Vita Brevis Read Free Page B

likely that Metellus had been drawn by the crowd, had spotted an old adversary, and decided to enjoy spoiling his morning.

4
    It was easy to pick out Kleitos’s apartment on the busy Vicus Sabuci—it was the door under the arcade that had two holes clumsily bashed through the wall above it so extra windows could cast light into the surgery. To Ruso’s disappointment, it was locked. There was a large barrel half blocking the entrance, and there was no reply to his knocking. He was surprised: On his first visit he had been introduced to a couple of apprentices as well as Kleitos’s wife and children. He would have expected one of them to be there in the middle of the morning to take messages, even if the little Greek himself was out seeing a patient.
    He hoped there was nothing wrong. Kleitos had seemed a decent man: an enthusiast who had plied Ruso with questions about military surgical techniques and the plants and minerals that could be found in Britannia and had made scribbled notes of the answers on scraps of parchment and the unused corners of writing tablets. He had recommended reliable suppliers of roots and herbs, and his promise to send a message if there was any work had sounded genuine. He had also seemed sincerely sorry when he explained that he could not send any of his patients to Ruso’s lodgings, because none of them would dare to go there. But staring atthe locked door, Ruso felt that if this was how Kleitos went about his business, it was hard to imagine he had a thriving practice.
    The blank face of the hefty woman serving in the bar next door told Ruso it was a mistake to ask for information without first ordering a drink. The purchase of a cup of spiced wine loosened her tongue a little, but not in a helpful way. She didn’t know where the doctor was, and they didn’t run a message service. “Come back this afternoon.”
    The wine was better than he had expected, which might explain the busyness of the surrounding tables: It certainly wasn’t caused by the warmth of the welcome. He took the cup across to where he could loll against one of the pillars of the arcade and keep an eye on the doctor’s front door. He might as well wait and have a chat with Kleitos now that he was here.
    As he watched, another visitor arrived. She could not have been more than fourteen. Somebody seemed to have glued a perfectly rounded pregnant belly onto her underfed frame. She knocked, waited, knocked again, tried to peer around the edge of the door and called, “Doctor! Doctor, are you there?” before glancing ’round in an agitated manner.
    Ruso stepped toward her. “Can I help?”
    She turned, startled.
    “I’m a doctor myself,” he assured her. “I’m just—”
    But she had fled. Ruso, still clutching his drink and marooned in the middle of the arcade, attempted a casual return to the pillar.
    “Nice try, pal,” suggested a voice from a nearby table.
    Another voice said, “You again.”
    “I really am a doctor,” Ruso insisted, not pleased to recognize the man with the bad haircut who had refused to let him past in the crowd at the amphitheater.
    “So you keep saying.” The man indicated Ruso’s empty left hand. “Where’s your box of tricks, then?”
    “I’m visiting Doctor Kleitos.”
    “Feeling poorly, are you, Doctor?”
    Ruso downed the rest of his drink in one gulp. “Not now,” he said, putting the empty cup down on their table. In his haste to get away he narrowly missed falling over that wretched barrel outside Kleitos’s door.
    Around the corner he bent to tighten a loose bootlace beforetrudging back down the hill past the bathhouses. The larger of the two had been commissioned by an emperor Ruso had actually met, although the aftermath of a massive earthquake had been no time to exchange pleasantries. Much to his first wife’s disgust, he had failed to exploit this brief acquaintance with Trajan, and by the time Hadrian had risen to power, he and Claudia were divorced. So she