The senator smiled. `There is a lot of speculation as to what will be left. If Metellus was murdered, the family have to pay the original trial bill to Silius. That's his motive for bringing the new case. But his son's father-in-law -'

`Servilius Donatus?'

`Right. He is sounding off about a prior claim for compensation for misuse of his daughter's dowry. There was land. Metellus senior had control of it – the son was not emancipated – and Metellus sold all the land.'

I whistled. `He isn't allowed to do that. The dowry is for the benefit of the couple and their children -'

'Saffia would have had to give her approval,' Decimus confirmed. `Her father says she never agreed. Metellus had been claiming that she did.'

`But if divorce occurs,' Claudia Rufina seemed unnervingly aware of the law, `the dowry has to be paid back, so the wife can use it to remarry.

`If she wants to,' said Justinus. He should have kept quiet.

`It's obligatory,' snapped his mother. `The Augustan laws say she must take a new husband within six months, unless she is past childbearing.'

`Only if she wants to be able to inherit legacies,' persisted dear Quintus. He really knew how to ensure there would be flaming rows at tomorrow's breakfast table. I had a strong feeling that divorce and its consequences must have been under recent discussion here. Helena glanced at me, with a faint look of distress. She was fond of both her brother and his wife; she hated the trouble between them.

`Well Saffia Donata wants her legacy,' the senator said peaceably. `This is another peculiarity. If Metellus is deemed to have committed suicide, then his will stands – and Saffia Donata is telling people she will receive a substantial bequest.'

`But she's divorced.'

`Curious, eh?'

Now I was on full alert. `Toppling triglyphs! Who else features in this shock document? Come to that, Decimus – how do you happen to know?'

The senator winked. `A lot of people know – though the Metelli would rather we didn't.'

`If Saffia gets a nice mention,' I begged, `please say – who else has been shoved aside?'

Decimus pretended he was above glorying in gossip. His wife was looking hard at a pear she was peeling: `The son, they say.'

I was amazed. Metellus and his son had seemed so closely intertwined when they were linked in corruption. And no Roman lightly disinherits any child, let alone an only son. `So what about the sister they are prosecuting – Juliana – do you know?'

`Well I heard,' Julia Justa wiped her fingers on a napkin, 'Rubiria Juliana will receive a bequest, but according to usual procedures it has to be set against what she has already received in her own dowry.,

'So she's had her share already. The big surprise for the court is that Juliana wasn't after money. So much for greed leading to murder.'

I was disappointed. Money is the biggest motive for killing people. If she had stood to gain a great deal – and if she had known it – then Rubiria Juliana probably did somehow fix her father's demise and we could all enjoy watching Silius denouncing her. Without that motive, Juliana was probably innocent. Which made her trial a much sadder and more sordid matter. There was no creditable reason for Silius to attack the woman.

XII

'WELL, JULIANA looked ill,' said the senator when we met next day.

`You mean, they made her look ill,' his wife scoffed. I had once thought that Julia Justa was a hard woman but, like her daughter Helena, she was merely impatient with hypocrisy. `You can do so much with white lead!'

`It's a convention,' Helena complained, her feet kicking on her dining couch restlessly. She had removed her sandals or I would have been fretting about the new furnishings (we were at our house tonight, joined only by Helena's parents). `I don't know why anybody bothers with such farcical procedures, just to attract sympathy -'

She was eager to hear the day's news. Besides, the sooner she could persuade her parents to absorb themselves in the trial details, the sooner she could stop worrying that they were glaring at Albia (whom they thought an unsuitable choice to look after our daughters) and at the meal. We had not owned a cook until recently. The one I had acquired last week from a slave dealer was resold two days after I bought him and the new one had no idea what gravy was for. Still, this was an improvement. The first one had tried to fry lettuce.

`Try these intriguing hens' eggs,' Decimus offered his wife. `Marcus tells me they are a classic Moesian delicacy; the little black specks take days to produce.'

`What happened to that other cook you had?' my unforgiving mother-in-law demanded. After one silent glance at the hens' eggs with their curious jacket of caramelised skillet flakes, she ignored the glass comport on which they nestled.

`Resold. At a profit, I can proudly say.'

`Oh you managed to find an idiot in the buying queue?'

`I sold him to my father, actually.' I chuckled gamely. `A double coup – except it means we cannot go and dine with him.' That was no loss, and Julia Justa knew it.

`From what I know of your father, Geminus will already have shed him – with a healthy on-cost added.' The senator had not only met Pa, he had foolishly bought things from him.

`I have this vision,' I said dreamily. `The cook – whose name was Genius, so you know to refuse at once if you are offered him -'

`Only you could fall for that, Marcus.'

`Agreed! In my vision, Genius is now being passed around Rome, constantly gaining in value as successive owners overprice him with false stories about his dishes. Each of us needs to recoup the sales tax when we get rid of him… All the time he is acquiring a set of fake commendations, until he becomes a gourmet's treasure, lusted after as if he can whisk up sauces like ambrosia…'

`It's a new kind of investment commodity,' the senator joined in. `Genius never needs to visit a real kitchen – which is just as well, if I may tactfully mention the after-effects of that pork marinade he made for us last week.'

`This date sauce is very good,' remarked Julia Justa very politely. She had let us know her views on Genius, but if his menu had made her ill, she would never go so far as to say so. `And tonight's spiced wine excels.'

`Albia made the spiced wine,' replied Helena, not upsetting her parents by mentioning that I did the date sauce; they wanted to ignore how plebeian I was. Albia went red. We made her eat with us as one of the family when the babies were in bed; she hated it. Still, we were libertarians. Everyone was stuck with our high principles. I bought slaves who were obviously useless, because I loathed the idea of owning them and I could not bring myself to bargain as hard as you had to for anyone with real skills.

As for Albia, we had transferred her from Londinium to Rome to give her the life she had been denied by losing her family in the Boudiccan Rebellion – and she was damn well going to receive family life, even if she preferred solitude. Albia was becoming a quiet, calm, tolerant teenager. She watched the decadent world into which we had dragged her with those British blue eyes, so full of reserve; they seemed to appreciate our special Roman madness while keeping her own, much more civilised restraint. I had seen her sometimes shake her head over us, very slightly.

Still, Helena had taught her to make excellent spiced wine.

`It was Rubiria Juliana's day in court,' said the senator. I noticed Helena hitch her red dress along her shoulder where a pin was digging in. The glimpse of smooth flesh between the fastenings gave me goose pimples. Helena lay flat on her stomach – not the approved style of dining, as her mother clearly noticed; I would be given the blame for this – the low-class, bad influence husband. Helena leaned her chin on her hands, a pose unconsciously copied by Albia, though the fourteen year-old soon stopped paying attention to what Decimus said and tucked into the food bowls again. Helena had lost interest in eating. She longed to hear her father's news.