I make a show of examining the plans. ‘It’s an interesting choice of decoration.’
His face – usually so animated – is very still. ‘Everybody has Constantine’s monogram on their tombs these days. I wanted something different – but still to proclaim my faith. I remembered it from the necklace you showed me. And a way to remember my old friend Alexander.’
He rolls up the plans and slots them into a rack on the wall. ‘Thank you for coming.’
I’m about to go when shouts intrude from the street, piercing through a high window in the back wall. It sounds like a riot. A moment later a slave runs in, flustered and jabbering.
‘They’re saying the Augustus is dead.’
Porfyrius takes the news calmly. He doesn’t look any more surprised than I do.
‘Things are going to start changing.’
‘Be careful,’ I remind him. ‘It would be a shame to need your tomb before it’s ready.’
The next day, Constantine’s body is laid out in the great hall of the palace. The line of mourners stretches a full mile down the main avenue, under the shadow of Constantine’s column. Senators queue with tavern-keepers, actresses with priests – every face a fragment in a mosaic of united grief. It’s moving: they genuinely loved their Augustus, I think. He built their city. He kept the granaries full, the markets stocked and the barbarians back beyond the frontiers. He let them worship in temples or churches as they chose, whichever gods spoke to them. And now the world trembles.
The queue passes not far from my house: I can hear them through my windows, sitting in my garden or lying on my bed through the hot nights. For two days, I lock myself in and wait for the crowds to subside. On the third day, I can’t resist any longer. I put on my toga, brush my hair and join the mourners. It takes hours to inch my way up the avenue, through the Augusteum, where the statues of deified emperors wait to greet their new companion. Long before I get there, my legs ache and my back feels as though hot coals have been poured inside it. My body’s drenched with sweat. More than once I’m within an inch of breaking away and running back home. Even when I reach the palace gate, it’s still another two hours’ wait.
At last I’m there. There must be two thousand people in the hall, but they hardly make a sound. They shuffle slowly in a long loop. At the side of the hall, there’s a space where people have left offerings: amulets and pieces of jewellery, coins and medallions, pieces of tile or stone with prayers scratched on to them. A lot show the X-P monogram. Are they funeral offerings – or offerings to a god?
The last few yards are the slowest of all. The heat in the hall, all those bodies on a hot summer evening, numbs me: I have to fight against it. This is the last time I’ll see him. I want to hold the moment.
The line inches forward. And suddenly, there he is, lying in state on a golden bier atop a three-stepped plinth. Cypress boughs deck the floor around him; braziers smoke with incense and candles flicker on golden stands. The white robes he had on for his baptism are gone, banished by the full imperial regalia. The purple robe trimmed with jewels and gold, that used to rattle like armour when he walked; the gold diadem set with pearls; the red boots with toecaps buffed smooth where men have knelt to kiss them. The shroud underneath him is emblazoned with his monogram, but woven all around it are scenes from legend. And above it all, the golden
I stare into his face. The embalmed skin is grey and artificial; somehow the undertakers seem to have subtly altered his face, so that he doesn’t quite resemble the man he was. The man I loved to destruction; the man whose dying wish I couldn’t grant.
A fly buzzes down and lands on Constantine’s nose. A slave sitting on a stool beside the bier flaps an ostrich feather to shoo it away. It draws my eye, changes my focus. Suddenly, I see the corpse for what it really is.
It’s a waxwork.
The tears that were beading in my eye are gone. I feel a fool. Of course, they wouldn’t lay out the real corpse. He died a month ago: even the best undertaker would struggle to keep him looking fresh. And in this heat … Now that I see, I’m embarrassed I was ever taken in. The sun’s softened one of the cheeks, making it subside as if he had a stroke. The wig they’ve used for the hair is slightly crooked.
This is how he is now. The man who lived and breathed – the man I knew – is gone. All people will remember now is a statue.
The crowd swells behind me, nudging me on. I whisper a prayer for Constantine – my friend, not this bloodless effigy – and let others take my place. I’m desperate to be outside. I hurry to the door, towards the long arcade that leads out of the city. Mourners mill around, talking quietly; the palace officials are distributing hot food to those who’ve been waiting.
But through the crowd, there’s something else. A flash, an intuition, the weight of a gaze. Someone’s watching me.
Our eyes meet. He turns away, pretending he hasn’t seen me. But I’m not going to let him escape. I push through the crowd. They squeeze tighter as I approach the gate – I almost lose sight of him – but then I’m through and there’s space to move. He’s hobbling without a stick, a hunched figure in a blue cloak, the hood pulled up despite the heat. It takes me twenty paces to catch him. He knows he can’t beat me. He hears me coming, stops and turns.
The hood slides back. It’s Asterius the Sophist.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Paying my respects to the Augustus.’ It’s getting dark; the crevices of his face are black as ink, etching each bitter line. ‘He was the greatest Christian since Christ.’
‘It must be hard for you, now that it’s over.’
‘For you, it’s over. For us, this is just the beginning.’
Urgency overwhelms me. ‘Tell me about Symmachus. Tell me about Alexander.’
‘They’re all dead.’
‘Then tell me about Eusebius. What happened in that dungeon, during the persecutions? Did it hurt, taking the blame for his betrayal? Watching him rise through the ranks of your religion, the Emperor’s favourite, while you were forbidden from setting foot in a church?’
