`You changed your mind about that?'
`I had a long talk with my brother. He explained -' She paused. `Things I had not known before.'
`Your brother told you his story and you accepted that your father's death came from outside the family? So who did it?' 'I can't say. You must deal with it.'
`You are not helping.'
`This is a nightmare.' Rubiria Carina looked at me straight. She spoke like a woman who was being quite honest. Women who are lying always know just how to do that. 'Falco, I wish it would all go away. I want us to know serenity again. I want to hear no more of it.'
`But your brother is accused of parricide,' I reminded her. She was clearly under enormous strain and I feared she would break down.
`That is so hard,' Carina murmured bitterly. `After all that we have suffered. After all he has to live with. It is so unfair on him.'
Her feelings were deep and explained why she had now given refuge to Negrinus at her home. Yet somehow this was not what I had expected her to say. She meant something else; I was missing it, I sensed it.
I asked Carina about her father's will. When she fell back on pretending she was only a woman and unfamiliar with family finances, I dropped the conversation, collected Honorius, and went home.
Honorius had learned little new from Birdy. Still, I expected that.
The young lawyer was not entirely useless. `I asked who holds the copy of the will. This may, or may not, surprise you, Falco. It is with Paccius Africanus.'
I was surprised – but I was not going to show Honorius that.
`Don't tell me -' Informers of the Paccius and Silius type are infamous for chasing legacies. 'Paccius has had himself made the main heir!'
Unbelievably, it was true.
XXII
BIRDY'S APPOINTMENT of Honorius to work with Falco and Associates caused a storm among the associates. We made a silent, angry party when we attended the praetor's office for the pre-trial arraignment.
The situation looked black for our client. Paccius and Silius had formally joined as co-accusers. There was little to choose between the evidence each informer produced against Negrinus – as Honorius had said, there was virtually no evidence. The praetor awarded Paccius the privilege of first speaking. Paccius won this right to lead the case only because he had reached the praetor first with his original deposition.
They asked for a three-week delay for investigations. For our purposes, this was too short. Honorius asked to extend the period, but was overruled. No reason was given. He was overruled either because the praetor thought he was too junior to count, or because the praetor just hated his face. Yes, Birdy had stuck us with a liability.
Worse followed. When we requested trial in the murders court, surprisingly at first the praetor seemed to like the idea. I reckoned he was worried that a case which had already been trawled through once in the Senate might start to look like a legal mess if all the same evidence were regurgitated with a second defendant. As the arbiter of what came to trial, it might make him look indecisive. He would be even more anxious if my associates came to him in the next few weeks with yet another new accused! So far, nobody knew that part of the plan.
Caught by surprise, Paccius and Silius made no immediate objection to our request. However, they did not need to. The praetor disapproved of anything the upstart Honorius wanted. 'Metellus Negrinus is a senator, an ex-quaestor and ex-aedile. We cannot subject him to trial on a level with tavern knifings, like killers who are little better than slaves. Request refused!'
Paccius and Silius smiled at us pityingly.
I myself made a further application on Negrinus' behalf `Sir, the accusers' case is based on their proposition that our client was jealous and angry because he was cut out of his father's will. We appeal to have Paccius Africanus produce to us a copy of the will.'
'Paccius has it?' The praetor sat up sharply on his curule stool. Those X-shaped folding seats have no back support. A firm posture is required in the honourable magistrate who uses his symbol of authority. You see magistrates lying on massage slabs at the baths, groaning about their lumbar pain. It's a hazard of the job. In court, they tend to slump in boring moments, then jerk into a more rigid position if they are caught out by something said.
This one hated legacy-chasing. 'Paccius Africanus, can you explain this?'
Paccius rose to his feet smoothly. I gave him credit for a calm reaction. `Sir, for legal reasons only, the deceased Rubirius Metellus assigned me his heir. I gain very little. I have to reassign everything to others. The estate is mainly governed by a fideicommissum.'
`Held in trust?' snapped the praetor. He said trust as if he was referring to some repulsive bodily function. `Held in trust for who?' Long words did not trouble him, but we could tell he was startled; his grammar had slipped. When Rome's chief magistrate forgets how to operate the dative case – especially when the illustrious one is using the interrogative in its accusatory mood with a full blast of unpleasant emphasis – then it's time for the clerks from the Daily Gazette to take notes for the scandal page.
`Various friends and family.' Paccius eluded the question as if the outrage it suggested had never occurred to him. `I shall send a copy immediately to Falco's home address.'
I thought the praetor shot me a look as if he longed to be asked to lunch so he could see the sensational note tablet. In view of his brusque treatment of Honorius earlier, I refused to do him favours. We then all consulted our notes, as if we were now checking for any other trivial points we could throw in to distract ourselves from serious issues. Issues like justice for the innocent.
Neither side found any, so we all went home.
To my surprise the copy arrived within a couple of hours. The will was on the inner sides of two waxed boards. That's normal. It was so short only one board was written on. Metellus senior had named Paccius Africanus his heir, thus leaving him all his debts and responsibilities, plus the religious safe keeping of the family's ancestral masks and household gods. Metellus had bequeathed small sums to each of his two daughters, after allowing for the amounts in their dowries. Both his son and his wife were specifically ruled out of inheritance, though each was given a very small lifetime maintenance allowance. I mean very, very small. I could have lived on it, but I had once been nearly starved and accustomed to cockroaches as fellow lodgers. Anyone who grew up in senatorial luxury would find the allowance tight.
Everything else went to Paccius, who was to pass on the money intact to Saffia Donata.
`This is odd.' Honorius took it upon himself to comment first. `We need to show this to a wills expert. Silius uses one -‘
'Old Fungibles is supposed to be the best,' Justinus disagreed coldly. `We should avoid anyone who works with the opposition, Falco.'
`Old Fungibles?' I croaked.
Aelianus jumped in smartly: `Interchangeable items; often consumables… A nickname, presumably.'
`Where did this mobile comestible come from?' I asked, still unconvinced.
'Ursulina Prisca,' Justinus grinned.
`Oho! Give me his details then,' I instructed, also grinning. We did not explain to Honorius the in-joke about our client, the litigious widow. `I'll take along the will for advice; Aelianus can come too.' Honorius looked put out; that was tough. He was our law man, but I needed to re-establish good relationships with my own team. The Camilli cheered up, seeing Honorius snubbed. Justinus offered to hunt down more herbalists, still chasing the purchaser of the Metellus hemlock.
Justinus was now spreading out his search from the Embankment in ever-increasing circles. This tedious tramp could take him weeks. He might never track down the right seller. Even if he identified the one, he might never persuade him to give evidence in court. But for Justinus it had become a challenge.
`What can I do?' wailed Honorius plaintively.
`Read up the facts. Plan your arguments for when we go to court.'
`A defender who is familiar with the case? That will be a novelty!' Aelianus sneered.
