Last Act In Palmyra

by Lindsey Davis

  ‘There are a couple of great water cisterns to conserve rain.’ They must be full enough this evening. Fortune was now dumping a whole year’s rainfall on Bostra. ‘We had to go around one. It’s built within a huge embankment. There was a narrow elevated path, people were larking about a bit, and somehow Musa slipped into the water.’

  It would have been beneath him to trail off; Davos paused portentously. I gave him a long stare. Its meaning would have been obvious, on stage or off. ‘Who exactly was larking? And how did Musa come to “slip”?’

  The priest lifted his head for the first time. He still said nothing, but he watched Davos answer me. ‘Who do you think was larking? The Twins for two, and several of the stagehands. They were pretending to push one another about on the edge of the walkway. But I don’t know how he slipped.’ Musa made no attempt to inform us. For the moment I left him alone.

  Helena brought a warm drink for Musa. She fussed over him protectively, giving me a chance to talk to the actor apart. ‘You are sure you didn’t see who pushed our friend?’

  Like me, Davos had lowered his voice. ‘I wasn’t aware I needed to look. I was watching my step. It was pitch-dark and slippery enough without fools playing up.’

  ‘Was the accident on the way to the wineshop, or on the way back?’

  ‘The way there.’ So no one had been drunk. Davos understood what I was thinking. If somebody had tripped up the Nabataean, whoever it was had fully intended him to fall.

  ‘What’s your opinion of Tranio and Grumio?’ I asked thoughtfully.

  ‘A mad pair. But that’s traditional. Being witty all night onstage makes clowns unpredictable. Who can blame them when you listen to the standard of playwrights’ jokes?’ Shrugging, I accepted the professional insult, as I was supposed to. ‘Most clowns have fallen off a ladder once too often anyway.’ A stage trick, presumably. I must have looked bemused; Davos interpreted: ‘Dented heads; not all there.’

  ‘Our two seem bright enough,’ I grunted.

  ‘Bright enough to cause trouble,’ he agreed.

  ‘Would they go as far as killing?’

  ‘You’re the investigator, Falco. You tell me.’

  ‘Who said I was an investigator?’

  ‘Phrygia mentioned it.’

  ‘Well do me a favour, don’t pass on the news any further! Blabbing isn’t going to help my task.’ There was no chance of making discreet enquiries in this company. No one had any idea of how to hold their tongue and let you get on with it. ‘Are you and Phrygia close?’

  ‘I’ve known the gorgeous old stick for twenty years, if that’s what you mean.’

  Beyond the fire I could sense that Helena Justina was watching him curiously. Later, after observing him here, the intuitive girl would tell me whether Davos had been Phrygia’s lover in the past, or was now, or merely wished to be. He had spoken with the assurance of an old acquaintance, a troupe member who had earned himself the right to be consulted about a newcomer.

  ‘She told me about being asked to play Medea at Epidaurus.’

  ‘Ah that!’ he commented quietly, with a soft smile.

  ‘Did you know her then?’ In reply to my question he nodded. It was a reply of sorts - the kind of simple answer that leads down a dead end. I tackled him directly: ‘And what about Heliodorus, Davos? How long had you known him?’

  ‘Too long!’ I waited, so he added more temperately: ‘Five or six seasons. Chremes picked him up in southern Italy. He knew an alphabet or two; seemed ideal for the job.’ This time I ignored the arrow.

  ‘You didn’t get on?’

  ‘Is that right?’ He was not truculent, merely secretive. Truculence, being based on simple motives such as guilt and fear, is easier to fathom. Secrecy could have any number of explanations - including the straightforward one that Davos had a polite personality. However, I did not ascribe his reserved manner to mere tact.

  ‘Was he just an awful writer, or was it personal?’

  ‘He was a bloody awful writer - and I bloody loathed the creep.’

  ‘Any reason?’

  ‘Plenty!’ Suddenly Davos lost patience. He stood up, leaving us. But the habit of making an exit speech overtook him: ‘Somebody will no doubt whisper to you, if they haven’t yet: I had just told Chremes the man was a troublemaker and that he ought to be dropped from the company.’ Davos carried weight; it would matter. There was more, however. ‘At Petra I gave Chremes an ultimatum: either he dumped Heliodorus, or he lost me.’

  Surprised, I managed to fetch out, ‘And what was his decision?’

  ‘He hadn’t made any decision.’ The contempt in his tone revealed that if Davos had hated the playwright, his opinion of the manager was nearly as low. ‘The only time in his life Chremes ever made a choice was when he married Phrygia, and she organised that herself, due to pressing circumstances.’

  Afraid I would ask, Helena kicked me. She was a tall girl, with an impressive length of leg. A glimpse of her fine ankle gave me a frisson I could not enjoy properly at that moment.

  The warning was unnecessary. I had been an informer long enough; I recognised the allusion, but I asked the question anyway: ‘That, I take it, is a dark reference to an unwelcome pregnancy? Chremes and Phrygia have no children with them now, so I assume the baby died?’ Davos screwed up his mouth in silence, as if reluctantly acknowledging the story. ‘Leaving Phrygia shackled to Chremes, apparently pointlessly? Did Heliodorus know this?’

  ‘He knew.’ Full of his own anger, Davos had recognised mine. He kept his answer short and left me to deduce for myself the unpleasant follow-on.

  ‘I suppose he used it to taunt the people involved in his normal friendly manner?’

  ‘Yes. He stuck the knife in both of them at every opportunity.’

  I didn’t need to elaborate, but tried it to put pressure on Davos: ‘He ragged Chremes about the marriage he regrets -

  ‘Chremes knows it was the best thing he ever did.’

  ‘And tormented Phrygia over the bad marriage, her lost chance at Epidaurus, and, probably, over her lost child?’

  ‘Over all those things,’ Davos answered, perhaps more guardedly.

  ‘He sounds vicious. No wonder you wanted Chremes to get rid of him.’

  As soon as I said it I realised that this could be taken as a suggestion that Chremes had drowned the playwright. Davos picked up the implication, but merely smiled grimly. I had a feeling that if Chremes was ever accused, Davos would cheerfully stand by and see him convicted - whether or not the charge was a just one.

  Helena, ever quick to smooth over sensitivities, broke in. ‘Davos, if Heliodorus was always wounding people so painfully, surely the company manager had a good excuse -and a personal motive - to dismiss him when you asked for it?’

  ‘Chremes is incapable of decisions, even when it’s easy. This,’ Davos told Helena heavily, ‘was difficult.’

  Before we could ask him why, he had left the tent.

  Chapter XXI

  I was beginning to see the picture: Chremes, Phrygia, and where Davos himself fitted in as the old friend who had mourned for their mistakes and his own lost opportunities. When Helena caught my eye, I checked with her: ‘What do you think?’

  ‘He’s not involved,’ she answered slowly. ‘I think he may have meant more to Phrygia in the past than he does now, but it was probably a long time ago. After knowing her and Chremes for twenty years, now he’s just a critical but loyal friend.’

  Helena had been warming some honey for me. She rose and fetched it from the fire. I took the beaker, settling down more comfortably and giving Musa a reassuring smile. For a while none of us spoke. We sat in a close group, considering events.

  I was aware of a change in the atmosphere. As soon as Davos left the tent, Musa had relaxed. His manner became more open. Instead of huddling under his blanket he ran his hands through his hair, which had started to dry and curl up at the ends ridiculously. It made him look young. His dark eyes had a thoughtful expression; the
mere fact that I could judge his expression marked a change in him.

  I realised what was up. I had seen Helena looking after him as if he belonged to us, while he accepted her anxious attentions with little trace of his old wariness. The truth was clear. We had been together for a couple of weeks. The worst had happened: the damned Nabataean hanger-on had joined the family.

  ‘Falco,’ he said. I could not remember him addressing me by name before. I gave him a nod. It was not unfriendly. He had not yet attained the position of loathing I reserved for my natural relatives.

  ‘Tell us what happened,’ Helena murmured. The conversation was taking place in low voices, as if we were afraid there might be lurking figures outside the tent. That seemed unlikely; it was still a filthy night.

  ‘It was a ridiculous expedition, ill-conceived and ill-planned.’ It sounded as if Musa had viewed his jolly night on the town as some military manoeuvre. ‘People had not taken enough torches, and those we had were waning in the damp.’

  ‘Who asked you to go on this drinking spree?’ I broke in.

  Musa recollected. ‘Tranio, I think.’

  ‘I guessed it might have been!’ Tranio was not my chief suspect - or at least not yet, because I had no evidence - but he was first choice as a general stirrer-up of trouble.

  ‘Why did you agree to go?’ Helena queried.

  He flashed her an astonishing grin; it split his face apart. ‘I thought you and Falco were going to be quarrelling about the play.’ It was Musa’s first joke: one aimed at me.

  ‘We never quarrel!’ I growled.

  ‘Then I beg your pardon!’ He said it with the polite insincerity of a man who shared our tent and knew the truth.

  ‘Tell us about the accident!’ Helena urged him, smiling.

  The priest smiled too, more wickedly than we were used to, but immediately grew intense as he told his story. ‘Walking was difficult. We were stumbling, our heads low. People were grumbling, but nobody wanted to suggest turning back. When we were on the cistern’s raised embankment, I felt somebody push me, like this - ‘ He suddenly aimed a hard blow with the flat of his palm against the lower middle of my back. I braced my calves to avoid falling into the fire; he had quite a shove. ‘I fell down over the wall -‘

  ‘Jupiter! And of course you can’t swim!’

  Unable to swim myself, I viewed his predicament with horror. However, Musa’s dark eyes looked amused. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘It seemed a reasonable deduction, given that you live in a desert citadel -‘

  He raised a disapproving eyebrow, as if I had said something stupid. ‘We have water cisterns in Petra. Small boys always play in them. I can swim.’

  ‘Ah!’ It had saved his life. But somebody else must have made the same mistake as me.

  ‘It was very dark, however,’ Musa went on in his light, conversational way. ‘I was startled. The cold water made me gasp and lose my breath. I could not see any place to climb out. I was afraid.’ His admission was frank and straightforward, like everything he said or did. ‘I could tell that the water below me was deep. It felt many times deeper than a man. As soon as I could breathe, I shouted out very loudly.’

  Helena frowned angrily. ‘It’s terrifying! Did anyone help you?’

  ‘Davos quickly found a way down to the water’s edge. He was roaring instructions, to me and to the other people. He was, I think…’ Musa searched for the word in Greek. ‘Competent. Then everyone came - the clowns, the stagehands, Congrio. Hands pulled me out. I do not know whose hands.’ That meant nothing. As soon as it became obvious he hadn’t sunk and would be rescued, whoever tipped Musa into the water would help him out again to cover his own tracks.

  ‘It’s the hand that shoved you in that matters.’ I was thinking about our suspects list and trying to envisage who had been doing what on that embankment in the dark. ‘You haven’t mentioned Chremes or Philocrates. Were they with you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It sounds as if we can eliminate Davos as perpetrator, but we’ll keep an open mind on all the rest. Do you know who had been walking closest to you beforehand?’

  ‘I am not sure. I thought it was the Twins. A while before I had been talking to the billposter, Congrio. But he had fallen behind. Because of the height of the walkway and the wind, everyone had slowed up and strung out more. You could see figures, though not tell who they were.’

  ‘Were you in single file?’

  ‘No. I was alone, others were in groups. The walkway was wide enough; it only seemed dangerous because it was high, and in darkness, and made slippery by the rain.’ When he did talk, Musa was extremely precise, an intelligent man talking in a language not his own. A man full of caution too. Not many people who have narrowly escaped death remain so calm.

  There was a small silence. As usual it was Helena who faced up to asking the trickiest question: ‘Musa was pushed into the reservoir deliberately. So why’, she enquired gently, ‘has he become a target?’

  Musa’s reply to that was a precise one too: ‘People think I saw the man who murdered the previous playwright.’ I felt a slight jar. His phrasing made it sound as if merely being a playwright was dangerous.

  I considered the suggestion slowly. ‘We have never told anybody that. I always call you an interpreter.’

  ‘The billposter may have overheard us talking about it yesterday,’ said Musa. I liked the way his mind worked. He had noticed Congrio lurking too close, just as I had, and had already marked him as suspicious.

  ‘Or he may have told somebody else what he overheard.’ I swore quietly. ‘If my light-hearted suggestion that we made you a decoy brought this accident upon you, I apologise, Musa.’

  ‘People had been suspicious of us anyway,’ Helena rebutted. ‘I know there are all sorts of rumours about all three of us.’

  ‘One thing is sure,’ I said. ‘It looks as if we have made the playwright’s murderer extremely jumpy merely by joining the group.’

  ‘He was there,’ Musa confirmed in a sombre tone. ‘I knew he was there on the embankment above me.’

  ‘How was that?’

  ‘When I first fell into the water, no one seemed to hear the splash. I sank fast, then rose to the surface. I was trying to catch my breath; at first I could not shout. For a moment I felt entirely alone. The other people sounded far off. I could hear their voices growing fainter as they walked away.’ He paused, staring into the fire. Helena had reached for my hand; like me she was sharing Musa’s dreadful moment of solitude as he struggled to survive down in the black waters of the reservoir while most of his companions carried on oblivious.

  Musa’s face stayed expressionless. His whole body was still. He did not rant or make wild threats about his future actions. Only his tone clearly told us that the playwright’s killer should be wary of meeting him again. ‘He is here,’ Musa said. ‘Among the voices that were going into the darkness, one man had started whistling.’

  Exactly like the man he had heard whistling as he came down from the High Place.

  ‘I’m sorry, Musa.’ Apologising again I was terse. ‘I should have foreseen this. I should have protected you.’

  ‘I am unharmed. It is well.’

  ‘Do you own a dagger?’ He was vulnerable; I was ready to give him mine.

  ‘Yes.’ Davos and I had not found it when we stripped him.

  ‘Then wear it.’

  ‘Yes, Falco.’

  ‘Next time you’ll use it,’ I commented.

  ‘Oh yes.’ Again that commonplace tone, belying the compelling words. He was a priest of Dushara; I reckoned that Musa would know where to strike. There could be a swift, sticky fate awaiting the man who had whistled in the dark. ‘You and I will find this hill bandit, Falco.’ Musa stood up, keeping the blanket around him modestly. ‘Now I think we should all sleep.’

  ‘Quite right.’ I threw his own joke back at him: ‘Helena and I still have a lot of quarrelling to do.’

  There was a teasing glint in
Musa’s eye. ‘Hah! Then until you have finished I must go back to the reservoir.’

  Helena scowled. ‘Go to bed, Musa!’

  Next day we were setting off for the Decapolis. I made a vow to keep a watchful eye out for the safety of all of us.

  ACT TWO: THE DECAPOLIS

  The next few weeks. The settings are various rocky roads and hillside cities with unwelcoming aspects. A number of camels are walking about watching the action curiously.

  SYNOPSIS: Falco, a jobbing playwright, and Helena, his accomplice, together with Musa, a priest who has left his temple for rather vague reasons, are travelling through the Decapolis in a search for Truth. Suspected of being imposters, they soon find themselves in danger from an anonymous Plotter who must be concealing himself amongst their new-found friends. Somebody needs to devise a sharp plan to penetrate his disguise…

  Chapter XII

  Philadelphia: a pretty Greek name for a pretty Greek town, rather knocked about at present. It had been pillaged a few years earlier by the rebelling Jews. The inward-looking fanatics of Judaea had always hated the Hellenistic settlements across the Jordan in the Decapolis, places where good citizenship - which could be learned by anybody at a decent Greek city school - counted for more than inheriting a stern religion in the blood. The marauders from Judaea had made it plain with vicious damage to property what they thought of such airy tolerance. Then a Roman army under Vespasian had made it plain to the Judaeans what we thought about damage to property by heavily damaging theirs. Judaea was pretty quiet these days, and the Decapolis was enjoying a new period of stability.

  Philadelphia was enclosed by steep-sided hills, seven in number, though far more parched than the founding hills of Rome. There was a well-placed precipitous citadel, with the town spilling outwards and downwards on to a broad valley floor where a stream wandered attractively, doing away with any obvious need for cisterns, I was glad to see. We made camp, and sat down in our tents for what I gathered was likely to be a long wait while Chremes tried to negotiate terms for performing a play.