Lindsey Davis - Last Act In Palmyra

'Then that's premeditation!' Helena exclaimed.

It seemed to me that if Grumio were the culprit but Tranio still regretted giving away the pledge, that could make Tranio willingly cover for him at Petra, and might explain Tranio's feeble attempt to make Afrania lie about his own alibi at Gerasa. But Grumio had a whole crowd of people to vouch for him when Ione was killed. Had Afrania been lying to me all along, and was Tranio Ione's killer? If so, were events at Petra the opposite way around? Did Tranio kill Heliodorus, and Grumio cover up?

'This is all becoming clearer, but the motive seems extravagant.' Helena was looking worried for other reasons. 'Marcus, you're a creative artist.' She said it entirely without irony. 'Would you be so upset by losing a batch of rather old material that you would go so far as to kill for it?'

'Depends,' I replied slowly. 'If I had a volatile temperament. If the material was my livelihood. If it was mine by rights. And especially if the person who now possessed it was an evil-mannered scribe who would be bound to gloat about using my precious material… We'll have to test the theory.'

'There's not going to be much opportunity.'

Suddenly I reached the end of my tolerance. 'Ah cobnuts, sweetheart! It's my debut tonight; I don't even want to think about this any more. Everything will be all right.'

Everything. My ghost play; Sophrona; finding the killer; everything. Sometimes, even without grounds for optimism, I just knew.

Helena was in a more sober mood. 'Don't joke about it. It's too grave a subject. You and I never make light of death.'

'Or life,' I said.

I had rolled to pin her beneath me, carefully keeping her bandaged arm free of my weight. I held her face between my hands while I studied it. Thinner and quieter since her illness, but still full of searching intelligence. Strong, quizzical eyebrows; fine bones; adorable mouth; eyes so dark brown and solemn they were making me ferment. I had always loved her being serious. I loved the madcap thought that I had made a serious woman care for me. And I loved that irresistible glint of laughter, so rarely shared with others, whenever Helena's eyes met mine privately.

'Oh my love. I'm so glad you've come back to me. I had thought I was losing you – '

'I was here.' Her fingers traced the line of my cheek, while I turned my head to brush the soft skin of her wrist with my lips. 'I knew all that you were doing for me.'

Now that I could bear to think about what had happened with the scorpion, I remembered how one night when she had been tossing with fever she had suddenly exclaimed in a clear voice, 'Oh Marcus?, as if I had entered a room and rescued her from some bad dream. Straight after that she had slept more quietly. When I told her about it now, she was unable to recollect the dream, but she smiled. She was beautiful when she smiled that way, looking up at me.

'I love you,' Helena whispered suddenly. There was a special note in her voice. The moment when the mood between us altered had been imperceptible. We knew each other so well it took only the faintest change of tone, a slightly increased tension in our bodies lying together. Now, without drama or prevarication, we were both wanting to make love.

Everywhere outside was quiet. The actors were still rehearsing, so were Thalia and the circus performers. Within the tent a couple of flies with no sense of discretion were buzzing about against the hot goatskin roof. Everything else lay still. Almost everything, anyway.

'I love you too…" I had told her that, but for a girl with exceptional qualities I did not mind repeating myself.

This time I did not have to be asked to kiss her, and every atom of my concentration was being applied. It was the moment to find the jar of alum wax. We both knew it. Neither of us wanted to disturb the deep intimacy of the moment; neither of us wanted to draw apart. Our eyes met, silently consulting; silently rejecting the idea.

We knew each other very well. Well enough to take a risk.

We did our best to search the soldiers at the gates. We managed to confiscate most of their drink flagons and some of the stones they were planning to hurl at us. No one could stop large numbers of them peeing against the outside wall before entering; at least that was better than what they might do inside later. Syria had never been a fashionable posting; dedicated men applied for frontier forts in Britain or Germany, where there was some hope of cracking foreign heads. These soldiers were little more than bandits. Like all Eastern legions, they turned to salute the sun each morning. Their evening fun was likely to be slaughtering us.

Their commander had offered us military ushers but I said that was asking for trouble. 'You don't control legionaries by using their mates!' He accepted the comment with a curt, knowing nod. He was a square-faced career officer, a sinewy man with straight-cut hair. I remember the pleasant shock of running into someone in authority who realised it would be useful to avert a riot.

We exchanged a few words. He must have been able to see I had a more solid background than scribbling light comedies. However, I was surprised when he recognised my name.

'Falco? As in Didius?'

'Well I like having a reputation, but frankly, sir, I did not expect my fame to have reached a road-building vexillation in the middle of the desert, halfway to bloody Parthia!'

'There's a note out, asking for sightings.'

'A warrant?' I laughed as I said it, hoping to avoid unpleasantness.

'Why that?' He looked both amused and sceptical. 'It's more "Render assistance; agent lost and may be in difficulty".'

Now I really was surprised. 'I was never lost! Whose signature?'

'Not allowed to say.'

'Who's your governor in Syria?'

'Ulpius Traianus.'

It meant nothing much then, though those of us who lived to be old men would see his son's craggy mush on the currency. 'Is it him?'

'No,' he said.

'If it's a short-arsed flea called Anacrites from the political bureau -'

'Oh no!' The garrison commander was shocked by my irreverence. I knew what that meant.

'The Emperor?' I had long stopped respecting official secrecy. The commander, however, blushed at my indiscretion.

The mystery was solved. Helena's father must be at the back of this. If Camillus had not heard from his daughter for the past four months, he would wonder where she was. The Emperor, his friend, was not looking for me at all but for my wayward lass.

Oh dear. Definitely time I took Helena home again.

The commander cleared his throat. 'So are you? In difficulty?'

'No,' I said. 'But thanks for asking. Ask me again when we've played to your mob here!'

He did invite Helena to a seat in the tribunal, a nice courtesy. I agreed, because he seemed far too straight to start fingering her, and I reckoned it was the one place a respectable woman would be safe that night.

Helena was furious at being sent out of the way.

The house was full. We drew about a thousand soldiers, a group of Palmyrene archers who had served in Judaea with Vespasian and learned about Roman spectacles, plus a few townspeople. Among them were Khaleed and his father, another short, stumpy Damascene. Facially, they did not much resemble each other, apart from a slight similarity in hairlines. I joked to Thalia, 'Khaleed must take after his mother – poor woman!' Then his mother turned up (maybe they had left left her to park the chariot), and unfortunately I was right: not exactly a model of feminine beauty. We gave them front-row seats, and hoped nothing too hard would be thrown at them by the soldiers behind.

Sophrona had arrived earlier, and I had made her accompany Helena as a chaperone. (We kept the girl out of sight of Thalia, in case Sophrona realised what was planned for her and tried to do another flit.) What did happen, of course, was that the family Habib soon spotted Sophrona in the ceremonial box alongside the garrison commander and Helena, who was in full regalia as a senator's daughter, resplendently dressed in new Palmyrene silk, with bronze bracelets to the elbow. My lady was a loyal soul. As it was my play's first night, she had even brought out a tiara to peg down the necessary veil.