Last Act in Palmyra (11 page)

‘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, feckless 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 prostitutes and long-lost heiresses for this ragged troupe.'

‘Why? They get to wear the best dresses, and even the prostitutes 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 assume 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 assured 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 asset to his company.'

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

‘Well that would have explained it if
he
had been found in the pool, and we had heard
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 –'

‘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 identity 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 circumstances – which were that I asked his assistance, and he snootily declined. I had gathered it was nothing personal; Philocrates thought himself above chores that might earn him a kicked shin 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 butt 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 masseurs who will probably father those senators' sons.

I was feeling sour. An intellectual diet of
The Girl from Andros,
followed by
The Girl from Samos,
then
The Girl from Perinthos,
had not produced a sunny temperament. This turgid stuff might appeal to the kind of bachelor whose pickup 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
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
would like
Byrria
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.

XV

Helena and I exchanged a surreptitious glance. We had forgotten this one. He had been in Petra and ought to have been included in our list of suspects. Something told us that being forgotten was his permanent role. Being constantly overlooked could give him a motive for anything. But maybe he accepted it. So often it is the people who
have
who think they deserve more. Those who
lack
expect nothing else from life.

Such was our visitor – a miserable specimen. He had appeared around a corner of our tent very quietly. He could have been lurking about for ages. I wondered how much he had overheard.

‘Hello there! Come and join us. Didn't Chremes mention to me that your name is Congrio?'

Congrio had a light skin covered with freckles, thin straight hair, and a fearful look. He had never been tall to begin with, and his slight, weedy body stooped under burdens of inadequacy. Everything about him spoke of leading a poor life. If he was not a slave now he probably had been at some stage, and whatever existence he snatched for himself these days could not be much better. Being a menial among people who have no regular income is worse than captivity on a rich landowner's farm. No one here cared whether Congrio ate or starved; he was nobody's asset, so nobody's loss if he suffered.

He shuffled near, the kind of mournful maggot who makes you feel crass if you ignore him or patronising if you try to be sociable.

‘You chalk up the advertisements, don't you? I'm Falco, the new jobbing playwright. I'm looking out for people who can read and write in case I need help with my adaptations.'

‘I can't write,' Congrio told me abruptly. ‘Chremes gives me a wax tablet; I just copy it.'

‘Do you act in the plays?'

‘No. But I can dream!' he added defiantly, apparently not without a sense of self-mockery.

Helena smiled at him. ‘What can we do for you?'

‘Grumio and Tranio have come back from the city with a wineskin. They told me to ask whether you wanted to join them.' He was addressing me.

I was ready for bed, but put on my interested face. ‘Sounds as if a sociable evening could be had here?'

‘Only if you want to keep the caravanserai awake all night and feel like death tomorrow,' Congrio advised frankly.

Helena shot me a look that said she wondered how the town-and-country twins could tell so easily who was the degenerate in our party. But I did not need her permission – or at least not when this offered a good excuse to ask questions about Heliodorus – so off I went to disgrace myself. Musa stayed with Helena. I had never bothered to ask him, but I deduced that our Nabataean shadow was no drinking man.