“Constantius,” I whispered. “This is the opportunity you have dreamed of. All your life you have been preparing to be an emperor…”
“With you by my side, Helena, but not alone!”
My arms tightened around him, and then, like a spear to the heart, the realization came.
“You will have to do it, my beloved. You cannot defy Diocletian—” My voice cracked. “He has Constantine.” And with that, the ice that had armoured me cracked suddenly and I wept in his arms.
Night was falling by the time we made our way back home, our eyes swollen with weeping, but for the moment emptied of tears. I drew my palla down and turned my face away when I told my maidservant to have a meal brought to our bedchamber. Drusilla would have known immediately that something was wrong, but Hrodlind was new, a German girl who was still learning Latin.
Constantius and I lay down together on our bed, while the food sat untouched. I had not even removed my palla, for I was chilled to the soul. If I killed myself, I thought numbly, it would be no better for Constantius, but at least I would be spared the pain. I said nothing, but Constantius had been the other half of my soul for too long not to sense what I was feeling, or perhaps it was his own experience that told him.
“Helena, you must live,” he said in a low voice. “In every campaign, when danger threatened, it has been the knowledge that you were safe at home that gave me the courage to carry on. I can only do the duty that is being forced upon me now if I know you are still living, somewhere.”
“You are unjust. You will be surrounded by people, distracted constantly by responsibilities. Who will there be to need me, when you are gone?”
“Constantine…” The name hung in the darkness between us, my hope and my doom. For his sake I had left my home to follow Constantius, and for his sake we now must part.
We lay together in silence for a long time, while Constantius stroked my hair. I would not have thought that with our spirits so exhausted, the body could make any demands, but after a while, despite my despair, his familiar warmth began to relax me. I turned in his arms, and he brushed my hair back from my face and almost hesitantly, kissed me.
My lips were still stiff with grief, but beneath that gentle touch I felt them softening, and soon my whole body warmed and opened, yearning, one final time, to welcome him in.
In the morning, when I woke, Constantius was gone. On the table he had left a letter.
“Beloved—
‘Call me coward if you will, but only thus, when your beautiful eyes are closed in sleep, can I leave you. I will inform the household of the coming change in our situation, so as to spare you the need to explain to them what seems, even to me, to be an evil dream.
‘I will be at the Praetorium for a short while, but I think it best, for my peace and yours, if we do not meet again. I am transferring this house to your ownership, with all of the slaves. In addition, my bankers have been instructed that you may continue to draw upon my account for whatever you may need, and if you should desire to move elsewhere, to transfer funds in your name.
‘I will communicate with our son, of course, but I hope that you will be able to write to him as well. It will be you for whom his heart grieves, even as, I suppose, loyalty will compel him to congratulate me. But indeed, he ought to grieve for me as well.
“I hope, if the bounty of your heart allows it, that you will find a way to let me know where you go, and whether you are well. Whatever may befall, believe that while my heart beats, it is yours—”
His usually careful signature trailed off, as if, at the end, his resolve had failed. I let the piece of papyrus fall, staring at the empty bed, the empty room, and an endless, empty succession of days through which I must somehow learn to live, alone.