Secrets of the Dead

I rub my eyes; I’m too tired to be having this discussion now. The black sky above is softening to an imperial purple.

But Constantine’s waiting for an answer. ‘To avoid bad fortune?’

‘Exactly.’ It’s what he wanted me to say. ‘But perhaps we should expect more from our gods. They’re gods, after all.’

‘They’re jealous, adulterous, murderous – parricidal, fratricidal, infanticidal – and have a strange taste for bestiality.’

‘Old gods.’ He dismisses them the same way we dismiss old men. ‘You know there was a Greek philosopher, I’ve forgotten his name, who said the old gods were just stories – real men, whose legends got exaggerated over generations until we thought they must have been gods.’

I touch the iron amulet I wear around my neck, my lucky charm to ward off evil.

‘For the last fifty years our rulers behaved like those old gods and almost lost the empire. We need to look beyond. A higher god.’

‘Change begins at the top.’

‘The old gods are lords of darkness. We ought to worship a god of light. A single god for a single world.’ He plucks a berry from the holly tree and squeezes it between his fingers. It looks as though he’s pricked himself. ‘The light came into the world and the darkness could not comprehend it.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Something I heard in the mess.’ He sounds far away. ‘Wherever you are in the empire, you look up and you see the sun and know that he’s with you. Warming your back, ripening your crops, lighting your way. Even in the dead of winter, it returns. Unconquerable light.’

He turns to the east, arms outstretched. A dull glow glimmers on the horizon. But for the moment, the sun stays down, and the world’s in darkness.

I wonder why I have this memory. Not because it mattered later. It doesn’t say so in Alexander’s Chronicon, but historians who are free to write after he’s gone will record that Constantine’s contribution to the defence of the empire was to weaken its borders. He pulled the field army back and concentrated it deep in the empire, leaving auxiliaries and local levies to patrol the frontiers. As the frontier populations mingle freely, half the people they were supposed to keep out were their own relations.

Like letting the hull of the boat rot, and hoping you’ve got enough buckets to bail you out, said a friend who worked in Levantine shipping.

But the memory persists. Constantine, waiting for the dawn with dewy eyes, determined to find something better over the horizon and convinced he’ll get there.

I blink. Someone’s coming up the street towards me, a stout old man with the hood of his cloak raised against the evening breeze. He sees me, pauses, pulls back the hood to reveal white hair tufted around a bald scalp. It’s Aurelius Symmachus.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Walking.’ His eyes go over me. ‘More than you’re doing.’

‘I’m waiting for someone.’

‘And still waiting to find out who killed Bishop Alexander? The Augustus will be getting impatient.’

I’m only half listening to him, wondering why he’s here. Is he the man I’m supposed to meet? He’s certainly not acting as if he expected to run into me.

‘Have you spoken with the Christians?’ he demands.

‘They suggested I speak to you. Your friend Porfyrius, in particular, had some very interesting stories about the persecutions.’

Symmachus rolls his eyes. ‘There’s nothing a Christian loves better than telling you about his own past misdeeds. It lets him think he’s improved himself.’

I don’t disagree – but I’m surprised to hear him say it. ‘I thought Porfyrius was your friend.’

‘He was my guest. When you get to my age, you don’t bother with the fictions of friendship.’

Again, I don’t disagree.

‘Do you know what I believe in?’ Symmachus asks unprompted. ‘Rome. Diocletian didn’t persecute the Christians out of spite. He wanted to heal the empire – to end the divisions that had ruined so many emperors and let in the barbarians. He thought if he could unite Rome under a common faith, he’d save the empire. Constantine has the same agenda and a different god. That’s all.’

Again, I remember that winter’s morning with Constantine.

‘Constantine believes in a unifying god,’ I agree. ‘But he doesn’t try to compel piety with hot irons and the rack.’

‘I suppose you think that makes him more devout.’

He swings his stick and hobbles away, surprisingly fast. Six paces on, he turns back.

‘Think about Alexander,’ he warns me. ‘Whatever they say about love and peace, every religion needs its blood sacrifice.’

Ten paces more and he’s vanished. In all the time we’ve been talking, I’ve been watching the statue behind him for anyone loitering there. Now I can hardly see it: night’s falling fast.

But not so fast that I miss him. A tall, thin figure – not much more than a shadow among shadows – strides out of the gloom to the statue. He pauses, bends as if to fix the strap of his sandal, then walks on.