The Accusers

VII

NO WAY Out. I needed an appointment with the fertile divorcee.

Saffia Donata lived nearby now. She had rented an apartment close to the Market of Livia, just through the Esquiline Gate. The Embankment stood between her new abode and the Metelli like a symbolic barrier. I buffed through the hawkers and puppeteers who congregate in the shadow of the ancient fortification, using an elbow where necessary. I was among a lot of smart habitation. To the east where the Metelli lived in the Fifth Region were no less than five public gardens; to the west where I was going were the elegant Third and Fourth Regions, dominated by the Gardens of Lollianus. Very nice. Not so fine, once you realise that all these glamorous green spaces have been built up with many feet of topsoil on what used to be the Esquiline Field – the graveyard of the poor. Never stop to breathe the pretty flower scents. The graves of the poor still stink.

Pregnant women do not scare me. Still, I did not roam about by myself in Saffia's new apartment. I might easily have sneaked around a bit. She was still moving in and there was chaos. When I turned up and was admitted without trouble, men were everywhere moving furniture (quality stuff; Pa would have made an offer for it). I saw a lot of treasures having their corners knocked off. Ivory items and silver inlaid sets of delicate stuff with goats' feet were being hauled around as casually as the battered joint stools at my mother's house which people had kicked out of their way for thirty years. There were enough bronze candelabra to light an orgy. I bet some found themselves dismantled into convenient pieces and hidden in packing wraps, ready for the no-questions resale market.

Saffia was, I could report to Helena, very pretty. She was younger than I expected. Twenty-five at most. She had dark hair, tightly wound about her head. Light swathes of drapery kept her cool, but seemed almost indecently thin on her swollen torso. A maid wafted rosewater about, to little purpose. Saffia was barefoot, reclining against cushions on a couch, her embroidered slippers resting on a footstool.

I could reassure my beloved that this peach was too ripe for stealing. It looked as if Saffia was carrying twins and that they were due next week. She had reached the restless stage, unable to make herself comfortable, and sick of friendly people asking how was she finding the wait?

`I am sorry to bother you -'

`Oh Juno, I don't mind,' she uttered wearily, when I introduced myself. I had said exactly what I was there for. Deluding a young, divorced woman in her home would be dangerous. `Ask me anything!'

In view of her condition, I was surprised to be received. Something about this offhand young matron seemed common; her openness to a male stranger was out of place in the patrician world. Yet her accent was as upper-crust as Calpurnia's and her welcome soon felt acceptable. There were other attendants constantly in the room, pottering with ornaments on gilt-legged marble sidetables. She was as well chaperoned as any witness I had ever spoken to.

`I hope this is not inconvenient. I can see you are still in mid-move here – Do you mind if I ask, is your divorce a recent event?'

`Straight after the trial ended. My father was horrified by the verdict. We are a very respectable family. Papa had no idea what he was getting me into when I married Birdy. And my ex-husband was furious. He doesn't want his boy to be associated with such people.'

I ignored the self-righteous stuff and stuck to facts. `Your first husband gave you a son, and Metellus -?'

'My daughter. She is two.'

I should have said, so is mine. But I was gruff in interrogations. To me, informers on duty are solitary grousers, not given to domestic chat. I thought it best to say, `Would you prefer me to speak to your legal guardian, by the way?'

`That's up to you. I have one, of course.' Saffia did not seem to mind dealing with me. She did not name the guardian either. I had shown willing. The last thing I really wanted was to be fobbed off with some jumped-up freedman who had been put in charge of her contracts and accounts, just to look respectable. He was probably of low rank, and I doubted if he saw much of Saffia. This was not that frequent situation where the legal stand-in has an eye to marriage with his charge. Divorce and Saffia were no strangers. Remarriage in the highest social circumstances was what she expected, and soon. The Augustan laws would give her six months, if she wanted to avoid loss of privileges. I felt she was an expert. I could see her swapping husbands more times yet – probably raising her status every time.

`Excuse my ignorance; I don't know who your ex-husband is?' I was certainly intending to visit Negrinus; now I reckoned her first cast-off might be worth an interview too.

`Oh he's not involved at all, don't worry about him.' I guessed the first ex had begged to be kept well out of her troubles with the second; Saffia was loyal enough to comply. Interesting. Would she be so loyal to Negrinus?

`Is it rude to enquire why that marriage was terminated?'

`It is rude,' said Saffia. Rather rudely.

`Still, you remain on good terms?'

`We do.'

`Because of your son?'

`Because it is civilised.'

`Wonderful!' I said, as if I had fine grit between my teeth. `And how are things between you and Birdy?'

`Unspeakable – unfortunately.' She waved a small neat hand above the unborn child. Several silver bracelets slipped on her wrist as she did so. Her draperies were held on with numerous enamel studs and pins. Even the slave mopping her brow wore a bangle.

`The mother-in-law comes into it?' I suggested with a twinkle. Saffia was loyal for some reason: she just pouted slightly and said nothing. Perhaps the Metelli had paid her to keep quiet. `I met her today,' I tried one more time.

Saffia gave in. `I expect you think them an awful family,' she told me. `But the girls are all right.'

`What girls?' I had been caught out.

`My husband's two sisters. Juliana is sweet, though she's married to a crosspatch. The trial was a terrible shock for them both. Carina always kept her distance. She's rather strict and has a mournful air, but then I think she understood what was going on.'

'Carina disapproved of the corrupt practices?'

`She avoided trouble by staying away. Her husband also took a very stiff attitude.'

`Will you still see the sisters?'

Saffia shrugged and did not know. She had the knack of seeming full of disingenuous chatter but I already felt that nothing vital would be wheedled out of this witness. She gushed, but she only told me what she could afford to say. Anything she needed to keep private stayed out of bounds. Lawyers do it in court: bombard the jury with trivia while omitting anything pertinent that may harm their client.

I tried her with the main question: `I am really looking into what happened over Metellus senior's death.'

`Oh I don't know. I wasn't there. My father fetched me, the day the trial ended.'

`You went home with your father?'

`I certainly did.' She paused. `Papa already had a quarrel with them.'

`It happens in families,' I sympathised. `What was at issue?'

`Oh something to do with my dowry, I know nothing of such matters…'

Wrong, darling. Saffia Donata knew everything about anything that concerned her. Still, women of rank like to pretend. I let it go. I can pretend too.

`So, home to Papa, at least temporarily? Of course you wanted to live in your own apartment; you are a married woman, used to your own establishment?'

Not quite. She was used to living with Calpurnia Cara, a matron who possessed – as Helena Justina had commented wryly – bearing and presence. Saffia saw that I recognised the contradiction; she made no answer.

I smiled like a conspirator. `You have my congratulations. Living with Calpurnia must have taken stamina. I imagine she told you exactly how you should do everything -'

'I cannot permit my son's wife to suckle!' Saffia mimicked viciously. She was good.

`How dreadful.'

`At least this baby won't have the evil wet-nurse that my daughter was forced to endure.'

`You are glad to have escaped such tyranny.'

`If only I had.' I looked quizzical. Saffia then explained the curious procedures that are imposed on mothers-to-be who divorce from families where a large inheritance may be at stake: 'Calpurnia is insisting a reputable midwife lives with me, examines me, and monitors both the pregnancy and birth.'

`Jupiter! What's she afraid of?'

`A substituted grandchild, if my baby dies.'

I huffed. It seemed a lot of fuss. Still, Metellus Negrinus would not want to be saddled with maintaining the wrong child.

`She told me you would call.' So Saffia and the tyrant were still on speaking terms.

`She told me you are causing trouble,' I said bluntly. `What did she mean by that?'

`I have no idea.' I could see that she did know, but she was not going to tell me.

I changed tack. `You are very well organised. There must have been hectic activity to find you somewhere to live so fast.' Briefly, I even wondered if Calpurnia had had a hand in this.

`Oh, dear old Lutea sorted it all out for me.'

I raised an eyebrow, half amused. `Your ex-husband?' I guessed. She blushed slightly at being outwitted. It was an unusual name. I would soon track him down. I smiled. `Let's be frank. Do you believe Rubirius Metellus killed himself?'

But Saffia Donata knew nothing of those matters either. She had had enough of me. I was asked to leave.

At the door, I paused. Since I had already put away my stylus, I chewed a fingernail instead. `Damn! I meant to ask Calpurnia something… I don't want to keep annoying her in her time of grief – would you happen to know, what poison was it that Metellus took?'

`Hemlock.' This was good, from a woman who had not been in the house when the poisoning occurred and who was estranged from the family.

`Hades, we're not in the wilds of Greece, and Metellus was not a philosopher. Nobody civilised takes hemlock nowadays!'

Saffia made no comment.

`Do you know where he would have acquired it?' I asked.

Saffia looked more wary. She merely shrugged.

I had now interviewed two matrons from the same family, in my opinion both deeply devious. My brain ached. I went home for lunch to my own open and uncomplicated womenfolk.