Last Act In Palmyra

Chapter XLVI

A restless mood hit the company once we performed at Capitolias. One reason for it was that decisions now had to be taken. This was the last in the central group of Decapolis cities. Damascus lay a good sixty miles to the north – further than we had been accustomed to travelling between towns. The remaining place, Canatha, was awkwardly isolated from the group, far out to the east on the basalt plain north of Bostra. In fact, because of its remote position, the best way to get there was going back via Bostra, which added half as much again to the thirty- or forty-mile distance it would have been direct.

The thought of revisiting Bostra gave everyone a feeling that we were about to complete a circle, after which it might seem natural for ways to part.

It was now deep summer. The weather had grown almost unbearably hot. Working in such temperatures was difficult, though at the same time audiences seemed to welcome performances once their cities cooled slightly at night. By day people huddled in whatever shade they could find; shops and businesses were shuttered for long periods; and no one travelled unless they had a death in the family, or they were idiotic foreigners like us. At night, the locals all came out to meet one another and be entertained. For a group like ours, it posed a problem. We needed the money. We could not afford to stop working, however great a toll of our energy the heat took.

Chremes called everyone to a meeting. His vagabond collection squashed together on the ground in a ragged circle, all jeering and jostling. He stood up on a cart to give a public address. He looked assured, but we knew better than to hope for it.

'Well, we've completed a natural circuit. Now we have to decide where to go next.' I believe somebody suggested

Chremes might try Hades, though it was in a furtive undertone. 'Wherever is chosen, none of you are bound to continue. If needs be, the group can break up and reform.' That was bad news for those of us who wanted to keep it together in order to identify the murderer. That blowfly would be early in the queue for terminating contracts and flitting away.

'What about our money?' called one of the stagehands. I wondered if they had sniffed out a rumour that Chremes might have spent their season's earnings. They had said nothing to me when we discussed their grievances, but it would explain some of their anger. I knew they had been suspicious that I might be reporting back to the management, so they might well have kept their fears on this subject to themselves.

I noticed Davos fold his arms and gaze at Chremes sardonically. Without a blush Chremes announced, 'I'm going to settle up now for what you've earned.' He was absurdly confident. Like Davos, I could smile over it. Chremes had diced with disaster, and been rescued in the nick of time by the maniac who killed his creditor. How many of us can hope for such luck? Now Chremes had the satisfied air of those who are constantly saved from peril by the Fates. It was a trait I had never been favoured with. But I knew these men existed. I knew they never learned from their mistakes because they never had to suffer for them. A few moments of panic were the worst effects Chremes would ever know. He would float through life, behaving as badly as possible and risking everyone else's happiness, yet never having to face responsibility.

Of course he could produce the money his workforce was owed; Heliodorus had bailed him out. And although Chremes ought to have paid the playwright back, he blatantly had no intention of remembering the debt now. He would have diddled the man himself, if he could have got away with it, so he would certainly rob the dead. My question about heirs, and Phrygia's easy answer that Heliodorus was assumed to have had none, took on a dry significance. Not knowing about her husband's debt, even Phrygia could not understand the full irony.

This was the moment when I looked at the manager hardest. However, Chremes had been cleared as a suspect pretty convincingly. He had alibis for both murders, and had been somewhere else the night Musa was attacked. Chremes had a serious motive for killing Heliodorus, but for all I knew so did half the group. It had taken a long time for me to unearth this debt of Chremes'; maybe there were other lurking maggots if I turned over the right cowpat.

As if by chance, I had seated myself at our manager's feet, on the tail of the same cart. This put me staring out at the assembly. I could see most of their faces – among which had to be the one I was looking for. I wondered whether the killer was gazing back, aware of my complete bafflement. I tried to look at each one as if I was thinking about some vital fact he was unaware I knew: Davos, almost too reliable by half (could anyone be quite so straight as Davos always seemed?); Philocrates, chin up so his profile showed best (could anyone be so totally self-obsessed?); Congrio, undernourished and unappealing (what twisted ideas might that thin, pale wraith be harbouring?); Tranio and Grumio, so clever, so sharp, each so secure in his mastery of their craft – a craft that relied on a devious mind, an attacking wit, and visual deceit.

The faces returning my gaze all looked more cheerful than I liked. If anyone had worries, they had not been posed by me.

'The options,' stated Chremes importantly, 'are, firstly, to go around the same circuit again, trading on our previous success.' There were a few jeers. 'I reject this,' the manager agreed, 'on the grounds that it poses no dramatic challenge -' This time some of us laughed outright. 'Besides, one or two towns hold bad memories…' He subsided. Public reference to death was not in his style of speech-making. 'The next alternative is to move further afield in Syria -'

'Are there good pickings?' I prompted in a not very quiet mutter.

'Thanks, Falco! Yes, I think Syria still holds out a welcome for a reputable theatre group like ours. We still have a large repertoire which we have not properly explored – '

'Falco's ghost play!' suggested a satirist. I had not been aware that my idea for writing a play of my own was so widely known about.

'Jupiter forfend!' cried Chremes as raucous merriment erupted and I grinned gamely. My ghost play would be better than these bastards knew, but I was a professional writer now; I had learned to keep my smouldering genius quiet. 'So where shall we take ourselves? The choices are various.'

His options had turned into choices, but the dilemma remained.

'Do we want to complete the Decapolis towns? Or shall we travel north more quickly and tackle the sophisticated cities there? We won't want to go into the desert, but beyond Damascus there is a good route in a fairly civilised area, through Emesa, Epiphania, Beroia, and across to Antiochia. On the way we can certainly cover Damascus.'

'Any drawbacks?' I queried.

'Long distances, mainly.^'

'Longer than going to Canatha?' I pressed.

'Very much so. Canatha would mean a detour back through Bostra -'

'Though there would be a good road up to Damascus afterwards?' I had already been looking at itineraries myself. I never rely on anyone else to research a route.

'Er, yes.' Chremes was feeling hard-pressed, a position he hated. 'Do you particularly want us to go to Canatha, Falco?'

'Taking the company or not is up to you. Myself, I've no option. I'd be happy to stay with you as your playwright but I have my own business in the Decapolis, a commission I want to clear up – '

I was trying to give the impression my private search for Sophrona was taking precedence over finding the murderer. I wanted the villain to think I was losing interest. I hoped to make him relax.

'I dare say we can accommodate your wish to visit Canatha,' Chremes offered graciously. 'A city which is off the beaten track may be ripe for some of our high-class performances -'

'Oh, I reckon they are starved of culture!' I encouraged, not specifying whether I thought 'culture' would be a product handed out by us.

'We'll go where Falco says,' called one of the stagehands. 'He's our lucky talisman.' Some of the others gave me nods and winks that proclaimed in a far from subtle manner that they wanted to keep me close enough to protect them. Not that I had done much on their behalf so far.

'Show of hands then,' answered Chremes, as usual letting anybody other than himself decide. He loved the fine idea of democracy, like most men who couldn't organise an orgy with twenty bored gladiators in a women's bathhouse on a hot Tuesday night.

As the stagehands shuffled and glanced around them it seemed to me the killer must have detected the widespread conspiracy building up against him. But if he did, he uttered no protest. A further quick scan of our male suspects revealed nobody visibly cursing. No one seemed resentful that the chance to shed me, or to break up the troupe altogether, had just been deferred.

So to Canatha it was. The group would be staying together for two more Decapolis cities, Canatha, then Damascus. However, after Damascus – a major administrative centre, with plenty of other work on offer – group members might start drifting off.

Which meant that if I was to expose the killer, time was now running out.