'Was it because he wanted a drink, quietly, on his own?'
'Doubt it.' Chremes shrugged. He showed a distinct lack of interest in this death.
'Someone went with him anyway. Who was it?' A long shot, since I was asking the name of the killer.
'Nobody knows.'
'Everyone accounted for?' Needless to say, he nodded. I would check that later for myself. 'Someone else must have fancied a tipple though?' I pressed.
'They'd be out of luck then. Heliodorus never reckoned to share his jar.'
'Might the companion have had his own jar – or goatskin -that Heliodorus had his eye on?'
'Oh yes! That makes sense.'
Maybe the playwright had had an acquaintance nobody else knew about. 'Would Heliodorus have made friends with anybody in Petra, anybody outside your group?'
'I doubt that.' Chremes seemed fairly definite. 'The locals were reserved, and we don't mix much with merchants – or anyone else. We're a close-knit family; we find enough squabbles among ourselves without looking outside for more trouble. Besides, we hadn't been in the city long enough to make contacts.'
'I heard him going up the mountain. I felt he knew the person, he was with.' Chremes obviously realised where my questions were heading. 'That's right: what you say means he was killed by somebody from your group.'
That was when Chremes asked me directly to keep my eyes and ears open. He did not exactly commission me; that, with a fee at the end of it, would have been too much to hope for. But despite his initial reluctance to involve himself, if he was harbouring a killer he wanted to know who it was. People like to feel free to insult their companions or let them pay all of the wine bill without having to worry that it could annoy the kind of man who shoves his travelling companions face down in cold water until they stop breathing.
'Tell me about Heliodorus, Chremes. Did anyone in particular dislike him?' It had seemed a simple question.
'Hah! Everyone did!' scoffed Chremes.
That was a good start. The force with which he said it convinced me that every one of the group from Petra must be a suspect for killing the playwright. On the journey to Bostra, therefore, Helena and I had to think about all of them.
Chapter XIV
Bostra was a black basalt city built in this blackly ploughed land. It flourished. It had commerce, but it generated much of its own prosperity. There was a fine town gate in distinctly Nabataean architecture, and the King owned a second palace here. To Romans it was alien in flavour – yet it was the kind of city we understood. Irascible donkey-drovers cursed us as we tried to decide where we were going. Shopkeepers looked out from ordinary lock-ups with calculating eyes, shouting at us to come in and see their merchandise. When we arrived, near evening, we were greeted by the familiar scent of woodsmoke from baths and ovens. The tempting odours from hot-food stalls were spicier, but the reek of the leather tannery was as disgusting as any at home, and the stuttering lamp oil in the slums smelled just as rancid as it does all over the Aventine.
At first we were unable to find the rest of the company. They were not at the caravanserai where they had been left. Chremes seemed reluctant to make enquiries openly, from which Helena and I gathered it was likely there had been trouble in his absence. Various members of our group set off to look for their colleagues in the city while we guarded the waggons and luggage. We set up our tent with Musa's silent help. We ate supper, then sat down to wait for the return of the others. It was our first chance to talk over our findings so far.
During the journey we had managed to survey individual members of the group by judiciously offering lifts on our waggon. Then, when Helena grew weary of my efforts at controlling our temperamental ox, she hopped off and invited herself into other transport. We had now made contact with most of them, though whether we had also made friends was less certain.
We. were considering everyone for possible motives -females too.
'A man did it,' I had explained cautiously to Helena. 'We heard him on the mountain. But you don't have to be cynical to know that a woman may have provided his reason.'
'Or bought the drink and devised the plan,' Helena agreed, as if she herself regularly did such things. 'What sort of motive do you think we are looking for?'
'I don't believe it can be money. No one here has enough of it. That leaves us with the old excuses – envy or sexual jealousy.'
'So we have to ask people what they thought of the playwright? Marcus, won't they wonder why we keep enquiring?'
'You're a woman; you can be plain nosy. I shall tell them the killer must be one of our party and I'm worried about protecting you.'
'Load of mule-dung!' scoffed my elegant lady with one of the pungent phrases she had picked up from me.
I had already seen what the theatre troupe was like. We were dealing with a fickle, feckless crowd here. We would never pin down any of them unless we set about it logically.
It had taken most of the trip just to work out who everyone was. Now we sat on a rug outside our tent. Musa was with us, though as usual he squatted slightly apart, not saying a word but calmly listening. There was no reason to hide our discussion from him so we talked in Greek.
'Right, let's survey the tattered cast list. They all look like stock characters, but I'm betting that not one of them is what they seem:'
The list had to be headed by Chremes. Encouraging us to investigate might exonerate him as a suspect – or it might mean he was cunning. I ran through what we knew about him: 'Chremes runs the company. He recruits members, chooses the repertoire, negotiates fees, keeps the cash box under his bed when there's anything in it worth guarding. His sole interest is in seeing that things run smoothly. It would take a really serious grievance to make him jeopardise the company's future. He realised that a corpse in Petra could land them all in jail, and his priority was to get them away. But we know he despised Heliodorus. Do we know why?'
'Heliodorus was no good,' Helena answered, impatiently.
'So why didn't Chremes simply pay him off?'
'Playwrights are difficult to find.' She kept her head down while she said it. I growled. I was not enjoying reading through the dead man's box of New Comedy. New Comedy had turned out to be as dire as Chremes had predicted. I was already tired of separated twins, wastrels jumping into blanket chests, silly old men falling out with their selfish heirs, and roguish slaves making pitiful jokes.
I changed the subject. 'Chremes hates his wife and she hates him. Do we know why? Maybe she had a lover -Heliodorus, say – so Chremes put his rival out of the way.'
'You would think that,' Helena sneered. 'I've talked to her. She yearns to star in serious Greek tragedy. She feels dragged down by having to play prostitutes and long-lost heiresses for this ragged troupe.'
'Why? They get to wear the best dresses, and even the prostitutes are always reformed in the last scene.' I was showing off my research.
'I gather she gives her all powerfully while longing for better things – a woman's lot in most situations!' Helena told me drily. 'People tell me her speech when she gives up brothelkeeping and becomes a temple priestess is thrilling.'
'I can't wait to hear it!' In fact I'd be shooting out of the theatre to buy a cinnamon cake at a stall outside. 'She's called Phrygia, isn't she?' The players had all taken names from drama. This was understandable. Acting was such a despised profession any performer would assume a pseudonym. I was trying to think up one myself.
Phrygia was the company's somewhat elderly female lead. She was tall, gaunt, and flamboyantly bitter about life. She looked over fifty but we were assured by everybody that when she stepped on stage she could easily persuade an audience she was a beautiful girl of sixteen. They made much of the fact that Phrygia could really act – which made me nervous about the talents of the rest.
