Last Act In Palmyra

Chapter LXVIII

We did our best to search the soldiers at the gates. We managed to confiscate most of their drink flagons and some of the stones they were planning to hurl at us. No one could stop large numbers of them peeing against the outside wall before entering; at least that was better than what they might do inside later. Syria had never been a fashionable posting; dedicated men applied for frontier forts in Britain or Germany, where there was some hope of cracking foreign heads. These soldiers were little more than bandits. Like all Eastern legions, they turned to salute the sun each morning. Their evening fun was likely to be slaughtering us.

Their commander had offered us military ushers but I said that was asking for trouble. 'You don't control legionaries by using their mates!' He accepted the comment with a curt, knowing nod. He was a square-faced career officer, a sinewy man with straight-cut hair. I remember the pleasant shock of running into someone in authority who realised it would be useful to avert a riot.

We exchanged a few words. He must have been able to see I had a more solid background than scribbling light comedies. However, I was surprised when he recognised my name.

'Falco? As in Didius?'

'Well I like having a reputation, but frankly, sir, I did not expect my fame to have reached a road-building vexillation in the middle of the desert, halfway to bloody Parthia!'

'There's a note out, asking for sightings.'

'A warrant?' I laughed as I said it, hoping to avoid unpleasantness.

'Why that?' He looked both amused and sceptical. 'It's more "Render assistance; agent lost and may be in difficulty".'

Now I really was surprised. 'I was never lost! Whose signature?'

'Not allowed to say.'

'Who's your governor in Syria?'

'Ulpius Traianus.'

It meant nothing much then, though those of us who lived to be old men would see his son's craggy mush on the currency. 'Is it him?'

'No,' he said.

'If it's a short-arsed flea called Anacrites from the political bureau -'

'Oh no!' The garrison commander was shocked by my irreverence. I knew what that meant.

'The Emperor?' I had long stopped respecting official secrecy. The commander, however, blushed at my indiscretion.

The mystery was solved. Helena's father must be at the back of this. If Camillus had not heard from his daughter for the past four months, he would wonder where she was. The Emperor, his friend, was not looking for me at all but for my wayward lass.

Oh dear. Definitely time I took Helena home again.

The commander cleared his throat. 'So are you? In difficulty?'

'No,' I said. 'But thanks for asking. Ask me again when we've played to your mob here!'

He did invite Helena to a seat in the tribunal, a nice courtesy. I agreed, because he seemed far too straight to start fingering her, and I reckoned it was the one place a respectable woman would be safe that night.

Helena was furious at being sent out of the way.

The house was full. We drew about a thousand soldiers, a group of Palmyrene archers who had served in Judaea with Vespasian and learned about Roman spectacles, plus a few townspeople. Among them were Khaleed and his father, another short, stumpy Damascene. Facially, they did not much resemble each other, apart from a slight similarity in hairlines. I joked to Thalia, 'Khaleed must take after his mother – poor woman!' Then his mother turned up (maybe they had left left her to park the chariot), and unfortunately I was right: not exactly a model of feminine beauty. We gave them front-row seats, and hoped nothing too hard would be thrown at them by the soldiers behind.

Sophrona had arrived earlier, and I had made her accompany Helena as a chaperone. (We kept the girl out of sight of Thalia, in case Sophrona realised what was planned for her and tried to do another flit.) What did happen, of course, was that the family Habib soon spotted Sophrona in the ceremonial box alongside the garrison commander and Helena, who was in full regalia as a senator's daughter, resplendently dressed in new Palmyrene silk, with bronze bracelets to the elbow. My lady was a loyal soul. As it was my play's first night, she had even brought out a tiara to peg down the necessary veil.

The family were impressed. This could only help. I had not worked out exactly how I would solve their troubles, but after three months submerged in soggy dramas, I was full of crass ideas.

The amphitheatre was small by theatrical standards, and ill-equipped for creating dramatic effects. It had been built for gladiatorial fights and wild-beast shows. There were two gates made from heavy timber baulks at opposite ends of the ellipse. The arena had two arched niches on its longer sides. In one, our stagehands had draped a statue of Nemesis with garlands; the musicians were crouching under her skirts. The other niche was to be used as a refuge for actors exiting. Around the arena ran a wooden protective barrier, several yards high. Above it was a steeply raked bank with tiers of wooden benching. The commander's tribunal, little more than a plinth with a couple of thrones, was on one side.

The atmosphere was vibrant. Too vibrant. The troops were restless. Any moment now they would start setting fire to their seats.

It was time to diffuse the kind of trouble we could not stop by stirring up the audience even more with music and dancing girls. In the tribunal the commanding officer politely let drop a white scarf.

Thalia appeared at my side as I stood in the gateway listening to the orchestra begin its first number.

Afrania and Plancina jostled up, huddling in stoles. They wore head-dresses and Palmyrene veils, but only bells and spangles beneath the stoles. Thalia took Plancina, who was nervous, under her accommodating wing. I talked with Afrania.

'This is the night, Falco!' Within the amphitheatre our girls had been glimpsed. Boots began drumming rhythmically. 'Juno! What a gang of turds.'

'Give them your best; they'll be like kittens.'

'Oh, I reckon they're animals all right.'

Plancina ran on, doing things with a set of castanets it was hard to believe were possible. 'Not bad!' Thalia commented.

Soon Plancina was working up a frenzy of applause with her panpipe dance. She writhed well. Afrania dropped her stole, grabbed her musical instrument, then, while I was still blinking, she bounced out, virtually naked, to join the dance.

'Wow!'

'She'll do herself a mischief with that tibia,' growled Thalia, unimpressed.

Not long afterwards the stagehands started clustering around the gate with the props we would be using for The Spook who Spoke. Soon the actors came out from the dressing tent in a tense group. Musa appeared at my elbow.

'Your big night, Falco!'

I was sick of people saying that. 'It's just a play.'

'I have my work too,' he said, rather drily; he was looking after the kid that Tranio was to cook. It struggled valiantly in his arms, trying to run away. Musa also had charge of Philocrates' mule, which was to be ridden in a journey scene. 'And tonight,' he said, with an almost eerie satisfaction, 'we shall identify our murderer.'

'We can try.' His calm attitude disturbed me. 'Domestic livestock seems a comedown for you. Where's the big snake?'

'In his basket,' replied Musa, with the faintest of smiles.

The music ended. The orchestra came off for a drink while the girls raced at speed for the dressing tent. Soldiers poured out for an interval pee, even though we had not planned to allow them an interval. I had been a soldier; I was not surprised.

The actors had seen it all before. They sighed, and stood back from the entrance until the crush had galloped by.

I could see Tranio approaching for his first scene as the busy cook. He looked preoccupied with his coming performance, and I reckoned I might be able to shake him if I asked the right question unexpectedly. I was weighing up my moment to beard him, when Congrio tugged at my sleeve. 'Falco! Falco! This speech I have – ' Congrio's 'speech' was one line; he had to enter as a household slave and announce that the Virtuous Maiden had just given birth. (In plays, virtuous maidens are not that virtuous. Don't blame me; this is the tradition of a soiled genre. Your average theatrical juvenile sees rape as his first step to marriage, and for some reason your average comic heroine goes right along with it.) Congrio was still complaining. 'It's boring. Helena Justina told me I can fill it out – '

'Do whatever you like, Congrio.'

I was trying to move away from him. Tranio was standing some distance apart, getting his wig on. Just as I freed myself from Congrio and his maundering anxiety, a gaggle of heavies from the garrison blocked my path. They sized me up. They despised actors, but I was being taken as more promising bait. Evidently I looked tough enough to have my head kicked in.

I had no time to distract them with genial banter. I leapt straight through the group of hooligans, pounding off on a lengthy detour, then, as I swerved back towards Tranio, I ran into a little fellow who was swearing that he knew me: some lunatic who wanted to discuss a goat.