That, as far as he could recall, was the original problem with the Christians, even before they had started enticing women away from home. They saw religion as a fight. They upset everyone else by refusing to sacrifice to the normal gods on the grounds that their own wouldn’t like it, ignored polite requests to be a little more open-minded and then refused to be coerced, in the belief that clinging stubbornly to their faith in this world would win them happiness for ever in the next one.
On the other hand, ‘absolute respect’ surely meant obedience? He would read this to her and translate it before he burned it. As an obedient slave with absolute respect for her master, Galla would do what she was told and stop fooling around with foreign religions.
63
Yesterday’s bread was dry, but cheaper. The two women were washing it down with a jug of watered vinegary wine, leaning over the ramshackle bar that opened on to a side street where two slaves were laying out a great length of fat rope. As Cass explained about the drowned brother, Tilla wondered how the grim-faced woman behind the counter could possibly have managed to lure away somebody else’s husband.
‘The only thing I know,’ said Phoebe, not looking up from stirring one of the huge pots set into the counter, ‘is that the dead don’t come back.’
Cassiana straightened her shoulders. ‘But we can remember them.’
‘What I’m saying,’ continued the woman, ‘is, you don’t want to listen to drunks and layabouts. So if you’re chasing this rubbish about ghosts, you’re wasting your time.’
‘Ghosts?’ Cass’s hands on the counter turned into fists. ‘Who has seen a ghost?’
The woman lifted out the spoon. ‘They all drowned. The captain and the owner and the crew and your brother. Don’t waste your time.’
‘Tell us about the ghosts,’ said Tilla.
‘A couple of fools who reckon they saw the captain and the owner. Late at night in a bar, of course.’
‘What are their names?’ Cass was almost on top of the counter now. ‘Which bar was it?’
‘I told you, it’s rubbish.’
Tilla handed her too much money for the breakfast and said, ‘You knew this captain and this owner?’
‘I’ve seen them once or twice. They reckoned they were too good for us in here.’ The woman counted the coins and did not offer to return any change.
‘And these two were the only ghosts anyone saw?’ asked Cass again.
‘Copreus and Ponticus.’
‘Tell us what these men looked like,’ urged Tilla. When the woman looked her in the eye she handed over another coin. At this rate they would be walking home.
Moments later a fat man who walked with two sticks rolled up to the bar and manoeuvred himself on to the stool. The woman abandoned her attempts to describe the missing Copreus and Ponticus, and moved away to greet her latest customer by name.
Tilla said, ‘One last question. Where do I find someone who has seen these ghosts?’
‘One of them cheap whorehouses downstream,’ said Phoebe, without turning round. ‘I wouldn’t know which. I’m a decent woman.’
Evidently the time Tilla had bought had run out.
Beside her, Cass murmured, ‘How can we go into places like that? What will Lucius say?’
‘It is not going in that is difficult,’ said Tilla, gathering up the two extra loaves she had bought to give to the chained slaves. ‘It is getting out. Besides, in a town this size we could spend all day finding them all.’ She weighed the purse slung around her neck. ‘We will have to buy more bad wine and make do with talking to bar girls.’ She glanced at her companion. ‘We will find out everything there is to know, Cass. Now we know that Captain Copreus is a muscly man with tattoos, and that this Ponticus wears a bronze ring with a ruby set in it. If they are alive, we will find them. I promise. Don’t cry.’
‘I am not crying for myself.’ Cassiana rubbed her fist across her eyes. ‘I am crying for my brother, here alone with all these wicked people.’
64
Outside the gladiators’ barracks, groups of rival supporters had taken to trading insults and chanting the names of their favourites in an atmosphere that suggested a party rather than a fight. Inside, half a dozen men Ruso did not recognize were sparring with wooden practice weapons under the eye of a trainer. The yard smelled of beef stew, grease and fear.
He made his way across to the surgery, where the assistants were ripping up linen rags and rolling them into bandages. Gnostus was perched on the operating table by the window, running one finger along the script of a writing-tablet. At the sight of Ruso, he leaped up and thrust the tablet under his nose. ‘Anything I’ve missed off?’
Sponges, plenty of ligatures, splints, needles … Ruso scanned the list, mentally rearranging it into a more logical order. It would be no good remembering something vital tomorrow.
‘There could be as many as twenty casualties in here,’ pointed out Gnostus. ‘And we’ll have to patch up the animal hunters, too. But of course some will go straight to the undertakers.’
Ruso nodded. ‘Looks fine to me,’ he said, handing the list back. ‘As long as your boys know where to find it all.’
Gnostus glanced round to make sure there was nobody but the slaves in earshot, then admitted, ‘I’ve never done anything as big as this before. Any advice?’
Ruso watched a slave chase a long strip of linen along his knee until it became a fat roll of bandage and wondered what he could possibly offer that would help. ‘Talk to your men beforehand,’ he suggested. ‘Make sure everybody knows who’s doing what. Split the roles into examination, surgery and dressing, get the porters organized and delegate the simple stuff.’
‘That’s how they do it in the Legions?’
‘That’s how I do it. Once things hot up, you just have to try to keep going without yelling at the staff or falling asleep over the patients. So, what do you want me to do?’
Gnostus thought about that for a moment. ‘Right now,’ he said, ‘look confident while I get the team together for a briefing.’
‘Do they know I’m the town poisoner?’
‘You haven’t met my lads,’ said Gnostus. ‘You’ll fit in nicely.’
Ruso spent most of the briefing wondering what was happening to Tilla and Cass, and the rest trying not to speculate on the tales that could be told by the half-dozen scarred and ragged individuals summoned to support the medical staff. Gnostus introduced him as a veteran surgeon from the Twentieth Legion. If any of them had heard anything else about him, their faces did not betray it. Despite looking as though they had just been scraped out of a gutter, they also seemed to know what they were doing.
As the men shuffled out, Gnostus grinned at Ruso. ‘I s’pose this is like tying your bootlaces to you, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, gods above,’ muttered Ruso, glancing out of the door and seeing Tertius approaching across the yard. Then, in answer to Gnostus’ question, ‘No, not really. No, it isn’t. I’ve never done anything quite like this before either. Excuse me a minute.’
Tertius stopped and stood to attention as Ruso approached.
‘Tertius, I’m sorry — ’
‘I’d like to thank you for trying to help, sir,’ said Tertius stiffly. ‘And to request a small favour.’
While Ruso was hoping a small favour would not mean smuggling him out through the gate, the lad held out one fist, turned it over and opened it to reveal an iron ring and a couple of fat sestertius coins on his palm. ‘I’d be grateful if you could give the ring to Marcia and the money to my aunt, who works at the amphora factory of Lollia Saturnina.’
Ruso took the ring and the coins and slipped them into his purse. ‘Of course.’ He pulled out the writing-tablet that was tucked into his belt and said, ‘Marcia asked me to give you this.’
The youth took the writing-tablet that Ruso had eventually accepted from Marcia late the previous night and refrained from unsealing and reading. Initially she had been so unrepentant over the ‘come home’ letter that he had refused to take it. But she had pointed out that Tertius had done nothing wrong and he might be dead in two days’ time, and did Ruso want to make his last hours on earth even more miserable than they already were? Didn’t he want to make him happy and confident and give him the best possible chance in the arena?