Last Act In Palmyra

by Lindsey Davis

  We had now entered Roman Syria. On our original journey between Petra and Bostra I had been working through the company play box, but on the way here to the Decapolis I had been able to give more attention to our surroundings. The road from Bostra to Philadelphia was supposed to be a good one. That meant a lot of people used it: not the same thing.

  To be a travelling theatre group was not easy in these parts. The country people hated us because they identified us with the Greekified towns where we played, yet the townsfolk all thought we were uncivilised nomads because we travelled on; you have to beware of exhaustion when you are unused to desert conditions. I was all ready for a long snooze, but as I drowsed on the verge of it, I heard Helena call out ‘Hello there!’ to a passer-by.

  I might have taken no notice, had not the masculine voice that answered her been laden with self-satisfaction. It was a handsome rich-toned tenor with seductive modulations, and I knew to whom it belonged: Philocrates, who thought himself the idol of all the girls.

  Chapter XXIII

  ‘Well, hello!’ he responded, evidently overjoyed to find he had attracted the attention of my highly superior bloom. Men didn’t need an exploratory chat with her banker before they found Helena Justina worth talking to.

  I stayed put. But I had sat up.

  From my dim hiding place I heard him tramp closer, the smart leather boots that always showed off his manly calves crunching on the stony ground. Footwear was his one extravagance, though he wore the rest of his threadbare outfit as if he were in regal robes. (Actually, Philocrates wore all his clothes like a man who was just about to shrug them off for indecent purposes.) From a theatre seat he was extravagantly good-looking; stupid to pretend otherwise. But he turned into a ripe damson if you peered into the punnet closely: too soft, and browning under the skin. Also, though his physique was all in proportion, he was extremely small. I could look right over his neatly combed locks, and most of his scenes with Phrygia had to be played with her sitting down.

  I imagined him striking a pose in front of Helena - and tried not to imagine Helena being impressed by the haughty good looks.

  ‘May I join you?’ He didn’t mess about.

  ‘Of course.’ I was all set to thunder out and defend her, though Helena seemed to be making a brave effort to cope. I could hear from her voice that she was smiling, a sleepy, happy smile. Then I heard Philocrates stretching out at her feet, where instead of looking like a smug dwarf he would simply look well honed.

  ‘What’s a beautiful woman like you doing here all on her own?’ Dear gods, his chat line was so old it was positively rancid. Next thing he would be flaring his nostrils and asking her if she would like to see his war wounds.

  ‘I’m enjoying this lovely day,’ replied Helena, with more serenity than she had ever shown with me when I first tried getting to know her. She used to swat me like a hornet on a honey-jar.

  ‘What are you reading, Helena?’

  ‘Plato.’ It put a quick stop to the intellectual discussion.

  ‘Well, well!’ said Philocrates. This seemed to be his pause-filler.

  ‘Well, well,’ echoed Helena placidly. She could be very unhelpful to men who were trying to impress her.

  ‘That’s a beautiful dress.’ She was in white. White had never suited Helena; I repeatedly told her so.

  ‘Thank you,’ she answered modestly.

  ‘I’ll bet you look even better with it off…’ Mars blast his balls! Wide awake now, I was expecting my young lady to call out to me for protection.

  ‘It’s a paradox of science,’ stated Helena Justina calmly, ‘but when the weather gets as hot as this, people are more comfortable covered up.’

  ‘Fascinating!’ Philocrates knew how to sound as if he meant it, though somehow I thought science was not his strong point. ‘I’ve been noticing you. You’re an interesting woman.’ Helena was more interesting than this facile bastard knew, but if he started to investigate her finer qualities he would be sent on his way with my boot. ‘What’s your star sign?’ he mused, one of those pea-brained types who drought astrology was the straight route to a quick seduction. ‘A Leo, I should say…’

  Jupiter! I hadn’t used ‘What’s your horoscope?’ since I was eleven. He ought to have guessed Virgo; that would always get them giggling, after which you could cruise home.

  ‘Virgo,’ stated Helena herself crisply, which should put a blight on astrology.

  ‘You surprise me!’ She surprised me too. I had been thinking Helena’s birthday was in October, and was mentally making up jokes about Librans weighing up trouble. Trouble was what I would be in if I didn’t learn the correct date.

  ‘Oh I doubt if I could surprise you with much, Philocrates!’ she answered. The annoying wench must think I was asleep. She was playing up to him as if I didn’t exist at all, let alone lying behind a tent wall growing furious, barely a stride away.

  Philocrates had missed her irony. He laughed gaily. ‘Really? In my experience, girls who appear terribly serious and seem like vestal virgins can be a lot of fun!’

  ‘Have you had fun with a lot of girls, Philocrates?’ asked Helena innocently.

  ‘Let’s say, a lot of girls have had fun with me!’

  ‘That must be very gratifying for you,’ Helena murmured. Anyone who knew her well could hear her thinking, Probably not so much fun for them!

  ‘I’ve learned a few tricks with the pleasure pipe.’ Two more words, and I would spring from the tent and tie up his pleasure pipe in a very tight Hercules knot.

  ‘If that’s an offer, I’m flattered, naturally.’ Helena was smiling, I could tell. ‘Apart from the fact that I couldn’t possibly live up to your sophisticated standards, I’m afraid I have other commitments.’

  ‘Are you married?’ he shot in.

  Helena loathed that question. Her voice acquired bite. ‘Would that be a bonus? Deceiving husbands must be so amusing… I was married once.’

  ‘Is your husband dead?’

  ‘I divorced him.’ He was dead now in fact, but Helena Justina never referred to it.

  ‘Hard-hearted girl! What was the fellow’s crime?’

  Helena’s worst insults were always delivered in cool tone. ‘Oh he was just a normal arrogant male - deficient in morals, incapable of devotion, insensitive to a wife who had the good manners to be honest.’

  Philocrates passed it over as a reasonable comment. ‘And now you’re available?’

  ‘Now I live with someone else.’

  ‘Well, well…’ I heard him shifting his ground again. ‘So where is the happy scribbler?’

  ‘Probably up a date-palm writing a play. He takes his work very seriously.’ Helena knew I had never done that, whatever job I was pretending to hold down. However, I did have an idea for a completely new play of my own. I had not discussed it with Helena; she must have noticed me thinking and guessed.

  Philocrates sneered. ‘Pity his skill doesn’t match his dedication!’ What a bastard. I made a note to write him out of at least three scenes in my next adaptation. ‘I’m intrigued. What can this Falco have to offer a smart and intelligent girl like you?’

  ‘Marcus Didius has wonderful qualities.’

  ‘An amateur author who looks as if he’s been dragged . through a thicket by a wild mule? The man’s haircut should be an indictable offence!’

  ‘Some girls like raffish charm, Philocrates… He’s entertaining and affectionate,’ Helena rebuked him. ‘He tells the truth. He doesn’t make promises unless he can keep them, though sometimes he keeps promises he never even made. What I like most,’ she added, ‘is his loyalty.’

  ‘Is that right? He looks as if he knows his way around. How can you be certain he’s faithful?’

  ‘How can anyone ever be certain? The point is,’ Helena said gently, ‘that I believe it.’

  ‘Because he tells you?’

  ‘No. Because he never feels he needs to.’

  ‘I suppose you’re in love with him?’

&n
bsp; ‘I suppose I am.’ She said it unrepentantly.

  ‘He’s a lucky man!’ exclaimed Philocrates insincerely. His mockery was evident. ‘And have you ever betrayed him?’ His voice held a hopeful note.

  ‘No.’ Hers was cool.

  ‘And you’re not going to try it now?’ At last he was catching on.

  ‘Probably not - though how can anyone ever be certain?’ responded Helena graciously.

  ‘Well, when you decide to try sipping from a different bowl - and you will, Helena, believe me - I’m available.’

  ‘You’ll be the first candidate,’ she promised in a light tone. Ten minutes beforehand I would have burst from the tent and wrapped a guy rope around the actor’s neck; instead I sat tight. Helena’s voice hardly changed tone, though because I knew her I was ready for her new tack. She had finished with whimsy; she was taking charge. ‘Now may I ask you something very personal, Philocrates?’

  His big chance to talk about himself: ‘Of course!’ ‘Would you mind telling me what your relations with the drowned playwright used to be?’

  There was a brief pause. Then Philocrates complained spitefully, ‘So this is the price for being permitted to converse with your ladyship?’

  Helena Justina did not balk. ‘It’s simply the price for knowing someone who has been murdered,’ she corrected him. ‘And probably knowing his killer too. You can refuse to answer the question.’

  ‘From which you will draw your own conclusions?’

  ‘That would seem reasonable. What have you to say?’

  ‘I didn’t get on with him. In fact we damn nearly came to blows,’ Philocrates confessed shortly.

  ‘Why was that?’ She hardly waited before adding, ‘Was it a quarrel over a girl?’

  ‘Correct.’ He hated saying it. ‘We both received a put-down from the same woman. I did less badly than him, though.’ He was probably boasting to console himself. Helena, who understood arrogance, did not bother pursuing it.

  ‘I’m sure you did,’ she flattered him sympathetically. ‘I won’t ask who it was.’

  ‘Byrria, if you must know,’ he told her before he could stop himself. The poor rabbit was helpless; Helena had moved effortlessly from an object of seduction to his most confidential friend.

  ‘I’m sorry. I doubt if it was personal, Philocrates. I’ve heard she is extremely ambitious and declines all approaches from men. I’m sure you rose above the rejection, but what about Heliodorus?’

  ‘No sense of discretion.’

  ‘He kept on pestering her? That would make her all the more obdurate, of course.’

  ‘I hope so!’ he growled. ‘There was better sport on offer, after all.’

  ‘There certainly was! If you had done her the honour… So you and the playwright had an ongoing rivalry. Did you hate him enough to kill him though?’

  ‘Great gods, no! It was only a tiff over a girl.’

  ‘Oh quite! Was that his attitude too?’

  ‘He probably let it rankle. That was his kind of stupidity.’

  ‘And did you ever tackle Heliodorus about him bothering Byrria?’

  ‘Why should I do that?’ Philocrates’ surprise sounded genuine. ‘She turned me down. What she did or did not do after that was no concern of mine.’

  ‘Did other people notice that he was being a nuisance?’

  ‘Must have done. She never complained about it; that would have made him worse. But we all knew he kept putting pressure on her.’

  ‘So the man had no finesse?’

  ‘No pride, anyway.’

  ‘And Byrria was constantly avoiding him. Did he write her bad parts?’

  ‘Stinkers.’

  ‘Do you know of any other admirers Byrria might have?’

  ‘I wouldn’t notice.’

  ‘No,’ Helena agreed thoughtfully. ‘I don’t expect you would… Where were you when Heliodorus took his fatal walk to the High Place?’

  ‘The last afternoon? I’d packed my bags for leaving Petra and was making good use of some spare time before we left.’

  ‘What were you doing?’

  Helena had walked straight into it. He turned triumphantly vindictive: ‘I was up in one of the rock tombs with a frankincense merchant’s pretty wife - and I was giving her the screwing of her life!’

  ‘Silly of me to ask!’ my lass managed to rally, though I guessed she was blushing. ‘I wish I’d known you then. I would have asked you to ask her the proper rate for buying incense gum.’

  Either her courage or simply her sense of humour finally broke through to him. I heard Philocrates laugh shortly, then there was a sudden movement and his voice came from a different level; he must have swung himself to his feet. His tone had changed. For once the admiration was unfeigned and unselfish: ‘You’re incredible. When that bastard Falco ditches you, don’t weep too long; make sure you come and console yourself with me.’

  Helena made no answer, and his small feet in their expensive boots scrunched away across the pebbly road.

  I waited a suitable time then emerged from the tent, stretching.

  ‘Ah here’s the mellifluous bard awakening!’ teased the love of my life. Her quiet eyes surveyed me from the deep shadow of a sloppily brimmed sunhat.

  ‘You’re asking for a very rude pentameter.’

  Helena was reclining in a folding chair with her feet on a bale. We had learned the essential desert trick of pitching tent in the shade of a tree wherever possible; Helena had taken all the remaining patch of coolness. Philocrates must have been charcoal-grilled like a mullet as he lay out in full sun while he talked to her. I was pleased to see it.

  ‘You look nicely settled. Had a good afternoon?’

  ‘Very quiet,’ said Helena.

  ‘Anyone bother you?’

  ‘No one I couldn’t deal with…’ Her voice dropped gently. ‘Hello, Marcus.’ She had a way of greeting me that was almost unbearably intimate.

  ‘Hello, beautiful.’ I was tough. I could cope with having my wrath undermined by female trickery. Then she smiled at me softly so I felt my resolve going limp.

  It was later now. The burning sun was dropping towards the horizon and losing its power. When I took the actor’s place lying at her feet the situation would be virtually pleasant, even though the ground was stony and the stones still hot.

  She knew I had been listening in. I pretended to look her over. Despite an effort to appear nonchalant I could feel a tendon going rigid in my neck at the thought of Philocrates eyeing her then making suggestive remarks. ‘I hate that dress. White makes you look washed out.’

  Helen wriggled her toes in her sandals and answered peacefully, ‘When I want to attract someone in particular, I’ll change it.’ A certain glint in her eye held a private message for me.

  I grinned. Any man of taste liked Helena wearing blue or red. I was a man of taste who liked to be frank. ‘Don’t bother. Just take the white one off.’ I assumed my station on the ground like a loyal dog. She leaned down and rumpled my indictable curls, while I looked up at her thoughtfully. I said, in a lower voice, ‘He was perfectly happy cruising the colonnades looking for a frolic with a flute girl. You didn’t have to do that to him.’

  Helena raised an eyebrow. Watching her, I thought she coloured up slightly. ‘Are you objecting to me flirting, Marcus?’ We both knew I was in no position to do that. Hypocrisy had never been my style.

  ‘Flirt with whom you like, if you can handle the results. I meant, you didn’t have to make that poor peristyle prowler fall in love with you.’

  Helena didn’t realise, or wouldn’t acknowledge, her influence. Five years of marriage to a disinterested prig in a senatorial toga had crushed most of her confidence. Two years of being adored by me had so far failed to revive it. She shook her head. ‘Don’t be romantic, Marcus.’

  ‘No?’ I was on his side, partly. ‘I just happen to know what it feels like to realise abruptly that the girl you are mentally undressing is staring back at you with eyes that can see yo
ur soul naked.’ Hers were the eyes I meant. Rather than look into them at that moment I changed the subject flippantly: ‘That’s certainly not a scroll of Plato in your lap.’

  ‘No. It’s the collection of ribald stories I found among your box of plays.’

  ‘What is this thing - some notes by Heliodorus?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so, Marcus. There seem to be several handwritings, but none look like his awful scrawl.’ I had been complaining about the dead man’s revisions on the play scrolls, most of which were illegible. Helena went on, ‘In places the ink has faded; it looks quite old. Besides, everyone says Heliodorus had no feeling for jokes, and these are very funny. If you like,’ she suggested seductively, ‘I’ll read some of the rude ones out to you…’

  The actor was right. Serious girls who look like vestal virgins can be a lot of fun - provided you can persuade them it’s you they want to have fun with.

  Chapter XXIV

  The rope went well. We put it on for a second night, and nobody came. We left town.

  Our next destination was Gerasa. It lay forty miles to the north - two days with decent transport, but probably twice that with our group of cheap camels and heavily laden waggons. Cursing Philadelphia for an uncultured dump and damning Plautus as an unfunny hack, we turned our backs on the town, flung the play to the bottom of the heap, and creaked on our way. At least Gerasa had a prosperous reputation; people with money might be looking for something to spend it on. (More likely, news that our production of The Rope was as stiff as cheese would run ahead of us.)

  One way and another the pointers were strong for an urgent interview with Byrria. The dead playwright had been nursing his lust for her, and most of our male suspects seemed to be tangled in the same set. Besides, if Helena could flirt with the masculine star, I could allow myself a chat with his delicious female counterpart.

  It was easy to arrange. A few nosy passers-by had spotted my darling’s dalliance with Philocrates; already everyone knew about it. Pretending to quarrel with her about her diminutive admirer, I hopped off our cart and sat on a rock with my chin in my hands, looking glum. I had left Helena with Musa; protection for both of them. I was unwilling to leave either for long without cover.