Last Act in Palmyra (2 page)

Thalia herself took careful handling. With commanding height and a crackling voice that cut right across this huge arena, she could always make her presence felt. She also possessed a shape few men could take their eyes off. Currently it was draped in silly strips of saffron gauze, held in place by gigantic jewellery that would break bones if she dropped any of it on your foot. I liked her. I sincerely hoped she liked me. Who wants to offend a woman who is sporting a live python for effect?

‘Falco, you ridiculous bastard!' Being named after one of the Graces had never affected her manners.

She stopped in front of us, feet planted apart to help support the snake's weight. Her huge thighs bulged through the flimsy saffron. Bangles the size of trireme rowlocks gripped tightly on her arms. I started to make introductions, but nobody was listening.

‘Your gigolo looks jaded!' Thalia snorted to Helena, jerking her head at me. They had never met before but Thalia did not trouble with etiquette. The python now peered at me from her pillowing bosom. He seemed more torpid than usual, but even so something about his disparaging attitude reminded me of my relatives. He had small scales, beautifully patterned in large diamond shapes. ‘So what's this, Falco? Come to take up my offer?'

I tried to look innocent. ‘I did promise to come and see your act, Thalia.' I sounded like some stuffed green fig barely out of his toga praetexta, making his first solemn speech in court at the Basilica. There was no doubt I had lost my case before the usher set the water clock.

Thalia winked at Helena. ‘He told me he was leaving home to seek employment taming tigers.'

‘Taming Helena takes all my time,' I got in.

‘He told
me,
' Helena said to Thalia, as if I had never spoken, ‘he was a tycoon with big olive vineyards in Samnium, and that if I tickled his fancy he would show me the Seven Wonders of the World.'

‘Well, we all make mistakes,' Thalia sympathised.

Helena Justina crossed her ankles with a swift kick at the embroidered flounce on her skirt. They were devastating ankles. She could be a devastating girl.

Thalia was giving her a practised scrutiny. From our previous encounters Thalia knew me to be a low-life informer, plugging away at a dismal occupation in return for putrid wages and the public's contempt. Now she took in my unexpectedly superior girlfriend. Helena was posing as a cool, quiet, serious person, though one who could silence a cohort of drunken Praetorians with a few crisp words. She also wore a stunningly expensive gold filigree bracelet that by itself must have told the snake dancer something: even though she had come to the Circus with a dried melon seed like me, my lass was a patrician piece, backed up by solid collateral.

Having assessed the jewellery, Thalia turned back to me. ‘Your luck's changed!' It was true. I accepted the compliment with a happy grin.

Helena gracefully rearranged the drape of her silken stole. She knew I didn't deserve her, and that I knew it too.

*   *   *

Thalia gently lifted the python from her neck, then rewound it around a bollard so she could sit down and talk to us. The creature, which had always tried to upset me, immediately unravelled its blunt, spade-shaped head and stared balefully with its slitted eyes. I resisted the urge to pull in my boots. I refused to be alarmed by a legless thug. Besides, sudden movement can be a mistake with a snake.

‘Jason's really taken to you!' cackled Thalia.

‘Oh, he's called Jason, is he?'

An inch closer and I was planning to spear Jason with my knife. I was only holding off because I knew Thalia was fond of him. Turning Jason into a snakeskin belt was likely to upset her. The thought of what Thalia might do a person who upset her was even more worrying than a squeeze from her pet.

‘He looks a bit sick at the moment,' she explained to Helena. ‘See how milky his eyes are? He's ready to shed his skin again. Jason's a growing boy – he has to have a new outfit every couple of months. It makes him go broody for over a week. I can't use him in public appearances; he's completely unreliable when you're trying to fix up bookings. Believe me, it's worse than operating an act with a troupe of young girls who have to lie down moaning every month –'

Helena looked ready to reply in kind, but I interrupted the women's talk. ‘So how's business, Thalia? The gateman told me you've taken over the management from Fronto?'

‘Someone had to take charge. It was either me or a damned man.' Thalia had always taken a brutal view of men. Can't think why, though her bedroom stories were sordid.

The Fronto I referred to had been an importer of exotic arena beasts, and an organiser of even more exotic entertainment for the smart banqueting crowd. He met with a sudden indisposition, in the form of a panther who ate him.

Apparently Thalia, a one-time party-circuit dancer, was now running the business he left behind.

‘Still got the panther?' I joked.

‘Oh yes!' I knew Thalia saw this as a mark of respect for Fronto, since parts of her ex-employer might still be inside the beast. ‘Did you catch out the grieving widow?' she demanded of me abruptly. In fact, Fronto's widow had failed to grieve convincingly – a normal scenario in Rome, where life was cheap and death might not be random if a man offended his wife. It was whilst investigating the possible collusion between the widow and the panther that I had first met Thalia and her collection of snakes.

‘Not enough evidence to bring her before the courts, but we stopped her chasing after legacies. She's married to a lawyer now.'

‘That's a tough punishment, even for a bitch like her!' Thalia grimaced evilly.

I grinned back. ‘Tell me, does your move into management mean I've lost my opportunity to see you do your snake dance?'

‘I still do my act. I like to give the crowd a thrill.'

‘But you don't perform with Jason because of his off-days?' Helena smiled. They had accepted one another. Helena for one usually gave her friendship reluctantly. Getting to know her could be as tricky as mopping up oil with a sponge. It had taken me six months to make any headway, even though I had wit, good looks and years of experience on my side.

‘I use Zeno,' said Thalia, as if this reptile needed no other description. I had already heard that Thalia's act involved an immense snake that even she spoke of with awe.

‘Is that another python?' Helena asked curiously.

‘And a half!'

‘And who does the dancing – him or you? Or is the trick to make the audience think Zeno is taking a greater part than he really does?'

‘Just like making love to a man … Smart girl you've picked up here!' Thalia commented drily to me. ‘You're right,' she confirmed to Helena. ‘I dance; I hope Zeno doesn't. Twenty feet of African constrictor is too heavy to lift, for one thing.'

‘Twenty feet!'

‘And the rest of it.'

‘Goodness! So how dangerous is it?'

‘Well…' Thalia tapped her nose confidentially, then she seemed to let us in on a secret. ‘Pythons only eat what they can get their jaws around, and even then in captivity they're picky eaters. They're immensely strong, so people think they're sinister. But I've never known one to show the slightest interest in killing a human being.'

I laughed shortly, considering my unease over Jason, and feeling conned. ‘So this act of yours is pretty tame, really!'

‘Fancy a dance with my big Zeno yourself?' Thalia challenged me caustically. I backed down with a gracious gesture. ‘No, you're right, Falco. I've been thinking the act needs pepping up. I might have to get a cobra, to add a bit more danger. Good for catching rats around the menagerie too.'

Helena and I both fell silent, knowing cobra bites to be generally fatal.

The conversation took a turn in a different direction. ‘Well, that's my news!' Thalia said. ‘So what job are you on now, Falco?'

‘Ah. A hard question.'

‘With an easy answer,' Helena joined in lightly enough. ‘He's not on any job at all.'

That was not quite true. I had been offered a commission only that morning, though Helena was still unaware of it. The business was secret. I mean not just that it would involve working under cover, but that it was secret from Helena because she would strongly disapprove of the client.

‘You call yourself an informer, don't you?' Thalia said. I nodded, though with only half my attention on it as I continued to worry about keeping from Helena the truth of what I had just been offered.

‘Don't be shy!' Thalia joked. ‘You're among friends. You can confess to anything!'

‘He's quite a good one,' said Helena, who already seemed to be eyeing me suspiciously. She might not know what I was hiding, but she was beginning to suspect that there was something. I tried to think about the weather.

Thalia tipped her head on one side. ‘So what's it about, Falco?'

‘Information mostly. Finding evidence for barristers – you know about that – or just listening for gossip, more often than not. Helping election candidates slander their opponents. Helping husbands find reasons to divorce wives they've grown tired of. Helping wives avoid paying blackmail to lovers they've discarded. Helping the lovers shed women they've seen through.'

‘Oh, a social service,' Thalia scoffed.

‘Definitely. A real boon to the community … Sometimes I trace stolen antiques,' I added, hoping to impose an air of class. It sounded merely as though I hunted down fake Egyptian amulets, or pornographic scrolls.

‘Do you look for missing persons too?' Thalia demanded, as if she had suddenly had an idea. I nodded again, rather reluctantly. Mine is a job where I try to prevent people getting ideas, since they tend to be time-consuming and unprofitable for me. I was right to be wary. The dancer exploded gleefully. ‘Hah! If I had any money, I'd take you on for a search-and-retrieve myself.'

‘If we didn't need to eat,' I replied mildly, ‘I'd accept the tempting offer!'

At that moment the baby elephant spotted the tightrope and realised why he was being taken for a walk up the ramp. He began trumpeting wildly, then somehow turned around and tried to charge back down. Trainers scattered. With a mutter of impatience, Thalia rushed out into the arena again. She told Helena to look after her snake. Evidently I could not be trusted with the task.

II

Helena and Jason watched keenly as Thalia strode up the ramp to comfort the elephant. We could hear her berating its trainers; she loved animals, but evidently believed in producing high-class acts by a regime of fear – in her staff, that is. Like me, they had now decided the exercise was doomed. Even if they could entice their ungainly grey acrobat out over the void, the rope was bound to snap. I wondered whether to point this out. No one would thank me, so I stayed mum. Scientific information has a low rating in Rome.

Helena and Jason were getting on well. She had had some practice with untrustworthy reptiles, after all; she knew me.

Since nothing else was required, I started to think. Informers spend a lot of time crouching in dark porticos, waiting to overhear scandals that may bring in a greasy denarius from some unlikeable patron. It's boring work. You are bound to fall into one bad habit or another. Other informers amuse themselves with casual vice. I had grown out of that. My failing was to indulge in private thought.

The elephant had now been fed a sesame bun, but still looked dismal. So did I. What was on my mind was the job I had just been offered. I was thinking up excuses to turn it down.

Sometimes I worked for Vespasian. A new emperor, sprung from a middle-class background and wanting to keep a canny eye on the nasty snobs of the old élite, may need the occasional favour. I mean, a favour of the kind he won't be boasting about when his glorious achievements are recorded in bronze lettering on marble monuments. Rome was full of plotters who would have liked to poke Vespasian off the throne, so long as they could make the attempt with a fairly long stick in case he turned round and bit them. There were others annoyances, too, that he wanted to be rid of – dreary men fastened into high public positions on the strength of mouldy old pedigrees, men who had neither brains nor energy nor morals, and whom the new Emperor intended to replace with brighter talent. Somebody had to weed out the plotters and discredit the idiots. I was quick and discreet, and Vespasian could trust me to tidy up loose ends. There were never repercussions from my jobs.

We first took each other on eighteen months ago. Now, whenever I had more creditors than usual, or when I forgot how much I loathed the work, I agreed to imperial employment. Though I despised myself for becoming a tool of the state, I had earned some cash. Cash was always welcome in my vicinity.

As a result of my efforts Rome and some of the provinces were more secure. But last week the imperial family had broken an important promise. Instead of promoting me socially, so I could marry Helena Justina and appease her disgruntled family, when I had called to claim my recompense from the Caesars they kicked me down the Palatine steps empty-handed. At that, Helena declared that Vespasian had given me his last commission. He himself failed to notice that I might feel slighted by so small a thing as mere lack of reward; within three days here he was, offering me another of his diplomatic trips abroad. Helena would be furious.

Luckily, when the new summons to the Palace came, I was heading downstairs from our apartment on my way to pick up gossip at the barber's. The message had been brought to me by a puny slave with coarse eyebrows joined together above hardly any brain – up to standard for Palace messengers. I managed to grab the back of his short tunic and march him down to the ground-floor laundry without Helena seeing him. I paid a small bribe to Lenia, the laundress, to keep her quiet. Then I hurried the slave back to the Palatine and gave him a stern warning against causing me domestic inconvenience.