Last Act In Palmyra Part 36

I could see Tranio approaching for his first scene as the busy cook. He looked preoccupied with his coming performance, and I reckoned I might be able to shake him if I asked the right question unexpectedly. I was weighing up my moment to beard him, when Congrio tugged at my sleeve. 'Falco! Falco! This speech I have - ' Congrio's 'speech' was one line; he had to enter as a household slave and announce that the Virtuous Maiden had just given birth. (In plays, virtuous maidens are not that that virtuous. Don't blame me; this is the tradition of a soiled genre. Your average theatrical juvenile sees rape as his first step to marriage, and for some reason your average comic heroine goes right along with it.) Congrio was still complaining. 'It's boring. Helena Justina told me I can fill it out - ' virtuous. Don't blame me; this is the tradition of a soiled genre. Your average theatrical juvenile sees rape as his first step to marriage, and for some reason your average comic heroine goes right along with it.) Congrio was still complaining. 'It's boring. Helena Justina told me I can fill it out - '

'Do whatever you like, Congrio.'

I was trying to move away from him. Tranio was standing some distance apart, getting his wig on. Just as I freed myself from Congrio and his maundering anxiety, a gaggle of heavies from the garrison blocked my path. They sized me up. They despised actors, but I was being taken as more promising bait. Evidently I looked tough enough to have my head kicked in.

I had no time to distract them with genial banter. I leapt straight through the group of hooligans, pounding off on a lengthy detour, then, as I swerved back towards Tranio, I ran into a little fellow who was swearing that he knew me: some lunatic who wanted to discuss a goat.

Chapter LXIX.

'h.e.l.lo, this is a bit of luck!'

I had been stopped by a tiny chap with one arm cut off at the elbow and a hopeful toothless grin. Being trapped was unusual; normally I'm much too smart for street hustlers. I thought he was trying to sell me something - and I was right. He wanted me to have his goat.

My play was starting. I could hear Ribes playing a delicate introductory melody on the lyre.

Before I could buff aside the man who had stopped me, something made me think again. The loon looked familiar.

His companion seemed to know me too, for it b.u.t.ted me in the kidneys as familiarly as a nephew. It was a brown-and-white-patched billy goat, about waist high, with a sad expression. Both its ears had nervous tics. Its neck had a queer kink.

I knew about this goat. The owner made some hopeless claim that it had been born with its head facing backwards.

'Sorry - ' I tried to make off.

'We met at Gerasa! I've been trying to find you!' the owner piped.

'Look, friend; I have to go - '

He looked downcast. They made a gloomy pair. 'I thought you were interested,' protested the man. The goat had the sense to know I just wanted to escape.

'Sorry?'

'In buying the goat!' Dear G.o.ds.

'What made you think that?'

'Gerasa!' he repeated doggedly. A dim memory of viewing his beast for a copper or two in a mad moment came floating back. A more terrible memory - of foolishly discussing the beast with its owner - followed rapidly. 'I still want to sell him. I thought we had a bargain... I came looking for you that night, in fact.'

It was time to be blunt. 'You've got the wrong idea, friend. I just asked you about him because he reminded me of a goat I once owned myself.'

He didn't believe me. It sounded weak only because it was the truth. Once, for very complex reasons, I had rescued a runaway nanny from a temple on a seash.o.r.e. My excuse is, I was living rough (I was doing a job for Vespasian, always p.r.o.ne to leave me short of tavern fees) and any companion had seemed better than none at the time.

I had always been a sentimental type. Now sometimes I let myself indulge in conversations with owners of peculiar goats just to show off my former expertise. So, I had talked to this man in Gerasa. I remembered he had told me he wanted to sell up and plant beans. We had discussed what price he wanted for his quaintly angled exhibit, but I had never had any intention of rejoining the goat owners' guild.

'Look, I'm sorry, but I like a pet who looks you in the eye.'

'Depends where you stand,' the menace persisted logically. He tried to edge me into position behind his billy's left shoulder. 'See?'

'I've got a girlfriend now; she takes all my energy - '

'He draws the crowds!'

'I bet he does.' Lies. As a sideshow the goat was completely useless. He was also nibbling my tunic hem, despite his disability. In fact, the crooked neck seemed to place him more readily in line with people's clothes. The last thing I needed was a series of of domestic writs for damaged skirts and togas. domestic writs for damaged skirts and togas.

'What was yours called?' demanded the owner. He was definitely mad.

'What? Oh my goat. She didn't have a name. Growing too familiar only leads to heartache on both sides.'

'That's right...' The goat owner could tell I understood his problems. 'This is Alexander, because he's great.' Wrong. He was just terrible.

'Don't sell him!' I urged, suddenly unable to bear the thought of them parting. It seemed to me mis couple of deadbeats depended on each other more than either realised. 'You need to know he has a good home. If you're going to retire from the road, take him with you.'

'He'll eat the beans.' True. He would eat everything. Goats actually tear up plants and shrubs by the roots. Nothing they come near to ever sprouts again. 'You seemed like a good sort, Falco-'

'Don't bet on it.'

'He has his funny ways, but he repays affection... Still, maybe you're right. He belongs with me.' I had been reprieved. 'I'm glad I've seen you again; it's cleared my mind.' I pulled Alexander by the ears, almost regretfully. Obviously a connoisseur of quality, he tried to eat my belt.

I was leaving them when the long-faced goat owner suddenly asked, 'That night in Gerasa, did your friend ever find his way to the pools?'

Chapter LXX.

'What friend?' if we were talking about Gerasa, I didn't need to ask what pools.

I was trying to keep things light, whilst all the time my sense of oppression grew. I hate murder. I hate murderers. I hate running up against the need to name one of them. Very soon now it was going to be unavoidable.

'He was in your company. When I came to offer you the goat, I asked him where you were. He said you'd gone into town, and in return for that he asked me directions to the pools of the Maiuma.'

'What did he look like?'

'Blow me if I know. He had no time to stop; he was das.h.i.+ng off on a camel.'

'Young? Old? Tall? Short? Can you see him here now Can you see him here now?'

The man looked panicky. Unused to describing people, he was fumbling for anything to say. It was no use pressing him. Not even with one possible murderer - Tranio -- standing ten feet from us waiting to go on-stage. The witness was unreliable. Too much time had pa.s.sed. Now if I offered suggestions he would agree with them instantly to escape his quandary. This loon held the answer to everything, but I would have to let him go.

I said nothing. Patience was my only hope. Alexander was slyly consuming the sleeve of my tunic; seeing it, his owner biffed him between the ears. Striking the goat's head reminded him of something: 'He wore a hat!' I had heard that before.

While I was catching my breath, the goat's owner voluntarily described the Gerasa specimen. 'It was one of them knitted things, with a flopped-over top.'

That was nothing like the wide-brimmed, round-crowned Greek hat that Musa had been sent from Petra by Shullay. But I knew where I had seen this. 'A Phrygian cap? Like the sun-G.o.d Mithras wears?'

'That's right. One of them long floppy ones.'

Grumio's collection cap.

So Ione's killer was Grumio. I had given him an alibi myself, based on the bad premise that I had seen him several times in the same place. I never dreamt that in between he might have galloped off somewhere else.

Looking back, my confidence had been ridiculous. Of course he had taken a break from his act. He could never have sustained that sparkling performance all night. If he had stood on that barrel for the whole evening, by the time Musa and I returned from the Temple of Dionysus he would have been hoa.r.s.e and completely exhausted. That had not been his condition when he dragged me up for abuse and the near-fatal 'accident' using my own knife. He had been alert, in control, exhilarated, dangerous dangerous. And I had missed the obvious.

Grumio had done two turns on the barrel. In between, he had ridden to the pools and killed the girl.

Had he acted alone? And had he killed Heliodorus too? It was hard to work out. My mind was a mess. Sometimes it is better to have twenty suspects than a mere two. I wanted to consult Helena. Unluckily I had trapped her in the commander's private box.

I walked to the arena entrance. Grumio was no longer there. He and Chremes had slipped into the arena ready to make their entrances from one side. They were hiding in one of the niches. Davos was concealed on-stage, ready to pop out as the ghost. The rest of the cast had been waiting for me.

Ribes was still enjoying himself with the lyre. Luckily Syrians liked minstrels. Ribes fancied himself rotten, and since no one had signalled him to end the overture, he was working it up in frenzied improvisation.

Tranio was by the gate. I walked up to him casually. 'You'll be glad to know I found Grumio's ring.'

'His ring?'

'Blue stone. Could be lapis; might just be sodalite..." He had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.

'As I thought - he even lied about that!' I grabbed Tranio by the elbow and yanked him closer.

'What's the game, Falco?'

'Tranio, I'm trying to decide whether you're foolishly loyal - or just a complete fool!'

'I don't know what you mean -- '

'It's time to stop protecting him. Believe me, he's tried quite happily to implicate you! Whatever you think you owe him, forget it now!'

Other people were listening: Thalia, Musa, many of the cast. Tranio's eyes flickered towards those present.

'Let them hear,' I said. 'We can do with witnesses. Own up. What was the pledge you gave to Heliodorus, then had the row about?'

'Falco, I have to go on - ' Tranio was panicking.

'Not yet.' I gripped his costume by the neck and jerked it tight. He could not tell whether I was really angry, or just playing him along. 'I want the truth!'

'Your play, Falco - '

'Stuff my play.'

For a moment I felt things were getting away from me. Help came from an unexpected quarter: 'The pledge was a scroll.' It was Philocrates who spoke. He really must be worried that he would be blamed for the crimes himself. 'It was Grumio's; his collection of terrible old jokes.'

'Thanks, Philocrates! All right Tranio, you've got some fast answers to provide! First, were you really with Afrania the night Ione died?'

He gave up. 'Yes.'

'Why did you ask her to pretend otherwise?'

'Stupidity.'

'Well that's honest! And were you conscious or in a stupor in Petra the afternoon Heliodorus was killed?'

'Paralytic'

'What about Grumio?'

'I thought he was the same.'

'Are you certain he was?'

Tranio dropped his eyes. 'No,' he admitted. 'I pa.s.sed out. He could have done anything.'

I let go of him. 'Tranio, Tranio, what have you been playing at? If you are not the killer, why protect the man who was?'

He shrugged helplessly. 'It was my fault. I'd lost him his scroll.'

I would never entirely understand it. But I was a writer, not a performer. A comedian is only as good as his script. A writer never has to grieve too long for lost material. Unluckily for the reading and viewing public, writers can easily rattle off more.

I despaired of Tranio. In the arena Ribes had been covering the unexpected pause with his rapid plectrumming but the audience was tired of it. I could see he was starting to feel desperate as he wondered why Tranio was failing to enter. I took a swift decision. 'We'll have to discuss this later. Get out on-stage. Don't warn Grumio, or you'll be arrested too.'

Released from my furious grip, Tranio pulled on a spa.r.s.e two-tone wig, then strode in through the gate. Free members of the cast, together with Thalia, Musa and myself, all crowded around to watch.

Looking out at ground level, the elliptical s.p.a.ce seemed immense. Musa and Thalia stared at me curiously as I wondered what to do. On-stage, Tranio began carrying on as the hectic cook. He seemed to be safely sticking to his lines. Soon he was berating the less sophisticated Grumio, playing a farm boy who had brought meat for the feast. Chremes rushed on to give them orders, made some jokes about voracious women wanting s.e.x night and day, then rushed off again.

To one side, Philocrates as my hero, Moschion, interjected adolescent bile, sitting on a costume basket covered in a blanket to represent a couch. Davos, the ghost, was concealed in a portable oven. From time to time he leant out to address Moschion -- the only person who could 'see' him. The ghost then became worried because Tranio was about to light a fire in the oven: sophisticated stuff. You can see why I had been proud of it. Not that the play mattered to me now. I was about to confront the killer; I had bile in my mouth.

Being set on fire was nothing to what I intended for Tranio for frustrating my enquiries. As for Grumio, I noted with relish that in provincial locations criminal executions usually take place in the local arena. I glanced up at the garrison commander. I wondered if he held the right to award the death penalty. Probably not. But the governor, Ulpius Traia.n.u.s, would.

Davos let out a terrific shriek, which most characters on-stage ignored. Clutching the seat of his ghostly robe, he ran off through the gate as if alight. The crowd really loved seeing a character in pain. The atmosphere was excellent.

'Falco, what's going on?' Davos exclaimed. While squashed in the oven he had had more reason than most to notice the long pause before we began.

'Crisis!' I said tersely. Davos looked startled, but evidently realised what sort of crisis it must be.

On-stage, Phrygia and Byrria had appeared from the far gate entrance. They were shooing away the two 'slaves' in order to have a sly chat in the kitchen about young Moschion. Tranio and Grumio ran off, according to my stage directions, in opposite directions; fortuitously, that put them one in each side niche, unable to confer.

Moschion was hiding behind the oven so he could overhear his mother and girlfriend discussing him. It was meant to be a very funny scene. While the women tossed wit around, I breathed slowly to calm down.

Soon, however, the clowns were back on-stage again. Suddenly I began to worry that I had misjudged Tranio. I had made a mistake.

I muttered to Musa, 'This isn't going to work...'