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.
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.'