“My lord, we need an emperor!” The centurion raised his arm in salutation. “Hail, Caesar!”
“Hail Caesar!” the men responded with a full-throated roar. “Carus shall be Emperor!” Suddenly they surged forwards, chanting his name until the columns of the basilica’s porch trembled to the sound. I was certain that the rioters had looted the palace when I saw a flash of purple and they draped one of the dead Emperor’s togas across his shoulders. At least one of the men had his shield, and the mob that had surrounded Carus got him onto it and raised him high.
“Will you truly have me for your Imperator?” Carus might be a republican by preference, but he must know that if he refused them now they could pull him down as swiftly as they had killed Probus.
“Ave! Ave!” they cried.
“I will not treat you gently—I will punish those who killed Probus, and then I will take up the old war in Parthia, that has waited so long—”
The cheering redoubled in volume.
Why are they so happy!? I wondered. He has just promised to lead them to battle in a land where it is as much hotter than Dalmatia as this land is than Britannia. But the lands of the East held riches, and if the heat killed them, they would die not like slaves but as soldiers.
The noise, as they carried Carus in procession around the forum, deafened the mind as well as the ears. The other officers had drawn back to the shelter of the colonnade. Carus belonged to the legionaries now.
“Ave Carus!” came a new cry from beside me. Constantine had extended his own arm in a stiff salute, and he gazed at the figure of the new Emperor with visions in his eyes.
The new Emperor, with no more than a curt announcement of his accession to the Senate in Rome, set about establishing his authority. The Romans rioted in protest, but so long as the army supported him, Carus did not appear to care. Probus had valued his abilities so much that he had requested the Senate to award him a marble palace and an equestrian statue. Now, with the exception of the palace in Sirmium, which was a charred ruin, he had palaces in plenty, and no doubt the statues were already being created, along with the panegyrics that came in from every corner of the Empire. Carus had no time to read them. He had promised the army glory in Parthia, but before the expedition could set out, there was much to be done. If he was grateful to the legionaries of Sirmium for raising him to the purple it did not prevent him from executing the men who had been the first to attack Probus, an act which apparently did him no harm in the eyes of the survivors, for that autumn they followed him willingly into battle against a horde of Sarmatians who had come down upon Illyria, and gained a resounding victory.
The succession was also provided for. Carus had two sons, both now grown, whom he raised to the rank of Caesar. Carinus, who was the elder, was directed to deal with the latest barbarian raids into Gallia and then take charge in Rome, while his brother Numerianus became the Emperor’s second-in-command on the Parthian campaign.
I dared not speak my fear that the Emperor would drag Constantius along with him, but the Goddess must have heard my prayers, for shortly before the army was to depart, my husband returned to Sirmium with the news that Carus had appointed him Governor of Dalmatia.
In my dream, I was moving along the Processional Way at Avalon. I knew it for a dream because I seemed to see everything from a vantage point of several feet off the ground, and because when I spoke, no one noticed me. But in every other regard, I was fully present. I could feel the moist chill of the night air and smell the resins in the torches. I trembled to the reverberations of the great gong that was used to summon initiates to the greater ceremonies.
It had summoned me, I realized, all the way from Sirmium. This was no dream but a spirit journey. But what was the ceremony?