Flavia saw Flaccus’s slave Lynceus clearing a way through the crowd. Behind him came Flaccus in a red-bordered toga, flanked by two women whose pallas covered their heads and lower faces. Hephzibah wore black and the woman beside her wore dark blue.
‘Who’s that with Hephzibah?’ said Flavia with a frown. ‘Is it Jonathan’s mother?’
‘Yes,’ said Nubia. ‘I think it is Susannah.’
Behind the two women came Jonathan and Lupus, both wearing their best tunics and togas. Flavia and Nubia waved to them. Flaccus said something to the boys, who pushed through the crowd and ran up to them.
‘Where’s Miriam,’ Flavia asked Jonathan, ‘and your father? I thought they were coming.’
‘Father had to see a patient on the other side of town,’ said Jonathan, ‘and Miriam’s attending a childbirth up at Nonius’s estate. That slave-girl: Priscilla. They’ll both be here as soon as they can. Flaccus wants us to sit on the defence benches,’ he added, wheezing a little with excitement.
‘Oh, good! I thought we’d have to watch from up there.’ Flavia glanced up at the faces looking back down at her from the upper gallery.
‘I’m guessing he wants as many supporters as possible sitting with him,’ said Aristo, lifting the scarlet cord so they could pass through to the marble benches. ‘There aren’t as many of us as there are of them.’
‘You can say that again!’ Flavia looked towards the benches opposite, where togaed men were taking their seats. ‘I don’t think they’ll all fit.’
Aristo frowned. ‘It looks as if they have at least three lawyers for the prosecution and about a dozen assistants.’
‘Good morning, Flaccus!’ said Flavia brightly, as Flaccus and Lynceus came up to them. ‘Good morning, Hephzibah,’ and to Jonathan’s mother: ‘Good morning, domina.’
‘Good morning,’ Flaccus replied and they all greeted one another.
Flavia smiled up at Flaccus and said shyly, ‘You look marvellous.’
‘Vestis virum reddit,’ said Lynceus. ‘Clothes make the man. Quintilian himself says that.’
Flaccus nodded and gestured for Flavia and her friends to sit on the bench behind the first one, where he would sit beside Hephzibah and Susannah.
When they were all seated, Flavia leaned forward and patted Flaccus on the back, ‘Good luck!’ she said brightly.
He gave her a queasy smile over his shoulder.
Opposite them, the lawyers for the prosecution were taking their seats, too. Suddenly Lupus grunted and pointed.
‘Behold!’ said Nubia. ‘One of the lawyers is Bato.’
‘You’re right!’ exclaimed Flavia. ‘It’s Marcus Artorius Bato.’
‘The man who sailed with us to Rhodes last spring?’ said Flaccus. ‘And who helped us rescue the kidnapped children?’ He was short-sighted and had to narrow his eyes to see.
‘Yes,’ said Flavia. ‘I wonder why he’s on their side?’
‘They paid him a cartload of silver?’ suggested Jonathan.
‘Lawyers don’t get paid,’ said Aristo. ‘They do it as a public service and to climb the ladder of honours.’
‘They do not receive money?’ said Nubia.
‘Well, not officially. I’m sure some receive gifts from grateful clients.’ Aristo leaned towards Flaccus and lowered his voice. ‘The thin one examining the sheet of papyrus is Lucius Cartilius Poplicola, a member of one of Ostia’s most eminent families. He’s supposed to be ruthless.’
‘Who’s the handsome one?’ said Flavia. ‘The big one with dark hair and blue eyes. I’ve never seen him before.’
‘Dear gods, no,’ said Flaccus, squinting.
‘What?’ Flavia looked at him, alarmed.
‘By Hercules!’ said Aristo. ‘Is that who I think it is?’
Flaccus nodded. His back was rigid.
Lynceus opened his mouth, then closed it again. He obviously had no motto for this situation.
‘Who is it?’ cried Flavia. ‘Who?’
‘It’s Quintilian,’ said Aristo.
‘The Quintilian?’ said Jonathan.
Aristo nodded grimly: ‘The the himself.’
The judges had taken their places and for a moment the buzzing subsided as a fat bald man in a toga mounted the podium. ‘That’s the chairman,’ said Aristo. ‘Titus Hostilius Gratus. He’s a duovir. They say he’s a hard man, but fair.’
The main floor and galleries of the basilica were now packed and the echoing din of the crowd was so loud that Flavia and Nubia covered their ears.
Abruptly Praeco appeared. He had put on his best toga and now he walked importantly up the steps of the podium to take on the role of herald. His bronze staff rang out as he banged it sharply on the marble podium. ‘ALL QUIET! ALL QUIET, PLEASE!’
The crowd grew instantly quiet and the chairman – Gratus – stood and covered his bald head with his toga. As he began to invoke the gods, Flavia leaned forward a little in order to study Hephzibah.
The slave-girl sat with straight back and raised chin. Her hair was modestly covered by the black palla of mourning. Although her eyes stared straight ahead, she was not looking at her accuser on the bench opposite. She seemed to be gazing into the past.
Gratus finished reading the charges and cleared his throat: ‘I would like to invite first the prosecution and then the defence to present their exordium. You each will have one clepsydra.’
‘What is klep seed rah?’ whispered Nubia.
‘It’s that thing made of copper and glass, on the table beside the judge’s podium,’ said Flavia.
‘It’s a water clock,’ said Jonathan. ‘It measures time according to the flow of water.’
‘A clepsydra is also a unit of time,’ said Aristo. ‘There are about three in an hour.’
‘Then,’ continued bald Gratus, ‘we shall hear the evidence, with three clepsydras allotted to each side.’ He turned to Nonius’s side of the court. ‘The prosecution may begin.’
Praeco stood and banged his bronze staff on the marble podium. ‘THIS COURT,’ he blasted, ‘IS NOW IN SESSION! MARCUS FABIUS QUINTILIANUS TO SPEAK FOR THE PROSECUTION!’
*
As the renowned Quintilian rose to his feet, a murmur of excitement washed over the spectators, then receded with a sigh, like a wave on sand. Everyone wanted to hear Rome’s greatest living orator.
He was a big man, solid rather than fat, and light on his feet. Flavia guessed he was in his mid-forties. His dark hair was lightly oiled and his toga perfectly draped. He slowly swivelled on one foot, sweeping the spectators with a gaze as blue and sharp as an icicle.
For a moment he closed his eyes, as if to savour the silence. Then he spoke.
‘Esteemed chairman and judges,’ he began in a clear voice. ‘We are gathered here today on a most extraordinary and sad occasion. A terrible crime has occurred here in Ostia, the great port of Rome. The crime, a triple-homicide, is something unheard of in my experience. Because the accused is a slave – or at any rate of questionable status – the case could not be heard in Rome.
‘I must confess that I was so intrigued by this case, that I decided to come down from my Sabine vineyards and participate.’ Quintilian’s voice was soft, and yet Flavia could see by the happily attentive faces of those high above her that it carried all the way to the galleries.
‘I have studied the briefs,’ he continued, ‘and I would like to give a simple overview of the case, as much for my understanding of the matter as for yours.’
Quintilian gestured elegantly towards Hephzibah, sitting rigid and remote on her bench. ‘This girl, Hephzibah bat David, of Jerusalem, was sold along with her mother at an auction of slaves in Rome, at about this time last year. The ex-legionary-turned-landowner Gaius Artorius Dives purchased the two women himself. We have the document here.’ He accepted a wax tablet from one of his assistants, flipped it open and nodded. ‘The purchase agreement states that Hephzibah and her mother Rachel were both skilled seamstresses and weavers. The price paid for the two
was four thousand sesterces; that is two thousand each. The purchase document is sealed with Dives’s signet-ring, which bears the imprint of Hercules in a lionskin wielding his club.’
Quintilian handed the tablet to a court official, who put it on a small table in front of the judges.
‘Within a month,’ said Quintilian, ‘the girl’s mother was dead. Struck down by the fever which ravaged Rome and Ostia last winter; a fever which made no distinction between class or wealth.’
‘By Apollo, he’s good!’ murmured Aristo. ‘The odour of justice hangs about him like the scent of an expensive perfume.’
‘The girl was now alone,’ said Quintilian, ‘and free from parental supervision. Perhaps because of this, we believe she set her sights on nothing less than becoming the wife of Dives. Slaves and freedmen from his estate claim that after her mother’s death, she spent more and more time with him. Alone.’
On the bench in front of them, Flavia saw Flaccus lean over and ask Hephzibah a question. She nodded and turned her head to look at him and Flavia caught the words, ‘He just liked to talk to me.’
‘Then one day, less than a week ago,’ continued Quintilian, ‘raised voices were heard coming from Dives’s bedroom. Shortly afterwards a garden-slave saw Hephzibah running from this same bedroom in tears, screaming I hate you! Two days later he was dead.’
Quintilian paused and the whole basilica seemed to hold its breath. Until this moment Quintilian had been in fluid motion, his body turning, his right arm keeping subtle time to the rhythm of his words, his hands perfectly expressing his thoughts. But now – for a long moment – he was perfectly still, and the crowds were still too, as if held by some spell.
As he began to move again, everyone exhaled.
‘My colleagues and I believe this is what happened. Hephzibah tried to convince Dives to set her free and marry her. Once she was married and named in his will, she only had to wait for him to die. Then she would be a wealthy woman. But Dives refused her advances. Scorned and shamed, she ran out of his bedroom in tears. Two days later, tormented by grief and rage, she murdered him as he slept.’
The crowd gasped.
‘Hephzibah of Jerusalem knew that if her crime should be discovered, her fate would be horrible indeed: crucifixion. So, in desperation, she made up the story that Dives had set her free shortly before he died. No longer a slave and without the ties that bind a freedwoman to her new patron, she could escape with impunity.’
‘What does he mean?’ whispered Nubia in Flavia’s ear.
‘If she was free she could run far away.’
With a stately sidelong sweep of his arm, Quintilian turned towards Nonius, glowering on the accuser’s bench and sporting a spectacular black eye.
‘Hephzibah’s new owner, my client, asked the girl for some proof of her new status. A document of manumission. Or at the very least, the name of the witness. It was a reasonable request. But Hephzibah of Jerusalem seemed flustered and confused, saying she did not know where the document was, nor could she remember the man’s name. Finally she came up with the name Gaius Helvidius Pupienus.’
Quintilian’s mouth curved in a faint smile. ‘Esteemed judges,’ he said, ‘there is no such person. However, a certain Ostian magistrate was found, one Gnaeus Helvius Papillio, who did in fact have occasional dealings with Dives. But on the morning of the hearing, the morning when a simple yes or no from Papillio might have proved her claim to Roman citizenship, this unhappy man was stabbed to death.’
Once again a rumble of excited outrage ran round the courtroom.
‘The blow was clumsy, I might even say “feeble”, as if delivered by someone unused to wielding a sword. And although it took the wretched man a long time to die, that “feeble” blow proved to be deadly. A few hours later, around noon of the very same day,’ said Quintilian in his softly compelling voice, ‘another man – Mercator – met his death in a most brutal fashion, killed with a single blow to the head in that girl’s cubicle.’ Here Quintilian turned towards Hephzibah in a fluid and dramatic motion. When the excited buzzing of the crowd had once again subsided, Quintilian shook his head sadly.
‘Until Mercator’s death, nobody suspected this young woman of being a murderess. But after his murder – so clearly at her hand – the facts lead us to the inescapable conclusion that she was also the cause of the first two deaths. In other words, by trying to cover her tracks, she clearly revealed her guilt.’
Quintilian waited for the excited murmur to subside, then fixed the judges with his cool gaze. ‘Esteemed Judges,’ he said, ‘we put our trust in your judgement and integrity. As you hear the evidence to come, I know you will weigh it carefully and I know that in the end, you will make the right decision.’
Now it was Flaccus’s turn to introduce his case. Praeco stood and rapped and bellowed, ‘GAIUS VALERIUS FLACCUS TO SPEAK FOR THE DEFENCE!’
Flaccus stood, and Flavia saw his broad back swell as he took a deep breath.
‘You can do it, Gaius,’ she whispered, and felt her heart thumping hard. ‘I know you’ll be marvellous.’
Flaccus turned towards the podium and cleared his throat. ‘Esteemed Chairman and Judges,’ he began. ‘You must find it very surprising to see me standing here and addressing you when all these noble orators and distinguished citizens remain seated.’
A ripple of laughter ran through the crowd. Some of the judges snickered and the chairman raised an eyebrow. On the bench in front of them Lynceus stared at his young master in wide-eyed disbelief.
‘Oh please, no,’ muttered Aristo.
‘What is it?’ Flavia asked Aristo. ‘Why are they laughing?’
‘He’s quoting Cicero.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’ whispered Flavia. ‘Cicero is his idol.’
‘Cicero is the idol of every law student.’ Aristo gazed up at the lofty ceiling.
‘Comparing himself to Cicero is hubris,’ said Jonathan. ‘Even I know that.’
‘Hubris,’ said Nubia, ‘means overweening pride.’
‘That’s right,’ said Aristo grimly. ‘He might as well ask Jupiter to blast him with a bolt of lightning. Dear gods, what is he thinking?’
‘I cannot compare myself with these prestigious personages,’ Flaccus was saying, ‘in either age or influence or experience.’ Flaccus touched the tip of his thumb to the tips of his first three fingers and brought his hand to his chest; then allowed his arm to fall down in the gesture of humility.
‘No!’ whimpered Aristo. ‘Not the gestures. Please not the gestures.’
‘But a good rhetor has to use the gestures,’ said Flavia. ‘Quintilian himself says so in scroll eleven. Gestures plus voice equal delivery, and delivery is the most important element of great oratory.’
Flaccus swept his arm from left to right. ‘Almost everyone here,’ he said, ‘is convinced that this girl is guilty.’ His toga swirled as he pivoted on one foot and pointed at Hephzibah.
‘No, no, no,’ moaned Aristo. ‘Swinging togas are bad. Bad, bad, bad.’
Flaccus lifted the forefinger of his right hand in the gesture of declamation. ‘But I maintain,’ he said, ‘that she is innocent. Do I imply—’ now he was pointing at himself ‘—that I know something they do not?’ He raised his forearm again, and, keeping his elbow stationary he moved his index finger back and forth. ‘Not at all. For I am the least knowledgeable of all these. And if I know something—’ he tapped the side of his head ‘—it is not that they do not know, but rather that I know more.’
‘What in Hades is he blathering on about?’ said Jonathan.
Lynceus’s head was in his hands and the crowd was giggling.
‘I don’t know,’ moaned Aristo. ‘He should have stuck with Cicero.’
‘But you just said it was hubris to quote Cicero,’ protested Flavia.
‘Better to be struck by lightning than to die slowly and painfully, like Marsyas flayed alive.’
‘But I, on the contrary, will point out what needs to b
e pointed out and say what needs to be said. If I speak wrongly, either nobody will hear of it, for I have not started my public career, or if they do hear of it, they will pardon the error on account of my youthful years.’
Flaccus faced the judges and struck the classic pose of the orator, with one hand raised for silence. ‘Why am I defending this girl?’ he said. ‘On the one hand—’
‘Not the hands!’ groaned Aristo. ‘Please, dear Apollo, deliver us from this torment.’
Flaccus had not quite finished his exordium when the clepsydra chimed and Praeco bellowed: ‘TIME!’
Flaccus nodded towards the podium and retreated back to his bench. He was sweating and his face wore a hunted look. Flavia gave him a bright smile of encouragement, but he did not seem to notice. She realised he had said very little about the case itself.
‘THE PROSECUTION,’ announced Praeco, ‘WILL SPEAK AGAIN!’
From the benches opposite, Lucius Cartilius Poplicola was the next to rise.
Everything about Poplicola was thin: his frame, his hair, his eyes, his smile. He turned towards the podium.
‘My lord Chairman,’ he began in a nasal whine, ‘esteemed Judges, men of Ostia, oh, and women, too.’ Here he glanced at the defenders’ bench and curled his lip very slightly. ‘It is an unpleasant tale I must set before you today. A tale of greed and corruption. A tale of the foreign parasite that has wormed its way into our society and threatens to gnaw at the core of Roman virtue.’
He turned to look at Hephzibah. ‘This woman, this slave, this atheist, this Jewess has committed the most terrible crime possible. She committed homicide. And it was not just any murder, but the murder of a Roman citizen. And she did not commit murder just once, nor even twice, but thrice! Yes, distinguished gentlemen. On three separate occasions she killed Roman citizens. Citizens just like yourselves.’
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 192