Constantius put his arm around me and drew me to the east-facing window. I sighed, replete with loving, feeling in my body a sense of fulfilment I had not known before. Surely, I thought then, I must come away from such a night as this had been with child.
Together we stood watching as the sun, like a victorious emperor, lifted above the horizon and banished night’s mysteries from the world.
* * *
CHAPTER NINE
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AD 272
In Britannia, September had been a month of misty sunshine, but the forum at Naissus blazed with light beneath a brilliant blue sky. From the shade of the awning that had been raised to shelter the families of the imperial officers I could feel the waves of heat rising from the cobbles of the square. I had hoped, when Constantius told me of his new posting, that the plains that bordered the Danuvius in Dacia, being farther north, would be cooler than Bithynia, but in the summer, this inland city seemed even hotter than Drepanum, which had at least sometimes got a breeze from the sea. I could feel perspiration gathering beneath the fillet I wore to hide the crescent moon tattooed upon my brow. I took a deep breath, hoping I would not faint. Three months into pregnancy, I was still sick in the mornings and at intervals throughout the day.
Perhaps it was hunger that was making me feel so light-headed, I thought then, for I had not dared to eat before the ceremony, or perhaps it was the heavy scent of the incense. Two priests swung censers beside the altar; with each swing, more smoke swirled into the air. The haze drifted like a gauzy curtain before the columns that formed the western side of the square where the ground fell away towards the River Navissus. Beyond the tiled rooftops, a gleam of water, fields gold with stubble and low blue hills wavered in the heated air, insubstantial as a dream.
“Are you unwell?” Someone spoke nearby.
I blinked, and focused on the bony, dark face of the woman beside me. With an effort I remembered that she was called Vitellia, the wife of one of Constantius’s fellow Protectores.
“I will be,” I answered, flushing. “I’m not ill, it’s just—” I felt myself colouring agin.
“Ah, of course. I have borne four children, and I was sick as a hound-bitch with three of them—not that dogs generally have morning sickness—” she added, large teeth showing as she smiled. “The first one I bore when we were stationed in Argentorate, the second and the third in Alexandria, and my last boy was born in Londinium.”
I gazed at her in respect. She had followed the Eagles all over the Empire. “I come from Britannia…” I said then.
“I liked it,” Vitellia gave a decisive nod, setting her earrings swinging. A little golden fish winked from her breast, suspended from a fine chain. “We still have a house there, and perhaps we’ll return when my husband retires.”
The procession was almost at an end. The flute players had spread out to one side of the altar, and the six maidens, having scattered their flowers, took up their position on the other. The priestess who walked behind them halted before the altar and cast a handful of barley into the fire that burned there, calling on Vesta, who lived in the flame.
“I had heard you were from the Isle,” said Vitellia. “Your man came back from exile there and did so well in the Syrian campaign he’s been made a tribune.”
I nodded, appreciating her matter-of-fact acceptance of my somewhat ambiguous marital status. Since Constantius’s promotion, some of the women who had pointedly ignored me before had become gushingly respectful, but Vitellia struck me as the sort of woman who would behave the same to a fish-wife as to an empress. The thought turned my gaze back to the forum.
The Emperor presided from a shaded dais behind the altar, with his senior officers around him. Seated on his throne, Aurelian looked like the statue of a god, but when Constantius presented me I had been surprised to find him a small man, with thinning hair and tired eyes.