fate.
It was Marcia who caused the commotion. It was Marcia who screamed, ‘No!’ and flung herself at the announcer, trying to grab the scroll and shouting, ‘It’s not true! Show me where it says that! You’re making it up!’
The announcer backed away and made feeble attempts to beat her off with the scroll, clearly worried about doing too much damage to a well-dressed young lady. Finally Flora and Tilla hauled her back, Tilla seizing one end of the green stole and wrapping it across Marcia’s face so she was left floundering in the middle of the street as the announcer retreated and Flora shouted, ‘Just leave her to us! She’s mad!’ to the surprised onlookers.
‘What on earth is the matter with you?’ hissed Flora as they hustled her sister around the corner and thrust her into the shade of a doorway.
Tilla released the stole, and Marcia snatched it away from her face. ‘Sharp weapons!’ she cried. ‘He said they were using sharp weapons!’
‘Oh, of course they won’t!’ Flora reassured her. ‘It’s fixed. Gladiator fights are always fixed. Everybody knows that.’
‘They are not fixed!’ retorted Marcia. ‘The best fighters win. On merit.’
‘Then he’ll be all right, won’t he?’
‘You don’t understand!’
‘Tertius will be all right,’ insisted Flora. ‘He’ll make lots of money and buy himself out. Come and look at the earrings.’
‘This is all Gaius’ fault! If he had arranged the dowries, none of this would be happening.’
‘You can’t do anything about that,’ pointed out Flora while Tilla wondered what dowries had to do with gladiators, and indeed what Marcia had to do with this particular gladiator called Tertius.
‘We might as well go and look at earrings now we’re here,’ urged Flora.
Marcia’s lips pursed as if she was considering what to do. Finally she said, ‘All right. But I shan’t enjoy it now.’
15
Lucius had pointed out the previous night that the bath-boy was willing to cut hair, but the sight of Lucius’ hair was not encouraging. They were in so much debt now that a couple of coins for a professional job would make little difference. No doubt Arria would see it as an investment.
There was no mirror at the barber’s, but Ruso’s chin was smooth and his head refreshingly cool as he made his way through the narrow streets. There were competing election slogans amongst the usual announcements and nonsense daubed on the walls of the houses, including one unlikely claim that ‘all the town prostitutes say vote for Gabinius Fuscus!’ Underneath in larger letters was the assertion that all the followers of Christos were in support of one of his rivals. The prostitutes would have no vote, and unless the followers of Christos had enjoyed a sudden surge of popularity while he was away, their endorsement was unlikely to be welcome. Presumably each candidate was attempting to smear the other with these bizarre claims of support. Ruso was not sorry his father had never stood for election.