Last Act In Palmyra

Chapter XXI

I was beginning to see the picture: Chremes, Phrygia, and where Davos himself fitted in as the old friend who had mourned for their mistakes and his own lost opportunities. When Helena caught my eye, I checked with her: 'What do you think?'

'He's not involved,' she answered slowly. 'I think he may have meant more to Phrygia in the past than he does now, but it was probably a long time ago. After knowing her and Chremes for twenty years, now he's just a critical but loyal friend.'

Helena had been warming some honey for me. She rose and fetched it from the fire. I took the beaker, settling down more comfortably and giving Musa a reassuring smile. For a while none of us spoke. We sat in a close group, considering events.

I was aware of a change in the atmosphere. As soon as Davos left the tent, Musa had relaxed. His manner became more open. Instead of huddling under his blanket he ran his hands through his hair, which had started to dry and curl up at the ends ridiculously. It made him look young. His dark eyes had a thoughtful expression; the mere fact that I could judge his expression marked a change in him.

I realised what was up. I had seen Helena looking after him as if he belonged to us, while he accepted her anxious attentions with little trace of his old wariness. The truth was clear. We had been together for a couple of weeks. The worst had happened: the damned Nabataean hanger-on had joined the family.

'Falco,' he said. I could not remember him addressing me by name before. I gave him a nod. It was not unfriendly. He had not yet attained the position of loathing I reserved for my natural relatives.

'Tell us what happened,' Helena murmured. The conversation was taking place in low voices, as if we were afraid there might be lurking figures outside the tent. That seemed unlikely; it was still a filthy night.

'It was a ridiculous expedition, ill-conceived and ill-planned.' It sounded as if Musa had viewed his jolly night on the town as some military manoeuvre. 'People had not taken enough torches, and those we had were waning in the damp.'

'Who asked you to go on this drinking spree?' I broke in.

Musa recollected. 'Tranio, I think.'

'I guessed it might have been!' Tranio was not my chief suspect – or at least not yet, because I had no evidence – but he was first choice as a general stirrer-up of trouble.

'Why did you agree to go?' Helena queried.

He flashed her an astonishing grin; it split his face apart. 'I thought you and Falco were going to be quarrelling about the play.' It was Musa's first joke: one aimed at me.

'We never quarrel!' I growled.

'Then I beg your pardon!' He said it with the polite insincerity of a man who shared our tent and knew the truth.

'Tell us about the accident!' Helena urged him, smiling.

The priest smiled too, more wickedly than we were used to, but immediately grew intense as he told his story. 'Walking was difficult. We were stumbling, our heads low. People were grumbling, but nobody wanted to suggest turning back. When we were on the cistern's raised embankment, I felt somebody push me, like this – ' He suddenly aimed a hard blow with the flat of his palm against the lower middle of my back. I braced my calves to avoid falling into the fire; he had quite a shove. 'I fell down over the wall -'

'Jupiter! And of course you can't swim!'

Unable to swim myself, I viewed his predicament with horror. However, Musa's dark eyes looked amused. 'Why do you say that?'

'It seemed a reasonable deduction, given that you live in a desert citadel -'

He raised a disapproving eyebrow, as if I had said something stupid. 'We have water cisterns in Petra. Small boys always play in them. I can swim.'

'Ah!' It had saved his life. But somebody else must have made the same mistake as me.

'It was very dark, however,' Musa went on in his light, conversational way. 'I was startled. The cold water made me gasp and lose my breath. I could not see any place to climb out. I was afraid.' His admission was frank and straightforward, like everything he said or did. 'I could tell that the water below me was deep. It felt many times deeper than a man. As soon as I could breathe, I shouted out very loudly.'

Helena frowned angrily. 'It's terrifying! Did anyone help you?'

'Davos quickly found a way down to the water's edge. He was roaring instructions, to me and to the other people. He was, I think…' Musa searched for the word in Greek. 'Competent. Then everyone came – the clowns, the stagehands, Congrio. Hands pulled me out. I do not know whose hands.' That meant nothing. As soon as it became obvious he hadn't sunk and would be rescued, whoever tipped Musa into the water would help him out again to cover his own tracks.

'It's the hand that shoved you in that matters.' I was thinking about our suspects list and trying to envisage who had been doing what on that embankment in the dark. 'You haven't mentioned Chremes or Philocrates. Were they with you?'

'No.'

'It sounds as if we can eliminate Davos as perpetrator, but we'll keep an open mind on all the rest. Do you know who had been walking closest to you beforehand?'

'I am not sure. I thought it was the Twins. A while before I had been talking to the bill-poster, Congrio. But he had fallen behind. Because of the height of the walkway and the wind, everyone had slowed up and strung out more. You could see figures, though not tell who they were.'

'Were you in single file?'

'No. I was alone, others were in groups. The walkway was wide enough; it only seemed dangerous because it was high, and in darkness, and made slippery by the rain.' When he did talk, Musa was extremely precise, an intelligent man talking in a language not his own. A man full of caution too. Not many people who have narrowly escaped death remain so calm.

There was a small silence. As usual it was Helena who faced up to asking the trickiest question: 'Musa was pushed into the reservoir deliberately. So why', she enquired gently, 'has he become a target?'

Musa's reply to that was a precise one too: 'People think I saw the man who murdered the previous playwright.' I felt a slight jar. His phrasing made it sound as if merely being a playwright was dangerous.

I considered the suggestion slowly. 'We have never told anybody that. I always call you an interpreter.'

'The bill-poster may have overheard us talking about it yesterday,' said Musa. I liked the way his mind worked. He had noticed Congrio lurking too close, just as I had, and had already marked him as suspicious.

'Or he may have told somebody else what he overheard.' I swore quietly. 'If my light-hearted suggestion that we made you a decoy brought this accident upon you, I apologise, Musa.'

'People had been suspicious of us anyway,' Helena rebutted. 'I know there are all sorts of rumours about all three of us.'

'One thing is sure,' I said. 'It looks as if we have made the playwright's murderer extremely jumpy merely by joining the group.'

'He was there,' Musa confirmed in a sombre tone. 'I knew he was there on the embankment above me.'

'How was that?'

'When I first fell into the water, no one seemed to hear the splash. I sank fast, then rose to the surface. I was trying to catch my breath; at first I could not shout. For a moment I felt entirely alone. The other people sounded far off. I could hear their voices growing fainter as they walked away.' He paused, staring into the fire. Helena had reached for my hand; like me she was sharing Musa's dreadful moment of solitude as he struggled to survive down in the black waters of the reservoir while most of his companions carried on oblivious.

Musa's face stayed expressionless. His whole body was still. He did not rant or make wild threats about his future actions. Only his tone clearly told us that the playwright's killer should be wary of meeting him again. 'He is here,' Musa said. 'Among the voices that were going into the darkness, one man had started whistling.'

Exactly like the man he had heard whistling as he came down from the High Place.

'I'm sorry, Musa.' Apologising again I was terse. 'I should have foreseen this. I should have protected you.'

'I am unharmed. It is well.'

'Do you own a dagger?' He was vulnerable; I was ready to give him mine.

'Yes.' Davos and I had not found it when we stripped him.

'Then wear it.'

'Yes, Falco.'

'Next time you'll use it,' I commented.

'Oh yes.' Again that commonplace tone, belying the compelling words. He was a priest of Dushara; I reckoned that Musa would know where to strike. There could be a swift, sticky fate awaiting the man who had whistled in the dark. 'You and I will find this hill bandit, Falco.' Musa stood up, keeping the blanket around him modestly. 'Now I think we should all sleep.'

'Quite right.' I threw his own joke back at him: 'Helena and I still have a lot of quarrelling to do.'

There was a teasing glint in Musa's eye. 'Hah! Then until you have finished I must go back to the reservoir.'

Helena scowled. 'Go to bed, Musa!'

Next day we were setting off for the Decapolis. I made a vow to keep a watchful eye out for the safety of all of us.