He raised a disapproving eyebrow, as if I had said something stupid. 'We have water cisterns in Petra. Small boys always play in them. I can swim.'
'Ah!' It had saved his life. But somebody else must have made the same mistake as me.
'It was very dark, however,' Musa went on in his light, conversational way. 'I was startled. The cold water made me gasp and lose my breath. I could not see any place to climb out. I was afraid.' His admission was frank and straightforward, like everything he said or did. 'I could tell that the water below me was deep. It felt many times deeper than a man. As soon as I could breathe, I shouted out very loudly.'
Helena frowned angrily. 'It's terrifying! Did anyone help you?'
'Davos quickly found a way down to the water's edge. He was roaring instructions, to me and to the other people. He was, I think:' Musa searched for the word in Greek. 'Competent. Then everyone came – the clowns, the stagehands, Congrio. Hands pulled me out. I do not know whose hands.' That meant nothing. As soon as it became obvious he hadn't sunk and would be rescued, whoever tipped Musa into the water would help him out again to cover his own tracks.
'It's the hand that shoved you in that matters.' I was thinking about our suspects list and trying to envisage who had been doing what on that embankment in the dark. 'You haven't mentioned Chremes or Philocrates. Were they with you?'
'No.'
'It sounds as if we can eliminate Davos as perpetrator, but we'll keep an open mind on all the rest. Do you know who had been walking closest to you beforehand?'
'I am not sure. I thought it was the Twins. A while before I had been talking to the bill-poster, Congrio. But he had fallen behind. Because of the height of the walkway and the wind, everyone had slowed up and strung out more. You could see figures, though not tell who they were.'
'Were you in single file?'
'No. I was alone, others were in groups. The walkway was wide enough; it only seemed dangerous because it was high, and in darkness, and made slippery by the rain.' When he did talk, Musa was extremely precise, an intelligent man talking in a language not his own. A man full of caution too. Not many people who have narrowly escaped death remain so calm.
There was a small silence. As usual it was Helena who faced up to asking the trickiest question: 'Musa was pushed into the reservoir deliberately. So why', she enquired gently, 'has he become a target?'
Musa's reply to that was a precise one too: 'People think I saw the man who murdered the previous playwright.' I felt a slight jar. His phrasing made it sound as if merely being a playwright was dangerous.
I considered the suggestion slowly. 'We have never told anybody that. I always call you an interpreter.'
'The bill-poster may have overheard us talking about it yesterday,' said Musa. I liked the way his mind worked. He had noticed Congrio lurking too close, just as I had, and had already marked him as suspicious.
'Or he may have told somebody else what he overheard.' I swore quietly. 'If my light-hearted suggestion that we made you a decoy brought this accident upon you, I apologise, Musa.'
'People had been suspicious of us anyway,' Helena rebutted. 'I know there are all sorts of rumours about all three of us.'
'One thing is sure,' I said. 'It looks as if we have made the playwright's murderer extremely jumpy merely by joining the group.'
'He was there,' Musa confirmed in a sombre tone. 'I knew he was there on the embankment above me.'
'How was that?'
'When I first fell into the water, no one seemed to hear the splash. I sank fast, then rose to the surface. I was trying to catch my breath; at first I could not shout. For a moment I felt entirely alone. The other people sounded far off. I could hear their voices growing fainter as they walked away.' He paused, staring into the fire. Helena had reached for my hand; like me she was sharing Musa's dreadful moment of solitude as he struggled to survive down in the black waters of the reservoir while most of his companions carried on oblivious.
Musa's face stayed expressionless. His whole body was still. He did not rant or make wild threats about his future actions. Only his tone clearly told us that the playwright's killer should be wary of meeting him again. 'He is here,' Musa said. 'Among the voices that were going into the darkness, one man had started whistling.'
Exactly like the man he had heard whistling as he came down from the High Place.
'I'm sorry, Musa.' Apologising again I was terse. 'I should have foreseen this. I should have protected you.'
'I am unharmed. It is well.'
'Do you own a dagger?' He was vulnerable; I was ready to give him mine.
'Yes.' Davos and I had not found it when we stripped him.
'Then wear it.'
'Yes, Falco.'
'Next time you'll use it,' I commented.
'Oh yes.' Again that commonplace tone, belying the compelling words. He was a priest of Dushara; I reckoned that Musa would know where to strike. There could be a swift, sticky fate awaiting the man who had whistled in the dark. 'You and I will find this hill bandit, Falco.' Musa stood up, keeping the blanket around him modestly. 'Now I think we should all sleep.'
'Quite right.' I threw his own joke back at him: 'Helena and I still have a lot of quarrelling to do.'
There was a teasing glint in Musa's eye. 'Hah! Then until you have finished I must go back to the reservoir.'
Helena scowled. 'Go to bed, Musa!'
Next day we were setting off for the Decapolis. I made a vow to keep a watchful eye out for the safety of all of us.
ACT TWO: THE DECAPOLIS
The next few weeks. The settings are various rocky roads and hillside cities with unwelcoming aspects. A number of camels are walking about watching the action curiously.
SYNOPSIS: Falco, a jobbing playwright, and Helena, his accomplice, together with Musa, a priest who has left his temple for rather vague reasons, are travelling through the Decapolis in a search for Truth. Suspected of being imposters, they soon find themselves in danger from an anonymous Plotter who must be concealing himself amongst their new-found friends. Somebody needs to devise a sharp plan to penetrate his disguise:
Chapter XII
Philadelphia: a pretty Greek name for a pretty Greek town, rather knocked about at present. It had been pillaged a few years earlier by the rebelling Jews. The inward-looking fanatics of Judaea had always hated the Hellenistic settlements across the Jordan in the Decapolis, places where good citizenship – which could be learned by anybody at a decent Greek city school – counted for more than inheriting a stern religion in the blood. The marauders from Judaea had made it plain with vicious damage to property what they thought of such airy tolerance. Then a Roman army under Vespasian had made it plain to the Judaeans what we thought about damage to property by heavily damaging theirs. Judaea was pretty quiet these days, and the Decapolis was enjoying a new period of stability.
Philadelphia was enclosed by steep-sided hills, seven in number, though far more parched than the founding hills of Rome. There was a well-placed precipitous citadel, with the town spilling outwards and downwards on to a broad valley floor where a stream wandered attractively, doing away with any obvious need for cisterns, I was glad to see. We made camp, and sat down in our tents for what I gathered was likely to be a long wait while Chremes tried to negotiate terms for performing a play.
We had now entered Roman Syria. On our original journey between Petra and Bostra I had been working
