'Has Petronilla gone back to Silvia yet?'

'Tomorrow. I'm taking her.' He paused. I knew that since he had had to admit to Arria Silvia that he was now sharing a bed with Maia, he found it easier to avoid his ex-wife. My sister had played no part in their separation, but Silvia accused Petronius of having always l.u.s.ted after Maia - and he stubbornly would not deny it. 'I'd better see for myself. Can't be sure what we'll be walking into.' He paused a second time, trouble heavy in his voice. 'Silvia had a bust-up with that lousy boyfriend of hers. She was facing Saturnalia alone and not looking forward to it. She threatened -' He stopped altogether. Then he said, 'She made wild threats about killing herself.'

'Would she?'

'Probably not.'

We sat in silence.

It was Petronius who told me that when the courts reopened, Silius Italicus was to charge the apothecary with murdering Metellus. Petro had heard it from the Second Cohort. They were agog because not only was Rhoemetalces to be offered to the praetor as having a case to answer, but Silius was putting up Rubiria Juliana as his co-accused. Well, that mischief will have brought festival joy to yet another Roman family.

Lo Saturnalia!

XI.

'SILIUS is doing this because he wants a Senate hearing,' Petro said.

He was a good Roman. Legal gossip excited him. 'He's out to make his name. Parricide is a b.l.o.o.d.y good way to ensure it; the public will be avid for details. This Juliana woman is patrician, so it will go before the Curia. If the family have imperial influence it could be even better than that. To spare her the ordeal, Vespasian may himself take her case at the Palace -'

'He won't,' I disagreed. 'The old man will distance himself from this family. Ordinarily, he might have rescued them from the ordeal of a public trial, but the corruption conviction will put them on their own.

'You mean he is an Emperor who won't fiddle things for the elite?'

'I mean, Petro, he won't want it to look that way.'

'Does he fiddle?' Petronius was certain that I had inside knowledge.

'Presumably. Don't they all? What's the point of ruling the world if you never fix things?'

'I thought Vespasian didn't give a toss about the upper cla.s.s.'

'Maybe not. But he wants them in his debt.'

'You are a cynic,' observed Petronius.

'You get that way.'

'It's very hard for Juliana,' Helena reckoned when I went home and told her. 'To be accused of killing her papa, when she bought the pills only because he sent her.'

'Silius will argue that Juliana is lying. Why send her? Why not send out his wife or a house slave?'

'She was his daughter,' Helena said. 'She knew the apothecary. Metellus trusted her to make sure they were pills that would be quick and clean and painless.'

'Would you do it for Decimus?'

Helena looked shocked. She loved her father. 'No! But then,' she reasoned, Juliana tried -'Helena learned fast; she quickly swung along with my caution. 'Or she says she tried - to thwart her father's suicide.'

'I am sure the defence will parade that claim on her behalf.'

'I'm sure the defence will bungle it!' Helena was even more cynical than me. I was not sure whether this had always been so, or whether living with me had hardened her. 'She's a woman. With scandal in the air, she will stand no chance. The prosecution will allude to the previous corruption trial whenever possible, implying by a.s.sociation that Juliana is corrupt too. Like father, like daughter. In fact yes, she did buy the pills - but her father had declared to all the family that he intended to commit suicide. That is a recognised device at his rank, sanctioned down the centuries. Juliana was simply his instrument.'

I sniffed. 'He changed his mind.'

'So he was a vacillating coward! But Juliana had tried to save him, so that's a double tragedy for her. And to be then accused of murdering him is vile.'

We were sitting in my office at home, me on a couch with the family dog shoving at me to make more room available, and Helena sitting on a table swinging her legs. The scrolls she had moved to clear a s.p.a.ce for herself were squashed against a wall cupboard. From time to time she fiddled with my inkwell, while I watched, waiting for it to go over. It had a non-spill device, supposedly, which I was curious to test. 'You met the apothecary, Marcus. What did you think of him?'

I repeated what I told Silius: Rhoemetalces was a successful professional who seemed to know what he was doing. Even accused of murder, I thought he would hold up well in court. As well as he could, that is. He had sold the pills which killed a man, he could not alter that. Everything hung on the court's interpretation of Metellus senior's intentions. Suicide is not illegal, far from it. So could the apothecary be held liable for a man who changed his mind? I thought it would be unfair - but fairness and justice are two different bines on the hop.

'You met Juliana,' I reminded Helena. 'What was your opinion?'

Helena acknowledged that she had not viewed Juliana as a prospective killer. 'I wanted family background. I did not scrutinise her as a possible suspect.'

'Still, what about her behaviour struck you?'

Helena pulled back the scene from her memory. 'I saw her only briefly. She had a family resemblance to her mother Calpurnia, but younger of course, and softer. Sad and strained, but it looked well etched, so either those were always her natural features or all this business has worn her out.'

'Happy marriage?' I asked.

'Nothing to say yes or no,' Helena shrugged. 'Juliana thought I had come to express condolences. I felt she liked that. She seemed more genuine in her feelings than her mother had been - much less conscious of how everything would look.'

'Someone had told her not to answer questions.'

'Oh yes. She was quick to bridle and she jumped up to call for more attendants, once she realised what I had really come for.'

'Was she frightened?' I wondered.

'A little. Whether scared of me and what I might ask her, or afraid of whoever had told her to be very careful, I can't say.'

'The husband?'

'Most likely. What did you think of him, Marcus?'

Rufus? Unhelpful b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Not just to us - to his wife too.'

We talked about the second time Juliana was questioned, after she became a suspect, when Justinus and I had interviewed her formally, with her husband grimly sitting by. We had seen Paccius Africa.n.u.s lurking at their house, so he was clearly still advising the family, including Juliana. So at what stage had it struck him that her involvement with the pill purchase might cause her problems? Presumably now he would be the defence in the new court case.

'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, Aelia.n.u.s 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 b.a.l.l.s?' Helena chortled.

'I think it was the giant shrimp tails that did the trick. Quintus sucks them out of their sh.e.l.ls 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 n.o.ble 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-cla.s.s 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 embarra.s.sments had held Camillus back. A relation involved himself in a stupid plot, and everyone was d.a.m.ned. 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 Africa.n.u.s 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 emanc.i.p.ated - 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 doc.u.ment? 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.