In the silence that followed, he felt her reach for his hand. “What I expected,” she said as the mud squelched and grated between their fingers, “was this man who tries to do the right thing even when it is foolish.”
For a few moments they were so still that a robin flew down and stabbed at the soil in front of them before darting off to safety.
“Right.” Ruso got to his feet.
“You could stay here and help.”
“I’ll be back soon,” he promised. “You carry on saving lives. This foolish man needs to wash his hands and send out a big pile of letters.”
CAVEAT EMPTOR
A NOVEL
IN WHICH our hero, Gaius Petreius Ruso, will be …
Employed by
The procurator, appointed by the emperor to run the finances of Britannia
Firmus, the assistant procurator
Caratius, a chief magistrate of Verulamium
Gallonius, the other chief magistrate of Verulamium
Metellus, the governor’s head of security
Perplexed by
Julius Asper, the tax collector for Verulamium
Julius Bericus, brother and assistant of Asper
Camma, mother of Asper’s baby
Paula, a young lady whose name he cannot remember
Lied to by
Innkeeper, a resident of Londinium who does not deserve a name
The Innkeeper’s wife, who does but is not given one
A number of others not so easily identified
Set straight by
The doctor, Verulamium’s local medic
Guarded by
Dias, captain of Verulamium’s guard
Gavo, one of Dias’s men
Informed by
Publius, manager of the mansio (official inn) in Verulamium
Satto, Verulamium’s money changer
Tetricus, a boatman on the River Tamesis
Lund, a farmer
Grata, housekeeper to Asper and Bericus
Nico, the quaestor (finance officer) of Verulamium
Rogatus, overseer of the official stables in Verulamium
Assisted by
Albanus, his former clerk, now a teacher
Valens, his friend and former colleague
Valens’s apprentices, the tall one
the short one
Attacked by
A mysterious man wearing a hood
Surprised by
Caratius’s mother
Serena, Valens’s wife
Disapproved of by
The clerks in the finance office
Barked at by
Cerberus, a dog with three legs (not to be confused with the Cerberus who has several heads, and who appears in other books but not this one)
A landlady’s terrier
Overlooked by
The emperor Hadrian
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Verulamium’s theater was finally built about twenty years after this story is set, and its remains can still be seen. The site of the Great Hall lies just across the road, but its foundations are buried deep beneath Saint Michael’s Church, and with them the putative location of the strong room. Sadly, no details of the town Council’s business—unruly or otherwise—survive. The more respectable of the proceedings here are based on bronze tablets recording the constitution of the Roman town of Irni in Seville.
Anyone who shares my delight in obscure facts will be pleased to know that there really was a crackdown on abuses of the transport system in the early years of Hadrian’s reign, including a survey of British milestones, although the name of the procurator who would have been in charge of them is not known. Nor is the location of his office, but it seemed reasonable to place such an important man in one of the grandest buildings in town.
A couple of good books for anyone wanting more detailed background are:
Verulamium: The Roman City of St Albans by Rosalind Niblett
The Coinage of Roman Britain by Richard Reece.
Many readers will already have had the pleasure of visiting Verulamium Museum and park, the British Museum, and the Museum of London. For those who cannot make the trip, all have good Web sites, and at the time of writing, the Museum of London’s Online Collections include a fascinating microsite exploring Roman London at: http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/Collections/OnlineResources/Londinium/.
Finally, for anyone lucky enough to stumble across something our ancestors left behind, or who wants to see what others have found, www.finds.org.uk is the place to look.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Heartfelt thanks to a veritable army of agents and editors, especially Peta Nightingale, Araminta Whitley, George Lucas, Benjamin Adams, Mari Evans, Kate Burke, Stefanie Bierwerth, and Marlene Tungseth.
For their generous advice and recommendation of sources on Roman coinage and Roman law, I am very grateful to Sam Moorhead, FSA British Museum, and Dr. Paul du Plessis. For help with the history of their respective towns, I am indebted to David Thorold, Keeper of Archaeology at Verulamium Museum, St. Albans Museum Service, and Jenny Hall, Senior Roman Curator, Museum of London.
Fellow scribes Carol Barac, Caroline Davis, Chris Allen, Guy Russell, Jan Lovell, Kathy Barbour, and Maria Murphy all slogged through several drafts of the early chapters, and Andy and Stephen Downie nobly read the whole manuscript.
Caro Ramsay kindly saved me from my own ignorance at one point, but all remaining errors, misinterpretations, inventions, and barefaced lies in the preceding pages are my own work.
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
Ruth Downie is the author of the New York Times best-selling Medicus, Terra Incognita, and most recently, Persona Non Grata. A part-time librarian, she is married with two sons and lives in Milton Keynes, England.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Persona Non Grata
Medicus
Copyright © 2011 by Ruth Downie
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury USA, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Downie, Ruth, 1955—
Caveat emptor : a novel of the Roman Empire / Ruth Downie. — 1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-59691-608-1 (hardback)
1. Physicians—Rome—Fiction. 2. Romans—Great Britain—Fiction. 3. Treasure troves—Fiction. 4. Great Britain—History—Roman period, 55 B.C.-449 A.D.—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6104.O94C38 2011
823’.92—dc22
2010034525
First published by Bloomsbury USA in 2011
This e-book edition published in 2011
First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Penguin UK under the name Ruso and the River of Darkness.
E-book ISBN: 978-1-60819-592-3
www.bloomsburyusa.com