More shots echoed behind her; lights flashed. In the tight space, it sounded like an artillery battle. She picked herself up and ran down the tunnel, looking for a side passage that might help lose her in the labyrinth.
The tunnel ended in a rough-finished wall. No bricks, no turnings – just a piece of rock where the diggers’ patience or will had run out, where they’d shouldered their tools and turned for the surface.
The sound of gunfire settled in the tunnel like dust. The silence was even more unnerving, though it didn’t last long. From behind – not far – Abby heard slow footsteps coming after her.
Metal snapped on metal as the slide of a gun slid back.
XLVI
Constantinople – June 337
SOMEONE MUST HAVE died. At this moment, I don’t know if it’s him or me. The man I’m looking at died on a beach eleven years ago. I put the knife in his back myself; I carried his corpse halfway across the empire and buried it in the deepest hole I could find.
And now he’s standing in front of me – living, breathing, dark eyes watching me.
I close my eyes, squeezing them until all I see is spots. When I reopen them, he’s still there.
It’s all I can do to stop my stomach emptying itself on the floor. My head feels as if it’s about to break open. This isn’t possible.
I concentrate on the eyes. Are they really his? They’ve lost their clarity, as though a veil’s been drawn over them. They don’t seem to focus. He looks bewildered, as though he doesn’t know what he’s doing here.
I don’t either.
‘Crispus?’ I stammer.
Something like terror creases his face. He steps away, sinking into the shadows. I’m glad. Having to look at him is like staring at the sun: too stark, too painful to endure.
I turn to Porfyrius.
‘How have you done this?’
‘I told you.’
‘It’s impossible.’
‘Nothing is impossible through God,’ he answers calmly. ‘Do you want to stick your fingers into the scar you made in his back?’
How does he know I stabbed Crispus in the back? Everyone believes he was poisoned.
‘Impossible,’ I whisper again.
‘Once, I thought the same as you.’
‘And why …?’
From outside, rendered distant by the thick walls, I hear the blare of trumpets. Constantine’s funeral procession must be coming near. And with the sound, a resonance. At long last, too late, I know what Porfyrius is going to do.
‘You’re going to present … him … as Constantine’s successor.’
‘When the flames go up and the eagle flies out of the fire, the people will see Constantine’s true heir. A miracle. What chance will Constantius and his brothers have against that?’ A chuckle. ‘Of course, we’ve bribed some of the guards as well. They’ll cut Constantius to pieces, and Crispus will rally the empire.’
‘With you behind the throne telling him what to do?’
‘This isn’t about me,’ he snaps. ‘This is for the empire, and for God.’
I’ve heard too many people telling me they’ve done things for God recently. ‘Is this all because of the Arians? Because of Eusebius and Alexander?’ Compared with the enormity of what I’ve just witnessed, their jealousies and hair-splitting seem irrelevant.
‘I couldn’t give two obols for Eusebius, or his enemies.’ There’s genuine frustration in Porfyrius’s voice. ‘Do you think Christ returned from the dead so that men would kill each other debating whether he was co-eternal or consubstantial with the Father? Eusebius and his kind are like men who inherit a book of wisdom and simply use it as kindling for a cooking fire.’
I’m lost. ‘What then?’
‘I’m doing this for Constantine. Because he was right – that unity is the only way to save the empire from tearing itself apart. One God, one church, one emperor. The moment you divide it, the divisions multiply on themselves until they consume the world in chaos. Constantine knew that – but in the end, he wasn’t strong enough to defeat the forces of chaos. By this miracle, we have a second chance.’
I try to digest it. So much of what he’s saying makes such perfect sense, it’s easy to forget it’s built on the most ludicrous foundation.
In order to rule the world, we have to have the perfect virtue of one rather than the weakness of many.
Crispus – the new Crispus – is still obscured in the shadows. Out of sight, the shock receding, reason reasserts itself.
‘Do you really think the people will accept this imposter you’ve dug up?’
‘They’ll accept it because it’s the truth.’ A grunt. ‘And because they’re desperate to believe.’
A knock sounds from the door, the same intricate pattern that Porfyrius used. One of his men cracks it open.
‘It’s time.’
Rome – Present Day
There was nowhere to hide – not even a niche. The gravediggers hadn’t cut any cubicula here. With a flash of despair, she realised even the darkness didn’t hide her. The lamp on her helmet was still on, shining its futile light on the rock wall and drawing her pursuers like a beacon.
She thought of what Mark had said – almost his last words, it turned out. They can’t have brought us all this way to drop us now. It reminded her of a line from an old gospel record her parents used to play when she was a child.
Nobody told me that the road would be easy.
‘Abby?’
It was the last voice she expected to hear – warm and reassuring in the darkest place imaginable.
‘Michael?’
‘You can come out now.’
She didn’t ask why or how; she didn’t stop to think. She turned back and walked slowly around the bend in the tunnel. There was Michael, caught in the head torch like a deer in headlights. And there, behind him, two men with raised guns.
There was no fight left in her. All she could do was stare.
Michael gave a sad, tight smile. ‘I’m sorry, Abby. I had no choice.’
A fourth man appeared in the shadows beyond them, a dark silhouette against a light whose source she couldn’t see. He was smaller than the others, a slight man with close-cropped hair, maybe a small beard. He seemed to absorb light: the only part of him that reflected anything was the chrome-handled pistol tucked in his waistband.
‘Abigail Cormac. Again, I have to ask you: why are you not dead?’
Dragović. Abby had no answer. He laughed, then shrugged.
‘It does not matter. Now that I have you, you will wish you were dead. Many times, before I let you die.’
One of his men came down the passage and pinned her arms. She didn’t resist. He dragged her back to the junction. Her feet kicked against something soft and recently human on the ground; she didn’t look down.
Dragović’s men all had head torches, though no helmets. They trained their beams on the brick wall.
‘This is the place you came to,’ said Dragović. ‘Left is nothing; right is nothing. I think we must go straight on.’
One of his men – Abby counted four, plus Dragović and Michael – stepped forward and unslung the backpack he carried. From inside, he took out a nail gun and a coil of plastic tube that looked like a fat clothesline. He fired three nails into the brickwork, then wrapped the tube around them like wool, making a rough triangle against the bricks. Two metal plugs and a length of electrical cable came out of the bag. He stuck the plugs into the tube, then unspooled the cable. The hands that gripped Abby pulled her back down the tunnel; the others followed. Round a corner, they paused.