Secrets of the Dead

‘Your father –’ I begin. Again, Crispus cuts me short.

‘Did he get to the root of the conspiracy?’

‘Which conspiracy?’

‘The conspiracy against me.’ He swings away, as if he knows that looking at me will rob him of something valuable. ‘The whole thing was ridiculous. You know I never tried to kill my brothers. I love them like …’ He pauses, laughs. ‘Like brothers.’

‘Constantine conducted a thorough investigation.’

In fact, he almost tore the palace apart looking for evidence to clear Crispus. All he did was damn him more. Letters from Crispus emerged boasting When I am sole Augustus … Chests of coins struck with his insignia were found in his baggage. Two commanders of the imperial bodyguard came forward and testified that Crispus had ordered them to have their men ready to secure the palace. No one explained why the first act of Crispus’s supposed coup was the botched murder of his adolescent brothers, rather than striking at Constantine himself.

‘The tablet you found under my bed – I never saw it. Never knew it existed.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Doesn’t it?’ He stares out to sea, to the flaming sun slowly being eclipsed by the horizon. ‘I suppose not.’

‘You broke your father’s heart,’ I say.

At last he listens to me. He spins around, anger animating his face. ‘I didn’t do anything. Nothing. If my father wants to believe their lies, instead of his own son, then he can break his own heart.’

I try to block out the bitterness. ‘Their lies – whose lies?’

‘Can’t you guess?’ A husk of a crab shell is lying on the beach, long since picked clean by the gulls. He pokes it with his toe. ‘Who accused me? Who benefits? If I’m gone, Fausta’s children will inherit the empire.’

‘Probably.’

He stamps on the crab shell, shattering its thin carapace. ‘Am I the only one who can see the truth staring him in the face? Can’t you recognise it? Don’t you care?’

I shrug. ‘What is truth, after all?’

Crispus drifts away from me. He wanders close to the water, flinching a little as the waves nibble his feet.

‘I loved him,’ he declares, speaking to the sea. ‘More than any son ever loved his father. I’d have died for him.’ He pauses, lets his breathing slow. ‘Now I suppose I will.’

I loosen the string that binds the leather bag and pull out the bottle. ‘Your father told me to give you this.’

There were tears in Constantine’s eyes then, and they’re here in mine now. Please, I beg silently, don’t make this any harder for me.

But it’s his life. He looks at the little bottle, doesn’t touch it.

‘Don’t make me do this.’

‘Do you think you could escape? That you wouldn’t be recognised? Your statue’s in every forum from York to Alexandria. You wouldn’t last a week.’

I step forward, press the vial into his fist and clasp my hand around it. Like a suitor trying to get his beloved to accept his token. Crispus tries to pull away, but I keep my grip tight. I only brought one bottle.

‘It’s an honourable death.’ The lie tastes like dirt in my mouth. Neither of us believes it. Maybe opening your veins because you’ve defended the republic and lost, a final victory over your enemies, is honourable. Drinking aconite on a deserted beach, merely for the convenience of your murderers, is rather different.

‘If I kill myself, I sin against God,’ says Crispus.

‘That’s God’s business.’

But he won’t accept it. The tired face turns up to me, taut with desperation.

‘You’re an old friend, Gaius. Are you going to take away my last consolation?’

‘I can’t.’

‘I don’t want to die a guilty man,’ he pleads. ‘Leave me my innocence. It’s all I’ve got now.’ I shake my head, but it doesn’t stop him. ‘Why do you think my father sent you, instead of some thug from the legions? He knew you’d do the right thing.’

Because he knew how hard it would be, I think. Because he couldn’t bear to be alone in his pain. He wanted to make someone else hurt as much as he did. To take the weight of his guilt.

With a sudden movement, Crispus pulls his hand free of my grip. I’m not expecting it; before I can react, he’s leapt away from me, arm poised to throw the poison into the sea.

I don’t move. ‘If you make me do this, you’re no better than your father.’

‘And if you force me to do it? What does that make you?’

We stand there for long moments, nothing between us except the light. More than ever before, I see his father as he was twenty years ago: tousled hair, handsome face, eyes brimming, even now, with life.

He holds out his arm to offer me the bottle. ‘You choose.’

I take it from him. With a sudden rush of purpose, I dash it onto the beach. It shatters, very loud in the still