‘I’m waiting for someone to enlighten me.’
‘One of our brothers in Christ was beaten to death with a statue of the philosopher Hierocles,’ Eusebius explains for the benefit of the others. ‘A notorious persecutor was sitting just behind him. The Emperor has ordered Gaius Valerius Maximus to find the killer.’
The knot of men around him nod seriously. They’re strange company for a bishop to keep: the Prefect of Constantinople; the Prefect of Provisions who oversees the bread ration; two generals whose faces are more familiar than their names; and Flavius Ursus, Marshal of the Army. Nothing in his face acknowledges the conversation we had yesterday.
Eusebius glides away to talk with a pair of senators who’ve accosted him. He seems to know everyone here. I spend a few more minutes with Ursus and the generals, discussing arrangements for the Persian campaign, its prospects, whether they can reach Ctesiphon by autumn.
But something’s different. These are men at the peak of their powers – they should be brimming with confidence. Instead, they seem stiff and tentative. Even as they’re speaking to me, their eyes dart around the hall. At first, I assume they’re merely bored. But they’re not looking for someone to speak to: they’re watching everything. Who brushes whose arm. Who smiles, frowns, nods. Who makes a joke and who laughs.
The most powerful men in the empire, and they’re rigid with fear. The Emperor’s a colossus: if he falls, the carnage will be bloody and indiscriminate.
The crowd’s thinning. People are slipping away, making excuses. It never used to be like this. I carry on towards the front of the room, but Constantine seems to have left already, unheralded and alone.
I think I’ll do the same. I don’t know why Constantine invited me here, but it’s been a wasted evening. I turn to go and find my way blocked by a palace eunuch. He doesn’t say anything, but beckons me towards a side door artfully hidden behind a pillar. Two dozen jealous pairs of eyes watch me go, and note it.
After the smoke, scent and heat of the hall, the night air cleanses me. The eunuch leads me across an empty courtyard, through an arch and along an arcade to a door. Lamps burn in brackets on the walls; guards from the Schola stand erect, wraithlike in their white uniforms. The eunuch knocks, hears something inaudible to me, and gestures me to go in.
Of course, I’m expecting Constantine. Instead, sitting in a wicker chair with a blanket around her shoulders like an old woman, is his sister Constantiana. It must be some sort of dressing room: there are clothes strewn over the furniture, a pair of red shoes kicked into the corner. Two slave girls kneel beside her, stripping back the layers of paste and powder on her face like workmen restoring a statue.
‘I hear you have a new commission from the Augustus,’ she says without preamble. Always ‘the Augustus’, never ‘Constantine’ or ‘my brother’. ‘I didn’t think he had any use for you any more.’
She stares into a silver mirror on her dressing table without looking at me. Technically, she’s Constantine’s half-sister, though there’s less than half a resemblance. Her face is a long oval and flat; she used to be considered beautiful, in the featureless way some men like. She wears her hair in intricate braids, piled up on her head and wrapped around an ivory headband. The style’s too youthful for a woman her age.
I don’t think her comment wants an answer, so I don’t offer one.
‘I’m told the Augustus has you investigating murders now,’ she continues. ‘It must make a change from committing them.’
I bow and focus my eyes on a painting on the wall behind her. Three Graces: Splendour, Happiness and Good Cheer. A forlorn hope, in this room.
‘I obey the Augustus in all things. Always.’
Scraping off the cosmetics, one of the slave girls presses too hard. Constantiana winces; a spot of red appears on her bleached cheek. Without turning, she reaches across and plants an expert slap on the girl’s face.
‘I saw you at church with Eusebius of Nicomedia yesterday,’ I say.
No reaction. Why should she justify herself to me?
‘He had a lot to gain from Bishop Alexander’s death,’ I add.
‘He has a lot to gain whatever happens. He’s an exceptional man and he has a bright future.’
‘Unless he’s accused of murder.’
‘You wouldn’t dare.’
I think of the guards on the door. If I learned something she didn’t like, would I leave alive?
‘Constantine asked me to find the truth – however unlikely.’
I examine the three Graces again. The artist who painted them made some curious choices. Splendour is an elderly woman with long, silver hair and a face that looks as if a smile would break it. Happiness looks remarkably like the woman in front of me, a younger incarnation, whose proud eyes say that her greatest happiness is herself. Good Cheer is the only grace who resembles her eponym – but her face has been altered, inexpertly, so that her head’s out of line with her body. As if her neck’s been broken.
Constantiana catches my attention wandering. ‘Are you listening to me?’
‘Forgive me,’ I apologise. ‘I was remembering your wedding.’
The declaration they issue begins like this:
Constantine and Licinius – the last two emperors. Licinius, a peasant-soldier with a homely face and a depraved imagination, has succeeded Galerius in the East, while Constantine now rules the West unopposed. They come to Milan, six months after Constantine’s victory at the Milvian Bridge, to divide the world between them. To cement the partnership, Licinius is marrying Constantine’s sister Constantiana. No one mentions that the last person to make a marriage alliance with Constantine’s family is now a headless corpse at the bottom of the Tiber. It’s a
