The Accusers mdf-15 Read online

  'Oh quite!' Best to accept patrician motives for marriage. Choosing a bride because she is capable of having children is no more crazy than believing some girl worships you and has a sweet temper – both of which are bound to prove untrue. 'In fact, I understood that Saffia Donata has three children.' So Helena had said, and she would have remembered accurately.

  'We shall see!' replied Calpurnia Cara harshly. 'She claims she's pregnant. It may happen. She's no loss,' opined the ex-mother-in-law, as she vanished from sight, jingling her keys.

  It was nice to find relationships that so closely followed tradition. Had the harsh mother-in-law been fond of her son's wife, I would have felt disconcerted.

  VII

  No way out. I needed an appointment with the fertile divorcee.

  Saffia Donata lived nearby now. She had rented an apartment close to the Market of Livia, just through the Esquiline Gate. The Embankment stood between her new abode and the Metelli like a symbolic barrier. I buffed through the hawkers and puppeteers who congregate in the shadow of the ancient fortification, using an elbow where necessary. I was among a lot of smart habitation. To the east where the Metelli lived in the Fifth Region were no less than five public gardens; to the west where I was going were the elegant Third and Fourth Regions, dominated by the Gardens of Lollianus. Very nice. Not so fine, once you realise that all these glamorous green spaces have been built up with many feet of topsoil on what used to be the Esquiline Field – the graveyard of the poor. Never stop to breathe the pretty flower scents. The graves of the poor still stink.

  Pregnant women do not scare me. Still, I did not roam about by myself in Saffia's new apartment. I might easily have sneaked around a bit. She was still moving in and there was chaos. When I turned up and was admitted without trouble, men were everywhere moving furniture (quality stuff; Pa would have made an offer for it). I saw a lot of treasures having their corners knocked off. Ivory items and silver inlaid sets of delicate stuff with goats' feet were being hauled around as casually as the battered joint stools at my mother's house which people had kicked out of their way for thirty years. There were enough bronze candelabra to light an orgy. I bet some found themselves dismantled into convenient pieces and hidden in packing wraps, ready for the no-questions resale market.

  Saffia was, I could report to Helena, very pretty. She was younger than I expected. Twenty-five at most. She had dark hair, tightly wound about her head. Light swathes of drapery kept her cool, but seemed almost indecently thin on her swollen torso. A maid wafted rosewater about, to little purpose. Saffia was barefoot, reclining against cushions on a couch, her embroidered slippers resting on a footstool.

  I could reassure my beloved that this peach was too ripe for stealing. It looked as if Saffia was carrying twins and that they were due next week. She had reached the restless stage, unable to make herself comfortable, and sick of friendly people asking how was she finding the wait?

  'I am sorry to bother you -'

  'Oh Juno, I don't mind,' she uttered wearily, when I introduced myself. I had said exactly what I was there for. Deluding a young, divorced woman in her home would be dangerous. 'Ask me anything!'

  In view of her condition, I was surprised to be received. Something about this offhand young matron seemed common; her openness to a male stranger was out of place in the patrician world. Yet her accent was as upper-crust as Calpurnia's and her welcome soon felt acceptable. There were other attendants constantly in the room, pottering with ornaments on gilt-legged marble sidetables. She was as well chaperoned as any witness I had ever spoken to.

  'I hope this is not inconvenient. I can see you are still in mid-move here – Do you mind if I ask, is your divorce a recent event?'

  'Straight after the trial ended. My father was horrified by the verdict. We are a very respectable family. Papa had no idea what he was getting me into when I married Birdy. And my ex-husband was furious. He doesn't want his boy to be associated with such people.'

  I ignored the self-righteous stuff and stuck to facts. 'Your first husband gave you a son, and Metellus -?'

  'My daughter. She is two.'

  I should have said, so is mine. But I was gruff in interrogations. To me, informers on duty are solitary grousers, not given to domestic chat. I thought it best to say, 'Would you prefer me to speak to your legal guardian, by the way?'

  'That's up to you. I have one, of course.' Saffia did not seem to mind dealing with me. She did not name the guardian either. I had shown willing. The last thing I really wanted was to be fobbed off with some jumped-up freedman who had been put in charge of her contracts and accounts, just to look respectable. He was probably of low rank, and I doubted if he saw much of Saffia. This was not that frequent situation where the legal stand-in has an eye to marriage with his charge. Divorce and Saffia were no strangers. Remarriage in the highest social circumstances was what she expected, and soon. The Augustan laws would give her six months, if she wanted to avoid loss of privileges. I felt she was an expert. I could see her swapping husbands more times yet – probably raising her status every time.

  'Excuse my ignorance; I don't know who your ex-husband is?' I was certainly intending to visit Negrinus; now I reckoned her first cast-off might be worth an interview too.

  'Oh he's not involved at all, don't worry about him.' I guessed the first ex had begged to be kept well out of her troubles with the second; Saffia was loyal enough to comply. Interesting. Would she be so loyal to Negrinus?

  'Is it rude to enquire why that marriage was terminated?'

  'It is rude,' said Saffia. Rather rudely.

  'Still, you remain on good terms?'

  'We do.'

  'Because of your son?'

  'Because it is civilised.'

  'Wonderful!' I said, as if I had fine grit between my teeth. 'And how are things between you and Birdy?'

  'Unspeakable – unfortunately.' She waved a small neat hand above the unborn child. Several silver bracelets slipped on her wrist as she did so. Her draperies were held on with numerous enamel studs and pins. Even the slave mopping her brow wore a bangle.

  'The mother-in-law comes into it?' I suggested with a twinkle. Saffia was loyal for some reason: she just pouted slightly and said nothing. Perhaps the Metelli had paid her to keep quiet. 'I met her today,' I tried one more time.

  Saffia gave in. 'I expect you think them an awful family,' she told me. 'But the girls are all right.'

  'What girls?' I had been caught out.

  'My husband's two sisters. Juliana is sweet, though she's married to a crosspatch. The trial was a terrible shock for them both. Carina always kept her distance. She's rather strict and has a mournful air, but then I think she understood what was going on.'

  'Carina disapproved of the corrupt practices?'

  'She avoided trouble by staying away. Her husband also took a very stiff attitude.'

  'Will you still see the sisters?'

  Saffia shrugged and did not know. She had the knack of seeming full of disingenuous chatter but I already felt that nothing vital would be wheedled out of this witness. She gushed, but she only told me what she could afford to say. Anything she needed to keep private stayed out of bounds. Lawyers do it in court: bombard the jury with trivia while omitting anything pertinent that may harm their client.

  I tried her with the main question: 'I am really looking into what happened over Metellus senior's death.'

  'Oh I don't know. I wasn't there. My father fetched me, the day the trial ended.'

  'You went home with your father?'

  'I certainly did.' She paused. 'Papa already had a quarrel with them.'

  'It happens in families,' I sympathised. 'What was at issue?'

  'Oh something to do with my dowry, I know nothing of such matters…'

  Wrong, darling. Saffia Donata knew everything about anything that concerned her. Still, women of rank like to pretend. I let it go. I can pretend too.

  'So, home to Papa, at least temporarily? Of course you wanted
to live in your own apartment; you are a married woman, used to your own establishment?'

  Not quite. She was used to living with Calpurnia Cara, a matron who possessed – as Helena Justina had commented wryly – bearing and presence. Saffia saw that I recognised the contradiction; she made no answer.

  I smiled like a conspirator. 'You have my congratulations. Living with Calpurnia must have taken stamina. I imagine she told you exactly how you should do everything -'

  'I cannot permit my son's wife to suckle!' Saffia mimicked viciously. She was good.

  'How dreadful.'

  'At least this baby won't have the evil wet-nurse that my daughter was forced to endure.'

  'You are glad to have escaped such tyranny.'

  'If only I had.' I looked quizzical. Saffia then explained the curious procedures that are imposed on mothers-to-be who divorce from families where a large inheritance may be at stake: 'Calpurnia is insisting a reputable midwife lives with me, examines me, and monitors both the pregnancy and birth.'

  'Jupiter! What's she afraid of?'

  'A substituted grandchild, if my baby dies.'

  I huffed. It seemed a lot of fuss. Still, Metellus Negrinus would not want to be saddled with maintaining the wrong child.

  'She told me you would call.' So Saffia and the tyrant were still on speaking terms.

  'She told me you are causing trouble,' I said bluntly. 'What did she mean by that?'

  'I have no idea.' I could see that she did know, but she was not going to tell me.

  I changed tack. 'You are very well organised. There must have been hectic activity to find you somewhere to live so fast.' Briefly, I even wondered if Calpurnia had had a hand in this.

  'Oh, dear old Lutea sorted it all out for me.'

  I raised an eyebrow, half amused. 'Your ex-husband?' I guessed. She blushed slightly at being outwitted. It was an unusual name. I would soon track him down. I smiled. 'Let's be frank. Do you believe Rubirius Metellus killed himself?'

  But Saffia Donata knew nothing of those matters either. She had had enough of me. I was asked to leave.

  At the door, I paused. Since I had already put away my stylus, I chewed a fingernail instead. 'Damn! I meant to ask Calpurnia something… I don't want to keep annoying her in her time of grief – would you happen to know, what poison was it that Metellus took?'

  'Hemlock.' This was good, from a woman who had not been in the house when the poisoning occurred and who was estranged from the family.

  'Hades, we're not in the wilds of Greece, and Metellus was not a philosopher. Nobody civilised takes hemlock nowadays!'

  Saffia made no comment.

  'Do you know where he would have acquired it?' I asked.

  Saffia looked more wary. She merely shrugged.

  I had now interviewed two matrons from the same family, in my opinion both deeply devious. My brain ached. I went home for lunch to my own open and uncomplicated womenfolk.

  VIII

  'How could you do that to me, Falco?'

  Justinus was chomping his way through a bowl of chicory, olives and goat's cheese. He looked morose. I asked what I had done, knowing he referred to Ursulina Prisca. His brother, who was reading a scroll as if he despised lunch, smirked.

  'Vulcan's breath,' Justinus went on. 'Your widow is so demanding. She goes nattering on about agnates -'

  'Agnates?' Helena looked sceptical. 'Is that a disease or a semiprecious stone?'

  'Close relatives, other than children, who are next in line to inherit.' Aelianus, for once more efficient than Justinus, must actually be learning up the finer points of inheritance law. Was that in his scroll?

  'Ursulina has some claim on the estate of a brother,' I confirmed. 'Or she thinks she does.'

  'Oh I'm taking her word!' Justinus marvelled. 'Ursulina Prisca has a firm grip on her rights. She knows more law than all the barristers in the Basilica.'

  'Why does she need our help then?' Helena managed to put in.

  'She wants us to be, as she puts it, the instruments of her legal challenge.'

  'Go to court for her?'

  'Go to Hades for her!' Justinus moaned, in deep gloom.

  'So you accepted the client,' I surmised, laughing at him. 'You are a public-spirited soul. The gods will think well of you.'

  'Even his wife doesn't think well of him,' Aelianus told me, in a curt tone. The two of them never stopped. They would be wrangling to their graves. Whoever first had the task of pouring the funeral oils over his brother's bones would be obnoxious in the fraternal elegy. 'But your litigious old widow fancies the boots off him, so he fell for it.'

  I shook my head, ignored the scrapping, and gave instructions for our next move.

  'Right. We have done some preliminary exploration, and identified the chief personnel. Now we have to grill the key people, and not let up. With luck we are going in before the witnesses have any more time to confer. There are two Metellus daughters and a son. We have two Camillus sons and a daughter, so I wish I could match you up neatly with opposites – but I cannot send Helena Justina to interview an aedile.'

  'We have no evidence that Birdy is a womaniser,' Helena protested. 'You don't have to protect me.' Senators' daughters cannot knock on strangers' doors. Her rank barred Helena from visiting strange men.

  It had not stopped her visiting me in my seedy informer's apartment – but I knew where that had led. 'Metellus Negrinus is a high-placed official,' I countered. 'As a responsible citizen, I am protecting him!'

  'You're saving the best for yourself,' she muttered.

  'Wrong. I hate corrupt state servants, especially when they hide behind feeble cries of "I had no choice; I was unfairly influenced". No wonder our roads are blocked with dead mules' carcasses and the aqueducts leak. So Helena, can you try to visit Carina, the daughter who is supposed to have stayed aloof from the tricky business?'

  'If I can do her sister too. I want to compare them.'

  I nodded. 'All right. You take Carina and Juliana. Then Justinus, you can apply your charm to their two husbands and do a similar comparison. Their names are Canidianus Rufus and Verginius Laco. I'll take on Saffia's husband.'

  'Which?' demanded Helena.

  'Both.' I had no intention of letting anyone else interview Metellus Negrinus, whose role in his father's downfall had been so significant; there were curious questions hanging over 'good old Lutea' as well. His full name, I had discovered from sources at the Curia, was Lucius Licinius Lutea, and he was thought to be something of a social entrepreneur. I believed it. Not many divorced husbands would personally find a new apartment for a wife who had been married again and who was carrying the new man's child. Either the good old marital discard was risk-obsessed and looking for a scandal, or he was up to something.

  'What about me?' wailed Aelianus.

  'Stick with researching agnates. I have a hunch that inheritance plays some part in whatever is going on here.'

  'What was in the Metellus will?'

  'That's been kept rather quiet. Presumably the seven tame senators who witnessed the "suicide" had also previously witnessed the will being signed. I asked the ones I interviewed what was in it. I got nothing. Only the Vestal Virgins with whom the document was lodged during Metellus' lifetime will know details of bequests.'

  'If they read it,' Helena said demurely. She pretended to be shocked that I had suggested this.

  I grinned. 'Sweetheart, Vesta's holy handmaidens devour an aristocratic will within a heartbeat of accepting it for safe keeping.'

  'Ooh, Marcus! You don't mean they break the seals?'

  'I'll take bets on it.'

  Aelianus decided to have lunch after all, like a good son of a patrician house – that is, back at home with his mother. He was learning. He had few useful contacts for our business, but Julia Justa was one he could always call on. His noble mama knew at least one senior Vestal. Julia Justa would never help me in my work, but her favourite son was different. Off he trotted to ask her.

 
If this failed, I knew one of the more junior Vestal Virgins myself Constantia was a game girl. So friendly, in fact, that in the confines of my home, I preferred not to mention her.

  We all worked the case for several days. At the end of that time, we knew what had happened – and what had not happened.

  At least, we thought we did.

  So, wanting a quick payment into our bank account, we prepared a summary and presented it to Silius Italicus as a job well done:

  Evidence Reports in the Accusation against Rubirius Metellus

  Interviews with formal witnesses post-death (M. Didius Falco and Q. Camillus Justinus)

  Four interviews successfully conducted. Results inconclusive. Metellus was seen dead in his bed, with a pillbox on a side table. Nobody spoke with him about his intentions prior to death. All interviewees claimed suicide was in character, with intent to discommode recent prosecutors and avoid compensation fees.

  All seven witnesses are senatorial, so 'above suspicion'.

  Attempts to interview remaining three were abandoned; it is believed they would all tell the same story.

  Interview with Calpurnia Cara (M. D. Falco)

  C.C., wife to Metellus: strong-willed, hostile, resistant to questioning. Claimed to have discussed suicide with deceased; threw burden of proof on to witnesses (see above for flaws in their testimony).

  Interview with Saffia Donata (M. D. Falco)

  S.D., recently divorced from Metellus Negrinus, son of deceased, and pregnant by him. Not present on day of death. No direct knowledge of event, but maintained the poison used was hemlock.

  [Note: Unreliable witness?]

  Approach to Rubiria Carina (Helena Justina, for Falco and Associates)

  Known as Carina. Younger and allegedly favourite daughter of Metellus, though believed to be distanced at time of his death. Aged thirty or under; mother of three children; holds office as priestess of Ceres in husband's family's summer residence at Laurentum; benefactress of local community at Laurentum (endowed and built a granary); was awarded statue in forum and laudatory plaque by town. These are unusual honours for a woman of her age – unless she controls great personal wealth and is thought to be of impeccable moral character.