Last Act in Palmyra (41 page)

‘By
Chremes?
Don't be silly. He calls it a commission, but I know that louse. No. I'm doing this out of my superlative moral sense.'

‘Drop dead, Falco!'

‘Would you believe civic duty then?'

‘I'd believe you're a nosy bastard.'

‘Whatever you say, lady.'

‘What a ghoul!' Plancina was fairly good-humoured with her insults. I reckoned she was intending to come clean without an argument. She would not have broached the issue otherwise.

There is a ritual in these exchanges, and we had reached the nub at last. Plancina pulled down her skirt (as far as this was possible), picked her nose, stared at her fingernails, then sat up to tell me all she knew.

LVIII

‘It was one of them clowns,' she said.

I waited for more. Gradually I ceased expecting it. ‘Is that your story?'

‘Oh, you want the dirty details?'

‘I'd like some, at any rate. Don't shock me; I'm a shy floret. But how about, which one of them it actually was?'

‘Gods, you don't want much, do you?' she muttered darkly. ‘You're supposed to be the informer. Can't you work it out?'

I thought she was playing me up. It was time for
me
to shock her. ‘Maybe I can,' I said dourly. ‘Maybe I already have.'

*   *   *

Plancina was staring at me. I saw a look of panic and fascination cross her face. Then she shivered. She dropped her voice abruptly, even though we had already been talking quietly. ‘You mean you know?'

‘You mean you don't?' I returned. A neat turn of phrase, though it meant nothing.

‘Not which one,' she admitted. ‘It's horrible to think about. What are you going to do?'

‘Try and prove it.' She made a face, stretching the fingers of both hands suddenly. She was afraid of what she had stumbled into. ‘Don't fret,' I said calmly. ‘Your Uncle Marcus has jumped in piles of donkey shit before. Nobody will have to know you said anything, if that's worrying you.'

‘I don't like the idea of meeting them.'

‘Just think of them as men you're stringing along. I bet you can do that!' She grinned, with a flash of wickedness. I cleared my throat. ‘All I need is whatever you do know. Tell me the story.'

‘I never said anything because I was scared.' All her confidence was evaporating. That did not necessarily mean she had nothing useful to say. The ones to watch are those who come bursting with definite answers. ‘All I really know is that Ione was having a fling with both of them.'

‘Where does Afrania fit into this? I thought she was Tranio's pet?'

‘Oh yes! Afrania would have been livid. Well that was why Ione was doing it; to put one over on Afrania. Ione thought she was a silly cow. And as for Grumio…' Plancina's flood of recollections trailed off for some reason.

‘What about him? Did he have another girlfriend too?'

‘No.'

‘That's a short answer. Is there a long explanation?'

‘He's not like the others.'

This surprised me. ‘What are you saying? He really likes men? Or he doesn't know how to get on with women?' I stopped short of the more disgusting alternatives.

Plancina shrugged helplessly. ‘It's hard to say. He's good company; they both are. But none of us like to get involved with Grumio.'

‘Trouble?'

‘Nothing like that. We all reckon he never has much time for it.'

‘For what?' I asked, innocently.

‘You damn well know what!'

I conceded that I knew. ‘He talks about it.'

‘That means nothing, Falco!' We both laughed. Then Plancina struggled to enlighten me. ‘He probably is normal, but he never bothers much.'

‘Too conceited?' I guessed.

‘That's it.' I swear she was blushing. Some girls who give the impression they are ready for anything are strangely prudish in conversation. She made herself try to elaborate: ‘If you had anything to do with him, you'd feel he would be sneering at you behind your back. Then if he did anything, he wouldn't want to enjoy it.' No good at it either, probably.

‘That's interesting.' Discussing another man's impotence – or even his indifference – was outside my sphere. I remembered that the night I went to dinner with Chremes and Phrygia I had seen Plancina herself being entertained at the Twins' tent. ‘You've had dealings with the clowns yourself. I saw you drinking with them both one night at Abila –'

‘Drinking is all there was. I got talked into it by another girl. Phrosine has her eye on Tranio.'

‘Popular fellow! So you drew the straw for Grumio?'

‘Not likely! I went home. I remember what Ione used to say about him.'

‘Which was?'

‘If he could do it, and if he did enjoy it, nobody else got any fun.'

‘Sounds as if Ione had some practice.' I asked how she had come to know such intimate details if Grumio rarely involved himself in sex.

‘She liked a challenge. She went after him.'

‘So what exactly was the situation there?' I recapped. ‘Ione was sleeping with both Tranio and Grumio, Tranio on the side, and Grumio perhaps under protest. And were there plenty of others?'

‘No one important. She'd stopped bothering with the rest. This is why I said it must be one of the clowns. She told me she had her hands full, what with trying to get at Tranio without Afrania noticing, and then having to use all her tactics to lure Grumio into anything. She said she was ready to chuck it all up, go back to the village she came from in Italy, and vamp some dumb farmer into marriage.'

‘A lesson to you,' I commented. ‘Don't wait too long to retire, Plancina.'

‘Not in this bloody group!' she agreed. ‘I haven't been any help, have I?'

‘Don't think that.'

‘But you still don't know.'

‘I know enough, Plancina.' I knew I had to work on the clowns.

‘Be careful then.'

*   *   *

I thought little of her warning when she gave it. I watched her leave, carrying the soup bowl she had brought me. Then, with the eerie ability the clowns had to turn up just when they were on my mind, one of them came sauntering to my tent.

It was Grumio. On my guard, I was ready for most things, though not for what was about to transpire. I was certainly not ready to accuse him of anything. My bets were still on Tranio anyway.

Grumio parried with a few casual questions about Helena and then asked, ‘Where's Musa?' He sounded so casual I knew that it mattered.

‘I've no idea.' I had forgotten about him. Maybe he was being entertained by Byrria.

‘That's interesting!' exclaimed Grumio, knowingly. I had a feeling of being teased and spied upon, as if I were being set up for one of the Twins' practical jokes. Taking advantage of a man whose much-loved girlfriend had been stung by a scorpion would be just like them. I even felt anxious in case another attempt had been made on Musa's life.

Deliberately showing no further interest, I swung myself to my feet and made as if I were going in to see Helena. Grumio failed to enlighten me. I waited until he left. With a sense of unease I called Musa's name. When there was no answer, I lifted the flap on his part of our shared tent.

It was empty. Musa was not there. Nothing was there. Musa, with all his meagre property, had gone.

I had believed him to be homesick, but this was ridiculous.

*   *   *

I stood, unable to take in what was happening, staring at the bare ground in the empty tent. I was still there when footsteps hurried up behind me. Then Byrria brushed against me as she pushed me aside to look.

‘It's true!' she exclaimed. ‘Grumio just told me. There's a camel missing. And Grumio thought he saw Musa riding off back the way we came.'

‘Alone? Across the desert?' He was a Nabataean. He would be safe, presumably. But it was incredible.

‘He had talked about it.' I could tell the girl was unsurprised.

Now I was feeling really grim. ‘What's going on, Byrria?' Whatever their strange relationship, I had had the impression that Musa might confide in her. ‘I don't understand!'

‘No.' Byrria's voice was quiet, less hard than usual, yet strangely dull in tone. She seemed resigned to some dire fatality. ‘Of course you don't.'

‘Byrria, I'm tired. I've had a terrible day, and my worries about Helena are nowhere near over yet. Tell me what has upset Musa!'

I realised now that he had been upset. I recalled his anguished face as he beat the scorpion to death in such a frenzy. I remembered it again later, when he came to offer help – help I had curtly refused. He had looked withdrawn and defeated. I was not an idiot. It was a look I didn't want to see, but one I recognised.

‘Is this because he's fond of Helena? It's natural, when we have lived so closely as friends.'

‘Wrong, Falco.' Byrria sounded bitter. ‘He was
fond
of you. He admired and hero-worshipped you. He had much deeper feelings for Helena.'

Stubbornly I refused to accept what she was saying. ‘He didn't have to leave. He was our friend.' But I was long accustomed to Helena Justina attracting followers. Helena's devotees came from some strange walks of life. The very top, too. A quiet, competent girl who listened to people, she attracted both the vulnerable and those with taste; men liked to think they had privately discovered her. Their next mistake was discovering that privately she belonged to me.

As I stalled, Byrria reacted angrily: ‘There was no room for him! Don't you remember today when you were looking after Helena? You did everything, and she wanted only you. You know he would never have told either of you how he felt, but he could not bear being no use to her.'

I breathed slowly. ‘Don't go on.'

Finally, too late, our misunderstandings unravelled. I wondered if Helena knew. Then I remembered the night we had entertained Byrria. Helena would never have joined me in teasing either Musa or Byrria if she had understood the situation. The actress confirmed it, reading my thoughts: ‘He would have died of shame if she had ever found out. Don't tell her.'

‘I'll have to explain where he is!'

‘Oh you'll do it! You're a man; you'll think up some lie.'

The wrath with which the girl had just spoken was typical of her contempt for all things masculine. But her earlier bitterness brought another thought to me: ‘And what about you, Byrria?'

She turned away. She must have been able to hear that I had guessed. She knew I meant no harm to her. She needed to tell somebody. Unable to prevent herself, she admitted, ‘Me? Well what do you think, Falco? The only man I could not have – so naturally I fell in love with him.'

My own heart ached for the girl's distress, but frankly I had far worse on my mind.

*   *   *

I found out that Musa had already been gone for hours. Even so, I would probably have ridden after him. But with Helena lying so ill, that was impossible.

LIX

Despite my efforts to keep the poison from entering her bloodstream, Helena soon had a high fever.

There was a small Roman garrison at Palmyra, I knew. Another we had left behind at Damascus. Either might contain somebody with medical knowledge. Even if not, the troops would have tried out the local physicians and would be able to recommend the least dangerous to consult. As an ex-soldier, and a Roman citizen, I was ready to use my influence to beg for help. Most frontier garrisons were an abusive bunch, but mentioning that Helena's father sat in the Senate should encourage the career-conscious. There was always a chance, too, that among the battered legionaries I might find some ex-British veteran I knew.

I reckoned we needed a doctor as soon as possible. At first, it had not seemed to matter which way we went; soon I wished we had turned back to Damascus. That was nearer to civilisation. Who could say what we were heading towards instead?

Helena lay helpless. Even in lucid moments she hardly knew where she was. Her arm gave her increasing pain. She desperately needed rest, not travel, but we could not stop in the wilderness. Our Palmyrene guides had adopted that annoying trait in foreigners: looking deeply sympathetic whilst in practice ignoring all my pleas for help.

We pressed on, with me having to do all the driving now that Musa had decamped. Helena never complained – quite unlike her. I was going frantic over her fever. I knew how badly her arm hurt, with a burning pain that could be caused by the cuts I had had to make, or by something worse. Every time I dressed the wound it looked more red and angry. To kill the pain I was giving her poppy juice, in melted honey drinks since I distrusted the water. Phrygia had produced some henbane to supplement my own medicine. For me, the sight of Helena so drowsy and unlike herself was the worst part. I felt she was going a long way from me. When she slept, which was most of the time, I missed not being able to talk to her properly.

People kept coming up, as if to check on us. They were kind, but it meant I could never sit and think. The conversation that stays in my mind most clearly was another involving Grumio. It was the day after the accident, in fact. He turned up again, this time in a most apologetic mood.

‘I feel I let you down, Falco. Over Musa, I mean. I should have told you earlier.'

‘I could do with him,' I agreed tersely.

‘I saw him ride off, but hardly thought he could be leaving you permanently.'

‘He was free to come or go.'

‘Seems a bit odd.'

‘People are.' I may have sounded grim. I was feeling drawn. After a hard day on the desert road, with no hope of reaching the oasis yet at the dire pace we were travelling, I was at a low ebb.

‘Sorry, Falco. I guess you're not feeling talkative. I brought you a flagon, in case it helps.'