Last Act in Palmyra by Lindsey Davis Page A

sprang at him.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜Where are you from?’ Helena enquired. She could draw out information as smoothly as a pickpocket slitting a purse-thong.
    â€˜Most of the group hail from southern Italy. I’m a Tusculum man.’
    â€˜You’re a long way from home!’
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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 Hellenic cities here, which haven’t been Greek since Alexander, think we’re presenting them with masterpiece theatre. We found we could scrape 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.’
    â€˜I’m not with you?’
    â€˜Our offer of culture was about as welcome in Petra as a performance of The Trojan Women to a family of baboons.’
    â€˜So you were already departing even before Heliodorus was drowned?’
    â€˜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 passable exuse.’
    â€˜What was that?’
    â€˜We were planning a performance in their theatre – though the gods 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 – 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