Last Act In Palmyra

Chapter XXXVII

'Hey, hey! Things must be bad if they have to send the scribbler to sort us!'

My arrival amidst the orchestra and stagehands caused a surge of mocking applause. They lived in an enclave at one end of our camp. Fifteen or twenty musicians, scene-shifters and their hangers-on were sitting about looking militant while they waited for people in the main company to notice their complaint. Babies toddled about with sticky faces. A couple of dogs scratched their fleas. The angry atmosphere was making my own skin prickle uneasily.

'What's up?' I tried playing the simple, friendly type.

'Whatever you've been told.'

'I've been told nothing. I've been drunk in my tent. Even Helena has stopped talking to me.'

Still pretending not to notice the ominous tension, I squatted in the circle and grinned at them like a harmless sightseer. They glared back while I surveyed who was here.

Our orchestra consisted of Afrania the flautist, whose instrument was the single-piped tibia; another girl who played panpipes; a gnarled, hook-nosed old chap whom I had seen clashing a pair of small hand-cymbals with an incongruous delicacy; and a pale young man who plucked the lyre when he felt like it. They were led by a tall, thin, balding character who sometimes boomed away on a big double wind instrument that had one pipe turned up at the end, whilst he beat time for the others on a foot clacker. This was a large group, compared with some theatre-company ensembles, but allowed for the fact that the participants also danced, sold trays of limp sweetmeats, and offered entertainment afterwards to members of the audience.

Attached to them were the hard-labour boys, a set of small, bandy-legged stagehands whose wives were all hefty boot-faced wenches you wouldn't push in front of in a baker's queue. In contrast to the musicians, whose origins were varied and whose quarters had an artistic abandon, the scenery-movers were a closely related group, like bargees or tinkers. They lived in spotless tidiness; they had all been born to the roving life. Whenever we arrived at a new venue, they were the first to organise themselves. Their tents were lined up in straight rows with elaborate sanitary arrangements at one end, and they shared a huge iron broth cauldron that was stirred by a strict rota of cooks. I could see the cauldron now, breathing out coils of gravy steam that reminded me of my stomach's queasiness.

'Do I detect an atmosphere?'

'Where've you been, Falco?' The hook-nosed cymbalist sounded weary as he threw a stone at a dog. I felt lucky he chose the dog.

'I told you: drunk in bed.'

'Oh, you took to the life of a playwright easily!'

'If you wrote for this company you'd be drunk too.'

'Or dead in a cistern!' scoffed a voice from the back.

'Or dead,' I agreed quietly. 'I do worry about that sometimes. Maybe whoever had it in for Heliodorus dislikes all playwrights, and I'm next.' I was carefully not mentioning Ione yet, though she must matter more here than the drowned scribe.

'Don't worry,' sneered the girl who played the panpipes. 'You're not that good!'

'Hah! How would you know? Even the actors never read the script, so I'm damned sure you musicians don't! But surely you're not saying Heliodorus was a decent writer?'

'He was trash!' exclaimed Afrania. 'Plancina's just trying to annoy you.'

'Oh, for a moment I thought I was hearing that Heliodorus was better than everyone tells me – though aren't we all?' I tried to look like a wounded writer. This was not easy since naturally I knew my own work was of fine quality – if anyone with any true critical sense ever did read it.

'Not you, Falco!' laughed the panpipe girl, the brash piece in a brief saffron tunic whom Afrania had called Plancina.

'Well thanks. I needed reassurance… So what's the black mood in this part of the camp all about?'

'Get lost. We're not talking to management,'

'I'm not one of them. I'm not even a performer. I'm just a freelance scribe who happened upon this group by accident; one who's starting to wish he'd given Chremes a wide berth.' The murmur of discontent that ran around warned me I had best take care or else instead of persuading the group back to work I would end up leading their walk-out. That would be just my style: from peacemaker to chief rebel in about five minutes. Smart work, Falco.

'It's no secret,' said one of the stagehands, a particular misery. 'We had a big row with Chremes last night, and we're not backing down.'

'Well you don't have to tell me. I didn't mean to pry into your business.'

Even with a hangover that made my head feel like the spot on a fortress gate that's just been hit by a thirty-foot battering-ram, my professional grit had stayed intact: as soon as I said they need not spill the tale, they all wanted to tell me everything.

I had guessed right: Ione's death was at the heart of their discontent. They had finally noticed there was a maniac in our midst. He could murder dramatic writers with impunity, but now that he had turned his attention to the musicians they were wondering which of them would be picked off next.

'It's reasonable to feel alarmed,' I sympathised. 'But what was last night's row with Chremes about?'

'We arc not staying on,' said the cymbalist. 'We want to be given our money for the season – '

'Hang on, the rest of us were paid our share of the takings last night. Are your contract terms very different?'

'Too damn right! Chremes knows actors and scribes are pushed to find employment. You won't leave him until you're given a firm shove. But musicians and lifters can always find work so he gives us a fraction, then keeps us waiting for the rest until the tour packs up.'

'And now he won't release your residue?'

'Fast, Falco! Not if we leave early. It's in the trunk under his bed, and he says it's staying there. So now we're saying to him, he can stick The Birds in his aviary and tweet all the way from here to Antiochia. If we've got to stay around, he won't be able to take on replacements because we'll warn them off. But we're not going to work. He'll have no music and no scenery. These Greek towns will laugh him off the stage.'

'The Birds! That was about the final straw,' grumbled the youthful lyre-player, Ribes. He was no Apollo. He could neither play well nor strike awe with his majestic beauty. In fact he looked as appetising as yesterday's ground-millet polenta. 'Wanting us to chirp like bloody sparrows.'

'I can see that would be a liberty to a professional who can tell his Lydian modes from his Dorians!'

'One more crack from you, Falco, and you'll be picked with a plectrum in a place you won't like!'

I grinned at him. 'Sorry. I'm employed to write jokes.'

'About time you started doing it then,' someone chuckled; I didn't see who.

Afrania broke in, softening slightly. 'So Falco, what made you venture here among the troublemaking low life?'

'Thought I might be able to help.'

'Like how?' jeered a stagehand's wife.

'Who knows? I'm a man of ideas – '

'He means filthy thoughts,' suggested another broad-beamed female whose thoughts were undoubtedly much grimier than mine.

'I came to consult you all,' I carried on bravely. 'You may be able to help me work out who caused the two deaths. And I believe I can assure you that none of you is at risk.'

'How can you do that?' demanded the leader of the orchestra.

'Well, let's take this slowly. I'll not make rash promises about any man who can take life in such a cruelly casual way. I still don't have any real idea why he killed Heliodorus. But in Ione's case, the reason is much clearer.'

'Clear as mud on a bootstrap!' Plancina declared. There was still much hostility, though most of the group were now listening intently.

'Ione thought she knew who killed the playwright,' I told them. 'She had promised to reveal the man's name to me; she must have been killed to stop her giving him away.'

'So we are safe so long as we all go around saying "I've absolutely no idea who killed them!" in loud voices?' The orchestra leader was dry, though not unbearably sarcastic.

Ignoring him, I announced: 'If I knew whom Ione was meeting on the night she died, I would know everything. She was your friend. One of you must have an idea. She will have said something about her movements that evening, or at some other time she may have mentioned a man she was friendly with-' Before the jeers could break out I added hastily, 'I do bow she was very popular. There must be some of you here she had banged her tambourine for on occasions, am I right?'

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.