The Accusers

LIV

JUST BECAUSE he had sent for me did not mean the praetor was ready to receive me. He liked to toy with his victims. The lictor dumped me in a long corridor, where benches stood all along the walls for those the great man was keeping waiting. Bored and unhappy petitioners were already lined up, looking as if they had been there all day.

I joined them. The bench was hard, backless and a foot too low.

Almost immediately Helena Justina arrived and found me; she squashed in alongside. She must have spotted me being marched off so she had scurried after us. She took my hand, winding her fingers tightly among mine. Even at that low ebb, I looked sideways and gave her a half-smile. Helena leaned her head on my shoulder, eyes closed. I moved a gold ear-ring; the granulated crescent was pressing into her cheek. Then I slumped against her, also resting.

Whatever our fate, we would have each other.

We would have two infants and various hangers-on as well – no chance of returning to a two-room doss in a tenement. We both knew that. Neither of us bothered to say it.

Eventually a clerk with a buttoned-up mouth and a disapproving squint called us into an anteroom. He got my name wrong, on purpose probably. The praetor had recoiled from an interview with me. His clerk was to do the dirty work. The bureau beetle buried his nose in a scroll, lest he inadvertently made human contact. Somebody had told him that just looking at an informer can give you impetigo and a year's bad luck.

`You are Marcus Didius Falco? The Procurator of the Sacred Geese?' He could hardly believe it; somebody in the secretariats must have nodded off. At least the judgmental swine could understand why my appointment had gone wrong. `The magistrate is greatly perturbed by this accusation of impiety. Irreverence to the gods and dereliction of temple duties are shocking misdemeanours. The magistrate regards them as abhorrent and would impose the highest penalty if such charges were ever proven -'

`The charges are trumped up and slanderous,' I commented. My tone was benign but Helena kicked me. I elbowed her back; she was just as likely as me to interrupt this parakeet.

Repartee was not in his script so the clerk continued for some time, rehearsing the magistrate's pompous views. They had been helpfully recorded on the scroll – ensuring that somebody's back was well covered. Wondering exactly who needed to clear themselves for posterity, I let the insults roll. Eventually the stylus-pusher remembered that he had a lunchtime meeting with his betting syndicate. He shut up. I asked what was to happen. He forced himself to give me the news. The mighty magistrate's opinion was: charges dismissed; no case to answer.

I managed to hold out until we reached the street outside. I grasped Helena by the shoulders and pulled her around until she faced me.

`Oh Marcus, you are furious!'

`Yes!' I was relieved – but I hated having things manipulated for me. `Who fixed it, fruit?'

A glimmer of mischief smouldered in those huge brown eyes. `I have no idea.'

`Who did your father trot off to see last night?'

`Well, he went to see the Emperor -' I began to speak. `But Vespasian was busy -' I fell silent again. `So I believe father saw Titus Caesar.'

`And what did bloody Titus have to say?'

`Marcus darling, I expect he just listened. Papa was quite angry that you had been left to your fate. My father said, he could not stand by while his two darling little granddaughters were damned – incorrectly – with a charge of having an impious father, so although you felt obliged to stay silent about your recent imperial missions, Papa himself would go to court and give evidence on your behalf.'

`So Titus -'

`Titus likes to do a good deed every day.'

`Titus is an idiot. You know I hate all patronage. I never asked to be rescued. I don't want to sweeten the conscience of an imperial playboy.'

`You'll live with it,' Helena responded cruelly. `I understand Titus Caesar suggested that the praetor – with one eye on his future consulship – could probably be brought to see (with his other eye presumably; how lucky he has never had a spear-throwing accident…) that Procreus has no evidence.'

`I'm stuck then.' I gazed at her. Ridiculous humour sparkled back at me. `I don't care a duck's fart if my daughters are labelled with impiety – but to provide for them, I have an urgent need to be respectable.'

`You make a perfect head of household,' Helena told me lovingly. She could smarm like a minor goddess on the loose from Olympus for the night. Any shepherds out roaming the Seven Hills had better jump in a ditch to hide.

`I give in. Helena Justina, the law is wonderful.'

`Yes, Marcus. I never cease to be glad that we live in a society with a fine judicial system.'

I was about to say, as she expected from me, `and systematically corrupt'. I never did. We stopped joking, because while we stood there bantering, her brother Justinus came running to find us. As he bent double, catching his breath, I could tell from his expression he had brought upsetting news.

`You had better come, Marcus. Calpurnia Cara's house.'