Lindsey Davis - Last Act In Palmyra

I did wonder if they might be priests, going up for a ritual.

'If they are, we should turn back,' Helena suggested. The remark was her only contribution so far that morning. Her tone was cool, sensible, and subtly implying that I was a dangerous idiot for bringing us here.

A staid response seemed called for; I put on a frivolous manner: 'I never intrude on religion, particularly when the Lord of the Mountain might demand the ultimate sacrifice.' We knew little of the Petrans' religion, beyond the facts that their chief god was symbolised by blocks of rock and that this strong, mysterious deity was said to require bloodthirsty appeasement, carried out on the mountaintops he ruled. 'My mother wouldn't like her boy to be consecrated to Dushara.'

Helena said nothing.

Helena said nothing, in fact, during most of our climb. We were having a furious argument, the kind that's intensely silent. For this reason, although we heard that the two men were toiling up ahead of us, they almost certainly failed to notice that we were following. We made no attempt to let them know. It seemed unimportant at the time.

I decided that their intermittent voices were too casual to cause alarm. Even if they were priests they were probably going routinely to sweep away yesterday's offerings (in whatever unlikeable form those offerings took). They might be locals making the trip for a picnic. Most likely they were fellow visitors, just panting up to the sky-high altar out of curiosity.

So we clambered on, more concerned about the steepness of the path and our own quarrel than anybody else.

There were various ways to reach the High Place. 'Some joker down by the temple tried to tell me this route is how they bring the virgins up for sacrifice.'

'You've nothing to worry about then!' Helena deigned to utter.

We had taken what appeared to be a gentle flight of steps a little to the left of the theatre. It rapidly steepened, cutting up beside a narrow gorge. We had the rock face on both sides at first, quarried intriguingly and threatening to overhang our way; soon we acquired a narrow but increasingly spectacular defile to our right. Greenery clung to its sides – spear-leafed oleanders and tamarisk among the red, grey and amber striations of the rocks. These were most eye-catching on the cliff face alongside us, where the Nabataeans had carved out their passage to the mountaintop taking their normal delight in revealing the silken patterns of the sandstone.

This was no place for hurrying. The twisting path angled through a rocky corridor and crossed the gorge, widening briefly into a more open space where I snatched my first breather, planning several more before we reached the uppermost heights. Helena paused too, pretending she had only stopped because I was in her way.

'Do you want to get past me?'

'I can wait.' She was gasping. I grinned at her. Then we both turned to face out across Petra, already a fine view, with the widest part of the gravelly road in the valley below snaking away past the theatre and a bunch of tasteful rock-face tombs, then on towards the distant town.

'Are you going to fight with me all day?'

'Probably,' growled Helena.

We both fell silent. Helena surveyed the dusty thongs of her sandals. She was thinking about whatever dark issues had come between us. I kept quiet too, because as usual I was not entirely certain what the quarrel was about.

Getting to Petra had been less difficult than I had feared.

Anacrites had taken great pleasure in implying that my journey here posed intolerable problems. I simply brought us by sea to Gaza. I had 'hired' – at a price that meant 'bought outright' – an ox and cart, transport I was used to handling, then looked around for the trade route. Strangers were discouraged from travelling it, but caravans up to a thousand strong converged on Nabataea each year. They arrived in Petra from several directions, their ways parting again when they left. Some toiled westwards to northern Egypt. Some took the interior road up to Bostra, before going on to Damascus or Palmyra. Many crossed straight to the Judaean coast for urgent shipment from the great port at Gaza to the hungry markets in Rome. So with dozens of merchants trekking towards Gaza, all leading immense, slowly moving strings of camels or oxen, it was no trouble for me as an ex-army scout to trace back their route. No entrepot can be kept secret. Nor can its guardians prevent penetration of their city by strangers. Petra was essentially a public place.

Even before we arrived I was making mental notes for Vespasian. The rocky approach had been striking, yet there was plenty of greenery. Nabataea was rich in freshwater springs. Reports of flocks and agriculture were correct. They lacked horses, but camels and oxen were everywhere. All along the rift valley was a flourishing mining industry, and we soon discovered that the locals produced pottery of great delicacy, floral platters and bowls in huge quantities, all decorated with panache. In short, even without the income from the merchants, there would be plenty here to attract the benevolent interest of Rome.

'Well!' Helena let slip. 'I reckon you can report back to your masters that the rich kingdom of Nabataea certainly deserves inclusion in the Empire.' She was insultingly equating me with some mad-eyed, province-collecting patriot.

'Don't annoy me, lady – '

'We have so much to offer them!' she quipped; beneath the political irony was a personal sneer at me.

Whether the rich Nabataeans would see things our way might be a different cask of nuts. Helena knew that. They had guarded their independence with skill for several centuries, making it their role to keep the routes across the desert safely open and offer a market to traders of all kinds. They were practised in negotiating peace with would-be invaders, from the successors of Alexander to Pompey and Augustus. They had an amiable monarchy. Their present king, Rabel, was a youth whose mother was acting as regent, an arrangement that seemed to be non-controversial. Much of the routine workload of government fell to the Chief Minister. This more sinister character was referred to as The Brother. I guessed what that meant. Still, so long as the people of Petra were flourishing so vibrantly, I dare say they could put up with somebody to hate and fear. Everyone likes to have a figure of authority to mutter about. You can't blame the weather for all of life's ills.

The weather, incidentally, was fabulous. Sunlight streamed off the rocks, melting everything into a dazzling haze.

We continued our climb.

The second time we stopped, more desperately out of breath, I unhooked a water flask I was carrying on my belt. We sat side by side on a large rock, too hot to fight.

'What's the matter?' Something Helena had said earlier had struck a nerve. 'Finding out that I'm acting for the Chief Spy?'

'Anacrites!' she snorted with contempt.

'So? He's a slug, but no worse than the other slime lovers in Rome.'

'I thought at least you were working for Vespasian. You let me come all this way thinking that -'

'An oversight.' By this time I had convinced myself that was true, it just never came up in conversation. Anyway, what's the difference?'

'The difference is, Anacrites when he's acting independently is a threat to you. I don't trust the man.'

'Neither do I, so you can stop erupting.' Hauling her up here had been an inspired move; I could see she had lost her energy for bickering. I gave her more water. Then I kept her sitting on the rock. The soft sandstone made a tolerable backrest if your back was muscular; I leaned on the rock and made Helena lean against me. 'Look at the view and be friends with the man who loves you.'

'Oh him!' she scoffed.

There was one good thing about this argument: yesterday, when we left the outer caravanserai and entered Petra itself down the famous narrow gorge, we had been squabbling so bitterly none of the guards gave us a second glance. A man listening to his woman complaining about him can ride pretty well anywhere; armed retainers always treat him with sympathy. As they had waved us along the raised causeway and into the rocky cleft, then hurried us on under the monumental arch that marked the way, little did they know that at the same time as she harangued me Helena was reconnoitring their fortifications with eyes as sharp and a mind as acute as Caesar's.