Secrets of the Dead

XLII

Constantinople – June 337

THERE’S NOTHING LIKE the threat of death to slow a man down. The last month is the slowest I’ve ever lived. Each day since I returned from Nicomedia I’ve followed the same unimpeachable routine. I rise late and go to bed early. I work my way through Ursus’s list, using the lie that Constantine has asked me to canvass their support for his sons. I visit the public baths, but avoid conversation; I never go to the forum. I’ve dismissed all my slaves except my steward, and even he isn’t taxed with my simple demands.

Sometimes I wonder if this was how Crispus spent the last week of his exile in Pula. And I wonder who’s coming for me.

The last name on my list is Porfyrius. I’ve saved him to the end – he represents things I don’t want to think about. When you’re living under a suspended death sentence, you need to keep a tight grip on your imagination.

The day I go to see him is hot and stifling: the naked sun beats down on the city, enraged by the loss of his favourite son. I spend a long time on the doorstep; I’m almost resigned to going home when at last the door opens.

‘I’m not receiving many visitors these days,’ Porfyrius apologises. ‘It’s safer.’

Through an open door I can see a table set out in the atrium, loaded with cups and plates. I don’t comment.

‘You don’t mind if we speak in the study? I’m having the atrium redecorated.’

I glance back towards the atrium – I hadn’t noticed any sign of workmen. All I see is the door, silently shut by an unseen hand.

He leads me into his study. The desk is littered with papers, plans and drawings for what looks like a temple. A slave brings us wine. I take a cup, but don’t drink.

‘Constantine asked me to come.’ The line’s so well rehearsed by now, I’ve almost forgotten it’s a lie. Porfyrius isn’t so naïve.

‘I heard the Augustus had …’ A delicate pause. ‘Taken sick.’

‘He was alive the last time I saw him.’ That much is true. ‘But – he’s an old man. He’s concerned for the future of the empire.’

‘Does he have a list of troublemakers he’s worried about?’ He holds up a hand to stop me answering, and rattles off the names of half a dozen of the men I’ve been to visit in the last fortnight.

‘If you know who I’ve seen, you probably know what I’ve said to them.’

‘Probably.’

‘This is no time for factions. Whoever Constantine names as his successor, or successors, they’ll need a peaceful, united empire. People who support them will have nothing to fear.’

A shrewd look. ‘Are you making me an offer?’

‘I’m passing on a message.’ I open my hands in innocence – or impotence. No guarantees.

‘Consider it delivered.’ He picks up a pen from the desktop and spins it in his fingers. ‘You forget – I spent ten years in exile because I wrote a poem that offended Constantine. I’m not keen to go back.’

He puts the pen down. His hand’s shaking; it knocks against a brass lamp which is weighing down the end of a scroll. The lamp falls on the floor; the scroll ravels up, pulling back like a curtain to reveal the drawings underneath. I peer forward.

It’s an elevation of the pediment of a temple or a mausoleum, a triangular face with a wreath in the centre. And inside the wreath, a monogram: a slanted X with its top looped around.

‘The plans for my tomb,’ says Porfyrius. ‘I have an architect working on it.’

‘Are you expecting to need it soon?’

‘I’m prepared. Our generation – you, me, the Augustus himself – our time is running out. You should think about your own.’

‘Mine’s already built.’ Dug into the slopes of the valley behind my villa in Moesia, surrounded by cypresses and laurels. A lonely place. I wonder if I’ll live to see it.

I make a show of examining the plans. ‘It’s an interesting choice of decoration.’

His face – usually so animated – is very still. ‘Everybody has Constantine’s monogram on their tombs these days. I wanted something different – but still to proclaim my faith. I remembered it from the necklace you showed me. And a way to remember my old friend Alexander.’

He rolls up the plans and slots them into a rack on the wall. ‘Thank you for coming.’

I’m about to go when shouts intrude from the street, piercing through a high window in the back wall. It sounds like a riot. A moment later a slave runs in, flustered and jabbering.

‘They’re saying the Augustus is dead.’

Porfyrius takes the news calmly. He doesn’t look any more surprised than I do.

‘Things are going to start changing.’

‘Be careful,’ I remind him. ‘It would be a shame to need your tomb before it’s ready.’

The next day, Constantine’s body is laid out in the great hall of the palace. The line of mourners stretches a full mile down the main avenue, under the shadow of Constantine’s column. Senators queue with tavern-keepers, actresses with priests – every face a fragment in a mosaic of united grief. It’s moving: they genuinely loved their Augustus, I think. He built their city. He kept the granaries full, the markets stocked and the barbarians back beyond the frontiers. He let them worship in temples or churches as they chose, whichever gods spoke to them. And now the world trembles.

The queue passes not far from my house: I can hear them through my windows, sitting in my garden or lying on my bed through the hot nights. For two days, I lock myself in and wait for the crowds to subside. On the third day, I can’t resist any longer. I put on my toga, brush my hair and join the mourners. It takes hours to inch my way up the avenue, through the Augusteum, where the statues of deified emperors wait to greet their new companion. Long before I get there, my legs ache and my back feels as though hot coals have been poured inside it. My body’s drenched with sweat. More than once I’m within an inch of breaking away and running back home. Even when I reach the palace gate, it’s still another two hours’ wait.

At last I’m there. There must be two thousand people in the hall, but they hardly make a sound. They shuffle slowly in a long loop. At the side of the hall, there’s a space where people have left offerings: amulets and pieces of jewellery, coins and medallions, pieces of tile or stone with prayers scratched on to them. A lot show the X-P monogram. Are they funeral offerings – or offerings to a god?

The last few yards are the slowest of all. The heat in the hall, all those bodies on a hot summer evening, numbs me: I have to fight against it. This is the last time I’ll see him. I want to hold the moment.

The line inches forward. And suddenly, there he is, lying in state on a golden bier atop a three-stepped plinth. Cypress boughs deck the floor around him; braziers smoke with incense and candles flicker on golden stands. The white robes he had on for his baptism are gone, banished by the full imperial regalia. The purple robe trimmed with jewels and gold, that used to rattle like armour when he walked; the gold diadem set with pearls; the red boots with toecaps buffed smooth where men have knelt to kiss them. The shroud underneath him is emblazoned with his monogram, but woven all around it are scenes from legend. And above it all, the golden labarum on its pole, the all-conquering standard.

I stare into his face. The embalmed skin is grey and artificial; somehow the undertakers seem to have subtly altered his face, so that he doesn’t quite resemble the man he was. The man I loved to destruction; the man whose dying wish I couldn’t grant.

A fly buzzes down and lands on Constantine’s nose. A slave sitting on a stool beside the bier flaps an ostrich feather to shoo it away. It draws my eye, changes my focus. Suddenly, I see the corpse for what it really is.

It’s a waxwork.

The tears that were beading in my eye are gone. I feel a fool. Of course, they wouldn’t lay out the real corpse. He died a month ago: even the best undertaker would struggle to keep him looking fresh. And in this heat … Now that I see, I’m embarrassed I was ever taken in. The sun’s softened one of the cheeks, making it subside as if he had a stroke. The wig they’ve used for the hair is slightly crooked.

This is how he is now. The man who lived and breathed – the man I knew – is gone. All people will remember now is a statue.

The crowd swells behind me, nudging me on. I whisper a prayer for Constantine – my friend, not this bloodless effigy – and let others take my place. I’m desperate to be outside. I hurry to the door, towards the long arcade that leads out of the city. Mourners mill around, talking quietly; the palace officials are distributing hot food to those who’ve been waiting.

But through the crowd, there’s something else. A flash, an intuition, the weight of a gaze. Someone’s watching me.

Our eyes meet. He turns away, pretending he hasn’t seen me. But I’m not going to let him escape. I push through the crowd. They squeeze tighter as I approach the gate – I almost lose sight of him – but then I’m through and there’s space to move. He’s hobbling without a stick, a hunched figure in a blue cloak, the hood pulled up despite the heat. It takes me twenty paces to catch him. He knows he can’t beat me. He hears me coming, stops and turns.

The hood slides back. It’s Asterius the Sophist.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Paying my respects to the Augustus.’ It’s getting dark; the crevices of his face are black as ink, etching each bitter line. ‘He was the greatest Christian since Christ.’

‘It must be hard for you, now that it’s over.’

‘For you, it’s over. For us, this is just the beginning.’

Urgency overwhelms me. ‘Tell me about Symmachus. Tell me about Alexander.’

‘They’re all dead.’

‘Then tell me about Eusebius. What happened in that dungeon, during the persecutions? Did it hurt, taking the blame for his betrayal? Watching him rise through the ranks of your religion, the Emperor’s favourite, while you were forbidden from setting foot in a church?’

I’ve scored a hit. Pain flashes across his face.

‘Alexander knew,’ I continue. ‘Symmachus knew. But they weren’t the only ones. Someone else knows, is willing to testify.’

‘You have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Haven’t I?’

He hesitates, then decides. A cruel light comes on in his eyes.

‘Walk with me.’

The procession of mourners is as long as ever. We force our way past them, down the street, and slip into the gardens beside the hippodrome. Above us, the last sunlight gleams on the four-horsed chariot that crowns the north end.

Asterius gives me a sly glance. ‘I was never worried about the persecutions. Eusebius was, but Eusebius is prone to fits of panic. That was how they got to him in the first place.’

‘Got to him?’

‘In prison.’

His honesty takes me aback. ‘So it’s true?’

‘That Eusebius betrayed a family of Christians and I took the blame to protect him?’ He shrugs, careless of the impact of his words. ‘Alexander could never have proved it. A doddering bishop relying on the evidence of a notorious persecutor? He’d only have sacrificed what little credibility he had left. Can you imagine if he’d turned up to the episcopal election with Symmachus in tow? Eusebius would have won without a vote.’

For the last month, I’ve been living in a coffin. Asterius’s casual honesty is like a storm wind blowing the lid off my carefully constrained existence. A dangerous elation rushes through me.

‘But Eusebius still killed Alexander. And then Symmachus, who could have corroborated the story.’

Asterius gives me a scornful look. ‘Do you want to know why we killed Symmachus? I can tell you. The week before he died, Symmachus went to the palace twice. He wanted to speak to the Augustus, and when he was refused, he got agitated. He said some things that he’d have been safer keeping to himself.’

‘About Eusebius?’ But I know that’s not true. ‘That he knew the truth about Crispus’s death.’

‘I’d be careful saying that name aloud.’ Asterius glances around the gardens. Families wander among the trees, speaking in hushed voices. ‘Constantine may be a waxwork now, but his sons don’t care to be reminded of it any more than he did.’

Asterius stops at the base of a statue, the great Olympic charioteer Scorpus standing with his legs apart, a whip dangling from his shoulder. He turns. His eyes glow with malicious pleasure.

‘In Alexander’s box of secrets, Symmachus uncovered something that had been kept hidden for ten years. Something even the Augustus didn’t know.’

He’s baiting me. And I don’t have the strength to fight. ‘What?’

‘You know what happened to Crispus?’ He puts an arm on my shoulder in mock sympathy. The touch makes me shudder. ‘Of course you do. And afterwards, poor Fausta in her bath. But did you ever wonder, while you were overseeing the decimation of the Emperor’s household, why she did it?’

I can feel a tightness in my chest, as though a strap’s being buckled around it. ‘She wanted her sons to inherit the throne,’ I say.

‘Of course she did. But who put the idea into Fausta’s head? Who helped her forge the documents? Who found Christians in the bodyguard who were willing to pretend they’d been enlisted in Crispus’s alleged plot, and be martyred for it?’

‘Who?’ I can’t breathe; it comes out a whisper.

Perhaps it’s because of his abbreviated reach, but Asterius has a habit of standing closer than is comfortable. I can almost feel the anger boiling off him. His head’s tipped back like a bird, staring up at me, waiting for me to realise –

‘You?’

A ghastly smile spreads across his face. ‘Crispus couldn’t stand Eusebius. Three months after Nicaea, Crispus arranged to have Eusebius exiled to Trier. We knew Eusebius would never be allowed back while Crispus was alive – and that if Constantine went ahead and elevated Crispus as Augustus, that might be for ever.’

‘We?’

‘Eusebius and I. Well, mostly me. Eusebius was a thousand miles away. But I had an ally at the palace.’

Fausta? I don’t think so – from what he’s said, there was someone else. I wrestle with the question; I don’t want to let Asterius dictate the terms of the conversation. And it comes to me. I remember the litter I saw leaving Eusebius’s church service, the proud peacocks embroidered on the purple curtains. He’s an exceptional man and he has a bright future. I remember the powder streaked across her lined face, silver hairs on a golden brush late at night. Did you know, the Augustus once considered marrying me to you?

‘Constantine’s sister. Constantiana.’

The smile gets wider. He’s patronising me.

‘She was always a better Christian than her brother. She struggled so hard to love Constantine. She might have forgiven him for executing her husband Licinius, but killing her little boy was too much. She needed revenge: a spouse for a spouse, a child for a child.’

‘And you encouraged her?’

‘Eusebius was her chaplain. Her spiritual guide. When Crispus exiled him, Constantiana turned to me. I saw how we could all achieve our aims.’

‘I thought your God preached peace and mercy.’

‘Sometimes, we have to do terrible things to achieve God’s will.’

It sounds glib, a throwaway justification. But the pain behind those words is immense, a deep wound that’s scarred to the bone. His arms are trembling in his sleeves. For the briefest instant, I have a glimpse – not even a thought, more a feeling – of how he might deserve sympathy for what he’s suffered.

But not for what he’s done.

‘You killed Crispus to bring back Eusebius?’

‘You killed Crispus,’ he retorts. ‘You and Constantine. I just’ – he lifts up his arms, baring the scarred stumps – ‘pulled some strings.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘Because I want you to know. It’s your own story, and you never knew it.’

I can see why he’s brought me to this public place. If we were alone, I’d have killed him by now.

‘And if I expose you?’

‘It won’t matter. Fausta’s sons have just inherited the empire. If you go to them, do you think they’ll punish the people who lifted them on to the throne?’ He cocks his head, as if an idea’s just come to him. ‘If they want justice, they can always execute the man who murdered Crispus.’

‘Why? Because of what happened at Nicaea? Because Crispus made you prefer one form of words over another?’

‘One form of words?’ he echoes. ‘We were describing God. Do you think we could afford to get it wrong?’ He starts walking again, past the dark gates of the hippodrome. ‘It was Constantine’s fault. Ten or twenty years ago, Arius would have been one voice among many. He could have written whatever he liked, and all his enemies could have done is write against it. But Constantine wanted something definite, something as absolute as his rule. To pin down God. He forced us to choose.’

He pauses, looks at me. For once, there’s no craft in his face: he wants me to understand him.

‘What else could we do?’

I’m desperate to be away, to slink into my cave and lick the wounds that Asterius has opened on every inch of my being. But I have to see this through.

‘You said Symmachus died because he learned the truth about Crispus. Who killed Symmachus?’

‘Constantiana sent one of her men. She told him to make it look like suicide.’

No evasion, not even a blush of guilt. This is the problem with men who spend too long thinking about God. In the end, they forget what a mortal life is worth. Perhaps that’s what happened to Constantine.

‘And Alexander? That must have been twice as sweet. Revenge on your enemy from Nicaea, as well as hiding the evidence of your murder.’

He actually laughs. ‘You know the funniest thing?’ He leans so close to me that his tunic rubs against mine. ‘I have no idea who killed Alexander.’

He relishes my surprise.

‘Eusebius didn’t do it – though he might have, if he’d been given the chance. I didn’t. At first I thought Constantine might have ordered it, to bury what Alexander had found, but I don’t think that’s likely.’ He shrugs. ‘It must have been Aurelius Symmachus – he had the document case, after all. Ironic, don’t you think? At least you can console yourself that justice was done.’

I stare at him with dead eyes – his withered body stuffed so full of bitterness and hate. How could he ever preach a religion of love and peace?

‘Why did you do it?’ I ask. ‘In the persecutions – taking the blame for Eusebius’s betrayal of those Christian families?’

He puts the two stumps of his arms together, caressing them against each other. ‘This is what Symmachus did to me. Then he was going to kill me. Eusebius betrayed the Christians to save my life.’ A desperate edge comes into his voice, a man on the brink of losing control. ‘He sacrificed himself to save me.’

‘And you sacrificed me.’