Secrets of the Dead (43 page)

Gemstones underneath the key letters
. But the letters were all the same. She frowned; she felt her headache coming back.

And then an idea.
What if it isn’t the key letters, but the key words?
She picked out the five words that contained the S’s and wrote them out, then swung herself off the bed and knocked on the bathroom door. Barry followed the movement with his head; his hand moved closer to his jacket pocket.

Mark unlocked the door and jerked it open, his phone pressed to his ear. He scowled when he saw her.

‘What is it?’

‘Is your Oxford professor still on the line?’

‘Why?’

‘Ask him what this means.’ She handed him the paper with five words written on it.
SIGNUM INVICTUS SEPELIVIT SUB SEPULCHRO
.

Mark’s eyes widened. ‘I’ll call you back,’ he said to whoever was on the other end of the phone. He pressed some buttons and put it back against his ear. Abby waited while he read out the phrase, then spelled it letter by letter. Jamming the phone against his shoulder, he leaned over the bathroom counter top so he could write down the reply.

‘Thanks.’ He rung off and stared in the bathroom mirror for a moment. Over his shoulder, Abby could see total confusion wrapping his face.

‘A basic translation is, “The unconquered one buried the sign under the grave.” My man Nigel says that it’s not too much of stretch to say, “
The unconquered one
– i.e., the Emperor Constantine –
buried the standard
– i.e., the
labarum
–
beneath his tomb
.”’

‘Do we know where his tomb is?’ It was Connie, who had come up behind Abby and was staring past her at Mark.

But Abby knew the answer. She remembered Nikoli
ć
telling her.

When the Turks conquered Constantinople, they destroyed Constantine’s mausoleum, which was the Church of the Holy Apostles, and built their own mosque on the site
.

‘It’s in Constantinople.’

‘Istanbul,’ said Connie. ‘Constantinople got the works.’

‘Under a mosque.’

‘A mosque?’ Mark looked worried. Connie tapped something into her BlackBerry and had an answer in less than thirty seconds.

‘The Fatih Mosque.’

Mark was already halfway to the door. ‘Let’s go.’

‘What about Michael?’ Abby asked. She remembered his face in the courtyard, the anguish as he turned and vanished out the gate. To lose him again so soon hurt her worse than the bullet.

But Mark wasn’t interested. ‘Dragovi
ć
is the target here.

We’ll bring Michael in sooner or later.’

‘And what about me.’ She remembered what he’d said in the café – three hours to be home, safe and out of this insane rat run. All she wanted to do was sleep.

‘You’re coming with us.’ He saw her face collapse and gave a mean smile. ‘We need you. You’re the bait.’

Constantinople – June 337

THERE’S NOTHING LIKE
the threat of death to slow a man down. The last month is the slowest I’ve ever lived. Each day since I returned from Nicomedia I’ve followed the same unimpeachable routine. I rise late and go to bed early. I work my way through Ursus’s list, using the lie that Constantine has asked me to canvass their support for his sons. I visit the public baths, but avoid conversation; I never go to the forum. I’ve dismissed all my slaves except my steward, and even he isn’t taxed with my simple demands.

Sometimes I wonder if this was how Crispus spent the last week of his exile in Pula. And I wonder who’s coming for me.

The last name on my list is Porfyrius. I’ve saved him to the end – he represents things I don’t want to think about. When you’re living under a suspended death sentence, you need to keep a tight grip on your imagination.

The day I go to see him is hot and stifling: the naked sun beats down on the city, enraged by the loss of his favourite
son
. I spend a long time on the doorstep; I’m almost resigned to going home when at last the door opens.

‘I’m not receiving many visitors these days,’ Porfyrius apologises. ‘It’s safer.’

Through an open door I can see a table set out in the atrium, loaded with cups and plates. I don’t comment.

‘You don’t mind if we speak in the study? I’m having the atrium redecorated.’

I glance back towards the atrium – I hadn’t noticed any sign of workmen. All I see is the door, silently shut by an unseen hand.

He leads me into his study. The desk is littered with papers, plans and drawings for what looks like a temple. A slave brings us wine. I take a cup, but don’t drink.

‘Constantine asked me to come.’ The line’s so well rehearsed by now, I’ve almost forgotten it’s a lie. Porfyrius isn’t so naïve.

‘I heard the Augustus had …’ A delicate pause. ‘Taken sick.’

‘He was alive the last time I saw him.’ That much is true. ‘But – he’s an old man. He’s concerned for the future of the empire.’

‘Does he have a list of troublemakers he’s worried about?’ He holds up a hand to stop me answering, and rattles off the names of half a dozen of the men I’ve been to visit in the last fortnight.

‘If you know who I’ve seen, you probably know what I’ve said to them.’

‘Probably.’

‘This is no time for factions. Whoever Constantine names as his successor, or successors, they’ll need a peaceful, united empire. People who support them will have nothing to fear.’

A shrewd look. ‘Are you making me an offer?’

‘I’m passing on a message.’ I open my hands in innocence – or impotence.
No guarantees
.

‘Consider it delivered.’ He picks up a pen from the desktop and spins it in his fingers. ‘You forget – I spent ten years in exile because I wrote a poem that offended Constantine. I’m not keen to go back.’

He puts the pen down. His hand’s shaking; it knocks against a brass lamp which is weighing down the end of a scroll. The lamp falls on the floor; the scroll ravels up, pulling back like a curtain to reveal the drawings underneath. I peer forward.

It’s an elevation of the pediment of a temple or a mausoleum, a triangular face with a wreath in the centre. And inside the wreath, a monogram: a slanted X with its top looped around.

‘The plans for my tomb,’ says Porfyrius. ‘I have an architect working on it.’

‘Are you expecting to need it soon?’

‘I’m prepared. Our generation – you, me, the Augustus himself – our time is running out. You should think about your own.’

‘Mine’s already built.’ Dug into the slopes of the valley behind my villa in Moesia, surrounded by cypresses and laurels. A lonely place. I wonder if I’ll live to see it.

I make a show of examining the plans. ‘It’s an interesting choice of decoration.’

His face – usually so animated – is very still. ‘Everybody has Constantine’s monogram on their tombs these days. I wanted something different – but still to proclaim my faith. I remembered it from the necklace you showed me. And a way to remember my old friend Alexander.’

He rolls up the plans and slots them into a rack on the wall. ‘Thank you for coming.’

I’m about to go when shouts intrude from the street, piercing through a high window in the back wall. It sounds like a riot. A moment later a slave runs in, flustered and jabbering.

‘They’re saying the Augustus is dead.’

Porfyrius takes the news calmly. He doesn’t look any more surprised than I do.

‘Things are going to start changing.’

‘Be careful,’ I remind him. ‘It would be a shame to need your tomb before it’s ready.’

The next day, Constantine’s body is laid out in the great hall of the palace. The line of mourners stretches a full mile down the main avenue, under the shadow of Constantine’s column. Senators queue with tavern-keepers, actresses with priests – every face a fragment in a mosaic of united grief. It’s moving: they genuinely loved their Augustus, I think. He built their city. He kept the granaries full, the markets stocked and the barbarians back beyond the frontiers. He let them worship in temples or churches as they chose, whichever gods spoke to them. And now the world trembles.

The queue passes not far from my house: I can hear them through my windows, sitting in my garden or lying on my bed through the hot nights. For two days, I lock myself in and wait for the crowds to subside. On the third day, I can’t resist any longer. I put on my toga, brush my hair and join the mourners. It takes hours to inch my way up the avenue, through the Augusteum, where the statues of deified emperors wait to greet their new companion. Long before I get there, my legs ache and my back feels as though hot coals have been poured inside it. My body’s drenched with sweat. More than once I’m within an inch of breaking away and running back
home
. Even when I reach the palace gate, it’s still another two hours’ wait.

At last I’m there. There must be two thousand people in the hall, but they hardly make a sound. They shuffle slowly in a long loop. At the side of the hall, there’s a space where people have left offerings: amulets and pieces of jewellery, coins and medallions, pieces of tile or stone with prayers scratched on to them. A lot show the X-P monogram. Are they funeral offerings – or offerings to a god?

The last few yards are the slowest of all. The heat in the hall, all those bodies on a hot summer evening, numbs me: I have to fight against it. This is the last time I’ll see him. I want to hold the moment.

The line inches forward. And suddenly, there he is, lying in state on a golden bier atop a three-stepped plinth. Cypress boughs deck the floor around him; braziers smoke with incense and candles flicker on golden stands. The white robes he had on for his baptism are gone, banished by the full imperial regalia. The purple robe trimmed with jewels and gold, that used to rattle like armour when he walked; the gold diadem set with pearls; the red boots with toecaps buffed smooth where men have knelt to kiss them. The shroud underneath him is emblazoned with his monogram, but woven all around it are scenes from legend. And above it all, the golden
labarum
on its pole, the all-conquering standard.

I stare into his face. The embalmed skin is grey and artificial; somehow the undertakers seem to have subtly altered his face, so that he doesn’t quite resemble the man he was. The man I loved to destruction; the man whose dying wish I couldn’t grant.

A fly buzzes down and lands on Constantine’s nose. A slave sitting on a stool beside the bier flaps an ostrich feather to
shoo
it away. It draws my eye, changes my focus. Suddenly, I see the corpse for what it really is.

It’s a waxwork.

The tears that were beading in my eye are gone. I feel a fool. Of course, they wouldn’t lay out the real corpse. He died a month ago: even the best undertaker would struggle to keep him looking fresh. And in this heat … Now that I see, I’m embarrassed I was ever taken in. The sun’s softened one of the cheeks, making it subside as if he had a stroke. The wig they’ve used for the hair is slightly crooked.

This is how he is now. The man who lived and breathed – the man I knew – is gone. All people will remember now is a statue.

The crowd swells behind me, nudging me on. I whisper a prayer for Constantine – my friend, not this bloodless effigy – and let others take my place. I’m desperate to be outside. I hurry to the door, towards the long arcade that leads out of the city. Mourners mill around, talking quietly; the palace officials are distributing hot food to those who’ve been waiting.

But through the crowd, there’s something else. A flash, an intuition, the weight of a gaze. Someone’s watching me.

Our eyes meet. He turns away, pretending he hasn’t seen me. But I’m not going to let him escape. I push through the crowd. They squeeze tighter as I approach the gate – I almost lose sight of him – but then I’m through and there’s space to move. He’s hobbling without a stick, a hunched figure in a blue cloak, the hood pulled up despite the heat. It takes me twenty paces to catch him. He knows he can’t beat me. He hears me coming, stops and turns.

The hood slides back. It’s Asterius the Sophist.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Paying my respects to the Augustus.’ It’s getting dark; the
crevices
of his face are black as ink, etching each bitter line. ‘He was the greatest Christian since Christ.’

‘It must be hard for you, now that it’s over.’

‘For you, it’s over. For us, this is just the beginning.’

Urgency overwhelms me. ‘Tell me about Symmachus. Tell me about Alexander.’

‘They’re all dead.’

‘Then tell me about Eusebius. What happened in that dungeon, during the persecutions? Did it hurt, taking the blame for his betrayal? Watching him rise through the ranks of your religion, the Emperor’s favourite, while you were forbidden from setting foot in a church?’

I’ve scored a hit. Pain flashes across his face.

‘Alexander knew,’ I continue. ‘Symmachus knew. But they weren’t the only ones. Someone else knows, is willing to testify.’

‘You have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Haven’t I?’

He hesitates, then decides. A cruel light comes on in his eyes.

‘Walk with me.’

The procession of mourners is as long as ever. We force our way past them, down the street, and slip into the gardens beside the hippodrome. Above us, the last sunlight gleams on the four-horsed chariot that crowns the north end.

Asterius gives me a sly glance. ‘I was never worried about the persecutions. Eusebius was, but Eusebius is prone to fits of panic. That was how they got to him in the first place.’

‘
Got to him?
’

‘In prison.’

His honesty takes me aback. ‘So it’s true?’

‘That Eusebius betrayed a family of Christians and I took the blame to protect him?’ He shrugs, careless of the impact
of
his words. ‘Alexander could never have proved it. A doddering bishop relying on the evidence of a notorious persecutor? He’d only have sacrificed what little credibility he had left. Can you imagine if he’d turned up to the episcopal election with Symmachus in tow? Eusebius would have won without a vote.’