Last Act In Palmyra Read online

  ‘So what now?’ I asked when the tirade finally ended. ‘Are we all trooping back across the desert to Damascus without speaking a line?’

  ‘If only that were true!’ remarked Phrygia under her breath. More than ever she seemed to be nursing some immense grudge. Tonight it was even making her incapable of being constructive about her beloved company.

  Maybe that was because after all its vicissitudes, the company was finally cracking up. Chremes turned to me. His bluster was leaving him. ‘There was a bit of bother today among the lads and lasses.’ At first I assumed he was coming to me for help, in view of my success at turning around the stagehands’ and musicians’ strike. I was wrong, however. ‘The worst is, Philocrates has given notice. Having no stage available here is more than he can take.’

  I laughed briefly. ‘Don’t you mean he’s depressed by the lack of available women?’

  ‘That doesn’t help!’ Phrygia agreed sourly. ‘There is some suggestion he’s also upset because a certain party accused him of causing past events - ‘

  ‘The certain party was me,’ I admitted. ‘Just stirring. He can’t have taken it seriously.’

  ‘Don’t believe it!’ Thalia put in. ‘If Philocrates is the dot with the itchy piece and the big opinion of himself, he’s shitting elephant plop.’ She missed nothing. She had only been with us a few days, but already knew who was a real poser.

  ‘He’s not the only one anxious to leave, Falco.’ Phrygia sounded ready to give up herself. So was I, come to that. ‘A whole mob are demanding their severance pay.’

  ‘I fear the troupe is falling apart,’ Chremes told me. ‘We have one last night together, however.’ As usual he rallied with a flourish, though an unimpressive one. His ‘last night’ sounded like some grim party where your creditors turn up, the wine runs out, and a bad oyster dramatically lays you low.

  ‘Chremes, you said you had failed to get the theatre?’

  ‘Ah! I try never to fail, Falco!’ I tried to keep my face neutral. ‘There is a small Roman garrison,’ Chremes informed me, as if he had changed the subject. ‘Not very visible in the neighbourhood, perhaps, though I believe that may be policy. They are here to undertake road surveys -nothing to which the Palmyrenes could take exception.’

  ‘If the roads are heading out to the Euphrates, the Parthians may baulk.’ I had answered the political point without thinking. Then I guessed what the manager was saying and I groaned. ‘Oh, I don’t believe mis… Tell us the worst, Chremes!’

  ‘I happened to meet one of their officers. He has placed at our disposal a small amphitheatre which the troops have built for themselves.’

  I was horrified. ‘Dear gods! Have you ever attended a garrison theatre?’

  ‘Have you?’ As usual he dodged.

  ‘Plenty!’

  ‘Oh I’m sure we can manage -‘

  ‘You’re ignoring the little matter of having no front stage,’ Phrygia gloatingly broke in, as she confirmed the unsuitable venue Chremes had accepted. ‘A performance in the round. No fixed scenery, no exits and entrances, no trapdoors from below, and nowhere to hide the lifting machinery if we want to do flying scenes. Giving our all to an audience of bullies, all screaming for obscenities and supplying them if we don’t -‘

  ‘Hush!’ Helena soothed her. Then her common sense broke through. ‘I do see it may be hard to keep soldiers happy fora whole play…’

  ‘Torture!’ I rasped. ‘If they only chuck rocks, we’ll be lucky.’

  ‘This is where you come in,’ Chremes informed me eagerly.

  ‘I doubt it.’ I was planning to load the ox-cart and turn back to Damascus that night. ‘I think you’ll find this is where I back out.’

  ‘Marcus Didius, listen. You’ll be pleased by our idea.’ I doubted that too. ‘I’ve discussed this with the company and we all feel that what we need to hold the soldiers’ attention is something short, light, dramatic and above all, different.’

  ‘So what?’ I asked, wondering why Helena suddenly giggled behind her stole.

  Chremes for his part appeared to be blushing. ‘So we wondered if you were ready to let us rehearse your famous ghost play?’

  That was how my elegant creation, The Spook mho Spoke, came to receive its sole performance on a hot August evening, in the Palmyra garrison amphitheatre. If you can think of worse, I’d be intrigued to hear it. The soldiers, incidentally, only turned out at all because they had been told one of the support acts was a suggestive snake dancer.

  They got more than they bargained for. But then, so did we all.

  Chapter LXV

  One problem we faced was that as a result of all the derision people had poured on my idea, most of the play was not even written. All writers must know that sinking feeling, when the goods are demanded in the firm expectation of a delivery you know is impossible… But by now I was so professional that the mere lack of a script left me undeterred. We wanted the drama to have speed and bite; what better than to improvise?

  I soon knew that my play would not have to carry the entire evening: Thalia’s travelling sideshow had caught up with us.

  I first noticed something new when a lion cub appeared in our tent. He was sweet but ungainly, and so boisterous it was frightening. Investigation revealed extra waggons. One of them consisted of two large carts fixed together, on top of which loomed a massive structure shrouded in skins and sheets. ‘Whatever’s that?’

  ‘Water organ.’

  ‘You haven’t got an organist!’

  ‘You’re fixing that, Falco.’

  I cringed. ‘Don’t back that bet with money…’

  Among the new arrivals were one or two seedy characters from Thalia’s troupe in Rome. ‘My dancing partner arrived too,’ Thalia said: the famous snake she called ‘the big one’.

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘In charge of my keen new snakekeeper.’ She sounded as if she knew something the rest of us had missed. ‘Want to see?’

  We followed her to a waggon on the far side of camp. The lion cub gambolled after us. ‘What does keeping the snake entail?’ Helena enquired politely as we walked, keeping an eye on the cub.

  ‘Catching mice, or anything bigger, then poking them into the basket, preferably still alive. A large python needs a lot of lunch. Back in Rome, I had a gang of lads who brought rats to me. They liked to watch things being swallowed. We had some trouble once when there was a spate of lost cats in the Quirinal lanes. People wondered why their pet pussies kept disappearing… Zeno ate a baby ostrich once, but that was a mistake.’

  ‘How can you swallow a whole ostrich by mistake?’ I laughed.

  ‘Oh it wasn’t a mistake to Zeno!’ Thalia grinned. Fronto was owner of the circus then. He was livid.’ Fronto’s menagerie had a history of creatures finding unfortunate meals. Fronto himself had become one eventually. Thalia was still reminiscing: ‘Apart from losing the feathers, watching the long neck go in was the worst bit… and then we had Fronto creating. We could hardly pretend it hadn’t happened, what with the lump slowly gliding head first down inside Zeno, and the legs still sticking out. And of course they don’t always do this, but just to make sure Fronto couldn’t forget the loss, he spat out the bits that had once been the bones.’

  Helena and I were still gulping as we climbed into the waggon.

  The light was dim. A large rectangular basket, worryingly knocked about and with holes in it, stood in the back of the cart. ‘Bit of trouble on the journey,’ Thalia commented. ‘The keeper’s trying to find the baby a strong new cradle…’ I refrained from asking what the trouble had been, hoping the damage had resulted from ruts in the desert road rather than delinquent activity from the giant snake. Thalia lifted the lid and leaned in, affectionately stroking whatever the basket contained. We heard a sluggish rustle from deep within. ‘That’s my gorgeous cheeky darling… Don’t worry. He’s been fed. Anyway, he’s far too hot. He doesn’t want to move. Come and tickle him under the chin, Falco.’

  W
e peered in, then hastily withdrew. From what we could see of the big sleepy python, he was immense. Golden coils half as thick as a human torso were looped back and forth like a huge skein of loom wool. Zeno filled the basket, which was so big it would take several men to move it. Rough calculations told me Zeno must be fifteen to twenty feet long. More than I wanted to think about, anyway.

  ‘Phew! He must be too heavy to lift, Thalia!’

  ‘Oh I don’t lift him much! He’s tame, and he likes a lot of fuss, but if you get him too excited he starts thinking he’ll mate with something. I saw a snake run up a woman’s skirt once. Her face was a picture!’ Thalia cackled with raucous laughter. Helena and I smiled bravely.

  I had been leaning on a smaller basket. Suddenly I felt movement.

  ‘That’s Pharaoh.’ Thalia’s smile was not encouraging. ‘Don’t open the basket, Falco. He’s my new Egyptian cobra. I haven’t tamed him yet.’

  The basket jerked again and I sprang back.

  ‘Good gods, Thalia! What do you want a cobra for? I thought they were deadly venomous?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she replied offhandedly. ‘I want to liven up my stage act - but he’ll be a challenge!’

  ‘However do you manage to dance with him safely?’ Helena demanded.

  ‘I’m not using him yet!’ Even Thalia showed some wariness. ‘I’ll have to think about it on the way home to Rome. He’s gorgeous,’ she exclaimed admiringly. ‘But you don’t exactly say “Come to Mother!” and pick up a cobra for a cuddle… Some operators cut out their fangs, or even sew their mouths up, which means the poor darlings starve to death, of course. I haven’t decided whether I’ll milk his venom before a performance, or just use the easy method.’

  Full of foreboding, I felt obliged to ask: ‘What’s the easy method?’

  Thalia grinned. ‘Oh, just dancing out of range!’

  Glad to escape, we jumped down from the waggon and came face to face with the ‘keen new snakekeeper’. He had his sleeves rolled up and was dragging along one of the company costume trunks, presumably intended as the big python’s new bed. The lion cub rushed up to him, and he rolled it over to scratch its stomach. It was Musa. Knowing Thalia, I had half expected it.

  Musa looked unexpectedly competent as he dodged the big flailing paws, and the cub was ecstatic.

  I grinned. ‘Surely the last time I saw you, you were a priest? Now you’re an expert zookeeper!’

  ‘Lions and snakes arc symbolic,’ he answered calmly, as if he was thinking of starting a menagerie on the Petra High Place. I did not ask about him leaving us. I saw him glance diffidently at Helena, as if ensuring she was making a good recovery. She still looked pale. I slung an arm around her. I was not forgetting how serious her illness had been. Maybe I wanted to let it be known that any cosseting she needed would come from me.

  Musa seemed rather withdrawn, though not upset. He stepped up to the waggon where the snakes were kept and lifted something from a peg in the dark interior. ‘Look what I found waiting for me at a temple here, Falco.’ He was showing me a hat. ‘There is a letter from Shullay, but I have not read it yet.’

  The hat was a wide-brimmed, round-crowned, Greek-looking number, the sort you see on statues of Hermes. I sucked air through my teeth. ‘That’s a traveller’s headgear. Have you seen it before - travelling very fast downhill?’

  ‘Oh yes. I think it was on a murderer that day.’

  It did not seem the moment to tell Musa that according to Grumio he was the murderer himself. Instead I amused myself remembering Grumio’s absurd theory that Musa was some high-powered political agent, sent out by The Brother on a mission to destroy.

  Musa applied his contract killer’s skills to clearing up a pile of lion dung.

  Helena and Thalia set off back to our tent. I dallied behind. Musa, who had been grappled by the cub again, looked up long enough to meet my eyes.

  ‘Helena has recovered, but she was very sick. Sending Thalia with her mithridatium helped a lot. Thanks, Musa.’

  He disentangled himself from the fluffy, overactive little lion. He seemed quieter than I had been dreading, though he started to say, ‘I want to explain - ‘

  ‘Never explain, Musa. I hope you’ll dine with us tonight. Maybe you’ll have good news from Shullay to tell me.’ I clapped his shoulder as I turned to follow the others. ‘I’m sorry. Thalia’s an old friend. We let her have your section of the tent.’

  I knew that nothing had ever happened between him and Helena, but I was not stupid. I didn’t mind how much he cared about her, so long as he honoured the rules. The first rule was, I did not expose Helena by letting other men who hankered after her live in our house. ‘Nothing personal,’ I added cheerily. ‘But I don’t care for some of your pets!’

  Musa shrugged, smiling in return as he accepted it. ‘I am the snakekeeper. I have to stay with Zeno.’

  I took two strides, then turned back to him. ‘We missed you. Welcome back, Musa.’

  I meant that.

  Returning to Helena I happened to pass Byrria. I told her I had been to see the big python, recommended the experience, and said I was sure the keeper would be pleased to show her his menagerie. Well, you have to try.

  Chapter LXVI

  That night I was sitting outside our tent with Helena and Thalia, waiting for Musa to turn up for dinner. We were approached by Chremes and Davos, together with the long, gawky figure of Phrygia, apparently on their way to dine at one of their own tents. Chremes stopped for a discussion with me about an unresolved problem with my play. As we talked, with me paying as little attention as possible to the manager’s fussing, I overheard Phrygia muttering to Thalia: ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’

  Thalia laughed gruffly. ‘I wondered when you would ask!’

  I noticed that Helena applied herself to a tactful chat with Davos.

  Phrygia looked tense. ‘Somewhere in Italy? Or was it Greece?’

  ‘Try Tegea,’ stated Thalia. She had on her sardonic look again.

  Then Phrygia gasped as if she had been poked in the side with a spindle. ‘I need to talk to you!’

  ‘Well I’ll try and fit you in some time,’ Thalia promised unconvincingly. ‘I have to rehearse my snake dance.’ I happened to know she claimed never to rehearse her dance, partly because of the danger it entailed. ‘And the acrobats need a lot of supervision…’

  ‘This is cruelty!’ murmured Phrygia.

  ‘No,’ said Thalia in a tone that meant to be heeded. ‘You made your decision. If you’ve suddenly decided to change your mind after all these years, the other party deserves some warning. Don’t push me! Maybe I’ll introduce you after the play…’

  Chremes had given up trying to interest me in his troubles. Looking frustrated, Phrygia felt silent and allowed her husband to lead her away.

  I was not the only one who had overheard the intriguing snatch of conversation. Davos found some excuse to dally behind, and I heard him say to Thalia, ‘I remember Tegea!’ I felt Helena kick my ankle, and obediently joined her in pretending to be very busy laying out our meal. As usual Davos was being blunt. ‘She wants to find the baby.’

  ‘So I gathered,’ Thalia returned rather drily, tipping her head back and giving him a challenging stare. ‘A bit late! Actually, it’s not a baby any more.’

  ‘What happened?’ Davos asked.

  ‘When people give me unwanted creatures, I generally bring them up.’

  ‘It lived then?’

  ‘She was alive the last time I saw her.’ As Thalia informed Davos, Helena glanced at me. So Phrygia’s baby had been a girl. I suppose we had both already worked that out.

  ‘So she’s grown up now?’

  ‘A promising little artiste,’ Thalia said grittily. That too was no surprise to some of us.

  Seeming satisfied, Davos grunted, then went on his way after Chremes and Phrygia.

  ‘So! What happened at Tegea?’ I tackled our companion innocently when the coast was clear. Thalia would probably
have said that men are never innocent.

  She shrugged, pretending indifference. ‘Not a lot. It’s a tiny Greek town, just a blot on the Peloponnese.’

  ‘When were you there?’

  ‘Oh… how about twenty years ago?’

  ‘Really?’ We both knew exactly where the conversation was leading. ‘Would that have been about the time our stage manager’s wife missed her famous chance to play Medea at Epidaurus?’

  At this, Thalia stopped playing at being unconcerned and burst into guffaws. ‘Get away! She told you that?’

  ‘It’s common currency.’

  ‘Common codswallop! She’s fooling, Falco.’ Thalia’s tone was not unpleasant. She knew most people spend their lives deluding themselves.

  ‘So are you going to give us the real story, Thalia?’

  ‘I was just starting out. Juggling - and the rest!’ Her voice dropped, almost sadly. ‘Phrygia play Medea? Don’t make me laugh! Some slimy producer who wanted to get his hand up her skirt convinced her he could swing it, but it would never have happened. For one thing - you should know this, Falco -Greeks never allow women actresses.’

  ‘True.’ It was rare in Roman theatre too. But in Italy actresses had done mime plays for years, a vague cover for striptease acts. In groups like ours, with a manager like Chremes who was a pushover for anyone forceful, they could now earn a crust in speaking parts. But groups like ours never took part in the ancient Greek mainland festivals.

  ‘So what happened, Thalia?’

  ‘She was just a singer and dancer in the chorus. She was drifting about with grand ideas, just waiting for some bastard to con her into believing she would make the big time. In the end, becoming pregnant was a let-out.’