The Accusers Read online

  It was worth a quiet wander around. I like gardens. This peaceful enclosed space between wings of the silent house had a damson tree and ancient twining plants fastened up pilasters. Inside the house there was that faint impression of not having enough slaves around to keep the place smart, but the garden was well tended. Puddles and damp earth showed that plants had been watered, though whoever brought the buckets had moved on. I could see at once that Calpurnia was not there.

  This was tricky. Or rather, for an informer it was excellent.

  I spent a long time walking about. No town houses have enormous grounds, but I explored colonnades, peered into empty ground floor rooms, poked into stores. Though light on attendants, it seemed a well-run, organised establishment. That fitted. Corrupt nobles have to be efficient, or they get found out. True, Metellus had been exposed - but he had fallen victim to an informer, and informers notoriously target victims unfairly. Left to himself, he might have fleeced the state and its contractors for many more years and died 'with honour'.

  At the back of the house soared the old Servian Walls, the ancient fortification we called the Embankment. Approaching, quite suddenly I came upon a woman alone. She was dressed in dark clothes, though I thought that reflected her glum nature rather than mourning. I had reached the farthermost part of the garden, a small patch of dry earth with vegetable trenches and a fan-trained fig tree. She was standing, apparently in a reverie, on a gravel path that was flanked by tired herbs, outside an outhouse that had been partly carved into the side of the Embankment.

  'Damned wasps' nest,' she muttered, seeing me. She was pretending her eye had just been caught by something. It sounded mundane, but her face had hardened. 'What are you doing here? Who do you think you are?'

  'Would you believe a wasp exterminator?'

  'Stop your nonsense.'

  'I apologise.' She was right about the nest. Insects were flying to and fro, entering the roughly constructed building above a corner of the doorway. 'Marcus Didius Falco -'

  'Ah yes!' she jumped in, with an acid tone. 'From Silius. You sent your wife on an exploratory mission yesterday.'

  She turned away from the shack, which was chained up. I noticed she was carrying a large bunch of metalwork - the traditional matron, in possession of the household keys. 'Calpurnia Cara, I take it?' I asked, a neutral response to cover up being caught out. The woman, who had a permanent expression of distaste, nodded slightly. Trying to distract her, I asked, 'What do you keep in the garden store?'

  'Unwanted household goods. Your wife was unwanted too, I may say.'

  It was a neat link, but I decided not to play word games: 'Helena Justina was merely curious about the work I have taken on -'

  I am not a fool, Falco.' Calpurnia Cara was annoyed, though at the same time she somehow accepted that annoyance was bound to happen. She began to walk back to the house; meekly I went with her. She looked to be in her late fifties, a heavy woman, her step slow and a little awkward. Had she been my grandmother, I would have offered an arm, but this grand matron was far too austere. She took pleasure in telling me how she had outwitted us: 'My adviser dined here yesterday. We have to be careful; my family has attracted unpleasant notoriety. I showed him a list of visitors. Africanus spotted her.'

  Paccius Africanus had taken an interest in me, then. He must already have known my connection with Helena Justina, before he saw yesterday's list. Our association was unusual, yet Helena and I were hardly well-known names in public life. So: Paccius Africanus had been digging.

  'Who let you in?' Calpurnia demanded. It boded ill for my crony on the door.

  'Perseus had been called away -'

  'Called away?' I had the impression Perseus might have caused exasperation in Calpurnia before. Well, that would make him a typical door porter.

  'Call of nature.' In fact I was starting to think that nothing as easygoing as nature would occur in this establishment.

  'I'll see about that. What did she want him to do? Pee into the atrium pool? It has been known; put-upon porters are aware that their nagging owners use the run-off from the pool as spare drinking water.

  We had reached the colonnade that fronted the atrium. I was led smartly round the sphinx and the pool. I was on my way out.

  'I have nothing to tell you,' Calpurnia informed me. 'So stop bothering me. I know you have been to our formal witnesses and they have affirmed all that happened.' She was keeping very well informed. The normal porter was back, looking unconcerned at his lapse, as porters tend to do. 'Perseus! Put this man out.'

  'Had your husband discussed his intentions with you?' I squeezed in.

  'Metellus did nothing without my knowledge,' Calpurnia barked.

  'Did that include his business life?' I enquired coolly.

  She pulled back quickly. 'Oh none of that had anything to do with me!' As if a stronger denial were called for, she went on, 'Load of spiteful, invented stupidity. Viciousness. Collaborators. Silius ought to be exiled. Destroying good men -'

  Goodness played no part in the business ethics of the Metelli, as I knew the facts.

  I was leaving as ordered, when Calpurnia Cara called after me. 'Your wife was trying to extract the whereabouts of my ex-daughter in-law.' I turned back. 'I am sure my staff were very helpful,' Calpurnia stated in a dry tone. 'Don't bother with Saffia Donata. She has nothing to do with any of this and she is a mischief-maker.'

  'Nonetheless, I am sorry to hear of your son's so recent separation from the mother of his children.' Since the Metelli were so keen on form, or the appearance of form, the dig seemed apt.

  'Child!' barked Calpurnia. 'Her other brat came from another source.' I raised an eyebrow at her wording. Had immorality occurred? 'Previous marriage,' she explained impatiently, as if I were an idiot. Clearly nothing untoward in the bedroom arena could be allowed to touch this family. 'We took her on for that reason. At least we knew she was fertile.'

  '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 thei
r 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?'