secret shadowed the Metellus family, but had no idea what. Perseus had discovered it, but never revealed his blackmail material. Perseus had boasted that the family were at his mercy – and he intended to keep it that way.
The door porter had not been entirely immune, however. He was a slave still. His age was under thirty, so in law he could not be manumitted. And because he was a slave, when he finally went too far, Calpurnia had lost her temper and dispatched him to Lanuvium to be kept under control by the trusted freedman, Julius Alexander.
`So Alexander knows the secret?'
`He must do, but he's one of the family. He won't tell. Anyway,' maundered the steward. `Alexander is in Lanuvium.'
No he was not. Justinus had persuaded him to come to Rome. I kept that to myself.
I offered to help the steward break in to the house, but he was content to stay in a room above the bar that night. I had the impression he would probably not bother to crawl up the stairs to a sleeping-pallet, but would remain propped up against the counter, pouring in drink like a man who had just discovered wine. He had lost all his elegance. He was as dishevelled and inarticulate as any street dosser who was down on his luck. It looked as if this steward was heading for a grim future.
Once more I encouraged him to go home. Drunkenly refusing to budge, he repaid me for my thoughtfulness by dropping me right in it.
`You asked me once, Falco – what was the last meal my master ate. I do remember -' He had never forgotten. `It was cold meats and salad. What we always had. But my master had been sent a present, she said it was to seek his forgiveness… Lying little cow.'
Something cold tickled my upper spine. `What present?'
`Two nice quails in a silver dish. We never had quails. Calpurnia finds little birds creepy. I never buy larks or fig-peckers… But my master liked them. He laughed and told me he would never forgive the woman, but he was very fond of game so he told me not to mention the present – then he ate the quails.'
You can feed hemlock to quails, and then eat the quails… `Have you told anyone else about this?'
`Nobody asked me.'
That old nonsense! This steward was either too scared – or-he had hoped for some gain for himself.
`So who sent the present? Who are we talking about?'
`Who do you think? Saffia.'
I warned the steward to take life easy, then I left him and went home. I walked slowly. I took the longest route I could think of. I had a lot to think about.
There was no doubt from the way the trial had been going – and the other side's desperate reactions – that we were winning. We could convict Calpurnia Cara successfully. But somebody else had killed Metellus.
For my partners and me, this was disastrous. No way out: we had to look into it. If the steward's claim was substantiated, our charge was untenable. Everything had been for nothing. And before I even dared to break the news to the others, I knew we could not sustain the damage. We had wrongly accused a woman of senatorial rank. She had a top defender on her side. The charge was a dreadful slur on the innocent; the case had been a terrible ordeal for her. Paccius Africanus, whom I had so fiercely humiliated two days ago, would demand compensation – on a grand scale.
Marponius would lose his chance of glory with the case, so he would hate us. Why blame him? We had made the accusation and if we withdrew, we were liable. Damaging a person of status with a fraudulent petition had always been slammed with heavy penalties. Marponius would award our victim whatever Paccius asked.
I dared not even think how high the price would be.
I knew the result, though. Falco and Associates were finished. The two young Camillus boys and Honorius would be named jointly in the penalty award. I could not shield them, even if I wanted to. I had some savings, but no financial capacity to cover their commitment. Nor could we recoup our loss through a petition for murder against Saffia Donata; Saffia was dead. My resources would go nowhere. My future, and the future of my family, had just been wiped out. We were all ruined.
LII
I HAD PLANNED to keep it to myself Helena winkled it out of me. She seemed less troubled than I was, but then she had never lived too long in abject poverty. Our days in my old apartment up in Fountain Court had passed like an adventure for her. The cramped conditions, leaky roof and unpleasant, violent neighbours had been soon superseded by a larger, quieter set of rooms. Though not much better than our first dreadful nest, for Helena even they had now faded to a memory.
It all came back to me readily. The bugs. The creaking joists, threatening to cave in at any heavy footfall. The dirt. The noise. The theft and battery; the disease and debt. The threats from fellow lodgers, the smoke from wonky cooking benches, the screaming children. The smell of urine on the stairs – not all of it coming from the vats in Lenia's laundry. Lenia bawling drunkenly. The filthy, filthy-hearted landlord…
`If you were just to withdraw, honestly telling Marponius that you made a mistake, Marcus -'
`No. It's no let-out.'
`So you began the case – and you have to finish or become liable?'
`We could keep quiet, of course. Convict Calpurnia, and send her to her death… My conscience won't cope with that.'
`Anyway,' murmured my sensible girl, `somebody else might come forward with evidence. Keeping quiet would be too dangerous.'
I fell asleep shortly afterwards. I was holding Helena, smiling against her hair – smiling at the ridiculous thought that this model of rectitude might have let us cover up the truth if she thought we could get away with it. She had lived with me too long. She was becoming a pragmatist.
Helena herself must have lain awake for much longer. She knew how to keep still, shielding her busy thoughts from me. For her, if we could not hold back the new evidence, then we would damn well fight to minimise the damage. She was planning how. Her first move was to ensure that the steward's tale was true.
By the time I was up, she had started. While it was still dark, she summoned the others, explained the situation, ordered them not to panic, then addressed avenues to be explored. Honorius was due in court again today. He was to warn Marponius that we had a new witness whose testimony we thought it fair to investigate; he would request a short adjournment. We might be allowed a day; longer was unlikely. Meanwhile, Justinus was to take a full, formal statement from the steward. Aelianus was to revisit the funeral director, Tiasus; Helena had looked through the old case-notes and had spotted that originally we were told the Metellus funeral was to have had `clowns', plural. She told Aelianus to find out who the others were, and ask them for anything they knew about the background enquiries carried out by the murdered Spindex before he was paid off by Verginius Laco.
`Especially, ask who Spindex used as his informer,' she was instructing Aelianus as I came to the breakfast table. Going vague on her, he was assessing me. I had the slow walk of a man facing disaster. Helena kept talking, as she set fresh bread in front of me. `The vigiles haven't discovered who killed Spindex, or I presume Petronius would have told us, but you can check at the station-house, Aulus, if you have time.'
`Don't tell Petro we've been idiots,' I said.
All three young men stared at me. They were in shock too.
`Petro's not stupid,' said Aelianus bleakly. `He'll work it out.'
Just don't think about the penalty,' Helena advised everyone quietly. `We have to carry on, being scrupulous about double-checking. Just because we say we have a new witness, Paccius won't immediately know we are at his mercy.'
`He will demand to know who the witness is,' Honorius said gloomily.
`Say the query arose out of the vigiles torturing the slaves,' Aelianus suggested – another of the Camillus family who was willing to bend the truth. `Paccius will waste time following up with the Second Cohort.'
`No, Paccius will scent victory,' Honorius disagreed. I had always suspected lack of funds was a big problem for him; he seemed utterly deflated by our dire situation. He would need watching.
