Last Act In Palmyra

Chapter XLVIII

Bostra again.

It seemed an age since we had arrived here the last time and performed The Pirate Brothers in the rain. An age since my first effort as a playwright was ignored by everyone. Since then I had grown quite used to critical hammerings, though when I remembered my early disappointment I still did not like the place.

We were all glad to stop. Chremes staggered off to see about a booking. He was plainly exhausted; he had no sense of priorities and was bound to bungle it. He would come back with nothing for us; that was obvious.

Nabataean or not, Bostra was a capital city and boasted good amenities. Those of us who were willing to spend money on comfort had been looking forward to leaving our tents on the waggons and finding real rooms to stay in. Walls; ceilings; floors with spiders in the corners; doors with cold draughts flooding under them. Chremes' no-hope aura cast a blight. I clung to my optimism and still meant to find lodgings for Helena, Musa and myself, a basic roost that would not be too far from a bathhouse and not noticeably a brothel, where the landlord scratched his lice discreetly and the rent was small. Being unwilling to waste even a small deposit on rooms we might not enjoy for long, I waited for the manager's return before I booked a place.

Some of the group were camping as usual. Pretending it was just my day for helping out, I presented myself as if by chance at the waggon that was driven by Congrio. Our weedy bill-poster had little equipment of his own. On the road he took charge of one of the props carts; then, instead of putting up a tent, he just hung an awning off the side of it and huddled under that. I made a show of lending a hand to unload his few bits and bobs.

He was not stupid. 'What's this for, Falco?' He knew nobody helps the bill-poster unless they want a favour.

I came clean. 'Somebody told me you came in for the stuff

Heliodorus left behind. I wondered if you'd be prepared to show me what his effects consisted of.'

'If that's what you want. Just speak up another time!' he instructed grumpily. Almost at once he started pulling apart his baggage roll, tossing some things aside, but laying certain items in a neat line at my feet. The discards were plainly his own originals; the kit offered up for inspection was his heirloom from the drowned man.

What Phrygia had passed on to him would not have raised much excitement at an auctioneer's house clearance. My father, who was in that business, would have dumped the dead playwright's clothes with his glassware porter for use as packing rags. Among the awful duds were a couple of tunics, now pleated on the shoulders with large stitches where Congrio had taken them in to fit his skinnier frame; a pair of disgusting old sandals; a twisted belt; and a toga not even I would have plucked off a second-hand stall, since the wine-stains on it looked twenty years old and indelible. Also a battered satchel (empty); a bundle of quills, some of them partly whittled into pens; a rather nice tinderbox; three drawstring purses (two empty, one with five dice and a bronze coin with one blank face, evidently a forgery); a broken lantern; and a wax tablet with one corner snapped off.

'Anything else?'

'This is the lot.'

Something in his manner attracted my attention. 'You've laid it out nice and correct.'

'Practice!' sniffed Congrio. 'What makes you think you're the first busybody wanting to do an inventory?' He was enjoying being difficult.

I lazily lifted one eyebrow. 'Somehow I can't see a finance tribune trying to screw you for inheritance tax on this lot! So who was so intrigued? Is somebody jealous because you came in for the hand-out?'

'I just took the stuff when I was offered. If anybody wants to look at it, I lets them see. You finished?' He started packing it all up again. Even though the items were horrible his packing was systematic and his folding neat. My question remained tantalisingly unanswered.

If Congrio was hedging, my interest grew. The clothes had a nasty, musky smell. It was impossible to tell whether this had derived from their previous owner or been imposed since they were taken over, but nobody with any taste or discretion would want them now. The other objects mostly made a sad collection too. It was hard to see in anything here either a motive or any other clue.

I shook two of the dice around in my hand then let them fall casually on a spread tunic. Both turned up six. 'Hello! Looks like he left you a lucky set.'

'You found the right two to test,' said Congrio. I lifted the dice, weighing them in my hand. As I expected they were weighted. Congrio grinned. 'The rest are normal. I don't think I've got the nerve to use those two, but don't tell anyone, in case I change my mind. Anyway, now we know why he was always winning.'

'Was he?'

'Famous for it.'

I whistled quietly. 'I'd not heard. Was he a big player?'

'All the time. That was how he gathered his pile.'

'A pile? That wasn't part of your hand-out. I take it?'

'Hah! No. Chremes said he would take care of any cash.'

'A nice gesture!' We grinned wryly together. 'Did Heliodorus play dice against the other members of the company?'

'Not normally. Chremes had told him it caused trouble. He liked to go off and fleece the locals the night we left a place. Chremes was always nagging him about that as well, afraid one day we'd be followed by an angry mob and set upon.'

'Did Chremes know why Heliodorus had such permanent good luck?' I asked, shaking the dice tellingly.

'Oh no! He never looked like a bent player.' He must have been a subtle one. From what I had already heard about his ability to judge people, cleverly finding their weak points, it made sense that he could also pull the old weighted-dice trick without being detected. A clever, highly unlikeable man.

'So Heliodorus knew better than to upset the party by cheating his own? Yet if Chremes issued a warning, does that mean it happened once?'

'There were a few rows,' offered Congrio, his pale face crinkling up slyly.

'Going to tell me who else was involved?'

'Gambling debts are private,' he replied. He had a cheek. I was not prepared to give him a bribe.

'Fair enough.' Now I had a clue to work with, I would simply ask someone else. 'Davos told me Heliodorus went through a phase of being friendly with the Twins.'

'Oh you know then?' It had been a lucky connection on my part; the bill-poster looked irritated by my guessing correctly.

'About them all drinking together at one time? Yes. Did they dice too? May as well tell it, Congrio. I can always ask Davos. So was there gambling going on among those three?'

'I reckon so,' Congrio agreed. 'Nobody tells me things, but I got the idea Heliodorus won too much off them, and that was when they stopped drinking with him.'

'Was this once? Was it a long time ago?'

'Oh no,' sneered Congrio. 'It was always happening. They'd pal up for a few weeks, then next thing they weren't speaking. After a bit they'd forget they had quarrelled, and start over again. I used to notice because the times they were friendly with Heliodorus was when the Twins caught his nasty habits. He always shoved me around, and while they were in league with him, I copped for it from them too.'

'What phase of this happy cycle were they all in when you went to Petra?'

'Ignoring each other. Had been for months, I was happy to know.'

I applied my innocent face. 'So who apart from me,' I enquired suddenly, 'has been wanting a perusal of your wonderful inheritance?'

'Oh just those clowns again,' scoffed Congrio.

'You don't like them?' I commented quietly.

'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.