Secrets of the Dead

I work my way along the aisle. Every time my shoulder brushes one of the baskets, rivulets of dust trickle down from the shelves over me. Here, all the baskets have lids, each tied shut with a ribbon and the knot sealed with wax. Most of the seals have started to crumble – but one, I notice, is supple and glossy, the imprint still sharp. A dark stain next to it shows where a previous seal sat. A clay tag tied on with twine labels it as diplomatic correspondence from the twentieth year of Constantine’s reign.

I check the rest of the aisle and find five baskets whose seals have been removed and replaced. All of them date from year twenty or the year before.

I know what happened that year, the vicennalia year. I lift down the first basket and set it on the floor next to the lamp. There’s no point taking it back to the reading room. Once I leave this dark labyrinth, I know I’ll never come back.

I sit on the floor and start to read. Alexander’s handiwork is evident on almost every page. Some of it’s been done subtly, a whole column excised and the remainder pasted together, so that the only telltale is a faint ridge in the papyrus; other interventions are more obvious. Paragraphs, sentences, sometimes individual words have been cut out of the text, so that when I hold the scroll up to the light it’s riddled with holes, as though a worm’s been through it.

But I can fill in the blanks.

Aquileia, Italy – April 326 – Eleven years ago …

Everything starts to go wrong from the moment we reach Aquileia.

It should be a joyful moment, springtime in the empire. We’re travelling to Rome, where Constantine’s vicennalia celebrations will culminate. Everybody understands that it’s more than just a celebration of his rule. The last emperor to achieve twenty years’ reign was Diocletian, who marked the occasion by announcing his retirement and promoting his successors. Constantine’s older now than his father was when he died; Crispus is in his prime. Constantine hasn’t said anything, even to me, but I was there in Nicaea. We’ll remake the empire in God’s image. One God, one emperor, one peace – and he’s been as good as his word. Since Chrysopolis, his armies have been confined to their barracks.

Crispus has come to Aquileia to join us for the final stages to Rome. Black clouds have been massing all day: the storm breaks just as we arrive at the outskirts. The driving rain tears away the flowers that garland the tombs along the road and soak the waiting dignitaries. Crispus, who arrived two days earlier, has come out to meet us: he tries to deliver his prepared speech, but thunder drowns his words.

‘Just shut up and stop blocking the road!’ Constantine barks at him, loud enough that the watching audience can hear. Crispus flushes crimson. By the time we reach the palace, the baggage is sodden and tempers are short.

‘What sort of son keeps his father standing out in the cold?’ says Fausta, wrapped in a heavy fur mantle. In the dim light she prowls around the room like a wolf in its cave. ‘And at your age. Poor Claudius’ – her eldest son – ‘hasn’t stopped sneezing since we arrived. His tutor says he might have a fever.’

‘Then perhaps I’ll send him to Britain,’ snaps Constantine. ‘A winter in York would get him used to being wet.’

‘Just like it did for your father.’

Constantine crosses the floor so fast I think he’ll knock her into the next room. He puts up his arms, as if he’s going to grab her cloak and lift her off her feet. Fausta just smirks at him, a cruel pleasure in her eyes. She’s got a reaction. At her age, it’s the most she can hope for.

Constantine’s hands stop a hair’s breadth from her cloak. Perhaps he can’t bear to touch her. Perhaps he doesn’t dare. Fausta is the daughter, brother and wife of emperors: she’s a woman who carries an aura about her, like Constantine. But while Constantine’s is golden, hers is cancerous black.

Constantine turns abruptly. ‘Don’t blame me if your snivelling son can’t stand the damp!’ he shouts back at her as he storms out of the room.

The smirk vanishes.

‘Our son!’ she screams. ‘My boys are your sons, just as much as Crispus.’

‘At least Crispus doesn’t melt in the rain.’

Fausta stares after him, blazing. She’s been like this ever since we left Constantinople, a burr under the saddle. Nothing is ever good enough. The beds are too hard, the wine too sour, the slaves too insolent.

It’s obvious why. If Constantine proclaims Crispus Augustus when we get to Rome, her own sons will be out of the running. She’s spent twenty years married to the man who killed her father and her brother, in the expectation that one day she’ll be mother to a dynasty. She’s thirty-five and carried five children: it takes four oxen to pull the cart with all her creams and cosmetics, but they can’t disguise the extra weight she’s carrying, or the lines starting to crease her face. She and Constantine almost never sleep in the same room any more. In a rare moment of pity, I think: she’s losing everything.

I’m still there in the room. Fausta’s blocking the door; there’s no discreet way to slip out. She hears me move and snaps around.

‘His faithful hunting dog. Run along and go and lick his arse.’

I wake in the depths of the night and don’t know where I am. There have been so many new beds and new rooms on this trip that it’s become almost routine. The room spins slowly around me until it comes to rest in its proper orientation. The door, the window, the dagger under my pillow. It’s shared my bed since I was nine years old, more constant than any lover.

And a slave standing over me, tugging my sleeve. I didn’t hear him come in. Palace slaves move like cats in the dark. Or perhaps I’m getting old.

‘What is it?’

‘The Augustus.’

I’m out of bed in a trice, pulling on my old military cloak, hurrying after the slave. In the corridor outside my room, all the lamps are lit. Men from the Schola guard every door.

‘What’s happened?’