setting Symmachus up to take the blame. The only real question is who?
Constantine’s still watching me. So is Symmachus. Is this my chance to save an innocent man? I’ve spent the last five days investigating this murder, but now that it’s come to this sudden trial I can’t think of anything to say. I don’t have any lines in this play they’re acting out. I’m a prop, a blunt instrument to be wielded by others. In that respect, I’m not much different to Symmachus.
The imperial gaze moves on. Symmachus looks away, his last hope gone. The disgust on his face condemns me.
Constantine stares down and says a single word.
‘
Exile. Symmachus will be stripped of his property, his citizenship, his family and his rights. Legally, he’ll cease to exist.
Symmachus closes his eyes. His whole body is trembling; the only thing keeping him upright must be pride. I remember what Porfyrius said about him.
‘What about the bag, Augustus?’ Eusebius asks.
‘Burn it.’
The guards lead Symmachus away. Constantine steps down off his throne and disappears through a door. The play’s over; they’ve no more use for me. No one tries to stop me going. As soon as I’m out of the room, I run down the palace corridors, following the tramp of the guards’ boots. I catch up with them in an anteroom near the north gate.
‘Have you come to celebrate your success?’ Symmachus’s voice is dead.
‘I had nothing to do with it.’
‘
‘I’m sorry.’
A grimace. He’s got so little left, even my sympathy counts for something.
‘Constantine’s a reasonable man,’ I persist. ‘In a few months, he’ll recall you.’
‘In a few months we’ll all be dead. Tell yourself anything else, it’s a lie. First they get rid of you; then they send the assassins.’
He wipes his forehead and gives me a look filled with hate.
‘You know how it goes.’
XXV
THEY LEFT CAMP Bondsteel and drove north, back up the highway towards Pristina. Abby was getting sick of the sight of it. Jessop had wanted Sanchez to come with them, but his commanding officer flat out refused. The best Jessop got out of him was a KFOR map, which Sanchez marked where he thought the tomb had been.
Rain sluiced over the windscreen; tarpaulined lorries veered and swayed uneasily in front of them. Abby fished a cigarette out of her pocket and fumbled under the dashboard for the cigarette lighter. All she found was an empty socket.
‘They call it a power socket these days,’ said Jessop, laughing at her. He took a plastic lighter out of his pocket and reached across to light the cigarette.
‘Thanks.’ Abby tapped the bulge in her pocket. ‘Want one?’
‘I quit.’
She glanced across and saw he was smiling. ‘So how come you still carry the lighter?’
‘In case of emergencies.’
Mitrovica was a shabby, low-rise town squeezed between two rivers. During the war it had seen some of the worst atrocities; even now it was a divided city. French soldiers guarded the bridges; minarets and bell towers contested the skyline. Abby had hoped to avoid it, but the main road was closed for repairs. They drove in across a causeway on a floodplain. Rusted cars littered the shoreline. Across the river a crumbling factory pumped out smoke and pollution.
While Abby drove, Jessop tapped away at his phone.
‘What sort of a spy are you?’ she mocked him. ‘Shouldn’t you at least look where we’re going?’
‘I’m reading about it. Apparently, the Romans were up here in a big way. Lead and silver mining. We’re only about eighty miles from Nis.’
‘Is that a good thing?’
‘It’s where the Emperor Constantine was born. Remember, I said the symbol on your necklace was his monogram?’
Abby slouched lower in her seat. She still hadn’t told Jessop about the scroll in Trier. She had Gruber’s translation in her pocket, a hard wad, but somehow, the moment had passed.
‘So – what? Do you think this was Constantine’s tomb?’
More taps on the phone. ‘It says here Constantine was buried in Istanbul. The Church of the Holy Apostles, if you’re interested.’ He put the phone down in defeat. ‘I don’t know.’
