Introduction

Newlyweds Ruso and Tilla are ready to find a place to settle down, where they can unpack their wedding gifts and start a family. They return to Britannia for Ruso’s work; however, the only job available isn’t as a doctor but as an investigator for the Roman government. A tax collector from the town of Verulamium is missing, and the town council swears that the tax man, Julius Asper, was trying to make off with the town coffers. But Tilla hears a different story from Asper’s lover, the beautiful Iceni princess Camma. According to Camma, Asper is the victim of a conspiracy, and she demands justice for herself and her newborn baby. As Ruso digs deeper into the politics of Verulamium, he becomes increasingly suspicious of this supposedly cooperative tribe. Why do the townspeople welcome Ruso like a hero? Why is Camma treated like an outcast? Tilla has a sinking feeling about this town, and she puts herself in charge of defending Camma and her infant. As Ruso realizes that Tilla’s safety is at stake, he tries to give both the Roman government and the Verulamium council the answers they want. Ruso doesn’t realize that he is helping to cover up a vast conspiracy until it is almost too late to do the right thing for his family.

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Excerpt

One

THIS CLOSE, EVEN Firmus could see that she was the sort of woman his mother had warned him about. Six feet tall, red hair in a mass of rats’ tails, and a pregnant belly that bulged at him like an accusation. The only thing that separated them was a folding desk, and even that wobbled when he placed both hands on it. He sensed a movement behind him. Pyramus’s breath was warm on his ear.

“Shall I call the guards, master?”

Firmus opened his mouth to say yes, then realized what a fool he would look if she proved to be harmless. He gestured the slave back to his place. Perhaps, beyond the boundaries of Londinium, this was what all the Britons looked like. He squinted at the sweat- stained folds of her tunic and hoped the guards had at least checked her for weapons.

“Are you the procurator?” she repeated.

Of course not, he wanted to say. Do you really think Rome would send a shortsighted seventeen year old to look after all the money in Britannia? Instead, he straightened his back, pushed aside the wax tablet on which he had been compiling a list of Things To Ask Uncle, and said, “I’m his assistant.”

“I must talk to him.”

Firmus swallowed. “The procurator’s not available.”

She took another step forward so that her belly protruded over the desk. He forced himself not to fl inch. She smelled hot and stale.

“I have traveled twenty miles to ask for his help,” she announced.

“Where is he?”

Outside, the relentless clink of chisel on stone rang around the courtyard. Someone was whistling. The world was carry ing on as normal, but the woman was between him and the door that led to it. Pyramus, crippled with rheumatism, would be no help at all. Should he have called the guards? How fast could a woman in that condition move?

“The procurator won’t be here all day,” he said. This was not strictly true, since his uncle was only two rooms away, but the thought of interrupting him while he was with the doctor was even more terrifying than facing the woman.

She said, “All day?”

“All day,” he said, wondering how he was supposed to manage if the Britons were all like this, and why no one except his mother had warned him.

“If you put your request in writing,” he tried, “I’ll pass it on to the—”

“Writing is a waste of time. I must talk to him.”

“But he isn’t here,” Firmus insisted, ignoring a roar of pain from the direction of the procurator’s private rooms.

“I will go to find him.”

“He’s ill.” It sounded better than admitting the great man had fallen off his horse. “You can talk to me.”

He could see her eyes narrow as if she were assessing him. She glanced around the chilly little room, taking in the one cupboard and the triangular blur on the back of the door that was his cloak, hung on a rusty nail.

“You are very young to be Assistant Procurator.”

It was what they all said. Usually he explained about his eyesight and the army and how grateful he was to his uncle for finding him a post where he could get some overseas experience, but after a taste of that experience, Firmus was not feeling grateful at all. His uncle gave the impression of being perpetually annoyed with him and the staff seemed to think he was a joke. That one with the front teeth missing had practically laughed out loud when Firmus had explained that, as part of the emperor’s tightening up on the Imperial transport ser vice, he had personally been put in charge of the Survey of British Milestones. They were probably listening in the corridor now, and sniggering.

Firmus decided he might as well tell the truth. “I’m only here because the procurator is my uncle.”

To his surprise, this seemed to reassure her. “So, you really are his assistant?”

“Yes.”

“And you will help me?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Who are you?”

Her breasts lifted in a distracting fashion as she took a deep breath to launch into her speech. “I am Camma of the Iceni,” she announced, “I am wife of . . .”

Firmus had no idea who she was the wife of, because although he tried to pay attention, all he could see was the swell of the magnificent breasts, and all he heard was one word.

Iceni.

Several of the things he had read about Britannia before leaving Rome had turned out to be misleading— where were the woad-painted wife swappers?— but he was fairly certain that the last time a tax official had annoyed an Iceni woman, it had been a very big mistake indeed. Especially since his own grandfather had been one of the officers killed in the ill- starred attempt to rescue the settlers of Camulodunum.

The books said that the Iceni had been crushed years ago, but this one did not look crushed. This one looked tall and fierce and none too clean: exactly how he imagined the raging queen Boudica at the head of her savage hordes.

When future histories were written about Britannia, Firmus did not want to appear in them as the man who had been fool enough to upset the Iceni again.

He cleared his throat. She stopped talking.

“Sorry,” he explained, making an eff ort to look her in the eye. “I’m having trouble following your accent.” He reached for the stylus and picked up the tablet. “Could you say all that again, a bit slower?”

“I said,” she repeated, louder rather than slower, “something has happened to my husband.”

“We don’t deal with husbands and wives here. This is the finance office.”

“I know it is the fi nance offi ce! I am not stupid!” Firmus gulped. “No! No, of course not.” He recalled the advice of a distant cousin who had served here as a tribune: Half the challenge of dealing with the natives was working out what the problem was, and the other half was deciding what poor bugger you could pass it on to.

“This is why I have come to you,” the woman was explaining. “My husband is a tax man.”

“Your husband works in the tax section?” he asked, wondering how that had been allowed to slip through security.

“His name is Julius Asper.”

“Julius Asper,” he repeated, scraping the name into the wax. “What’s happened to him?”

“He is missing.”

“Missing,” he repeated, then looked up. “I see. Thank you for coming to tell us. We’ll look into it. If you could leave your details with the clerk . . .”

She folded her arms and rested them on top of her belly. “How can a boy like you assist the procurator when you do not know anything?”

“I’ve only been here a week,” he said. “You’ll have to explain a bit more.”

“My husband collects the taxes in Verulamium.”

“Ah!” Firmus felt a sudden wave of relief. He was on safer ground now. According to his research, Verulamium was a relatively civilized town just a few miles up the North road. For reasons he could not begin to guess, this Camma had married a tax collector in one of the places her tribal ancestors had burned down. “If he works for the Council at Verulamium,” he said, seeing a way out, “you should go to them.”

“I spit on the Council!” To his relief, she did not demonstrate. “They will lie to you,” she said. “That is why I am here. What ever they tell you about stealing the money is lies.”

“Stealing the money?”

“The tax money.”

“Your husband has gone missing with the tax money?”

“No, that is a lie.”

Firmus put down the stylus and got to his feet. “Wait here,” he ordered.

“I’ll be back in a—” He stopped, because the woman was no longer paying him any attention. Instead, she had pressed both hands into the small of her back and was staring at the floor with an air of intense concentration.

As he watched, her mouth formed a soft Oh. She stepped to one side and slid a hand down to lift her skirt. He followed her gaze, peering around the desk in an attempt to make out what she was looking at.

Pyramus was at his side, whispering, “There is liquid trickling down the inside of her leg onto the floor, master.”

For a moment Firmus had no idea what his slave was talking about. Then he said, “You can’t start that in here, madam! This is an Imperial Office!” view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

From the publisher:

1. Caveat Emptor opens with a quotation from the Roman Tacitus about the Britons: “So, fighting separately, all are conquered.” What does this quotation tell us about the Romans’ attitude toward the Britons? How does it set the stage for what’s to come?

2. The cast of characters at the beginning of the novel lists who Ruso will be “employed by, perplexed by, lied to by, set straight by,” and more. What does this list tell us about Ruso’s character? What other trials, deceits, and challenges does Ruso endure by the end of Caveat Emptor?

3. Discuss Tilla and Ruso’s difficulty having children. How does Ruso feel about settling down and starting a family with Tilla? Why does Tilla keep her past pregnancy secret from Ruso? What are the effects of this secret on their relationship, and why does Tilla finally reveal it?

4. What is the Catuvellauni tribe like, according to the Romans? What do other Britons, including northerners like Tilla, think of the Catuvellauni? Who has a clearer idea of this tribe’s motivations: the Romans or the Britons?

5. Discuss Metellus’s role in the investigation of Julius Asper’s disappearance. Why is Ruso so dismayed to find that Metellus is involved in the case? How does Metellus stand in the way of Ruso’s investigation, and how does he help it?

6. Ruso and Tilla have very different experiences when they first arrive in Verulamium. Compare the two scenes of arrival and discuss why the town greets Ruso and Tilla differently. What are Ruso’s first impressions of the town, and what are Tilla’s? How does each of them feel about Verulamium by the end of the novel?

7. Many of the men in Caveat Emptor are experiencing marital problems. How do Ruso, Valens, and Caratius each deal with conflicts with their wives? How do the wives—Tilla, Serena, and Camma—feel about their husbands?

8. Albanus, Ruso’s former clerk, is determined to help Ruso with his investigation. What kind of sidekick is Albanus? When is he helpful to Ruso, and when does he seem more of a nuisance than an assistant?

9. Consider the events of Julius Asper’s funeral. What controversial role does Tilla play in this scene? How does this funeral serve as a turning point in the plot of Caveat Emptor? How is Tilla treated differently in Verulamium after the funeral?

10. When Grata, Julius Bericus’s housekeeper, wants to see her employer’s corpse, the two sides of Ruso, doctor and investigator, come into conflict: “The doctor in him told the investigator he should have stopped her.” (191) Why does Ruso’s job as an investigator take priority over his principles as a doctor?

11. There are several cases of forgery in Caveat Emptor: Dias and Gallonius’s coin conspiracy, the forged coins that Metellus caught Tilla spending, and Tilla’s forged letter that brings Valens and Serena back together. What are the consequences of each forgery? Which crime is more ethical: Dias forging coins to pay his guards a fair wage or Tilla using fake coins and fake letters? Explain your answer.

12. Discuss the uncertainty surrounding Camma’s death. Who probably killed Camma: Dias or Caratius’s senile mother? What evidence is there for each side? Why does Tilla blame herself for Camma’s death?

13. At the end of the case, Ruso says that investigating is “nothing but lies and deceit and making people even more miserable than they are already.” (326) What are the high and low points of Ruso’s investigation? Why is Ruso so frustrated at the end of this case? Do you think he would ever serve as an investigator again? Why or why not?

14. What is the legacy of Boudica, the rebel queen of the Iceni? How do Romans remember Boudica, and how do the Catuvellauni remember her? How does the marriage between Camma and Caratius help to heal the conflict between the Iceni and the Catuvellauni, and how does this peace effort fail? Why do the Iceni insist that Camma’s baby must be raised with them, with or without Tilla’s care?

15. Caveat Emptor mixes mystery, adventure, romance, and humor. What are the funniest scenes of the novel? Which scene is the most action-packed?

Suggested reading
Ruth Downie, Medicus, Terra Incognita, and Persona Non Grata; Steven Saylor, Empire: The Novel of Imperial Rome; Lindsey Davis, Nemesis; John Maddox Roberts, SPQR XIII: The Year of Confusion; Rosemary Rowe, Requiem for a Slave; Mel Starr, The Unquiet Bones; Albert A. Bell, Jr., All Roads Lead to Murder; Robert Harris, Conspirata; David Wishart, Illegally Dead; Ben Pastor, The Fire Waker; Colleen McCullough, Antony and Cleopatra; Simon Scarrow, The Legion; Michael Curtis Ford, The Fall of Rome; Paul Doherty, Murder’s Immortal Mask.

Ruth Downie is the author of the New York Times bestselling 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.

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