Last Act in Palmyra (35 page)

‘Too clever.' Cleverness was not an offence in Roman law, though I had often shared Congrio's view that it ought to be. ‘Every time I see them, I get knotted up and start feeling annoyed.'

‘Why's that?'

He kicked at his baggage roll impatiently. ‘They look down on you. There's nothing so special about telling a few jokes. They don't make them up, you know. All they do is say what some other old clown thought up and wrote down a hundred years ago. I could do it if I had a script.'

‘If you could read it.'

‘Helena's teaching me.' I might have known. He continued boasting recklessly: ‘All I need is a joke collection and I'll be a clown myself.'

It seemed to me it would take him a long time to put together enough funny stories to be a stand-up comic of Grumio's calibre. Besides, I couldn't see him managing the right timing and tone. ‘Where are you going to get the collection, Congrio?' I tried not to sound patronising – without much success.

For some reason it didn't bother him. ‘Oh, they do exist, Falco!'

I changed the subject to avoid an argument. ‘Tell me, did the clowns come together to look at your property?' The billposter nodded. ‘Any idea what they were looking for?'

‘No.'

‘Something particular?'

‘They never said so.'

‘Trying to get back some I-owe-yous, maybe?'

‘No, Falco.'

‘Did they want these dice? After all, the Twins do magic tricks –'

‘They saw the dice were here. They never asked for them.' Presumably they did not realise the dice were crooked. ‘Look, they just strolled up, laughing and asking what I had got. I thought they were going to pinch my stuff, or ruin it. You know what they're like when they're feeling mischievous.'

‘The Twins? I know they can be a menace, but not outright delinquents, surely?'

‘No,' Congrio admitted, though rather reluctantly. ‘Just a pair of nosy bastards then.'

Somehow I wondered about that.

XLIX

He was right. The two clowns
were
clever. It would take more than a bland expression and a quick change of subject to trip them up. I was aware before I started that the minute they had any idea I was trying to squeeze particular information from them, fending me off would become a joyous game. They were seditious. I would need to watch for exactly the right opportunity to tackle them. And when I did, I would need all my skill.

*   *   *

Wondering how I could choose the moment, I came back to my own tent.

Helena was alone. She told me that as I had predicted, Chremes had bungled acquiring a booking here.

‘When he was waiting to see the town councillor who runs the theatre, he overheard the fellow scoff to a servant,
“Oh, not the ghastly tribe who did that terrible piece about the pirates?”
When Chremes finally got in to see the big man, relations failed to improve. So we're moving off straight away –'

‘Today?' I was horrified.

‘Tonight. We get a day's rest, then go.' It was goodbye to booking rooms then. No landlord was going to screw me for a night's rent when I only had a few daylight hours for sleeping. Helena sounded bitter too. ‘Chremes, with his nose put out of joint by a rude critic, does not dally for more insults. Canatha here we come! Everyone is furious –'

‘That includes me! And where's Musa?'

‘Gone to find a temple and send a message to his sister. He seems rather low. He never gives much away, but I'm sure he was looking forward to spending some time here, back in his own country. Let's just hope the message Musa is sending his sister doesn't say,
“Put out my slippers. I'm coming home…”
'

‘So he's a homesick boy? This is bad news. He was miserable enough with mooning over Byrria.'

‘Well, I'm trying to help out there. I've invited Byrria to dine with us the first time we stop properly. We've been doing so much travelling she must be lonely driving all by herself.'

‘If she is lonely, it's her own fault.' Charity was not on my agenda at the moment. ‘She could have had a lusty young Nabataean to crack the whip for her!' Come to that, she could have had pretty well any man in the company, except those of us with strict companions. ‘Does Musa know you're brokering romance for him? I'll take him for a decent haircut and shave!'

Helena sighed. ‘Better not be too obvious.'

‘Really?' I grinned, grabbing hold of her suddenly. ‘Being obvious always worked for me.' I pulled Helena close enough for my own obvious feelings to be unmissable.

‘Not this time.' Helena, who had had a great deal of practice, wriggled free. ‘If we're moving on, we need to sleep. What did you find out from Congrio?'

‘That Heliodorus was a hardened gambling cheat, and his victims may just have included Tranio and Grumio.'

‘Together or separately?'

‘This is unclear.'

‘Lot of money involved?'

‘Another unknown quantity.' But my guess was, probably.

‘Do you plan to question them next?'

‘I plan to know just what I'm asking before I attempt anything. Those two are a tricky pair.' In fact, I was surprised that even a seasoned cheat had managed to mug them. But if they were accustomed to feeling sure of themselves, being fleeced might have come as a nasty surprise. Congrio was right; they had a streak of arrogance. They were so used to sneering at others that if they found they had been set up, I hated to speculate how they would react.

‘Do you think they are hiding something?' Helena asked. ‘Something significant?'

‘More and more it looks that way. What do you think, fruit?'

‘I think,' Helena prophesied, ‘anything with those two in it will be even more complicated than it looks.'

*   *   *

On the way to Canatha I asked Davos about the gambling. He had known it went on. He also remembered Heliodorus and the Twins arguing on occasions, though nothing too spectacular. He had guessed the playwright used to swindle local townsfolk. He himself had nothing to do with it. Davos was a man who could smell trouble; when he did he walked away.

I was reluctant to speak to Chremes about financial smears on Heliodorus. It touched too closely on his own problems, which I was holding in reserve at present. I did ask Phrygia. She assumed gambling was something all men did, and that cheating came naturally into the process. Like most disgusting male habits she ignored it, she said.

Helena offered to make enquiries of Philocrates, but I decided we could manage without help from him.

If Byrria was in a receptive mood, we would ask her when she came to dine.

L

Halfway to Canatha, on a high, flat, volcanic plain with distant views to the snow-capped peak of Mount Hermon, Helena and I tried our hands as matchmakers. For reasons we only found out later, we were wasting our time.

Entertaining two people who like to ignore each other's existence is quite a strain. As hosts we had supplied tasty wines, delectable fish, stuffed dates (stuffed by me, in my masquerade as an efficient cook), elegantly spiced side-dishes, olives, nuts, and sticky sweets. We had tried to place the romantic pair together, but they gave us the slip and took up stations at opposite ends of the fire. We sat side by side between them. Helena found herself talking to Byrria, while I just glared at Musa. Musa himself found a ferocious appetite for eating, buried his head in a bowl, and made no attempt to show off. As a wooer he had a slack technique. Byrria paid no attention to him. As a victim of his wiles, she was a tough proposition. Anyone who managed to tear this daisy from the pasture would need to tug hard.

The quality of the dinner did compensate for the lack of action. I helped myself to much of the wine while passing among the company, pointlessly trying to animate them with a generous jug. In the end I simply lay back with my head pillowed in Helena's lap, relaxed completely (not hard, in the state I had reached), and exclaimed, ‘I give up! A man should know his limitations. Playing Eros is not my style. I must have the wrong kind of arrows in my bow.'

‘I'm sorry,' murmured Byrria. ‘I didn't realise the invitation was conditional.' Her reproach was light-hearted. The refills I had been plying her with had mellowed her somewhat. Either that or she was too practical to try flouncing off in a huff while she was tipsy.

‘The only condition,' Helena smiled, ‘is that all present quietly tolerate the romantic nature of their host.' Byrria tipped her winecup at me obligingly. There was no problem. We were all in a sleepy, well-filled, amenable mood.

‘Maybe,' I suggested to Helena, ‘Musa has perched so far from our lovely guest so he can gaze at her through the firelight.' While we talked about her, Byrria merely sat looking beautiful. She did it well. I had no complaints.

Helena Justina tickled my chin as she chimed in with my dreamy speculations. ‘Admiring her in secret through the leaping sparks?'

‘Unless he's just avoiding her because he hasn't washed.'

‘Unfair!'

Helena was right. He was always clean. Given the fact that he had joined us in Petra so unexpectedly, and with so little luggage, it was a puzzle how Musa remained presentable. Sharing a tent, Helena and I would soon have known if his habits were unpleasant. His worst feature at the moment was a sheepish expression as I tried to set him up as a sophisticated lover.

Tonight he was turned out the same as always in his long white robe. He only had one, and yet he seemed to keep it laundered. He looked washed and tidy; he had definitely shaved (something none of us bothered with much on the road). On close examination there were one or two gestures to smart presentation: a soapstone scarab amulet on his chest, which I remembered him buying when he was out with me at Gerasa, a rope girdle that looked so new he must have picked it up in Bostra, and he was bare-headed in the Roman way. That made him look too boyish; I would have warned against it, but he had not asked for my sartorial advice.

Byrria, too, had probably dressed up slightly in response to our formal invitation. She was in green, rather plain if anything, with a very long skirt and long-sleeves against the flies which tended to descend on us at twilight. It marked a change from her spangled and revealing stage costumes, and signified that tonight she was being herself. Being herself also involved long bronze earrings that rattled all the time. Had I been in a less forgiving mood, they would have severely annoyed me.

Helena was looking sophisticated in a brown dress I had not known she owned. I had favoured a casual approach, trying out a long striped Eastern robe I had brought to fend off the heat. I felt like a goat farmer and was in need of a scratch; I hoped it was just due to the newness of the material.

While we teased him, Musa put on a patient face but stood up, breathing the cool night air and gazing somewhere away to the south.

‘Be kind to him,' Helena said to Byrria. ‘We think Musa is homesick.' He turned back to her, as if she had accused him of being impolite, but stayed on his feet. At least it gave Byrria a better view of him. He was passable, though not much more.

‘It's just a ploy,' I informed the girl confidentially. ‘Somebody once told him women like men who have an air of mysterious sadness.'

‘I am not sad, Falco.' Musa gave me the controlled look of a man who was just trying to ease his indigestion after eating too much.

‘Maybe not. But ignoring the most beautiful woman in Syria is pretty mysterious.'

‘Oh, I am not ignoring her!'

Well that was better. His sombre, deliberate manner of speech did make it sound vaguely admiring. Helena and I knew Musa always talked that way, but Byrria might read it as restrained ardour.

‘There you are.' I grinned at her, encouraging this. ‘You are quite right to be wary. Under the glacially aloof pose smoulders a hot-blooded philanderer. Compared to this man, Adonis was a ruffianly buck with bad breath and dandruff. In a moment he'll be tossing you roses and reciting poetry.'

Musa smiled politely. ‘Poetry I can do, Falco.'

We were lacking the floristry, but he came to the fire, sitting opposite Helena and me, which at last brought him nearer to the girl he was supposed to be entrancing, though in fact he forgot to gaze at her. He dropped to a cushion (conveniently placed by Helena before the meal just where it would allow things to develop if our guests had wanted that). Then Musa started to recite. It was obviously going to be a very long poem, and it was in Nabataean Arabic.

Byrria listened with the faintest of smiles and her slanting green eyes well cast down. There was not much else the poor girl could do.

*   *   *

Helena sat still. Musa's posture for recitation was to stare straight ahead, which meant Helena was catching most of the performance. The soft pressure of her thumb on my windpipe warned me not to interrupt. Still lying in her lap I closed my eyes and forced myself to leave our idiotic tent guest to his fate.

Sooner than I had dared to hope, Musa stopped – or at least paused long enough for me to break in without upsetting him. Rolling over and smiling at Byrria, I said quietly, ‘I think a certain young lady has just been favourably compared to a soft-eyed gazelle, running free on the mountains –'

‘Falco!' Musa was tutting, fortunately with a laugh in his tone. ‘Are you speaking more of my language than you pretend?'

‘I'm a spare-time poet and I know how to guess.'

‘You're an acting playwright; you should be able to interpret well-spoken verse.' There was a hard note in Byrria's voice. ‘And how are your other guesses, Falco?' Without appearing graceless, Byrria had turned the conversation. Her long earrings tinkled slightly, though whether with amusement or embarrassment I could not tell. She was a girl who hid her thoughts. ‘Are you any nearer identifying the person who killed Ione?'