Lindsey Davis - Last Act In Palmyra

'Is that right? He looks as if he knows his way around. How can you be certain he's faithful?'

'How can anyone ever be certain? The point is,' Helena said gently, 'that I believe it.'

'Because he tells you?'

'No. Because he never feels he needs to.'

'I suppose you're in love with him?'

'I suppose I am.' She said it unrepentantly.

'He's a lucky man!' exclaimed Philocrates insincerely. His mockery was evident. 'And have you ever betrayed him?' His voice held a hopeful note.

'No.' Hers was cool.

'And you're not going to try it now?' At last he was catching on.

'Probably not – though how can anyone ever be certain?' responded Helena graciously.

'Well, when you decide to try sipping from a different bowl – and you will, Helena, believe me – I'm available.'

'You'll be the first candidate,' she promised in a light tone. Ten minutes beforehand I would have burst from the tent and wrapped a guy rope around the actor's neck; instead I sat tight. Helena's voice hardly changed tone, though because I knew her I was ready for her new tack. She had finished with whimsy; she was taking charge. 'Now may I ask you something very personal, Philocrates?'

His big chance to talk about himself: 'Of course!' 'Would you mind telling me what your relations with the drowned playwright used to be?'

There was a brief pause. Then Philocrates complained spitefully, 'So this is the price for being permitted to converse with your ladyship?'

Helena Justina did not balk. 'It's simply the price for knowing someone who has been murdered,' she corrected him. 'And probably knowing his killer too. You can refuse to answer the question.'

'From which you will draw your own conclusions?'

'That would seem reasonable. What have you to say?'

'I didn't get on with him. In fact we damn nearly came to blows,' Philocrates confessed shortly.

'Why was that?' She hardly waited before adding, 'Was it a quarrel over a girl?'

'Correct.' He hated saying it. 'We both received a put-down from the same woman. I did less badly than him, though.' He was probably boasting to console himself. Helena, who understood arrogance, did not bother pursuing it.

'I'm sure you did,' she flattered him sympathetically. 'I won't ask who it was.'

'Byrria, if you must know,' he told her before he could stop himself. The poor rabbit was helpless; Helena had moved effortlessly from an object of seduction to his most confidential friend.

'I'm sorry. I doubt if it was personal, Philocrates. I've heard she is extremely ambitious and declines all approaches from men. I'm sure you rose above the rejection, but what about Heliodorus?'

'No sense of discretion.'

'He kept on pestering her? That would make her all the more obdurate, of course.'

'I hope so!' he growled. 'There was better sport on offer, after all.'

'There certainly was! If you had done her the honour… So you and the playwright had an ongoing rivalry. Did you hate him enough to kill him though?'

'Great gods, no! It was only a tiff over a girl.'

'Oh quite! Was that his attitude too?'

'He probably let it rankle. That was his kind of stupidity.'

'And did you ever tackle Heliodorus about him bothering Byrria?'

'Why should I do that?' Philocrates' surprise sounded genuine. 'She turned me down. What she did or did not do after that was no concern of mine.'

'Did other people notice that he was being a nuisance?'

'Must have done. She never complained about it; that would have made him worse. But we all knew he kept putting pressure on her.'

'So the man had no finesse?'

'No pride, anyway.'

'And Byrria was constantly avoiding him. Did he write her bad parts?'

'Stinkers.'

'Do you know of any other admirers Byrria might have?'

'I wouldn't notice.'

'No,' Helena agreed thoughtfully. 'I don't expect you would… Where were you when Heliodorus took his fatal walk to the High Place?'

'The last afternoon? I'd packed my bags for leaving Petra and was making good use of some spare time before we left.'

'What were you doing?'

Helena had walked straight into it. He turned triumphantly vindictive: 'I was up in one of the rock tombs with a frankincense merchant's pretty wife – and I was giving her the screwing of her life!'

'Silly of me to ask!' my lass managed to rally, though I guessed she was blushing. 'I wish I'd known you then. I would have asked you to ask her the proper rate for buying incense gum.'

Either her courage or simply her sense of humour finally broke through to him. I heard Philocrates laugh shortly, then there was a sudden movement and his voice came from a different level; he must have swung himself to his feet. His tone had changed. For once the admiration was unfeigned and unselfish: 'You're incredible. When that bastard Falco ditches you, don't weep too long; make sure you come and console yourself with me.'

Helena made no answer, and his small feet in their expensive boots scrunched away across the pebbly road.

I waited a suitable time then emerged from the tent, stretching.

'Ah here's the mellifluous bard awakening!' teased the love of my life. Her quiet eyes surveyed me from the deep shadow of a sloppily brimmed sunhat.

'You're asking for a very rude pentameter.'

Helena was reclining in a folding chair with her feet on a bale. We had learned the essential desert trick of pitching tent in the shade of a tree wherever possible; Helena had taken all the remaining patch of coolness. Philocrates must have been charcoal-grilled like a mullet as he lay out in full sun while he talked to her. I was pleased to see it.

'You look nicely settled. Had a good afternoon?'

'Very quiet,' said Helena.

'Anyone bother you?'

'No one I couldn't deal with…' Her voice dropped gently. 'Hello, Marcus.' She had a way of greeting me that was almost unbearably intimate.

'Hello, beautiful.' I was tough. I could cope with having my wrath undermined by female trickery. Then she smiled at me softly so I felt my resolve going limp.

It was later now. The burning sun was dropping towards the horizon and losing its power. When I took the actor's place lying at her feet the situation would be virtually pleasant, even though the ground was stony and the stones still hot.

She knew I had been listening in. I pretended to look her over. Despite an effort to appear nonchalant I could feel a tendon going rigid in my neck at the thought of Philocrates eyeing her then making suggestive remarks. 'I hate that dress. White makes you look washed out.'

Helen wriggled her toes in her sandals and answered peacefully, 'When I want to attract someone in particular, I'll change it.' A certain glint in her eye held a private message for me.

I grinned. Any man of taste liked Helena wearing blue or red. I was a man of taste who liked to be frank. 'Don't bother. Just take the white one off.' I assumed my station on the ground like a loyal dog. She leaned down and rumpled my indictable curls, while I looked up at her thoughtfully. I said, in a lower voice, 'He was perfectly happy cruising the colonnades looking for a frolic with a flute girl. You didn't have to do that to him.'

Helena raised an eyebrow. Watching her, I thought she coloured up slightly. 'Are you objecting to me flirting, Marcus?' We both knew I was in no position to do that. Hypocrisy had never been my style.

'Flirt with whom you like, if you can handle the results. I meant, you didn't have to make that poor peristyle prowler fall in love with you.'

Helena didn't realise, or wouldn't acknowledge, her influence. Five years of marriage to a disinterested prig in a senatorial toga had crushed most of her confidence. Two years of being adored by me had so far failed to revive it. She shook her head. 'Don't be romantic, Marcus.'