Last Act In Palmyra

Chapter XX

Something had happened to our Nabataean priest.

Davos was holding Musa up as if he was going to collapse. They were in our section of the tent, with Helena in attendance. Musa was soaking wet and shuddering, either with cold or terror. He was deathly pale and looked in shock.

I glanced at Helena and could tell she had only just started extracting the story. She turned aside discreetly, attending to the fire while Davos and I stripped the priest of his wet clothes and wrapped him in a blanket. He was less sturdily built than either of us, but his physique was strong enough; years of climbing the high mountains of his native city had toughened him. He kept his eyes downcast.

'Not much to say for himself!' muttered Davos. With Musa, that was hardly unusual.

'What happened?' I demanded. 'It's peeing down outside like customers in a cold bathhouse privy, but he shouldn't be this wet.'

'Fell in a reservoir.'

'Do me a favour, Davos!'

'No, it's right!' he explained, with an endearingly sheepish air. 'After the play a group of us went looking for some wineshop that the clowns thought they knew about – '

'I don't believe it! In a storm like this?'

'Performers need to unwind. They persuaded your man to come along.'

'I don't believe that either. I've never seen him drink.'

'He seemed interested,' Davos insisted stolidly. Musa himself remained clammed up, shivering in his blanket and looking even more strained than usual. I knew I couldn't trust Musa, since he was representing The Brother; I scrutinised the actor, wondering whether I trusted him.

Davos had a square face with quiet, regretful eyes. Short, no-nonsense black hair topped his head. He was built like a cairn of Celtic rocks, basic, long-lasting, dependable, broadly based; not much would topple him. His view of life was dry. He looked as if he had seen the whole spectacle – and wouldn't waste his money on a second entrance fee. For my purposes, he seemed too bitter to waste effort on pretence. Though if he did want to delude me, I knew he was a good enough actor to do it.

Yet I could not see Davos as a killer.

'So what exactly happened?' I asked.

Davos continued his story. In his voice, which was a magnificent baritone, it seemed like a public performance. That's the trouble with actors; everything they say sounds completely believable. 'The Twins' fabulous entertainment spot was supposed to be outside the rampart wall, on the eastern side of the city -'

'Spare me the tourists' itinerary.' I was kicking myself for not having stayed close. If I had gone on this crazy tour myself I might at least have seen what had happened – maybe have prevented it. And I might even have got a drink out of the trip. 'Where does a reservoir come into this?'

'There are a couple of great water cisterns to conserve rain.' They must be full enough this evening. Fortune was now dumping a whole year's rainfall on Bostra. 'We had to go around one. It's built within a huge embankment. There was a narrow elevated path, people were larking about a bit, and somehow Musa slipped into the water.'

It would have been beneath him to trail off; Davos paused portentously. I gave him a long stare. Its meaning would have been obvious, on stage or off. 'Who exactly was larking? And how did Musa come to "slip"?'

The priest lifted his head for the first time. He still said nothing, but he watched Davos answer me. 'Who do you think was larking? The Twins for two, and several of the stagehands. They were pretending to push one another about on the edge of the walkway. But I don't know how he slipped.' Musa made no attempt to inform us. For the moment I left him alone.

Helena brought a warm drink for Musa. She fussed over him protectively, giving me a chance to talk to the actor apart. 'You are sure you didn't see who pushed our friend?'

Like me, Davos had lowered his voice. 'I wasn't aware I needed to look. I was watching my step. It was pitch-dark and slippery enough without fools playing up.'

'Was the accident on the way to the wineshop, or on the way back?'

'The way there.' So no one had been drunk. Davos understood what I was thinking. If somebody had tripped up the Nabataean, whoever it was had fully intended him to fall.

'What's your opinion of Tranio and Grumio?' I asked thoughtfully.

'A mad pair. But that's traditional. Being witty all night on-stage makes clowns unpredictable. Who can blame them when you listen to the standard of playwrights' jokes?' Shrugging, I accepted the professional insult, as I was supposed to. 'Most clowns have fallen off a ladder once too often anyway.' A stage trick, presumably. I must have looked bemused; Davos interpreted: 'Dented heads; not all there.'

'Our two seem bright enough,' I grunted.

'Bright enough to cause trouble,' he agreed.

'Would they go as far as killing?'

'You're the investigator, Falco. You tell me.'

'Who said I was an investigator?'

'Phrygia mentioned it.'

'Well do me a favour, don't pass on the news any further! Blabbing isn't going to help my task.' There was no chance of making discreet enquiries in this company. No one had any idea of how to hold their tongue and let you get on with it. 'Are you and Phrygia close?'

'I've known the gorgeous old stick for twenty years, if that's what you mean.'

Beyond the fire I could sense that Helena Justina was watching him curiously. Later, after observing him here, the intuitive girl would tell me whether Davos had been Phrygia's lover in the past, or was now, or merely wished to be. He had spoken with the assurance of an old acquaintance, a troupe member who had earned himself the right to be consulted about a newcomer.

'She told me about being asked to play Medea at Epidaurus.'

'Ah that!' he commented quietly, with a soft smile.

'Did you know her then?' In reply to my question he nodded. It was a reply of sorts – the kind of simple answer that leads down a dead end. I tackled him directly: 'And what about Heliodorus, Davos? How long had you known him?'

'Too long!' I waited, so he added more temperately: 'Five or six seasons. Chremes picked him up in southern Italy. He knew an alphabet or two; seemed ideal for the job.' This time I ignored the arrow.

'You didn't get on?'

'Is that right?' He was not truculent, merely secretive. Truculence, being based on simple motives such as guilt and fear, is easier to fathom. Secrecy could have any number of explanations – including the straightforward one that Davos had a polite personality. However, I did not ascribe his reserved manner to mere tact.

'Was he just an awful writer, or was it personal?'

'He was a bloody awful writer – and I bloody loathed the creep.'

'Any reason?'

'Plenty!' Suddenly Davos lost patience. He stood up, leaving us. But the habit of making an exit speech overtook him: 'Somebody will no doubt whisper to you, if they haven't yet: I had just told Chremes the man was a troublemaker and that he ought to be dropped from the company.' Davos carried weight; it would matter. There was more, however. 'At Petra I gave Chremes an ultimatum: either he dumped Heliodorus, or he lost me.'

Surprised, I managed to fetch out, 'And what was his decision?'

'He hadn't made any decision.' The contempt in his tone revealed that if Davos had hated the playwright, his opinion of the manager was nearly as low. 'The only time in his life Chremes ever made a choice was when he married Phrygia, and she organised that herself, due to pressing circumstances.'

Afraid I would ask, Helena kicked me. She was a tall girl, with an impressive length of leg. A glimpse of her fine ankle gave me a frisson I could not enjoy properly at that moment.

The warning was unnecessary. I had been an informer long enough; I recognised the allusion, but I asked the question anyway: 'That, I take it, is a dark reference to an unwelcome pregnancy? Chremes and Phrygia have no children with them now, so I assume the baby died?' Davos screwed up his mouth in silence, as if reluctantly acknowledging the story. 'Leaving Phrygia shackled to Chremes, apparently pointlessly? Did Heliodorus know this?'

'He knew.' Full of his own anger, Davos had recognised mine. He kept his answer short and left me to deduce for myself the unpleasant follow-on.

'I suppose he used it to taunt the people involved in his normal friendly manner?'

'Yes. He stuck the knife in both of them at every opportunity.'

I didn't need to elaborate, but tried it to put pressure on Davos: 'He ragged Chremes about the marriage he regrets -

'Chremes knows it was the best thing he ever did.'

'And tormented Phrygia over the bad marriage, her lost chance at Epidaurus, and, probably, over her lost child?'

'Over all those things,' Davos answered, perhaps more guardedly.

'He sounds vicious. No wonder you wanted Chremes to get rid of him.'

As soon as I said it I realised that this could be taken as a suggestion that Chremes had drowned the playwright. Davos picked up the implication, but merely smiled grimly. I had a feeling that if Chremes was ever accused, Davos would cheerfully stand by and see him convicted – whether or not the charge was a just one.

Helena, ever quick to smooth over sensitivities, broke in. 'Davos, if Heliodorus was always wounding people so painfully, surely the company manager had a good excuse -and a personal motive – to dismiss him when you asked for it?'

'Chremes is incapable of decisions, even when it's easy. This,' Davos told Helena heavily, 'was difficult.'

Before we could ask him why, he had left the tent.