Secrets of the Dead

XXXVI

Constantinople – May 337

THE DAY’S HOT, but the bath has left me chilled to the bone. A new idea grips me like a fever. Perhaps Symmachus was spinning lies in a last attempt to avoid exile, but I don’t think so.

Simeon, baffled that I was accusing him when the evidence was so obvious: Symmachus had the documents. I convinced myself the old man was set up. But what if he had the documents all along? He killed Alexander in the library, took his document case and found all Constantine’s dirty secrets locked inside it. No wonder he wanted to be rid of it.

I don’t care who killed Alexander any more. All I want to know is what Symmachus found out – and why he died for it.

Constantine wasn’t the first emperor to build his palace on the promontory. As ever, he demolished the past and rebuilt on its foundations, to a scale beyond his predecessors’ imaginations. When his engineers started excavating, they found a vast empty cistern underneath the site. Constantine himself came down to inspect it.

‘A shame to waste all this space,’ was his verdict. ‘Use it for the paperwork.’

And so it was allocated to the Scrinia Memoriae, the Chamber of Records. In a way, it’s appropriate it sits in the old cistern. It’s the run-off of the empire, the well of memory. And the records stacked on its winding shelves are so deep they’re unfathomable.

You enter the Chamber of Records through a reading room, seldom used, in the palace. An archivist sits at a desk, annotating a manuscript. I lean over and put Constantine’s commission under his nose.

‘There was a bishop called Alexander. He came here, probably often, researching a history for the Augustus.’

‘I remember him.’ He sucks the end of his reed pen. ‘He hasn’t been here in a couple of weeks.’

‘He died. I need to see the papers he was looking at.’

‘Do you know what they were?’

‘I was hoping you’d remember.’

His eyes flick back to the commission lying open on the desk. ‘Those papers have been stored, untouched, under the Augustus’s private seal for ten years. I had to check with the palace three times before I could believe the Bishop was really allowed access.’ He squints up at me: small, boring eyes. ‘You said he died?’

‘Just show them to me.’

He shuffles across to the high door, takes the large key off his neck and slots it in the lock. He snaps the key with a practised movement, like a farmwife wringing a chicken’s neck.

‘After you.’

It’s like entering a mine, or a dungeon. The shadows seem to stretch to infinity. The columns that support the roof rise every few yards, lifeless ranks of a petrified forest. Dusty shelves wall up the spaces between, lined with wicker baskets full of scrolled papers. You could believe that all the knowledge in the world was stored here somewhere – if you only knew where to look.

Each of the columns has a Greek letter and a Roman number chiselled into it. As long as we go straight, the letters change, but the numbers stay the same. When we turn, the numbers start to change, but the letter stays constant. The whole room is arranged as a giant grid. I start counting off the pillars we pass. XV / Φ. XV / X. XV / ψ. I try to remember the Greek alphabet in order, counting back so I can find my way out if I get lost.

XV / Ω. The archivist stops. We’ve reached Omega, the last letter, though the corridor continues into still deeper darkness beyond. I wonder what comes after. He picks up a bronze lamp from a hollow cut into the column, and lights it from his own.

‘Is it safe, the fire?’ I wonder aloud. My voice sounds faint against the vast darkness.

‘What else can you do?’ He hands me the new lamp and turns. ‘Bring what you want back to the reading room.’

He retreats down the long corridor. The lamp trembles in my hand; for a second, I imagine dropping it in a basket of papyri and the wave of flame that would sweep the chamber clean. I tighten my grip.

I work my way along the aisle. Every time my shoulder brushes one of the baskets, rivulets of dust trickle down from the shelves over me. Here, all the baskets have lids, each tied shut with a ribbon and the knot sealed with wax. Most of the seals have started to crumble – but one, I notice, is supple and glossy, the imprint still sharp. A dark stain next to it shows where a previous seal sat. A clay tag tied on with twine labels it as diplomatic correspondence from the twentieth year of Constantine’s reign.

I check the rest of the aisle and find five baskets whose seals have been removed and replaced. All of them date from year twenty or the year before.

I know what happened that year, the vicennalia year. I lift down the first basket and set it on the floor next to the lamp. There’s no point taking it back to the reading room. Once I leave this dark labyrinth, I know I’ll never come back.

I sit on the floor and start to read. Alexander’s handiwork is evident on almost every page. Some of it’s been done subtly, a whole column excised and the remainder pasted together, so that the only telltale is a faint ridge in the papyrus; other interventions are more obvious. Paragraphs, sentences, sometimes individual words have been cut out of the text, so that when I hold the scroll up to the light it’s riddled with holes, as though a worm’s been through it.

But I can fill in the blanks.

Aquileia, Italy – April 326 – Eleven years ago …

Everything starts to go wrong from the moment we reach Aquileia.

It should be a joyful moment, springtime in the empire. We’re travelling to Rome, where Constantine’s vicennalia celebrations will culminate. Everybody understands that it’s more than just a celebration of his rule. The last emperor to achieve twenty years’ reign was Diocletian, who marked the occasion by announcing his retirement and promoting his successors. Constantine’s older now than his father was when he died; Crispus is in his prime. Constantine hasn’t said anything, even to me, but I was there in Nicaea. We’ll remake the empire in God’s image. One God, one emperor, one peace – and he’s been as good as his word. Since Chrysopolis, his armies have been confined to their barracks.

Crispus has come to Aquileia to join us for the final stages to Rome. Black clouds have been massing all day: the storm breaks just as we arrive at the outskirts. The driving rain tears away the flowers that garland the tombs along the road and soak the waiting dignitaries. Crispus, who arrived two days earlier, has come out to meet us: he tries to deliver his prepared speech, but thunder drowns his words.

‘Just shut up and stop blocking the road!’ Constantine barks at him, loud enough that the watching audience can hear. Crispus flushes crimson. By the time we reach the palace, the baggage is sodden and tempers are short.

‘What sort of son keeps his father standing out in the cold?’ says Fausta, wrapped in a heavy fur mantle. In the dim light she prowls around the room like a wolf in its cave. ‘And at your age. Poor Claudius’ – her eldest son – ‘hasn’t stopped sneezing since we arrived. His tutor says he might have a fever.’

‘Then perhaps I’ll send him to Britain,’ snaps Constantine. ‘A winter in York would get him used to being wet.’

‘Just like it did for your father.’

Constantine crosses the floor so fast I think he’ll knock her into the next room. He puts up his arms, as if he’s going to grab her cloak and lift her off her feet. Fausta just smirks at him, a cruel pleasure in her eyes. She’s got a reaction. At her age, it’s the most she can hope for.

Constantine’s hands stop a hair’s breadth from her cloak. Perhaps he can’t bear to touch her. Perhaps he doesn’t dare. Fausta is the daughter, brother and wife of emperors: she’s a woman who carries an aura about her, like Constantine. But while Constantine’s is golden, hers is cancerous black.

Constantine turns abruptly. ‘Don’t blame me if your snivelling son can’t stand the damp!’ he shouts back at her as he storms out of the room.

The smirk vanishes.

‘Our son!’ she screams. ‘My boys are your sons, just as much as Crispus.’

‘At least Crispus doesn’t melt in the rain.’

Fausta stares after him, blazing. She’s been like this ever since we left Constantinople, a burr under the saddle. Nothing is ever good enough. The beds are too hard, the wine too sour, the slaves too insolent.

It’s obvious why. If Constantine proclaims Crispus Augustus when we get to Rome, her own sons will be out of the running. She’s spent twenty years married to the man who killed her father and her brother, in the expectation that one day she’ll be mother to a dynasty. She’s thirty-five and carried five children: it takes four oxen to pull the cart with all her creams and cosmetics, but they can’t disguise the extra weight she’s carrying, or the lines starting to crease her face. She and Constantine almost never sleep in the same room any more. In a rare moment of pity, I think: she’s losing everything.

I’m still there in the room. Fausta’s blocking the door; there’s no discreet way to slip out. She hears me move and snaps around.

‘His faithful hunting dog. Run along and go and lick his arse.’

I wake in the depths of the night and don’t know where I am. There have been so many new beds and new rooms on this trip that it’s become almost routine. The room spins slowly around me until it comes to rest in its proper orientation. The door, the window, the dagger under my pillow. It’s shared my bed since I was nine years old, more constant than any lover.

And a slave standing over me, tugging my sleeve. I didn’t hear him come in. Palace slaves move like cats in the dark. Or perhaps I’m getting old.

‘What is it?’

‘The Augustus.’

I’m out of bed in a trice, pulling on my old military cloak, hurrying after the slave. In the corridor outside my room, all the lamps are lit. Men from the Schola guard every door.

‘What’s happened?’

The slave shrugs. ‘Whatever it is, it’s still happening.’

It isn’t far to Constantine’s room, but the slave doesn’t take me there. Instead, we go down a flight of stairs to where Fausta’s children sleep. The door’s open, and the guards outside have drawn swords. I glance at them as I enter, and though I’ve stood on more battlefields than I can count, I shiver. Is this about me?

One look at the room says it’s much worse than that. Constantine, Crispus and Fausta are all there, together with Fausta’s three sons, a dozen guards and various slaves. Claudius, the eldest son, has a blanket around his shoulders. It hangs open, revealing blood that’s run down his neck and drenched his tunic. He looks as though he had his throat slit a second before I walked in and hasn’t realised it yet: he’s still standing up, pale but unassisted, a walking corpse. Fausta stands next to him, ready to catch him if he falls. Her nightdress is smeared with blood, though I think it must be her son’s. The two other boys cower behind her, wrapped in their bedclothes. Constantine stands opposite, flanked by guards, while Crispus waits in between. There’s blood on his hands.

Constantine looks at me. With all the confusion and blood, it’s the weariness in his face that makes me realise how serious this is.

‘Can I rely on you?’

‘Always.’

‘Search Crispus’s apartments. Anything you find, bring it to me here.’

Fausta’s face is hard, her dark eyes alive with passion. ‘How do you know Valerius wasn’t part of this?’

‘I trust him.’

‘I don’t. Send Junius with him.’

Junius is a smug, heavy-lipped courtier who never smiles except in a mirror. One of Fausta’s favourites. He accompanies me back up the stairs to Crispus’s room. I still don’t know what’s happening, but I’m starting to put the pieces together. A boy with a wound and a man with bloody hands. We haven’t come to look for proof of Crispus’s innocence.

Crispus’s room is neat and spare; it doesn’t take long to search. The bed’s been slept in, with the covers still thrown back from when he got up. Yesterday’s clothes have been folded and put away; tomorrow’s are set out on a chest. A sheaf of papers sits on a desk where he was working before he went to bed. He’s always been diligent.

Junius makes straight for the papers. I get down on my knees and look under the bed. The lamplight doesn’t reach: I flap my arm about in the darkness. There’s a pair of boots, a few rags that have fallen out of the mattress – and a slim tube that feels like cold lead when I put my hand on it.

Junius sees me slide it out and pounces. ‘Let me have that.’ I fend him off with one arm, like two hounds scrapping over a bone. I remember what Fausta called me yesterday: Constantine’s faithful hunting dog. This is what happens when terror gets loose in the palace.

It’s a thinly beaten sheet of lead that’s been rolled into a scroll, like papyrus. A gold pin has been hammered through the soft metal to fasten it. The moment I see it, I recognise it for the terrible thing it is.

Despair makes me falter. Junius snatches the lead from of my hands, pulls out the pin and reads greedily. He licks his lips.

‘Wait until the Augustus sees this.’ He can’t hide his glee; he’s already imagining the promotion he’ll get. I’d like to hit him, hard enough to break his neck, but that would be a mistake. There’s blood in the palace and the wolves are hunting. The only way to survive is to keep perfectly still.

Downstairs in the boys’ bedroom, nothing’s changed. Junius presents the scroll to Constantine, who shies away from it like poison. He beckons a slave to hold it up so he can read it.

‘We found it under the Caesar’s bed,’ Junius says.

‘There was nothing under my bed except my boots.’ Crispus stares at me, imploring me to support him. There’s nothing I can say. Except – in the pause while Constantine mumbles the tablet to himself – ‘What happened?’

Fausta answers. ‘I’d come down to check on my children when the Caesar’ – she points to Crispus – ‘burst in. He had a knife in his hand; he was wild. When he saw me, he told me that the army had deserted the Augustus, that my husband would be dead before dawn. I could join him, or my children and I would die.’

Half the men in the room – those who owe their position to Fausta – let loose with shock, outrage. The other half stay silent.

‘It’s a lie,’ says Crispus. He’s looking at his father, but Constantine won’t meet his gaze. Neither will I. I’m staring at his bare feet, wondering what sort of conspirator tries to seize the empire and leaves his boots under the bed.

‘Of course, I could see he was lying.’ Fausta bores on with remorseless intensity. ‘He didn’t expect me to be there. He’d come to kill his brothers, so there would be no rivals when he killed the Augustus. I told him so; he flew at Claudius in a rage and tried to cut his throat. Thank God the guards came in time.’

Crispus shakes his head slowly, like a man trapped under a heavy yoke. ‘She came to my room and told me my brother Claudius had hurt himself. I went with her straight away and saw his ear was bleeding. Before I could do anything, her guards had wrestled me to the floor.’

He stares around the room, defying us to disbelieve him. There must be two dozen people, and not one of us will meet his gaze. No one except Fausta, who eyes him with the clear-eyed venom of a serpent.

Constantine looks up at me. ‘Have you read it?’

The slave turns, so I can see the words scratched on to the black metal.

To the great god Nemesis, I Crispus Caesar curse my father Constantine Augustus and give him into your power. Drive him to his death, allow him neither health nor sleep nor happiness until the empire is mine.

It’s a curse tablet – the sort of thing jilted lovers and burgled shopkeepers throw down wells to invoke the gods against their enemies. Junius shows Constantine the pin that was stabbed through it. It’s gold, a hook-shaped clasp in the form of a pouncing lion. I’ve seen it often enough gleaming from the shoulder of Constantine’s cloak.

‘Your fibula,’ says Fausta. ‘He must have stolen it, to work his black magic on you.’

‘I never touched this piece of evil.’ Contempt wins out over fear in Crispus’s voice – for the moment.

The expression on Constantine’s face haunts me to this day. He’s aged ten years in a night. For the first time in his life, he looks lost.

‘What is the truth?’ he murmurs. ‘That my own son wanted to overthrow me, when I would willingly have given him all the power and glory he could want? Or that my wife is spreading the most terrible and false lies?’

‘How can you ignore what’s in front of you?’ There’s a hysterical edge to Fausta’s voice. ‘Do you want to wait until all our children are dead before you’ll believe it?’

‘And believe my heir’s a murderer?’

Fausta spreads her arms around her children.

‘I’m taking our sons back to Constantinople. They won’t spend one more hour under the same roof as this monster.’ She advances across the room, eyes blazing. She’s a head shorter than Constantine, but just at the moment she seems to have grown to an equal size. And he’s shrinking; he doesn’t know what to do. This was supposed to be his triumph, his moment of mastery, and it’s all disintegrating.

Junius steps forward. ‘If I may …?’

Constantine nods.

‘There’s a villa at Pula, three days ride from here. The governor’s a loyal man. Send Crispus there, out of the way, until the facts can be established.’

‘No.’ Desperation makes Crispus’s voice unnaturally high. ‘If you want to establish the truth, keep me here so I can prove it.’

‘If he stays, I go,’ says Fausta.

They both look to Constantine, whose gaze is fixed at a point on the wall midway between them. His face is as hard as marble, unreadable. The whole room – the whole world – hangs on his decision.

Something Crispus said about the bishops at Nicaea comes back to me. They need a judge. He never guessed it would be him in the dock.

Constantine decides. The merest twitch of the head – that’s all it takes. Fausta bows. Four guards in white surround Crispus and lead him out of the room. He doesn’t resist.

‘I’ll send someone,’ Constantine says, but it’s so faint I doubt Crispus hears him.

Constantinople – May 337

In the Chamber of Records the lamp’s burning low. I sit cross-legged on the floor, ringed by a circle of scattered papers. I’ve pulled out so many, they spill beyond the light and into the infinite darkness beyond. Alexander did his work too well. I’ve read for an hour, maybe more, and I haven’t seen the least hint that Crispus and Fausta were there in Aquileia. Or that they even existed at all.

I’m defeated. I sweep up the papers and jam them back into their files, cramming them in like rubbish. I struggle to my feet. A wash of dizziness rocks me; I sway, clinging on to the lamp for dear life. If I lose that, I’ll be lost in this darkness for ever. I try to anchor my gaze on a distant point, but there’s nothing to latch on to. The shelves stretch for ever. The harder I look, the further they retreat.

I feel as if I’m floating, my physical self dissolved in the air. I’ve been reduced to my soul. Or perhaps this whole room is my soul, my own personal Chamber of Records. I inhabit it; I walk its dark passages, plucking memories from the shelves without regard for space or time. The mind is a strange land – many walls but no distance.

I can’t blame Alexander for what he did to the records. I’ve done the same thing in my own memory, editing it and cleansing it to make it bearable. It isn’t painless: each cut leaves a hole, so many that in the end I’m little more than a paper cut-out of a man. But how else could I live with myself?

I put out an arm and feel something solid. One of the pillars. It’s cold against my palm and the cold feels real. My fingers claw into the stone, feeling the grooves where the characters have been chiselled. XV / Ω. I press my skin against the sharp edges.

A thought comes to me. All the files have the same designation – XV / Ω – as you’d expect. But when I was looking through the scraps in Alexander’s case, that night in the palace, there were other marks.

XII / Π I’m writing with deepest condolence for the death of your grandson.

The thought gives me purpose. Purpose makes me real again. I lift the lamp and hurry down the passages between the shelves, counting off the columns until I find the right place.

Simeon’s voice drifts back to me through the paper walls. All your life, you’ve been walking in darkness.

Alexander definitely came here – the seals give him away. I pull out anything where the wax is fresh. After a few pages it’s clear that most of these papers have come from the court of the Dowager Empress Helena. She never settled in Constantinople; she lived in Rome and died nine years ago. Constantine must have had her papers shipped here for safekeeping.

A lot of the boxes have been opened, and a lot of the pages have been mutilated. Helena doted on her eldest grandson and wrote to him often. Unlike the imperial chancery, she kept her records bound up in codices like the Christians use. I can follow Alexander’s path through them by the holes left in the pages like footprints in snow. The only sound in the vast chamber is the murmur of my own voice as I read aloud.

The lamp’s starting to flicker; the oil must be almost dry. I know I have to get out, but I still sit there, turning the pages compulsively.

To reach the living, navigate the dead.

My sight’s so blurred from the thousands of words I’ve read, I almost don’t notice it. I’ve already started to turn the page. But something registers. I turn back.

It’s a letter to the empress. It must be a duplicate, copied into the correspondence book by a secretary. There’s a tear in the corner of the page, as if Alexander began to rip it out and then thought better of it. Instead, he contented himself with excising the first paragraph. It means the sender and the date have gone. The text picks up halfway down the page.

To reach the living, navigate the dead,

Beyond the shadow burns the sun,

The saving sign that lights the path ahead,

Unconquered brilliance of a life begun.

From the garden to the cave,

The grieving father gave his son,

And buried in the hollow grave,

The trophy of his victory won.

I stare at the page, trying to tease out some meaning. I wonder why Alexander removed the version that he had in his case, but not this one. Perhaps I understand his ambivalence. Everything in the poem screams Crispus, but there’s nothing explicit that mentions him. Is it a riddle? Who wrote it?

I’ve stayed too long. The lamp flickers, spits – and goes out. A shudder passes through me. I cry out like a child. My old hands aren’t so firm as they used to be. The lamp drops and shatters on the floor. I’m trapped in total darkness.

Far away in the labyrinth, I hear a voice calling my name.