I take two steps towards the bust that’s caught my eye, but Symmachus’s voice outpaces me.
‘Hierocles.’
Does he sound surprised? Was he expecting me to notice?
‘Do you read him?’ he asks. ‘You should. He was no friend of new religions. Nor are you, I hear.’
I murmur Constantine’s old platitude, ‘Every man should be free to worship in the way that seems best to him.’
‘Perhaps that’s why you fell out with the Emperor,’ he taunts me. I don’t rise to the provocation. He must know it’s not true, but he carries on regardless. ‘They say you’re not seen at the palace as often as you were.’
I turn politely. ‘There was a bust of Hierocles in the library. Someone used it to smash Bishop Alexander’s skull.’
Another pause. Our eyes lock.
‘Has Constantine made you his stationarius now? A thief-taker dragging good men into the gutter?’ His tone is even, but his craggy face is alight with rage. ‘The penalty for bringing unsubstantiated charges is steep, Gaius Valerius. Even with the Emperor behind you, I doubt you could afford it.’
‘Everyone knows your attitude to the Christians.’ At the far end of the garden, beside the door, I can see the small shrine of the lararium, where he venerates his household gods. They’re not so fashionable these days, I hear. Lots of families have moved them out of sight, into a back room where they can be safely ignored.
‘Every man should be free to worship in the way that seems best.’ He spits the words back at me, bobbing up and down. I watch him carefully. The anger’s too real to be manufactured – at my age, I can tell the difference – but that doesn’t mean he can’t control it.
‘Free to worship – as long as it’s for the public good.’
He bangs his stick on the ground. ‘If you want to accuse me of murder, say so. Say it, or get out of my house.’
But at that moment, a new actor enters our drama through the door by the lararium. He must be even older than me, but he has an air – a boyish grace, a carelessness – which makes him seem younger. His face is still handsome, his hair still dark, his smile still easy. He’s munching on a fig, and he throws the peel into the fishpond as he passes. It’s the first time I’ve seen the fish move.
Symmachus forces himself to swallow his anger.
‘Gaius Valerius,’ he introduces me. ‘This is my friend Publilius Optatianus Porfyrius.’
The name catches me by surprise: it’s not the first time I’ve heard it today. It’s on my scroll of paper.
‘Were you in the Egyptian Library today?’
I try to phrase it blandly, but he’s attuned enough to catch the undertone of suspicion. He gives me a curious look. ‘Is it a crime?’
‘A man was murdered there,’ says Symmachus. Is there weight in the glance that accompanies the words, a warning? Porfyrius doesn’t seem to notice. He laughs, as if the old man’s made a joke.
He sees that neither of us has joined in and his laugh trails off. He looks between us.
‘But I was there myself,’ he exclaims, redundantly. ‘I didn’t hear anything.’
‘What were you doing?’
‘I’d gone to meet Alexander of Cyrene.’
I wait for him to notice the look I’m giving him. I wait for the penny to drop. It doesn’t take long.
‘No.’
Porfyrius looks stunned. He recoils, as if he’s felt the blow himself; he throws up his hands. Every movement’s overdone, like an actor on the stage. Though, like an actor, it seems natural when he does it.
‘Clubbed over the head,’ Symmachus adds.
All the life’s gone out of Porfyrius. He sits on the edge of the pond, his head in his hands. ‘He was alive and well when I left him.’
‘Why were you there?’
‘The Augustus had commissioned him to write some sort of history. I served twice as Prefect of Rome – perhaps you remember? – and he wanted to check some facts about my tenure.’
‘What sort of facts?’
‘The monuments Constantine erected. The arch the Senate dedicated to him. Small details.’
‘Did he seem frightened? Any hint of something worrying him?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Alexander’s secretary said he had a document case. Do you remember it?’
‘Yes … no …’ Porfyrius drops his head. ‘I don’t remember.’
I pull out the necklace Constantine gave me.
‘Do either of you recognise this?’
That forces them to look towards me, though they give nothing away. Both these men are so well schooled in the ways of court I could pull out their own mothers’ heads and neither one would flinch.
Porfyrius stands, and moves closer to examine it.
‘It reminds me of the Emperor’s monogram. But not quite.’
He’s right. Constantine’s monogram is an X superimposed on a P, thus:
‘You didn’t see anyone at the library wearing this?’
Porfyrius shakes his head. Symmachus just scowls.
‘There were no women at the library,’ Porfyrius says.
‘But plenty of Christians.’ Symmachus is standing on the line where sun gives way to shadow. Half his face is bright as gold, the other half sunk in darkness. ‘Eusebius of Nicomedia. Asterius the Sophist. Any number of priests and hangers-on.’
‘Could a Christian have killed one of their own?’
It’s the first time I’ve heard Symmachus laugh. It’s not a pretty sound – like a quarry-saw cutting marble. When he’s finished, and hacked the phlegm from his throat, he says, ‘Can an owl catch mice? Porphyry the philosopher said it best: “The Christians are a confused and vicious sect.” Thirty years ago we were about to exterminate them. If I’d wanted to murder Alexander I could have done it then and been hailed a hero. Now the wheel has turned. They murdered their own god – what wouldn’t they do to keep their privileges?’
Another serrated burst of laughter. ‘They’re only Roman.’
VII
York – Present Day
THE CITY STOOD on a hill at the junction of two rivers, with the square towers of the Minster looming from its highest point. High walls hemmed it in – walls which had repelled Picts, Vikings, Norsemen and Scots in their time, but which couldn’t resist the columns of traffic that now queued through the gates. On the facing bank, executive flats and smart chain restaurants occupied what had once been thriving wharves and warehouses.
The moment she got off the train from King’s Cross, Abby could feel the difference. London had been close and warm, the friction of ten million people rubbing together. Here, the cold made her blush. A fine mist left dew on her cheek, while clouds overhead promised heavier rain to come.
She left the station and entered the city where a roundabout breached the wall. A few gravestones from a long-lost churchyard waited outside, marooned by time and the ring road. A bridge and a hill brought her up to the great medieval cathedral, the Minster. It had been built to be bigger than the mind of man and was now, if anything, stranger, looming over the city like a visitor from an alien civilisation.
It was late in the season, but a few sightseers still clustered in front of it. A busker played ragtime on an open-faced piano; a man dressed as a Roman legionary tried to get tourists to photograph themselves with him. Behind them, mostly unnoticed, a green-bronze emperor lazed on a throne and contemplated the pommel of his broken sword.
The rain was getting harder. She wiped a drop from her forehead, and was surprised to feel how wet her hair was. Her body seemed to be drinking up the damp in the air.
Behind the Minster, the open spaces gave way to a warren of cobbled lanes, blind passages and narrow houses bunched together. The buildings were brown brick and squat, probably built in the last forty years, but somehow the ancient pattern of the streets still asserted itself on them. Some of the houses had pointed door frames, with strange leaded hoods hanging over them. She squeezed under the porch of Number 36 and rang the bell.