Nikolić stared at her, as if he couldn’t decide whether to trust her or to dismiss her as a lunatic.
‘And where, please, is this necklace now?’
Abby shot Michael a what-do-we-have-to-lose look.
‘The British Secret Intelligence Service have it.’
XXXVI
Constantinople – May 337
THE DAY’S HOT, but the bath has left me chilled to the bone. A new idea grips me like a fever. Perhaps Symmachus was spinning lies in a last attempt to avoid exile, but I don’t think so.
Simeon, baffled that I was accusing him when the evidence was so obvious: Symmachus had the documents. I convinced myself the old man was set up. But what if he had the documents all along? He killed Alexander in the library, took his document case and found all Constantine’s dirty secrets locked inside it. No wonder he wanted to be rid of it.
I don’t care who killed Alexander any more. All I want to know is what Symmachus found out – and why he died for it.
Constantine wasn’t the first emperor to build his palace on the promontory. As ever, he demolished the past and rebuilt on its foundations, to a scale beyond his predecessors’ imaginations. When his engineers started excavating, they found a vast empty cistern underneath the site. Constantine himself came down to inspect it.
‘A shame to waste all this space,’ was his verdict. ‘Use it for the paperwork.’
And so it was allocated to the Scrinia Memoriae, the Chamber of Records. In a way, it’s appropriate it sits in the old cistern. It’s the run-off of the empire, the well of memory. And the records stacked on its winding shelves are so deep they’re unfathomable.
You enter the Chamber of Records through a reading room, seldom used, in the palace. An archivist sits at a desk, annotating a manuscript. I lean over and put Constantine’s commission under his nose.
‘There was a bishop called Alexander. He came here, probably often, researching a history for the Augustus.’
‘I remember him.’ He sucks the end of his reed pen. ‘He hasn’t been here in a couple of weeks.’
‘He died. I need to see the papers he was looking at.’
‘Do you know what they were?’
‘I was hoping you’d remember.’
His eyes flick back to the commission lying open on the desk. ‘Those papers have been stored, untouched, under the Augustus’s private seal for ten years. I had to check with the palace three times before I could believe the Bishop was really allowed access.’ He squints up at me: small, boring eyes. ‘You said he died?’
‘Just show them to me.’
He shuffles across to the high door, takes the large key off his neck and slots it in the lock. He snaps the key with a practised movement, like a farmwife wringing a chicken’s neck.
‘After you.’
It’s like entering a mine, or a dungeon. The shadows seem to stretch to infinity. The columns that support the roof rise every few yards, lifeless ranks of a petrified forest. Dusty shelves wall up the spaces between, lined with wicker baskets full of scrolled papers. You could believe that all the knowledge in the world was stored here somewhere – if you only knew where to look.
Each of the columns has a Greek letter and a Roman number chiselled into it. As long as we go straight, the letters change, but the numbers stay the same. When we turn, the numbers start to change, but the letter stays constant. The whole room is arranged as a giant grid. I start counting off the pillars we pass. XV / Φ. XV / X. XV / ψ. I try to remember the Greek alphabet in order, counting back so I can find my way out if I get lost.
XV / Ω. The archivist stops. We’ve reached Omega, the last letter, though the corridor continues into still deeper darkness beyond. I wonder what comes after. He picks up a bronze lamp from a hollow cut into the column, and lights it from his own.
‘Is it safe, the fire?’ I wonder aloud. My voice sounds faint against the vast darkness.
‘What else can you do?’ He hands me the new lamp and turns. ‘Bring what you want back to the reading room.’
He retreats down the long corridor. The lamp trembles in my hand; for a second, I imagine dropping it in a basket of papyri and the wave of flame that would sweep the chamber clean. I tighten my grip.
I work my way along the aisle. Every time my shoulder brushes one of the baskets, rivulets of dust trickle down from the shelves over me. Here, all the baskets have lids, each tied shut with a ribbon and the knot sealed with wax. Most of the seals have started to crumble – but one, I notice, is supple and glossy, the imprint still sharp. A dark stain next to it shows where a previous seal sat. A clay tag tied on with twine labels it as diplomatic correspondence from the twentieth year of Constantine’s reign.
I check the rest of the aisle and find five baskets whose seals have been removed and replaced. All of them date from year twenty or the year before.
I know what happened that year, the vicennalia year. I lift down the first basket and set it on the floor next to the lamp. There’s no point taking it back to the reading room. Once I leave this dark labyrinth, I know I’ll never come back.
I sit on the floor and start to read. Alexander’s handiwork is evident on almost every page. Some of it’s been done subtly, a whole column excised and the remainder pasted together, so that the only telltale is a faint ridge in the papyrus; other interventions are more obvious. Paragraphs, sentences, sometimes individual words have been cut out of the text, so that when I hold the scroll up to the light it’s riddled with holes, as though a worm’s been through it.
But I can fill in the blanks.
Aquileia, Italy – April 326 – Eleven years ago …
Everything starts to go wrong from the moment we reach Aquileia.
It should be a joyful moment, springtime in the empire. We’re travelling to Rome, where Constantine’s vicennalia celebrations will culminate. Everybody understands that it’s more than just a celebration of his rule. The last emperor to achieve twenty years’ reign was Diocletian, who marked the occasion by announcing his retirement and promoting his successors. Constantine’s older now than his father was when he died; Crispus is in his prime. Constantine hasn’t said anything, even to me, but I was there in Nicaea. We’ll remake the empire in God’s image. One God, one emperor, one peace – and he’s been as good as his word. Since Chrysopolis, his armies have been confined to their barracks.
Crispus has come to Aquileia to join us for the final stages to Rome. Black clouds have been massing all day: the storm breaks just as we arrive at the outskirts. The driving rain tears away the flowers that garland the tombs along the road and soak the waiting dignitaries. Crispus, who arrived two days earlier, has come out to meet us: he tries to deliver his prepared speech, but thunder drowns his words.
‘Just shut up and stop blocking the road!’ Constantine barks at him, loud enough that the watching audience can hear. Crispus flushes crimson. By the time we reach the palace, the baggage is sodden and tempers are short.
‘What sort of son keeps his father standing out in the cold?’ says Fausta, wrapped in a heavy fur mantle. In the dim light she prowls around the room like a wolf in its cave. ‘And at your age. Poor Claudius’ – her eldest son – ‘hasn’t stopped sneezing since we arrived. His tutor says he might have a fever.’