My gaze drifts on to Symmachus’s outstretched corpse. Rigor mortis has begun to set in, the body arching back as if in untold agonies. I wonder what difference these impenetrable theological quibbles make where he is now.
‘I’ve heard all this before. I thought the argument was settled at Constantine’s conference in Nicaea twelve years ago.’
Eusebius: You were at Nicaea. Standing in the shadows, listening to what we said with one hand on your sword. We used to call you Brutus. Did you know that?
Porfyrius plucks a rose and starts pulling the petals off it. ‘The argument was never settled. Constantine brokered a compromise, but almost before they’d left Nicaea they were at each other’s throats again. Eusebius was exiled, for a time.’ He sighs. ‘It’s not about theology any more. I doubt half the people who claim to be Arian or Orthodox could explain the intricacies of the godhead. People took sides, and what matters now is whether they’re winning.’
‘Eusebius is an Arian?’ I think I know this, but it’s been twelve years. Porfyrius confirms it.
‘The Arian. He adopted it as his cause, and Asterius the Sophist became his key lieutenant. Poor Arius the priest had to play second fiddle in his own heresy. Alexander, meanwhile, was one of the leading thinkers of the Orthodox party. The contest to fill the Patriarchy of Constantinople was the latest battle in their war.’
I think back to that night in the palace. Eusebius, the chief prosecutor – and his rage when Symmachus mentioned Asterius. No wonder, if he thought Symmachus might reveal the truth.
I try to form a narrative.
‘Alexander found the evidence that Eusebius betrayed the Church in the persecutions. He summoned Eusebius to the library to confront him, to force him to withdraw from the election to the Patriarchate. He brought Symmachus to the library, too, to confirm the story. Eusebius had every reason for wanting them both dead – the two men who could prove he betrayed the Church.’
They murdered their own god – what wouldn’t they do to keep their privileges?
‘Eusebius wasn’t in the library that day,’ Porfyrius points out. ‘He didn’t make it.’
‘Asterius did.’
But even saying it, I know that can’t be right. Asterius didn’t crush Alexander’s skull with no hands.
A hammering on the gate erupts into the silent garden; impatient voices shout from the street. I think I recognise the sergeant’s voice from the docks. It’s long past the end of his shift now. Porfyrius leaps up in panic.
‘Stay,’ I tell him. ‘Let them in.’
‘And Symmachus? What shall I tell them about him?’
‘Tell them it was suicide.’ I hurry across to the side door. ‘It’s all they’re going to want to hear anyway.’
XXXI
Belgrade, Serbia – Present Day
THE HOTEL WAS on the top floor of an apartment block in the old town, south of the main boulevard Knez Mihailova. The streets were tangled and characterful, the apartment block – imposed on it by Tito’s planners – square and concrete. Drop cloths shrouded the front hall like cobwebs, though there was no evidence in the peeling paint that the workmen had done anything.
A clanking lift took them up to a brown corridor on the sixth floor. Reception was a small cubbyhole in the wall halfway along, where a mustachioed man sat behind an iron grille watching TV. He gave them a key and pointed further down the corridor.
‘Last room.’
The best that could be said was that it had a view – across the river, through the rain, where the high-rise towers of Novi Belgrad made dappled pillars of light. It looked like another world. Michael locked the door and put a chair against it; Abby threw herself down on the bed and burrowed her head into the pillow.
Michael sat down on the bed beside her. He moved to stroke her shoulder, then thought better of it.
‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured.
‘What are we going to do?’
‘What can we do?’
‘I don’t trust Giacomo.’
‘I don’t trust him either. But – he’s the best we’ve got.’ He rolled on to his back and lit a cigarette. ‘This world we’re in, we have to deal with people like him. You’re not in the Hague any more.’
‘You think I don’t know that?’ She lifted herself on her elbows so he could see her anger. ‘I’ve dealt with some of the worst murderers on the planet – men who make Giacomo and even Dragović look like wallflowers.’
‘I know –’
‘You don’t know.’ All the anger, all the terror of the last few days, was rushing out of her in a torrent. ‘You know why it was possible? Why a nobody like me could stand face to face with these monsters – no gun, no guards – and walk away alive?’
‘Because you’ve got guts.’
‘Because we have rules and institutions and laws to deal with these people. Now we’re no better than they are.’
Michael jerked his hand out the window. ‘Look where we are – and this also has been one of the dark places of the Earth. You think rules and institutions and laws made any difference here, when Miloševicć was waging war against all and sundry?
‘Milošević ended up in a jail cell in the Hague.’
‘After he’d killed 140,000 people. And after NATO finally grew some balls and bombed him to hell. And what happened back in that valley in Kosovo? The Americans had Dragović right in their sights, and all they could do was watch him drive over the border, because that’s what the rules say. Is that good enough?’
‘It has to be,’ Abby insisted. ‘Remember what you said about barbarians? About patrolling the frontiers of civilisation so that good people can sleep safely? Following the rules is what lets us draw the line.’
Michael reached out to touch her, but she jerked away. Tears threatened; she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.
Michael swung himself off the bed. He stared into the mirror, as if looking for someone.
‘So what are we going to do?’ she asked again. Her voice sounded dead.
‘Knowledge lies within you,’ Michael murmured. ‘The only clue we’ve got is the poem. Dragović thinks so, too – otherwise he wouldn’t have stolen the copy from the Forum Museum.’
Abby thought about it. It didn’t make her wounds go away, but at least it took her mind off the pain.
‘The version on the gravestone in Rome only had two lines. The one Gruber deciphered from the scroll had four.’
She took out the paper Gruber had given her, wrinkled and creased from too long in a damp pocket. Michael studied it. ‘Still not much to go on.’
Behind the flimsy curtains, rain drummed on the windows. Abby thought back to another wet day in another city on the fringe of the old Roman empire. I have analysed the first few lines.
‘What if there’s more?’ she said. ‘Gruber hadn’t finished analysing the scroll – he’d barely begun. There might be more of the poem.’
A light went on in Michael’s eyes. He spun around.
‘Wait here.’
He pulled on his coat and headed to the door.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To make a phone call.’ He wagged his finger at her. ‘Don’t open the door to strangers.’
She was alone for twelve minutes, and each one felt like a year. The room was heated by a cast-iron radiator that banged and popped as if it were haunted. Every noise it made shocked her like a gunshot. She found herself staring at the door, her heart racing, breath held in anticipation. She waited for a knock, for the handle to turn. When Michael came back, she almost fainted in relief.
His face was triumphant.
‘Dr Gruber will be flying to Belgrade first thing tomorrow. He’ll bring us his copy of the scroll, and the words he’s managed to decipher so far.’