Constantine began to laugh. “So was he! Father had written to him, pleading ill-health and requesting my presence. Galerius took his time about replying, and it is amazing how accident-prone I became thereafter. My patrols were ambushed, the beaters who were supposed to hold a boar we were hunting somehow failed, footpads attacked me outside a taverna. Things got so bad I bought a slave to taste my food.”
I bit my lip. No use to ask why he had not written to tell me of his danger—the letter would never have arrived. But every morning since he had left me I had prayed for his safety when I made my daily offering.
“Finally, Galerius gave me his permission,” Constantine continued. “This was at the end of the day, and he obviously expected me to leave the next morning. But by that time I was wondering if I would live that long. I got a friend in the clerk’s office to frank the pass for the post-horses and did my best not only to out-run pursuit but warning, especially once I was travelling through country Severus holds.” He grinned wolfishly, then applied himself to his food.
I sat back with a long sigh, reviewing his story as I waited for my heartbeat to slow.
“And so you came to your father,” I said presently. “Was it a ruse, when he said he wanted you because he was ill?”
Constantine sat back with a frown. “Well, I don’t know. He says so, but he grows short of breath easily, and he doesn’t look well. That is the other reason I insisted on coming to you now. He will not allow the physicians to examine him, and I thought that perhaps you—”
I shook my head. “My darling, that right belongs to another woman. It would only bring pain to both of us if I went to your father now.”
My son’s frown grew deeper, and I realized that despite, or perhaps even because, he had for so long had to act the part of a loyal subordinate, he disliked not getting his own way. But a mother has certain advantages. I met his grey stare, and in the end it was he who looked away.
After that, things grew easier, and when he had finished eating, I showed him my house and introduced him to Vitellia, and then arm in arm, we made a circuit of the town. Constantine did most of the talking, and I delighted to rediscover this glorious young man whom the gods had made my son. By the time we returned to Brasilia’s most lavish dinner, night was falling. And this time, Constantine waited until morning before he set out once more.
That summer I followed the military news with more interest than I had since the days when I was an army wife in Dalmatia, and the garrison in Londinium, who had been mightily impressed by Constantine, kept me supplied with news. Asclepiodotus, the prefect who had served Constantius so well in the campaign against Allectus, was once again second-in-command of his army. I remembered him as an earnest young officer when we had been stationed in Sirmium.
The man who had been my husband had always been able to inspire devotion. I, after all, had followed him from Avalon. And Constantine still idolized his father. If Galerius had made Constantine Caesar, my son would have supported him as he did his father. As it was, the Eastern Augustus had made two important enemies.
The troops Constantius brought from Germania had landed at Eburacum and joined with selected detachments from the garrisons on the Wall. As the spring turned to summer, they pressed north through the territory of the Votadini, following an ever-retreating enemy all the way past the Bodotria to the vicinity of Mons Graupius, where Tacitus had defeated their ancestors a little over two centuries before. And there, the reports told us, the Emperor had won a great victory.
This news was proclaimed from the forum and posted on the gates of the Governor’s palace. The priestess of Bast, who was one of those to whom I had introduced Constantine, offered her congratulations. I thanked her, but despite the general rejoicing I found myself uneasy, and continued to the Temple of Isis to make an offering.