Last Act In Palmyra

by Lindsey Davis

  He was mad, in the sense that he lacked humanity. In every other sense he was as sane as me, and probably more intelligent. He was fit, athletic, trained to do sleight of hand, keen-sighted. I did not want to have to fight him - but he wanted to fight me.

  A dagger was in his hand now. My own knife came from my boot into my grip like a friend. No time to relax, however. He was a professional juggler; if I came too close I was likely to find myself weaponless. I was unarmoured. He, casting aside the cloak from his costume, was at least protected by the leather apron of a stage slave.

  He crouched, feinting. I stayed upright, refusing to be drawn. He snarled. I ignored that too. I started circling, weight secretly on the balls of my feet. He prowled too. As we spiralled gently, the distance between us reduced. On the long-benched galleries, the soldiers started a low drumming of their heels. They would sustain the dreadful racket until one of us was done for.

  My body felt stiff. I realised just how long it was since I had exercised in a gymnasium. Then he came for me.

  The fight was fierce. He had nothing to lose. Hate was his only incentive; death now or later the only possible prize.

  One thing was pretty obvious: the garrison enjoyed gladiators. This was better than mere comedy. They knew the knives were real. If someone got stabbed, the blood would not be cochineal.

  Any thought that the officer in charge would send men in to help me faded early. There was a group in armour at each gate now, but they were just standing there for a better view. If anyone from the theatre company tried to rush on and assist, the soldiery would hold them back and call it keeping the peace. Their commander would know his best hope of maintaining order was to allow the contest, then either praise me or arrest Grumio, whoever survived. I was not taking bets; nor was the officer, I guessed. Besides, I was an imperial agent. He would expect a certain standard of competence, and if I failed to find it, he probably would not care.

  Things began stylishly. Cut and slash. Parry and thrust. Balletic moves. Soon choreographed into the usual panic, heat and mess.

  He tricked me. Dismayed, I fled; rolled; threw myself at his feet as he ran at me. He leapfrogged over me and dodged behind the laundry basket. The soldiery roared. They were on his side.

  He was safe. I had to be more cautious.

  I grabbed the spook’s mask and flung it at him. Ever the juggler, he caught the thing and sliced it at my throat. I was no longer there. He spun; glimpsed me, so he thought; felt my knife rip the back of his tunic; but managed to slide out of it.

  I pursued. He stopped me with a tornado of whipping strokes. Some bastard in the audience cheered.

  I kept my head. I had been the unfavoured man before. Plenty of times. Let him think he had the crowd. Let him believe he had the fight… Let him jab me in the shoulder as the ghost’s robes untwined around my feet and tripped me up.

  I got out of that. With an ungainly clamber I straddled the wicker basket, flopped over it and just found time to thrust the folds of dragging material back in my belt. I stopped thinking pretty thoughts. Stuff strategy. Best just to react.

  Stuff reacting. I wanted to finish it.

  Grumio suspected the trip had thrown me. He was coming for me. I grabbed his knife arm. The dagger flipped across to his other hand: an old trick, and one I recognised. He stabbed up at my ribs, only to gasp as my knee hit his left wrist and cheated him of his intended blow. Now I was the one who was laughing while he looked stupid and yelled.

  Taking advantage of his lapse in concentration, I fell on him. I had trapped him on top of the laundry basket. It lurched wildly as we struggled. I slammed Grumio’s arm against the lid. I pinned him to the basketwork. I managed to press my own arm down on to his throat.

  He looked thinner, but was as strong as me. I could find no better purchase. I knew that any minute he would fight back and it would be my turn to be hammered. Desperate, I rammed his body against the prop, so the whole basket skidded forwards. We both fell.

  Grumio scrambled up. I was coming after him. He hurled himself across the basket as I had done earlier, then turned back. He withdrew the wedge from the clasp and pulled up the lid in my face.

  The lid dropped open, on my side. Grumio had dropped his dagger but made no attempt to retrieve it. The thunder of boots from the soldiers stilled. Grumio stood transfixed. We both stared at the basket. There was an enormous snake looking out at Grumio.

  The thud of the lid had mobilised the reptile. Even I could tell it was disturbed by the blaze of the torches, the strange setting, the violent shaking it had just experienced. Slithering restlessly, it swarmed out of the chest.

  A gasp ran around the amphitheatre. I was gasping myself. Yard after yard of diamond-patterned scales ran from the basket to the ground. ‘Keep away!’ Grumio yelled at it. No use. Snakes are nearly deaf.

  The python felt threatened by the clown’s aggression; it opened its mouth, showing what seemed to be hundreds of curved, needle-sharp, backward-pointing teeth.

  I heard a quiet voice. ‘Stand still.’ It was Musa. The keen snakekeeper. He seemed to have known what the chest contained. ‘Zeno will not hurt you.’ He sounded like some competent technician taking charge.

  Thalia had told me pythons do not attack humans. What Thalia said was good enough for me, but I was not taking chances. I remained quite motionless.

  The kid, still in Musa’s arms, bleated nervously. Then Musa moved steadily past me towards the huge snake.

  He reached Grumio. Zeno’s tongue flicked rapidly through the side of his mouth. ‘He is just taking your scent.’ Musa’s voice was gentle, yet not reassuring. As if to free himself for dealing with the python, he set down the kid. It leapt forwards. Tottering towards Grumio on fragile legs, it looked terrified, but Zeno showed no interest. ‘I, however,’ Musa continued quietly, ‘already know you Grumio! I arrest you for the murder of the playwright Heliodorus and the tambourinist Ione.’ In Musa’s hand had appeared the slim, wicked-looking blade of his Nabataean dagger. He was holding it with its point towards Grumio’s throat; it was merely a gesture, though, for he was still several feet from the clown.

  Suddenly Grumio sprang sideways. He grabbed the kid, and threw it towards Zeno. The kid let out a pitiful bleat of terror, expecting to be bitten and constricted. But Thalia had once told me that snakes in captivity can be choosy. Instead of cooperating, Zeno executed a smooth about-turn. Plainly unhappy, he doubled up on himself with an impressive show of muscle and tried to leave the scene.

  The great python sped straight into a group of stage scenery. Hitching strong loops of himself around whatever he encountered, almost deliberately he knocked things flying. The big ceramic jar crashed over, losing its lid. Zeno wound himself around the stage oven, then curled up on top of it, looking superior, as the contraption bowed beneath his enormous weight. Meanwhile, Grumio had gained ground on both Musa and me. He seemed to have a clear run to the exit and began to spring away from us.

  From the overturned jar something else emerged. It was smaller than the python - but more dangerous. Grumio stopped in his tracks. I had started to pursue him, but Musa exclaimed and gripped my arm. In front of Grumio there was now another snake: a dark head, a banded body, and as it reared upright to confront him, a golden throat beneath the wide extension of its sinister hood. It must be Pharaoh, Thalia’s new cobra. He was angry, hissing, and in full threat display.

  ‘Retreat slowly!’ Musa commanded in a clear voice.

  Grumio, who was nearly ten feet from the reptile, ignored the advice. He seized a torch and made a sweeping gesture with the burning brand. Pharaoh made what was obviously a mere feint. He expected respect.

  ‘He will follow movement!’ Musa warned, still unheeded.

  Grumio shook the torch again. The cobra let out a short, low hiss, then darted across the whole distance between them and struck.

  Pharaoh moved back. Slamming down at body height, he had bitten the leather apron Grumio wore in costume as a slave. The leather
must be snakeproof. It would have saved the clown’s life.

  But his ordeal had not ended. As he was struck that first ferocious blow, Grumio, terrified, staggered and then tripped. On the ground, he instinctively scrabbled to get away. Pharaoh saw him still moving, and rushed forwards again. This time he struck Grumio full on the neck. The downward bite was accurate and strong, followed by a fast chewing movement to make sure.

  Our audience went wild. A kill onstage: just what they had bought their tickets for.

  EPILOGUE: PALMYRA

  Palmyra: the desert. Hotter than ever, at night.

  SYNOPSIS: Falco, a playwright, not in the mood to play the hired trickster, finds that as usual he has set everything to rights…

  Chapter LXXIV

  Something told me that no one was ever going to ask me what happened about Moschion and his ghost.

  Musa and I emerged from the arena badly shaken. We had seen Grumio collapse in shock and hysteria. As soon as the cobra retreated by stages from his vicinity, we crept forward cautiously and dragged the clown to the gates. Behind us the crowd was in uproar. Soon the python was maliciously destroying props while the cobra watched with a menacing attitude.

  Grumio was not dead, but undoubtedly he would be. Thalia came over to look at him, then caught my eye and shook her head.

  ‘He’ll be gone before dawn.’

  ‘Thalia, should somebody catch your snakes?’

  ‘I don’t suggest anyone else tries!’

  She was brought a long, pronged implement and ventured into the arena with the bravest of her people. Soon the cobra had been pinned down and reinstalled in his jar, while Zeno rather smugly returned to his basket of his own accord, as if none of the chaos should be blamed on him.

  I stared at Musa. Clearly he had brought the python to the arena, ready for Thalia’s act after the play. Had it been his idea to take the basket onstage as a dangerous prop? And had he also known that Pharaoh was in the ceramic jar? If I asked him he would probably tell me, in his straight way. I preferred not to know. There was little difference between what had happened today and subjecting Grumio to the delays of a trial and almost certain condemnation ad bestias.

  A group of soldiers pulled themselves together. They took charge of Grumio, then, since the commander had told them to arrest all possible culprits, they arrested Tranio too. He went along with a shrug. There was hardly a case to answer. Tranio had behaved unbelievably, but there was no law in the

  Twelve Tables against sheer stupidity. He had given away the precious scroll of stories, failed to retrieve it, then allowed Grumio to carry on undetected long after he himself must have known the truth. But if he really thought that his own original mistake equated with Grumio’s crimes, he needed a course in ethics.

  Later, while we were waiting for the convulsions and paralysis to finish Grumio, Tranio would admit what he knew: that Grumio, acting alone, had lured Heliodorus up the mountain at Petra, making sure no one else knew he had gone there; that Grumio had been walking closest to Musa when he was pushed into the reservoir at Bostra; that Grumio had actually laughed with his tentmate about various attempts to disable me - letting me fall off a ladder, the knife-throwing incident, and even threatening to push me into the underground water system at Gadara.

  When Helena and I finally left Palmyra, Tranio would remain in custody, though much later I heard that he had been released. I never knew what happened to him afterwards. It was Congrio who was to become the famous Roman clown. We would attend many of his performances despite those harsh critics at me Theatre of Balbus who dared to suggest that the great Congrio’s stories were rather antique, and that somebody should find him a more modern scroll of jokes.

  Life would have to alter for several of our companions. When Musa and I first left the arena, Philocrates, in great pain and covered in gore from a glorious nosebleed, had been sitting on the ground waiting for a bone-setter. He looked as if he had a fractured collarbone. His nose, and probably one of his cheekbones, had been broken in his fall. He would never again play the handsome juvenile. I tried to encourage him: ‘Never mind, Philocrates. Some women adore a man who has a lived-in face.’ You have to be kind.

  Once she had ruled out any hope for Grumio, Thalia came to help mop up the drips of blood on mis casualty; I swear I heard her trying to negotiate to buy Philocrates’ comic mule. The creature would be knocking people over regularly in Nero’s Circus when Thalia returned home.

  I myself was temporarily in trouble. While Musa and I were hanging on to each other getting our breath back, a familiar voice stormed angrily: ‘Didius Falco, if you really want to kill yourself, why not just get run over by a dung-cart like everybody else? Why do you have to attempt your destruction in front of two thousand strangers? And why do I have to be made to watch?’

  Magic. I was never so happy as when Helena was berating me. It took my mind off everything else.

  ‘May as well sell tickets for the fight, and help you pay for my funeral -‘

  She growled, dragging the ghost’s costume up and over my head to give me air. But it was a gentle hand that wiped my perspiring brow with her own white stole.

  Then we were rushed by the Habib family. They had burst from their seats to tell us what a wonderful evening we had invited them to share - and to stare hard at Helena’s lanky chaperone. I left the next part to the women. Helena and Thalia must have planned it in advance, and while Helena was taking her up into the tribunal, Sophrona must have been instructed to go along with it.

  Helena hugged the girl, then cried to the Habib family gratefully, ‘Oh thank you for looking after her - I’ve been searching all over for the naughty thing! But now she’s found and I can take her back to Rome with me to her proper life. I expect you realised she was from a good family. Such a talented musician, but wicked to run away to be on the stage, of course. Still, what can you expect. She plays the instrument of emperors…’

  I was choking quietly.

  The Habib parents had weighed up the quality of Helena’s jewels, some of which she must have been buying quietly from Nabataean caravans and Decapolis markets while my back was turned. They had seen the commanding officer treating her with extreme respect, since he knew that Vespasian himself wanted her whereabouts reported on. Now Khaleed put on a beseeching look. His father was salivating over their apparent good luck. Sophrona herself, like most girls, found she could easily slip into the appearance of being better than she was.

  Khaleed’s mother suggested that if the girl had to leave Syria, maybe the young couple could be married first. Helena then proposed that Khaleed should spend some time in Rome improving himself among the nobility…

  ‘Isn’t that nice?’ uttered Thalia, with no apparent trace of irony. Nobody but me seemed to entertain any notion that once in Rome the forceful Thalia would persuade Sophrona that her best interests lay not in settling down, but in her public career as an organist.

  Discussion was avoided because of a rumpus in the amphitheatre. Denied a full programme, the angry soldiers had started to tear up benches from the ramps.

  ‘Jupiter! Better stop this! How can we distract them?’

  ‘Easy.’ Thalia grabbed hold of the young lady. ‘Now you’re nicely sorted out, Sophrona, you can do something in return. Buck up! I didn’t bring it all the way from Rome just to let mosquitoes breed in the water tank…’

  She signalled to her staff. With a speed that astonished us they lined up around a large low carriage. Calling some of Chremes’ stagehands to help them, they wheeled it to the gate, counted three, then ran out across the open space. The audience stilled, and quickly resumed what was left of their seats. The shrouds dropped from the looming item. It was a hydraulus.

  When levered off its carriage, the water organ stood over twelve feet high. The upper portion looked like a gigantic set of syrinx pipes, made partly of bronze, partly of reed. The lower part was formed from an ornamental chest to which bellows were attached. One of Thalia’s men was p
ouring water carefully into a chamber. Another was attaching a footboard, a huge lever, and a keyboard.

  I saw Sophrona’s eyes widen. For a few moments she managed to hide her eagerness, performing a brief pageant of reluctant maidenhood. Helena and the rest of us went along with it and pleaded with her to take the stage. Next minute she was bounding out to give orders to those setting up the instrument for her.

  It was obvious that playing the organ mattered. I decided I ought to introduce Sophrona to Ribes. Our moody lyre-player seemed like a young man who might be done a power of good by a girl with wonderful eyes who could talk to him about music…

  Thalia grinned at Davos. ‘Going to help me pump her bellows?’ She could make the simplest question sound cheeky. Davos accepted the dubious invitation like a man, even though Thalia had a glint that promised even harder work for him afterwards.

  A decent fellow. I reckoned he would cope. Just as they were about to leave us to provide Sophrona’s support onstage, Phrygia called Thalia back. She had teetered up, her long gangly figure balancing precariously on platform heels. She was waving at the equally tall figure of Sophrona.

  ‘That girl…’ She sounded anguished.

  ‘Sophrona? She’s just a waif I inherited with Fronto’s circus.’ The narrowing of Thalia’s eyes looked unreliable to anyone who wasn’t desperate.

  ‘I hoped my daughter was here…’ Phrygia was not giving up.

  ‘She’s here. But maybe after twenty years alone she doesn’t want to be found.’

  ‘I’ll make everything up to her! I can offer her the best.’ Phrygia gazed around wildly. Only one other female in our circle was the right age: Byrria. She snatched at the younger actress hysterically. ‘We took you on in Italy! Where were you brought up?’

  ‘Latium.’ Byrria looked calm, but curious.

  ‘Outside Rome? Do you know your parents.’

  ‘I was an orphan.’