evening air. The aconite leaches into the stones.
‘Thank you.’
The gratitude on his face is too painful to bear. I reach into my tunic and take out the dagger strapped inside. Crispus laughs, though it’s a small and lonely sound.
‘Always ready for anything, Gaius Valerius.’
I can’t look at his face. ‘Turn around,’ I order him.
He obeys, staring at the western horizon, eye to eye with the setting sun. The last of the daylight burns up his face, as if his translation to the next world has already begun. For a moment, the whole beach is aglow. Every pore in my body is open to the world, every sound and scent magnified a thousandfold. The splash of fish rising to the surface; a cock crowing in a distant field; the warm smell of pine. Perhaps this is how it feels to be in love.
The knife goes through his back and straight into his heart. The horizon swallows the sun; the world goes grey. Crispus drops into the surf without a sound. The incoming waves pick up pebbles and fling them against his corpse. Foaming water streams down the beach like tears.
There are tears on my face again. The memory’s been buried deep inside me for ten years. Yet at the same time, it feels as if I’ve never escaped that beach. The empty plinths, the defaced monuments, the deleted inscriptions: every one of them shouted my guilt. So many times I’ve wished I’d pulled the knife out of Crispus and turned it on myself that day, or licked the spilled poison off the stones until I’d tasted enough to kill me.
Crispus got his last wish: he died an innocent man. Constantine, for all the terrible burden he had to bear, never had to confront the reality of his decision. He’s devoted his last ten years to erasing every trace of it. The burden of the crime’s been left to me.
Perhaps that’s why he wants to see me now.
I get to my feet. Pain cramps my old joints – too much riding – but I hobble across to the bronze door.
‘Can I see him?’
The sentry doesn’t move. ‘I’ve had no orders.’
‘He asked to see me. He called me here from Constantinople.’ I’m desperate; I don’t know how long I’ve got.
There’s a noise on the other side of the door. Suddenly, it swings open. A flock of priests emerge, swarming around the gold-robed figure in their midst. For a second, I think it might be Constantine.
It’s Eusebius. Whatever tragedies are unfolding in this house, they haven’t touched him. His face is tipped back in triumph, a beatific smile stretching his fat cheeks. His gaze sweeps imperiously around the room – and stops on me.
‘Gaius Valerius
The room’s far too big, a dining hall that’s been cleared of all its couches except one. I don’t understand why they’ve put him here. The solitary couch stands in the centre of the room, draped with white sheets, an island adrift in a vast ocean of space. Constantine is lying back, his eyes closed, his mouth slightly open. The colour’s drained from his face, leaving only a sallow hint of the old vitality. The only other furniture is a gold basin filled with water, on a wooden plinth beside the bed. Ripples shimmer the surface as I walk by.
My heart races. Am I too late? ‘Augustus,’ I call out. ‘Constantine. It’s Gaius.’
The eyes flick open. ‘I told them to send for you. I’ve been counting the hours.’
‘They wouldn’t let me in.’
That stirs him. He tries to prop himself up, but his arms are so feeble they won’t hold him. ‘Doesn’t my word carry weight any more? In my own house?’
‘Why did they leave you unattended?’
‘So I could prepare myself. Eusebius is going to baptise me.’
He sees the look on my face, something between disgust and anguish.
‘It’s time, Gaius. I’ve put it off long enough. I’ve spent my whole life trying to compass the breadth of this empire, to be a ruler for all my people, whatever god they might worship. I’ve never preached to them – or to you.’
He’s misread me. I don’t care about some arcane piece of Christian mystery, if it’ll make him comfortable on the way out of this life. I hate the fact that here, on his deathbed, Eusebius has a claim on him.
The eyes close again. ‘I wish my son was here.’
I go cold. Perhaps I knew this was coming. Perhaps, sitting in the anteroom, I was sharing Constantine’s fevered dreams.
Deliberately, I misinterpret him. ‘Constantius will be here soon from Antioch. And Claudius and Constans will come as fast as they can.’ Too late, I imagine. The last I heard, Claudius, the eldest of Fausta’s sons, was in Trier, ruling from Crispus’s old palace. Constans, the youngest, is in Milan.
‘They’re good boys.’ Perhaps it’s his sickness, but there’s not a lot of conviction in the words. ‘They’ll protect the empire.’
They’re Fausta’s sons, grandsons of the old warhorse Maximian. Scheming, murder and usurpation is their birthright. I give it three years before there’s open war.
‘And you’ll make sure my daughters are protected?’
‘I’ll do what I can.’ Even in the height of the moment, there’s a voice at the back of my mind thinking clearly. When Constantine goes, I won’t be in a position to guarantee anybody’s safety – least of all my own. I’m a relic of a
