Secrets of the Dead (46 page)

Porfyrius has gone. He hasn’t even bothered to lock the door – perhaps he isn’t expecting to come back. A neglected silence hangs over the house, as though its owner died
unexpectedly
and hasn’t been found yet. The whole house is empty, not even a single slave, though nothing’s been packed or put away. The long table that I saw before is still standing in the atrium, stacked with plates and bowls ready for serving.

I go to his study and rummage on the shelves for the plans to his mausoleum.
It would be a shame to need your tomb before it’s ready
. I unroll them on the desk. The word
Roma
is scribbled on the top left-hand corner – presumably he wants to be buried in Rome. I doubt he’ll get there.

There are three drawings. The first shows the front, with its strange
labarum
-like monogram filling the pediment. The second illustrates the paintings intended for the wall. The third shows the niche at the back of the tomb where the remains will be buried. A stone plaque’s been drawn on the wall, and written on it – clearly, so the masons make no mistake – are two lines of poetry.

To reach the living navigate the dead
,

Beyond the shadow burns the sun
.

The story’s clear enough. Porfyrius found out that Alexander had uncovered his poem and attacked him in the library. In the struggle, Alexander ripped the gold necklace off Porfyrius: it slid under the bookshelf, and Porfyrius didn’t have time to retrieve it. Perhaps Symmachus was there, too. That would explain how he ended up with Alexander’s document case. He kept it, but then he got cold feet. He tried to arrange to hand it back, but did it so clumsily he got caught instead.

So why was Porfyrius concerned about the poem? Was he worried about the allusions to Crispus? It hardly seems worth killing a man for. But Porfyrius had been exiled once before: he might well have had a horror of suffering it again.

I take out the poem and align it with the necklace, hoping I’ll see something I missed before.

There are five red beads set into the gold, making the points and centre of a cross. Through the glass you can see fragments of words underneath. I press my thumbnail into the papyrus to underline them, then lift the necklace away to see what I’ve found.

SIGNUM INVICTUS SEPELIVIT SUB SEPULCHRO
.
The unconquered man hid the sign under his tomb
.

I don’t know what it means, but I need to get to the funeral.

The procession will have set out by now. If Flavius Ursus is watching, he’ll have noticed I haven’t taken my place, perhaps mentioned it to one of his assistants. It’s too late for me. But from the palace to the mausoleum is almost two miles: it’ll take at least an hour to get there. I duck down a side alley, away from the ceremonial route, and join a wide and empty boulevard heading west. In the distance I can hear the shouts of the crowds, a roar like the sea that’s strangely stifled by the windless day. Every man, woman and child in the city must be there. I walk a full mile, and the only living thing I see is a cat curled up on a doorstep. Windows are shuttered, shops barred. I might be the last man left alive in the world.

The illusion fades as I approach the mausoleum. I can see its copper dome flashing above the surrounding rooftops; the gold trelliswork in the arches underneath. Nervous soldiers guard the street corners in twos and threes. It’ll be some time before the funeral gets here, but the mourners have already gathered twelve deep behind the wooden barricades that line the route.

The road ends at a wall. Twenty guards from the Schola make a human gate, ready to admit their emperor one last
time
. I show them my commission from Constantine, the ivory diptych he gave me the day Alexander died. They don’t question the fact that the portrait on the lid is of a corpse. Even in death, Constantine hasn’t surrendered his grip on the throne. New laws are issued every day in his name; his coins still pour out of the mints. The bureaucracy’s given him eternal life.

‘Has Publilius Porfyrius arrived yet?’ I ask the guard.

‘Here since this morning.’ He nods towards the mausoleum. ‘It’s been a bit of a rush job. The clerk of works wanted him to inspect the foundations, just to be sure. Embarrassing if it fell with all the city watching.’

‘How about Flavius Ursus?’

‘He’ll be in the procession.’

‘I need you to get a message to him. As quickly as possible, even if it means running in front of the Emperor’s coffin.’ I repeat the five words of Porfyrius’s hidden message. ‘Tell him it comes from Gaius Valerius.’ I push my commission under his face. ‘
Do it!
’

He looks surprised – doubly so when I step past him through the gate. ‘Where are you going?’

‘To find Porfyrius.’

The wall makes a compound, broad and square, covering the hilltop. One day this will all be gardens: at the moment, it’s a builders’ yard. Squares of earth show where the stacks of bricks and timber have hurriedly been moved around the back. Even now, Constantine’s legacy is a work in progress. Ahead, the mausoleum stands surrounded on three sides by arcades. Eventually, the fourth side will be closed off to make a courtyard. Today, it stands open, framing the immense rotunda rising in its centre. The gold facing ripples in the sun.

In front of the tomb stands a huge pyre, half as high as the building behind. It’s almost a building in its own right: stripped tree trunks make columns around its base, painted to look like fluted marble; planks form storeys inside. Gold banners hang over the sides, and at the very summit a live eagle preens itself in a gilded cage. Wooden stands have been erected on the open ground either side, so that the assembled senators and generals have box seats.

I skirt around the pyre and climb the steps to the courtyard. Huge crimson banners woven with portraits of Constantine’s three sons hang from the unconnected pillars; guards in gilded ceremonial armour stand at every column.

I find their centurion. ‘Has Publilius Porfyrius come this way?’

‘In the tomb.’

Again, Constantine’s pass lets me through – into the courtyard, into the presence of the mausoleum. The open side faces south, so that the golden wall catches the midday sun face on, bending its rays around the courtyard like a mirror. It dazzles me; from ten feet away I can feel the heat coming off it.

Suddenly, I need to sit down. I’m an old man who’s walked too far on a hot day. I’m parched. My mouth is dry, my limbs are like sand. I feel as if I’m drowning in a shimmering sea of heat and light.

‘Gaius Valerius?’

I spin around, unsure where the voice came from. The sun’s burned out my senses, I can’t locate anything. The dark figure stands in the glare like a spot in front of my eyes.

‘Porfyrius?’ I guess.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I read your poem.’

‘I wondered if you’d work it out.’ I can’t see his face, but
he
doesn’t sound angry. ‘I hoped the Emperor had destroyed it when he burned the papers from Alexander’s bag.’

‘There was another copy. In the Chamber of Records, the Scrinia Memoriae.’

‘Memory’s a funny thing.’

‘Did you kill Alexander?’

He laughs. ‘Poor Valerius. You’ve been stumbling around, chasing shadows and ghosts. You have no idea what this is really about.’

I’m sick of hearing that. ‘Why don’t you tell me?’

‘Come and see.’

He takes my hand and leads me around the rotunda. The tomb eclipses the sun; I can see again. Even the mausoleum isn’t what it seems. The gold panelling only comes halfway round, and a roofer’s scaffold is still erected against its north side, where no one will see it. Next to it, a small flight of steps descends to a little door in the tomb’s basement. Porfyrius knocks – a precise rhythm that sends a message.

The door swings open. To my aching eyes, the interior is perfect darkness. Porfyrius pushes me forward.

‘We won’t hurt you. You’ve waited ten years for this moment.’

The moment I step through the door, strong hands pin my arms to my side. I’d cry out, but another hand is clamped over my mouth.

The door closes and I’m plunged in darkness.

Rome – Present Day

THREE MILES FROM
the centre of Rome, Via Casilina was an unlovely artery: four lanes of traffic split down the middle by a light rail line. Behind the San Marcellino metro station, a pink plastered church stood dedicated to the early Christian martyrs Saint Peter and Saint Marcellinus. Next door was a brick school that looked like a warehouse, and in between ran a concrete wall with two gates, one large and one small. The large gate opened on to an asphalt car park that doubled as a playground for the school; the small one, which was barely high enough for an adult, led on to a narrow passage between two walls. A metal gate barred the way.

Mark studied it through a pair of binoculars. They were parked in the forecourt of the petrol station across the road – Mark and Abby, Barry and Connie. Abby was getting sick of the sight of them.

‘It doesn’t look like much,’ Barry said. About fifty metres back from the road, the broken curve of a brick rotunda poked above the line of the wall. It had no roof, and more than half
its
wall was missing. It was a poor cousin to the grandeur of the Fatih Mosque, or even Diocletian’s mausoleum in Split.

‘It belongs to the Vatican,’ said Connie from the back seat. ‘I suppose they can’t look after everything.’

Mark swore. ‘First it was a mosque, now it’s the Pope. Can’t we go somewhere that doesn’t belong to a touchy religion that’s famous for starting holy wars?’

‘Why don’t you bring in the police?’ Abby asked.

‘And piss off another country?’ Mark shook his head. ‘Our ambassador in Ankara is currently grovelling in front of Turkish intelligence explaining why we mobilised five hundred policemen, almost invaded one of their holiest mosques, then skipped town without so much as a thank you. From now on, we act on the basis of credible intelligence.’

‘I’m sure that’ll make a pleasant change for you.’

A white Fiat pulled in to the petrol station and stopped alongside them. Mark rolled down his window and gestured the driver to do likewise. Barry cradled a black semi-automatic pistol on his lap.

‘Dr Lusetti?’ Mark enquired.

The Fiat driver nodded. They all got out and shook hands, like travelling salesmen carpooling to a conference. Dr Mario Lusetti from the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology was a middle-aged man with a severe buzz cut and rimless spectacles. He wore jeans, a white shirt and a black blazer. He didn’t look as if he smiled very often; just then, he looked particularly unhappy.

‘You want to see the catacombs?’

‘We think one of Europe’s most wanted men – a dangerous criminal – will try to break in to steal a priceless artefact,’ Mark said. He spoke loudly, an Englishman abroad; it made him sound ridiculously melodramatic.

Lusetti pursed his lips and blew out a puff of air. ‘The catacomb has a footprint of thirty thousand square metres. There are four and a half kilometres of passages and galleries spread over three levels, with twenty or twenty-five thousand burials inside. Even maybe there are more places that nobody has ever excavated. And, by the way, the catacombs have been discovered since the sixteenth century: every grave robber and thief in Rome has been down there. If your criminals are looking for something, probably they are four hundred years too late. If not, for sure it will take them another four hundred years to find it.’

‘I don’t care what they find. As long as we find them.’

Connie stayed in the car to watch. Lusetti led the others across the road and unlocked the little gate, then shepherded them down the narrow alley. At the end, a second gate led them through a steel fence topped with razor wire, into the circular enclosure that surrounded the old rotunda. Close to, Abby could see how vast it must have been: so big, in fact, that a two-storey house had been built inside the ruin. There were a few signs of restoration work – a couple of concrete buttresses, some broken-ended walls that had been squared off – but no evidence of recent activity.

‘You know the story here?’ Lusetti asked. ‘It was the tomb of Saint Helena. The Emperor Constantine decided he did not want to be buried in Rome, so he gave it to his mother instead. Before, it had been the cemetery of the Imperial Cavalry Guard – but they fought against Constantine at the battle of Milvian Bridge. He disbanded the legion and pissed on their bones.’

He unlocked the door to the house and led them in to a marble-floored hall. Shutters shaded the rooms, and Abby could taste dust and damp in the air.

‘This whole area had been an imperial estate called Ad Duas Lauros for centuries. After the Dowager Empress Helena was buried here, Constantine gave it to the papacy. We have it still.’

Two owners in two thousand years
. In that moment, Abby began to understand the timescales that popes and emperors thought in.

Lusetti took hard hats, head torches and fluorescent workmen’s vests off wooden pegs and handed them round. Barry stared at the reflective stripes on the vests and frowned.

‘Do we want to be highly visible if we’re chasing a dangerous criminal?’

‘In the catacomb is very dark. If we lose you, maybe we never see you again.’

They pulled on the protective clothing. Lusetti opened a side door and flicked a light switch. The naked bulb illuminated a stone staircase going down.

‘Is that it?’ Mark asked. It looked like nothing, the sort of entrance any Victorian house might have going down to its cellar.

‘This is the way down.’

‘Is there any other way in?’

‘Officially, no.’

‘Unofficially?’

‘It is an ancient city.’ Lusetti shrugged. ‘If anyone digs under his basement, he will find caves, old quarries, lost tunnels. Not so long ago, they found a completely unknown catacomb under Via Latina.’

With Lusetti leading the way, they went down into the darkness.

Constantinople – June 337

‘Let me tell you some things about the dark places of this world.’