“My darling,” I gazed up at him, “you outshine your bride!” Surely no woman had ever been blessed with such a splendid son. On this day, all my sufferings seemed justified.
Constantine grinned. His cream-coloured tunic of Eastern silk was bordered and banded with gold that set off his burnished hair. “She is pretty enough when she is not laden with ornaments like a heifer at a festival. But it is true that she is still very young. Will you rule my household, Mother, until Fausta is old enough for the job?”
I pretended to think about it, but he knew I could not refuse, and he seized my hand and kissed it when I smiled.
“And there is another request I would make of you, even dearer to my heart,” he paused, as if searching for words. “When I was in the East, I formed a… connection… with a woman named Minervina, and two years ago she bore me a son.”
I lifted one eyebrow, understanding why he might feel unwilling to bring up the subject, when from his point of view this Minervina’s story sounded so much like my own.
“And what have you done with her, now that you have a legitimate bride?” I asked tartly, and saw the betraying flush stain his skin.
“She died of a fever a year ago,” he replied with some dignity. “I had no choice but to leave the boy with his uncle when I escaped Galerius, but now I have sent for him. His name is Crispus, mother. Will you take charge of him for me?”
“Pater families,” I teased him gently. “You are taking all of your relatives under your wing. Did you dislike it so much that I was not able to give you sisters and brothers of your own?”
For a moment he looked confused, then he gave me the sweet smile that I remembered from the days when he was a boy. A grandchild! I was surprised at how that thought excited me.
“Never mind,” I said then, “bring your little lad to me. If he smiles at me like that I am sure I will love him well.”
“Avia! Avia! See—Boreas will jump for me!”
I turned, smiling, as the golden-haired boy held up the branch. The male greyhound puppy, one of a pair that Constantine had recently sent to me, leapt over it, and the female, Favonia, gambolled around them, barking.
“They are still young, my love—do not make them too excited,” I warned, although in truth it was as much the nature of a puppy to live in a state of excitement as it was for a little boy.
Crispus was curious about everything, and charmed everyone. Constantine never spoke of the boy’s mother, but it was clear that she had had the raising of the child long enough to give him a certainty that he was loved. Even Fausta, though she was more of an age to be his sister, played with him like a doll and swore that she would adopt him as her own.
In the three years since Crispus had come to Treveri I had become accustomed to the cry of ‘Avia!’, ‘Grandmother!’ It seemed to me sometimes during these first years of Constantine’s reign that I had lived three lives, and the third was the happiest of all.
In my first, I had been a maiden of Avalon, struggling to survive Ganeda’s hostility and come into my own power. The second had given me the joy of a woman’s fulfilment and the pain of a woman’s passions, but even during the years when we were apart, like a flower forever turning to the sun, my identity had been determined by my relationship to Constantius. But now my body had found a new equilibrium, no longer at the mercy of the moon, and I had a new existence as Empress-mother, the most unexpected identity of all.
Tiring of his play, Crispus came running up to climb into my lap, and the dogs, panting, flopped down beside us. I popped a candied fig from the painted plate on the bench beside me into the boy’s mouth, and cuddled him against my breast.