The Church of the Holy Apostles smelt of paint and sawdust. As the others senses failed, his sense of smell seemed to have become more acute. It was no great recompense. He could barely make out the rotunda at the end of the nave and its thirteen sarcophagi. Three of them were occupied by the skulls of Luke, Andrew and Timothy. Relics had not been found of the other nine Apostles, and, of course, the Emperor was not dead yet.

‘Take, eat; this is my body, which shall be broken for you.’

Declining the supporting hand of his eldest grandson, he approached the Eucharist as he had been taught. Not with his arm extended, or his fingers parted, he made his left hand a throne for his right to welcome the King. He cupped his palm, and received Christ’s body.

‘Amen.’

Carefully he blessed his eyes with a touch of the holy body, then, careful not to drop a morsel, he put it in his mouth and ate.

‘This is my blood, which is shed for you; when you do this, you make my remembrance.’

He did not stretch out his hand for the chalice, but bowed his head in homage and reverence, and sanctified himself by partaking of Christ’s blood. While his lips were still moist, he touched them with his fingers, and blessed his eyes, his scarred old forehead, his nose and ears.

Returning to his seat, he leant upon his grandson’s arm.

It was wise to appear pious. The imperial edict banning traditional sacrifices had been widely ignored. But the Emperor was not young and he looked far from well. A comet had been seen in the night sky. That presaged the death of a king. Constantine had three sons and two nephews. There would be a struggle for the succession, and all five candidates were Christians. For an octogenarian the future mattered little, but it was important that his family had every chance to weather the coming storm.

The conversion of Lucius Domitius Sasan to the new religion of the Emperor had involved no inner struggle nor revelation. It had been a matter of quiet policy, like so much in his life. He had never been an aficionado of gladiatorial fights, and the public executioners could always find different ways, equally cruel, to dispatch criminals other than crucifixion. Resting on the seventh day struck him as a sensible idea.

Of course, if the Christian god was as all-seeing as his priests claimed, he would not be deceived by such subterfuge. Sasan would be condemned to an eternity of hellfire. The Psalms made that clear.

Let the mischief of their lips

overwhelm them!

Let burning coals fall upon them!

Let them be cast into pits, no

more to rise!