Last Act In Palmyra mdf-6 Read online

  'Any intense relationships?'

  'Frankly,' he admitted, 'no!'

  'I'm plotting everyone's movements yesterday evening. You're easy to rule out, of course. I know you were delighting the crowds. That was all night?' The question was routine. He nodded. Having witnessed him on his barrel myself on two or three occasions last evening, that ended it. 'Tranio tells me he was with Afrania. But did he have a similar friendship with Ione too?'

  'That's right.'

  'Special?'

  'No. He just slept with her.' Helena would say that was special. Wrong; I was being romantic about my beloved. Helena had been married, so she knew the facts of life.

  'When he wasn't sleeping with Afrania?' I said dourly.

  'Or when Ione wasn't sleeping with someone else!' Grumio seemed troubled about his partner. I could see he had a personal interest. He had to share Tranio's tent. Before he next passed out after a few drinks, he needed to know whether Tranio might stick his head in a water pail. 'Is Tranio cleared? What does Afrania say?'

  'Oh she supports Tranio.'

  'So where does that leave you, Falco?'

  'Up a palm tree, Grumio!'

  We spent the rest of that day, with the help of Musa's Nabataean colleagues, organising a short-notice funeral. Unlike Heliodorus at Petra, Ione was at least claimed, honoured and sent to the gods by her friends. The affair was more sumptuous than might have been expected. She had a popular send-off. Even strangers made donations for a monument. People in the entertainment community had heard of her death, though not the true manner of it. Only Musa and I and the murderer knew that. People thought she had drowned; most thought she had drowned inflagrante, but I doubt if Ione would have minded that.

  Naturally The Arbitration went ahead that night as planned. Chremes dragged out the old lie about 'She would have wanted us to continue…" I hardly knew the girl but I believed all Ione would have wanted was to be alive. However, Chremes could be certain we would pack the arena. The poolside voyeur in the filthy shirt was bound to have spread our company's notoriety.

  Chremes proved to be right. A sudden death was perfect for trade – a fact I personally found bad for my morale.

  We travelled on next day. We crossed the city before dawn. At first repeating our journey towards the sacred pools, we left by the North Gate. At the Temple of Nemesis once more we thanked the priests who had given Ione her last resting place, and paid them to oversee setting up her monument alongside the road. We had commissioned a stone plaque, in the Roman manner, so other musicians passing through Gerasa would pause and remember her.

  I know that, with the priests' permission, Helena and Byrria covered their heads and went together into the temple. When they prayed to the dark goddess of retribution, I can assume what they asked.

  Then, still before dawn, we took the great trade road that ran west into the Jordan Valley and on to the coast. This was the road to Pella.

  As we journeyed there was one notable difference. In the early hours of morning, we were all hunched and silent. Yet I knew that an extra sense of doom had befallen us. Where the company had once seemed to carry lightly its loss of Heliodorous, Ione's death left everybody stricken. For one thing, he had been highly unpopular; she had had friends everywhere. Also, until now people may have been able to pretend to themselves that Heliodorus could have been murdered in Petra by a stranger. Now there was no doubt: they were harbouring a killer. All of them wondered where he might strike next.

  Our one hope was that this fear would drive the truth into the light.

  Chapter XXXII

  Pella: founded by Seleucus, Alexander's general. It possessed an ancient and highly respectable history, and a modern, booming air. Like everywhere else it had been pillaged in the Rebellion, but had bounced back cheerfully. A little honey-pot, aware of its own importance.

  We had moved north and west to much more viable country that produced textiles, meat, grain, wood, pottery, leather and dyes. The export trade up the River Jordan valley may have reduced during the Judaean troubles, but it was reviving now. Old Seleucus knew how to pick a site. Pella straddled a long spur of the lush foothills, with a fabulous view across the valley. Below the steep-sided domed acropolis of the Hellenic foundation, Romanised suburbia was spreading rapidly through a valley that contained a crisply splashing spring and stream. They had water, pasture, and merchants to prey off: all a Decapolis city needed.

  We had been warned about a bitter feud between the Pellans and their rivals across the valley in Scythopolis. Hoping for fights in the streets, we were disappointed, needless to say. On the whole, Pella was a dull, well-behaved little city. There was, however, a large new colony of Christians there, people who had fled when Titus conquered and destroyed Jerusalem. The native Pellans now seemed to spend their energy picking on them instead.

  With their wealth, which was quite enviable, the Pellans had built themselves smart villas nuzzling the warm city walls, temples for every occasion, and all the usual public buildings that show a city thinks itself civilised. These included a small theatre, right down beside the water.

  The Pellans obviously liked culture. Instead we gave them our company favourite, The Pirate Brothers, an undemanding vehicle for our shocked actors to walk through.

  'No one wants to perform. This is crass!' I grumbled, as we dragged out costumes that evening.

  'This is the East,' answered Tranio.

  'What's that supposed to mean?'

  'Expect a full house tonight. News flashes around here. They will have heard we had a death at our last venue. We're well set up.'

  As he spoke of Ione I gave him a sharp look, but there was nothing exceptional in his behaviour. No guilt. No relief, if he was feeling he had silenced an unwelcome revelation from the girl. No sign any longer of the defiance I had thought he exhibited when I questioned him at Gerasa. Nor, if he noticed me staring, did he show any awareness of my interest.

  Helena was sitting on a bale sewing braid back on to a gown for Phrygia (who in turn was holding nails for a stagehand mending a piece of broken scenery). My lass bit through her thread, with little thought for the safety of her teeth. 'Why do you think Easterners have lurid tastes, Tranio?'

  'Fact,' he said. 'Heard of the Battle of Carrhae?' It was one of Rome's famous disasters. Several legions under Crassus had been massacred by the legendary Parthians, our foreign policy lay in ruins for decades afterwards, the Senate was outraged, then more plebeian soldiers' lives had been chucked away in expeditions to recapture lost military standards: the usual stuff. 'On the night after their triumph at Carrhae,' Tranio told us, 'the Parthians and Armenians all sat down to watch The Bacchae of Euripides.'

  'Strong stuff, but a night at a play seems a respectable way to celebrate a victory,' said Helena.

  'What,' Tranio demanded bitterly, 'with the severed head of Crassus kicked around the stage?'

  'Juno!' Helena blanched.

  'The only thing we could do to please people better,' Tranio continued, 'would be Laureolus with a robber king actually crucified live in the last act.'

  'Been done,' I told him. Presumably he knew that. Like Grumio, he was putting himself forward as a student of drama history. I was about to enter into a discussion, but he was keeping himself aloof from me now and swiftly made off.

  Helena and I exchanged a thoughtful look. Was Tranio's delight in these lurid theatrical details a reflection of his own involvement in violence? Or was he an innocent party, merely depressed by the deaths in the company?

  Unable to fathom his attitude, I filled in time before the play by asking in the town about Thalia's musician, without luck, as usual.

  However, this did provide me with an unexpected chance to do some checking up on the wilfully elusive Tranio. As I sauntered back to camp, I happened to come across his girlfriend Afrania, the tibia-player. She was having trouble shaking off a group of Pellan youths who were following her. I didn't blame them, for she was a luscious armful with the dangerous habit
of looking at anything masculine as if she wanted to be followed home. They had never seen anything like her; I had not seen much like it myself.

  I told the lads to get lost, in a friendly fashion, then when this had no effect I resorted to old-fashioned diplomacy: hurling rocks at them while Afrania screamed insults. They took the hint; we congratulated ourselves on our style; then we walked together, just in case the hooligans found reinforcements and came after us again.

  Once she regained her breath, Afrania suddenly stared at me. 'It was true, you know.'

  I guessed what she meant, but played the innocent. 'What's that?'

  'Me and Tranio. He really was with me that night.'

  'If you say so,' I said.

  Having chosen to talk to me, she seemed annoyed that I didn't believe her. 'Oh, don't be po-faced, Falco!'

  'All right. When I asked you, I just gained the impression,' I told her frankly, 'there was something funny going on.' With girls like Afrania I always liked to play the man of the world. I wanted her to understand I had sensed the touchy atmosphere when I questioned the pair of them.

  'It's not me,' she assured me self-righteously, tossing back her rampant black curls with a gesture that had a bouncing effect on her thinly clad bosom as well.

  'If you say so.'

  'No, really. It's that idiot Tranio.' I made no comment. We were nearing our camp. I knew there was unlikely to be another opportunity to persuade Afrania to confide in me; there was unlikely to be another occasion when she needed rescuing from men. Normally Afrania accepted all comers.

  'Whatever you say,' I repeated in a sceptical tone. 'If he was with you, then he's cleared of murdering Ione. I assume you wouldn't lie about that. After all, she was supposed to be your friend.'

  Afrania made no comment on that. I knew there had been a degree of rivalry between them, in fact. What she did say amazed me. 'Tranio was with me all right. He asked me to deny it though.'

  'Jupiter! Whatever for?'

  She had the grace to look embarrassed. 'He said it was one of his practical jokes, to get you confused.'

  I laughed bitterly. 'It takes less than that to get me confused,' I confessed. 'I don't get it. Why should Tranio put himself on the spot for a killing? And why should you be a party to it?'

  'Tranio never killed Ione,' Afrania said self-righteously. 'But don't ask me what the silly bastard thought he was up to. I never knew.'

  The practical joke idea seemed so far-fetched I reckoned it was just a line Tranio had come up with for Afrania. But I was hard-pressed to think of another reason why he would want her to lie. The only slim possibility might be drawing the heat away from someone else. But Tranio would need to owe someone a truly enormous debt if he would risk being accused of a murder he had not committed.

  'Has anyone done Tranio any big favours recently?'

  'Only me!' quipped the girl. 'Going to bed with him, I mean.'

  I grinned appreciatively, then quickly changed tack: 'Do you know who Ione might have been meeting at the pools?'

  Afrania shook her head. 'No. That's the reason she and I had a few words sometimes. The person I used to reckon she had her eye on was Tranio.'

  Very convenient. Here was Tranio being fingered as a possible associate of the dead girl just when he was also being given a firm alibi. 'Yet it couldn't be him,' I concluded, with a certain dryness, 'because wonderful Tranio was doing acrobatic tricks with you all night.'

  'He was!' retorted Afrania. 'So where does that leave you, Falco? Ione must have been up to it with the whole company!'

  Not much help to the sleuth trying to fix who had murdered her.

  As our waggons came in sight, Afrania rapidly lost interest in talking to me. I let her go, wondering whether to have another talk with Tranio, or whether to pretend to forget him. I decided to leave him unchallenged, but to observe him secretly.

  Helena always reckoned that was the informer's lazy way out. However, she would not be hearing about this. Unless it was essential, I never told Helena when I had gathered information from a very pretty girl.

  If the Pellans were baying for blood they held their vile tastes well in check. In fact they behaved with quiet manners during our performance of The Pirate Brothers, sat in neat rows eating honeyed dates, and applauded us gravely afterwards. Pellan women mobbed Philocrates in sufficient numbers to keep him insufferable; Pellan men mooned after Byrria but were satisfied with the orchestra girls; Chremes and Phrygia were invited to a decent dinner by a local magistrate. And the rest of us were paid for once.

  In other circumstances we might have stayed longer at Pella, but Ione's death had made the whole company restless. Luckily the next town lay very close, just across the Jordan Valley. So we moved on immediately, making the short journey to Scythopolis.

  Chapter XXXIII

  Scythopolis, previously known as Nysa after its founder, been renamed to cause confusion and pronunciation difficulties, but otherwise lacked eccentricity. It held a commanding position on the main road up the west bank of the Jordan, drawing income from that. Its features were those we had come to expect: a high citadel where the Greeks had originally planted their temples, with more modern buildings spreading fast down the slopes. Surrounded by hills, it was set back from the River Jordan, facing Pella across the valley, Once again, signs of the famous feud between the two towns were disappointingly absent.

  By now the places we visited were starting to lose their individuality. This one called itself the chief city of the Decapolis, hardly a distinguishing feature since half of them assumed that title; like most Greek towns, they were a shameless lot. Scythopolis was as large as any of them, which meant not particularly large to anybody who had seen Rome.

  For me, however, Scythopolis was different. There was one aspect of this particular city that made me both anxious to come here, and yet full of dread. During the Judaean Revolt, it had been the winter quarters of Vespasian's Fifteenth Legion. That legion had now left the province, reassigned to Pannonia once its commander had made himself Emperor and hiked back to Rome to fulfil a more famous destiny. Even now, however, Scythopolis seemed to have a more Roman atmosphere than the rest of the Decapolis. Its roads were superb. There was a cracking good bathhouse built for the troops. As well as their own minted coins, shops and stalls readily accepted denaru. We heard more Latin than anywhere else in the East. Children with a suspiciously familiar cast of feature tumbled in the dust.

  This atmosphere upset me more than I admitted. There was a reason. I had a close interest in the town's military past.

  My brother Festus had served in the Fifteenth Apollinans, his final posting before he became one of the fatalities of Judaea. That last season before he died, Festus must have been here.

  So Scythopolis does stay in my memory. I spent a lot of time there walking about on my own, thinking private thoughts.

  Chapter XXXIV

  I was drunk.

  I was so drunk even I could hardly pretend I had not noticed. Helena, Musa and their visitor, all sitting demure around the fire outside our tent waiting for me to come home, must have summed up the situation at once. As I carefully placed my feet in order to approach my welcome bivouac, I realised there was no chance of reaching it unobserved. They had seen me coming; best to brazen it out. They were watching every step. I had to stop thinking about them so I could concentrate on remaining upright. The flickering blur that must be the fire warned me that on arrival I would probably pitch face first into the burning sticks.

  Thanks to a ten-year career of debauched living, I made it to the tent at what I convinced myself was a nonchalant stroll. Probably about as nonchalant as a fledgling falling off a roof finial. No one commented.

  I heard, rather than saw, Helena rising to her feet, then ray arm found its way around her shoulders. She helped me tiptoe in past our guests and tumble on to the bed. Naturally I expected a lecture. Without a word she made me sit up enough to take a long quaff of water.

  Three years had taug
ht Helena Justina a thing or two. Three years ago she was a primly scowling fury who would have spurned a man in my condition; now she made him take precautions against a hangover. Three years ago, she wasn't mine and I was lost…

  'I love you!'

  'I know you do.' She had spoken quietly. She was pulling off my boots for me. I had been lying on my back; she rolled me partly on my side. It made no difference to me as I could not tell which way up I was, but she was happy to have given me protection in case I choked. She was wonderful. What a perfect companion.

  'Who's that outside?'

  'Congrio.' I lost interest. 'He brought a message for you from Chremes about the play we are to put on here.' I had lost interest in plays too. Helena continued talking calmly, as if I were still rational.'I remembered we had never asked him about the night Ione died, so I invited him to sit with Musa and me until you came home.'

  'Congrio…' In the way of the drunk I was several sentences behind. 'I forgot Congrio.'

  'That seems to be Congrio's destiny,' murmured Helena. She was unbuckling my belt, always an erotic moment; blearily I enjoyed the situation, though I was helpless to react with my usual eagerness. She tugged the belt; I arched my back, allowing it to slither under me. Pleasantly I recalled other occasions of such unbuckling when I had not been so incapable.

  In a crisis Helena made no comment about the emergency. Her eyes met mine. I gave her the smile of a helpless man in the hands of a very beautiful nurse.

  Suddenly she bent and kissed me, though it cannot have been congenial. 'Go to sleep. I'll take care of everything,' she whispered against my cheek.

  As she moved away I gripped her fast. 'Sorry, fruit. Something I had to do…'

  'I know.' Understanding about my brother, there were tears in her eyes. I made to stroke her soft hair; my arm seemed impossibly heavy and nearly caught her a clout on the side of the brow. Seeing it coming, Helena held my wrist. Once I stopped flailing she laid my arm back tidily alongside me. 'Go to sleep.' She was right; that was safest. Sensing my silent appeal, she came back at the last minute, then kissed me again, briskly on the head. 'I love you too.' Thanks, sweetheart.