Secrets of the Dead

XXXVIII

Constantinople – May 337

THE DARKNESS IN the Chamber of Records is immense. I’ve wandered so far, I don’t know where the door is. I can barely tell which way is up.

But still there’s a voice calling my name. I open my eyes. The darkness recedes. A light approaches, flickering through the gaps in the shelves.

‘Gaius Valerius?’

It’s the archivist.

‘I told you to come out if you wanted to read,’ he reproves me. ‘The atmosphere down here, it can overwhelm you.’

I’m too exhausted for pride. ‘Thank you for coming to rescue me.’

‘Rescue you?’ He sounds amused. ‘I came to fetch you. The Augustus wants to see you.’

I don’t understand. ‘Constantine? Has he returned from the war so soon?’

‘He’s at Nicomedia.’

And there’s a finality in those words that tells me he won’t be coming back.

Villa Achyron, near Nicomedia – May 337

It’s seventy miles to Nicomedia. In my youth, I’d have flogged every post horse on the road to get there in a day. Now, it takes me the best part of two. It isn’t just my age. The road’s busier than I’ve ever seen it; at every waystation, there are long queues for fresh horses. The messengers are tight-lipped, but the grooms know the gossip. From them, I gather that Constantine’s final campaign ended before it really began. He didn’t even get as far as Nicaea before he started complaining of a pain in his stomach. He diverted to the hot baths at Pythia Therma, hoping for a quick cure, but it only made the symptoms worse. His doctors said he was too ill to make the journey back to Constantinople; instead, they decamped to an imperial villa, one of Diocletian’s old estates near Nicomedia: the Villa Achyron. Achyron means ‘threshing floor’, where the grain and the chaff are separated. I don’t suppose Constantine finds that comforting.

The villa stands five miles outside Nicomedia, on terraces cut into the slopes above the coast. Fields of corn surround it, though the threshing floor that gave the villa its name is long gone. The corn should be ripening gold in the May sunshine, but there’ll be no harvest this year. The crop’s been trampled back into the earth by the boots and tents of two thousand soldiers camped around it. It’s hard to tell if they’re guarding the villa or besieging it. I trudge up the hill along an avenue of poplars, and announce myself to the clerk, who has set up an administrative headquarters in the vestibule. Not a secretary or a palace functionary, but an officer of the Protectores.

‘How’s the Augustus? Is he … ?’ Dying? I can’t say it – can barely think it.

An unforgiving stare. ‘His doctors prescribed rest.’

‘He sent a message – he summoned me here from Constantinople.’

‘Your name?’

The question spins me off balance like a slap in the face. Is he making a point? Deliberately putting me in my place? People never ask my name: they know it.

He taps his pen on the desk. He’s a busy man; an ambitious young officer in a thankless job. And he has no idea who I am.

I tell him; the eyes don’t blink. All I am is a name to be compared against a list. And found absent.

‘Is Flavius Ursus here? The chief of staff?’ That earns me a few seconds more of his time. ‘Tell him Gaius Valerius Maximus is here to see the Augustus.’

‘I’ll tell him.’

They leave me to wait in an anteroom near the heart of the villa. Priests, officials and soldiers pass in and out and through the chamber: Schola guards in their white uniforms, but also field commanders in red battledress. This is still a campaign headquarters, after all.

Hours stretch by, and my mind reaches back to a different villa on a different sea.

Pula, Adriatic Coast – July 326 – Eleven years ago …

Pula’s a small port near the head of the Adriatic. It’s a quiet, well-maintained town, full of merchants who’ve made modest fortunes in regional trade. I imagine it’s the sort of place Constantine has in mind when he rhapsodises about the delights of his peaceful empire: neat, prosperous and dull. A backwater. A good place for a man to disappear.

I reach the governor’s villa near sunset. It’s taken me almost a week to complete the three-day journey here: I’ve slept badly, started late, found infinite faults with the horses, the food, the lodgings. I don’t want to be here. I pleaded with Constantine to send someone else. For the first time in our lives, he wouldn’t meet my eye.

‘It has to be a man I can trust,’ he told me. ‘You’re the only one.’ He handed me the leather bag with its knotted string, the glass vial heavy inside. ‘I don’t want …’ He trailed off with something that sounded like a sob. The things he doesn’t want are so terrible he can’t give voice to them.

‘Do it quickly.’

I find Crispus on a pebble beach on a promontory south of the town. Grass grows between the stones; fish flit among the rocks in the clear water. Two guards, armed, watch from the pines that fringe the cove, while their prisoner sits by the water’s edge, barefoot and bareheaded, letting the waves ripple over his toes.

The guards see me coming and call a wary challenge, their hands on their swords. They’re anxious. Even when they recognise me, they don’t relax. They’re worried I’m going to make them do it.

I send them away. ‘Make sure no one disturbs us,’ I tell them. They’re so grateful to be gone, they don’t look back once.

Now Crispus and I are alone. I scramble down the rocky bank and cross the beach towards him. He turns, smiles, and gets up.

‘I hoped it would be you.’

A clumsy embrace. An over-zealous wave races up the beach and breaks over my boots. I take a step back and stare into his face. There are bags under his eyes, a grey cast to his skin. The smile which once came so naturally is now forced, an act of defiance.

I start to say something, but he interrupts, ‘How’s my father?’

‘Lost without you.’

‘I’m sorry I ruined his celebrations.’ He scoops up some pebbles and tosses them one by one into the sea. ‘It’s funny. Three weeks ago, I was watching everything, imagining how it would be for my own vicennalia. Now …’

The last pebble drops into the water and barely makes a splash.

‘Your father –’ I begin. Again, Crispus cuts me short.

‘Did he get to the root of the conspiracy?’

‘Which conspiracy?’

‘The conspiracy against me.’ He swings away, as if he knows that looking at me will rob him of something valuable. ‘The whole thing was ridiculous. You know I never tried to kill my brothers. I love them like …’ He pauses, laughs. ‘Like brothers.’

‘Constantine conducted a thorough investigation.’

In fact, he almost tore the palace apart looking for evidence to clear Crispus. All he did was damn him more. Letters from Crispus emerged boasting When I am sole Augustus … Chests of coins struck with his insignia were found in his baggage. Two commanders of the imperial bodyguard came forward and testified that Crispus had ordered them to have their men ready to secure the palace. No one explained why the first act of Crispus’s supposed coup was the botched murder of his adolescent brothers, rather than striking at Constantine himself.

‘The tablet you found under my bed – I never saw it. Never knew it existed.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Doesn’t it?’ He stares out to sea, to the flaming sun slowly being eclipsed by the horizon. ‘I suppose not.’

‘You broke your father’s heart,’ I say.

At last he listens to me. He spins around, anger animating his face. ‘I didn’t do anything. Nothing. If my father wants to believe their lies, instead of his own son, then he can break his own heart.’

I try to block out the bitterness. ‘Their lies – whose lies?’

‘Can’t you guess?’ A husk of a crab shell is lying on the beach, long since picked clean by the gulls. He pokes it with his toe. ‘Who accused me? Who benefits? If I’m gone, Fausta’s children will inherit the empire.’

‘Probably.’

He stamps on the crab shell, shattering its thin carapace. ‘Am I the only one who can see the truth staring him in the face? Can’t you recognise it? Don’t you care?’

I shrug. ‘What is truth, after all?’

Crispus drifts away from me. He wanders close to the water, flinching a little as the waves nibble his feet.

‘I loved him,’ he declares, speaking to the sea. ‘More than any son ever loved his father. I’d have died for him.’ He pauses, lets his breathing slow. ‘Now I suppose I will.’

I loosen the string that binds the leather bag and pull out the bottle. ‘Your father told me to give you this.’

There were tears in Constantine’s eyes then, and they’re here in mine now. Please, I beg silently, don’t make this any harder for me.

But it’s his life. He looks at the little bottle, doesn’t touch it.

‘Don’t make me do this.’

‘Do you think you could escape? That you wouldn’t be recognised? Your statue’s in every forum from York to Alexandria. You wouldn’t last a week.’

I step forward, press the vial into his fist and clasp my hand around it. Like a suitor trying to get his beloved to accept his token. Crispus tries to pull away, but I keep my grip tight. I only brought one bottle.

‘It’s an honourable death.’ The lie tastes like dirt in my mouth. Neither of us believes it. Maybe opening your veins because you’ve defended the republic and lost, a final victory over your enemies, is honourable. Drinking aconite on a deserted beach, merely for the convenience of your murderers, is rather different.

‘If I kill myself, I sin against God,’ says Crispus.

‘That’s God’s business.’

But he won’t accept it. The tired face turns up to me, taut with desperation.

‘You’re an old friend, Gaius. Are you going to take away my last consolation?’

‘I can’t.’

‘I don’t want to die a guilty man,’ he pleads. ‘Leave me my innocence. It’s all I’ve got now.’ I shake my head, but it doesn’t stop him. ‘Why do you think my father sent you, instead of some thug from the legions? He knew you’d do the right thing.’

Because he knew how hard it would be, I think. Because he couldn’t bear to be alone in his pain. He wanted to make someone else hurt as much as he did. To take the weight of his guilt.

With a sudden movement, Crispus pulls his hand free of my grip. I’m not expecting it; before I can react, he’s leapt away from me, arm poised to throw the poison into the sea.

I don’t move. ‘If you make me do this, you’re no better than your father.’

‘And if you force me to do it? What does that make you?’

We stand there for long moments, nothing between us except the light. More than ever before, I see his father as he was twenty years ago: tousled hair, handsome face, eyes brimming, even now, with life.

He holds out his arm to offer me the bottle. ‘You choose.’

I take it from him. With a sudden rush of purpose, I dash it onto the beach. It shatters, very loud in the still evening air. The aconite leaches into the stones.

‘Thank you.’

The gratitude on his face is too painful to bear. I reach into my tunic and take out the dagger strapped inside. Crispus laughs, though it’s a small and lonely sound.

‘Always ready for anything, Gaius Valerius.’

I can’t look at his face. ‘Turn around,’ I order him.

He obeys, staring at the western horizon, eye to eye with the setting sun. The last of the daylight burns up his face, as if his translation to the next world has already begun. For a moment, the whole beach is aglow. Every pore in my body is open to the world, every sound and scent magnified a thousandfold. The splash of fish rising to the surface; a cock crowing in a distant field; the warm smell of pine. Perhaps this is how it feels to be in love.

The knife goes through his back and straight into his heart. The horizon swallows the sun; the world goes grey. Crispus drops into the surf without a sound. The incoming waves pick up pebbles and fling them against his corpse. Foaming water streams down the beach like tears.

Villa Achyron, near Nicomedia – May 337

There are tears on my face again. The memory’s been buried deep inside me for ten years. Yet at the same time, it feels as if I’ve never escaped that beach. The empty plinths, the defaced monuments, the deleted inscriptions: every one of them shouted my guilt. So many times I’ve wished I’d pulled the knife out of Crispus and turned it on myself that day, or licked the spilled poison off the stones until I’d tasted enough to kill me.

Crispus got his last wish: he died an innocent man. Constantine, for all the terrible burden he had to bear, never had to confront the reality of his decision. He’s devoted his last ten years to erasing every trace of it. The burden of the crime’s been left to me.

Perhaps that’s why he wants to see me now.

I get to my feet. Pain cramps my old joints – too much riding – but I hobble across to the bronze door.

‘Can I see him?’

The sentry doesn’t move. ‘I’ve had no orders.’

‘He asked to see me. He called me here from Constantinople.’ I’m desperate; I don’t know how long I’ve got.

There’s a noise on the other side of the door. Suddenly, it swings open. A flock of priests emerge, swarming around the gold-robed figure in their midst. For a second, I think it might be Constantine.

It’s Eusebius. Whatever tragedies are unfolding in this house, they haven’t touched him. His face is tipped back in triumph, a beatific smile stretching his fat cheeks. His gaze sweeps imperiously around the room – and stops on me.

‘Gaius Valerius Maximus. How fortunate. The Augustus wants to see you.’ He pushes me through the door. ‘Be quick. You haven’t got long.’

The room’s far too big, a dining hall that’s been cleared of all its couches except one. I don’t understand why they’ve put him here. The solitary couch stands in the centre of the room, draped with white sheets, an island adrift in a vast ocean of space. Constantine is lying back, his eyes closed, his mouth slightly open. The colour’s drained from his face, leaving only a sallow hint of the old vitality. The only other furniture is a gold basin filled with water, on a wooden plinth beside the bed. Ripples shimmer the surface as I walk by.

My heart races. Am I too late? ‘Augustus,’ I call out. ‘Constantine. It’s Gaius.’

The eyes flick open. ‘I told them to send for you. I’ve been counting the hours.’

‘They wouldn’t let me in.’

That stirs him. He tries to prop himself up, but his arms are so feeble they won’t hold him. ‘Doesn’t my word carry weight any more? In my own house?’

‘Why did they leave you unattended?’

‘So I could prepare myself. Eusebius is going to baptise me.’

He sees the look on my face, something between disgust and anguish.

‘It’s time, Gaius. I’ve put it off long enough. I’ve spent my whole life trying to compass the breadth of this empire, to be a ruler for all my people, whatever god they might worship. I’ve never preached to them – or to you.’

He’s misread me. I don’t care about some arcane piece of Christian mystery, if it’ll make him comfortable on the way out of this life. I hate the fact that here, on his deathbed, Eusebius has a claim on him.

The eyes close again. ‘I wish my son was here.’

I go cold. Perhaps I knew this was coming. Perhaps, sitting in the anteroom, I was sharing Constantine’s fevered dreams.

Deliberately, I misinterpret him. ‘Constantius will be here soon from Antioch. And Claudius and Constans will come as fast as they can.’ Too late, I imagine. The last I heard, Claudius, the eldest of Fausta’s sons, was in Trier, ruling from Crispus’s old palace. Constans, the youngest, is in Milan.

‘They’re good boys.’ Perhaps it’s his sickness, but there’s not a lot of conviction in the words. ‘They’ll protect the empire.’

They’re Fausta’s sons, grandsons of the old warhorse Maximian. Scheming, murder and usurpation is their birthright. I give it three years before there’s open war.

‘And you’ll make sure my daughters are protected?’

‘I’ll do what I can.’ Even in the height of the moment, there’s a voice at the back of my mind thinking clearly. When Constantine goes, I won’t be in a position to guarantee anybody’s safety – least of all my own. I’m a relic of a past that’s vanishing before my eyes.

Constantine’s breathing is fast and ragged. ‘I need to prepare. I have to confess my sins.’

‘You don’t need to confess anything to me.’

‘I do.’ A hand shoots out from under the sheet. Bony fingers clasp my wrist. When did he get so thin? ‘Eusebius says I need to confess my sins before I can receive baptism. I told him I could only confess to you.’

I doubt Eusebius liked that. No wonder he kept me waiting.

‘You know what I did.’

‘Then there’s no need to say it.’ I pull the sheet back over his chin. ‘Keep warm.’

‘Please. The door to heaven is closing on me, Gaius. The things I’ve done … Not just this. Every death warrant I signed, every child I failed to protect, every innocent man I condemned because the empire demanded it …’

I wonder if he’s thinking about Symmachus.

‘I still see him, you know,’ says Constantine, suddenly. ‘Only a month ago, at dusk as I was riding through the Augusteum. I was so happy I almost jumped off my horse to embrace him. I thought of all the things I would say to him, and every drop of bile seemed to flow out of my soul.’

A fleck of spit has dribbled down his cheek. I wipe it away with the corner of the sheet.

‘Of course he was gone when I got there.’ He rolls over – a jerky movement, like a man being tossed on a wave. ‘So many times I prayed you’d disobeyed me. That it was all a lie, that you’d let him escape. Remember, the joke we used to have, when we were trapped at Galerius’s court? That we’d run to the mountains, leave our fame and troubles behind and live as shepherds in Dalmatia. That was what I hoped had happened to him.’

Is this a confession? I doubt it would satisfy Eusebius. I can’t blame Constantine for skirting around the issue, but there isn’t much time. The bronze doors at the far end of the room keep making noises, thuds and groans as if there’s a boxed animal behind them. Eusebius must be coming soon. This is his moment of triumph: he doesn’t want death to snatch away his prize convert too soon.

Constantine’s speaking again, but his voice is so low I can barely hear it. I slip off the stool and kneel on the marble floor. My eyes are inches from his. I can see the web of red lines surrounding the irises; the puffy, bruised skin around them. Eyes that surveyed the world.

‘Why do you think I sent you to Pula?’ he whispers. ‘I thought if anyone would show mercy, you would. You should have known better.’

His words are like a jagged knife sawing open my heart. Does he mean it? Was it my mistake all along? Or is he rewriting history again to suit his conscience? I stare into those eyes, hardly able to breathe.

What is truth, after all? Philosophers say that the gods know, and perhaps they’re right. For the rest of us, it’s just an accumulation of faded memories and lies.

‘I did what you sent me to do.’

His eyes seem to lose their focus. ‘Do you remember Aurelius Symmachus?’ he whispers.

Is this another part of his confession?

‘The day before I left Constantinople, he wrote to me at the palace. He wanted to see me. He said he knew the truth about my son. Should I have seen him, do you think?’

‘The truth about your son?’ Surely he means about Alexander, about Eusebius and the persecutions.

‘I didn’t want to know. I sent him to my sister.’

My head’s starting to spin. ‘You sent Symmachus to see your sister?’

But this conversation isn’t about Symmachus. ‘I thought perhaps the truth …’ He trails off. ‘I saw him, you know. In the Augusteum, among the statues. He should have been there.’

‘You’ll be reunited soon,’ I say.

‘Will we?’ Suddenly, the eyes are wide open, the voice firm. ‘This life I’ve lived, do you think I’ve earned it? Eusebius says he can wash away the deepest stain.’ He shakes his head. ‘Do you believe that?’

‘You lived a good life. You brought peace to the world.’

‘I brought no peace but the sword,’ he says, inscrutably. ‘I’ve campaigned every summer for the last ten years. I’ll die here with more soldiers around me than priests. Do you think the titles I’ve accumulated will count for anything when Christ meets me at the gates of heaven? Unconquered Constantine, four times victor over the Germans, twice over the Sarmatians, twice the Goths, twice the Dacians … Is that how he’ll call me?’

At the far end of the room, the bronze doors creak open. A worried priest’s face appears.

‘Eusebius …’

‘Tell him to wait!’ I shout. But Constantine is running out of patience – and time. He clasps his bony fingers on to the front of my tunic and hauls himself up. I can feel the fever burning off his face.

‘Do you forgive me?’

Do I? I can hardly draw breath. For eleven years I’ve waited for him to ask me. It’s been the void between us, the death of our friendship and the hollowing out of our selves. And now that he’s asked, the reply sticks in my throat. I don’t know what to say.

I remember something Porfyrius told me about Alexander: He forgave me everything. No rebuke, no lecture.

I lean across to embrace Constantine. I put my head against his shoulder, feeling the powdery skin against my cheek, and wrap my arms around his head. I whisper in his ear.

‘Goodbye.’

His body tenses. A scream of strangled rage or despair rasps in his throat until he chokes on it. It takes all my strength to prise his fingers off me so I can push him back down on the bed. Even then, he struggles and flails, throwing back the sheets.

I blunder towards the door. It’s already open: guards are rushing in, with a mass of priests and soldiers pressing behind them. I struggle against the tide and find myself face to face with Eusebius.

‘You can have your prize,’ I tell him.

I don’t think he hears me. The crowd carries him forward to Constantine’s bedside, while I slink out of the hall.

The moment I’m alone, remorse overwhelms me. Whatever’s happened between us, who am I to deny an old friend his last comfort. I turn to go back, to tell him I forgive him. That I love him.

But the throng of courtiers blocking the way is so thick I’ll never get through. They make a circle around the bed, where Eusebius is standing next to the bowl of water. A snatch of what he’s saying reaches back to me.

‘Die and rise to new life, so that you may live for ever.’

The doors close in my face, and Constantine is gone.