“I will be no use to her until I have washed and eaten. This is her first child. There will be time.”
When I came to the birthing chamber I found Fausta alone, whimpering with each pain.
“Why have you sent your servants away, my child? They only want to help you.”
“They fussed and fussed until I could not bear it! Oh Avia, it hurts so much! Am I going to die?”
“You are young and healthy, Fausta,” I said bracingly, taking her hand. “I know this is not comfortable, but it will take a while for your womb to open enough to release the child.” I had borne only the one child myself, but in later years I had often assisted at the labours of the wives of officers in Constantius’s command, and added that experience to what I had learned of the birthing woman’s craft at Avalon.
I glanced towards the door where the midwife was hovering and motioned her to come in.
“She is doing very well,” said the woman cautiously. I wondered what Fausta had said to her before.
Fausta’s fingers tightened painfully on mine as another pang came on. Her auburn hair was dark with perspiration and her face blotched with weeping above the distorted belly. It was just as well, I thought then, that her husband was not here to see her now.
“Talk to me, Avia,” she said when she could speak again. “A poem or a joke or a story about Constantine when he was a little boy, anything to distract me from the pain.”
“Very well—” I patted her hand. “Has he never told you the story of how he won his first laurels? It was when Probus was Emperor, and we were living in Naissus.”
She shook her head. “He talks to me sometimes about what he will do in the future, but he has never spoken of his boyhood.”
“Then I suppose it is for me to do, so that you may tell the tales to your children in turn.” I waited as a new pang rolled through her, but I think my presence had eased her tension, and her contractions were now not so hard to bear.
“Constantine had just passed his seventh year, though he was always large for his age and looked older, and the Emperor Probus had offered a prize for the foot-races at the feast of Apollo.” As I continued, I let my voice deepen, making my words rise and fall with the contractions that were squeezing Fausta’s womb.
“Constantine began to practise, running each morning with Hylas, who was the dog we had then. I would have breakfast waiting when they returned, panting, from the run.”
Gradually, Fausta was relaxing, riding my rhythms to find her own, even panting a little at the word.
“He won that first race easily, for among the boys of his age he was tall and strong. But the next year he moved to a higher division, and though he was as tall as many, they were stronger and more experienced. He finished respectably, but he was not the winner, and you know my son does not like to lose.”
“What did he do?”
“I remember that he grew very silent, with that stubborn frown that we all have come to know. And he practised—morning and night throughout the spring. My son has always been a dreamer, but a practical one, who will make whatever effort is required to make his dreams come true. When summer came once more he was the winner again.”
Fausta gave a great sigh, then grimaced, remembering that her race was still going on. “And the next year?”
“The next year we were transferred to Sirmium, and that summer the Emperor was assassinated before the races could be held.”
“Tell me something else about Constantine,” Fausta said quickly. “What games did he like to play?”
I frowned a little, remembering. They say that the child is father to the man. It occurred to me now that I should not blame Diocletian for what he had made of my son—the signs of his future character were there in his childhood, if one had the eyes to see.