Last Act In Palmyra

Chapter XXXII

Pella: founded by Seleucus, Alexander's general. It possessed an ancient and highly respectable history, and a modern, booming air. Like everywhere else it had been pillaged in the Rebellion, but had bounced back cheerfully. A little honey-pot, aware of its own importance.

We had moved north and west to much more viable country that produced textiles, meat, grain, wood, pottery, leather and dyes. The export trade up the River Jordan valley may have reduced during the Judaean troubles, but it was reviving now. Old Seleucus knew how to pick a site. Pella straddled a long spur of the lush foothills, with a fabulous view across the valley. Below the steep-sided domed acropolis of the Hellenic foundation, Romanised suburbia was spreading rapidly through a valley that contained a crisply splashing spring and stream. They had water, pasture, and merchants to prey off: all a Decapolis city needed.

We had been warned about a bitter feud between the Pellans and their rivals across the valley in Scythopolis. Hoping for fights in the streets, we were disappointed, needless to say. On the whole, Pella was a dull, well-behaved little city. There was, however, a large new colony of Christians there, people who had fled when Titus conquered and destroyed Jerusalem. The native Pellans now seemed to spend their energy picking on them instead.

With their wealth, which was quite enviable, the Pellans had built themselves smart villas nuzzling the warm city walls, temples for every occasion, and all the usual public buildings that show a city thinks itself civilised. These included a small theatre, right down beside the water.

The Pellans obviously liked culture. Instead we gave them our company favourite, The Pirate Brothers, an undemanding vehicle for our shocked actors to walk through.

'No one wants to perform. This is crass!' I grumbled, as we dragged out costumes that evening.

'This is the East,' answered Tranio.

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Expect a full house tonight. News flashes around here. They will have heard we had a death at our last venue. We're well set up.'

As he spoke of Ione I gave him a sharp look, but there was nothing exceptional in his behaviour. No guilt. No relief, if he was feeling he had silenced an unwelcome revelation from the girl. No sign any longer of the defiance I had thought he exhibited when I questioned him at Gerasa. Nor, if he noticed me staring, did he show any awareness of my interest.

Helena was sitting on a bale sewing braid back on to a gown for Phrygia (who in turn was holding nails for a stagehand mending a piece of broken scenery). My lass bit through her thread, with little thought for the safety of her teeth. 'Why do you think Easterners have lurid tastes, Tranio?'

'Fact,' he said. 'Heard of the Battle of Carrhae?' It was one of Rome's famous disasters. Several legions under Crassus had been massacred by the legendary Parthians, our foreign policy lay in ruins for decades afterwards, the Senate was outraged, then more plebeian soldiers' lives had been chucked away in expeditions to recapture lost military standards: the usual stuff. 'On the night after their triumph at Carrhae,' Tranio told us, 'the Parthians and Armenians all sat down to watch The Bacchae of Euripides.'

'Strong stuff, but a night at a play seems a respectable way to celebrate a victory,' said Helena.

'What,' Tranio demanded bitterly, 'with the severed head of Crassus kicked around the stage?'

'Juno!' Helena blanched.

'The only thing we could do to please people better,' Tranio continued, 'would be Laureolus with a robber king actually crucified live in the last act.'

'Been done,' I told him. Presumably he knew that. Like Grumio, he was putting himself forward as a student of drama history. I was about to enter into a discussion, but he was keeping himself aloof from me now and swiftly made off.

Helena and I exchanged a thoughtful look. Was Tranio's delight in these lurid theatrical details a reflection of his own involvement in violence? Or was he an innocent party, merely depressed by the deaths in the company?

Unable to fathom his attitude, I filled in time before the play by asking in the town about Thalia's musician, without luck, as usual.

However, this did provide me with an unexpected chance to do some checking up on the wilfully elusive Tranio. As I sauntered back to camp, I happened to come across his girlfriend Afrania, the tibia-player. She was having trouble shaking off a group of Pellan youths who were following her. I didn't blame them, for she was a luscious armful with the dangerous habit of looking at anything masculine as if she wanted to be followed home. They had never seen anything like her; I had not seen much like it myself.

I told the lads to get lost, in a friendly fashion, then when this had no effect I resorted to old-fashioned diplomacy: hurling rocks at them while Afrania screamed insults. They took the hint; we congratulated ourselves on our style; then we walked together, just in case the hooligans found reinforcements and came after us again.

Once she regained her breath, Afrania suddenly stared at me. 'It was true, you know.'

I guessed what she meant, but played the innocent. 'What's that?'

'Me and Tranio. He really was with me that night.'

'If you say so,' I said.

Having chosen to talk to me, she seemed annoyed that I didn't believe her. 'Oh, don't be po-faced, Falco!'

'All right. When I asked you, I just gained the impression,' I told her frankly, 'there was something funny going on.' With girls like Afrania I always liked to play the man of the world. I wanted her to understand I had sensed the touchy atmosphere when I questioned the pair of them.

'It's not me,' she assured me self-righteously, tossing back her rampant black curls with a gesture that had a bouncing effect on her thinly clad bosom as well.

'If you say so.'

'No, really. It's that idiot Tranio.' I made no comment. We were nearing our camp. I knew there was unlikely to be another opportunity to persuade Afrania to confide in me; there was unlikely to be another occasion when she needed rescuing from men. Normally Afrania accepted all comers.

'Whatever you say,' I repeated in a sceptical tone. 'If he was with you, then he's cleared of murdering Ione. I assume you wouldn't lie about that. After all, she was supposed to be your friend.'

Afrania made no comment on that. I knew there had been a degree of rivalry between them, in fact. What she did say amazed me. 'Tranio was with me all right. He asked me to deny it though.'

'Jupiter! Whatever for?'

She had the grace to look embarrassed. 'He said it was one of his practical jokes, to get you confused.'

I laughed bitterly. 'It takes less than that to get me confused,' I confessed. 'I don't get it. Why should Tranio put himself on the spot for a killing? And why should you be a party to it?'

'Tranio never killed Ione,' Afrania said self-righteously. 'But don't ask me what the silly bastard thought he was up to. I never knew.'

The practical joke idea seemed so far-fetched I reckoned it was just a line Tranio had come up with for Afrania. But I was hard-pressed to think of another reason why he would want her to lie. The only slim possibility might be drawing the heat away from someone else. But Tranio would need to owe someone a truly enormous debt if he would risk being accused of a murder he had not committed.

'Has anyone done Tranio any big favours recently?'

'Only me!' quipped the girl. 'Going to bed with him, I mean.'

I grinned appreciatively, then quickly changed tack: 'Do you know who Ione might have been meeting at the pools?'

Afrania shook her head. 'No. That's the reason she and I had a few words sometimes. The person I used to reckon she had her eye on was Tranio.'

Very convenient. Here was Tranio being fingered as a possible associate of the dead girl just when he was also being given a firm alibi. 'Yet it couldn't be him,' I concluded, with a certain dryness, 'because wonderful Tranio was doing acrobatic tricks with you all night.'

'He was!' retorted Afrania. 'So where does that leave you, Falco? Ione must have been up to it with the whole company!'

Not much help to the sleuth trying to fix who had murdered her.

As our waggons came in sight, Afrania rapidly lost interest in talking to me. I let her go, wondering whether to have another talk with Tranio, or whether to pretend to forget him. I decided to leave him unchallenged, but to observe him secretly.

Helena always reckoned that was the informer's lazy way out. However, she would not be hearing about this. Unless it was essential, I never told Helena when I had gathered information from a very pretty girl.

If the Pellans were baying for blood they held their vile tastes well in check. In fact they behaved with quiet manners during our performance of The Pirate Brothers, sat in neat rows eating honeyed dates, and applauded us gravely afterwards. Pellan women mobbed Philocrates in sufficient numbers to keep him insufferable; Pellan men mooned after Byrria but were satisfied with the orchestra girls; Chremes and Phrygia were invited to a decent dinner by a local magistrate. And the rest of us were paid for once.

In other circumstances we might have stayed longer at Pella, but Ione's death had made the whole company restless. Luckily the next town lay very close, just across the Jordan Valley. So we moved on immediately, making the short journey to Scythopolis.