Last Act In Palmyra Part 5

With as much dignity as we could muster we allowed ourselves to be marched out of Petra. From shadows among the rocks, dark figures watched us leave. The odd camel did us the honour of spitting after us disparagingly.

Once we stopped. Musa spoke almost crossly to the armed escort. They didn't like waiting, but he darted into a house and came back with a small baggage roll. Equipped with Nabataean underwear and toothpicks, presumably, we were hurried on.

By then night had fallen, so our journey took place by the light of flares. Their pallid flames flickered eerily on the lower carvings of the rock tombs, sending long shadows up the sandstone. Columns and pediments were glimpsed, then quickly lost. Square-topped doorways a.s.sumed a menacing air, their openings like mysterious black cave mouths. We were on foot. We let the Nabataeans carry our baggage across the city, but when we reached the narrow gorge through the mountains it was clear we were being sent on alone - almost. Musa definitely intended to stick all the way. To reach the outside world, I had to grapple with our baggage while Helena lit our way with a flaming brand. As she strode ahead of us in high annoyance, she looked like some devastating sibyl leading the way down a cleft into Hades.

'Lucky I hadn't spent my inheritance on a lifetime's supply of bales of silk and incense jars!' muttered Helena, loud enough for Musa to hear. I knew she had been looking forward to what ought to have been an unrivalled chance to make luxury purchases. If her mother was as efficient as mine, she had come with a three-scroll shopping list.

'I'll buy you a pair of Indian pearl earrings,' I tried offering to her stately back.

'Oh thanks! That should overcome my disappointment...' Helena knew the pearls would probably never materialise.

We stumbled down the rocky path between cliffs that now craned together in complete blackness overhead. If we stopped, occasional tumbling stones were all that broke the silence of the Siq. We kept going.

I was now feeling mild despair. I always like to accomplish my tasks for the Emperor with dispatch, but even by my economical standards spending barely one day in Petra was not a good basis for briefing His Caesars.h.i.+p on the usual dire subjects (topography, fortifications, economics, social mores, political stability and mental state of the populace). I could just about manage to tell him the market price of radishes -- information Vespasian probably knew from other sources, and not much use for helping a war council decide whether to invade.

Without hard information to offer, my chances of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g a fee from the Palace must be slim. Besides, if Anacrites had sent me here in the hope that it would be a terminal journey, I could a.s.sume he had never budgeted for a large outlay. Probably n.o.body expected to see my happy grin at the accounts kiosk again. It meant that not for the first time I was nose to nose with bankruptcy.

Helena, who discovered her sense of discretion whilst she was trying to handle a wildly flaring torch, found little to say about our situation. She had money. She would, if I allowed it, subsidise our journey home. I would let her do it eventually, if that was the only way to spare Helena herself discomfort. Biting back my pride would make me pretty short-tempered, so for both our sakes she refrained from asking pointedly what plans I had now. Maybe I could extricate us myself. More likely not.

Most likely, as Helena knew from experience, I had no plans at all.

This was not the worst disaster of our lives, nor my worst failure. But I was dangerously angry about it. So when a small group of camels and ox-carts came rattling down the gorge behind us, my first reaction was to stay in the middle of the gravel track, forcing them to slow and stick behind us. Then, when a voice called out offering a lift on a cart, irrational frivolity took over. I turned round, dumping my load. The first cart stopped, leaving me gazing into the dolorous eyes of an edgy-looking ox.

'Your offer's welcome, stranger! How far can you take us?'

The man grinned back, responding to the challenge. 'Bostra, perhaps?' He was not Nabataean. We were talking in Greek.

'Bostra's not on my itinerary. How about dropping us at the caravanserai here, where I can pick up my own transport?'

'Done,' he said, with an easygoing smile. His intonation had the same overlay as mine; I was now sure of it.

'You from Italy?' I asked.

'Yes.'

I accepted the lift.

Only when we were ensconced on the waggon did I notice what a raggle-taggle company had picked us up. There were about ten of them, split between three carts and a couple of moth-eaten camels. Most of the people looked white-faced and anxious. Our driver caught the question in my eyes. 'I'm Chremes, an actor-manager. My company has been ordered to depart from Petra. We saw them lift the curfew to let you out, so we're doing a quick flit before anybody changes their mind about us.'

'Might somebody insist you stay?' I asked, though I had already guessed.

'We lost a friend.' He nodded to Helena, whom he must have recognised. 'You are the couple who found him, I believe. Heliodorus, who had the unfortunate accident up on the mountaintop.'

That was the first time I heard our drowned man's name.

Immediately afterwards I heard something else: 'Bostra might be an interesting town to visit, Marcus,' suggested Helena Justina in a speculative voice.

That young lady could never resist a mystery.

Chapter XII.

Of course we did go to Bostra. Helena knew she was doing me a favour by suggesting it. Having discovered the drowned man, I too was fascinated to have met up with his companions. I wanted to know much more about them - and him. Being nosy was my livelihood.

That first evening, Chremes took us to recover our own stabled ox, the sad beast I had taken on at Gaza, together with the shaky contraption that pa.s.sed for our hired vehicle. The night was really too dark now to travel on further, but both our parties were keen to put distance between ourselves and Petra. For added security and confidence we drove on in convoy, sharing our torches. We all seemed to feel that in the desert chance encounters are important.

After we set up camp I approached the actor-manager curiously: 'Are you certain the man Helena and I discovered was your friend?'

'Everything fits from your description - same build, same colouring. Same drinking habits!' he added bitterly.

'Then why didn't you come forward and claim the body?' I sprang at him.

'We were already in enough trouble!' twinkled Chremes like a conspirator.

I could understand that. But the situation intrigued me all the same.

We had all made our tents by hanging black goat-hair covers on rough wooden frames and were sitting outside these shelters by firelight. Most of the theatricals were huddled together, subdued by Heliodorus' death. Chremes came to join Helena and me, while Musa sat slightly apart in a world of his own. Hugging my knees I took my first good look at the leader of the theatre troupe.

He was, like the dead man, broadly built and full of face. More striking, however, with a strong chin and a dramatic nose that would have looked good on a republican general. Even in normal conversation he had a powerful voice with a resonance that seemed almost overdone. He delivered his sentences crisply. I did not doubt there were reasons why he had come to talk this evening. He wanted to judge Helena and me; maybe he wanted more than that from us.

'Where are you from?' Helena enquired. She could draw out information as smoothly as a pickpocket slitting a purse-thong.

'Most of the group hail from southern Italy. I'm a Tusculum man.'

'You're a long way from home!'

'I've been a long way from Tusculum for twenty years.'

I chortled. 'What's that - the old "one wife too many and I was cut out of my inheritance" excuse?'

'There was nothing there for me. Tusculum's a dead-and-alive, ungrateful, uncivilised backwater.' The world is full of people slandering their birthplaces, as if they really believe that small-town life is different elsewhere.

Helena seemed to be enjoying herself; I let her carry on. 'So how did you end up here, Chremes?'

'After half a lifetime performing on rocky stages in thunderstorms to provincial thickheads who only want to talk among themselves about that day's market, it's like a drug. I do have a wife - one I hate, who hates me back -- and I've no more sense than to carry on for ever dragging a gang of tattered strutters into any city we find on our road...'

Chremes talked almost too readily. I wondered how much was a pose. 'When did you actually leave Italy?' Helena asked.

'The first time, twenty years ago. Five years back we came east again with Nero's travelling sideshow, his famous Greek Tour. When he tired of receiving laurel chaplets from bribed judges and packed up for home, we kept on drifting until we floated into Antiochia. The real Greeks didn't want to see what the Romans have done to their stage heritage, but so-called h.e.l.lenic cities here, which haven't been Greek since Alexander, think we're presenting them with masterpiece theatre. We found we could sc.r.a.pe a living in Syria. They are drama-mad. Then I wondered what Nabataea was like.

Worked our way south - and now thanks to The Brother we're working north again.'

'I'm not with you?'

'Our offer of culture was about as welcome in Petra as a performance of The Trojan Women The Trojan Women to a family of baboons.' to a family of baboons.'

'So you were already departing even before Heliodorus was drowned?'

'Seen off by The Brother. Happens often in our profession. Sometimes we get driven out of town for no reason. At least at Petra they produced a pa.s.sable excuse.'

'What was that?'

'We were planning a performance in their theatre - though the G.o.ds know the place was primitive. Aeschylus would have taken one glance and gone on strike. But we were going to give them The Pot of Gold- The Pot of Gold- seemed appropriate, given that everyone there has plenty. Congrio, our poster-writer, had chalked up details all round the city. Then we were solemnly informed that the theatre is only used ceremonially, for funeral rites. The implication was that if we desecrated their stage, the funeral rites might be our own... A strange people,' Chremes stated. seemed appropriate, given that everyone there has plenty. Congrio, our poster-writer, had chalked up details all round the city. Then we were solemnly informed that the theatre is only used ceremonially, for funeral rites. The implication was that if we desecrated their stage, the funeral rites might be our own... A strange people,' Chremes stated.

This sort of comment normally produces a silence. Adverse remarks about foreigners make people remember their own folk - temporarily convincing themselves that those they have left at home are sensible and sane. Nostalgia seeped into our circle gloomily.

'If you were all about to leave Petra,' Helena asked thoughtfully, 'why had Heliodorus gone for a walk?'

'Why? Because he was a constant menace!' Chremes exclaimed. 'Trust him to lose himself when we were set to leave.'

'I still think you should have identified him formally,' I told him.

'Oh it will be him,' Chremes insisted airily. 'He was the type to inflict himself on an accident, and at the worst possible moment. Just like him to die somewhere sacrilegious and get us all locked in an underground dungeon. Having dozy officials argue for years about who caused his death would have struck Heliodorus as a fine joke!'

'A comedian?'

'He thought so.' Chremes caught Helena smiling, so added instructively, 'Someone else had to write the jokes for him.'

'Not creative?'

'If I told you exactly what I thought of Heliodorus it would sound unkind. So let's confine it to, he was a shabby, shambling dissolute with no sense of language, tact or timing.'

'You're a measured critic!' she answered solemnly.

'I try to be fair!'

'So he won't be missed?' I enquired quietly.

'Oh, he'll be missed! He was employed to do a certain job, which n.o.body else can undertake --'

'Ah, you mean no one else wants it?' I was speaking from experience in my own career.

'What was it?' Helena asked, with the light, careless inflection of a girl whose close companion needs to earn a crust.

'He was our jobbing playwright.'

Even Helena sounded surprised by that. 'The man we found drowned had written plays?'

'Certainly not!' Chremes was shocked. 'We are a respectable troupe with a fine reputation; we only perform the established repertoire! Heliodorus adapted adapted plays.' plays.'

'What did that entail?' Helena Justina always asked the direct question. 'Translations from Greek to Latin?'

'Anything and everything. Not full translations, but pepping up turgid ones so we could bear to speak the lines. Modifying the story if the cast did not suit our company. Adding better characters to liven up proceedings. He was supposed supposed to add jokes, though as I told you, Heliodorus wouldn't recognise a funny line if it jumped up and poked him in the eye. We mainly put on New Comedy. It has two painful disadvantages: it's no longer new, and quite frankly, it's not comic' to add jokes, though as I told you, Heliodorus wouldn't recognise a funny line if it jumped up and poked him in the eye. We mainly put on New Comedy. It has two painful disadvantages: it's no longer new, and quite frankly, it's not comic'

Helena Justina was a shrewd, educated girl, and sensitive to atmosphere. She certainly knew what she was risking when she asked, 'What will you do about replacing Heliodorus now?'

At once Chremes grinned at me. 'Want a job?' He had an evil streak.

'What are the qualifications needed?'

'Able to read and write.'

I smiled diffidently, like a man who is too polite to say no to a friend. People never take the hint.

'Marcus can do that,' Helena put in. 'He does need a job.'

Some girls would be happy just to sit under the stars in the desert with the love of their heart, without trying to hire him out to any pa.s.sing entrepreneur.

'What's your trade?' Chremes asked, perhaps warily.

'In Rome I am an informer.' It was best to be frank, but I knew better than to mention my imperial sponsors.h.i.+p.

'Oh! What are the qualifications for that that?'

'Able to duck and dive.'

'Why Petra?'

'I came east to look for a missing person. Just a musician. For some unaccountable reason The Brother decided I must be a spy.'

'Oh don't worry about that!' Chremes rea.s.sured me heartily, in our profession it happens all the time.' Probably when it suited them, it could be true. Actors went everywhere. According to their reputation in Rome, they were not fussy who they spoke to when they got there and they often sold much more than tasteful Athenian hexameters. 'So, young Marcus, being whipped out of the mountain sanctuary leaves you a quadrans short of a denarius?'

it does, but don't put me on the payroll before I've even heard your offer and its terms!'

'Marcus can do it,' Helena interrupted. I like my girlfriends to have faith in me - though not that much faith. 'He writes poetry in his spare time,' she revealed, without bothering to ask whether I wanted my private hobbies publicly exposed.

'The very man!'

I stood my ground, temporarily. 'Sorry, I'm just a scribbler of lousy satires and elegies. Besides, I hate Greek plays.'

'Don't we all? There's nothing to it,' Chremes a.s.sured me.

'You'll love it!' gurgled Helena.

The actor-manager patted my arm. 'Listen, Falco, if Heliodorus could do this job, anybody can!' Just the sort of career proposal I look for. It was too late for resistance, however. Chremes raised a fist in greeting and cried, 'Welcome to the company!'

I made one last attempt to extricate myself from this lunatic j.a.pe. 'I still have to look for my missing person. I doubt if you're going where I need to be - '

'We are going', p.r.o.nounced Chremes elaborately, 'where the desert-dwelling populace barely recognise their sophisticated Greek heritage and are overdue for some permanent theatre-building, but where the founders of their paltry h.e.l.lenic cities have at least provided them with some some auditoria that purveyors of the dramatic arts are allowed to use. We are going, my fine young informer - ' auditoria that purveyors of the dramatic arts are allowed to use. We are going, my fine young informer - '

I knew it already. I broke in on the long-windedness: 'You are going to the Decapolis!'

Leaning against my knee and gazing up at the mysterious desert sky, Helena smiled contentedly. 'That's convenient, Chremes. Marcus and I already had plans to travel to the same area!'