Secrets of the Dead (39 page)

‘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.

Split, Croatia – Present Day

THERE WEREN’T MANY
places in the world where you could inhabit a Roman emperor’s palace. Split might be the only one. When the Emperor Diocletian defied all precedent and expectation by quitting his office at the peak of his powers, he built himself a retirement home on an imperial scale: a seafront palace on a quiet bay overlooking the Dalmatian coast, based on the plan of a military camp the area of eight football pitches, with walls ten storeys high. Inside the walls were gardens, where the peasant emperor could tend his vegetable patch; opulent living quarters and ceremonial halls (even a retired emperor expects a certain grandeur); several temples to the old gods, whom Diocletian had defended with cruel vigour against the depredations of the Christians; a garrison, because even though he’d pacified the empire, his successors were jealous, violent men; and his own mausoleum, so he would never need to leave.

But the Christians had survived his persecution, flourished, and eventually thrown out the old gods and their champion.
Five
hundred years after his death, Diocletian had suffered the ultimate indignity. His porphyry sarcophagus had been torn out of his mausoleum, his bones thrown into a ditch and replaced with those of a man he’d martyred. The church he’d tried to destroy had appropriated his final monument, turning his mausoleum into a cathedral.

And the palace remained. When barbarians came, the local citizens retreated inside Diocletian’s walls and squatted in the ruins. Over time, houses grew up like weeds, weaving through the remains and making them their own. New walls absorbed columns and arches; old walls sprouted new roofs. Bit by bit, the palace turned into a town. Roman
Spalato
became Croatian Split.

Abby had been there with Michael a few months ago, another stolen weekend away from Kosovo. She’d instantly decided it was one of her favourite places in the world. They stayed in a boutique hotel with bits of Diocletian’s wall jutting into the bedrooms; wandered down narrow alleys that suddenly opened up on intact Roman temples; ate Dalmatian ham on freshly baked bread, and drank red wine late into the night.