'The bill-poster may have overheard us talking about it yesterday,' said Musa. I liked the way his mind worked. He had noticed Congrio lurking too close, just as I had, and had already marked him as suspicious.

'Or he may have told somebody else what he overheard.' I swore quietly. 'If my light-hearted suggestion that we made you a decoy brought this accident upon you, I apologise, Musa.'

'People had been suspicious of us anyway,' Helena rebutted. 'I know there are all sorts of rumours about all three of us.'

'One thing is sure,' I said. 'It looks as if we have made the playwright's murderer extremely jumpy merely by joining the group.'

'He was there,' Musa confirmed in a sombre tone. 'I knew he was there on the embankment above me.'

'How was that?'

'When I first fell into the water, no one seemed to hear the splash. I sank fast, then rose to the surface. I was trying to catch my breath; at first I could not shout. For a moment I felt entirely alone. The other people sounded far off. I could hear their voices growing fainter as they walked away.' He paused, staring into the fire. Helena had reached for my hand; like me she was sharing Musa's dreadful moment of solitude as he struggled to survive down in the black waters of the reservoir while most of his companions carried on oblivious.

Musa's face stayed expressionless. His whole body was still. He did not rant or make wild threats about his future actions. Only his tone clearly told us that the playwright's killer should be wary of meeting him again. 'He is here,' Musa said. 'Among the voices that were going into the darkness, one man had started whistling.'

Exactly like the man he had heard whistling as he came down from the High Place.

'I'm sorry, Musa.' Apologising again I was terse. 'I should have foreseen this. I should have protected you.'

'I am unharmed. It is well.'

'Do you own a dagger?' He was vulnerable; I was ready to give him mine.

'Yes.' Davos and I had not found it when we stripped him.

'Then wear it.'

'Yes, Falco.'

'Next time you'll use it,' I commented.

'Oh yes.' Again that commonplace tone, belying the compelling words. He was a priest of Dushara; I reckoned that Musa would know where to strike. There could be a swift, sticky fate awaiting the man who had whistled in the dark. 'You and I will find this hill bandit, Falco.' Musa stood up, keeping the blanket around him modestly. 'Now I think we should all sleep.'

'Quite right.' I threw his own joke back at him: 'Helena and I still have a lot of quarrelling to do.'

There was a teasing glint in Musa's eye. 'Hah! Then until you have finished I must go back to the reservoir.'

Helena scowled. 'Go to bed, Musa!'

Next day we were setting off for the Decapolis. I made a vow to keep a watchful eye out for the safety of all of us.

ACT TWO: THE DECAPOLIS

The next few weeks. The settings are various rocky roads and hillside cities with unwelcoming aspects. A number of camels are walking about watching the action curiously.

SYNOPSIS: Falco, a jobbing playwright, and Helena, his accomplice, together with Musa, a priest who has left his temple for rather vague reasons, are travelling through the Decapolis in a search for Truth. Suspected of being imposters, they soon find themselves in danger from an anonymous Plotter who must be concealing himself amongst their new-found friends. Somebody needs to devise a sharp plan to penetrate his disguise:

Chapter XII

Philadelphia: a pretty Greek name for a pretty Greek town, rather knocked about at present. It had been pillaged a few years earlier by the rebelling Jews. The inward-looking fanatics of Judaea had always hated the Hellenistic settlements across the Jordan in the Decapolis, places where good citizenship – which could be learned by anybody at a decent Greek city school – counted for more than inheriting a stern religion in the blood. The marauders from Judaea had made it plain with vicious damage to property what they thought of such airy tolerance. Then a Roman army under Vespasian had made it plain to the Judaeans what we thought about damage to property by heavily damaging theirs. Judaea was pretty quiet these days, and the Decapolis was enjoying a new period of stability.

Philadelphia was enclosed by steep-sided hills, seven in number, though far more parched than the founding hills of Rome. There was a well-placed precipitous citadel, with the town spilling outwards and downwards on to a broad valley floor where a stream wandered attractively, doing away with any obvious need for cisterns, I was glad to see. We made camp, and sat down in our tents for what I gathered was likely to be a long wait while Chremes tried to negotiate terms for performing a play.

We had now entered Roman Syria. On our original journey between Petra and Bostra I had been working through the company play box, but on the way here to the Decapolis I had been able to give more attention to our surroundings. The road from Bostra to Philadelphia was supposed to be a good one. That meant a lot of people used it: not the same thing.

To be a travelling theatre group was not easy in these parts. The country people hated us because they identified us with the Greekified towns where we played, yet the townsfolk all thought we were uncivilised nomads because we travelled on; you have to beware of exhaustion when you are unused to desert conditions. I was all ready for a long snooze, but as I drowsed on the verge of it, I heard Helena call out 'Hello there!' to a passer-by.

I might have taken no notice, had not the masculine voice that answered her been laden with self-satisfaction. It was a handsome rich-toned tenor with seductive modulations, and I knew to whom it belonged: Philocrates, who thought himself the idol of all the girls.

Chapter XXIII

'Well, hello!' he responded, evidently overjoyed to find he had attracted the attention of my highly superior bloom. Men didn't need an exploratory chat with her banker before they found Helena Justina worth talking to.

I stayed put. But I had sat up.

From my dim hiding place I heard him tramp closer, the smart leather boots that always showed off his manly calves crunching on the stony ground. Footwear was his one extravagance, though he wore the rest of his threadbare outfit as if he were in regal robes. (Actually, Philocrates wore all his clothes like a man who was just about to shrug them off for indecent purposes.) From a theatre seat he was extravagantly good-looking; stupid to pretend otherwise. But he turned into a ripe damson if you peered into the punnet closely: too soft, and browning under the skin. Also, though his physique was all in proportion, he was extremely small. I could look right over his neatly combed locks, and most of his scenes with Phrygia had to be played with her sitting down.

I imagined him striking a pose in front of Helena – and tried not to imagine Helena being impressed by the haughty good looks.

'May I join you?' He didn't mess about.

'Of course.' I was all set to thunder out and defend her, though Helena seemed to be making a brave effort to cope. I could hear from her voice that she was smiling, a sleepy, happy smile. Then I heard Philocrates stretching out at her feet, where instead of looking like a smug dwarf he would simply look well honed.

'What's a beautiful woman like you doing here all on her own?' Dear gods, his chat line was so old it was positively rancid. Next thing he would be flaring his nostrils and asking her if she would like to see his war wounds.

'I'm enjoying this lovely day,' replied Helena, with more serenity than she had ever shown with me when I first tried getting to know her. She used to swat me like a hornet on a honey-jar.