Last Act In Palmyra

by Lindsey Davis

  I was led back outside: Dushara’s temple was no place for a curious foreigner. I regretted this, for I would have liked to appreciate the fantastic interior with its striking ornamentation; to explore beyond the high arch leading to the dim inner sanctum, and climb up to the intriguing upper-storey balconies. But after one swift glimpse of a tall dark god with clenched fists gazing out towards his mountains, I was hustled away.

  From the first I realised that hanging about for the anonymous great one was going to be a trial. I wondered where Helena was. I gave up on the idea of sending her a message. Our address would be difficult to describe and I had nothing to write on. I wished I had brought the corpse’s note-tablet; he had no use for it now.

  The young priest had been designated my official minder. That failed to make him communicative. He and I sat on one of the benches around the sanctuary, where he was approached by various acquaintances, but I was studiously ignored. I was growing restless. I had a strong sensation of sinking into a situation I would very much regret. I resigned myself to a lost day, with trouble at the end of it. Besides that, it was clear I would miss lunch - the kind of habit I deplore.

  To overcome my depression, I insisted on making conversation with the priest. ‘Did you see the fugitive? What did he look like?’ I asked firmly in Greek.

  Addressed so directly it was hard for him refuse me. ‘A man.’

  ‘Old? Young? My age?’

  ‘I did not see.’

  ‘You couldn’t see his face? Or only his back disappearing? Did he have all his hair? Could you see its colouring?’

  ‘I did not see.’

  ‘You’re not much help,’ I told him frankly.

  Annoyed and frustrated, I fell silent. In the slow, aggravating way of the desert, just when I had given up on him, my companion explained: ‘I was within the temple. I heard footsteps, running. I went out and glimpsed a man far away, as he passed out of sight.’

  ‘So you didn’t notice anything about him? Was he slight or tall? Light or heavy?’

  The young priest considered. ‘I could not tell.’

  ‘This fellow will be easy to spot!’

  After a second the priest smiled, unexpectedly seeing the joke. He still felt disinclined to communicate, but he was getting the hang of the game now. Softening up, he volunteered brightly: ‘I could not see his hair - he wore a hat.’

  A hat was unexpected. Most people around here wrapped their heads in their robes. ‘What sort of hat?’ He gestured a widish brim, looking slightly disapproving. This was a definite rarity. Since Helena and I landed at Gaza we had seen lolling Phrygian caps, tight little skullcaps, and flat-topped felt circles, but a brimmed hat was a Western extravagance.

  Confirming my own thoughts, he then said, ‘A foreigner, alone and in a great hurry near the High Place, is unusual.’

  ‘You could tell he was a foreigner? How?’ The man shrugged.

  I knew one reason: the hat. But people can always tell if they get a proper look at someone. Build, colouring, a way of walking, a style of beard or haircut all give a clue. Even a glimpse for a fraction of a second might do it. Or not a glimpse, but a sound: ‘He came down whistling,’ said the priest suddenly.

  ‘Really? Know the tune?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any other colourful details?’

  He shook his head, losing interest. That seemed to be as far as I could take it. I had a tantalising impression, from which nobody would be able to identify the fugitive. We resumed our boring wait. I started to feel depressed again. The hot golden light, bouncing back from the stonework, was giving me a headache.

  People came and went; some sat on the benches chewing or humming to themselves. Many ignored the seats but squatted in the shade, giving me a sharp feeling of being among nomads who despised furniture. I told myself not to feel complacent. These leathery men in dusty cloaks looked only one step up from beggars and one stride short of the grave; yet they belonged to the richest nation in the world. They handled frankincense and myrrh as casually as my own relatives inspected three radishes and a cabbage. Each wrinkled old prune probably had more gold in the saddlebags of his camel train than Rome possessed in the whole Temple of Saturn Treasury.

  Thinking ahead, I tried to plan an escape. I realised I stood no chance of sliding out of trouble with the traditional diplomacy; the meagre funds at my disposal would make an insulting bribe.

  We were under obvious scrutiny, though it was polite. If you sat on the steps of the Forum Basilica for such a length of time you would fall prey to rude comments and be openly accosted by pickpockets, poets and prostitutes, sellers of lukewarm rissoles, and forty bores trying to tell you the story of their lives. Here they just waited to see what I would do; they liked their tedium bland.

  The first hint of action: a small camel was led in through the arch of the great gate, carrying over its back the man I had found drowned. A quiet but curious crowd came following.

  Simultaneously someone strode out from a great doorway cut through the enclosure wall. I never found out what lay behind it, whether the area beyond that impressive-looking portal housed the quarters of the priestly college, or was this high official’s own stately residence. Somehow I knew he was important even before I looked at him directly. He carried the aura of power.

  He was walking straight towards us. He was alone, but every man in the place was aware of him. Apart from a jewelled belt and a neat, high head-dress with a Parthian look to it, little marked him out. My priestly companion hardly moved or changed expression, yet I sensed a frantic upsurge of tension in him.

  ‘Who is it?’ I managed to mutter.

  For reasons I could guess, the young man could barely croak out his answer. ‘The Brother,’ he said. And now I could tell that he was terrified.

  Chapter IX

  I stood up.

  Like most Nabataeans the Petran Chief Minister was shorter than me, and slighter. He wore the usual full-length, long-sleeved tunic with other robes in fine material folded back over his upper arms. That was how I could see the glittering belt. There was a dagger thrust through it, with a ruby set in the hilt that barely left room for the handle’s ornate metalwork. He had a high forehead, his hair well receded under the head-dress, and his manner was energetic. The wide mouth gave an impression of smiling pleasantly, though I did not fall into the trap of believing it. He looked like a friendly banker — one with his heart set on diddling you on your interest rate.

  ‘Welcome to Petra!’ He had a deep, resonant voice. He had spoken in Greek.

  ‘Thank you.’ I tried to make my accent as Athenian as possible - not easy when you’ve been taught your Greek under a ripped awning on a dusty street corner near the neighbourhood middenheap.

  ‘Shall we see what you have found for us?’ It was like an invitation to open a basket of presents from an uncle in the country.

  His eyes gave the game away. The lids were so deeply pouched and crinkled that no expression was visible in those dark, faraway glints. I hate men who hide what they think. This one had the difficult manner I normally associate with a vicious fornicating fraud who has kicked his mother to death.

  We walked to the camel, which thrust its head towards us unnervingly. Someone grabbed the bridle, hissing at its disrespect for my companion. Two men lifted down the body, fairly gently. The Brother inspected the corpse just as I had done previously. It appeared an intelligent scrutiny. People stood back, watching him earnestly. Among the crowd I

  recognised the elder priest from the temple with the garden, though he made no move to contact his young colleague, who was now standing behind me. I tried to believe the youngster was there in case I needed support, but help seemed unlikely. I was on my own with this.

  ‘What do we know of this person?’ The Brother asked, addressing me. I gathered that I was expected to take responsibility for explaining the stranger.

  I indicated the writing block at the dead man’s waist. ‘A scholar or clerk maybe.’ The
n I pointed to the grazes on the broad, slightly puffy face. ‘He had clearly suffered violence, though not an extreme beating. I found empty drinking vessels at the scene.’

  ‘This occurred at the High Place?’ The Brother’s tone was not particularly angry, but the careful posing of the question spoke volumes.

  ‘Apparently. Seems to be some drunk who fell out with his friend.’

  ‘You saw them?’

  ‘No. I had heard voices, though. They sounded amiable. I had no reason to rush up after them and investigate.’

  ‘What was your own purpose in visiting the Place of Sacrifice?’

  ‘Reverent curiosity,’ I stated. It sounded unconvincing and crass, of course. ‘I had been told it is not forbidden?’

  it is not forbidden,’ agreed The Brother, as if he thought that in a just world it should have been. Legislation seemed likely to emanate from his office later that afternoon.

  I took a stand. ‘I believe that is all the help I can give you.’ My remark was ignored. If a foreign visitor foolishly came across a drowned man in the Basin of Fundanus in Rome, he would be thanked for his sense of civic duty, given a public reward of modest proportions, and led quietly out of town-or so I told myself. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he would be flung into the worst jail available, to teach him not to malign the Golden Citadel with sordid discoveries.

  The Brother stood back from crouching over the corpse. ‘And what is your name?’ he enquired, fixing me with those pleasant dark eyes. From deep in their wrinkled pouches of weariness those eyes had already noted the cut of my tunic and style of my sandals. I knew he knew that I was Roman.

  ‘Didius Falco,’ I answered, with a more or less clear conscience. ‘A traveller from Italy - ‘

  ‘Ah yes!’ he said.

  My heart sank. My name was already known here. Somebody had warned the King’s Chief Minister to expect me. I could guess who it was. I had told everyone at home that I was going to the Decapolis on a seek-and-retrieve for Thalia’s water organist. Apart from Helena Justina, only one person knew I was coming here: Anacrites.

  And if Anacrites had written ahead to the Nabataeans, then as sure as honey makes your teeth rot, he wasn’t asking The Brother to extend me any diplomatic courtesies.

  Chapter X

  I would have liked to punch The Brother in the solar plexus and make a run for it. If, as I guessed, he was hated and feared in Petra, then the crowd might let me through. If he was hated and feared even more than I suspected, however, it might be to their advantage to avert his wrath by stopping me.

  We Romans are a civilised nation. I kept my fists at my sides and faced him out. ‘Sir, I am a man of humble origins. I am surprised you know of me.’ He made no attempt to explain. It was vital that I found out his source of information, and quickly. There was no point trying to bluff. ‘Can I guess that you heard about me from a functionary called Anacrites? And did he ask you to put me top of the list for sacrifice in Dushara’s High Place?’

  ‘Dushara requires immolation only from the pure!’ commented The Brother. He had a gentle line in sarcasm -the most dangerous kind. I was in a tricky situation here, and he liked the fact that I was aware of it.

  I noticed him make a surreptitious gesture to tell the surrounding crowd to stand off somewhat. A space promptly cleared. I was to be interrogated with a modicum of privacy.

  Ignoring the disturbance, I answered him lightly: ‘No doubt Petra has other quick and easy systems of disposal?’

  ‘Oh yes. You can be laid out on an offering block for the birds and the sun.’ He sounded as if he would enjoy giving the order. Just what I always wanted: to die by being frizzled like offal, then picked clean by a clan of vultures.

  ‘I look forward to the privilege! And what have you been told about me?’

  ‘Naturally that you are a spy.’ He appeared to be making a polite joke of it. Somehow I felt no urge to grin at the pleasantry. That was information on which he would certainly act.

  ‘Ah, the usual diplomatic nicety! Do you believe it though?’

  ‘Should I?’ he asked, still giving me the dubious courtesy of appearing open and frank. A clever man. Neither vain nor corrupt: nothing to bite back against.

  ‘Oh I think so,’ I replied, employing similar tactics. ‘Rome has a new emperor, an efficient one for once. Vespasian is taking stock; that includes surveying all the territory which borders on his own. You must have been expecting visitors.’

  We both glanced down at the body. He deserved more personal consideration. Instead, some tawdry domestic quarrel had made him an opportunity for this unexpected high-flown discussion of world events. Whoever he was, he had wound himself into my mission. His fate was welded to mine.

  ‘What is Vespasian’s interest in Petra?’ The Brother asked. His eyes were sly, deceptive slits in that passionless face. A man so astute must know exactly what Rome’s interest would be in a rich nation that controlled important trade routes just outside our own boundaries.

  I can argue politics as fiercely as the next man who is standing around the Forum with two hours to fill before dinner, but I did not relish putting the Empire’s point of view in a foreign city. Not when nobody at the Palace had bothered to instruct me what the Empire’s foreign policy was supposed to be. (Nor when the Emperor, being pedantic about such trifles, was likely to hear about my answer sooner or later.) I tried to escape. ‘I can’t answer you, sir. I’m just a humble information-gatherer.’

  ‘Not so humble, I think!’ It sounded elegant in Greek, but was not a compliment. He could sneer without the slightest change of expression.

  The Brother folded his arms, still staring down at the dead man lying at our feet. Water from the sodden body and its clothing had seeped into the paving. Every fibre within the cadaver must be growing cold; soon flies would be coming to look for egg-laying sites. ‘What is your quality? Do you have many possessions?’

  ‘My house is poor,’ I answered. Then I remembered Helena reading out to me a passage from a historian who said the Nabataeans particularly prized the acquisition of possessions. I managed to make my remark sound like polite modesty by adding, ‘Though it has seen feasting with the son of the Emperor.’ The Nabataeans were supposed to enjoy a good feast, and most cultures are impressed by men who dine freely with their own rulers.

  My information left The Brother looking thoughtful. Well it might. My relationship with Titus Caesar had its puzzling aspects, plus one that was perfectly clear: we both hankered for the same girl. Unsure of the Nabataean attitude to women, I kept quiet on this subject.

  I thought about it aplenty. Every time I went somewhere dangerous abroad, I wondered if Titus was hoping that I never came back. Maybe Anacrites was not merely plotting to get rid of me for his own reasons; perhaps he had sent me here on prompting from Titus. For all I knew, the Chief Spy’s letter to The Brother had suggested that Titus Caesar, the heir to the Empire, would deem it a personal favour if I stayed at Petra for a very long time: for ever, for instance.

  ‘My visit has no sinister implications,’ I assured Petra’s minister, trying not to look depressed. ‘Rome’s knowledge of your famous city is somewhat thin and out of date. We rely on a few very old writings that are said to be based on eye-witness reports, chief among them an account by Strabo. This Strabo had his facts from Athenodorus, who was tutor to the Emperor Augustus. His value as an eye-witness may be tempered by the fact that he was blind. Our sharp new Emperor distrusts such stuff.’

  ‘So Vespasian’s curiosity is scholarly?’ queried The Brother.

  ‘He is a cultured man.’ That was to say he was on record as once quoting a rude line from a play by Menander concerning a chap with an enormous phallus, which by the standards of previous emperors made Vespasian a highly educated wit.

  But it was Vespasian the crusty old general who must preoccupy foreign politicians. ‘True,’ The Brother pointed out. ‘But he is also a strategist.’

  I decided to stop feinting. ‘And a prag
matic one. He has plenty to occupy his energies within his own borders. If he believes the Nabataeans are interested only in pursuing their own affairs peacefully, you can rely on it that he will elect, like his predecessors, to make gestures of friendship to Petra.’

  ‘And were you sent to say that?’ queried The Brother, rather haughtily. For once I saw him tighten his mouth. So the Petrans were afraid of Rome - which meant there were terms we might negotiate.

  I lowered my voice. ‘If and when Rome chooses to assimilate Nabataea within its Empire, then Nabataea will come to us. This is a fact. It is no treachery towards you, and perhaps not even an unkindness, to state it.’ I was taking a lot upon myself here, even by my risky standards. ‘I am a simple man, but it seems to me that time is not yet here. Even so, Nabataea might do well to plan ahead. You lie in an enclave between Judaea and Egypt, so the questions are not will yon join the Empire, but when and on what terms. At present these are within your own control. A partnership could be achieved both peacefully and at a time that suited you.’

  ‘This is what your Emperor says to me?’ queried The Brother. Since I had been told by Anacrites to avoid official contact, I had of course been given no instructions about speaking for Vespasian.

  ‘You will realise,’ I confessed frankly, ‘I am a fairly low-grade messenger.’ The hooded eyes darkened angrily. One lean hand played with the jewelled dagger at his belt. ‘Don’t be insulted,’ I urged him quietly. ‘The advantage to you is that a higher-powered embassy would necessitate action. Important men sent on delicate missions expect results; they have careers to found. The day you find a Roman senator measuring your civic monuments, you’ll know he’s trying to find a space for a statue of himself in a laurel wreath, looking like a conqueror. But any report I make can be filed away in a casket if Vespasian wants to preserve the status quo.’

  ‘Assuming you make a report!’ The Brother rejoined, going back to the fun of threatening me.