Secrets of the Dead

‘Show me where the poem is here.’

Nikolic pointed to it. The whole page was dim and blurred, the letters dark shapes like twigs floating in muddy water. But she could see the place. A dark block of text, eight lines long.

She made a square with her forefingers and thumbs and framed the text between them. Keeping the shape, she lifted her hands against her collarbone.

Some scholars think they might even have been presented to the Emperor inscribed on gold tablets, with gemstones underneath the key letters.

‘There was a gold necklace,’ she said. Michael shot her a warning look – not in front of Nikolic – but she carried on regardless. ‘We found it with the scroll – a square pattern with the chi-rho in the middle. I think it would have fitted perfectly on top of the poem.’ She thought back, remembering the feel of the cold metal against her skin and the way the inset glass caught the light. ‘It had beads set into it. What if they show which letters you need to read to get the hidden message?’

Nikolic stared at her, as if he couldn’t decide whether to trust her or to dismiss her as a lunatic.

‘And where, please, is this necklace now?’

Abby shot Michael a what-do-we-have-to-lose look.

‘The British Secret Intelligence Service have it.’

XXXVI

Constantinople – May 337

THE DAY’S HOT, but the bath has left me chilled to the bone. A new idea grips me like a fever. Perhaps Symmachus was spinning lies in a last attempt to avoid exile, but I don’t think so.

Simeon, baffled that I was accusing him when the evidence was so obvious: Symmachus had the documents. I convinced myself the old man was set up. But what if he had the documents all along? He killed Alexander in the library, took his document case and found all Constantine’s dirty secrets locked inside it. No wonder he wanted to be rid of it.

I don’t care who killed Alexander any more. All I want to know is what Symmachus found out – and why he died for it.

Constantine wasn’t the first emperor to build his palace on the promontory. As ever, he demolished the past and rebuilt on its foundations, to a scale beyond his predecessors’ imaginations. When his engineers started excavating, they found a vast empty cistern underneath the site. Constantine himself came down to inspect it.

‘A shame to waste all this space,’ was his verdict. ‘Use it for the paperwork.’

And so it was allocated to the Scrinia Memoriae, the Chamber of Records. In a way, it’s appropriate it sits in the old cistern. It’s the run-off of the empire, the well of memory. And the records stacked on its winding shelves are so deep they’re unfathomable.

You enter the Chamber of Records through a reading room, seldom used, in the palace. An archivist sits at a desk, annotating a manuscript. I lean over and put Constantine’s commission under his nose.

‘There was a bishop called Alexander. He came here, probably often, researching a history for the Augustus.’

‘I remember him.’ He sucks the end of his reed pen. ‘He hasn’t been here in a couple of weeks.’

‘He died. I need to see the papers he was looking at.’

‘Do you know what they were?’

‘I was hoping you’d remember.’

His eyes flick back to the commission lying open on the desk. ‘Those papers have been stored, untouched, under the Augustus’s private seal for ten years. I had to check with the palace three times before I could believe the Bishop was really allowed access.’ He squints up at me: small, boring eyes. ‘You said he died?’

‘Just show them to me.’

He shuffles across to the high door, takes the large key off his neck and slots it in the lock. He snaps the key with a practised movement, like a farmwife wringing a chicken’s neck.

‘After you.’

It’s like entering a mine, or a dungeon. The shadows seem to stretch to infinity. The columns that support the roof rise every few yards, lifeless ranks of a petrified forest. Dusty shelves wall up the spaces between, lined with wicker baskets full of scrolled papers. You could believe that all the knowledge in the world was stored here somewhere – if you only knew where to look.

Each of the columns has a Greek letter and a Roman number chiselled into it. As long as we go straight, the letters change, but the numbers stay the same. When we turn, the numbers start to change, but the letter stays constant. The whole room is arranged as a giant grid. I start counting off the pillars we pass. XV / ?. XV / X. XV / ?. I try to remember the Greek alphabet in order, counting back so I can find my way out if I get lost.

XV / ?. The archivist stops. We’ve reached Omega, the last letter, though the corridor continues into still deeper darkness beyond. I wonder what comes after. He picks up a bronze lamp from a hollow cut into the column, and lights it from his own.

‘Is it safe, the fire?’ I wonder aloud. My voice sounds faint against the vast darkness.

‘What else can you do?’ He hands me the new lamp and turns. ‘Bring what you want back to the reading room.’

He retreats down the long corridor. The lamp trembles in my hand; for a second, I imagine dropping it in a basket of papyri and the wave of flame that would sweep the chamber clean. I tighten my grip.