Secrets of the Dead

XXX

Constantinople – May 337

AURELIUS SYMMACHUS LIES slumped against the edge of the pool. His arms are flung out to balance him: his right hand’s dipped in the water. His face is purple; his tunic spattered red from the blood in the vomit he coughed down his front.

I share a look with Porfyrius. Neither of us thinks this was an accident.

First they get rid of you; then they send the assassins.

A white marble bust lies at Symmachus’s feet. Porfyrius tries to pick it up, but it’s too heavy for him. He reads the name on the base and gives a grim laugh.

‘Cato the Younger. You know the story?’

‘I think so.’

‘He was a Stoic who chose suicide rather than exile.’ He aims a flat-footed kick at the stone head, pushing it over on the gravel. ‘Symmachus wasn’t any stronger than I am. He didn’t drag Cato here just for a piece of historical theatre.’

‘Someone wanted us to think that’s exactly what he did.’

‘They wanted us to think it was suicide.’

A gleam in the water catches my eye. I reach in and pull out a small silver cup. One of the fish is so close I feel its scales on my skin, but it still doesn’t move. None of them do.

All the fish are dead. They float belly-up on the surface, bobbing softly like feathers.

The water on my arm suddenly feels like a rash, prickling and burning my bare skin. It’s probably my imagination, but there are poisons I know which can kill on contact. I rub my arm dry with the hem of my cloak, so hard I almost break the skin.

Porfyrius watches me uncertainly.

‘The poison was in the cup. When Symmachus fell, he dropped it in the water. There was still enough in there to kill the fish. Probably aconite.’

‘Aurelius Symmachus deserved better than this.’ With a sudden burst of energy, Porfyrius seizes the bust, tugging and dragging on it until he’s manhandled it over the rim of the pool. It drops in with a splash: water slops over the edge. A few fish wash out onto the ground.

‘We should call the Watch.’

‘They’ll just say it was suicide.’

‘Better than accusing us of murder.’

The anger drains out of him. We’re both stuck in this web now. He goes back to the colonnade and sits on a step, hunched over. I walk around the pond, resisting the compulsion to keep scrubbing my hand.

‘Symmachus didn’t take his own life,’ I say. ‘Whoever killed him probably killed Alexander, too.’

‘Does that follow?’

‘Let’s agree Symmachus didn’t murder Alexander. Can we agree that whoever did kill the Bishop then wanted to frame Symmachus?’

‘We can agree they had a motive. But so did lots of other people. Even you. There are three questions here, and they don’t necessarily demand the same answer. Who killed Alexander? Who framed Symmachus? And now, who poisoned him?’

He’s starting to irritate me, quibbling with every word I say like a sophist in the forum. I’m not interested in his hair-splitting. ‘Who else has an interest in framing Symmachus other than the man who killed Alexander? With him gone, the last loose end is tied up.’

‘It was already tied up – he should have been on the boat by now. If they wanted to be sure, they could have done it at sea, or when he reached Greece. No one would have known. Or cared.’

‘You’re saying it was a coincidence?’

I pause, looking down at the slumped corpse on the gravel. Experience has taught me there are no coincidences in this city.

‘Whoever framed Symmachus, they didn’t choose him randomly. They wanted him out of the way. Exile wasn’t enough – they needed him dead.’

Porfyrius says nothing, reserving judgement.

‘You were his friend. Can you think of anything he knew, anyone he might have offended?’

‘A lot of Christians hated him.’

‘You think they waited thirty years for this?’ I shake my head. ‘This was urgent.’

I let the silence stretch. Even in his undoubted shock, there’s a reticence about him that makes me twitch.

‘We need to know who did this,’ I say. ‘No secrets.’

‘Do you think you’ll get justice?’

‘I’ll settle for avoiding a fate like Symmachus.’

Old habits are hard to shake. Even in this silent villa I’m talking as if someone’s watching. But it’s too late for caution.

A rage seizes hold of me. Suddenly, Porfyrius is a vessel for every lie and piece of treachery I’ve confronted in the past weeks. With a furious strength I thought I’d lost for ever, I grab Symmachus’s corpse under his armpits and drag him across the gravel. Porfyrius leaps up, horrified.

I drop the body at Porfyrius’s feet. ‘Symmachus was your friend?’

His whole body is shaking, his head trembling like meat on a knife. I take it as a yes.

‘Then for God’s sake – yours or mine – tell me what you know.’

I stare at him and he can’t meet it. His gaze drops to the ground. Aurelius Symmachus’s poisoned eyes look up at him. He whispers something I can’t quite catch. It sounds like ‘secret’.

‘What secret?’

‘It’s not mine to tell.’

‘Was it Symmachus’s?’

Porfyrius sinks back on to the stairs, wrapping his arms around his knees. ‘It was Alexander’s.’

He has my full attention.

‘Alexander had been rummaging through the archives for his history. Somewhere, buried in the records office, he found a report that Symmachus wrote thirty years ago. Alexander was going to use it for blackmail.’

‘How do you know?’

‘You know the Patriarch of Constantinople died a few months ago?’

I remember a conversation with Simeon in the courtyard outside the church of Holy Peace. Eusebius is one of the obvious men to replace him. Alexander opposed his election.

‘The Patriarch of Constantinople is the most powerful churchman in the empire. Eusebius wants that job with all his soul. Alexander was equally determined to stop him.’

A lot of things are falling into place. ‘He found a secret? A secret about Eusebius?’

‘Have you heard of a man called Asterius the Sophist?’

I remember the withered old man, his mutilated arms pulled back in his sleeves, staring into a church he was forbidden from entering. ‘He was in the library that day, too.’

Porfyrius looks around the peristyle garden. His only audience is a dead man, some dead fish, some long-dead philosophers – and me. Even so, it isn’t easy to voice a secret that’s been kept so long. His words are barely audible.

‘During the persecutions, Symmachus had Asterius and Eusebius in his dungeon. Both men were rising talents with reputations for integrity: a lot of Christians looked up to them. The Emperor Diocletian thought that if he could break those two, many others would follow.’

Simeon: There were a dozen Christians – families, with children – hiding in the cistern below Asterius’s house. He betrayed them to the Emperor, who crucified them all.

‘I’ve heard this story,’ I say. ‘Asterius broke. Eusebius didn’t.’

Porfyrius shakes his head. His chin rests on his collar, as if he’s peering into the depths of his soul.

‘Eusebius broke. Asterius didn’t.’

He mumbles it; at first I think he’s just repeated what I said. Then I realise.

‘Eusebius betrayed those Christians?’ He nods. ‘Then how –?’

‘How did Eusebius end up a bishop, and Asterius forbidden from even entering a church?’ He combs his fingers through his hair, leaving a smear of dust. ‘They made a bargain with Symmachus that Asterius would take the blame.’

I’m struggling to digest the implications. ‘How do you know this?’

‘Because Symmachus told me at the time. It amused him – the hypocrisy of it.

‘And why didn’t he say anything afterwards?’

‘Because he was honest, true to his word. And because he thought it didn’t matter. The persecution ended not long afterwards, so there was nothing to gain by bringing down Eusebius. And when Constantine took power, attacking Eusebius became a dangerous proposition.’

I think through the implications, trying to draw the thread that connects Porfyrius’s story to the corpse at my feet.

‘Why did Alexander hate Eusebius so much? You said he didn’t want to be Patriarch himself.’

Porfyrius gives me a pitying look. ‘You really don’t know anything about Christians, do you?’

‘I never claimed to.’

‘There are two factions. They have various names for each other, but the easiest way to describe them is as Arians and Orthodox. The Arians follow the doctrine of a priest called Arius, that Christ the Son of God was created out of nothing by the Father. The Orthodox maintain that to be fully God, Christ must be the same eternal substance as his Father.

My gaze drifts on to Symmachus’s outstretched corpse. Rigor mortis has begun to set in, the body arching back as if in untold agonies. I wonder what difference these impenetrable theological quibbles make where he is now.

‘I’ve heard all this before. I thought the argument was settled at Constantine’s conference in Nicaea twelve years ago.’

Eusebius: You were at Nicaea. Standing in the shadows, listening to what we said with one hand on your sword. We used to call you Brutus. Did you know that?

Porfyrius plucks a rose and starts pulling the petals off it. ‘The argument was never settled. Constantine brokered a compromise, but almost before they’d left Nicaea they were at each other’s throats again. Eusebius was exiled, for a time.’ He sighs. ‘It’s not about theology any more. I doubt half the people who claim to be Arian or Orthodox could explain the intricacies of the godhead. People took sides, and what matters now is whether they’re winning.’

‘Eusebius is an Arian?’ I think I know this, but it’s been twelve years. Porfyrius confirms it.

‘The Arian. He adopted it as his cause, and Asterius the Sophist became his key lieutenant. Poor Arius the priest had to play second fiddle in his own heresy. Alexander, meanwhile, was one of the leading thinkers of the Orthodox party. The contest to fill the Patriarchy of Constantinople was the latest battle in their war.’

I think back to that night in the palace. Eusebius, the chief prosecutor – and his rage when Symmachus mentioned Asterius. No wonder, if he thought Symmachus might reveal the truth.

I try to form a narrative.

‘Alexander found the evidence that Eusebius betrayed the Church in the persecutions. He summoned Eusebius to the library to confront him, to force him to withdraw from the election to the Patriarchate. He brought Symmachus to the library, too, to confirm the story. Eusebius had every reason for wanting them both dead – the two men who could prove he betrayed the Church.’

They murdered their own god – what wouldn’t they do to keep their privileges?

‘Eusebius wasn’t in the library that day,’ Porfyrius points out. ‘He didn’t make it.’

‘Asterius did.’

But even saying it, I know that can’t be right. Asterius didn’t crush Alexander’s skull with no hands.

A hammering on the gate erupts into the silent garden; impatient voices shout from the street. I think I recognise the sergeant’s voice from the docks. It’s long past the end of his shift now. Porfyrius leaps up in panic.

‘Stay,’ I tell him. ‘Let them in.’

‘And Symmachus? What shall I tell them about him?’

‘Tell them it was suicide.’ I hurry across to the side door. ‘It’s all they’re going to want to hear anyway.’