Last Act in Palmyra (27 page)

One or two present owned up to it freely. Of the rest, some declared they were married, which was supposed to imply they were innocent; at any rate, in the presence of their wives it gave them immunity from questioning. Those men who had not tangled with Ione had certainly thought about it; this was accepted by everyone.

‘Well that illustrates my problem,' I sighed. ‘It could be any of you – or any of the actors.'

‘Or you!' suggested Afrania. She looked sullen, and developed a nasty streak whenever this subject was discussed.

‘Falco never knew Heliodorus,' someone else pointed out fairly.

‘Maybe I did,' I conceded. ‘I
said
I found him as a stranger, but maybe I
had
known him, took against him, then attached myself to the company afterwards for some perverted reason –'

‘Such as you wanted his job?' cried Ribes the lyre-player with a wit that was rare for him. The rest dissolved into roars of laughter, and I was deemed innocent.

No one could offer any useful information. That did not mean no one had any. I might yet hear a furtive whisper outside my tent as someone became braver and came to pass on some vital clue.

‘I cannot advise you about staying with the company,' I declared. ‘But look at it this way. If you withdraw your labour, the tour will fold. Chremes and Phrygia cannot put on comedy without music or scenery. Both are traditional and the audience expects them.'

‘A Plautian monologue without enhancing flute music is a loaf made with dead yeast,' pronounced the orchestra leader sombrely.

‘Oh quite!' I tried to look respectful. ‘Without you, bookings would become harder and eventually the troupe would disperse. Remember, if we break up, the killer gets away with it.' I stood up. That meant I could see all of them and address each conscience. I wondered how often they had received appeals to the heart from a grey-faced, nauseous inebriate who had nothing substantial to offer them: quite often if they worked for actor-managers. ‘It's up to you. Do you want Ione's death to be avenged, or don't you care?'

‘It's too dangerous!' wailed one of the women, who happened to be holding a small child on her hip.

‘I'm not so crass that I don't know what I'm asking. Each of you must make the choice.'

‘What's your interest, Falco?' It was Afrania who asked. ‘You said you're a freelance. Why don't you just cut and run?'

‘I am involved. I cannot avoid it. I discovered Heliodorus. My girlfriend found Ione. We have to know who did that – and make sure he pays.'

‘He's right,' argued the cymbalist reasonably. ‘The only way to catch this man is to stick together as a group and keep the killer among us. But how long will it take, Falco?'

‘If I knew how long, I would know who he was.'

‘He knows you're looking for him,' warned Afrania.

‘And I know he must be watching me.' I gave her a hard stare, remembering her odd claims about the alibi she had given Tranio. I still felt certain that she had lied.

‘If he thinks you are close, he may come after you,' suggested the cymbalist.

‘He probably will.'

‘Aren't you afraid?' Plancina asked, as if waiting to see me struck down was the next best thing to a gory chariot race.

‘Coming after me will be his mistake.' I sounded confident.

‘If you need a drink of water during the next few weeks,' the orchestra leader advised me in his usual pessimistic tone, ‘I should make sure you only use a very small cup!'

‘I'm not intending to drown.'

I folded my arms, planting my feet astride like a man who could be trusted in a tight spot. They knew about decent acting and were unconvinced by this. ‘I can't make your decisions. But I can make one promise. There is more to me than some jobbing scribe Chremes picked up in the desert. My background's tough. I've worked for the best – don't ask me names. I've been involved in jobs I'm not allowed to discuss, and I'm trained in skills you'd rather I didn't describe. I've tracked down plenty of felons, and if you haven't heard about it that just proves how discreet I am. If you agree to stay on, I'll stay too. Then you will at least know that you have me looking after your interests…'

I must have been mad. I had had more sense and sanity when I was totally befuddled by last night's drink. Guarding them was not the problem. What I hated was the thought of explaining to Helena that I had offered my personal protection to wild women like Plancina and Afrania.

XXXVIII

The musicians and stagehands stayed with us and continued to work. We gave Scythopolis
The Birds.
Scythopolis gave us – an ovation.

For Greeks, they were surprisingly tolerant.

*   *   *

They had an interesting theatre, with a semicircular orchestra that could only be reached by steps. In a Roman play we would not have used it, but of course we were doing a Greek one, with a very large chorus, and Chremes wanted a flock of birds to spill down towards the audience. The steps made life difficult for anyone foolish enough to be acting while dressed in a large padded costume, with gigantic claws on their shoes, and a heavy beaked mask.

While we were there some cheapskate salesman was trying to persuade the magistrates to spend thousands on an acoustic system (some bronze devices to be hung on the theatre wall). The theatre architect was happily pointing out that he had already provided seven splendid oval niches that would take the complex equipment; he was obviously in on the deal with the salesman, and stood to receive a cut.

We tested the samples of the salesman's toys to the limit with tweeting, twittering and booming, and frankly they made no difference. Given the perfect acoustics of most Greek theatres, this was no surprise. The taxpayers of Scythopolis settled back in their seats and looked as if they were quite content to place wreaths in the seven niches. The architect looked sick.

Even though Congrio had told us it had happened before, I never really understood why Chremes had suddenly abandoned his normal repertoire. With Aristophanes we had leapt back in time about four hundred years, from New Roman Comedy to Old Greek ditto. I liked it. They say the old jokes are the best. They are certainly better than none at all. I want a play to have bite. By that, speaking as a republican, I mean some political point. Old Comedy had that, which made a sophisticated change. For me New Comedy was dire. I hate watching meaningless plots about tiresome characters in grisly situations on a provincial street. If I wanted that, I could go home and listen to my neighbours through their apartment walls.

The Birds
was famous. At rehearsal Tranio, always ready with an anecdote, told us, ‘Not bad considering it only won second prize at the festival it was written for.'

‘What a show-off! Which archive did you drag that one out of, Tranio?' I scoffed.

‘And what play actually won then?' Helena demanded.

‘Some trifle called
The Revellers,
now unknown to man.'

‘Sounds fun. One of the people in my tent has been revelling too much lately, though,' Helena commented.

‘This play is not half as obscene as some Aristophanes,' grumbled Tranio. ‘I saw
Peace
once – not often performed, as we're always at war of course. It has two female roles for wicked girls with nice arses. One of them has her clothes taken off on-stage, then she's handed down to the man in the centre of the front row. She sits on his lap for starters, then spends the rest of the play going up and down, “comforting” other members of the audience.'

‘Filth!' I cried, feigning shock.

Tranio scowled. ‘It hardly compares with showing Hercules as a glutton, giving out cookery tips.'

‘No, but recipes won't get us run out of town,' said Helena. She was always practical. Offered a prospect of wicked women with nice arses ‘comforting' the ticket-holders, her practical nature became even more brisk than usual.

Helena knew
The Birds.
She had been well educated, partly by her brothers' tutors when her brothers slipped off to the racecourse, and partly through grabbing any written scrolls that she could lay her hands on in private libraries owned by her wealthy family (plus the few tattered fifth-hand items I kept under my own bed). Since she had never been one for the senators' wives' circuit of orgies and admiring gladiators, she had always spent time at home reading. So she told me, anyway.

She had done a good job on the script; Chremes had accepted it without change, remarking that at last I seemed to be getting on top of the job.

‘Fast work,' I congratulated her.

‘It's nothing.'

‘Don't let having your adaptations accepted first time go to your head. I'd hate to think you're becoming an intellectual.'

‘Sorry, I forgot. You don't like cultured women.'

‘Suits me.' I grinned at her. ‘I'm no snob. I'm prepared to put up with brains in an exceptional case.'

‘Thank you very much!'

‘Don't mention it. Mind you, I never expected to end up in bed with some learned scroll-beetle who's studied Greek and knows that
The Birds
is a famous play. I suppose it sticks in the mind because of the feathers. Like when you think about the Greek philosophers and can only remember that the first premise of Pythagoras was that nobody should eat beans.'

‘Philosophy's a new side to you,' she smiled.

‘Oh I can run off philosophers as well as any dinner-party bore. My favourite is Bias, who invented the informers' motto –'

‘All Men are Bad!' Helena had read the philosophers as well as the dramatists. ‘Everyone has to play a bird in the chorus, Marcus. Which has Chremes given you?'

‘Listen, fruit, when I make my acting début, it will be a moment to memorise for our grandchildren. I will be a Tragic Hero, striding on through the central doorway in a coronet, not hopping from the wings as a bloody bird.'

Helena chortled. ‘Oh I think you're wrong! This play was written for a very prosperous festival. There is a full chorus of twenty-four named cheepers, and we all have to participate.'

I shook my head. ‘Not me.'

Helena Justina was a bright girl. Besides, as the adaptor she was the only person in our group who had read the entire play. Most people just skimmed through to find their own parts. Helena soon worked out what Chremes must have me down for, and thought it hilarious.

Musa, who had been silent as usual, looked bemused – though not half as bemused as when Helena explained that
he
would be appearing as the reed warbler.

*   *   *

So what was I playing? They had found me the dross, needless to say.

In our performance the two humans who run away from Athens in disgust at the litigation, the strife and the hefty fines were played by handsome Philocrates and tough Davos. Naturally Philocrates had grabbed the major part, with all the speeches, while Davos took the stooge who puts in the obscene one-line rejoinders. His part was shorter, though more pungent.

Tranio was playing Hercules. In fact he and Grumio were to be a long succession of unwelcome visitors who call at Cloud-cuckoo-land in order to be chased off ignominiously. Phrygia had a hilarious cameo as an elderly Iris whose lightning bolts refused to fulminate, while Byrria appeared as the hoopoe's beautiful wife and as Sovereignty (a symbolic part, made more interesting by a scanty costume). Chremes was chorus leader for the famous twenty-four named birds. These included Congrio hooting, Musa warbling, and Helena disguised as the cutest dabchick who ever hopped on to a stage. I was unsure how I would confess to her noble father and disapproving mother that their elegant daughter with the centuries-old pedigree had now been witnessed by a crowd of raw Scythopolitans acting as a dabchick …

At least from now on I would always be able to call up material to blackmail Helena.

My role was tiresome. I played the informer. In this otherwise witty satire, my character creeps in after the ghastly poet, the twisting fortune-teller, the rebellious youth and the cranky philosopher. Once they have come to Cloud-cuckoo-land and all been seen off by the Athenians, an informer tries his luck. Like mine, his luck is in short supply, to the delight of the audience. He is stirring up court cases on the basis of questionable evidence and wants some wings to help him fly about the Greek islands quicker as he hands out subpoenas. If anyone had been prepared to listen, I could have told them an informer's life is so boring it's positively respectable, while the chances of a lucrative court case are about equal with discovering an emerald in a goose's gizzard. But the company were used to abusing my profession (which is much mocked in drama) so they loved this chance to heap insults on a live victim. I offered to play the sacrificial pig instead, but was overruled. Needless to say, in the play, the informer fails to get his wings.

Chremes deemed me fit to act my role without coaching, even though it was a speaking part. He claimed I could talk well enough without assistance. By the end of rehearsals I was tired of people crying ‘Oh just be yourself, Falco!' ever so wittily. And the moment when Philocrates was called upon to whip me off-stage was maddening. He really enjoyed handing out a thrashing. I was now plotting a black revenge.

Everyone else hugely enjoyed putting on this stuff. I decided that perhaps Chremes did know what he was doing. Even though we had always complained about his judgement, the mood lightened. Scythopolis kept us for several performances. The company was calmer, as well as richer, by the time we moved on up the Jordan Valley to Gadara.

XXXIX

Gadara called itself the Athens of the East. From this Eastern outpost had come the cynic satirist Menippos, the philosopher and poet Philodemos, who had had Virgil as his pupil in Italy, and the elegiac epigrammatist Meleager. Helena had read Meleager's poetic anthology
The Garland,
so before we arrived she enlightened me.