Secrets of the Dead

by Tom Harper

  Abby felt cold steel against her wrists. The guard had pulled out his knife. Before she could feel afraid, there was a sudden jerk, and then her hands were free.

  ‘Now you run faster,’ the guard said. He jabbed his gun into the small of her back and she obeyed. She staggered through the trees, fighting the slope, the wet clothes, the mud and slick leaves – all trying to push her back into the gun.

  A shot rang through the forest behind her. Instinct threw her to the ground, but she hadn’t been hit. When she looked back, she saw the Serb crouched on all fours, clutching his leg where blood spilled from it. The other guard ran to his side, loosing an undirected burst of bullets into the trees.

  His back was turned. Abby saw her chance and ran.

  Time stopped. She was in a world of leaves and mud and lead, of shots and shouts and no horizon beyond the next tree. She ran, weaving wildly. Her legs ached from pushing against the soaked jeans, her lungs were bursting, her shoulder hurt so much she wondered if she’d even feel the bullet if it came.

  The trees thinned as she came out in a small clearing where a rock face reared out of the forest floor. A low fissure opened into it, with black mounds of freshly dug earth around it and a strip of tape tied across it. Next to the entrance, a bleached ram’s skull grinned at her from the stick it had been planted on. Somewhere, not far away, she heard running footsteps.

  Even in her panic she felt the darkness of the place, the pull of a malevolent gravity willing her into the cave. A breeze stirred the hairs on the back of her neck; the wild part of her mind told her it was Michael’s ghost trying to tell her something. A warning? A blessing? She took in the tape on the door, the cigarette butts trampled into the ground and the foil ration packs scattered among the bushes. This must be the place she’d come for. It had seemed so important. Now she hardly cared.

  But the footsteps were getting closer, and she’d run out of options. She ducked into the cave.

  The light from outside didn’t reach far. Panicked by the darkness, she patted her pocket and felt Jessop’s lighter. She flicked it on. The flame gleamed off smooth-cut walls, too straight for a cave. A passage, leading into the rock.

  A few yards in, it opened into a low, rectangular chamber with a curved roof. A stone trough ran across one end, with a niche in the wall above it where a statue might once have stood. Faded paintings in ochres, greens and blues covered every inch of the walls. By the light of the flame Abby saw a boat crossing a fish-filled sea; ivy tendrils winding around painted columns; a goddess in a gauzy dress descending to a sleeping hero, flanked by lions and the moon and the sun. There was writing, too, but try as she might she couldn’t make out the crumbling letters.

  It’s a tomb, Abby thought. The stone trough was a sarcophagus – she could see the lid leaning against it, the white scrapes on the stone where Michael and Sanchez had prised it off.

  She took her thumb off the lighter so it wouldn’t give her away. She sat on the floor in darkness, her wet clothes colder than death. She was shivering, though she barely noticed. She pressed her thumb against the lighter’s steel, just to feel the heat.

  She thought of the skeleton ripped from his grave, and wondered if this would be her tomb, too. A life for a life, a corpse for a corpse. She remembered Shai Levin. Most likely he was stabbed through the heart. It was an effort to think that this chamber belonged to a man who once lived and breathed as she did. Probably rich. Lived a violent life. A man who had planned and commissioned his tomb for posterity, never imagining that seventeen centuries later it would be lost in an unpopulated corner of a contested country.

  Noise from outside the cave. Shouts, the clatter of rocks. She lifted her head. A dull bang rolled down the passage and she knew, with the intuition of the grave, that someone else had died.

  The daylight at the end of the passage went out.

  She had nowhere to hide. If she was going to die, at least she’d make the bastard look at her. Soft footsteps padded down the passage, slow and cautious. She flicked on the lighter. The ghosts of gods and heroes peered down from the wasting paint and waited to claim her. The man in the passage – was it a man? – came nearer. For a moment, he existed in perfect darkness – beyond the day, before the flame. The breeze blew in his scent, dead leaves and wet soil, the smell of an open grave.

  He stepped forward. His face swam in and out of the firelight. Deep shadows swallowed his cheeks, so that all she could see was the thrust of his skull, the curly grey hair matted flat by the rain.

  Her head spun. She heard the gods calling her on and laughing. She must have died. She lifted the lighter, and the shadows dropped away from his face.

  ‘Michael?’

  XXVI

  Constantinople – April 337

  ‘DID YOU THINK I’d let you go without saying goodbye?’

  In an empty tomb, Constantine leans across the unconsecrated altar and looks me in the eye. Last time I saw him he was dressed like a god; now all he wears is a plain white robe and a grey cloak against the evening chill. Only the weave of the cloth betrays its cost.

  ‘I thought you’d finished with me.’

  A dozen gods used to live here. Now there’s only one. On the highest point of the highest hill in the city, Constantine has razed the old Temple of the Twelve Gods and built his mausoleum on its foundations. It’s his second attempt – the first, in Rome, is already occupied. Outwardly, it looks no different from the monuments that his sometime co-emperors built themselves: Maxentius in Rome, Galerius in Thessalonica, Diocletian in Split. A round tower in a square courtyard, with the surrounding arcades housing all the washrooms, lamp-stores and priestly accommodation that will be needed when the new occupant takes up permanent residence.

  And he won’t be alone. There are seven niches in the rotunda. One’s for Constantine’s sarcophagus; the other six hold effigies of the twelve apostles of Christ. It’s typical of Constantine. He’s taken away the twelve old gods and put twelve Christian apostles in their place – like for like, pound for pound. When his project’s complete, no one will be able to see the joins.

  Gods abandon the world and give way to men. That’s the way of history.

  But for the moment, nothing’s completed. Scaffolding covers the entire eastern half of the wall. Dust sheets shroud the twelve effigies in the niches around the room. That’s also typical of Constantine. Great works, still in progress. The whole structure is a giant canister filled with dust. The late sun shines through the coloured glass and makes patterns in the air.

  ‘That night when we condemned Symmachus – you looked as if you wanted to say something.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference.’

  I’m determined to resist him, to say the minimum necessary and go home to supervise the slaves packing up my household. I didn’t want to come. It’s only because he’s the Augustus.

  ‘You were supposed to find me the truth,’ he reminds me.

  ‘If you wanted it.’

  ‘You think he’s innocent?’

  Something gives inside me. Outrage overflows my pride and spills out. ‘I don’t know if he’s innocent – but I’m sure he’s been set up. I was there when his slave handed the bag over. He could hardly have arranged it to be more incriminating.’

  ‘But he had the bag.’

  ‘His slave did.’

  ‘The slave testified under torture that his master gave it to him. We needed resolution quickly. The Christians were impatient.’ He sees the look on my face and sighs. ‘You never used to be squeamish, Gaius.’

  Every religion needs its blood sacrifice. Symmachus saw it coming better than I did.

  An awkward silence hangs in the speckled air between us. Constantine gestures around the domed hall. ‘Look at this mess. If I died tomorrow, they wouldn’t know what to do with me.’ He laughs. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to die until the Persians are sorted out. A final victory to complete my work.’

  A pause. Perhaps it’s occurred to him how
many final victories he’s already won.

  ‘Do you remember Chrysopolis? The day after?’

  Chrysopolis – September 324 – Thirteen years earlier …

  On a warm Sunday morning, Constantine and his family are taking a walk. The long, hot summer still hasn’t let go: the sky is blue, the sea calm, the ground baked hard. The purple imperial boots kick up puffs of dust as they pick their way among the cypresses and pines on top of the bluffs. Constantine leads the way, with Crispus at his side pointing out details of the great fleet moored below them. I’m just behind. After me come the women and children – the youngest, Constans, only a year old and still in the arms of his wet nurse. They could be any Roman family out gathering berries or looking for eggs. In fact, they’re now undisputed masters of the empire. On the other side of the hill, twenty-five thousand corpses are awaiting burial.

  By my count, it’s only the third day since June that I haven’t been in armour. We’ve fought our way through the summer. It’s taken ten years, but the confrontation between Constantine and Licinius has finally come to a head. In June, we marched into Thrace and sent Licinius packing from the Balkans, thirty thousand men lighter. In August, when Licinius hoped to stall us at Byzantium, Constantine literally marched over the city walls by building an earth ramp against them. At the same time, Crispus led our navy from Thessalonica and defeated Licinius’s fleet in the straits at Gallipolis. I was with Constantine at Byzantium, but by all accounts it was a magnificent, daring victory.

  Watching them together in front of me now, father and son, it’s easy to believe this is a family touched by the gods. Constantine is just past fifty but as vigorous as ever, a strong man in his late prime. Crispus is a son any man would be proud of. Tall and handsome, with Constantine’s soft-featured good looks and jet-black hair, he’s at an age where fresh experience meets the confidence of youth, and nothing is impossible. He laughs easily and makes others laugh, even his father. When Constantine stumbles – he’s still nursing a thigh wound he sustained in the charge at Hadrianople – Crispus is quick to put out a hand and steady him. Crispus points to the fleet and tells his father stories: this ship grappled Licinius’s flagship; that one, the captain fell overboard because he tripped on a chicken that had escaped its coop.

  Without warning, two boys run up behind us and start attacking Crispus with pine branches. Claudius and Constantius, eight and seven years old, Constantine’s elder sons by Fausta. Crispus laughs, finds a stick on the ground and chases his half-brothers shrieking back to their mother.

  Constantine turns to me, eyes shining. ‘Was any man ever this happy?’

  Yesterday, two hundred thousand men lined up on a dusty plain between Chalcedon and Chrysopolis to contest the fate of the world. It wasn’t Constantine’s greatest battle as a general. No daring ruse, no clever tactics. He put his standard, the labarum, in the centre of his line; he massed his cavalry behind the standard and his infantry behind the cavalry, and launched them in a sledgehammer blow straight at Licinius. Perhaps the magnitude of the occasion made him conservative. Or perhaps, again, he saw what others didn’t: that having been outflanked before and determined not to let it happen again, Licinius had left his centre weak. And that having marched all summer, our army was in a savage mood, ready to end the war quickly.

  We’ve reached the end of the point. Gentle waves lap on the rocky shore below; across the sparkling sea, Byzantium rises from its promontory. At the moment it’s a small ferry port: a useful staging post for travellers crossing to Asia or up to the Black Sea, but too far upwind from the Mediterranean to generate any major commerce. At this distance, the only building of any prominence is the baths, with the low line of the hippodrome just visible beyond.

  ‘Is this what you brought us to see?’ asks Fausta. She’s come up behind us with the infant Constans. Her voice is muffled under the enormous hat and veil she’s wearing to keep the sun off her face. While Constantine’s lived his life at the frontiers, and can walk for miles, she’s a creature of the palace. She can’t comprehend walking anywhere that hasn’t been shaded, pruned and swept. It offends her.

  ‘This place is the hinge of the world.’ Constantine has a way of speaking sometimes which makes you believe he’s seeing things you can’t. ‘Halfway between east and west. And now, the hinge of history.’

  Claudius and Constantius seem to have conquered Crispus. He collapses to the ground, writhing theatrically and clutching an imaginary wound in his side, then goes still.

  ‘I thought you were old enough to fight real battles now,’ Fausta says.

  Crispus gets to his feet and brushes dust and pine needles off his tunic. ‘Not too old to play with my brothers.’

  Fausta scowls. Her boys adore Crispus – the best of a brother and a father rolled into one. She can’t stand it. Like Crispus, Constantine was the only son of a first marriage. Like Crispus, Constantine has three half-brothers from his father’s second marriage. He treats them regally, but he’s never allowed them within a hundred miles of real power. Yesterday’s battle is a bitter victory for her. If there’s to be only one emperor, what will her sons inherit?

  A shout behind us interrupts the lap of waves and the buzz of flies. When you’re sole ruler of the world, you don’t just go for a stroll in the countryside. The imperial guard have cordoned off the whole promontory. Now, a dozen guards are approaching, walking single file on the narrow track between the grass and bushes. A woman and a boy, both dressed in plain white tunics, walk between them. It’s Constantiana and her son Licinianus.

  The moment they appear, Constantine stops being a father, a husband, a friend and becomes the Augustus again. His shoulders spread; he seems to grow six inches taller.

  The soldiers salute and form a line. Constantiana drops her bundle on the ground, a wad of purple cloth, and sinks to her knees in the dust. Her son kneels beside her.

  ‘From my husband Licinius – his imperial vestments. He renounces his titles and any claim to power. All he asks is that you spare his life and his family.’

  ‘If he’d won yesterday, would he have spared me?’ Constantine makes a gesture at Fausta, Crispus and the boys. ‘Them?’

  ‘If my husband had won, I’d be kneeling in front of him this minute begging him to spare you.’ Her dress is artfully torn, her hair carefully disarrayed; you might think she’d just come off the battlefield herself. But the desolation in her face is genuine. She had dreams, too.

  She stares at Constantine’s feet. The captain of the guard’s hand drifts to the hilt of his sword. Constantine gives a small shake of his head.

  He cups his sister’s chin in his hand and tips her head back. He stares into her eyes. No one sees what passes between them.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ declares Constantine. ‘He tricked us all – I should never have let you marry him. Go back to your husband and tell him I accept his surrender. His titles are forfeit, but he can have safe passage to Thessalonica. The palace there should make a comfortable home.’ A reassuring smile. ‘After all, you’re still my sister.’

  Constantiana stands and makes a show of embracing Constantine, so limp she can barely get her arms around him. When she’s steadier, Constantine pushes her back a little and offers her his hand.

  As she kisses it, I hear her say three words. ‘Tu solus Dominus.’ You alone are the Lord.

  Constantinople – April 337

  ‘That was a good day,’ Constantine says. ‘Our work was done.’

  ‘And the next day the sun came up, and you had twice as many provinces to govern, and twice as much work.’

  ‘But we were free.’ He crosses the room and pulls a sheet off one of the statues. A bearded white face stares back at him. ‘Do you remember when we were children at Diocletian’s court? Lying awake, listening to the floorboards, asking ourselves if this was the night the murderers would come? Every night, I prayed to God I’d live to see the morning. I was so terrified, I used to make you sleep in my bed.’

  ‘
They never did come.’

  ‘I thought that when I became sole Augustus, I’d never be afraid again.’ He peers into the statue’s face. ‘And every day since I’ve been terrified of losing it all.’

  ‘What was Alexander doing for you?’ I ask abruptly. Constantine frowns. He doesn’t want to be dragged back from the past.

  ‘He was writing a history. He thought if he laid out all the events of my life in order, he’d find some sort of pattern. God’s will.’

  ‘Nothing else?’ Constantine has his back to me, running his fingers through the folds of the saint’s marble cloak. ‘I looked in his bag, I saw what was in it. It was stuffed full of papers he’d collected. Not the sort of things you’d want to go in his book. In fact, I’d say you had as much motive as anyone to want him dead.’

  ‘Alexander was a diligent researcher. The more facts he had, the more accurately he would reveal the pattern of God’s purpose. I gave him access to every archive and library in this city. Every document.’

  I remember the items I found on Alexander’s desk – the razor blade, the jar of glue. And suddenly it all fits.

  ‘He wasn’t writing history,’ I say. ‘He was rewriting it – and not in his book, but deep in the archives.’ Constantine turned to listen: I can see on his face I’m right. ‘Whatever shamed you, or discredited you, he could remove it for ever. Like a sculptor recutting a statue’s face into a new likeness.’

  When his project’s complete, no one will be able to see the joins.

  ‘A better likeness.’ Constantine walks back to the centre of the room. ‘So many things I’ve achieved in my life. I found a broken world and gave it peace. The hydra of government that Diocletian left, I cut off its heads one by one until the beast was dead and all its evils gone. On the day the army acclaimed me Augustus in York, there were men dying agonising deaths, simply because they didn’t want to sacrifice to old gods nobody believed in anyway. I put a stop to that. I let the people worship as they pleased – I gave the empire a God who was strong enough and merciful enough to tolerate dissent, even error, without violence.’