Last Act In Palmyra Part 6

Chapter XIII.

We were going to Bostra first, however, for we had to pick up the rest of the theatre group. That meant we were travelling right past the region where I wanted to search for Sophrona, well east of the Decapolis towns. But I was used to making journeys backwards. I never expected a logical life.

Trekking to Bostra gave me a clear idea of what I would say to Vespasian about this region if I ever reached home safely and had the chance. This was still Nabataea - still, therefore, outside the Empire, if Helena and I really wanted to frighten ourselves by thinking about how remote our location was. In fact, even on the well-maintained Nabataean roads, which had once belonged to the great Persian Empire, the trip turned out to be a dreary haul and took a good ten days. Northern Nabataea ran up in a long finger beside the Decapolis, making geographical neatness yet another reason for Rome to consider taking over this territory. A straight frontier down from Syria would look much better organised on a map.

We were heading into a highly fertile region; a potential grain basket for the Empire. Given that Rome was keen to gain control of the incense trade, I reckoned it would make good sense to s.h.i.+ft the trade routes eastwards to this northern capital, ignoring the Petrans' insistence that all caravans turn aside and stop there. Running the country from Bostra instead would provide a more pleasant centre of government, one with a kinder climate and closer links with civilisation. The people of Bostra would be amenable to such a change since it would enhance their current back-row status. And the uppity Petrans would be put in their place.

This wonderful theory of mine had nothing to do with the fact that the Petrans had bounced me out of town. I happen to believe that when you take over any new business, your first task should be to change the personnel so you can run things your own way, and with loyal staff.

The theory might never be implemented in my lifetime, but devising it gave me something to think about when I wanted to stop reading comedies.

Leaving behind us the harsh mountain barrier that enclosed Petra, we had first climbed through the spa.r.s.e local settlements, then reached more level ground. The desert rolled easily to the horizon on all sides. Everyone told us it was not real desert, compared to the wilderness of Arabia Felix -ironically named - or the terrible wastes beyond the River Euphrates, but it seemed barren and lonely enough for me. We felt we were crossing an old, old land. A land over which varied peoples had rolled like tides for centuries, and would continue to do so in war or peaceful settlement as long as time lasted. A land in which our present journeying was insignificant. It was impossible to tell whether the little crooked cairns of stones beside the road that marked the graves of nomads had been set up last week or several thousand years ago.

Gradually the rocky features diminished; boulders gave way to stones; the stones, which had spread the landscape like acres of roughly chopped nuts on a cooking board, turned into scatters, then were lost altogether in rich, dark, arable soil supporting wheat fields, vineyards and orchards. The Nabataeans conserved their meagre rainfall with a system of shallow terracing on each side of the wadis: wide shelves of ground were held back by low walls some forty or fifty feet apart, over which any surplus water ran off to the terrace below. It seemed successful. They grew wheat as well as barley. They had olives and grapes for oil and wine. Their eating fruit consisted of a lush mixture of figs, dates and pomegranates, whilst their most popular nuts - amongst a handsome variety - were almonds.

The whole atmosphere was different now. Instead of long nomad tents, hump-backed as caterpillars, we saw increasingly pretty houses, each set within its garden and smallholding. Instead of free-ranging ibex and rock-rabbits, there were tethered donkeys and goats.

Once we hit Bostra we were supposed to be meeting up with the remainder of Chremes' company. The group Helena and I had met in Petra were the chief members of the troupe, mainly actors. Various hangers-on, with most of their stage equipment, had been left behind in the north, which did seem friendly, in case the rest found a hostile welcome in the mountains. As far as the murder was concerned, I could virtually ignore them. It was on the first group that I needed to concentrate.

Quite early in the trip I had asked Chremes, 'Why did Heliodorus really go for that walk?' The scenario was still bothering me.

'It was like him to wander off. They all do it - minds of their own.'

'Was it because he wanted a drink, quietly, on his own?'

'Doubt it.' Chremes shrugged. He showed a distinct lack of interest in this death.

'Someone went with him anyway. Who was it?' A long shot, since I was asking the name of of the killer. the killer.

'n.o.body knows.'

'Everyone accounted for?' Needless to say, he nodded. I would check that later for myself. 'Someone else must have fancied a tipple though?' I pressed.

'They'd be out of luck then. Heliodorus never reckoned to share his jar.'

'Might the companion have had his own jar - or goatskin -that Heliodorus had his eye on?'

'Oh yes! That makes sense.'

Maybe the playwright had had an acquaintance n.o.body else knew about. 'Would Heliodorus have made friends with anybody in Petra, anybody outside your group?'

'I doubt that.' Chremes seemed fairly definite. 'The locals were reserved, and we don't mix much with merchants - or anyone else. We're a close-knit family; we find enough squabbles among ourselves without looking outside for more trouble. Besides, we hadn't been in the city long enough to make contacts.'

'I heard him going up the mountain. I felt he knew the person, he was with.' Chremes obviously realised where my questions were heading. 'That's right: what you say means he was killed by somebody from your group.'

That was when Chremes asked me directly to keep my eyes and ears open. He did not exactly commission me; that, with a fee at the end of it, would have been too much to hope for. But despite his initial reluctance to involve himself, if he was harbouring a killer he wanted to know who it was. People like to feel free to insult their companions or let them pay all of the wine bill without having to worry that it could annoy the kind of man who shoves his travelling companions face down in cold water until they stop breathing.

'Tell me about Heliodorus, Chremes. Did anyone in particular dislike him?' It had seemed a simple question.

'Hah! Everyone Everyone did!' scoffed Chremes. did!' scoffed Chremes.

That was a good start. The force with which he said it convinced me that every one of the group from Petra must be a suspect for killing the playwright. On the journey to Bostra, therefore, Helena and I had to think about all of them.

Chapter XIV.

Bostra was a black basalt city built in this blackly ploughed land. It flourished. It had commerce, but it generated much of its own prosperity. There was a fine town gate in distinctly Nabataean architecture, and the King owned a second palace here. To Romans it was alien in flavour - yet it was the kind of city we understood. Irascible donkey-drovers cursed us as we tried to decide where we were going. Shopkeepers looked out from ordinary lock-ups with calculating eyes, shouting at us to come in and see their merchandise. When we arrived, near evening, we were greeted by the familiar scent of woodsmoke from baths and ovens. The tempting odours from hot-food stalls were spicier, but the reek of the leather tannery was as disgusting as any at home, and the stuttering lamp oil in the slums smelled just as rancid as it does all over the Aventine.

At first we were unable to find the rest of the company. They were not at the caravanserai where they had been left. Chremes seemed reluctant to make enquiries openly, from which Helena and I gathered it was likely there had been trouble in his absence. Various members of our group set off to look for their colleagues in the city while we guarded the waggons and luggage. We set up our tent with Musa's silent help. We ate supper, then sat down to wait for the return of the others. It was our first chance to talk over our findings so far.

During the journey we had managed to survey individual members of the group by judiciously offering lifts on our waggon. Then, when Helena grew weary of my efforts at controlling our temperamental ox, she hopped off and invited herself into other transport. We had now made contact with most of them, though whether we had also made friends was less certain.

We. were considering everyone for possible motives -females too.

'A man did it,' I had explained cautiously to Helena. 'We heard him on the mountain. But you don't have to be cynical to know that a woman may have provided his reason.'

'Or bought the drink and devised the plan,' Helena agreed, as if she herself regularly did such things. 'What sort of motive do you think we are looking for?'

'I don't believe it can be money. No one here has enough of it. That leaves us with the old excuses - envy or s.e.xual jealousy.'

'So we have to ask people what they thought of the playwright? Marcus, won't they wonder why we keep enquiring?'

'You're a woman; you can be plain nosy. I shall tell them the killer must be one of our party and I'm worried about protecting you.'

'Load of mule-dung!' scoffed my elegant lady with one of the pungent phrases she had picked up from me.

I had already seen what the theatre troupe was like. We were dealing with a fickle, f.e.c.kless crowd here. We would never pin down any of them unless we set about it logically.

It had taken most of the trip just to work out who everyone was. Now we sat on a rug outside our tent. Musa was with us, though as usual he squatted slightly apart, not saying a word but calmly listening. There was no reason to hide our discussion from him so we talked in Greek.

'Right, let's survey the tattered cast list. They all look like stock characters, but I'm betting that not one of them is what they seem...'

The list had to be headed by Chremes. Encouraging us to investigate might exonerate him as a suspect - or it might mean he was cunning. I ran through what we knew about him: 'Chremes runs the company. He recruits members, chooses the repertoire, negotiates fees, keeps the cash box under his bed when there's anything in it worth guarding. His sole interest is in seeing that things run smoothly. It would take a really serious grievance to make him jeopardise the company's future. He realised that a corpse in Petra could land them all in jail, and his priority was to get them away. But we know he despised Heliodorus. Do we know why?'

'Heliodorus was no good,' Helena answered, impatiently.

'So why didn't Chremes simply pay him off?'

'Playwrights are difficult to find.' She kept her head down while she said it. I growled. I was not enjoying reading through the dead man's box of New Comedy. New Comedy had turned out to be as dire as Chremes had predicted. I was already tired of separated twins, wastrels jumping into blanket chests, silly old men falling out with their selfish heirs, and roguish slaves making pitiful jokes.

I changed the subject. 'Chremes hates his wife and she hates him. Do we know why? Maybe she had a lover -Heliodorus, say - so Chremes put his rival out of the way.'

'You would think that,' Helena sneered. 'I've talked to her. She yearns to star in serious Greek tragedy. She feels dragged down by having to play prost.i.tutes and long-lost heiresses for this ragged troupe.'

'Why? They get to wear the best dresses, and even the prost.i.tutes are always reformed in the last scene.' I was showing off my research.

'I gather she gives her all powerfully while longing for better things -- a woman's lot in most situations!' Helena told me drily. 'People tell me her speech when she gives up brothelkeeping and becomes a temple priestess is thrilling.'

'I can't wait to hear it!' In fact I'd be shooting out of the theatre to buy a cinnamon cake at a stall outside. 'She's called Phrygia, isn't she?' The players had all taken names from drama. This was understandable. Acting was such a despised profession any performer would a.s.sume a pseudonym. I was trying to think up one myself.

Phrygia was the company's somewhat elderly female lead. She was tall, gaunt, and flamboyantly bitter about life. She looked over fifty but we were a.s.sured by everybody that when she stepped on stage she could easily persuade an audience she was a beautiful girl of sixteen. They made much of the fact that Phrygia could really act - which made me nervous about the talents of the rest.

'Why does Chremes hate her?' I wondered. 'If she's good on stage she ought to be an a.s.set to his company.'

Helena looked dour. 'He's a man, and she is good. Naturally he resents it. Anyway, I gather he's always l.u.s.ting after more glamorous bits.'

'Well that would have explained it if he he had been found in the pool, and we had heard had been found in the pool, and we had heard Phrygia Phrygia luring him uphill.' It seemed irrelevant to Heliodorus. But something about Chremes had always bothered me. I thought about him more. 'Chremes himself plays the parts of tiresome old fellows - ' luring him uphill.' It seemed irrelevant to Heliodorus. But something about Chremes had always bothered me. I thought about him more. 'Chremes himself plays the parts of tiresome old fellows - '

'Pimps, fathers and ghosts,' Helena confirmed. It didn't help.

I gave up and tried considering the other actors. 'The juvenile lead is called Philocrates. Though he's not so juvenile if you look closely; in fact he creaks a bit. He takes on prisoners of war, lads about town, and one of the main set of twins in every farce which has that gruesome ident.i.ty mix-up joke.'

Helena's summary was swift: 'A dilettante handsome jerk!'

'He isn't my chosen dinner companion either,' I admitted. We had exchanged words on one occasion when Philocrates had watched me trying to corner my ox to harness it. The words were cool in the circ.u.mstances - which were that I asked his a.s.sistance, and he snootily declined. I had gathered it was nothing personal; Philocrates thought himself above ch.o.r.es that might earn him a kicked s.h.i.+n or a dirty cloak. He was high on our list to investigate further when we could brace up to an hour of insufferable arrogance. 'I don't know who he hates, but he's in love with himself. I'll have to find out how he got on with Heliodorus. Then there's Davos.'

'The opposite type,' Helena said. 'A gruff, tough professional. I tried to chat with him, but he's taciturn, suspicious of strangers, and I guess he rebuffs women. He plays the second male lead - boasting soldiers and such. I reckon he's good -he can swagger stylishly. And if Heliodorus was a liability as a writer, Davos wouldn't think much of it.'

'I'll watch my step then! But would he kill the man? Davos might have despised his work, but who gets shoved in a pool for bad writing?' Helena laughed at me suggestively.

'I rather took to Davos,' she grumbled, annoyed with herself for being illogical. Somehow I agreed with her and wanted Davos to be innocent. From what I knew of Fate, that probably put poor Davos at the top of the suspects list.

'Next we have the clowns, Tranio and Grumio.'

'Marcus, I find it hard to tell the difference between those two.'

'You're not meant to. In plays that have a pair of young masters who are twins, these two play their cheeky servants -also identical.'

We both fell silent. It was dangerous to view them as a pair. They were not twins; they were not even brothers. Yet of all the company they seemed most inclined to carry over their stage roles into normal life. We had seen them larking about on camels together, both playing tricks on the others. (Easy to do on a camel, for a camel will cause trouble for you without being asked.) They went around in tandem. They were the same slim build - underweight and light-footed. Not quite the same height. The slightly taller one, Tranio, seemed to play the flashy character, the know-all city wit; his apparent crony, Grumio, had to make do with being the country clown, the b.u.t.t of sophisticated jokes from the rest of the cast. Even without knowing them closely I could see that Grumio might grow tired of this. If so, however, surely he was more likely to put the boot into Tranio than strangle or drown the playwright?

'Is the clever one bright enough to get away with murder? Is he even as bright as he likes to think, in fact? And can the dopey one possibly be as dumb as he appears?'

Helena ignored my rhetoric. I put it down to the fact that only senators' sons have rhetoric tutors; daughters need only know how to twist around their fingers the senators they will marry and the bathhouse ma.s.seurs who will probably father those senators' sons.

I was feeling sour. An intellectual diet of The Girl from Andros The Girl from Andros, followed by The Girl from Santos The Girl from Santos, then The Girl from Perinthos The Girl from Perinthos, had not produced a sunny temperament. This turgid stuff might appeal to the kind of bachelor whose pick-up line is asking a girl where she comes from, but I had moved on from that two years ago when a certain girl from Rome decided to pick me up.

Helena smiled gently. She always knew what I was thinking. 'Well that's the men. There's no particularly striking motive there. So maybe the killer we heard was acting for somebody else. Shall we reconsider the women?'

'I'll always consider women!'

'Be serious.'

'Oh I was... Well, we've thought about Phrygia.' I stretched luxuriantly. 'That leaves the eavesdropping maid.'

'Trust you to spot the beauty at the bar counter!' Helena retorted. It was hardly my fault. Even for a bachelor who had had to stop asking strange women where they hailed from, this beauty was unmissable.

Her name was Byrria. Byrria was genuinely young. She had looks that would withstand the closest inspection, a perfect skin, a figure worth grabbing, a gentle nature, huge, glorious eyes...

'Perhaps Byrria wanted Heliodorus to give her some better lines?' wondered Helena far from rhapsodically.

'If Byrria needs anyone murdered, it's obviously Phrygia. That would secure her the good parts.'

I knew from my reading that in plays which could barely support one good female role, Byrria must be lucky to find herself a speaking part. Such meat as there was would be snaffled by Phrygia, while the young beauty could only watch yearningly. Phrygia was the stage manager's wife so the chief parts were hers by right, but we all knew who should should be the female lead. There was no justice. be the female lead. There was no justice.

'In view of the way all you men are staring,' said my beloved icily, 'I shouldn't wonder if Phrygia Phrygia would like would like Byrria Byrria removed!' removed!'

I was still searching for a motive for the playwright's death - though had I known just how long it would take me to find it I should have given up on the spot.

'Byrria didn't kill Heliodorus, but good looks like hers could well have stirred up strong feelings among the men, and then who knows?'

'I dare say you will be investigating Byrria closely,' said Helena.

I ignored the jibe. 'Do you think Byrria could have been after the scribe?'

'Unlikely!' scoffed Helena. 'Not if Heliodorus was as disgusting as everyone says. Anyway, your wondrous Byrria could take her pick of the pomegranates without fingering him. But why don't you ask her?'

'I'll do that.'

'I'm sure you will!'

I was not in the mood for a squabble. We had taken the discussion as far as we could, so I decided to abandon sleuthing and settled down on my back for a snooze.

Helena, who had polite manners, remembered our Nabataean priest. He had been sitting with us contributing total silence - his usual routine. Perhaps restraint was part of his religion; it would have been a tough discipline for me. 'Musa, you saw the murderer come down the mountain. Is there anybody in this group of travellers whom you recognise?'

She did not know I had already asked him, though she ought to have guessed. Musa answered her courteously anyway. 'He wore a hat, lady.'

'We shall have to look out for it,' replied Helena with some gravity.

I grinned at him, struck by a wicked possibility. 'If we can't solve this puzzle, we could set a trap. We could let it be known that Musa saw the murderer, hint that Musa was planning to identify him formally, then you and I could sit behind a rock, Helena, and we could see who comes - hatted or hatless - to shut Musa up.'

Musa received the suggestion as calmly as ever, with neither fear nor enthusiasm.

A few minutes later somebody did come, but it was only the company bill-poster.