Secrets of the Dead (42 page)

‘Old enough to know it was a murderous lie.’

He wilts. ‘Our mother told us.’

‘And if she’d told you to stab your father while he slept, would you have done that too?’

‘No.’ It’s the first word Constantine’s spoken, and even that’s been wrenched out of him. ‘Not the children.’

‘They were accomplices.’

‘They’re your children,’ Fausta pleads to Constantine.

So was Crispus
, I think.

‘Crispus was worth the three of them put together.’ Helena’s hated that family since Constantine’s father jilted her for one of old Maximian’s daughters. Now, at the end of her life, they’ve robbed her again. She’d like them obliterated from the face of the earth.

‘Show mercy,’ Fausta begs. She must know her life is over, but she’s fighting like a lioness for her cubs. She throws herself
to
the floor, grabs Constantine’s purple shoes and starts kissing them wildly, which turns into a scream as Helena steps forward and kicks her in the face. She was born a stable girl, and even at eighty she still has that strength. Fausta reels away, blood trickling from her lip. And Constantine still can’t move. For a long moment they look between each other, chained to each other like slaves on a sinking ship. Fausta, whimpering on the floor; Helena, breathing hard; Constantine like a statue.

Unexpectedly, it’s Constans – the youngest son – who breaks the moment. He’s only six, with a head of blond curls and soft pale skin like a barbarian. He runs forward and wraps his arms around Constantine’s legs.

‘When is Uncle Crispus coming home, Father?’

A tear runs down Constantine’s face. He crouches and hugs his son, closing his eyes in agony.

Undeniably, it’s a tender moment – and after what’s just happened, everyone in the room is susceptible. We’re desperate to believe in reconciliation. But I can’t help wondering. This family gobble each other like primordial gods. Fausta betrayed old Maximian when he plotted against Constantine; now Constantius and Constans have condemned their mother and probably saved themselves.

Constantine rises, keeping his hand on his son’s shoulder.

‘You destroyed Crispus,’ he says to Fausta.

Blood’s still running from her cut lip. She rubs it with the back of her hand, smearing a ghastly rictus across her cheek. Her eyes dart around the room like a cornered animal, and finally come to rest on Constantine.

‘I did,’ she whispers.

‘Why?’ He turns away. ‘No, don’t tell me.’ He glances at Helena. ‘You can take care of this? Discreetly?’

‘And the children?’ Helena presses.

‘Find them a tutor.’

She wants to argue, but Constantine isn’t listening. He turns his back and walks to the door, his shoulders slumped in defeat. I want to run to him, to put my arm around him and console him. With a great pang of loss, I realise that I can never comfort him again. Not after what I’ve done.

Helena grips Fausta’s arm so hard she gasps. ‘I think it’s time that you and I visited the baths.’

Memories collapse; my own voice comes back to me out of the recent past.

Cato the Stoic died in a bath, opening his veins so that the heat would draw the blood out of him. Though I’ve heard another version, that he didn’t die of his wounds but actually suffocated from the steam
.

It doesn’t matter which version you hear. They all end the same way.

Villa Achyron – 22 May 337

Whatever happened today, Constantine effectively died over those four weeks during his
vicennalia
. For eleven years the empire’s been living in that shadow. We have an emperor with three sons, but no wife; history books full of victories, but no victor. We’ve kept our eyes down, our voices low, and never dared to contradict the lie. Some days I think the effort of the charade has driven the whole empire to the brink of madness.

Did it cost Alexander his life? A week ago, I was convinced he must have been killed because of what he knew about Eusebius. Symmachus, too. Now, I’m not so sure.

Constantine:
Symmachus said he knew the truth about my son
.

But Bassus, sweating in the baths:
He said he’d found out something about a Christian bishop. A scandal
.

Which was it?

Alexander burrowed deep in the Chamber of Records, stripping out every last reference to Crispus. I know he was looking at the papers from Aquileia, and from Helena’s household. Did he find something that got him killed – and that Symmachus saw when he took the document case?

Does it matter? What are one or two deaths against the death of an emperor? I remember something Eusebius said:
Leave the dead to bury the dead
. It sounds like good advice.

But if there is a truth behind Crispus’s death – a truth that’s worth killing for – then …

Heavy boots echo down the corridor. The generals have emerged from their meeting. They knot around the courtyard in twos and threes, grim-faced and urgent. Flavius Ursus comes across to me, flanked by four guards. His position is the most powerful – but also the most precarious.

‘Is everything decided?’

‘The Emperor’s sons will divide the empire between them.’ He’s holding a piece of paper; I imagine a map on it, the fates of millions described in a room in this villa.

‘Does everyone accept that?’

‘The army’s content.’ No doubt Claudius, Constantius and Constans will reward them handsomely for their support – and there’s the war with Persia, which promises rich pickings for the army and its sycophants. ‘This is a time for unity.’

I think of old Constantius, left on his deathbed for two days after he died until Constantine got there. It’s lucky York’s so cold.

‘When will you announce the death?’

‘Constantius is coming from Antioch. We’ll wait for him.’

That’ll be two weeks – maybe three or four depending on the roads and the mountain passes. ‘Can you keep the secret that long?’

‘It’s safest. The army is united, but there are other factions that might try to take advantage. Already, there are rumours …’

‘There are always rumours.’

‘And they need to be investigated. So we have a job for you.’

He hands me the piece of paper – not a map, but a list. I scan down it: eminent senators, retired officials. The old guard, men who might object to the new settlement. Among them, I notice Porfyrius’s name.

‘Find these men. Tell them that if or when the Augustus’s sons take power, they’ve got nothing to fear.’

‘
Have
they got anything to fear?’

He gives me a crooked look. ‘Just tell them.’ He sees my reluctance and growls. ‘I’m doing you a favour, Gaius – for old times’ sake. I’m giving you a chance to prove your loyalty.’

He jerks his head over his shoulder, at the generals and tribunes congregated in the courtyard. ‘Not everyone would give you that. There are rumours, and with your history …’

He pats me on the shoulder.

‘Now get out, while you have the chance.’

Split, Croatia – Present Day

ABBY SAT IN
the hotel room. It was the nicest place she’d been in a week – Egyptian cotton on the bed, Swiss chocolates under the pillows and Welsh mineral water in the fridge. She barely noticed. She sat hunched on the bed, her knees pulled up against her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs.

Across the room, a woman in a red skirt and a cream jumper sat in a wingback chair. She must have been about the same age as Abby, though far more robust: a strong, big-limbed body; an athletic rosiness on her cheeks and long, honey-coloured hair worn loose. She said her name was Connie. She didn’t try to make conversation, but sat there watching Abby, occasionally looking down to fiddle with the BlackBerry in her hand.

In the corner, a man in a black fleece leaned against the door, arms folded. The curtains were drawn, the lights tastefully low, but he still wore a pair of sunglasses. Something bulged under the fleece, brutish like a tumor. Connie called him Barry.

The remnants of a chicken salad lay on a plate beside her. At least her captors had let her order room service. She’d eaten their food and told them everything. The tomb, the scroll, the poem and Gruber. A Roman soldier who’d been stabbed seventeen hundred years ago; and Michael, who jumped off a cliff and came back again. She’d told them about the
labarum
, Constantine’s unconquerable standard, how Dragovi
ć
wanted it and how the poem and the necklace might lead to it. The only person she left out was Dr Nikoli
ć
, whose one crime had been helping them. By the time she’d finished, she felt as though there was nothing left in her.

Someone knocked discreetly at the door and murmured something. Barry raised his sunglasses and put his eye to the peephole. Satisfied, he dropped the safety bolt and took three steps back.

Mark entered, holding a piece of paper.

‘The good Germans in Trier just faxed this through. A printout from Dr Gruber’s computer. Apparently, they were quite upset to find out he’d been moonlighting for wanted criminals.’

The jewellery box sat on a chest of drawers next to the television. Mark took out the necklace and laid it on the bed with the fax. He took a pen from his jacket.

‘Show me how it works.’

She leaned forward and aligned the necklace with the poem. The original had been blurred; the fax was muddier still. But she’d spent so long staring at it on the bus from Serbia, puzzling out the letters one by one, she found they came more easily now. She traced the outline of the necklace on the paper, boxing in the letters, then lifted off the necklace. This time, she could see what she’d connected. Starting from the top of the monogram, she read:

‘
CONSTANTINUS INVICTUS IMP AUG XXI
.’

Mark made her read it again, then wrote it out on a blank sheet of paper.

‘I’ve got a classicist from Oxford waiting on the line – someone who’s worked for us before. We’ll see what he makes of it.’

Abby looked up. It would have taken a lot to make her laugh just then, but she managed a bleak smile.

‘I can save you the phone bill. “Constantine the Unconquered Emperor Augustus, twenty-one.”’

‘What else?’

‘That’s it.’

‘But that’s just his name.’ He brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen in front of his eyes. ‘And what does twenty-one mean?’

She slumped back. ‘Ask your expert.’

Mark disappeared into the bathroom. The noise of the extractor fan drowned anything Abby might have heard – not that it mattered. When Mark came out, he looked baffled and angry.

‘He gave the same translation. Twenty-one probably means the twenty-first year of Constantine’s reign, which would date the poem to 326 or 327. For what that’s worth.’

It jogged something in Abby’s memory – something Nikoli
ć
had said.

‘The
labarum
was still around in the ninth century. A Byzantine historian wrote about it.’

‘Is there a point to this history lesson?’

‘So even if this poem is about the
labarum
, it’s not going to tell you where it’s hidden. The Byzantine emperors had it on open display for another five hundred years.’

Mark stared at her blankly. ‘It doesn’t tell us anything – that’s the
point
.’ He kicked the leg of the bed. ‘This whole thing’s bonkers.’

In the armchair, Connie looked up from her BlackBerry. ‘It doesn’t matter. If Dragovi
ć
thinks it leads somewhere, he’ll go there. We just have to plant the idea in his mind.’

Mark shook his head. ‘It’s got to be watertight. If he’s going to show up, he has to be convinced 100 per cent it’s genuine. He has to see it for himself.’

He went back into the bathroom. Abby leaned forward again and studied the poem. Whether as a child with a riddle, or a UN investigator wading through witness testimony by the light of a wind-up torch, she’d never been able to leave a puzzle.

She tried to clear her mind of everything that had happened in the last two days and focus on what was relevant.

All his surviving poems contain secret messages
.

OK. If you traced the shape of the monogram over the letters, it gave you Constantine’s name and titles. That was pretty clever – she could only imagine the patience it must have taken to arrange the words to make that happen.

But for a man with that kind of mind, why stop there? Why go to all that effort just to spell out a name?

Around 326 Porfyrius was pardoned and came home
.

So maybe he was grateful. But then there was the awkward question of the substance of the poem.
The grieving father gave his son
. If Constantine had just had his son Crispus murdered, you wouldn’t write a poem pointing it out, however clever you were. Not if you’d just come back from exile and didn’t want to go back.

There had to be something else.

She picked up the necklace and examined it. Connie looked up, but didn’t say anything. Barry watched from behind his dark glasses. Mark stayed locked in the bathroom.

Though, actually, this is not a true Christogram. This one is called a staurogram. From the Greek word
stavros,
meaning ‘cross’
.

Now that he’d said it, she could see it clearly. A simple cross, with the extra loop connecting the top point and the right arm. And at each of the four points of the cross, and in its centre, a red glass bead that showed the letter underneath.

Some scholars think the poems might even have been presented to the Emperor inscribed on gold tablets, with gemstones underneath the key letters
.

Five beads, five letters. She’d marked them on the piece of paper in the café toilet, but she’d been so rushed she hadn’t even had time to think, let alone read them. She laid the necklace over the poem and squinted through the cloudy red glass.

S S S S S.

The same letter under each of the beads.

It couldn’t be a coincidence – but then what did it mean?

She lifted the necklace off and studied the placement of the letters in the poem. Unsurprisingly, they made the same shape as they did on the necklace: a cross.