So, with the company funds restored at least temporarily, and a new reputation for the ridiculous among my own party, we travelled from Canatha to Damascus.

We had to cross dangerous country, so we kept our wits about us. 'This seems a road on which the unexpected could happen,' I muttered to Musa.

'Bandits?'

His was a true prophecy. Suddenly we were surrounded by menacing nomads. We were more surprised than terrified. They could see we were not exactly laden down with panniers of frankincense.

We pushed Musa, finally useful as an interpreter, up to speak to them. Adopting a solemn, priestly manner (as he told me afterwards), he greeted them in the name of Dushara and promised a free theatrical performance if they would let us go in peace. We could see the thieves thought this was the funniest offer they had had since the Great King of Persia tried to send them a tax demand, so they sat down in a half-circle while we sped through a quick version of Amphitryon, | complete with stuffed snake. Needless to say, the snake received the best hand, but then there was a tricky moment when the bandits made it plain they wanted to purchase Byrria. While she contemplated life being beaten and cursed as some nomad's foreign concubine, Musa strode forwards and exclaimed something dramatic. They cheered ironically. In the end we satisfied the group by making them a present of the python puppet and providing a short lesson in waggling him.

We rode on.

'Whatever did you say, Musa?'

'I told them Byrria is to be a sacrificial virgin on a High Place.'

Byrria shot him a worse glance than she had given the nomads.

Our next excitement was being waylaid by a band of Christians. Tribesmen stealing our props was fair business, but cult adherents after freeborn Roman souls was an outrage. They were casually scattered across the road at a stopping place so that we had to go round them or submit to conversation. As soon as they smiled and said how pleasant it was to meet us, we knew they were bastards.

'Who are they?' whispered Musa, puzzled by their attitude.

'Wide-eyed lunatics who meet secretly for meals in upstairs rooms in honour of what they say is the One God.'

'One? Is that not rather limiting?'

'Surely. They'd be harmless, but they have bad-mannered politics. They refuse to respect the Emperor.'

'Do you respect the Emperor, Falco?'

'Of course not.' Apart from the fact I worked for the old skinflint, I was a republican. 'But I don't upset him by saying so publicly.'

When the fanatical sales talk moved to offering us a guarantee of eternal life, we beat the Christians up soundly and left them whimpering.

With the rising heat and these annoying interruptions, it took three stages to reach Damascus. On the last leg of our journey I did finally achieve a private talk with Tranio.

Chapter LII

Due to these disturbances, we had regrouped somewhat. Tranio happened to come alongside my waggon, whilst I noticed that for once Grumio was some way behind. I myself was alone. Helena had gone to spend some time with Byrria, diplomatically taking Musa. This was too good a chance to miss.

'Who wants to live for ever anyway?' Tranio joked, referring to the Christians we had just sorted out. He made the comment before he realised whose waggon he was riding next to.

'I could take that as a give-away!' I shot back, seizing the chance to work on him.

'For what, Marcus Didius?' I hate people who try to unnerve me by unbidden familiarity.

'Guilt,' I said.

'You see guilt everywhere, Falco.' He switched smartly back to the formal mode of address.

'Tranio, everywhere I run up against guilty men.'

I should like to pretend that my reputation as an informer was so grand that Tranio felt drawn to stay and challenge my skills. What really happened was that he tried hard to get away. He kicked his heels into his animal to spur it off, but being a camel it refused; a pain in the ribs was better than being obedient. This beast with the sly soul of a revolutionary was the usual dust-coloured creature with unsavoury bare patches on its ragged pelt, a morose manner and a tormented cry. It could run fast, but only ever did so as an excuse to try and unseat its rider. Its prime ambition was to abandon a human to the vultures forty miles from an oasis. A nice pet- if you wanted to die slowly of a septic camel bite.

Now Tranio was surreptitiously attempting to remove himself, but the camel had decided to lollop along beside my ox in the hope of unsettling him.

'I think you're trapped.' I grinned. 'So tell me about comedy, Tranio.'

'That's based on guilt mostly,' he conceded with a wry smile.

'Oh? I thought it was meant to tap hidden fears?'

'You a theorist, Falco?'

'Why not? Just because Chremes keeps me on the routine hack work doesn't mean that I never dissect the lines I'm revising for him.'

As he rode alongside me it was difficult to watch him too closely. If I turned my head I could see that he had been to a barber in Canatha; the cropped hair up the back of his head had been scraped off so close the skin showed red through the stubble. Even without twisting in my seat, I could catch a whiff of the rather overpowering balsam he had slopped on while shaving – a young man's mistaken purchase, which as a poor man he now had to use up. An occasional glance sideways gave me the impression of darkly hairy arms, a green signet ring with a gash in the stone, and whitened knuckles as he fought against the strong will of his camel. But he was riding in my blind spot. As I myself had to concentrate on calming our ox, which was upset by the bared teeth of Tranio's savage camel, it was impossible to look my subject directly in the eye.

'I'm doing a plodder's job,' I continued, leaning back with my whole weight as the ox tried to surge. 'I'm interested, did Heliodorus see it the way I do? Was it just piecework he flogged through? Did he reckon himself worthy of much better things?'

'He had a brain,' Tranio admitted. 'And the slimy creep knew it.'

'He used it, I reckon.'

'Not in his writing, Falco!'

'No. The scrolls I inherited in the play box prove that. His corrections are lousy and slapdash – when they are even legible.'

'Why are you so intrigued by Heliodorus and his glorious lack of talent?'

'Fellow feeling!' I smiled, not giving away the true reason. I wanted to explore why Ione had told me that the cause of the previous playwright's death had been purely professional.

Tranio laughed, perhaps uneasily. 'Oh come! Surely you're not telling me that underneath everything, Heliodorus was secretly a star comedian! It wasn't true. His creative powers were enormous when it came to manipulating people, but fictionally he was a complete dud. He knew that too, believe me!'

'You told him, I gather?' I asked rather drily. People were always keen to tell me too if they hated my work.

'Every time Chremes gave him some dusty old Greek master-piece and asked to have the jokes modernised, his dearth of intellectual equipment became pitifully evident. He couldn't raise a smile by tickling a baby. You've either got it or you haven't.'

'Or else you buy yourself a joke collection.' I was remembering something Congrio had said. 'Somebody told me they're still obtainable.'

Tranio spent a few moments swearing at his camel as it practised a war dance. Part of this involved skidding sideways into my cart. I joined in the bad language; Tranio got his leg trapped painfully against a cartwheel; my ox lowed hoarsely in protest; and the people travelling behind us shouted abuse.

When peace was restored, Tranio's camel was more interested than ever in nuzzling my cart. The clown did his best to jerk the beast away while I said thoughtfully, 'It would be nice to have access to some endless supply of good material. Something like Grumio talks about – an ancestral hoard of jests.'