The python felt threatened by the clown's aggression; it opened its mouth, showing what seemed to be hundreds of curved, needle-sharp, backward-pointing teeth.

I heard a quiet voice. 'Stand still.' It was Musa. The keen snakekeeper. He seemed to have known what the chest contained. 'Zeno will not hurt you.' He sounded like some competent technician taking charge.

Thalia had told me pythons do not attack humans. What Thalia said was good enough for me, but I was not taking chances. I remained quite motionless.

The kid, still in Musa's arms, bleated nervously. Then Musa moved steadily past me towards the huge snake.

He reached Grumio. Zeno's tongue flicked rapidly through the side of his mouth. 'He is just taking your scent.' Musa's voice was gentle, yet not reassuring. As if to free himself for dealing with the python, he set down the kid. It leapt forwards. Tottering towards Grumio on fragile legs, it looked terrified, but Zeno showed no interest. 'I, however,' Musa continued quietly, 'already know you Grumio! I arrest you for the murder of the playwright Heliodorus and the tambourinist Ione.' In Musa's hand had appeared the slim, wicked-looking blade of his Nabataean dagger. He was holding it with its point towards Grumio's throat; it was merely a gesture, though, for he was still several feet from the clown.

Suddenly Grumio sprang sideways. He grabbed the kid, and threw it towards Zeno. The kid let out a pitiful bleat of terror, expecting to be bitten and constricted. But Thalia had once told me that snakes in captivity can be choosy. Instead of co-operating, Zeno executed a smooth about-turn. Plainly unhappy, he doubled up on himself with an impressive show of muscle and tried to leave the scene.

The great python sped straight into a group of stage scenery. Hitching strong loops of himself around whatever he encountered, almost deliberately he knocked things flying. The big ceramic jar crashed over, losing its lid. Zeno wound himself around the stage oven, then curled up on top of it, looking superior, as the contraption bowed beneath his enormous weight. Meanwhile, Grumio had gained ground on both Musa and me. He seemed to have a clear run to the exit and began to spring away from us.

From the overturned jar something else emerged. It was smaller than the python – but more dangerous. Grumio stopped in his tracks. I had started to pursue him, but Musa exclaimed and gripped my arm. In front of Grumio there was now another snake: a dark head, a banded body, and as it reared upright to confront him, a golden throat beneath the wide extension of its sinister hood. It must be Pharaoh, Thalia's new cobra. He was angry, hissing, and in full threat display.

'Retreat slowly!' Musa commanded in a clear voice.

Grumio, who was nearly ten feet from the reptile, ignored the advice. He seized a torch and made a sweeping gesture with the burning brand. Pharaoh made what was obviously a mere feint. He expected respect.

'He will follow movement!' Musa warned, still unheeded.

Grumio shook the torch again. The cobra let out a short, low hiss, then darted across the whole distance between them and struck.

Pharaoh moved back. Slamming down at body height, he had bitten the leather apron Grumio wore in costume as a slave. The leather must be snakeproof. It would have saved the clown's life.

But his ordeal had not ended. As he was struck that first ferocious blow, Grumio, terrified, staggered and then tripped. On the ground, he instinctively scrabbled to get away. Pharaoh saw him still moving, and rushed forwards again. This time he struck Grumio full on the neck. The downward bite was accurate and strong, followed by a fast chewing movement to make sure.

Our audience went wild. A kill on-stage: just what they had bought their tickets for.

EPILOGUE: PALMYRA

Palmyra: the desert. Hotter than ever, at night.

SYNOPSIS: Falco, a playwright, not in the mood to play the hired trickster, finds that as usual he has set everything to rights:

Chapter LXXIV

Something told me that no one was ever going to ask me what happened about Moschion and his ghost.

Musa and I emerged from the arena badly shaken. We had seen Grumio collapse in shock and hysteria. As soon as the cobra retreated by stages from his vicinity, we crept forward cautiously and dragged the clown to the gates. Behind us the crowd was in uproar. Soon the python was maliciously destroying props while the cobra watched with a menacing attitude.

Grumio was not dead, but undoubtedly he would be. Thalia came over to look at him, then caught my eye and shook her head.

'He'll be gone before dawn.'

'Thalia, should somebody catch your snakes?'

'I don't suggest anyone else tries!'

She was brought a long, pronged implement and ventured into the arena with the bravest of her people. Soon the cobra had been pinned down and reinstalled in his jar, while Zeno rather smugly returned to his basket of his own accord, as if none of the chaos should be blamed on him.

I stared at Musa. Clearly he had brought the python to the arena, ready for Thalia's act after the play. Had it been his idea to take the basket on-stage as a dangerous prop? And had he also known that Pharaoh was in the ceramic jar? If I asked him he would probably tell me, in his straight way. I preferred not to know. There was little difference between what had happened today and subjecting Grumio to the delays of a trial and almost certain condemnation ad bestias.

A group of soldiers pulled themselves together. They took charge of Grumio, then, since the commander had told them to arrest all possible culprits, they arrested Tranio too. He went along with a shrug. There was hardly a case to answer. Tranio had behaved unbelievably, but there was no law in the

Twelve Tables against sheer stupidity. He had given away the precious scroll of stories, failed to retrieve it, then allowed Grumio to carry on undetected long after he himself must have known the truth. But if he really thought that his own original mistake equated with Grumio's crimes, he needed a course in ethics.

Later, while we were waiting for the convulsions and paralysis to finish Grumio, Tranio would admit what he knew: that Grumio, acting alone, had lured Heliodorus up the mountain at Petra, making sure no one else knew he had gone there; that Grumio had been walking closest to Musa when he was pushed into the reservoir at Bostra; that Grumio had actually laughed with his tentmate about various attempts to disable me – letting me fall off a ladder, the knife-throwing incident, and even threatening to push me into the underground water system at Gadara.

When Helena and I finally left Palmyra, Tranio would remain in custody, though much later I heard that he had been released. I never knew what happened to him afterwards. It was Congrio who was to become the famous Roman clown. We would attend many of his performances despite those harsh critics at me Theatre of Balbus who dared to suggest that the great Congrio's stories were rather antique, and that somebody should find him a more modern scroll of jokes.

Life would have to alter for several of our companions. When Musa and I first left the arena, Philocrates, in great pain and covered in gore from a glorious nosebleed, had been sitting on the ground waiting for a bone-setter. He looked as if he had a fractured collarbone. His nose, and probably one of his cheekbones, had been broken in his fall. He would never again play the handsome juvenile. I tried to encourage him: 'Never mind, Philocrates. Some women adore a man who has a lived-in face.' You have to be kind.

Once she had ruled out any hope for Grumio, Thalia came to help mop up the drips of blood on mis casualty; I swear I heard her trying to negotiate to buy Philocrates' comic mule. The creature would be knocking people over regularly in Nero's Circus when Thalia returned home.