`Thanks, Petro. This is Bratta – to be dumped in a very secure cell. Don't bother to tell anyone you have him. Don't tell them, even if they come asking.'

Some of Petro's men appeared. They surrounded our prisoner. Out of sight of passers-by, he must have received some nasty punishment. I heard him grunt. Petronius winced. Then he slapped my shoulder. `I knew it must be something good, if you were not bothering to go to court. Best trot in there now, though.'

`I'll just instruct you first -'

`Don't bother: I'll persuade the brute to admit he strangled Spindex.'

`Easy on the persuasion.'

`Unlike the Second, we keep them breathing; Sergius is a cat with a mouse. He enjoys watching little creatures trying to survive – he can stay playful for a very long time.'

Petro had aimed his remarks at Bratta, but I lowered my voice. `Well, don't just get him on the killing – make him confess who ordered it. If it was Paccius or Silius, tell me before you tell the Urban Praetor.'

Petronius nodded understandingly. Linking the two elite informers to a sleazy murder seemed my only hope of escaping from the mess I was in. `Falco, get into court. You want to be present when the bastards shaft you.'

He was right. I retrieved my toga, which I had earlier left with an usher, and slid into the Basilica just as Paccius was having fun tearing my reputation to pieces. Luckily I never had much.

Apart from Petronius, everyone I knew seemed to be there listening. Well, they would be. People love to see their friends brought down, don't they?

The Accusation against Calpurnia Cara: C. Paccius Africanus on M. Didius Falco

… Consider what type of man he is. What is known of his history? He was in the army. As a young recruit he was sent to the province of Britain. It was the time of the Boudican Rebellion, that savage event in which so many Roman lives were lost. Of the four legions then in Britain, some were subsequently honoured for their bravery and the glory of their victory over the rebels. Was Falco among their number? No. The men in his legion disgraced themselves by not responding to the call from their colleagues for help. They stayed in camp. They did not fight. Others were left to achieve honour, while the Second Augusta, including Didius Falco, abandoned them, earning only disgrace. It is true that Falco was obeying orders; others were culpable – but remember, as a servant of the Senate and People that was his heritage.

He claims he was then a scout. I can find no record of this. He left the army. Had he served his time? Was he wounded out? Was he sent home with an honourable diploma? No. He wheedled himself an exit, under terms that are shrouded in secrecy.

We next hear of this man, operating as the lowest type of informer from a dingy base on the Aventine. He spied on bridegrooms, destroying their hopes of marriage with slanders -

`Objection!'

`Overruled, Falco. I've seen you do it.'

`Only to naughty fortune-hunters, Marponius -'

`And what does that make you?'

`Objection sustained, your honour.'

He preyed on widows in their time of bereavement -

'Oh objection, please!'

`Sustained. Strike out the widows. Even Falco has a conscience.'

Let's not quibble, gentlemen: Didius Falco did seedy work, often for unpleasant people. Some time around then, he had a stroke of enormous luck for a man of his class. The daughter of a senator fell in love with him. It was a tragedy for her family, but for Falco it proved a passport to respectability. Ignoring the pleas of her parents, the headstrong young woman ran off with her hero. Her noble father's fortunes declined sharply from that moment. Her brothers were soon to be inveigled into Falco's web – you have seen the young men in this court, subject to his incorrigible influence. Now, instead of the promising careers that once lay ahead, they are facing ruin with him.

And what is his occupation now? Accusing a respectable matron of murder. The most hateful crime – in which even Falco now admits he 'was mistaken'. There was 'other evidence', which proves that 'somebody else did it'.

I shall pass over the slurs and scandalous barbs he has aimed at me personally. I can withstand his attacks. Those who know me will not be influenced by them. Any hurt I have felt personally as I listened to his insulting tirade will pass.

Your honour, it is for you that I feel most angry. He has used your court as a platform for an ill-considered charge, backed by no evidence and fronted only by his bravado. As you can see, my client, Calpurnia Cara, is simply too distressed to attend the court today. Battered and assaulted from all sides, she is reduced to a wraith. I know she sends her apologies and pleads to be excused. This noble woman has withstood enough. I ask you, I beg you, to acknowledge her wounded feelings with exemplary damages. May I suggest that what Calpurnia Cara has suffered requires nothing short of a million sesterces to remove the harm done?

Dear gods. I must have an ear affliction. He cannot have said that. A million?

Well, he made a mistake, then. The great Paccius had overplayed it. Marponius was an equestrian. When the financial entry for the judge's own social rank is only four hundred thousand, to ask the price of qualification to the Senate, on behalf of a woman, was crazy. Marponius blinked. Then he belched nervously and when he gave the award he reduced the figure asked to half.

Half a million sesterces. It was a hard struggle to stay calm.

The Camilli might bring in something, but I expected little from them. In our partnership, insofar as we had ever discussed money, I was using the brothers as unpaid apprentices. This was down to me. I was stuck with a personal debt I could in no way afford. My banker had told me bluntly: I could not raise half a million even if I sold everything I owned.

I closed my eyes and somehow managed not to scream or weep.

That was just as well. Looking fraught would have been bad at my next appointment. While the court was still closing, I received a message that the praetor wanted to see me right now about my impiety case. There was no escape. He had sent one of his official bodyguards to enforce my attendance. So, escorted by a lictor complete with his bundle of rods (and feeling as if I was about to receive a public beating), I was marched off At least it got me out of the Basilica, before anyone could voice their insincere regrets over my downfall. I was now poorer than the average slave. At least a slave is allowed to salt away some pocket money. I would need every copper to pay Paccius and Calpurnia.

The lictor was a brute but he refrained from using the rods on me. He could see I was a broken man. There would have been no fun in

it.

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.