Free Vita Brevis by Ruth Downie Page A

of supplies. This was more like it. Tipping the tablet toward the light from the door, he began to reread it more slowly, running a finger down each line and searching for any hint of a source for Balbus’s precautionary antidote. He had just reached the last line without enlightenment, when a shadow fell across the writing and a nasal voice said, “I’ve come to see the doctor.”
    “I’m the doctor today. How can I—?”
    “The other doctor,” interrupted the man.
    “He’s not here. Can I help?”
    “It’s about my money.”
    Tilla’s instant appearance from the kitchen suggested she had been listening for her cue. “The other doctor is gone away,” she announced, “and all his things have gone with him.”
    “He was here yesterday.”
    “Ask at the bar next door: They will tell you the same.”
    “What about my money?”
    “His debts are not ours.”
    The man craned to see past her, as if Kleitos might be hiding in the kitchen. “Where is he, then? When’s he coming back?”
    Still clutching the tablet, Ruso stepped in between them. “I’ve got his records here. What’s your name?”
    “Cash on delivery, it was.”
    “You’ll be paid,” Ruso promised, not wanting the practice to get a reputation for poor payment. “What was it you delivered?”
    To his surprise the man retreated into the arcade. “I’ll come back when he’s here.”
    “Was it that barrel?” Tilla followed them both outside. “Because whatever it is, it has gone off. You can take it away again.”
    The man raised his hands. “Nothing to do with me, miss.”
    Ruso tried again. “If you give me your name, I’ll give him a message.”
    But the man was already limping away down the arcade, thelurch in his step exaggerated by the slanting shadows that the columns cast across the sunny paving.
    Tilla said, “He was not much of a debt collector.”
    “No,” Ruso agreed, privately congratulating himself on the ease with which he had seen the man off.
    “Just as well. It is no good if I tell people we do not know where Kleitos is, and then you tell them you will give him a message. Husband, we must do something about that barrel. It is not—”
    Seeing there would be no peace, he stepped past her, warning her to mind out as he tipped the barrel up onto its rim and maneuvered it awkwardly toward the door. Then he stopped. He recognized that smell. Tilla was right. He certainly did need to do something about it. But he had made a promise to meet Horatius Balbus before the tenth hour. Time was passing. He couldn’t find the medicine or anywhere to buy some, and Horatius Balbus was a man who meant what he said. Whatever this was—and it was definitely not good—it would have to wait. He rolled it back to its former position.
    “But, husband—”
    “I’ll see to it later,” he said, stepping back indoors. “Stay away from it. Don’t let anyone interfere with it, and don’t breathe the air near it.”
    He put on the leather apron. He needed to concentrate on Balbus’s medicine. He was lining up bottles on the table and wondering what sort of brown liquid burned onions mashed with black olives and dates would make, or if he should simply adulterate a mild cough mixture, when Tilla emerged from the kitchen clutching one of the fire irons. “I said I’ll deal with it,” he repeated, but she took no notice.
    He hung the weighing scale from the hook Kleitos must have used for the same purpose, and surveyed the jars of potential ingredients his predecessor had left behind. Finally he checked the contents of a jar where most of the word POPPY was faintly visible in faded Greek on the outside, and was relieved to find that one dark lozenge of dried poppy tears remained inside. He sniffed it, then dropped it into the pan of the weighing scale, and licked his fingers, grimacing at the familiar bitter taste. Outside, he heard the sound of something scraping against wood and the screech of nails being prized out.
    The next