Secrets of the Dead

study I can hear people wandering through the streets, wailing and crying as if they’ve lost their own children. It’s been going on for two weeks, though tonight it will be over. By then, Constantine’s body will have been laid in the great porphyry sarcophagus that’s waiting for him in his mausoleum, taking his place among the twelve apostles of Christ. What they’ll say when they find out who their new companion in eternity is, I can’t imagine.

Today it ends. I’m sitting here in my white toga, my hair washed and my boots polished, dressed for the funeral. Constantius, Constantine’s second son, has made it back from Antioch. With the speed he arrived, they’re probably eating horsemeat all the way across Asia Minor. The dissent that worried Flavius Ursus hasn’t crystallised into any public demonstration. I’d like to think I’ve played my part, but mostly I think it’s because there’s no alternative.

It doesn’t matter. Today, I’ll process behind the coffin like a captive barbarian. Tomorrow morning, if Ursus keeps his bargain, I’ll be on a wagon heading home to Moesia.

I’ve almost reached the end of my scroll – the one I began two months ago at the library. I read down the list of names I made that day: Eusebius of Nicomedia, Aurelius Symmachus, Asterius the Sophist, Porfyrius. Any one of them might have killed Alexander, or ordered it, though in the balance of everything else they’ve done I suppose it would barely twitch the scales.

In this city, not all murders are crimes. And not all criminals are guilty.

In the last few inches of papyrus, I copy out the poem I found in the Chamber of Records. Perhaps it has nothing to do with Alexander’s death, but its elusive meaning haunts me.

To reach the living, navigate the dead …

I’ve been navigating the dead these last ten years, eyes downcast, trying not to see the ghosts that surround me. I haven’t reached the living.

But copying out the poem, I notice something new. Every line is the same length – not almost or approximately, but exactly – and the eight lines are spaced so that the whole text forms a perfect square block.

I don’t know why I didn’t notice it before. I puzzle over it, wondering what it means. Whoever wrote it certainly took great care to make it so. Just writing the lines to be the same length must have needed an immense creative effort.

I stare at it. One moment I don’t see it, the next moment it’s there, as if a god had whispered it in my ear. I run over to my drawer and pull out the necklace they found in the library by Alexander’s body. A golden square, with the monogram in the centre. So similar to Constantine’s, but subtly different.

I lay it over the poem on the piece of paper I found in the Scrinia Memoriae. It fits perfectly – the square of text and the square of gold, exactly the same size.

Porfyrius was a poet. When I asked him why he was exiled, he told me, ‘a poem and a mistake’.

Porfyrius had the same unusual monogram on the design for his tomb.

Porfyrius was in the library that day.

The toga’s a stately garment, not made for running. Several times, it threatens to trip me up; once, it almost unravels completely. It’s hard pushing my way through the crowds that have already gathered to watch the funeral. It’s going to be the greatest piece of theatre in the whole brief history of the city. The few hundred yards to Porfyrius’s villa take almost half an hour. At the palace, the procession will already be forming up.

Porfyrius has gone. He hasn’t even bothered to lock the door – perhaps he isn’t expecting to come back. A neglected silence hangs over the house, as though its owner died unexpectedly and hasn’t been found yet. The whole house is empty, not even a single slave, though nothing’s been packed or put away. The long table that I saw before is still standing in the atrium, stacked with plates and bowls ready for serving.

I go to his study and rummage on the shelves for the plans to his mausoleum. It would be a shame to need your tomb before it’s ready. I unroll them on the desk. The word Roma is scribbled on the top left-hand corner – presumably he wants to be buried in Rome. I doubt he’ll get there.

There are three drawings. The first shows the front, with its strange labarum-like monogram filling the pediment. The second illustrates the paintings intended for the wall. The third shows the niche at the back of the tomb where the remains will be buried. A stone plaque’s been drawn on the wall, and written on it – clearly, so the masons make no mistake – are two lines of poetry.

To reach the living navigate the dead,

Beyond the shadow burns the sun.

The story’s clear enough. Porfyrius found out that Alexander had uncovered his poem and attacked him in the library. In the struggle, Alexander ripped the gold necklace off Porfyrius: it slid under the bookshelf, and Porfyrius didn’t have time to retrieve it. Perhaps Symmachus was there, too. That would explain how he ended up with Alexander’s document case. He kept it, but then he got cold feet. He tried to arrange to hand it back, but did it so clumsily he got caught instead.

So why was Porfyrius concerned about the poem? Was he worried about the allusions to Crispus? It hardly seems worth killing a man for. But Porfyrius had been exiled once before: he might well have had a horror of suffering it again.

I take out the poem and align it with the necklace, hoping I’ll see something I missed before.

There are five red beads set into the gold, making the points and centre of a cross. Through the glass you can see fragments of words underneath. I press my thumbnail into the papyrus to underline them, then lift the necklace away to see what I’ve found.

SIGNUM INVICTUS SEPELIVIT SUB SEPULCHRO. The unconquered man hid the sign under his tomb.

I don’t know what it means, but I need to get to the funeral.

The procession will have set out by now. If Flavius Ursus is watching, he’ll have noticed I haven’t taken my place, perhaps mentioned it to one of his assistants. It’s too late for me. But from the palace to the mausoleum is almost two miles: it’ll take at least an hour to get there. I duck down a side alley, away from the ceremonial route, and join a wide and empty boulevard heading west. In the distance I can hear the shouts of the crowds, a roar like