Lindsey Davis - Last Act In Palmyra

'You don't like them?' I commented quietly.

'Too clever.' Cleverness was not an offence in Roman law, though I had often shared Congrio's view that it ought to be. 'Every time I see them, I get knotted up and start feeling annoyed.'

'Why's that?'

He kicked at his baggage roll impatiently. 'They look down on you. There's nothing so special about telling a few jokes. They don't make them up, you know. All they do is say what some other old clown thought up and wrote down a hundred years ago. I could do it if I had a script.'

'If you could read it.'

'Helena's teaching me.' I might have known. He continued boasting recklessly: 'All I need is a joke collection and I'll be a clown myself.'

It seemed to me it would take him a long time to put together enough funny stories to be a stand-up comic of Grumio's calibre. Besides, I couldn't see him managing the right timing and tone. 'Where are you going to get the collection, Congrio?' I tried not to sound patronising -without much success.

For some reason it didn't bother him. 'Oh, they do exist, Falco!'

I changed the subject to avoid an argument. 'Tell me, did the clowns come together to look at your property?' The billposter nodded. 'Any idea what they were looking for?'

'No.'

'Something particular?'

'They never said so.'

'Trying to get back some I-owe-yous, maybe?'

'No, Falco.'

'Did they want these dice? After all, the Twins do magic tricks -'

'They saw the dice were here. They never asked for them.' Presumably they did not realise the dice were crooked. 'Look, they just strolled up, laughing and asking what I had got. I thought they were going to pinch my stuff, or ruin it. You know what they're like when they're feeling mischievous.'

'The Twins? I know they can be a menace, but not outright delinquents, surely?'

'No,' Congrio admitted, though rather reluctantly. 'Just a pair of nosy bastards then.'

Somehow I wondered about that.

He was right. The two clowns mere clever. It would take more than a bland expression and a quick change of subject to trip them up. I was aware before I started that the minute they had any idea I was trying to squeeze particular information from them, fending me off would become a joyous game. They were seditious. I would need to watch for exactly the right opportunity to tackle them. And when I did, I would need all my skill.

Wondering how I could choose the moment, I came back to my own tent.

Helena was alone. She told me that as I had predicted, Chremes had bungled acquiring a booking here.

'When he was waiting to see the town councillor who runs the theatre, he overheard the fellow scoff to a servant, "Oh, not the ghastly tribe who did that terrible piece about the pirates?" When Chremes finally got in to see the big man, relations failed to improve. So we're moving off straight away – '

'Today?' I was horrified.

'Tonight. We get a day's rest, then go.' It was goodbye to booking rooms then. No landlord was going to screw me for a night's rent when I only had a few daylight hours for sleeping. Helena sounded bitter too. 'Chremes, with his nose put out of joint by a rude critic, does not dally for more insults. Canatha here we come! Everyone is furious -'

'That includes me! And where's Musa?'

'Gone to find a temple and send a message to his sister. He seems rather low. He never gives much away, but I'm sure he was looking forward to spending some time here, back in his own country. Let's just hope the message Musa is sending his sister doesn't say, "Put out my slippers. I'm coming home…" '

'So he's a homesick boy? This is bad news. He was miserable enough with mooning over Byrria.'

'Well, I'm trying to help out there. I've invited Byrria to dine with us the first time we stop properly. We've been doing so much travelling she must be lonely driving all by herself.'

'If she is lonely, it's her own fault.' Charity was not on my agenda at the moment. 'She could have had a lusty young Nabataean to crack the whip for her!' Come to that, she could have had pretty well any man in the company, except those of us with strict companions. 'Does Musa know you're brokering romance for him? I'll take him for a decent haircut and shave!'

Helena sighed. 'Better not be too obvious.'

'Really?' I grinned, grabbing hold of her suddenly. 'Being obvious always worked for me.' I pulled Helena close enough for my own obvious feelings to be unmissable.

'Not this time.' Helena, who had had a great deal of practice, wriggled free. 'If we're moving on, we need to sleep. What did you find out from Congrio?'

'That Heliodorus was a hardened gambling cheat, and his victims may just have included Tranio and Grumio.'

'Together or separately?'

'This is unclear.'

'Lot of money involved?'

'Another unknown quantity.' But my guess was, probably.

'Do you plan to question them next?'

'I plan to know just what I'm asking before I attempt anything. Those two are a tricky pair.' In fact, I was surprised that even a seasoned cheat had managed to mug them. But if they were accustomed to feeling sure of themselves, being fleeced might have come as a nasty surprise. Congrio was right; they had a streak of arrogance. They were so used to sneering at others that if they found they had been set up, I hated to speculate how they would react.

'Do you think they are hiding something?' Helena asked. 'Something significant?'

'More and more it looks that way. What do you think, fruit?'

'I think,' Helena prophesied, 'anything with those two in it will be even more complicated than it looks.'

On the way to Canatha I asked Davos about the gambling. He had known it went on. He also remembered Heliodorus and the Twins arguing on occasions, though nothing too spectacular. He had guessed the playwright used to swindle local townsfolk. He himself had nothing to do with it. Davos was a man who could smell trouble; when he did he walked away.

I was reluctant to speak to Chremes about financial smears on Heliodorus. It touched too closely on his own problems, which I was holding in reserve at present. I did ask Phrygia. She assumed gambling was something all men did, and that cheating came naturally into the process. Like most disgusting male habits she ignored it, she said.

Helena offered to make enquiries of Philocrates, but I decided we could manage without help from him.

If Byrria was in a receptive mood, we would ask her when she came to dine.

Halfway to Canatha, on a high, flat, volcanic plain with distant views to the snow-capped peak of Mount Hermon, Helena and I tried our hands as matchmakers. For reasons we only found out later, we were wasting our time.

Entertaining two people who like to ignore each other's existence is quite a strain. As hosts we had supplied tasty wines, delectable fish, stuffed dates (stuffed by me, in my masquerade as an efficient cook), elegantly spiced side-dishes, olives, nuts, and sticky sweets. We had tried to place the romantic pair together, but they gave us the slip and took up stations at opposite ends of the fire. We sat side by side between them. Helena found herself talking to Byrria, while I just glared at Musa. Musa himself found a ferocious appetite for eating, buried his head in a bowl, and made no attempt to show off. As a wooer he had a slack technique. Byrria paid no attention to him. As a victim of his wiles, she was a tough proposition. Anyone who managed to tear this daisy from the pasture would need to tug hard.

The quality of the dinner did compensate for the lack of action. I helped myself to much of the wine while passing among the company, pointlessly trying to animate them with a generous jug. In the end I simply lay back with my head pillowed in Helena's lap, relaxed completely (not hard, in the state I had reached), and exclaimed, 'I give up! A man should know his limitations. Playing Eros is not my style. I must have the wrong kind of arrows in my bow.'