As before it was Tranio who wanted to elaborate: 'Heliodorus could spot a hangover, or a pimple on a sensitive adolescent, or a disappointed lover at twenty paces. He knew what each of us wanted from life. He also knew how to make people feel that their weaknesses were enormous flaws, and their hopes beyond reach.'

I wondered what Tranio thought his own weakness was -and what hopes he had. Or might once have had.

'A tyrant! But people here seem pretty strong-willed.' Both Twins laughed easily. 'So why', I asked, 'did you all put up with him?'

'Chremes had known him a long time,' suggested Grumio wearily.

'We needed him. Only an idiot would do the job,' said Tranio, insulting me with what I thought was unnecessary glee.

They were an odd pair. At first glance they had seemed closely bonded, but I decided they hung together only in the way of craftsmen who work together, which gave them some basic loyalty, though they might not meet socially from choice. Yet in this travelling company Tranio and Grumio had to live under one goat-hair roof with everyone presuming they formed one unit. Perhaps sustaining the fraud set up hidden strains.

I was fascinated. Some friendships are sounder for having one easygoing partner with one who seems more intense. I felt that this ought to have been the case here; that the stolid Grumio ought to have been grateful for the opportunity to pal up with Tranio, to whom frankly I warmed more. Apart from the fact that he kept refilling my winecup, he was a cynic and a satirist; exactly my kind of fellow.

I wondered if professional jealousy had come between them, though I saw no signs. There was scope on stage for both of them, as I knew from my reading. All the same, in Grumio, the quieter of the clowns, I sensed deliberate restraint. He looked pleasant and harmless. But to an informer that could easily mean he was hiding something dangerous.

The wineskin was empty. I watched Tranio shake out the very last drops, then he squashed the skin flat, clapping it under his elbow.

'So, Falco!' He seemed to be changing the subject. 'You're new to playwriting. How are you finding it?'

I told him my thoughts on New Comedy, dwelling with morose despair on its dreariest features.

'Oh you're reading the stuff? So you've been given the company play box?' I nodded. Chremes had handed over a mighty trunk stuffed with an untidy mass of scrolls. Putting them together in sets to make whole plays had taken most of our journey to Bostra, even with help from Helena, who enjoyed that kind of puzzle. Tranio went on idly. 'I might come and have a quick look sometime. Heliodorus borrowed something that wasn't left among his personal things:'

'Anytime,' I offered, curious, though not in my present condition wanting to pay too much attention to some lost stylus knife or bath-oil flask. I swayed to my feet, suddenly anxious to stop torturing my liver and brain. I had been away from Helena for longer than I liked. I wanted my bed.

The sharp clown grinned, noticing how the wine had affected me. I was not alone, however. Grumio was lying on his back near the fire, eyes closed, mouth open, dead to the world. 'I'll come back to your tent now,' laughed my new friend. 'I'll do it while I think of it.'

Since I could use an arm to steady me home, I made no protest but let him bring a light and come with me.

Chapter XVII

Helena appeared to be sound asleep, though I noticed a smell of snuffed lamp wick. She made a show of waking drowsily. 'Do I hear the morning cockerel, or is that my stupefied darling rolling back to his tent before he drops?'

'Me, stupefied:' I never lied to Helena. She was too sharp to delude. I added quickly, 'I've brought a friend – ' I thought she stifled a groan.

The light of Tranio's flare wavered crazily up the back wall of our shelter. I gestured him to the trunk of plays while I folded up on a baggage roll as neatly as possible and let him get on with it. Helena glared at the clown, though I tried to persuade myself she looked more indulgently on me.

'Something Heliodorus pinched,' Tranio explained, diving into the depths of the scroll box unabashed. 'I just want to dip into the box:' After midnight, in the close domestic privacy of our bivouac, this explanation fell short of convincing. Theatricals seemed a tactless lot.

'I know,' I soothed Helena. 'Little did you think when you found me in a black bog in Britannia and fell for my soft manners and sweet-natured charm that you'd end up having your sleep disturbed by a gang of drunkards in a desert khan-'

'You're rambling, Falco,' she snapped. 'But how right. Little did I think!'

I smiled at her fondly. Helena closed her eyes. I told myself that was the only way she could resist either the smile or the frank affection in it.

Tranio was thorough in his search. He delved right to the bottom of the trunk, then replaced every scroll, taking the opportunity to look at each a second time.

'If you tell me what you're looking for-' I offered blearily, longing to get rid of him.

'Oh, it's nothing.. It's not here, anyway.' He was still searching, however.

'What is it? Your diary of five years as a sex slave in the temple of some Eastern goddess with an ecstatic cult? A rich widow's will, leaving you a Lusitanian gold mine and a troupe of performing apes? Your birth certificate?'

'Oh much worse!' he laughed.

'Looking for a scroll?'

'No, no. Nothing like that.'

Helena watched him in a silence that may have passed for politeness to a stranger. I like more alluring entertainment. I watched her. Tranio finally banged down the lid and sat on the chest kicking his heels against its studded sides. The friendly fellow looked as if he intended to stay chatting until dawn.

'No luck?' I asked.

'No, damn it!'

Helena yawned blatantly. Tranio gave a flourishing gesture of acquiescence, took the hint, and left.

My tired eyes met Helena's for a moment. In the weak light of the flare Tranio had left us, hers looked darker than ever -and not devoid of challenge.

'Sorry, fruit.'

'Well, you have to do your work, Marcus.'.. 'I'm still sorry.'

'Find anything out?'

'Early days.'

Helena knew what that meant: I had found nothing. As I washed my face in cold water she told me, 'Chremes dropped in to tell you he has found the rest of his people, and we're performing here tomorrow.' She could have announced this while we were waiting for Tranio to go, but Helena and I liked to exchange news more discreetly. Discussing things together in private meant a lot to us. 'He wants you to write out the moneylender's part Heliodorus used to play. You have to make sure that omitting the character doesn't lose any vital lines. If. so-'

'I reallocate them to someone else. I can do that!'

'All right.'

'I could always go on stage as the moneylender myself.'

'You have not been asked.'

'Don't see why not. I know what they're like. Jove knows I've dealt with enough of the bastards.'

'Don't be ridiculous,' Helena scoffed. 'You're a free-born Aventine citizen; you're much too proud to sink so low!'

'Unlike you?'

'Oh I could do it. I'm a senator's offspring; disgracing myself is my heritage! Every family my mother gossips with has a disgruntled son no one talks about who ran off to scandalise his grandfather by acting in public. My parents will be disappointed if I don't.'

'Then they will have to be disappointed, so long as I'm in charge of you.' Supervising Helena Justina was a rash claim; she laughed at me. 'I promised your father I'd keep you respectable,' I finished lamely.

'You promised him nothing.' True. He had more sense than to ask me to take on that impossible labour.

'Feel free to carry on reading,' I offered, fumbling with my boots.