Caveat Emptor Read Online Free PDF

dark-skinned man were arguing across a stack of barrels. Nobody paid her any attention. Nobody stared at her blond hair or commented on her clothes. She was home.
    Just past the bridge, a woman was dozing beside a fish stall. Tilla watched as a chunk of bread slipped from her hand and fell to the ground. A couple of pigeons pattered toward it, but Tilla got there first. She shook the woman by the shoulder.
    The woman jerked to attention and cried in Latin, “Fresh in this afternoon, lovely mackerel! Oysters from Camulodunum!”
    Tilla pressed the bread into her hand and said in her own language, “You dropped it.”
    The woman blew on the bread, examined it, and wiped at the dust with a grimy fist before trying again in British with a strong Southern accent. “Fresh mackerel for you, miss? Oysters? Eels?”
    “No fish,” said Tilla. “I am a stranger here. I’m looking for three people. The first is a man of thirty-four named Julius Asper. Brown hair and a scar under one eye.”
    The woman shook her head. “Never heard of him.” She had never seen Julius Bericus, either.
    “Never mind. Can you tell me of a woman who helps other women?”
    The fish seller looked her up and down. “Well, it’s not childbirth. Flux? Husband trouble? Abortion?”
    When Tilla did not answer, she said, “Barren, is that it?”
    “That is between me and the gods.”
    “There’s a centurion’s widow beside the bathhouse,” suggested the woman, not sounding very confident. “That’s where the officers’ wives go. But I hear old Emer has powerful medicines.”
    Tilla wondered briefly what her husband would make of her seeking old Emer’s opinion and decided it was another thing he need not know. “Where can I find this Emer?” she asked.

7
    T HE EXPENDITURE CLERK with no front teeth was of little help, but the clerks of the income department in the procurator’s office were clearly delighted to be allowed to discuss the latest scandal instead of sitting hunched in silence over their ink pots. Julius Asper was swiftly confirmed as the tax collector for Verulamium, with a description matching the one Camma had given. The existence of a brother was a matter of some debate, although all were convinced they would have noticed a man with half an ear. What was without doubt was that Verulamium had been due to deliver seven thousand five hundred and thirty-two denarii three days ago. It had not arrived. This was unusual, since the town always paid on time.
    “Unlike some,” added one of the clerks, eliciting murmurs of agreement. Ruso suspected that complaining about the lateness of tax collectors was a regular office pastime when they did not have the whereabouts of missing ones to ponder.
    Nobody had known anything about Julius Asper’s wife until she had arrived this morning, which was hardly surprising. There was an enthusiastic discussion about where two men with a lot of money might have gone, but when Ruso probed further it was clear they did not know how Asper might have traveled, or anything about his usual security arrangements. In the past he might have had one, perhaps two, or possibly three henchmen, but nobody had paid much attention and none could recall any names. To the staff’s obvious disappointment, Ruso thanked them and declared that he would not take up any more of their time.
    The gate guards could not remember anything at all about Julius Asper but confirmed Ruso’s impression that no sensible tax collector would wander around with a large sum of money and no proper security. No, they could not remember ever seeing a man with only half of one ear, but if he were guarding the tax money, might he not be wearing a helmet?
    Having confirmed at least some of Camma’s story, Ruso spent what was left of the afternoon on a fruitless but necessary round of visits to ships and warehouses, offices and inns, a cheerful brothel and a depressing one, and the local baths. Despite the offer of a reward—something he had