Last Act In Palmyra

Chapter XLVII

The temperature was definitely bothering all of us now. Travel by day, previously inadvisable, had become quite impossible. Travel in the dark was twice as tiring since we had to go more slowly while drivers constantly peered at the road, needing to concentrate. Our animals were restless. Fear of ambush was increasing as we re-entered Nabataea and ahead of us lay expanses of desert where the nomads were by our standards lawless and their livelihood openly depended on a centuries-old tradition of robbing passers-by. Only the fact that we were obviously not a caravan of rich merchants gave us any protection; it seemed to suffice, but we could never be off guard.

All the time the heat grew daily. It was relentless and inescapable – until night fell abruptly, bringing fierce cold as the warmth lifted like a curtain under open skies. Then, lit by a few flares, we had to set off on the road again, on journeys that seemed far longer, more uncomfortable and more tiresome than they would have been in daylight.

The climate was draining and dehydrating. We saw little of the country, and met hardly anyone to talk to; Musa told us the local tribes all migrated towards the mountains in summer. At roadside stops, our people stood about stamping their feet to get the blood running, miserably taking refreshments and talking in hushed voices. Millions of stars watched us, probably all wondering just what we were doing there. Then, by day, we collapsed in our tents, through which the baking heat soon breathed with suffocating strength, killing the sleep we needed so desperately. So we tossed and turned, groaned and quarrelled with each other, threatening to turn around, head for the coast and go home.

On the road it was difficult for me to continue reinterviewing people. The conditions were so unpleasant everyone stuck with their own camels or waggons. The strongest and those with the best eyesight were always needed for driving. The quarrelsome were always bickering with their friends too angrily to listen to me. None of the women were interested in handing out personal favours, so none of them developed the kind of jealousies that normally bring them running to confide in a handy informer. None of the men wanted to stop threatening to divorce their wives long enough to answer rational questions, especially if they thought the questions might be about the generous Ione. Nobody wanted to share food or precious water, so hitching a lift on another waggon was discouraged. At stops on the road everyone was too busy feeding themselves and their animals or swatting flies.

I did manage one useful conversation, just as we were heading into Bostra. Philocrates lost the pin from one wheel of his waggon. Nothing was broken, luckily; it had just loosened and dropped out. Davos, in the cart behind, saw it happen and shouted a warning before the whole wheel fell off. Davos seemed to spend his life averting disasters. A cynic might have suspected it was some kind of bluff, but I was in no mood for that kind of subtlety.

Philocrates managed to halt his smart equipage gently. He made no attempt to ask for help; he must have known how unpopular this would be after all the times he had refused assistance to the rest of us. Without a word, he jumped down, inspected the problem, cursed, and started to unload the cart. -Nobody else was prepared to help him out, so I volunteered. The rest drew up on the road ahead, and waited while I helped with the repair.

Philocrates had a light, zippy two-wheeler – a real fast chaser's vehicle – with flashy spokes and metal felloes welded on to the rims. But whoever sold him this hot property had passed on a salvage job: one wheel did have a decent hub that was probably original, but the other had been cobbled together with a museum-piece arrangement of a linchpin on the axle.

'Somebody saw you coming!' I commented. He made no reply.

I had expected Philocrates to be useless, but it turned out he could be a pretty handy technician if his alternative was to be abandoned on a lonely road in Nabataea. He was small but muscular, and certainly well exercised. We had to unhitch his mule, which had sensed trouble, then we improvised blocks to support the weight of the cart. Philocrates had to use some of his valuable water supply to cool down the axle-bush. Normally I would have peed on it, but not with a jeering audience.

I pushed against the good wheel while Philocrates straightened the loose one, then we hammered in the pin. The problem was to bang it in hard enough to stay there. One of the stagehands' children brought us a mallet just when we were pondering how to tackle it. The child handed the tool to me, probably under instructions, and waited to take it straight back to her father afterwards. I reckoned I would be the best hitter, but Philocrates grabbed the mallet from me and swung down on the pin himself. It was his cart, so I let him. He was the one who would be stuck with a broken axle and shattered wheel if the pin worked loose again. He did have a small tent-peg hammer of his own, though, so I took that and put in alternate blows.

'Phew! We're a good team,' commented the actor when we stopped to take a breath and contemplate our work. I gave him a dirty look. 'I reckon that should hold it. I can get a wheelwright to look at it at Bostra. Thanks,' he forced out. It was perfunctory, but no less valid for that.

'I was brought up to pull my weight in the community!' If he knew this crack of mine was a hint, no flicker showed on his haughty, high-cheeked face.

We returned the mallet to the urchin. She scampered off, and I helped Philocrates reload his cart. He owned a lot of fancy stuffpresents from grateful women, no doubt. Next came the moment I had been waiting for all along: he had to rehitch the mule. This was exquisite. After having watched me chase my stupid ox that time, I felt he owed me the privilege of sitting at the roadside doing nothing while he stumbled around offering straw to his frisky beast. Like most mules, it applied all its high intelligence to leading the life of a bad character.

'I'm glad of a chat,' I offered, as I squatted on a rock. It was not what Philocrates wanted to hear at that moment, but I was ready to have some fun. 'It's only fair to warn you, you're chief suspect in the murder case.'

'What?' Philocrates stopped stock-still in outrage. His mule saw its moment, snatched the straw and skipped away. 'I never heard such rubbish – '

'You've lost him,' I pointed out helpfully, nodding at his animal. 'Obviously you ought to be given a chance to clear yourself.'

Philocrates responded with a short phrase that referred to a part of his anatomy he overused. I pondered how easy it is to make a confident man flustered merely by saying something grossly unfair.

'Clear myself of what?' he demanded. He was definitely hot, and it had nothing to do with the climate or our recent labouring. Philocrates' life veered between two themes: acting and philandering. He was highly competent at both, but in other fields he was starting to look stupid. 'Clear myself of nothing, Falco! I've done nothing, and nobody can suggest I have!'

'Oh, come on! This is pathetic. You must have had plenty of angry husbands and fathers accusing you. With all that practice behind you, I expected a better-rehearsed plea. Where's your famous stage sparkle? Especially,' I mused thoughtfully, 'when these charges are so serious. A few adulteries and the occasional bastard may litter your off-colour past, but this is hard crime, Philocrates. Murder is called to account in the public arena – '

'You'll not send me to the bloody lions for something I had nothing to do with! There is some justice.'

'In Nabataea? Are you sure of that?'

'I'll not answer the case in Nabataea!' I had threatened him with the barbarians; instant panic had set in.

'You will if I make the charges here. We're in Nabataea already. Bostra's just up the road. One murder took place in its sister city, and I have with me a Petran representative. Musa has come all this way, on command of the Nabataean Chief Minister, specifically to condemn the killer who committed the sacrilege at their High Place!' I loved this sort of high-flown oratory. Incantations may be complete rubbish, but they have a gorgeous effect.

'Musa?' Philocrates was suddenly more suspicious.

'Musa. He may look like a lovelorn adolescent, but he's The Brother's personal envoy, charged with arresting the killer – who looks like you.'

'He's a junior priest, without authority.' Maybe I should have known better than to trust oratory with an actor; he knew all about the power of words, especially empty ones.

'Ask Helena,' I said. 'She can give you the straight story. Musa has been singled out for high position. This embassy abroad is a training job. He urgently needs to take a criminal back to preserve his reputation. I'm sorry, but you're the best candidate.'

Philocrates' mule had become disappointed by the lack of action. It strolled up and nudged its master on the shoulder, telling him to get on with the chase.

'How?' Philocrates spat at me; no use to a mule who was looking for entertainment. One ear up and one ear down, the fun-loving beast gazed across at me sadly, deploring its lot.

'Philocrates,' I advised him like a brother, 'you are the only suspect who has no alibi.'

'What? Why? He was well equipped with interrogatives.

'Facts, man. When Heliodorus was murdered you say you were bunked up in a rock tomb. When Ione died in the pools of Maiuma, you came up with exactly the same shabby story -bumping a so-called "cheeseseller". Sounds fine. Sounds in keeping. But do we ever have a name? An address? Anyone who ever saw you with either of these bits of flotsam? A furious father or fiance trying to cut your throat for the insult? No. Face it, Philocrates. Everyone else provides proper witnesses. You only hand me feeble lies.'

The fact that the 'lies' were completely in character should offer him a good defence. The fact that I also knew he had not been on the embankment at Bostra when Musa was attacked clinched his innocence for me. But he was too dumb to argue.

'As a matter of fact,' I continued the pressure, as he kicked his natty boot against a stone in helpless outrage, 'I do think you were with a girl the night Ione died -I think it was Ione herself.'

'Oh come on, Falco!'

'I think you were the lover Ione met at the Maiuma pools.' I noticed that every time I said Ione's name he jumped guiltily. Real criminals are not so nervous.

'Falco, I'd had a fling with her – who hadn't? – but that was long past. I like to keep moving. So did she, for that matter. Anyway, life is much less complicated if you confine your attentions outside the company.'

Ione herself was never that scrupulous.'

'No,' he agreed.

'So do you know who her special lover in the company was?'

'I don't. One of the clowns could probably enlighten you.'

'You mean either Tranio or Grumio was Ione's special friend?'

'That's not what I said!' Philocrates grew snappy. 'I mean they were friendly enough with the silly girl to have heard from her what she was up to. She didn't take either of those two idiots seriously.'

'So who did she take seriously, Philocrates? Was it you?'

'Should have been. Somebody worth it.' Automatically, he swept one hand back across his sleek hair. His arrogance was intolerable.

'You reckon so?' I lost my temper. 'One thing about you, Philocrates: your intellect is nowhere near as lively as your prick.' I fear he took it as a compliment.

Even the mule had registered its master's uselessness. It came up behind Philocrates, gave a sudden shove with its long-nosed head, and knocked the furious actor face down.

A cheer went up from the rest of our group. I grinned and walked back to my own slow, solid-wheeled ox-cart.

'What was going on there?' Helena demanded.

'I just told Philocrates he's lost his alibi. He'd already lost his cartwheel, his mule, his temper and his dignity – '

'The poor man,' murmured Musa, with little sign of sympathy. 'A bad day!'

The actor had told me virtually nothing. But he had cheered me up completely. That can be as much use as any piece of evidence. I had met informers who implied that to succeed they needed not just sore feet, a hangover, a sorry love life and some progressive disease, but a dour, depressing outlook too. I disagree. The work provides enough misery. Being happy gives a man a boost that can help solve cases. Confidence counts.

I rode into Bostra hot, tired, dusty and dry. But all the same, every time I thought of Philocrates' mule flooring him, I felt ready to tackle anything.