Are you really him?
Below, the spectators have begun to realise something is happening. A murmur sweeps the crowd, loud enough that I can hear it on the rooftop. Senators crane around in their seats to look up. Constantius, on the dais, seems to falter and look back.
This is the moment.
At the top of the dome, the roof flattens around an open circular hole: the oculus, the eye for the sun to peer in to the mausoleum. Crispus scrambles to the edge, turns and stands. He faces the crowd arms spread apart in divine embrace.
On the dais, next to Constantius, Flavius Ursus grabs the burning torch from a guard’s hand and hurls it on to the pyre. It’s well primed with oil and pitch: the flames catch straight away, racing up the columns of the wooden tower. Inexorably, the fire draws the crowd’s attention away from the action on the roof.
Crouched on my hands and knees, I stare up at Crispus. He looms over me like a god; like a god, I doubt he even sees me.
‘Are you him?’ My throat’s parched, my voice a burned-out whisper. But somehow, above the crackle of the pyre and the roar of the crowd, he seems to hear me. He looks down; he smiles at me, warm with forgiveness.
A shadow darkens the blazing air. Crispus cries out and clutches his side. Blood blooms in his tunic; an arrow hangs from his ribs. Archers have appeared on the roof of the eastern portico surrounding the courtyard. Another arrow hits him in the shoulder. He staggers back.
He hangs on the edge of the oculus. The copper tiles shimmer under his feet, creating the illusion that he’s hovering in the air. For a moment, I can almost believe he’ll rise above it, lifted by angels away from danger.
Without a sound, he falls back through the hole. The arrows are still falling, clattering on the roof, but they don’t hit me. I crawl to the edge and peer down.
Far below, in an alcove against the back wall, I can see the huge porphyry sarcophagus waiting to receive Constantine’s body. In front of it, sprawled in the very heart of the starburst sun laid into the floor, lies a corpse. The marble rays splay out around him; through the oculus, the sun makes an almost perfect circle of light around him.
A fragment of shadow breaks the circle. After a moment, I realise it’s my own.
Rome – Present Day
They hurried along the passages, following the footsteps they’d left in the soft mud floor. The detonator wire unspooled behind them. They hadn’t quite reached the first staircase when the man at the back called a halt.
‘No more wire,’ he said.
For the first time, Abby saw a hint of concern cross Dragović’s face. ‘Are we far enough?’
The man pursed his lips. ‘This place is old – and we put a lot of plastic in there.’
‘You stay here,’ Dragović told him. ‘Give us two minutes.’
The man pulled out the control box and plugged in the wires. Abby wondered if she could get at him, if she might detonate the explosives too soon and bring the roof down on Dragović. But there was another man between them, and the tunnel was too narrow to get past.
‘Maybe five minutes is safer?’
‘Two. The carabinieri must be close.’
Dragović led them on. They all felt the urgency now. Heavy boots kicked at Abby’s heels; several times, a hand on her back pushed her forward when she started to falter. She tried to count off seconds in her head, but the remorseless pace disrupted any rhythm. How long was two minutes? Long enough? Perhaps she wasn’t ready to die after all.
They reached the stairs and hurried up to the second level. Here there was a wider chamber, a sort of crossroads where four tunnels intersected. The floor was rocky, the footprints harder to make out. Dragović studied it for a second.
He doesn’t know the way, Abby thought.
‘What’s that?’
The man beside Dragović pointed down one of the tunnels. Abby followed his gaze. Around a bend, a dim light glowed, getting steadily brighter.
‘Carabinieri.’
‘Split up,’ Dragović ordered. ‘We can lose them in the tunnels.’
They moved apart. Abby made to follow the guard behind her, but Dragović grabbed her collar and pushed her in front of him.
‘You come with me. In case I need –’
A muted roar rose out of the depths of the catacomb. Two minutes. The first thing Abby noticed was the air racing past her – not out of the catacomb but back, sucked in by the explosion. A moment later it came rushing back with interest, a pressure wave sharpened with a million pieces of grit and sand that stripped her skin raw. The earth shook so hard she thought it would split open the rock.
She didn’t look; she didn’t wait. She turned her back – on the explosion, on Dragović, on the pieces of rock that were shaking loose from the roof – and ran. Down the nearest tunnel, without thought for where it led, just so long as it was away.
But she wouldn’t escape that easily. Someone else had the same idea. Among the rumbling echoes of the explosion and shifting rubble, she heard the quickfire beat of footsteps chasing after her.
She couldn’t outrun him. All she could think of was to hide. The walls here were lined with cubiculae, the narrow shelves where the dead had once been laid to rest. If it’s big enough for a corpse, it ought to be big enough for me. She turned off the lamp on her head torch, lay down on the ground and squeezed her way in.
The rock pressed her like a vice. She turned her head ninety degrees, one cheek against the roof and the other against the floor. She pulled her arm as tight to her body as she could. She tried to breathe, but the rock beat down on her chest and forced the air out.
The footsteps came closer. A beam of light, dulled by dust or dying batteries, played along the stone corridor. Abby prayed he wouldn’t look down.
‘Abigail?’ Dust slurred Dragović’s voice. ‘You think you can escape? You think Zoltán Dragović ever forgets his enemies?’
He gave a cough that turned into a snarling laugh.
‘Let me give you a piece of advice, Abigail, from a man who has seen many dark places in this world. If you want to hide in the dark, you should not wear a reflective coat.’
Squeezed between the rock, she saw Dragović’s boots stop six inches from her face. Even if she’d wanted to, she couldn’t have moved. She closed her eyes and listened for her own death.
More footsteps – what was he doing? A choked shout; a cry of surprise. A single gunshot, and a heavy thud that she felt rather than heard. Then nothing.
In that ancient catacomb, time became a river flowing through her. She didn’t know how long she lay there in the grave. It could have been an hour, or a day or three. Her only companion was stone. Its smell filled her nose; it pressed against her ears until the blood pumping through them felt like the pulse of the rock. It embraced her, so that she no longer knew where flesh ended and rock began. With nowhere to flow, her tears pooled in her eyes. She wondered if, given a few millennia, they might bore a channel to the surface and well up as a spring.
But, by degrees, feeling returned. She felt pins and needles prickling her legs; an ache in her shoulder where a knob of rock dug into it. She reached out into the passage. The space felt good.
Tentatively, tugging with her free arm, she wriggled herself out of the niche into the tunnel. She felt the smooth plastic dome of her helmet, and when she flicked the switch on the lamp it came on.