RUBIRIUS METELLUS had lived in the style I expected. He owned a large home occupying its own block, on the Oppian Hill, just beyond Nero’s Golden House, half a step from the Auditorium should he want to hear recitals, and an easy walk from the Forum when he conducted business. Booths for shops occupied street frontages on his home; some rich men leave them empty, but Metellus preferred rents to privacy. His impressive main entrance was flanked by small obelisks of yellow Numidian marble. They looked ancient. I guessed war loot. Some military ancestor had grabbed them from a defeated people; perhaps he was in Egypt with Mark Antony or that prig Octavian. The former, most likely. Octavianus, with the nasty blood of Caesar in his veins and his eye to the main chance, would have been busy turning himself into Augustus and his personal fortune into the largest in the world. He would have tried to prevent his subordinates carrying off loot that could grace his own coffers or enhance his own prestige.
If a past Metellus had nonetheless snaffled some architectural salvage, maybe that was a clue to the whole family’s attitude and skills.
I leaned on the counter of a bowl-and-beaker snackshop. I could see across the street to the Metellus spread. It had a weathered, self-confident opulence. I had intended to ask questions of the food vendor, but he looked at me as if he thought he had seen me before—and remembered we had had a row about his lentil pottage. Unlikely. I have style. I wouldn’t order lentils any day.
“Phew! It’s taken me hours to find this street.” It was a ten-minute walk from the Sacred Way. Maybe if I looked tired out he would pity me. Or maybe he would think I was an ignorant deadbeat, up to no good. “Is that the Metellus house?”
The man in the apron amended his glare to suggest I was a dead bluebottle, feet-up in his precious pottage. Forced to acknowledge my question, he produced a quarter of a nod.
“At last! I have business with the people there.” I felt like a clowning slave in a dire farce. “But I hear they had a tragedy. I don’t want to upset them. Know anything about what happened?”
“No idea,” he said. Trust me to choose the outlet where Metellus deceased always bought his morning sesame cake. Loyalty makes me sick. Whatever happened to gossip?
“Well, thanks.” It was too early in the game to make myself unpleasant, so I refrained from accusing him of ruining my livelihood with his stingy responses. I might need him later.
I drained my cup, wincing at the sourness; some bitter herb had been added to much-watered-down wine. It was not a success.
The food vendor watched me all across the street. Being turned away by the door porter would be a deep humiliation, so I made sure it didn’t happen. I said I was from the lawyer. The porter thought I meant their lawyer and I failed to put him straight. He let me in.
So far, so good. A small battered sphinx guarded the atrium pool. The wide-eyed wise one had stories to tell, but I could not dally. The decor was all polychrome floors and black frescoes with gold leaf touch-ups. Perhaps an old house, revived by recent new money. Whose was that? Or was this an old grand mansion, now sinking into disarray?—I noticed an air of dusty neglect as I craned to look into the side rooms.
I did not make contact with any of the family. A steward saw me. He was an Eastern-born slave or freedman who seemed alert. Late forties, clearly with status in the household, efficient, well-spoken, probably cost a packet to purchase though that would have been some years back. I decided not to prevaricate; incurring a false-entry charge was a bad idea. “The name’s Falco. Your porter may have misunderstood. I represent Silius Italicus. I am here to check a few details about your master’s sad demise so he can write off his fees. First, allow me to express our most sincere condolences.”
“Everything is in order,” said the steward, almost as if they had expected this. It was not quite the correct response to my condolences, and at once I mistrusted him. I wondered if Paccius Africanus had warned them here that we would try to investigate. “Calpurnia Cara—”
I took out a note-table and stylus. I kept my manner quiet. “Calpurnia Cara is?”
“My late master’s wife.” He waited while I made notes. “My mistress arranged for seven senators to view the corpse and certify the suicide.”
I held my stylus still and gazed at him over the edge of my notebook. “That was very coolheaded.”
“She is a careful lady.”
Protecting a lot of money, I thought. Of course if it really was a suicide, the husband and wife may well have discussed what Metellus intended. Metellus may have instructed his wife to bring in the witnesses. Paccius Africanus would certainly have advised it, if he were involved. It was a chilling thought that counseling his client to die might be good legal advice.
“Do you know whether Calpurnia Cara tried to dissuade her husband from his planned course?”
“I imagine they talked about it,” the steward replied. “I don’t know what was said.”
“Was the suicide announced to the household staff beforehand?”
He looked surprised. “No.”
“Any chance I might talk with your mistress?”
“That would not be appropriate.”
“She lives here?” He nodded. I made a small symbol on my tablet, without looking up. “And the son?” Another nod. I ticked that off too. “Is he married?”
A minute pause. “Metellus Negrinus is divorced.” I made a longer entry.
“So.” Now I raised my eyes to the steward again. “Calpurnia Cara ensured that her husband’s death was formally witnessed by noble friends. I assume you can provide me with the seven names, incidentally.” He was already producing a tablet from a pouch. These people were expertly organized. Grief had not confused them at all. “Was the viewing conducted before or after your master actually—?”
“Afterwards. Straight afterwards.”
“Were the witnesses in the house while he—”
“No, they were sent for.”
“And do you mind—I am sorry if this is very painful—but how did he . . . ?”
I was expecting the classic scenario: on the battlefield a defeated general falls on his sword, usually needing help from a weeping subordinate because finding the space between two ribs and then summoning the strength to pull in a weapon upward is damned difficult to fix for yourself. Nero cut his throat with a razor, but he was supposedly hiding in a garden trench at the time, where there may have been no elegant options; to be skewered on a dibber would have lacked the artistry he coveted. The traditional method in private life is to enter a warm bath and open your veins. This death is contained, relaxing, and reckoned to be more or less painless. (Mind you, it presupposes you live in a grand home with a bath.) For a senator, such an exit from disaster is the only civilized way out.
But it had not happened here.
“My master took poison,” said the steward.