Last Act In Palmyra mdf-6 Page 22

  There was no performance; we were having to wait for the theatre behind a local group who had the run of the stage fora week doing something proclamatory with drumbeats and harps. I could hear the throb of their music as I walked through the camp to attend my tryst. By then I was starving. Chremes and Phrygia dined late. At my own bivouac Helena and Musa, who were not included in my invitation, had made a point of tucking into a lavish spread while I hung about waiting to go. Outside the tents I passed on the way happy people who had already eaten were tipsily waving beakers or spitting olive stones after me.

  It must have been perfectly obvious where and why I was going, for I had my napkin in one hand and the good guest's gift of an amphora under the other arm. I wore my best tunic (the one with least moth holes) and had combed the desert grit out of my hair. I felt strangely conspicuous as I ran the gauntlet of the rows of long black tents that we had pitched in nomad fashion at right angles to the track. I noticed that Byrria's tent lay in near-darkness. Both Twins were outside theirs, drinking with Plancina. No sign of Afrania tonight. As I passed, I thought one of the clowns stood up and silently stared after me.

  When I arrived at the manager's tent, my heart sank.

  Chremes and Phrygia were deep in some unexplained wrangle and the dinner was not even ready yet. They were such an odd, ill-assorted couple. By firelight Phrygia's face appeared more gaunt and unhappy than ever as she swooped about like a very tall Fury who had some harsh torments lined up for sinners. As she made desultory motions towards eventually feeding me I tried to be affable, even though my reception was offhand. Slouching outside with a furious scowl, Chremes looked older too, his striking looks showing signs of early ruin, with deep hollows in his face and a wine gut flowing over his belt.

  He and I opened my amphora furtively while Phrygia crashed platters inside the tent.

  'So what's the mystery, young Marcus?'

  'Nothing really. I just wanted to consult you again over this search for your murderer.'

  'Might as well consult a camel-driver's hitching post!' cried Phrygia from indoors."

  'Consult away!' boomed the manager, as if he had not heard his jaded consort. Probably after twenty years of their angry marriage his ears were genuinely selective.

  'Well, I've narrowed the field of suspects but I still need the vital fact that will pin this bastard down. When the tambourinist died I had hoped for extra clues, but Ione had so many menfriends that sorting them out is hopeless.'

  Without appearing to watch him, I checked Chremes for a reaction. He seemed oblivious to my subtle suggestion that he might have been one of the girl's 'friends'. Phrygia knew better, and popped out of the tent again to supervise our conversation. She had transformed herself into a gracious hostess for the night with a few deft touches: a flowing scarf, probably silk, thrown over her shoulders dramatically; silver earrings the size of spoonbowls, daring swathes of facepaint. She had also switched on a more attentive manner as she produced our food with a lazy flourish.

  Despite my fears, the meal was impressive: huge salvers of Eastern delicacies decorated with olives and dates; warmed bread; grains, pulses and spiced meats; small bowls of sharp pastes for dipping; plenty of salt and pickled fish from Lake

  Tiberias. Phrygia served with an offhand manner, as if she was surprised by her own success in concocting the feast. Both hosts implied that food was incidental to their lives, though I noticed that all they ate was of the best.

  Their travelling dinnerset was one of bold ceramics, with heavy metal drinking cups and elegant bronze servingware. It was like dining with a family of sculptors, people who knew shape and quality; people who could afford style.

  The domestic quarrel had gone into abeyance; probably not abandoned, but deferred.

  'The girl knew what she was doing,' Phrygia commented on Ione, neither bitter nor condemning.

  I disgreed. 'She can't have known she would be killed for it.' Minding my manners, for the mood seemed more formal than I was used to, I scooped up as many tastings as I could fit in my feeding bowl without looking greedy. 'She enjoyed life too much to give it up. But she didn't fight back. She wasn't expecting what happened at the pool.'

  'She was a fool to go there!' Chremes exclaimed. 'I can't understand it. She thought the man she was meeting had killed Heliodorus, so why risk it?'

  Phrygia tried to be helpful: 'She was just a girl. She thought no one who loathed him could have the same reason for loathing her. She didn't understand that a killer is illogical and unpredictable. Marcus – ' we were on first-name terms apparently ' – enjoy yourself. Have plenty.'

  'So do you think', I asked, manipulating a honey dip on my flat bread, 'that she wanted to let him know she had identified him?'

  'I'm sure she did,' Phrygia answered. I could tell she had been thinking this through for herself; perhaps she had wanted to feel certain her own husband could not be involved. 'She was attracted by the danger. But the little idiot had no real idea this man would see her as a threat. She was not the type to blackmail him, though he would probably suspect it. Knowing Ione, she thought it was a good giggle.'

  'So the killer would have felt she was laughing at him. The worst thing she could have done,' I groaned. 'What about the playwright? Did she have no sense of regret that Heliodorus had been removed from society?'

  'She didn't like him.'

  'Why? I heard he once made a play for her?'

  'He made a play for anything that moved,' said Chremes. According to what I had heard, this was rich coming from him. 'We were always having to rescue the girls from his clutches.'

  'Oh? Was it you who rescued Byrria?'

  'No. I would have said she could take care of herself.'

  'Oh would you!' Phrygia exclaimed, with a scornful note. Chremes set his jaw.

  'Did you know about Heliodorus trying to rape Byrria?' I asked Phrygia.

  'I may have heard something.'

  'There's no need to be secretive. She told me herself.' I noticed that Chremes was stuffing his bowl with seconds, so I leaned forward too and gathered up more.

  'Well, if Byrria told you… I knew about it because she came to me in great distress afterwards, wanting to leave the company. I persuaded her to stay on. She's a good little actress. Why should she let a bully destroy a promising career?'

  'Did you say anything to him?'

  'Naturally!' muttered Chremes through another mouthful of bread. 'Trust Phrygia!'

  Phrygia rounded on him. 'I knew you would never do it!' He looked shifty. I felt shifty myself, without any reason. 'He was impossible. He had to be dealt with. You should have kicked him out then and there.'

  'So you warned him?' I prompted, licking sauce off my fingers.

  'It was more of a threat than a warning!' I could believe that. Phrygia was some force. But in view of what Ribes had told me, I wondered if she really would have kicked out the playwright while she thought he might know something about her missing child. She seemed definite, however. 'I told him, one more wrong move and he could no longer rely on Chremes to be soft; he would march. He knew I meant it too.'

  I glanced at Chremes. 'I was growing extremely dissatisfied with the man,' he declared, as if it was all his idea. I hid a smile as he made the best of a losing situation. 'I was certainly ready to take my wife's advice.'

  'But when you reached Petra he was still with the company?'

  'On probation!' said Chremes.

  'On notice!' snapped Phrygia.

  I decided I could risk a more delicate subject. 'Davos hinted you had good reason to take against him anyway, Phrygia?'

  'Oh, Davos told you that story, did he?' Phrygia's tone was hard. I thought Chremes sat up fractionally. 'Good old Davos!' she raved.

  'He didn't pass on details. As a friend, he was angry about Heliodorus tormenting you. He only spoke to illustrate what a bastard the man had been,' I muttered, trying to soften the atmosphere.

  Phrygia was still in a huff. 'He was a bastard all right.' />
  'I'm sorry. Don't upset yourself- '

  'I'm not upset. I saw exactly what he was. All talk – like most men.'

  I glanced at Chremes, as if appealing for help to understand what she was saying. He lowered his voice in a useless attempt at sensitivity. 'According to him, he had some information about a relative Phrygia has been trying to trace. It was a trick, in my opinion -'

  'Well, we'll never know now, will we?' Phrygia blazed angrily.

  I knew when to retreat. I let the subject drop.

  I savoured some nuggets of meat in a hot marinade. Evidently the tattered appearance of the troupe as a whole belied how well its leading players lived. Phrygia must have invested lavishly in peppers while she travelled around, and even in Nabataea and Syria, where there were no middlemen to pay if you bought direct from the caravans, such spices were expensive. Now I could understand more fully the mutters of rebellion amongst the stagehands and musicians. Frankly, given the meagre cut I was awarded as playwright, I could have gone on strike myself. I was developing a fascinating picture of my predecessor's situation during those last days of his life. At Petra he had been a marked man. Davos had told me previously that he had given Chremes an ultimatum to dismiss the scribe. Now Phrygia said she had done the same, despite the hold Heliodorus had tried to apply using the whereabouts of her missing child.

  Having taken over his job and gained some insight into his feelings, I almost felt sorry for Heliodorus. Not only was he badly paid and his work hated, but his career with the company was firmly under threat.

  The atmosphere had relaxed enough for me to speak again. 'So really, by the time you hit Petra, Heliodorus was on his way out?'

  Phrygia confirmed it. Chremes was silent, but that meant nothing.

  'Did everyone know that he was being given the heave-ho?'

  Phrygia laughed. 'What do you think?'

  Everyone knew.

  I found it interesting. If Heliodorus had been so visibly under threat, it was highly unusual that somebody had snapped. Normally, once a troublemaking colleague is known to have attracted attention from management, everyone else relaxes. When the thieving cook is about to be sent back to the slave market, or the dozy apprentice is to be packed off home to mother at last, the rest just like to sit back and watch. Yet even with Heliodorus on the hop, somebody still could not wait.

  Who could hate him so much they wanted to risk all by killing him when he was leaving anyway? Or was it a case where his very leaving caused the problem? Did he possess something, or know something, that he was starting to use as a lever? If I go, I take the money!…If I go, I tell all… Or even, If I go, I don't tell, and you'll never find your child? The issue of the child was too sensitive to probe.

  'Did anyone owe him a debt? One they would have to repay if he left?'

  'He wouldn't lend a copper, even if he had one,' Phrygia told me.

  Chremes added in a morose tone, 'The way he drank, if his purse ever contained anything, it all went on the wine.' Thoughtfully, we both drained our goblets, with that air of extreme sense men acquire when discussing a fool who can't handle it.

  'Did he owe anyone himself?'

  Phrygia answered: 'No one would lend to him, mainly because it was obvious they would never get it back.' One of the simpler, and more reliable, laws of high finance.

  Something niggled me. Tranio lent him something, I believe?'

  'Tranio?' Chremes laughed briefly. 'I doubt it! Tranio's never had anything worth borrowing, and he's always broke!'

  'Were the clowns on good terms with the playwright?'

  Chremes discussed them happily enough. 'They had an on-off friendship with him.' Again I had a sense that he was hedging. 'Last time I noticed they were all at loggerheads. Basically he was a loner.'

  'You're sure of that? And what about Tranio and Grumio? However they look on the surface, I suspect both of them are complex characters.'

  'They're good boys,' Phrygia rebuked me. 'Lots of talent.'

  Talent was her measure for everyone. For talent she would forgive a great deal. Maybe it made her judgement unreliable. Even though Phrygia shivered at the thought of harbouring a murderer, maybe a usefully talented comedian with the ability to improvise would seem too valuable to hand over to justice if his only crime was eliminating an unpleasant hack who couldn't write.

  I smiled pleasantly. 'Do you know how the Twins were applying their talent when Heliodorus went up Dushara's mountain?'

  'Oh stop it, Falco! They never did it.' I had definitely offended against Phrygia's code of company behaviour: good boys never did bad things. I loathed that kind of shortsightedness, though in the world of informing it was nothing new.

  'They were packing their bags,' Chremes told me, with an attitude that suggested he was being more impartial and reasonable than his wife. 'Same as everyone else.'

  'Did you see them doing it?'

  'Of course not. I was packing mine.'

  According to this weak theory the entire group would have alibis. I did not bother to ask where he thought Davos, Philocrates and Congrio might have been. If I wanted to be bamboozled, I could ask the suspects individually in the hope that the murderer at least would be inventive in his lies. 'Where were you staying?'

  'The others were in an indifferent rooming house. Phrygia and I had found a slightly better place.' It fitted. They always liked to pretend we were one big share-alike family; but they preferred to have their comforts. I wondered if Heliodorus had ragged them about this snobbery.

  I remembered Grumio saying something. 'According to Grumio, all a clown needs are a cloak, a strigil and oil flask, and a wallet for his takings. On that basis, a clown's trappings could be flung together pretty rapidly.'

  'Grumio's all fantasy,' Chremes mourned, shaking his head. 'It makes him a wonderful artiste, but you have to know it's just talk.'

  Phrygia was losing patience with me. 'So where is all this getting you, Falco?'

  'It's filling in the picture helpfully.' I could take a hint. I had been munching their wonderful titbits until I could hold no more. It was time to go home and make my tent companions jealous by happily belching and describing the goodies. 'That was quite a feast! I'm grateful…'

  I made the usual offers of they must come over to us sometime (with the usual underlying suggestion that all they might get would be two winkles on a lettuce leaf), then I turned to leave.

  'Oh, just tell me one more thing. What happened to the playwright's personal property after he died?' I knew Heliodorus must have owned more than Helena and I had acquired with the play box.

  'There wasn't much,' said Chremes. 'We picked out anything of value – a ring and a couple of inkstands – then I gave his few rags to Congrio.'

  'What about his heirs?'

  Phrygia laughed her dismissive laugh. 'Falco, nobody in a travelling theatre company has heirs!'

  Chapter XLIV

  Davos stood behind the tree under which he had pitched his tent. He was doing what a man does when it's night, when he thinks there is nobody about, and he can't be bothered to walk further off into open countryside. The camp had fallen silent; so had the distant town. He must have heard my feet crunching up the stony track. After quaffing my share of my amphora, I was in dire need of relief myself, so I greeted him, walked up alongside, and helped water his tree.

  'I'm very impressed with your Hercules.'

  'Wait until you see my bloody Zeus!'

  'Not in the same play?'

  'No, no. Once Chremes thinks of one "Frolicking Gods" farce, we tend to get given a run of them.'

  A huge moon had risen over the uplands. The Syrian moon seemed bigger, and the Syrian stars more numerous, than those we had back home in Italy. This, with the restless wind that always hummed around Abila, gave me a sudden, poignant feeling of being lost in a very remote place. To avoid it, I kept talking. 'I've just been for a meal with our gregarious actor-manager and his loving spouse.'

  'They normally put on a good s
pread.'

  'Wonderful hospitality… Do they do this often?'

  Davos chuckled. He was not a snob. 'Only for the right strata of society!'

  'Aha! I'd never been invited before. Have I come up in the world, or was I just lumbered originally with the backwash of disapproval for my scribbling predecessor?'

  'Heliodorus? He was asked, once, I believe. He soon lost his status. Once Phrygia got the measure of him, that was the end of it.'

  'Would that be when he claimed to know where her offspring might be?'

  Davos gave me a sharp look when I mentioned this. Then he commented, 'She's stupid to look!'

  I rather agreed with that. 'The child's probably dead, or almost certainly won't want to know.'

  Davos, in his dour way, said nothing.

  We finished the horticulture, tightened our belts in the time-honoured manner, casually stuck our thumbs in them, and sauntered back to the track. A stagehand came by, saw us looking innocent, immediately guessed what we must have been doing, got the idea himself, and vanished sideways behind somebody else's tent looking for the next tree. We had started a craze.

  Without comment, Davos and I waited to see what would happen, since the next tent was clearly occupied and a desperate pee tends to be audible. A muffled voice soon shouted in protest. The stagehand scuttled guiltily on his way. Silence fell again.

  We stood on the path while the breeze bustled around us. A tent roof flapped. Somewhere in the town a dog howled mournfully. Both of us raised our faces to the wind, absorbing the night's atmosphere contemplatively. Davos was not normally one to chat, but we were two men with some mutual respect who had met at night, neither ready for sleep. We spoke together quietly, in a way that at other times might have been impossible. 'I'm trying to fill in missing facts,' I said. 'Can you remember what you were doing in Petra when Heliodorus wandered up to the High Place?'