'I allow him that,' I said. 'He is distraught at losing her. But I don't disagree with you entirely, fruit. The only reason Lutea is not weeping for the money is that - in my view, and I am sure in his - he has not lost it yet.'

x.x.xVII.

THE FULL t.i.tle of the murders court is the Tribunal for Prisoners and a.s.sa.s.sins. Poisoning is routinely a.s.sociated with spells, potions and other foul magic. a.s.sa.s.sins may be all kinds of murderers, including armed robbers. This court thus relates to the grimiest side of human nature. I always found sessions there quite gruelling.

There is a panel of lay judges, drawn from both the upper and middle cla.s.ses - a fact which irritates the senators and makes the equestrians smug. Their names are kept in a public register, the White List, which we were about to consult. A name from this alb.u.m would be picked by Paccius Africa.n.u.s, and if we approved, the chosen judge (with no right to refuse) would preside over our court case. The judge would not vote with the jury, though after hearing the evidence formally, if there was a guilty verdict he would p.r.o.nounce punishment and fix the accusers' compensation. Seventy-five reputable citizens would act as the jury, their selection subject to challenges by both prosecution and defence. They would hear the evidence in strict silence and vote secretly; equal votes would mean acquittal.

'If there are seventy-five judges, how can there be equal votes?' I mused.

'Oh Falco!' Honorius deplored my simplicity. 'You can't expect seventy-five men to turn up without anybody sending a note to say he has a bad cold or must attend his great aunt's funeral.'

The judge meanwhile did not have to remain silent - and was unlikely to do so. I won't say we expected any judge to be cra.s.s, legally ignorant and biased against us - but Honorius became extremely exercised over who would be appointed.

'Paccius and Silius know the panels, and I don't. The trial could be effectively over for us, if we get the wrong man.'

'Well, do your best.' I despised them all and found it hard to care. 'All we need is someone who can stay awake. That's the purpose of choosing from the panels, I take it?'

'No, Falco. The purpose of choice is to ensure neither side has an opening to bribe the judge.'

I had not bargained on expenditure. 'Do we have to bribe him?'

'Of course not. That would be corrupt. We just need to make sure the opposition doesn't bribe him either.'

'I am glad you explained that, Honorius!' I was seeing the seedy side of law here - and the humourless side of our barrister. 'Surely all judges are appointed to panels for their fair-mindedness and independence?'

'Where have you spent your life, Falco?'

I started to take a reluctant interest. Aelia.n.u.s was showing off, explaining the judges' qualifications. 'Freeborn, in good health, over twenty-five and under sixty-five, has to be a decision or other local official, and has to have a modest property portfolio.'

I was shocked. 'Good G.o.ds, I could end up on a panel myself'

'Feign sickness or madness, Falco.'

'Think of his tombstone,' Helena ruled. 'Aulus, I want my husband to have a whole list of dead-end, pointless positions, running off his alabaster slab.' Alabaster, eh? She seemed to have planned it already. Mention of dead-end positions reminded me to visit the Sacred Geese again. 'Marcus, be a judge but make sure every time in court, you go for acquittal. Go on the panel, but build up a reputation as a soft b.a.s.t.a.r.d, so you don't get picked for cases.'

'The jury decides verdicts,' I protested.

'The judge directs the course of the trial,' Honorius argued, in a hollow voice. He was definitely nervous. It might perk up his advocacy. But it made me tense.

Honorius did not like the judge Paccius first chose. There was no reason, but on principle Honorius would not take the first offer. We objected.

We made another suggestion. Paccius refused our name. Apparently this was normal.

Then began several days of negotiating the published lists. The alb.u.m of approved judges was laid out in three panels. First, two of these had to be eliminated. It was quick. Paccius rejected a panel, then we did. I could not see what grounds they had - guesswork, perhaps. I noticed that Paccius acted out a charade of deep thoughtfulness, chewing a stylus as he lengthily pondered; Honorius glanced down with an air of confidence before making a swift selection as if it hardly mattered.

That thinned the lists to a third. The remaining panel was subjected to intense scrutiny, as each side removed one name at a time alternately. We were using a panel with an uneven number of names, so we had first pick; had it been an even panel, Paccius would have started. In either case, the intention was to allow the defendant 'to make the final rejection. We all had to keep going until one name was left.

There was no time limit, except that if we spent too long debating we would look amateur. Hasty research was conducted. Both sides were steered by their private advisers. Paccius had a whole group of spindly specialists who looked like clerks with chest diseases. Falco and a.s.sociates were just asking my friend Petronius. He had one great advantage: he had appeared in front of most judges.

'Do you want a cretin or a meddler?'

'Which is better for us?'

'Whoever gets the larger backhander.'

'We won't pay. We are going for probity.'

'Can't afford true justice, eh?'

n.o.body knew the judges in this court well. At first I thought the opposition were proceeding in some clever manner; then I spotted them off guard one day when I was half concealed behind a pillar, and I could see that where we were facetious, they were frantic. As the names were whittled down, they threw up their hands. Even with Petro's guidance, we were not removing judges on the basis of what we knew against them, but leaving them in because we had never heard of them. There was one exception. One name stayed there even though Petro and I both knew the judge. Both of us were amazed that he survived the process. We both thought it was funny; as the women who loved us sometimes remarked, Petronius and I had never grown up.

By the last three names, we had the man we knew, plus two others whom Petro said were a foul-mouthed liar and a bully (these were milder than some of his comments on others). Honorius rejected the liar. Paccius struck out the bully.

'So! Our judge is called Marponius.' Paccius turned to Honorius. 'Do you know anything of him?'

'Actually, no.'

'Me neither.'

Petronius and I hid quiet smiles.

Though on opposite sides, Paccius and Honorius had spoken as colleagues who now faced a common enemy. Their frank exchange included a trace of contempt, for these two n.o.bles knew from a mark against his name that the judge was an equestrian.

We knew more than that. At least we knew what we were getting; that was why we had kept quiet. Petronius Longus had had many a run-in with Marponius in the murders court. Marponius and I had clashed a few times too. The man was a duff encyclopaedia tyc.o.o.n, a purveyor of cheap knowledge to the rising cla.s.ses, who had made money and used it to advance himself from the stews on the lower Aventine to the temple-topped crest of the hill. Being on the panel of approved judges was the height of glamour for him. He was ambitious, nasty, narrow-minded and famous for spouting bigoted drivel. He sat in his court like a warm geyser in the Wholegrain Fields, belching foul volcanic air - a risk to all the wildlife in his neighbourhood.

As he left us, Petronius said he was sure we would all find the arbiter in our coming trial to be full of talent and humanity.

'I hope not!' muttered Honorius. 'We don't want some d.a.m.ned interventionist.'

I told him that Marponius was famous for his innovative directions to juries. Paccius overheard me. He and Honorius glanced at each other and winced.

This was typical of Marponius. He had not even met them, yet he had upset the legal teams on both sides.

x.x.xVIII.

MARPONIUS WAS loving it. We were informed that he was so thrilled to preside over a prestigious case (instead of bath-house stranglers and brothel batteries), he had bought himself a new toga - and forgot to request a price discount. Petronius seemed to have access to the judge's house; he knew so much about his reactions, it sounded to me as if the vigiles must be crouching under his pillow like bedbugs as the judge put himself to sleep every night with his beaker of hot camomile tea and scroll of Cicero...

In fact Marponius, a childless widower, lived a life of moral austerity. That was one reason Petro and his men hated him. There was nothing to work with when they wanted to influence a case in the right direction.

So keen was Marponius to feature in the Daily Gazette's legal reports and to have the ma.s.ses in the Forum wonder who in Hades he was, he brought Calpurnia's trial forwards and rushed through the jury selection. Marponius apparently had more influence than we supposed; he then somehow w.a.n.gled himself use of the Basilica Julia. It was normally reserved for the Court of One Hundred, which dealt with inheritance. Appropriate - though Marponius probably just knew the right court official. Since the centumviral court actually had a hundred and eighty judges and occasionally sat in full session, there would be plenty of room for onlookers, though I thought Marponius was going overboard.

It was a cool day when I strolled down the Vices Auguries, walked under the Arch of Tiberius, and entered the historic end of the Forum near the Capitol. The Basilica stretched between the Temple of Saturn and the Temple of Castor, in a dramatic and lofty group of monuments. Overlooked by the great temples on the hill above, that part of the Sacred Way was rich in ancient sites. I came out on a corner, by the Lake of Servilius - some antique hero who once gave a horse a drink here (or maybe it was the name of the thirsty horse). Ahead were the orators' rostra adorned with prows of captured ships, the so-called Umbilicus of the City, and the mysterious Black Stone. Very historic. Somewhere for loafers to tell their friends to meet them. I found the rest of my own party gathered in the shadow of the towering statue plinths that lined the Sacred Way.

We mounted the steps in the centre. For once I noticed the elegant symmetry of the double-height rows of arches that faced us. There must be nearly twenty - I had no concentration to count them - and they are entirely constructed of expensive marble. Inside, some cutbacks occurred; there the piers are simply made of cheaper travertine with white marble veneers. The long rectangular hall, roofed in wood over a fifty-foot span, has a double row of colonnades on each long side, paved with more glittering slabs, so a ponderous chill strikes the bones in winter and an important hush lies everywhere, except when barristers are arguing among themselves in the side aisles. The colonnades have upper galleries, where people can observe proceedings, eat nuts, then throw down pistachio sh.e.l.ls into the toga folds of the legal teams.

In our case there seemed little need for sightseers to hang over the balcony rails; a few friends and members of the public lounged on seats we had supplied, but standing room was hardly at a premium. The Basilica staff had allocated us a derisory area at one end of the huge hall. A single usher waved us in with obvious lack of interest. We greeted well-wishers hoa.r.s.ely. It did not take long.

We watched Marponius strut into the Basilica Julia, followed by an official slave who carried his folding ivory stool, and a slave of his own who had brought him an unofficial red cushion to slip on to it. Marponius had a very well padded backside, which gave him a strange walk and an uneven toga hem. He had a bald crown with curly side panels, all covering what Petronius and I denounced as only half a brain. The wrong half.

He gave a cool nod to Petronius, who was backing me up on the first day in court. I received a blank stare, though that may have been because I was sporting a large a.s.sisted bruise that gave me the appearance of a mad-eyed painted statue where the artist had wanted to use up all the pigment on his palette to save cleaning it. Honorius sat between me and Aelia.n.u.s; Justinus had so far failed to return from Lanuvium. Despite his previous court experience, Honorius was extremely quiet. I found it more and more worrying.

The accused entered stiffly, as if to emphasise her years. Not quite limping, but walking with some awkwardness, Calpurnia took her place between the gloomy-looking, overweight Silius and the saver, slimmer Paccius. She had disdained to dishevel her clothing to win sympathy, though she did wear her long grey hair loose; it was caught under the matron's stole she wore tightly wrapped around her body. She had no visible jewellery, perhaps because she had sold it all. Her expression was thunderous. Her son was in court, but she never looked at him. Negrinus never looked at anyone.

Marponius took it upon himself to address the jury on their duties and the legal teams on how he wished to run his court (he phrased it another way but he meant, with both legal teams subservient to him as he rode roughshod over them). Then we began. First came the prosecution's opening speech, in which the charges would be set out. Honorius was to deliver this. As he rose, Paccius and his old senior Silius smiled tolerantly to disconcert our young man. He took it well. Adjusting his toga briefly for the best effect, and revealing little of the nerves I suspected he felt, Honorius began: The Accusation against Calpurnia Cara: Speech for the Prosecution by Honorius Gentlemen of the jury, this is a case in which a n.o.ble family come to ruin tragically. Founded in Lanuvium, the Metellus family has old roots and old money. They have been senators for five generations, serving Rome with honour and distinction. The present generation appeared to flourish and live happily for thirty years. The daughters married well and left home. The son married and stayed with his parents. All had children. The son was progressing through the senatorial ranks, and if not a star, he was securely fulfilling his ambitions. About two years ago, something happened.

I admit to you freely, it is not yet clear what the disaster was. Perhaps Calpurnia Cara will shed light on it. One thing is certain: this event was catastrophic. Lack of money became a problem. The father and son desperately sought to increase their funds through corruption. The father wrote a savagely unjust will. His family were then beset from all sides.

Let me list their enemies: An informer called Silius Italicus, whom you see in court today, laid formal corruption charges, in a case which he won. The son's wife, Saffia Donata, turned against her husband and, he says, stripped him of everything. Another informer who sits among us here, Paccius Africa.n.u.s - with or without connivance from Silius-moved in on the family with motives that may have seemed helpful at the time but which now look only sinister. At least one of their slaves, a door porter, Perseus, seems to have discovered secrets they wanted to hide, and ran rings around them. And harboured in their midst was Calpurnia Cara, apparently a devoted wife and mother, but as we shall show you, a woman of strong pa.s.sions and determined hatreds, who would not flinch from the worst possible action.

Following his condemnation in the court case, Rubirius Metellus was advised to commit suicide. This did not suit the informer who had accused him of corruption, for if the condemned man took his own life, Silius would lose his compensation. To the dismay of Silius, Metellus died. From motives we can only despise, the informer rallied; next he accused the elder daughter of poisoning her father, after Metellus had allegedly declined to take his own life. Rubiria Juliana was tried in the Senate, but was acquitted and lives blameless. Thwarted, Silius Italicus has now allied with his colleague, Paccius Africa.n.u.s, to accuse the son instead, in a case which has yet to be heard. Truly, the children of the late Rubirius Metellus carry a heavy burden. It weighs worst on the son. Disinherited by his father, for reasons of which he is totally ignorant, he now learns he has a brazen and callous mother. The unnatural woman whom we have brought before you intends to give evidence that will condemn Metellus Negrinus, her only son, for his father's murder.

We, however, will be able to demonstrate that it was not the ill-fated Negrinus who killed his father - but his mother Calpurnia Cara. She may have been a blameless wife - certainly she will tell you so. You will be shocked by what drove her to the dreadful crime she committed. She had had to endure a husband who exhibited, in the most public way, a shameful partiality for his own daughter-in-law. That young woman has unfortunately died in childbed this very week and cannot be questioned. But her influence on Rubirius Metellus is demonstrated by the way he treated her financially and it is the root cause of this family's misery. The rapacious and blackmailing demands of the daughter-in-law led to an unenviable need for money, which resulted in the corruption for which Metellus was found guilty. And the unnatural favour shown to his daughter-in-law in his will led to his death at the hands of his embittered wife. You may feel sympathy for her predicament, but her unflinching dispatch of her husband and her desperate measures to conceal the crime deserve only condemnation.

Fuelled by sorrow, shame, and anger at her omission from the will of a husband of near forty years, Calpurnia Cara turned on Rubirius Metellus and removed him from the world. We shall show you that she sold her jewellery, then consulted a woman familiar with the black arts, to learn what fatal poison she should choose and how it might be administered. She arranged to obtain the noxious drug, through the medium of Paccius Africa.n.u.s - a man who must be no stranger to the disreputable side of life. They used one of his creatures, a man of such appalling habits that he has employed violence on the very streets of Rome in a foolish attempt to dissuade us from bringing this case. You can see sitting there, my colleague Didius Falco, still bearing the scars of that vicious attack.

Calpurnia arranged to have the chosen drug, insidious hemlock, secretly given to her husband in his lunchtime meal. Metellus succ.u.mbed, and far from committing suicide among his loving family as the world was informed, he may have died a lonely death. Certainly his corpse was accorded no respect. Calpurnia attempted to hide the results of her actions by concealing the body; Metellus may not even have been dead when she secreted him in a crude garden shack - but it was in that sorry place that he met his end. For three whole days the body of Rubirius Metellus lay concealed in that mean location, without the honours due to a man of his rank or the sorrowing ministrations of his children and his friends. Neither his children nor his friends were aware of what had happened.

Then the body was at last removed from its hiding place. Realising that concealment would not work, Calpurnia had invented an elaborate lie about the time and the manner of her husband's death. Under her instructions Rubirius Metellus was laid on his own bed as if he had perished there that day. A false story of his suicide was concocted. Calpurnia Cara lied to her household. She lied to her children. She lied to the seven senators who were suborned into witnessing their n.o.ble friend's supposed suicide, allegedly at his request. When we call her to give evidence, let us all be aware that this terrible woman may yet lie in court...'

That was a rather exciting statement. Marponius had reached the limit of his concentration. He adjourned the session.

x.x.xIX.

THE ADJOURNMENT provided a respite and an opportunity. Honorius went off by himself, looking exhausted. Flushed with his success at tracking down the hemlock-salesman, Aelia.n.u.s volunteered to seek out Olympia, supposedly consulted by Calpurnia as a fortune-teller. Honorius had previously been looking for this crone, or so he said, but with no results.

'Where will you start, Aulus?

I have my methods!'

I knew he had only one method, to which he stuck with a rigidity I would need to shatter. But it served here. Any highborn ladies would know how to reach this star-gazer. Once again, Aelia.n.u.s was going home for lunch. There, he would ask his mother.

The principled Julia Justa would never have handed over any of her tight household budget to a fashionable seer, but she might possess acquaintances who did. I could imagine my dear mother-in-law reproving them for their daftness in her silky, sarcastic way. Even if she had been extremely rude in the past, that would not stop her now. I don't suppose her cronies would admit to being scared of the n.o.ble Julia, but she would get an address for her boy.

I was glad to have back-up from Aelia.n.u.s. With Justinus away and Honorius resting (or whatever he was up to), we needed to deploy our resources well. I myself had to tackle someone else: I grabbed sustenance, then headed off to stick my mark on Licinius Lutea.

The one-time near-bankrupt lived in an apartment not far from that in which he had established Saffia. He managed to rent half a house, divided up tastefully in what had once been a rich man's mansion. Lutea had the part above the sausage shop, the least desirable to discerning tenants - though it must be handy for a divorcee who owned no slaves. I guessed he lived on hot pies from the bakery and cold pork sausage - when he was not cadging dinners from old friends who could not shake him off.

I found him in a reading room, stretched on a couch. There was not much else in the elegant s.p.a.ce, just a couple of lamps. I call it a reading room because there was one silver scroll box; I wondered if it had been a gift from the grateful Saffia - and instinctively, I reckoned it was empty. The whole apartment was extremely bare, its decor standardised by a landlord - though one who had used expensive designers for the black and vermilion paintwork.

'Isn't this place a bit above your price?' I asked Lutea frankly. 'I heard you had no credit.'

Lutea gave me a sharp look. Rallying from his listlessness, he admitted in a douche way, 'Yes, it is. I survive, though.'

'They call you an entrepreneur. It usually means a confidence trickster, in the world I come from.'

'Then you inhabit a tragic world, Falco.'

'It's improving. How about yours?'

'One lives in hope.' He pretended to be too subdued to argue, though I wasn't fooled.

Lutea kept acting out low in spirits. Underneath, he remained the brazen, well-manicured type with a flash tunic and no conscience. I was glad I had not brought Helena. Her open disapproval would not win his confidence. I myself would feel dirty afterwards if I played the sympathetic playboy with him, but that was nothing to me. You can scrub off the taint of lousy immorality like his.

I had noticed there was no sign nor sound of a child in the house. I asked after his son.

'Lucius is being looked after. Poor little terror. It's very hard on him - well, it's hard on both of us. Oh we shall both miss darling Saffia!' That might be so, but they would miss her in different ways.

'You seemed remarkably attentive to your ex-wife. Was the split from her a subject for regret?'

'I was heartbroken. Her d.a.m.ned father...' Lutea tailed off sadly. 'I had hoped when she left old Birdy, I might bring Donatus round again. No chance of that now...' Every time he wafted off into misery I felt it was staged. 'Saffia and I were a wonderful team, Falco. n.o.body to touch us. It can be like that, you know.'

'I know.'

He shook his finger at me. 'I see it! You have a wife and you love the girl.'

'She's very sharp,' I said quietly. That was true; Lutea was a lifelong fraud, but Helena had seen through him. Clearly he had no recollection that he had met her with me last night. He had blotted out the cold a.s.sessment with which her eyes had raked him. 'She runs the home - and she runs me.'

'Excellent!' Lutea beamed at me. 'That's how it should be. I am pleased for you.'

I was leaning on a wall, since Lutea was still lying on his couch and there were no other seats. I enjoyed myself, smiling slightly, as I thought of how Helena viewed him. Here he was, a man in his early thirties. He lived in a luxury he did not need, on promises he would never fulfil. What had he been doing before I arrived? Dreaming up schemes. Dreaming so hard that the fragile lies from which he built his life became his reality.

'Helena was anxious about your boy,' I said. 'Maybe I can see him, to rea.s.sure her?'

'No, no,' Lutea murmured. 'Lucius is not here. He went to his old nurse.