Secrets of the Dead

XLIV

Constantinople – June 337

I SIT ALONE in my study, scratching at a roll of parchment. I woke before dawn and couldn’t get back to sleep; there’s a tightness in my chest that makes it hard to breathe, as if something is fighting to get out from inside my heart. Just when I started to drift off, the family of swallows who’ve made their home under the tiles of my colonnade started feeding their young and woke me all over again.

I’m trapped in a nightmare and there’s only one way it can end. In half an hour last night, Asterius tore up so many things I believed. Now I’m buried in the ruins of my own Chamber of Records, snatching at scraps that disintegrate in my hands.

The whole city’s in a daze. Baths and markets are shut, the hippodrome gates chained and locked. From my study I can hear people wandering through the streets, wailing and crying as if they’ve lost their own children. It’s been going on for two weeks, though tonight it will be over. By then, Constantine’s body will have been laid in the great porphyry sarcophagus that’s waiting for him in his mausoleum, taking his place among the twelve apostles of Christ. What they’ll say when they find out who their new companion in eternity is, I can’t imagine.

Today it ends. I’m sitting here in my white toga, my hair washed and my boots polished, dressed for the funeral. Constantius, Constantine’s second son, has made it back from Antioch. With the speed he arrived, they’re probably eating horsemeat all the way across Asia Minor. The dissent that worried Flavius Ursus hasn’t crystallised into any public demonstration. I’d like to think I’ve played my part, but mostly I think it’s because there’s no alternative.

It doesn’t matter. Today, I’ll process behind the coffin like a captive barbarian. Tomorrow morning, if Ursus keeps his bargain, I’ll be on a wagon heading home to Moesia.

I’ve almost reached the end of my scroll – the one I began two months ago at the library. I read down the list of names I made that day: Eusebius of Nicomedia, Aurelius Symmachus, Asterius the Sophist, Porfyrius. Any one of them might have killed Alexander, or ordered it, though in the balance of everything else they’ve done I suppose it would barely twitch the scales.

In this city, not all murders are crimes. And not all criminals are guilty.

In the last few inches of papyrus, I copy out the poem I found in the Chamber of Records. Perhaps it has nothing to do with Alexander’s death, but its elusive meaning haunts me.

To reach the living, navigate the dead …

I’ve been navigating the dead these last ten years, eyes downcast, trying not to see the ghosts that surround me. I haven’t reached the living.

But copying out the poem, I notice something new. Every line is the same length – not almost or approximately, but exactly – and the eight lines are spaced so that the whole text forms a perfect square block.

I don’t know why I didn’t notice it before. I puzzle over it, wondering what it means. Whoever wrote it certainly took great care to make it so. Just writing the lines to be the same length must have needed an immense creative effort.

I stare at it. One moment I don’t see it, the next moment it’s there, as if a god had whispered it in my ear. I run over to my drawer and pull out the necklace they found in the library by Alexander’s body. A golden square, with the monogram in the centre. So similar to Constantine’s, but subtly different.

I lay it over the poem on the piece of paper I found in the Scrinia Memoriae. It fits perfectly – the square of text and the square of gold, exactly the same size.

Porfyrius was a poet. When I asked him why he was exiled, he told me, ‘a poem and a mistake’.

Porfyrius had the same unusual monogram on the design for his tomb.

Porfyrius was in the library that day.

The toga’s a stately garment, not made for running. Several times, it threatens to trip me up; once, it almost unravels completely. It’s hard pushing my way through the crowds that have already gathered to watch the funeral. It’s going to be the greatest piece of theatre in the whole brief history of the city. The few hundred yards to Porfyrius’s villa take almost half an hour. At the palace, the procession will already be forming up.

Porfyrius has gone. He hasn’t even bothered to lock the door – perhaps he isn’t expecting to come back. A neglected silence hangs over the house, as though its owner died unexpectedly and hasn’t been found yet. The whole house is empty, not even a single slave, though nothing’s been packed or put away. The long table that I saw before is still standing in the atrium, stacked with plates and bowls ready for serving.

I go to his study and rummage on the shelves for the plans to his mausoleum. It would be a shame to need your tomb before it’s ready. I unroll them on the desk. The word Roma is scribbled on the top left-hand corner – presumably he wants to be buried in Rome. I doubt he’ll get there.

There are three drawings. The first shows the front, with its strange labarum-like monogram filling the pediment. The second illustrates the paintings intended for the wall. The third shows the niche at the back of the tomb where the remains will be buried. A stone plaque’s been drawn on the wall, and written on it – clearly, so the masons make no mistake – are two lines of poetry.

To reach the living navigate the dead,

Beyond the shadow burns the sun.

The story’s clear enough. Porfyrius found out that Alexander had uncovered his poem and attacked him in the library. In the struggle, Alexander ripped the gold necklace off Porfyrius: it slid under the bookshelf, and Porfyrius didn’t have time to retrieve it. Perhaps Symmachus was there, too. That would explain how he ended up with Alexander’s document case. He kept it, but then he got cold feet. He tried to arrange to hand it back, but did it so clumsily he got caught instead.

So why was Porfyrius concerned about the poem? Was he worried about the allusions to Crispus? It hardly seems worth killing a man for. But Porfyrius had been exiled once before: he might well have had a horror of suffering it again.

I take out the poem and align it with the necklace, hoping I’ll see something I missed before.

There are five red beads set into the gold, making the points and centre of a cross. Through the glass you can see fragments of words underneath. I press my thumbnail into the papyrus to underline them, then lift the necklace away to see what I’ve found.

SIGNUM INVICTUS SEPELIVIT SUB SEPULCHRO. The unconquered man hid the sign under his tomb.

I don’t know what it means, but I need to get to the funeral.

The procession will have set out by now. If Flavius Ursus is watching, he’ll have noticed I haven’t taken my place, perhaps mentioned it to one of his assistants. It’s too late for me. But from the palace to the mausoleum is almost two miles: it’ll take at least an hour to get there. I duck down a side alley, away from the ceremonial route, and join a wide and empty boulevard heading west. In the distance I can hear the shouts of the crowds, a roar like the sea that’s strangely stifled by the windless day. Every man, woman and child in the city must be there. I walk a full mile, and the only living thing I see is a cat curled up on a doorstep. Windows are shuttered, shops barred. I might be the last man left alive in the world.

The illusion fades as I approach the mausoleum. I can see its copper dome flashing above the surrounding rooftops; the gold trelliswork in the arches underneath. Nervous soldiers guard the street corners in twos and threes. It’ll be some time before the funeral gets here, but the mourners have already gathered twelve deep behind the wooden barricades that line the route.

The road ends at a wall. Twenty guards from the Schola make a human gate, ready to admit their emperor one last time. I show them my commission from Constantine, the ivory diptych he gave me the day Alexander died. They don’t question the fact that the portrait on the lid is of a corpse. Even in death, Constantine hasn’t surrendered his grip on the throne. New laws are issued every day in his name; his coins still pour out of the mints. The bureaucracy’s given him eternal life.

‘Has Publilius Porfyrius arrived yet?’ I ask the guard.

‘Here since this morning.’ He nods towards the mausoleum. ‘It’s been a bit of a rush job. The clerk of works wanted him to inspect the foundations, just to be sure. Embarrassing if it fell with all the city watching.’

‘How about Flavius Ursus?’

‘He’ll be in the procession.’

‘I need you to get a message to him. As quickly as possible, even if it means running in front of the Emperor’s coffin.’ I repeat the five words of Porfyrius’s hidden message. ‘Tell him it comes from Gaius Valerius.’ I push my commission under his face. ‘Do it!’

He looks surprised – doubly so when I step past him through the gate. ‘Where are you going?’

‘To find Porfyrius.’

The wall makes a compound, broad and square, covering the hilltop. One day this will all be gardens: at the moment, it’s a builders’ yard. Squares of earth show where the stacks of bricks and timber have hurriedly been moved around the back. Even now, Constantine’s legacy is a work in progress. Ahead, the mausoleum stands surrounded on three sides by arcades. Eventually, the fourth side will be closed off to make a courtyard. Today, it stands open, framing the immense rotunda rising in its centre. The gold facing ripples in the sun.

In front of the tomb stands a huge pyre, half as high as the building behind. It’s almost a building in its own right: stripped tree trunks make columns around its base, painted to look like fluted marble; planks form storeys inside. Gold banners hang over the sides, and at the very summit a live eagle preens itself in a gilded cage. Wooden stands have been erected on the open ground either side, so that the assembled senators and generals have box seats.

I skirt around the pyre and climb the steps to the courtyard. Huge crimson banners woven with portraits of Constantine’s three sons hang from the unconnected pillars; guards in gilded ceremonial armour stand at every column.

I find their centurion. ‘Has Publilius Porfyrius come this way?’

‘In the tomb.’

Again, Constantine’s pass lets me through – into the courtyard, into the presence of the mausoleum. The open side faces south, so that the golden wall catches the midday sun face on, bending its rays around the courtyard like a mirror. It dazzles me; from ten feet away I can feel the heat coming off it.

Suddenly, I need to sit down. I’m an old man who’s walked too far on a hot day. I’m parched. My mouth is dry, my limbs are like sand. I feel as if I’m drowning in a shimmering sea of heat and light.

‘Gaius Valerius?’

I spin around, unsure where the voice came from. The sun’s burned out my senses, I can’t locate anything. The dark figure stands in the glare like a spot in front of my eyes.

‘Porfyrius?’ I guess.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I read your poem.’

‘I wondered if you’d work it out.’ I can’t see his face, but he doesn’t sound angry. ‘I hoped the Emperor had destroyed it when he burned the papers from Alexander’s bag.’

‘There was another copy. In the Chamber of Records, the Scrinia Memoriae.’

‘Memory’s a funny thing.’

‘Did you kill Alexander?’

He laughs. ‘Poor Valerius. You’ve been stumbling around, chasing shadows and ghosts. You have no idea what this is really about.’

I’m sick of hearing that. ‘Why don’t you tell me?’

‘Come and see.’

He takes my hand and leads me around the rotunda. The tomb eclipses the sun; I can see again. Even the mausoleum isn’t what it seems. The gold panelling only comes halfway round, and a roofer’s scaffold is still erected against its north side, where no one will see it. Next to it, a small flight of steps descends to a little door in the tomb’s basement. Porfyrius knocks – a precise rhythm that sends a message.

The door swings open. To my aching eyes, the interior is perfect darkness. Porfyrius pushes me forward.

‘We won’t hurt you. You’ve waited ten years for this moment.’

The moment I step through the door, strong hands pin my arms to my side. I’d cry out, but another hand is clamped over my mouth.

The door closes and I’m plunged in darkness.