While I looked around for a new shellfish jar and failed to find it, Helena got down to her real business: ‘Junilla Tacita, we are on our way to see some people and I don't have time to track down Ursulina Prisca. I wondered if by any chance you could help me clarify something…'
`I know nothing about anything,' Mother moaned, in a pathetic mood. Evenings tired her. She was ready to nod off in her armchair, and probably glad we had driven out her admirer.
`Oh, you know everything! I was so glad you came with me to see that wet-nurse -'
`Euboule? Don't trust her!'
`No, I didn't care for her at all,' Helena agreed. `But one thing puzzles me. I have remembered that Ursulina told me not to take baby Favonia there because, she said, "you might never get the little darling back" -'
`Have you done anything for that poor woman, son?' Swiftly distracted, Ma rounded on me.
`Ursulina? Our next job, Ma,' I lied.
`Oh you take your time, my boy! She's only desperate.'
`No, she's not. She's stirring up trouble in her family – something I would never do in mine, of course.'
`The woman needs help.'
Ursulina needed another interest in life. I just said mildly, `We will help her, but she may have to wait. I'm desperate myself. I have to find half a million sesterces for a vicious compensation claim -'
`So you let someone down?' sneered Ma, so unimpressed by my plight she had failed to take in the large figure.
`He was tricked by wicked men,' Helena defended me. She managed to get back to her original query: `It may help Marcus if he knows what Euboule and Zeuko have been up to. He needs to know tonight.'
Ma stared at her. Luckily she was weary, wanting to be left alone. Her normal readiness to spar was weakened. `Oh you know what those wet-nurses are like…' Helena waited. `Rich women dump their babies there, and half the time – so Ursulina says – they forget what the children even look like. They have no idea if what they get back after a year or two is even theirs.'
`I would recognise Sosia Favonia!'
`Of course you would. Then again -'Ma, who disapproved of wetnursing, went off into a rant. `Of course some of those women do it on purpose. They don't want another pregnancy so if they've got a sickly little thing they take it along and make sure the wet-nurse replaces it if misfortune strikes -'
`That's horrible.'
`Not if it suits everyone. I could have exchanged a few of mine quite happily!' Ma cackled, and made sure she glared at me.
Helena Justina rocked back on her seat and stared at the ceiling, her mouth pursed.
`Still,' said Ma crisply. `We know exactly what happened in this case of yours.'
`We do?' I asked.
Ma sounded complaisant. `Oh, Ursulina and I worked it all out for you.' I breathed slowly, keeping my expectation in check. `We could have solved it for you days ago.'
`Well pardon me, why didn't you say something? So, Mother darling, what's the dirty secret?'
`Son, it's obvious. Someone creeping up the stairs by moonlight.'
`What?'
`Euboule and her daughter probably know. That woman, Calpurnia must have put one over on her husband. Good for her!' chortled my mother. `She must have had a boyfriend. Don't ask me who – it's your job to spot the culprit. Friend of her husband's, or a pretty slave. So this young man the fuss is all about -'
`Her son, Negrinus?'
`You ask them, Marcus. I bet he was not her husband's child.'
`You could well be right,' Helena said. `The wife upset her husband, which could mean that he found out one day; the son was disinherited; people blackmailed the family. They call the son Birdy -'
`He's a cuckoo,' snorted Ma. `A rich little cuckoo in the fancy nest.'
Helena fetched Ma her house slippers. I made her a warm drink. Then we continued on our way to visit the Metelli. Perhaps we were about to learn their family secret. Perhaps we already knew it.
On the other hand, nothing was simple in connection with this family. Helena agreed that it was quite likely the children of Calpurnia Cara still harboured some surprises.
LVI
We were escorted into the white salon. Fine oils burned in the gilded lamps, gleaming on the nifty bronze Aphrodite in her matt plastered niche. The two sisters, Rubiria Juliana and Rubiria Carina, were displaying handsome jewellery as they sat in genteel postures on the best-positioned ornate couch. Their husbands spread themselves on other plush upholstery, one on each side of the women. Negrinus sat gloomily one along from Verginius Laco, feet planted in front of him and elbows on his knees; beyond Negrinus was a tanned, thickset man we had never seen before. Helena and I took places near the scowling Canidianus Rufus, forming a half-circle. We ended up opposite the stranger. He stared at us curiously, and we returned the compliment.
The Camillus brothers arrived last, though fortunately not too late. They redeemed themselves by their smartness. Each wore well-buffed leather boots, tight belts, and identical white tunics; I detected their mother's hand in their overall neat turnout. Neither had his usual hair parting and I reckoned the noble Julia Justa had tackled them both with her fine bone comb before letting them loose.
Justinus immediately nodded a greeting to the thickset man. That confirmed he was Julius Alexander, the freedman and land agent from Lanuvium. Despite their tussle over Perseus, when the lads stationed themselves on the remaining seat Justinus sat adjacent to the freedman. Both then leaned over the curled arms of their couches and muttered in an undertone about the vigiles' fatal handling of the door porter.
Silent slaves handed trays of savoury fancies, which we mostly left untouched in case they crumbled disastrously in our fingers; others brought delicate silver thimbles of rather sweet white wine. Not a lot was said. Everyone was waiting for the attendants to withdraw. Carina gave the signal early, and they vanished. People tried surreptitiously to find somewhere to discard their little wine tots. I bent forward and placed Helena's and mine on the floor beneath our couch, giving myself heartburn. Out of sight behind my back, Helena massaged my ribs. She always knew when I was in danger of emitting an unseemly belch.
Since nobody else seemed keen to break the silence, I began. `This meeting follows the death of your mother, presumably? Has that freed you to be more open?'
Verginius Laco, thin, austere and understated, now seemed to be the family leader. `There has been a long disagreement about making public a certain situation.'
`Calpurnia wanted to keep the secret?' I smiled politely. `If it helps, Falco and Associates already assume that all your problems centre on the parentage of Birdy.'
Carina jumped. `Please don't call him that!' I had tried it out deliberately. None of my party was surprised when his sister said unhappily, `That was his wife's name for him. None of us ever use it.'
`We understand.' Helena was sympathetic. She dropped in the answer almost as if it hardly counted: `Saffia employed an unkind nickname to remind everyone of what she knew: that Negrinus was not really his father's son.'
`Took you long enough to guess!' Canidianus Rufus seemed to be here on sufferance. Always edgy, his unhappiness was worse tonight. Whatever was about to be exposed, he hated it. His wife, Juliana, stared down at her lap.
`Once you know,' I agreed, `it explains a great deal.' Rufus humphed.
More relaxed than his brother-in-law, Laco leaned sideways on a couch arm, hands linked, surveying me. He had made a habit of holding back, waiting for me to reveal what I knew before he spoke up. Expecting candour, I suddenly had a feeling that he was still testing me, still ready to disguise the facts. I became more careful.
`So, Falco -' He was pretending to be friendly. `You understand us now?'
I paused, then went with the theory that Negrinus was illegitimate. `Around two years ago, Rubirius Metellus – who thought himself the father of a happy family, with a son moving up through the Senate – was shocked to discover that that son was not his own. I suppose this information had long been known to the wet-nurse who cared for Negrinus as a baby – Euboule. She somehow discovered his parentage from Calpurnia Cara. Over the years, she heavily blackmailed Calpurnia with the threat of telling her husband, causing Calpurnia enormous grief – not to mention the sale of her jewellery.'