until the moment it killed you.
She picked up the stool, held it by the legs and swung it against the window. Almost at once, an alarm went off – she hadn’t thought of that. The door rattled as someone tried the handle, then shuddered as they started banging.
The window was still intact. And her shoulder hurt like hell from the impact.
She stared at the stool impotently. It felt like a toothpick in her hand. The banging on the door had turned into an all-out onslaught. More than one person, it sounded like. The dinky bolt wouldn’t hold more than a few seconds.
Even Michael must have been able to hear. ‘Throw me the card!’ he said again.
She fished out the memory card from inside her bra, snaked her wrist through the opening in the window and threw. For a heartstopping moment she thought she hadn’t thrown hard enough, that it would skip down the roof and lodge in the guttering. It just dropped clear. Michael stretched and caught it one-handed. He raised his arm – half a salute, half a farewell.
The bolt snapped; the door crashed open. The man in the black fleece strode in and grabbed her arms, while Mark watched from the corridor and the shopowner screamed complaints from the stairwell.
Abby took a last glance out the window, but the courtyard was empty.
XL
THE WORLD CHANGED two hours ago. Flavius Ursus, Flavius the Bear, Flavius the son-of-a-barbarian who is now the commander of the armies, came out of Constantine’s room to confirm the news everyone expected. The Augustus is dead. The body has been sent to the cellars, the coolest place, while the undertakers do their work. There aren’t many men alive who can remember the last time an Augustus died a natural death. It’s like waking up one morning and discovering that the sun hasn’t risen. What do you do?
I know what I want to do: run to the stables, commandeer the fastest horse I can find and keep riding until I reach my villa in the Balkans. But that would be impossible – and unwise. The army have locked down the whole estate. Guards are watching every door and window. Anyone who moves too quickly; anyone who looks too happy, or too ostentatiously sad; anyone who tries to leave: all suspect.
In the febrile heat of the villa, rumours breed and swarm like flies. Constantine was sixty-five years old, but until ten days ago he seemed in good health. Perhaps, after all, his death wasn’t natural.
A door swings open. Flavius Ursus walks in. He’s a busy man today.
‘I thought I’d find you here,’ he says.
‘If there’s anything I can do –’
‘Wait there. We may need you to smooth things over with the old guard.’
He leaves me and goes into the great hall, where the army’s high command have gathered. Notwithstanding what Constantine wrote in his will, these are the men who’ll decide the inheritance. For generations, the empire’s practised a savage sort of meritocracy where any man who’s bold and ruthless enough can rise to the top of the army. From there, he’s within striking distance of the throne. Diocletian was commander of the imperial bodyguard until the man he was guarding unaccountably took a dagger in the back; far from harming his career, it put Diocletian on the throne. Constantine’s own father had risen from a humble legionary to become Diocletian’s chief of staff, when Diocletian picked him to be his successor.
I remember something Constantiana said, that night in the palace.
A vision comes to me: the empire as a walled town built on the back of a ravenous beast. Constantine cut off so many of its heads and tamed it; he chained it down in pasture and made it eat grass. But now that he’s gone, other heads will grow back. Slowly at first, testing their teeth and claws, rediscovering their old power. It won’t take long. They’ll start with murders and end in war.
High clouds cover the sky, as if the sun itself is veiled in mourning. There aren’t words to describe how I feel. Not wretched, not angry, just – empty.
My thoughts turn back to another palace, and the aftermath of another death.
By the time I get back from Pula, the court has left Aquileia and hurried on to Milan. I join them there – I have to make my report – though I’d rather be anywhere else. The weight of my guilt is like a millstone suffocating the life out of me. I don’t eat; I barely speak. It takes me hours to get to sleep at night, only to wake up screaming from my bloody dreams. And it’s about to get worse.
For the first time in my life, Constantine keeps me waiting. I pace in a mournful room, high above the main courtyard. A piece of plaster falls off the ceiling and lands in my hair. Half the rooms in the palace are unusable; most of the rest are covered in sheeting, hiding damage or pictures that might upset the imperial eye. The whole building is rotten with history. It was built by old Maximian, an overblown outgrowth of his twisted mind. This is where Constantine came to meet with Licinius –
So many people, so many memories – and not one that doesn’t end in blood.
‘The Augusta wants to see you.’ I almost jump with fright: the slave seems to have materialised out of the dust in the air. He keeps his eyes down – does he know what I’ve done? Has he heard? He leads me through endless connections of empty rooms, down a broad staircase with no windows, and into another wing of the palace. The air moistens: we must be near the bath complex.
They’re all waiting for me in a square room with blood-red walls: Constantine, a ghost of himself; Fausta, her proud face livid with anger; the Dowager Empress Helena, Constantine’s mother, her eyes hooded and her mouth
