The Accusers

XXXVI

HELENA WAS the first to react. She laid aside her note-tablet and rose swiftly with a swish of her skirts. She came to me, stopped, and picked up the tiny bundle. I heard a feeble whimper. Handing back the child to the midwife, Helena announced crisply, `Wrong father!'

I sat down quickly.

Helena stood beside me, one proprietarily hand on my shoulder. `Try again,' she encouraged the woman, this time more gently. Rufus and Laco sat tight, trying not to look as though they were avoiding anybody's eye. Carina held out her arms to the small girl, who must be about two; she toddled across and climbed on her aunt's lap, clearly used to her, but then she buried her face and began to cry. Carina bent and reassured her in a low voice, one hand spread on her little head. I noticed she moved aside the hard links of her jewellery, a practised mother, ensuring the child's face was not bruised.

Metellus Negrinus had risen slowly to his feet. The woman with the baby fixed on him, hesitated, then went and placed the newborn once more on the ground between his feet. She stepped back. Negrinus did not move.

`Don't touch it!' warned Juliana, his elder sister. `You don't know who -' She refused to finish, though we all understood her meaning.

`It is a boy,' pleaded the woman who brought it, as if she thought that might make a difference. If Birdy refused it, the child would be taken and exposed on a madden. Someone might snatch the helpless bundle, either to bring up as their own or to bring up in drudgery. Probably the baby would die. `Saffia Donata begged us to bring the children to you,' quavered the midwife, looking around the room unsurely. `She is fading rapidly…'

It was Carina who looked up from cuddling her brother's tearful daughter and ordered, `Acknowledge your son, Gnaeus!'

Her brother took his decision as she willed him to act. With one fast movement, he bent down and scooped up the baby.

,It might not be yours,' wailed Juliana.

`It's mine now!' Clutching the child against his tunic, Negrinus gazed around at the rest of us, almost defiantly. `None of my trouble is my children's fault.'

`Well done,' murmured Carina, with a catch in her voice. Her husband, the austerely decent Laco, reached out and took her hand. Even Juliana nodded resignedly, though her husband looked furious.

Negrinus faced the midwife. `Is Saffia Donata dying?' His tone was harsh. `So why have you left her?'

`Your mother appointed me; I was supposed merely to observe – Saffia had her own women to help her. It took so long… I am afraid she has probably gone by now.' Relief brought more colour to the midwife's cheeks. `I am sorry to break in like this. I am sorry to bring you such news.' The woman was of obvious quality, slave-born, but probably now freed and working independently. I could see why Calpurnia Cara had chosen her to supervise the family interests. `Saffia Donata pleaded with us to bring the children to you. She was desperately anxious about them being looked after -'

`Have no fears for them,' Negrinus broke in. He was holding the baby like a man who knew which way up they go. When it let out a complaining cry, he jogged it gently. He still looked incongruously studious, yet had the air of some historic pioneer, facing hardship stoically across the land he worked. `So Saffia knew she was dying?' The midwife nodded. `Did she say anything else?' This time the woman shook her head. `A pity!' he exclaimed cryptically.

`You will need a wet-nurse for the little one; I can recommend someone clean and reliable -'

`Leave that to us,' Juliana replied, rather quickly.

`Saffia always used Tubule’s daughter, I was told,' the midwife continued fussing.

'Zeuko. Oh yes, Zeuko! I don't think so.' Carina's views on Tubule’s daughter Zeuko seemed uncomplimentary.

A silence fell.

`What has happened to Saffia's other son, little Lucius?' Helena asked quietly. `He is not alone at the apartment, I hope?'

The midwife looked troubled. `His father is there. He is with his father -'She hesitated, but left it.

A couple of household slaves peered in enquiringly and were signalled to escort the visitors away. Others came and carried off the children. We heard the baby cry as the door closed, but an elderly woman spoke to him kindly. After a moment, Carina glanced at her sister then went out herself, presumably to make arrangements.

Helena and I offered our excuses and retreated.

Birdy had slumped on a couch, his eyes glazed and his face set. Laco, the host, merely sat looking thoughtful. Neither Juliana nor her husband made any attempt to go home at that point. They were all waiting to hold intense discussions of some kind, after we were gone. It was polite to leave them to it. Besides, I wanted to rush over to Saffia's apartment to see what Lutea was doing.

`You don't need to come,' I murmured to Helena as she rescued her cloak from Carina's slaves and threw it on.

`Oh yes I do!'

I had already grabbed her hand as we hurried along. Despite the tragedy, for us this was good. This was the kind of moment we both enjoyed together – rushing through the evening streets to an unexpected rendezvous where we might witness something material.

Verginius Lace’s house lay in what had been the old Suburb, the area north of the Forum, once seedy but now redeveloped and upgraded since the Aeonian fire. From there it took us less than half an hour to reach Saffia's apartment, across the Vicinal Hill. It was now well into the evening, but her lodgings lay in near darkness. Everyone who worked here must be tired out and terrified. Not much point owning masses of brilliant bronze lamp stands, if your slaves become too distraught to light the lamps. Not much point in anything, if you die in childbirth.

Saffia's body was lying unattended in a dim bedroom, waiting to be laid out. I had suspected Licinius Lutea might be found counting silverware, but I maligned him. He was sitting in an anteroom, lost in grief. He was weeping uncontrollably. I watched Helena assessing him: good-looking in a slewed way, early thirties, smart clothes, professionally manicured – apart from his shattered confidence at the moment of bereavement, he was the type she loathed. All the signs were that he had been there, lost, for hours. She left him to his self absorption.

Helena found the little boy. Alone in his neat bedroom, silent and white-faced, he lay curled up on his bed, not even clutching a toy. After three days of hearing his mother screaming in childbirth, he must be petrified. When silence fell, his world ended. We knew he had been told his mother was dead; at four, he may not have understood. Nobody had fed him, comforted him, made any plans for him. No one had even spoken to him for a long while. He had no idea that his father was here. He let Helena pick him up, but accepted her attentions almost like a child who expected blows. Concerned, I even saw her checking him for marks. But he was sound, clean, well nurtured. He owned a shelf of clay models and when I offered him a nodding mule, he took it from me obediently.

We brought parent and child together. Lutea stopped weeping and took the boy in his arms, though Lucius went to his father with as little reaction as when Helena gathered him up. We instructed some weary slaves to look after them. It might have been the moment to catch Lutea off guard, but Helena shook her head and I bowed to her humanity.

Helena and I walked home together quietly, with our arms around each other's waists, feeling subdued. The fate of the small boy depressed us both. Little Lucius had lost more than his mother there. Saffia had done her best for the other two by sending them to Negrinus, but this boy was Lutea's property. It would never turn out well; Lucius was destined to spend his life being abandoned and forgotten. The father may have loved the mother, but neither Helena nor I now had any faith in Lutea's so-called great affection for the four-year-old. The little boy behaved as if he had very low expectations. Lutea held his supposedly adored son like a drunk with an empty amphora, staring over his head with regret in his soul, but no heart.

`At least he is weeping for Saffia.'

`No, he is weeping for the lost money.'

You may assume that sympathetic comment came from Helena and the harsh judgement from me. Wrong!

`You find me very cynical,' Helena apologised. `I just believe that Saffia's death has robbed this man Lutea of expectations in a lengthy scheme to prey on the Metelli – and I believe he is sobbing for himself. You, Marcus Didius Falco, the great city romantic, hate to see a man bereft. You believe that Lutea was genuinely moved today by the loss of his heart's companion and lover.'

`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.'