Last Act In Palmyra

by Lindsey Davis

  ‘Well that illustrates my problem,’ I sighed. ‘It could be any of you - or any of the actors.’

  ‘Or you!’ suggested Afrania. She looked sullen, and developed a nasty streak whenever this subject was discussed.

  ‘Falco never knew Heliodorus,’ someone else pointed out fairly.

  ‘Maybe I did,’ I conceded. ‘I said I found him as a stranger, but maybe I had known him, took against him, then attached myself to the company afterwards for some perverted reason -‘

  ‘Such as you wanted his job?’ cried Ribes the lyre-player with a wit that was rare for him. The rest dissolved into roars of laughter, and I was deemed innocent.

  No one could offer any useful information. That did not mean no one had any. I might yet hear a furtive whisper outside my tent as someone became braver and came to pass on some vital clue.

  ‘I cannot advise you about staying with the company,’ I declared. ‘But look at it this way. If you withdraw your labour, the tour will fold. Chremes and Phrygia cannot put on comedy without music or scenery. Both are traditional and the audience expects them.’

  ‘A Plautian monologue without enhancing flute music is a loaf made with dead yeast,’ pronounced the orchestra leader sombrely.

  ‘Oh quite!’ I tried to look respectful. ‘Without you, bookings would become harder and eventually the troupe would disperse. Remember, if we break up, the killer gets away with it.’ I stood up. That meant I could see all of them and address each conscience. I wondered how often they had received appeals to the heart from a grey-faced, nauseous inebriate who had nothing substantial to offer them: quite often if they worked for actor-managers. ‘It’s up to you. Do you want Ione’s death to be avenged, or don’t you care?’

  ‘It’s too dangerous!’ wailed one of the women, who happened to be holding a small child on her hip.

  ‘I’m not so crass that I don’t know what I’m asking. Each of you must make the choice.’

  ‘What’s your interest, Falco?’ It was Afrania who asked. ‘You said you’re a freelance. Why don’t you just cut and run?’

  ‘I am involved. I cannot avoid it. I discovered Heliodorus. My girlfriend found Ione. We have to know who did that -and make sure he pays.’

  ‘He’s right,’ argued the cymbalist reasonably. ‘The only way to catch this man is to stick together as a group and keep the killer among us. But how long will it take, Falco?’

  ‘If I knew how long, I would know who he was.’

  ‘He knows you’re looking for him,’ warned Afrania.

  ‘And I know he must be watching me.’ I gave her a hard stare, remembering her odd claims about the alibi she had given Tranio. I still felt certain that she had lied.

  ‘If he thinks you are close, he may come after you,’ suggested the cymbalist.

  ‘He probably will.’

  ‘Aren’t you afraid?’ Plancina asked, as if waiting to see me struck down was the next best thing to a gory chariot race.

  ‘Coming after me will be his mistake.’ I sounded confident.

  ‘If you need a drink of water during the next few weeks,’ the orchestra leader advised me in his usual pessimistic tone, ‘I should make sure you only use a very small cup!’

  ‘I’m not intending to drown.’

  I folded my arms, planting my feet astride like a man who could be trusted in a tight spot. They knew about decent acting and were unconvinced by this. ‘I can’t make your decisions. But I can make one promise. There is more to me than some jobbing scribe Chremes picked up in the desert. My background’s tough. I’ve worked for the best - don’t ask me names. I’ve been involved in jobs I’m not allowed to discuss, and I’m trained in skills you’d rather I didn’t describe. I’ve tracked down plenty of felons, and if you haven’t heard about it that just proves how discreet I am. If you agree to stay on, I’ll stay too. Then you will at least know that you have me looking after your interests…’

  I must have been mad. I had had more sense and sanity when I was totally befuddled by last night’s drink. Guarding them was not the problem. What I hated was the thought of explaining to Helena that I had offered my personal protection to wild women like Plancina and Afrania.

  Chapter XXXVIII

  The musicians and stagehands stayed with us and continued to work. We gave Scythopolis The Birds. Scythopolis gave us-an ovation. For Greeks, they were surprisingly tolerant.

  They had an interesting theatre, with a semicircular orchestra that could only be reached by steps. In a Roman play we would not have used it, but of course we were doing a Greek one, with a very large chorus, and Chremes wanted a flock of birds to spill down towards the audience. The steps made life difficult for anyone foolish enough to be acting while dressed in a large padded costume, with gigantic claws on their shoes, and a heavy beaked mask.

  While we were there some cheapskate salesman was trying to persuade the magistrates to spend thousands on an acoustic system (some bronze devices to be hung on the theatre wall). The theatre architect was happily pointing out that he had already provided seven splendid oval niches that would take the complex equipment; he was obviously in on the deal with the salesman, and stood to receive a cut.

  We tested the samples of the salesman’s toys to the limit with tweeting, twittering and booming, and frankly they made no difference. Given the perfect acoustics of most Greek theatres, this was no surprise. The taxpayers of Scythopolis settled back in their seats and looked as if they were quite content to place wreaths in the seven niches. The architect looked sick.

  Even though Congrio had told us it had happened before, I never really understood why Chremes had suddenly abandoned his normal repertoire. With Aristophanes we had leapt back in time about four hundred years, from New Roman Comedy to Old Greek ditto. I liked it. They say the old jokes are the best. They are certainly better than none at all. I want a play to have bite. By that, speaking as a republican, I mean some political point. Old Comedy had that, which made a sophisticated change. For me New Comedy was dire. I hate watching meaningless plots about tiresome characters in grisly situations on a provincial street. If I wanted that, I could go home and listen to my neighbours through their apartment walls. .

  The Birds was famous. At rehearsal Tranio, always ready with an anecdote, told us, ‘Not bad considering it only won second prize at the festival it was written for.’

  ‘What a show-off! Which archive did you drag that one out of, Tranio?’ I scoffed.

  ‘And what play actually won then?’ Helena demanded.

  ‘Some trifle called The Revellers, now unknown to man.’

  ‘Sounds fun. One of the people in my tent has been revelling too much lately, though,’ Helena commented.

  ‘This play is not half as obscene as some Aristophanes,’ grumbled Tranio. ‘I saw Peace once - not often performed, as we’re always at war of course. It has two female roles for wicked girls with nice arses. One of them has her clothes taken off onstage, then she’s handed down to the man in the centre of the front row. She sits on his lap for starters, then spends the rest of the play going up and down, “comforting” other members of the audience.’

  ‘Filth!’ I cried, feigning shock.

  Tranio scowled. ‘It hardly compares with showing Hercules as a glutton, giving out cookery tips.’

  ‘No, but recipes won’t get us run out of town,’ said Helena. She was always practical. Offered a prospect of wicked women with nice arses ‘comforting’ the ticket-holders, her practical nature became even more brisk than usual.

  Helena knew The Birds. She had been well educated, partly by her brothers’ tutors when her brothers slipped off to the racecourse, and partly through grabbing any written scrolls that she could lay her hands on in private libraries owned by her wealthy family (plus the few tattered fifth-hand items I kept under my own bed). Since she had never been one for the senators’ wives’ circuit of orgies and admiring gladiators, she had always spent time at home reading. So she told me, anyway.

  Sh
e had done a good job on the script; Chremes had accepted it without change, remarking that at last I seemed to be getting on top of the job.

  ‘Fast work,’ I congratulated her.

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘Don’t let having your adaptations accepted first time go to your head. I’d hate to think you’re becoming an intellectual.’

  ‘Sorry, I forgot. You don’t like cultured women.’

  ‘Suits me.’ I grinned at her. ‘I’m no snob. I’m prepared to put up with brains in an exceptional case.’

  ‘Thank you very much!’

  ‘Don’t mention it. Mind you, I never expected to end up in bed with some learned scroll-beetle who’s studied Greek and knows that The Birds is a famous play. I suppose it sticks in the mind because of the feathers. Like when you think about the Greek philosophers and can only remember that the first premise of Pythagoras was that nobody should eat beans.’

  ‘Philosophy’s a new side to you,’ she smiled.

  ‘Oh I can run off philosophers as well as any dinner-party bore. My favourite is Bias, who invented the informers’ motto -‘

  ‘All Men are Bad!’ Helena had read the philosophers as well as the dramatists. ‘Everyone has to play a bird in the chorus, Marcus. Which has Chremes given you?’

  ‘Listen, fruit, when I make my acting debut, it will be a moment to memorise for our grandchildren. I will be a Tragic Hero, striding on through the central doorway in a coronet, not hopping from the wings as a bloody bird.’

  Helena chortled. ‘Oh I think you’re wrong! This play was written for a very prosperous festival. There is a full chorus of twenty-four named cheepers, and we all have to participate.’

  I shook my head. ‘Not me.’

  Helena Justina was a bright girl. Besides, as the adaptor she was the only person in our group who had read the entire play. Most people just skimmed through to find their own parts. Helena soon worked out what Chremes must have me down for, and thought it hilarious.

  Musa, who had been silent as usual, looked bemused -though not half as bemused as when Helena explained that he would be appearing as the reed warbler.

  So what was I playing? They had found me the dross, needless to say.

  In our performance the two humans who run away from Athens in disgust at the litigation, the strife and the hefty fines were played by handsome Philocrates and tough Davos. Naturally Philocrates had grabbed the major part, with all the speeches, while Davos took the stooge who puts in the obscene one-line rejoinders. His part was shorter, though more pungent.

  Tranio was playing Hercules. In fact he and Grumio were to be a long succession of unwelcome visitors who call at Cloud-cuckoo-land in order to be chased off ignominiously. Phrygia had a hilarious cameo as an elderly Iris whose lightning bolts refused to fulminate, while Byrria appeared as the hoopoe’s beautiful wife and as Sovereignty (a symbolic part, made more interesting by a scanty costume). Chremes was chorus leader for the famous twenty-four named birds. These included Congrio hooting, Musa warbling, and Helena disguised as the cutest dabchick who ever hopped on to a stage. I was unsure how I would confess to her noble father and disapproving mother that their elegant daughter with the centuries-old pedigree had now been witnessed by a crowd of raw Scythopolitans acting as a dabchick…

  At least from now on I would always be able to call up material to blackmail Helena.

  My role was tiresome. I played the informer. In this otherwise witty satire, my character creeps in after the ghastly poet, the twisting fortune-teller, the rebellious youth and the cranky philosopher. Once they have come to Cloud-cuckoo-land and all been seen off by the Athenians, an informer tries his luck. Like mine, his luck is in short supply, to the delight of the audience. He is stirring up court cases on the basis of questionable evidence and wants some wings to help him fly about the Greek islands quicker as he hands out subpoenas. If anyone had been prepared to listen, I could have told them an informer’s life is so boring it’s positively respectable, while the chances of a lucrative court case are about equal with discovering an emerald in a goose’s gizzard. But the company were used to abusing my profession (which is much mocked in drama) so they loved this chance to heap insults on a live victim. I offered to play the sacrificial pig instead, but was overruled. Needless to say, in the play, the informer fails to get his wings.

  Chremes deemed me fit to act my role without coaching, even though it was a speaking part. He claimed I could talk well enough without assistance. By the end of rehearsals I was tired of people crying ‘Oh just be yourself, Falco!’ ever so wittily. And the moment when Philocrates was called upon to whip me off-stage was maddening. He really enjoyed handing out a thrashing. I was now plotting a black revenge.

  Everyone else hugely enjoyed putting on this stuff. I decided that perhaps Chremes did know what he was doing. Even though we had always complained about his judgement, the mood lightened. Scythopolis kept us for several performances. The company was calmer, as well as richer, by the time we moved on up the Jordan Valley to Gadara.

  Chapter XXXIX

  Gadara called itself the Athens of the East. From this Eastern outpost had come the cynic satirist Menippos, the philosopher and poet Philodemos, who had had Virgil as his pupil in Italy, and the elegiac epigrammatist Meleager. Helena had read Meleager’s poetic anthology The Garland, so before we arrived she enlightened me.

  ‘His themes are love and death - ‘

  ‘Very nice.’

  ‘And he compares each poet he includes to a different flower.’

  I said what I thought, and she smiled gently. Love and death are gritty subjects. Their appropriate handling by poets does not require myrtle petals and violets.

  The city commanded a promontory above a rich and vital landscape, with stunning views to both Palestine and Syria, westwards over Lake Tiberias and north to the far snowcapped mountain peak of Mount Hermon. Nearby, thriving villages studded the surrounding slopes, which were lush with pasture-land. Instead of the bare tawny hills we had seen endlessly rolling elsewhere, this area was clothed with green fields and woodlands. Instead of lone nomadic goatherds, we saw chattering groups watching over fatter, fleecier flocks. Even the sunlight seemed brighter, enlivened by the nearby twinkling presence of the great lake. No doubt all the shepherds and swineherds in the desirable pastures were busy composing sunlit, elegantly elegiac odes. If they were kept awake at night struggling with metric imperfections in their verse, they could always put themselves off to sleep by counting their obols and drachmas; people here had no financial worries that I could see.

  As always in our company, argument about what play to put on was raging; eventually, with matters still unresolved, Chremes and Philocrates, supported by Grumio, strolled off to see the local magistrate. Helena and I took a walk around town. We made enquiries about Thalia’s lost musical maiden, fruitlessly as usual. We didn’t much care; we were enjoying this short time alone together. We found ourselves following a throng of people who were ambling down from the acropolis to the river valley below.

  Apparently the routine here was for the citizens to flock out in the evening, go to the river, bathe in its reputedly therapeutic waters, then flog back uphill (complaining) for their nightly dose of public entertainment. Even if bathing in the river had cured their aches, walking back afterwards up the precipitous slope to their lofty town was likely to set their joints again, and half of them probably caught a chill when they reached the cooler air. Still, if one or two had to take to their beds, all the more room on the comfortable theatre seats for folk who had come direct from the shop or the office without risking their health in water therapy.

  We joined the crowds of people in their striped robes and twisted headgear on the banks of the river, where Helena cautiously dipped a toe while I stood aloof, looking Roman and superior. The late-evening sunlight had a pleasantly soothing effect. I could happily have forgotten both my searches and relaxed into the theatrical life for good.

  Further alo
ng the bank I suddenly noticed Philocrates; he had not spotted us. He had been drinking - wine, presumably - from a goatskin. As he finished he stood up, demonstrating his physique for any watching women, then blew up the skin, tied its neck, and tossed it to some children who were playing in the water. As they fell on it, squealing with delight, Philocrates stripped off his tunic ready to dive into the river.

  ‘You’d need a lot of those to fill a punnet!’ giggled Helena, noticing that the naked actor was not well endowed.

  ‘Size isn’t everything,’ I assured her.

  ‘Just as well!’

  She was grinning, while I wondered whether I ought to play the heavy-handed patriarch and censor whatever it was she had been reading to acquire such a low taste in jokes.

  ‘There’s a very odd smell, Marcus. Why do spa waters always stink?’

  ‘To fool you into thinking they are doing you good. Who told you the punnet joke?’

  ‘Aha! Did you see what Philocrates did with his wineskin?’ ‘I did. He can’t possibly have killed Heliodorus if he’s kind to children,’ I remarked sarcastically.

  Helena and I started the steep climb up from the elegant waterfront to the town high on its ridge. It was hard going, reminding us both of our wearying assault on the High Place at Petra.

  Partly to gain a breathing space, but interested anyway, I stopped to have a look at the town’s water system. They had an aqueduct that brought drinking water over ten miles from a spring to the east of the city; it then ran through an amazing underground system. One of the caps to a flue had been removed by some workmen for cleaning; I was leaning over the hole and staring down into the depths when a voice behind made me jump violently.

  ‘That’s a long drop, Falco!’

  It was Grumio.

  Helena had grabbed my arm, though her intervention was probably unnecessary. Grumio laughed cheerfully. ‘Steady!’ he warned, before clattering downhill the way we had just come.