That Constantius should think so did not surprise me, but such talk was for the privacy of the bedchamber. I could not help but wonder in what extremity of danger he and this man had found themselves, for him to have revealed his inner mind so far. But I had realized already that there were things that a soldier did not speak of at home, things that Constantius strove to forget when he lay in my arms, and I would probably never know.
“To you and your child,” he repeated my words, “I pledge my troth, to protect and defend against all foes.”
The babble of conversation had receded, leaving the two of us in a great silence. I bowed my head, my eyes blurring with tears. It seemed a long time since I had used the senses by which the spirit sees truly, but even though there was no altar here, and neither priest nor sacrifice, I knew that the oath that Crocus had just sworn had been witnessed by the gods.
“I see that the two of you have met.” Constantius spoke beside me and I looked up, blinking the tears away.
“Crocus tells me that you saved his life,” I said quickly, lest he misunderstand my emotion, and moving over so that he could recline on the couch at my side.
“Did he tell you that he saved mine as well?” His smile to Crocus was a warning not to frighten the womenfolk with soldiers’ tales.
“She does not need to be told.”
Constantius’s eyebrows twitched, but he thought better of enquiring further. He leaned on one elbow and waved towards the dais.
“Aurelian is honouring all the heroes of the campaign—he has Maximian up there with him, I see.”
I followed his gesture and saw a thick-set man with a shock of greying brown hair, as formidable as a bull. He looked like a farmer, as indeed, his parents had been, but he had a gift for war.
“And there is Docles beside him,” Constantius went on. Next to Maximian sat a big man with thinning reddish hair above a broad brow. Lines of rigid control marked his features despite, or perhaps because of, the colour of his hair.
“Now there’s a man to watch. His father was only a herdsman in Dalmatia, unless some god begot him. He seems to have been born with a genius for fighting, anyhow, and he is a good administrator as well, which is even more valuable in a general.”
“And more rare?” I asked. But just then the slaves began to serve us the first course of the banquet, and he forbore to reply.
Constantius had been posted to the Cohors Prima Aurelia Dardanorum, who were garrisoned near the junction of the Navissus and the Margus. I had hoped that this meant he would be commuting between the fort and the house he had rented for me in Naissus, but at the beginning of November, the Dardanians were ordered to assist in the pursuit of the retreating Goths, and Constantius, his baggage packed with woollens against the suddenly chilly weather, marched north and left me alone.
Only a thin line of hills protected Naissus from the winds that swept across the open Danuvian plain, winds born in the steppes of Scythia that had warmed only enough to pick up some moisture in their passage across the Euxine Sea. Soon, I thought as I wrapped a shawl around my shoulders, there would be snow. Still, in this country they knew how to build for cold weather, and not only did the house have a hypocaust that kept warmth rising from the tiled floors, but in the large room Constantius had chosen for our bedchamber, there was an actual hearth. It was for that reason that Constantius had rented it, he had told me, so that the warmth of an open fire would remind me of home.
As my pregnancy progressed I spent much of my time in that chamber. It seemed unfair that Constantius, who had comforted me through the first three months, should have had to leave me just as the sickness was passing and my belly began to round out as the child grew. I had passed through the phase when women most often miscarried their children, and I now felt certain that I would carry this babe to term. Indeed, I had never felt better. When the weather permitted, I would walk with Drusilla to the market-place in the centre of town; Philip, who had become very protective, a half-step behind us and Hylas scampering ahead.