Caveat Emptor by Ruth Downie

Author:Ruth Downie
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2010-04-02T04:00:00+00:00

37

T HE MEN HAD gone into the dining room ahead of her. Tilla settled herself on the stool, leaned against the wall, and stretched out one leg so the slave could struggle with the knot in the damp leather lacing of her boot.

She had made a fool of herself, and the Medicus was embarrassed. Still, it was better to be a fool than a widow. Better to be embarrassed than to suffer some “accident” at the hands of the Catuvellauni. He would come to see that in a day or two. And at least she was getting dinner.

When the slave had finished drying her feet and taken her boots away to clean, she was ushered into a big room where instead of good beef there was all sorts of fiddly food set out in red bowls much like their own on a low table. Her husband and Caratius stopped talking and turned to look at her as if they had been discussing something important and secret. Perhaps Caratius had been trying to find out what the Medicus knew about the murder. Or perhaps he had been giving his own side of the marriage story that both he and Camma had been too embarrassed to tell in Londinium.

She sat in the wicker chair, relieved that this house did not have those terrible dining couches to go with the foreign food. She had never understood how people could eat lying down. It was against all common sense. A slave poured her watered wine, then offered her olives and oysters. She knew it was an odd combination. She might be a Northerner but she had traveled across the sea to places that most men like Caratius could only dream about. She supposed he was trying to impress.

Perhaps she had been worrying about nothing. Caratius did not know he was under suspicion. Besides, the man had spent money on the dinner. He would not do that if he were planning to attack his guest. He had just brought the Medicus out here to tell him what to think.

She glanced at her husband’s bowl. He had stayed with the oysters. She helped herself to a couple of olives. The taste reminded her of Gaul. Caratius was boasting about his wine specially imported “from a man I know in Aquitania” and how their grandfathers had been friends and how he was thinking of inviting him over here to help set up a vineyard. The Medicus very politely did not say that his own family had been making wine back in Gaul for years and that anyone—even a British woman who preferred a good beer—could tell that it was better than the rubbish the grandfather’s friend was sending over.

Caratius carried on gulping down oysters and ignoring her. He was too busy explaining why the Council would do well to listen to him in future and how the Medicus ought to go about his investigating. The Medicus was saying very little, perhaps waiting for Caratius to give something away by mistake.

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