Helena and I exchanged a wry glance. The thought crossed my mind that if someone fell down into those tunnels and the exit was recovered, even if he survived the tumble no one would ever hear him call for help. His body would not be found until it had decayed so much that townsfolk started feeling poorly…
If Grumio had been a suspect who could not account for his movements, I might have found myself shivering.
Helena and I made our way back to camp slowly, amorously intertwined.
Not for the first time with this company, we had walked into a panic. Chremes and the others had been gone too long; Davos had sent Congrio to wander round town in his most unobtrusive manner, trying to find out where they were. As we reached the camp Congrio came scampering back, shrieking: ‘They’re all locked up!’
‘Calm down.’ I made a grab at him, and held him still. ‘Locked up? What for?’
‘It’s Grumio’s fault. When they got in to see the magistrate, it turned out he had been at Gerasa when we were there; he’d heard Grumio doing his comic turn. Part of it was insulting Gadarenes…’ As I recalled Grumio’s stand-up act, most of it had involved being rude about the Decapolis towns. Thinking of Helena’s recent joke, we were only lucky he hadn’t mentioned punnets in connection with the private parts of their pompous magistrates. Maybe he had never read whatever scroll Helena had found for herself. ‘Now our lot are all thrown into prison for slander,’ Congrio wailed.
I wanted my dinner. My chief reaction was annoyance. ‘If Grumio said the Gadarenes were impetuous and touchy and have no sense of humour, where’s the slander? It’s obviously true! Anyway, that’s nothing to what I heard him say about Abila and Dium.’
‘I’m just telling you what I heard, Falco.’
‘And I’m just deciding what we can do.’
‘Cause a fuss,’ suggested Davos. ‘Tell them we intend to warn our Emperor about their unkind welcome for innocent visitors, then beat the local jailor over the head with a cudgel. After that, run like mad.’
Davos was the kind of man I could work with. He had a good grasp of a situation and a down-to-earth attitude to handling it.
He and I went into town together, dressed up to look like respectable entrepreneurs. We wore newly polished boots and togas from the costume box. Davos was carrying a laurel wreath for an even more refined effect, though I did think that was overdoing it.
We presented ourselves at the magistrate’s house, looking surprised there could be a problem. The nob was out: at the theatre. We then presented ourselves at one end of the orchestra stalls and hung around for a break in what turned out to be a very poor satyr play. Davos muttered, ‘At least they could tune their damned panpipes! Their masks stink. And their nymphs are rubbish.’
While we fretted on the sidelines, I managed to ask, ‘Davos, have you ever seen Philocrates blow up an empty wineskin and throw it into water, the way children like to do? Is making floats a habit of his?’
‘Not that I’ve noticed. I’ve seen the clowns do it.’
As usual, what had looked like a pinpointing clue caused more confusion than it solved.
Luckily satyr plays are short. A few disguises, a couple of mock rapes, and they gallop off-stage in their goatskin trousers.
At last there was a pause to let the sweetmeat trays go round. Seizing our moment we leapt across the pit to beard the elected nincompoop who had incarcerated our gang. He was an overbearing bastard. Sometimes I lose faith in democracy. Usually, in fact.
There was not much time to argue; we could hear tambourines rattling as a fleet of overweight female dancers prepared to come onstage next and titillate with some choric frivolity in see-through skirts. After three minutes of fast talking we had achieved nothing with the official, and he signalled the theatre guards to shift us.
Davos and I left of our own accord. We went straight to the jail, where we bribed the keeper with half our proceeds from performing The Birds at Scythopolis. Anticipating trouble, we had already left instructions for the waggons and camels to be loaded up by my friends the scene-shifters. Once we had organised our jailbreak, we spent a few moments in the forum loudly discussing our next move eastwards to Capitolias, then we met the rest of our group on the road and galloped off in the northerly direction of Hippos.
We travelled fast, cursing the Gadarenes for the indelicate swine they had shown themselves to be.
So much for the Athens of the East!
Chapter XL
Hippos: a jumpy town. Not as jumpy as some of its visitors were, however.
It was located halfway along the eastern shore of Lake Tiberias on a hilltop site - fine vistas, but inconvenient. The site set it back from the lake a considerable distance, with no nearby river, so water for domestic consumption was scarce. Across the lake lay Tiberias, a city that had been much more conveniently placed at shore level. The people of Hippos hated the people of Tiberias with passionate hostility - much more real than the vaunted feud between Pella and Scythopolis, which we had been hard-put to spot.
Hippos had its water shortage and feud to contend with, which ought to have left little time for parting traders from their money or spending that money on grandiose building schemes, yet with the tenacity of this region its people were managing both. From the gate where we entered (on foot, for we camped out of town in case we needed to flee again) ran an established main street, a long black basalt thoroughfare whose gracious colonnades travelled the length of the ridge on which the town stood, giving fine views of Lake Tiberias.
Perhaps due to our own nervous situation, we found the populace edgy. The streets were full of swarthy faces peering from hoods with an air that told you not to ask directions to the marketplace. The women had the guarded expressions of those who spend many hours every day jostling to fill pitchers with water; thin, harassed little pieces with the sinewy arms of those who then had to carry the full pitchers home. The men’s role was to stand about looking sinister; they all carried knives, visible or hidden, ready to stab anyone they could accuse of having a Tiberias accent. Hippos was a dark, introverted huddle of suspicion. To my mind this was the sort of place poets and philosophers ought to come from, to give them the right tone of cynical distrust; of course none did.
In a town like Hippos, even the most hardened informer starts to feel nervous about asking questions. Nevertheless, there was no point coming here unless I carried out my commission. I had to try to find the missing organist. I braced myself and tackled various leathery characters. Some of them spat; not many directly at me, unless their aim was truly bad. Most gazed into the middle distance with blank faces, which appeared to be the Hippos dialect for ‘No, I’m terribly sorry, young Roman sir, I’ve never seen your delightful maiden nor heard of the raffish Syrian businessman who snaffled her…’ Nobody actually stuck a knife into me.
I crossed off one more possible destination for Sophrona and Habib (assuming he was the person she did the flit with), then took the long haul out of town to our camp. All the way back I kept looking over my shoulder to see if the people of Hippos were tailing me. I was growing as nervy as they were.
Luckily my mind was taken off my unease when halfway along the trail I caught up with Ribes the lyre-player.
Ribes was a pasty youth who believed his role as a musician was to sit around in a lopsided haircut describing plans for making vast sums of money with popular songs he had yet to compose. So far there was no sign of him being mobbed by Egyptian accountants keen to rob him of huge agency fees. He wore the sort of belt that said he was tough, with a facial expression that belonged on a moonstruck vole. I tried to avoid him, but he had seen me.
‘How’s the music?’ I asked politely.
‘Coming along…’ He did not ask how the playwriting was.
We strolled along together for a short time while I tried to twist my ankle so I could fall behind.
‘Have you been looking for clues?’ he asked earnestly.
‘Just looking for a girl.’ Perhaps because
he knew Helena, this appeared to worry him. It was not a concept that had ever worried me.
‘I’ve been thinking about what you said to us,’ Ribes offered after a few more strides. ‘About what happened to Ione…’ He tailed off. I forced myself to look interested, though talking to Ribes thrilled me about as much as trying to pick my teeth at a banquet without a toothpick and without the host’s wife noticing.
‘Thought of anything to help me?’ I encouraged gloomily.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Nobody else has either,’ I said.
Ribes looked more cheerful. ‘Well, I might know something.’ Fortunately, six years as an informer had taught me how to wait patiently. ‘Ione and I were friendly, actually. I don’t mean - Well, I mean we never - But she used to talk to me.’
This was the best news I had had for days. Men who had slept with the tambourinist would be useless; they had certainly proved slow to come forward. I welcomed this feeble reed with the bent stalk, in whom the girl could well have confided since he had so little else to offer.
‘And what did she say, Ribes, that now strikes you as possibly significant?’
‘Well, did you know that at one time she had dealings with Heliodorus?’ This could be the link I was needing to find. Ione had implied to me that she knew more about the playwright than most people. ‘He used to boast to her about what he’d got on other people - stories that would upset them, you know. He never told her much, just hints, and I don’t remember much that she passed on.’ Ribes was not exactly bursting with curiosity about the rest of the human race.
‘Tell me what you can,’ I said.
‘Well…’ Ribes ticked off some tantalising references: ‘He reckoned he had Chremes in his power; he used to laugh about how Congrio hated his guts; he was supposed to be pals with Tranio, but there was something going on there -‘
‘Anything about Byrria?’
‘No.’
‘Davos?’
‘No.’
‘Grumio?’
‘No. The only thing I really remember is that Ione said Heliodorus had been horrible to Phrygia. He found out she had once had a baby; she’d had to leave it behind somewhere and she was desperate to find out what had happened to it since. Heliodorus told her he knew somebody who had seen the child, but he wouldn’t tell her who it was, or where. Ione said Phrygia had had to pretend that she didn’t believe him. It was the only way to stop him tormenting her with it.’
I was thinking hard. ‘This is interesting, Ribes, but I’d be surprised if it relates to why Heliodorus died. Ione told me very definitely that he was killed for “purely professional” reasons. Can you say anything about that?’
Ribes shook his head. We spent the rest of the walk with him trying to tell me about a dirge he had composed in Ione’s memory, and me doing my best to avoid letting him sing it.
Contrary to our expectations, Hippos offered a warm welcome to theatrical performers. We easily obtained a booking at the auditorium, although we could not attract a local sponsor so had to play on a directly ticketed basis; however, we did sell tickets. It was hard to say who was buying them, and we went into the opening night with some trepidation. Every good Roman has heard stories of riots in provincial theatres. Sooner or later our turn might arrive to become part of disreputable folklore. Hippos seemed the place.
Our performance must have had a calming influence, however. We put on The Pirate Brothers. The townsfolk seemed to be genuinely informed critics. Villians were booed with gusto (no doubt on the assumption that they might come from Tiberias) and love scenes enthusiastically cheered.
We gave them two more performances. The Rope was rather quietly received, up to the scene with the tug of war, which went down superbly. This brought increased crowds the following day for The Birds. After much silly debate of the kind he loved and we all hated, Chremes had risked this as a gamble, since piquant satire was not obvious fare for an audience who spent their time seething with pent-up suspicions and fingering their daggers. However, the costumes swayed them. Hippos took to The Birds so well that at the end we were mobbed by members of the audience. After a moment of panic as they came swarming on to the stage, we realised they all wanted to join in. Then ensued the fascinating spectacle of sombre men in long flowing robes all losing their inhibitions with joyous glee and hopping about for half an hour, flapping their elbows as imitation wings, like chickens who had eaten fermented grain. We, meanwhile, stood about rather stiffly, unsure what to make of it.
Exhausted, we crept away that night, before Hippos could demand even more excitement from our repertoire.
Chapter XLI
Approaching Dium we were told there was a plague. We retreated very fast.
Chapter XLII
Abila was not officially one of the fabled ten in the region of the Ten Towns. Like other places, this one claimed to belong in order to acquire prestige and the sense of mutual protection against raiders that was enjoyed amongst the true federation. If raiders turned up and asked to see their certificate of membership, presumably the claim failed and they had to submit to pillage meekly.
It did have all the qualifying features of the best of the Decapolis: a beautiful location, a rippling stream, good defensive walls, a Greek acropolis plus a more Romanised settlement, a huge temple complex honouring deities to suit every palate, and a theatre. The local architecture was a rich mixture of marble, basalt and grey granite. Abila was set on a high rolling plateau where a restless wind eerily seethed. There was something remote and lonely about it. The people looked at us thoughtfully; they were not directly hostile but we found the atmosphere unsettling.
Our thwarted trip to Dium, leading to an unexpectedly lengthened journey, had caused us to arrive at an awkward time of day. Normally we travelled through the night to avoid the worst heat, and tried to enter cities in the morning. Then Chremes could investigate the possibilities for a booking at an early stage while we others rested and complained about him among ourselves.
Having come on a poor track, we reached Abila well after noon. No one was happy. One of the waggons had had a broken axle, which held us up on a road that had seemed likely to be patrolled by brigands, and we were all shaken to bits by the roughness of the ground. On arrival we threw up tents, then straight away retired into them without wanting to make plans.
Outside our tent, Musa doggedly lit a fire. However tired we were, he always did this, and also always fetched water, before he would relax. I forced myself to co-operate and fed the ox, having my foot stepped on by the ridiculous beast in return for my act of duty. Helena found food for us, though no one was hungry.
It was too hot, and we were too ill-tempered to sleep. Instead we all sat cross-legged and talked restlessly.
‘I feel depressed,’ Helena exclaimed. ‘We’re running out of cities but not solving anything. What are the places we have left to visit? Just Capitolias, Canatha, and Damascus.’ She was in a brisk mood again, answering her own questions as if she expected Musa and me to stare into space lethargically. We did that for a while, not deliberately intending to annoy her but because it seemed natural.
‘Damascus is big,’ I offered eventually. ‘There seems a good hope of finding Sophrona.’
‘But what if she was at Dium?’
‘Then she’s probably caught the plague. Thalia wouldn’t want her back.’
‘Meanwhile we go on searching for her, though, Marcus.’ Helena hated wasted effort. I was an informer; I was used to it.
‘We have to do something, fruit. We’re trapped at the ends of the Empire, and we need to earn our keep. Look, we’ll go to the last three cities with the company and if Sophrona doesn’t turn up then we’ll know we should have tried Dium. If it happens, we can decide what we think about this plague.’
It was one of those moments that hit travellers, a moment when I reckoned our decision would be to take a fast ship home. I didn’t say it, because we were both so frustrated and gloomy that even mentioning a
retreat would have had us packing our bags that minute. These moods pass. If they don’t, then you can suggest going home.
‘Maybe there was nothing really wrong at Dium,’ Helena fretted. ‘We only have the word of a caravan we met. The men who told us may have been lying for some reason. Or it could be no more than one child with spots. People panic too easily.’
I tried myself not to sound panicky. ‘Risking our own lives would be stupid - and I’m not going to be responsible for extracting a runaway musician from Dium if taking her to Rome might bring an epidemic there. It’s too high a price for a water-organ fugue, however brilliant a player she is.’
‘All right.’ After a moment Helena added, ‘I hate you when you’re sensible.’
‘The caravanners looked pretty grim when they waved us away,’ I insisted.
‘I said, all right!’
I saw Musa smile faintly. As usual he was sitting there saying nothing. It was the kind of irritating day when I could easily have lost my temper with him for this silence, so I covered by taking charge: ‘Maybe we need to take stock.’ If I thought this would perk up my companions, I was disappointed. They both remained listless and glum. Still, I pressed on: ‘Looking for Sophrona may be pointless, I agree. I know the girl could be anywhere by now. We’re not even certain she ever left Italy.’ This was verging on too much pessimism. ‘All we can do is to be as thorough as possible. Sometimes these jobs are impossible. Or you may run across a piece of luck and solve the case after all.’
Helena and Musa looked as impressed as a desert vulture who had flown down to an intriguing carcase only to find it was a piece of old tunic blowing against a broken amphora. I try to stay cheerful. However, I gave up on the girl musician. We had been looking for her for too long. She had ceased to seem real. Our interest in the creature had waned, along with any chances we had ever had of finding her out here.
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