Last Act in Palmyra Read Online Free Page A

headaches!’
    â€˜It could be a job to get you noticed.’
    â€˜You mean if I do it well, the assumption will be it can’t have been so difficult after all.’
    â€˜You’ve been around too long!’ He grinned. Momentarily I liked him more than usual. ‘You seemed the ideal candidate, Falco.’
    â€˜Oh come off it! I’ve never been outside Europe!’
    â€˜You have connections with the East.’
    I laughed shortly. ‘Only the fact my brother died there!’
    â€˜It gives you an interest –’
    â€˜Correct! An interest in making sure I never visit the damned desert myself!’
    I told Anacrites to wrap himself in a vine leaf and jump head first into an amphora of rancid oil, then I derisively poured what remained in my winecup back into his flagon, and marched off.
    Behind me I knew the Chief Spy wore an indulgent smile. He was sure I would think over his fascinating proposition, then come creeping back.
    Anacrites was forgetting about Helena.

IV
    Guiltily I recalled my attention to the baby elephant.
    Helena was looking at me. She said nothing, but she gave me a certain still, quiet stare. It had the same effect on me as walking down a dark alley between high buildings in a known haunt of robbers with knives.
    There was no need to mention that I had been offered a new mission; Helena knew. Now my problem was not trying to find a way of telling her, but sounding as if I had intended to come clean all along. I disguised a sigh. Helena looked away.
    â€˜We’ll give the elephant a rest,’ Thalia grumbled, coming back to us. ‘Is he being a good boy?’ She meant the python. Presumably.
    â€˜He’s a treat,’ Helena answered, in the same dry tone. ‘Thalia, what were you saying about a possible job for Marcus?’
    â€˜Oh, it’s nothing.’
    â€˜If it was nothing,’ I said, ‘you wouldn’t have thought of mentioning it.’
    â€˜Just a girl.’
    â€˜Marcus likes jobs involving girls,’ Helena commented.
    â€˜I bet he does!’
    â€˜I met a nice one once,’ I put in reminiscently. The girl I once met took my hand, fairly nicely.
    â€˜He’s all talk,’ Thalia consoled her.
    â€˜Well, he thinks he’s a poet.’
    â€˜That’s right: all lip and libido!’ I joined in, for self-protection.
    â€˜Pure swank,’ said Thalia. ‘Like the bastard who ran off with my water organist.’
    â€˜Is this your missing person?’ I forced myself to show an interest, partly to insert some professional grit but mainly to distract Helena from guessing I had been called to the Palace again.
    Thalia spread herself on the arena seats. The effect was dramatic. I made sure I was gazing out towards the elephant. ‘Don’t rush me, as the High Priest said to the acolyte … Sophrona, her name was.’
    â€˜It would be.’ All the cheap skirts who pretended to play musical instruments were called Sophrona nowadays.
    â€˜She was really good, Falco!’ I knew what that meant. (Actually, coming from Thalia it meant she was really good.) ‘She could play,’ Thalia confirmed. ‘There were plenty of parasites taking advantage of the Emperor’s interest.’ She was referring to Nero, the water-organ fanatic, not our present endearing specimen. Vespasian’s most famous musical trait was going to sleep during Nero’s lyre performances, for which he had been lucky to escape with nothing worse than a few months’ exile. ‘A true artiste, Sophrona was.’
    â€˜Musicianship?’ I queried innocently.
    â€˜A lovely touch … And looks! When Sophrona pumped out her tunes men rose in their seats.’
    I took it at face value, not looking at Helena, who was supposed to have been politely brought up. Nevertheless I heard her giggling shamelessly before she asked, ‘Had she been with you long?’
    â€˜Virtually