Lindsey Davis - Last Act In Palmyra

'So are you able to tell me that?' I pretended to grin in return, keeping it light.

'You're not so dumb; you'll get there in the end. I bet I could give you some clues, though.'

I wanted to press for details, but the customs post was far too public. I had to shut her up, for her own sake as much as for my own chances of finding the killer.

'Are you willing to talk to me sometime, but maybe not here?'

In response to my question she glanced downwards, until her eyes were virtually closed. Painted spikes lengthened the appearance of her eyelashes; her lids were brushed with something that looked like gold dust. Some of the expensive prostitutes who serviced senators at Roman dinner parties would pay thousands for an introduction to Ione's cosmetics mixer. Long practised in buying information, I wondered how many amethystine marbled boxes and little pink glass scent vials I would have to offer to acquire whatever she was touting.

Unable to resist the mystery, I tried suggestion: 'I'm working on the theory it was a man who hated him for reasons connected with women – '

'Ha!' lone barked with laughter. 'Wrong direction, Falco!

Completely wrong! Believe me, the scribe's ducking was purely professional.'

It was too late to ask her more. Tranio and Grumio, who were always hanging about near the orchestra girls, came mooching up like spare waiters at an orgy wanting to offer limp garlands in return for a large tip.

'Another time,' Ione promised me, winking. She made it sound like an offer of sexual favours. 'Somewhere quiet when we're on our own, eh Falco?'

I grinned bravely, while Helena Justina assumed the expression of the jealous loser in a one-sided partnership.

Tranio, the taller, wittier clown, gave me a long dumb stare.

The customs officer suddenly turned on us as if he could not imagine why we were loitering in his precious space, and shooed us off, Without giving him a chance to change his mind, we shot in through the town gate.

We had come about fifteen years too early. It was not much in the scheme of town planning, but too long for hungry performers who were gnawing on their last pomegranate. The site diagram of the future Gerasa showed an ambitious design with not one but two theatres of extravagant proportions, plus another, smaller auditorium outside the city at the site of the notorious water festival where Helena had forbidden me to go and leer. They needed all these stages -now. Most were still only architectural drawings. We soon discovered that the situation for performers was desperate. At present we were stuck with one very basic arena in the older part of town, over which all comers had to haggle – and there was plenty of competition.

It was turmoil. In this town we were just one small act in a mad circus. Gerasa had such a reputation for riches that it drew buskers from all the parched corners of the East. To be offering a simple play with flute, drum and tambourine accompaniment was nothing. In Gerasa they had every gaggle of scruffy acrobats with torn tunics and only one left boot between them, every bad-tempered fire-eater, every troupe of sardine-dish spinners and turnip jugglers, every one-armed harpist or arthritic stilt-walker. We could pay half a denarius to see the Tallest Man in Alexandria (who must have shrunk in the Nile, for he was barely a foot longer than I was), or a mere copper for a backward-facing goat. In fact for a quadrans or two extra I could have actually bought the goat, whose owner told me he was sick of the heat and the slowness of trade and was going home to plant beans.

I had a long conversation with this man, in the course of which I nearly did acquire his goat. So long as he kept me talking, taking on an unconvincing sideshow freak seemed quite a decent business proposition. Gerasa was that kind of town.

Entering by the South Gate had placed us near the existing theatre, but it had the disadvantage of marking us out for hordes of grubby children who mobbed us, trying to sell cheap ribbons and badly made whistles. Looking serious and cute, they offered their wares in silence, but otherwise the noise from the packed streets was unbearable.

'This is hopeless!' shouted Chremes, as we huddled together to discuss what to do. His disgust with The Rope after its failed second outing at Philadelphia had faded so quickly that he was now planning for us to repeat it while the Twins were in practice for their tug of war. However, the indecisive-ness Davos had complained about soon reappeared. Almost before we dug the props out, new doubts set in. I'd like you to brush up The Arbitration, Falco.' I had read it; I complained wittily that The Rope had much more pulling power. Chremes ignored me. Quibbling about the play was only half his problem. 'We can either travel on straight away, or I'll do what I can to obtain an appearance. If we stay, the bribe to the booker will wipe out most of the ticket money, but if we go on we've lost a week without earning – '

Clearly irritated, Davos weighed in. 'I vote to see what you can get. Mind you, with all this cheap competition it's going to be like doing The Play We Never Mention on a wet Thursday in Olynthus…'

'What's the unmentionable play?' asked Helena.

Davos gave her a shirty look, pointed out that by definition he wasn't allowed to mention it, and shrugged off her meek apology.

I tried another ploy for avoiding the manager's turgid idea of a repertoire: 'Chremes, we need a good draw. I've a brand-new idea you may like to try. A lad about town meets the ghost of his newly dead father, who tells him – '

'You say the father's dead?' He was already confused and I hadn't even reached the complicated bit.

'Murdered. That's the point. You see, his ghost catches the hero by the tunic sleeve and reveals who snuffed out his pa – '

'Impossible! In New Comedy ghosts never speak.' So much for my big idea. Chremes could be firm enough when crushing a genius; having rejected my masterpiece he went wittering on as usual. I lost interest and sat chewing a straw.

Eventually, when even he was tired of havering, Chremes stumped off to see the theatre manager; we sent Davos along to stiffen him. The rest of us moped around looking sick. We were too hot and depressed to do anything until we knew what was happening.

Grumio, who had a provocative streak, spoke up: 'The play we don't mention is TheMother-in-Law by Terence.'

'You just mentioned it!' Stung by Davos, Helena had become a literalist.

'I'm not superstitious.'

'What's wrong with it?'

'Apart from the off-putting title? Nothing. It's his best play.'

'Why the dirty reputation then?' I demanded.

'It was a legendary failure, due to the rival attractions of boxers, tightrope walkers and gladiators.' I knew how Terence must have felt.

We all looked gloomy. Our own situation seemed horribly similar. Our struggling little dramas were unlikely to draw crowds at Gerasa, where the populace had devised their own sophisticatedly ribald festival, the Phoenician Maiuma, to fill any quiet evening. Besides we had already glimpsed the street performers, and knew Gerasa could call on other entertainment that was twice as unusual and three times as noisy as ours, at half the cost.

Rather than think about our predicament, people started wandering off.

Grumio was still sitting nearby. I got talking to him. As usual when you look as if you're having a rich literary conversation, our companions left us severely alone. I asked him more about The Play We Never Mention, and quickly discovered he had a deep knowledge of theatrical history. In fact he turned out to be quite an interesting character.

It was easy to dismiss Grumio. His round face could be taken for a sign of simplicity. Playing the dullard of the two clowns, he had been forced into a secondary role off-stage as well as on. In fact he was highly intelligent, not to mention professional. Getting him on his own, without the noisy brilliance of Tranio to overshadow him, I learned that he saw himself as an exponent of an ancient and honourable craft.