The Accusers mdf-15 Read online

  'Will you attend the trial, Marcus?'

  'Love to, but it will be an impossible squeeze. If the case is heard in the Curia, only senators will be admitted inside the chamber. You know what it's like. The open doorways will be packed with nosy sightseers, most of whom won't hear a word. I can't face that.'

  'You produced the initial evidence from which Silius must be working. Would he not take you, in the prosecution party?'

  'He might if I had kept in with him. He has not been friendly since your brothers grabbed our fee.'

  Helena looked serious. 'And how, exactly, did they achieve it?' I looked vague. She tapped a fingernail on the inkwell. 'Which of your dubious methods, Falco?'

  'Oh… they visited the informer's underling, that useless Honorius, in his office.'

  'And?'

  'And persuaded him to produce a banker's order.'

  'Persuaded?' asked Helena, with a glint. 'They beat Honorius up?'

  'Nothing so subtle. They locked themselves in with him and stayed there until he gave in. As I heard it, Aelianus took along some reading matter and sat casually immersed in scrolls. The lads peed out of the window, but Honorius was too shy, so he was suffering. After a few hours Honorius also became very hungry; Justinus fetched out a very large lunch basket – which they proceeded to devour with relish and did not share with the scribe.'

  'I suppose Honorius caved in by the time they reached the forcedmeat balls?' Helena chortled.

  'I think it was the giant shrimp tails that did the trick. Quintus sucks them out of their shells so very suggestively. But you get the idea.'

  Helena Justina, the light of my life, gave me a look that said she was never quite sure whether to believe my rampant stories – but she rather suspected the worst of them were true. This look contained enough underlying humour to show she did not entirely disapprove. I like to think she was proud of me. After all, she was nicely brought up and would not have wished her husband to collect his debts using sordid brutality.

  I had done that once. But those days were past.

  We found the easiest way to take an interest in the trial was to take an interest in my noble in-laws. Helena's father, who rarely attended the Senate, was no great lover of gossip, but he was now intrigued by this case which had involved both his maverick sons and his daughter's low-class lover. Decimus trotted along every day, then most evenings either we dined with the Camilli, or we invited them to us. In this way, Julia Justa managed to see plenty of her little granddaughters, which pleased at least her.

  She was about to be an even happier woman. Helena and I had popped in and out of the family home near the Capena Gate several times since we returned from Britain, but we were both preoccupied. We now realised that neither of us had set eyes on Justinus' wife, Claudia Rufina, since before we left. When she appeared at dinner, it turned out that, like Saffia Donata, Claudia was pregnant, due any day apparently.

  'It's a new fashion!' I joked feebly, to disguise my shock. Fathering this baby must have been the last thing Justinus did before he left Rome with me. His languorous brown eyes, the delight of so many infatuated British bar-girls, met mine above a bread roll he was now conveniently munching. Behind it, his expression was invisible. 'You kept this quiet!' I muttered to him privately. I had been fairly sure that during our trip abroad he had decided that he would end his marriage, which had become so uncomfortable despite Claudia's financial expectations.

  'I would have told you, had I known,' he answered in a quietly savage undertone. But next moment he was smiling proudly, just as a father is supposed to do when his first child is due – due while we were eating our dessert custards, judging by the size of Claudia.

  She was wearing a necklace of extremely large emeralds, with the air of a girl who thinks she may as well flaunt the one aspect of her personality that her husband truly admires. If they separated now, then as soon as the baby was old enough to travel, Claudia – a bright, goodhearted young woman who understood her own mistakes all too well – would finally return to her home province of Hispania Baetica. Justinus knew the implications. He would have to repay her dowry. He would concede that so young a child should live with its mother, so he would never see the child. He would not receive a sestertius from Claudia's much-vaunted inheritance. His mother would never forgive him, his father would be quietly furious, his sister would despair and his brother would gloat.

  The trapped young husband looked at me again. I kept my face neutral and congratulated Claudia.

  Claudia Rufina thanked me, with the dignity we had come to expect from her. To my relief, I heard Helena asking her father about the trial.

  The senator sat up on his elbow, eager to take the stage. He was a grey-haired diffident man of deep humanity. Life had made him wealthy enough to have standing, yet too poor to do much with it. Just at the moment when Vespasian – with whom he had long been on friendly terms – became Emperor, family embarrassments had held Camillus back. A relation involved himself in a stupid plot, and everyone was damned. Others in Vespasian's circle might have expected responsibility and honour at this time, but Camillus Verus knew he had lost out to Fate again.

  'I'm told the preliminary approach to the magistrate was argued hard,' he said, setting the picture for us. 'The praetor tried to throw out the case, but Silius held his ground. The pre-trial hearing was then fairly mild stuff. Silius kept his denunciation short. We reckon he intends to save all his surprises for the Curia.'

  'How far have they gone?' Helena demanded.

  'They raced through the opening speeches -'

  'Silius is prosecuting, with Paccius Africanus for the defence?' I clarified.

  'Yes. They both have young fellows in support, but the big names want to speak.'

  'And to take the rewards!' I commented. A prosecution can be shared among various accusers, but then any compensation after a conviction will be allocated among more than one of them too.

  The senator smiled. 'There is a lot of speculation as to what will be left. If Metellus was murdered, the family have to pay the original trial bill to Silius. That's his motive for bringing the new case. But his son's father-in-law -'

  'Servilius Donatus?'

  'Right. He is sounding off about a prior claim for compensation for misuse of his daughter's dowry. There was land. Metellus senior had control of it – the son was not emancipated – and Metellus sold all the land.'

  I whistled. 'He isn't allowed to do that. The dowry is for the benefit of the couple and their children -'

  'Saffia would have had to give her approval,' Decimus confirmed. 'Her father says she never agreed. Metellus had been claiming that she did.'

  'But if divorce occurs,' Claudia Rufina seemed unnervingly aware of the law, 'the dowry has to be paid back, so the wife can use it to remarry.

  'If she wants to,' said Justinus. He should have kept quiet.

  'It's obligatory,' snapped his mother. 'The Augustan laws say she must take a new husband within six months, unless she is past childbearing.'

  'Only if she wants to be able to inherit legacies,' persisted dear Quintus. He really knew how to ensure there would be flaming rows at tomorrow's breakfast table. I had a strong feeling that divorce and its consequences must have been under recent discussion here. Helena glanced at me, with a faint look of distress. She was fond of both her brother and his wife; she hated the trouble between them.

  'Well Saffia Donata wants her legacy,' the senator said peaceably. 'This is another peculiarity. If Metellus is deemed to have committed suicide, then his will stands – and Saffia Donata is telling people she will receive a substantial bequest.'

  'But she's divorced.'

  'Curious, eh?'

  Now I was on full alert. 'Toppling triglyphs! Who else features in this shock document? Come to that, Decimus – how do you happen to know?'

  The senator winked. 'A lot of people know – though the Metelli would rather we didn't.'

  'If Saffia gets a nice mention,' I begged, 'please
say – who else has been shoved aside?'

  Decimus pretended he was above glorying in gossip. His wife was looking hard at a pear she was peeling: 'The son, they say.'

  I was amazed. Metellus and his son had seemed so closely intertwined when they were linked in corruption. And no Roman lightly disinherits any child, let alone an only son. 'So what about the sister they are prosecuting – Juliana – do you know?'

  'Well I heard,' Julia Justa wiped her fingers on a napkin, 'Rubiria Juliana will receive a bequest, but according to usual procedures it has to be set against what she has already received in her own dowry.,

  'So she's had her share already. The big surprise for the court is that Juliana wasn't after money. So much for greed leading to murder.'

  I was disappointed. Money is the biggest motive for killing people. If she had stood to gain a great deal – and if she had known it – then Rubiria Juliana probably did somehow fix her father's demise and we could all enjoy watching Silius denouncing her. Without that motive, Juliana was probably innocent. Which made her trial a much sadder and more sordid matter. There was no creditable reason for Silius to attack the woman.

  XII

  'Well, Juliana looked ill,' said the senator when we met next day.

  'You mean, they made her look ill,' his wife scoffed. I had once thought that Julia Justa was a hard woman but, like her daughter Helena, she was merely impatient with hypocrisy. 'You can do so much with white lead!'

  'It's a convention,' Helena complained, her feet kicking on her dining couch restlessly. She had removed her sandals or I would have been fretting about the new furnishings (we were at our house tonight, joined only by Helena's parents). 'I don't know why anybody bothers with such farcical procedures, just to attract sympathy -'

  She was eager to hear the day's news. Besides, the sooner she could persuade her parents to absorb themselves in the trial details, the sooner she could stop worrying that they were glaring at Albia (whom they thought an unsuitable choice to look after our daughters) and at the meal. We had not owned a cook until recently. The one I had acquired last week from a slave dealer was resold two days after I bought him and the new one had no idea what gravy was for. Still, this was an improvement. The first one had tried to fry lettuce.

  'Try these intriguing hens' eggs,' Decimus offered his wife. 'Marcus tells me they are a classic Moesian delicacy; the little black specks take days to produce.'

  'What happened to that other cook you had?' my unforgiving mother-in-law demanded. After one silent glance at the hens' eggs with their curious jacket of caramelised skillet flakes, she ignored the glass comport on which they nestled.

  'Resold. At a profit, I can proudly say.'

  'Oh you managed to find an idiot in the buying queue?'

  'I sold him to my father, actually.' I chuckled gamely. 'A double coup – except it means we cannot go and dine with him.' That was no loss, and Julia Justa knew it.

  'From what I know of your father, Geminus will already have shed him – with a healthy on-cost added.' The senator had not only met Pa, he had foolishly bought things from him.

  'I have this vision,' I said dreamily. 'The cook – whose name was Genius, so you know to refuse at once if you are offered him -'

  'Only you could fall for that, Marcus.'

  'Agreed! In my vision, Genius is now being passed around Rome, constantly gaining in value as successive owners overprice him with false stories about his dishes. Each of us needs to recoup the sales tax when we get rid of him… All the time he is acquiring a set of fake commendations, until he becomes a gourmet's treasure, lusted after as if he can whisk up sauces like ambrosia…'

  'It's a new kind of investment commodity,' the senator joined in. 'Genius never needs to visit a real kitchen – which is just as well, if I may tactfully mention the after-effects of that pork marinade he made for us last week.'

  'This date sauce is very good,' remarked Julia Justa very politely. She had let us know her views on Genius, but if his menu had made her ill, she would never go so far as to say so. 'And tonight's spiced wine excels.'

  'Albia made the spiced wine,' replied Helena, not upsetting her parents by mentioning that I did the date sauce; they wanted to ignore how plebeian I was. Albia went red. We made her eat with us as one of the family when the babies were in bed; she hated it. Still, we were libertarians. Everyone was stuck with our high principles. I bought slaves who were obviously useless, because I loathed the idea of owning them and I could not bring myself to bargain as hard as you had to for anyone with real skills.

  As for Albia, we had transferred her from Londinium to Rome to give her the life she had been denied by losing her family in the Boudiccan Rebellion – and she was damn well going to receive family life, even if she preferred solitude. Albia was becoming a quiet, calm, tolerant teenager. She watched the decadent world into which we had dragged her with those British blue eyes, so full of reserve; they seemed to appreciate our special Roman madness while keeping her own, much more civilised restraint. I had seen her sometimes shake her head over us, very slightly.

  Still, Helena had taught her to make excellent spiced wine.

  'It was Rubiria Juliana's day in court,' said the senator. I noticed Helena hitch her red dress along her shoulder where a pin was digging in. The glimpse of smooth flesh between the fastenings gave me goose pimples. Helena lay flat on her stomach – not the approved style of dining, as her mother clearly noticed; I would be given the blame for this – the low-class, bad influence husband. Helena leaned her chin on her hands, a pose unconsciously copied by Albia, though the fourteen year-old soon stopped paying attention to what Decimus said and tucked into the food bowls again. Helena had lost interest in eating. She longed to hear her father's news.

  'I assume there had been no documentary evidence, Papa?'

  He shook his head. 'No. And no minor witness statements are to be brought, only what the defendants have to say for themselves. So there's Juliana, properly dressed in mourning and dishevelled – very carefully, I may say. She made us all feel as sorry for her as possible, but still looked neat enough to be respectable.'

  'It is difficult for a woman,' his wife argued. 'If she were smart, you would think her a heartless piece. If she looks untidy, you still won't vote for her.'

  The senator winked at me; he did it openly. 'There were pitfalls for the prosecutor too. Attack her too crudely and Silius would look tyrannical. Let her off lightly, and he might seem to be bringing the case out of personal vindictiveness.,

  'Which of course you don't believe?' I queried drily.

  'I think he's a bloody tricky bastard.' Such strong words were rare from Decimus. 'I remember him years ago. He was an accuser in Nero's day – that's a sordid heritage. You could see his past coming out when he was cross-examining this morning. He still has the snide political innuendo: Were you not from such a family, you might not have known what was required… As if coming from a gang of contract traders had made the poor woman a natural dealer in death!'

  'I doubt she knew anything about what went on at the aediles' office… Did Silius establish any motive for Juliana to want her father dead?'

  'Saving the family fortune. It would be lost if he lived and they were forced to pay their court judgment. That, of course, enabled Silius to go harping on about the corruption.'

  'But what is Juliana supposed to be saving the fortune for? Hardly any of it would go to her, you said. She had been given her dowry, and that was her lot.'

  'This is the weakness in his case.'

  'How does he get over it?' demanded Helena. 'Distractions and irrelevant dirt. Those old court standbys.' 'Lots of fun to listen to!'

  Her father took a marinated olive, chewed it gently, and made no comment. He had a good sense of humour, but he could be prudish about unseemly jokes. In fact, I thought Helena had spoken critically. She would listen to scandal, but she disapproved of those who peddled it simply to harm others.

  'So what kind of witness did
Juliana make?' I asked.

  'Pretty good. She stood by her story and stood up to Silius.'

  Helena asked suddenly, 'Was her sister there?'

  'Yes. Didn't see her yesterday. Today, they were all present: sister, brother, mother, the two girls' husbands. Backing the accused, apparently. The defence made a decent job of things too – establishing that Juliana had always been a good daughter, was a mother, only ever had one husband – who was there in court supporting her – had not been criticised for her actions by her mother – who was ditto in court – had not quarrelled with her brother over their father's death – ditto, ditto – and she was warmly praised by her father for her love and care of him, shortly before he passed away.'

  'So it was a pointless day?' Helena grumbled.

  'Far from it.' Her father sat up slightly. 'There was a sensation. I would not have missed being there. After Juliana, we still had the afternoon session. They had time to start on the apothecary.'

  'The man who has to take the blame!' I muttered, the cynical plebeian.

  'Or worse, poor fellow,' said Decimus.

  He revelled in describing what had happened when Rhoemetalces was brought into the Senate. Silius Italicus questioned him forcefully about the pills he sold to Juliana. They went over the story that I had put in my report: the pills were supposed to contain corn cockle seeds, a fast poison. Rhoemetalces said again that on its own it would kill within an hour. Again he said that he believed the layer of gold would survive digestion, leaving the person who swallowed a pill alive. 'Silius used up all the rest of his waterclock declaiming what nonsense that was.' The waterclock was used to time speeches.