Imperial Vengence, page 28
On the road behind them, between the masonry stacks, stood the line of litters that had brought the imperial party out to view the construction work. Inside one of them, Fausta’s two older boys sat miserably huddled. The nine-year-old, Constantius, called out to her. ‘Mother! How long must we stay here? It’s cold!’
‘Only a little longer,’ Fausta called back. ‘We must wait for your father.’
Constantius was proving far more petulant and rebellious than his older brother. Did he get the trait from her, Fausta wondered, or from his grandmother?
Helena was making dry tutting noises. ‘You must encourage your children to complain less, my dear!’ she said. ‘Grumbling about the cold, indeed… You spoil them, I think.’ She raised her voice a little, so the children would hear. ‘Constantine never grumbled about anything when he was a boy. And think of Crispus, away in Gaul fighting the barbarians once more – we can be sure he was never a grumbler!’
Yes, Fausta said to herself. Think of Crispus… She often did, but not in the way that Helena intended. And that was her secret, her closely guarded sin, and her best and most powerful weapon.
Constantine was glancing back towards the litters and the group of women and slaves. Fausta peered at him – perhaps she should wave? Her husband had become entirely possessed by his building project over the last year; since the defeat of Licinius one thing after another had claimed his attentions. He no longer visited Fausta at night, and seldom even spoke to her. That suited Fausta fine, but it also made her nervous. What did her husband think of her? What poison had his mother leached into his mind?
A soldier approached with a message from the emperor. He saluted the two imperial ladies, then dropped to kneel before them.
‘Augustae,’ he said, ‘the Sacred Augustus gives you leave to return to the palace without him. He will be detained another few hours.’
Helena smiled – she enjoyed being addressed like that – but Fausta seethed inside, as she had been doing for many months now. Finally, after all these years of marriage and the birth of four children, her husband had promoted her to the exalted rank of Augusta – a true Empress of Rome. But he had also promoted his mother Helena to the same rank. The insult was unforgivable.
Her hatred of her mother-in-law had only increased with Helena’s growing power and influence. The old woman had clambered to the very summit of power since the defeat of Licinius; now she often seemed more powerful than the emperor. Fausta knew – her eunuch Luxorius had discovered – that Helena herself had ordered the imperial agents to question her back at Thessalonica before the campaign. At least Helena’s determination to undermine and destroy Fausta, and claim her place as the only senior woman at court, was overt now. But for eighteen months Fausta had hidden her feelings and suppressed her loathing. She too could be clever. She too had her secret designs.
The messenger saluted again and returned to his master, and Helena gathered the windblown mantle around her head. ‘Ah well,’ she said, ‘I’m sure the walls are going nowhere, and doubtless we shall see them another time. If you and your children are feeling the cold so badly, perhaps a return to more comfortable quarters would be best, lest we hear more grumbles!’
As she passed the litter with the two boys inside – both of them Caesars now that Licinius and his son were gone – Helena paused, reached inside her cloak and brought out two large pieces of honeycomb wrapped in linen. She smiled as she presented her gift. The boys smiled too, snatching the sweet morsels from her hands. Helena gave a happy sigh, regarded them fondly as they ate, then walked towards her own litter without another word to Fausta.
*
‘I want to kill her. Can I do that?’
‘Time and nature have a way of accomplishing such things, domina,’ Luxorius said, pressing his fingertips together.
‘In her case, I believe even time and nature would be defeated. And I’d prefer to kill her before she kills me.’
They were sitting in the small marble-lined antechamber of Fausta’s private bath suite, the only place in the old palace of Byzantium where she could be sure they would not be overheard. Niobe entered with an enamelled cup full of spiced and heated wine. Fausta drank gladly.
The last year had been hard. First had come the news about Licinius. An imperial investigation had revealed that the former emperor was in illegal communication with the Gothic tribes beyond the Danube; Licinius had been executed in the palace at Thessalonica. Almost as an afterthought, his nine-year-old son had been put to death shortly afterwards. The killings came as no surprise to Fausta; she knew all too well that any man who had worn the purple was liable to die by her husband’s orders. But Constantine had vowed to pardon Licinius, to respect him and his family, and this new atrocity chilled Fausta’s marrow. Nobody was safe.
Then there was the birth of her child, her second daughter. It had been a difficult labour, a trial of endurance, but worse was to come. Constantine had insisted on naming the girl Helena, after his mother; Fausta had been appalled, but she could not speak against the decision without revealing the depths of her hatred. So she was now the mother of one Helena, just as her husband was the son of a second, and Crispus the husband of a third.
At least Fausta had seen little of the elder Helena the previous summer. Constantine had called a council of bishops and priests at Nicaea, close to Nicomedia, to settle some obscure controversy of Christian doctrine, and the whole court had decamped to the dusty little town while it was in progress. Being surrounded by quarrelling priests, particularly just after giving birth, was not pleasant, and Fausta was still unsure what they had been discussing. Was Christ made of the same substance as God, or similar substance? Which came first? That seemed to be the meat of the argument. How could grown men, powerful men, become so passionate about such a meaningless question? But Fausta had been glad that the council had claimed so much of the attentions of her husband and mother-in-law. It had been a temporary respite.
And all that year Crispus had been in Gaul, conducting yet another campaign against the Alamanni. Fausta feared for him. She feared more that he would develop sudden and unexpected feelings for his own wife and child. Sipping the heated wine, Fausta reclined against the marble seat and wondered what Crispus was doing at that moment. When would she see him again? The year of the imperial Vicennalia had already begun; in four months’ time it would reach its grand conclusion in the city of Rome. Would Crispus make his bid for power before then? Would he drag his father to the great temple on the Capitol, as Diocletian was said to have dragged Fausta’s own father, and demand that he abdicate...?
Fausta gave a start, and peered at Luxorius. She had the familiar but unnerving sensation that the bald eunuch was reading her mind somehow.
‘What is it?’ she demanded, lowering her eyelids. ‘You look devious. More than usually devious, I mean.’
Luxorius smiled politely. ‘Another message has just arrived, domina,’ he said. ‘From our friend in Treveris.’
A shiver ran through Fausta’s body, rippling the wine in her cup, but she concealed it at once. She drew a long breath, composed herself, then put the cup down and extended an open hand. Luxorius had the message with him, of course. He took it from inside his tunic and laid it on her palm: a slim wooden tablet, wrapped around with cord and secured with four wax seals. Luxorius would have opened and read it already; he was certainly not the first to have done so.
Impatiently she ripped aside the seals, opened the tablet and scanned through the words inside. Then she read them more slowly, mumbling beneath her breath. The message supposedly came from an old woman in Treveris, a freed slave who had once been Fausta’s nursemaid. Her own replies were sent to the same person. It was close to a foolproof means of communication, and the messages themselves were carefully innocuous, but still it felt charged with danger.
Winter has been long and cold here in the north, she read. The young Caesar is already preparing for his journey west – was it unwise for Crispus to refer to himself, even indirectly? Fausta bit her lip and read on – and will travel via Raetia and the Danube. Perhaps you will see him in Sirmium soon? As for me, I think fondly of your memory, and the times we shared so long ago. Perhaps you could send me something to remind me of them?
The times they shared had been brief. One night, in the palace of Nicomedia, eighteen months before. Even then they had been disturbed – it could have been the end for them both. But Fausta had no fear that it would ever be discovered now. And the night itself was a revelation. He loved her, so he had said – Fausta had concealed her incredulity, her amusement at the concept. A young man’s passion, perhaps, a passing frenzy. But it had endured, it seemed. And how brilliantly her plan had worked. Once she had plotted to have the young Caesar killed, but how much better it felt to seduce him to her allegiance, to encourage his ambitions in secret, to goad him to rebellion?
Laughter was building inside her as Fausta put the tablet down. She leaned back, lips tightly closed, then relented and let it out. The sound of her mirth echoed in the marble chamber. Then she sighed, inhaled, regained her composure.
Perhaps her plan had worked too well? Crispus’s declaration of love had shocked her at the time; it shocked her even more now. But she was moved, despite herself. Often she had caught herself thinking about him, not with malice but with affection and desire. She had never, in all her years, felt herself loved by another person. She had never given love to anyone either. The feeling was so novel, so unnerving, mingling with the thrill of danger and the deep greedy satisfaction of revenge.
‘Will you send a reply at once?’ Luxorius asked. ‘The messenger is still here, and will leave for Gaul tomorrow, I believe.’
‘Yes,’ Fausta said. ‘But not a tablet this time.’
She thought for a moment, then grasped the carnelian ring on her smallest finger and worked it free. She had worn it since she was married, and the gold surround bore the marks of her teeth where she had bitten nervously at it so many times. Now she bit the hem of her shawl, then ripped the embroidered silk until a strip of it tore free. Wrapping the ring in the silk, she passed it to the eunuch.
‘Send that, with no message.’
Luxorius raised his eyebrows. It was, perhaps, a dangerously peculiar gift to send to an old nursemaid. But Crispus would know what it meant, and Fausta enjoyed the idea of him knowing. All the same, she had often wondered what Luxorius himself made of what was happening. He had served her dutifully and loyally for many years, but she knew well that he guarded a certain impotent affection for her himself. Did he resent the intrusion of the young Crispus? If he did, Fausta thought, he should have made a better effort long before, when she had ordered him to kill the boy.
Taking the ring in its scrap of silk, Luxorius bowed and retreated from the room. Alone, Fausta sat and sipped at the cooling wine as misgivings loomed in her mind. It was true, she thought, despite her laughter: she genuinely wanted to see her stepson, to be with him – wanted it badly.
She had planned to control Crispus. But sometimes she wondered if she was losing control of herself.
23
Castus left his escort at the edge of town and rode alone along the muddy main street towards the river. It was raining, and the cold water dripped down inside his collar. He rode in silence, staring around him. He had expected that this place would seem much smaller than he remembered. He had not expected that it would look so very mean and poor.
How many years since he had last been here? He tried to calculate, but could not. More than thirty, anyway. His journeys had often led him past the town since then – Sirmium was only a day’s ride west, and the imperial highway passed right by it – but he had always kept to the road, unwilling even to turn his head. What had he feared to see? Who did he fear might see him? It seemed so senseless now.
He rode along the rutted streets through the centre of the town. He had imagined, when he first steeled himself to return here, that the sight of the place might unlock something in him, some deep well of feeling he had kept closed for many years. But all he saw around him now was a dirty little settlement beside the Danube, brown wooden houses in the rain, moss-grown crumbling brick walls and vacant plots thick with tall weeds. Further east, the last huts straggled along the riverbank; this was where he would find what he was looking for.
His baffled disappointment was so great that he almost missed the place. He had ridden past it before he realised, and pulled Ajax to a halt in the middle of the street. The horse shivered, dropped its head and began cropping the tired grass along the verge.
Looking back, Castus peered at the scrap of cleared land, the stumps of roof timbers and the more recent building that partly covered it. This was the place, he was sure. But there was little left of it now. He should have known.
‘Are you looking for something, dominus?’ a voice called. A young woman had emerged from the house across the street. Castus knew that he was watched from every doorway. The woman was dressed in a plain wool tunic and shawl, and carried a baby on her hip.
‘There was a house here,’ Castus said, pointing to the derelict plot. ‘And a blacksmith’s workshop. Do you remember it?’
The woman screwed up her face. Clearly she did not, but did not want to give an unacceptable answer. Even with his plain clothing and rain cape, Castus knew that the size of his horse and its gilded trappings would mark him as a man of importance. ‘If you need a forge, dominus, there’s one closer to the centre,’ the woman said. ‘My brother’s place. Give you good work, whatever you need.’
Her accent caught at something in Castus’s memory. Everyone had spoken like that when he was a boy. He shook his head, then dismounted from the saddle and stood in the mud.
‘Is there anyone here who might remember the place?’ he asked, pushing his hood back. ‘Maybe remember the man who lived here?’
‘Wait a bit – I’ll ask,’ the woman said, then returned quickly inside her house.
Castus stood beside his horse, feeling the rain on his head and his face. He looked at the newer building that stood beside him. Whoever owned it must have bought the land, but it too was shuttered and closed now. From the doorway across the street he heard the woman talking to somebody. Hushed nervous voices.
A much older woman emerged, leaning on a stick as she crossed the road. She bobbed her head in a stiff bow. ‘My daughter says you were asking about something, dominus?’
Castus asked again. The woman sucked at her teeth, eyes closed to slits, and for a moment he feared that she too would tell him nothing. How old was she? Might he have remembered her once, as a younger woman? Or a child, as he had been himself?
‘Yes, there was a blacksmith lived there once,’ the woman said. ‘But he died. I never knew him myself. Must be twenty years ago now, around the time Diocletian stepped down. May the gods look kindly upon Diocletian!’ She touched her brow, and Castus did the same.
‘But now we have the blessed Constantine,’ the woman went on, a nervous tremor in her voice. ‘May all the gods honour him!’
‘His salvation is our salvation,’ Castus muttered, trying not to appear impatient. ‘But about the blacksmith… Do you remember how he died?’
The woman shrugged and widened her eyes. ‘As I recall, now you mention it, they said he died from drink! But he was a strange man – a veteran, they say. Bad temper he had; few liked him. A bit cracked in the head, so they say.’
Cracked in the head. Castus felt the wrench inside him. He had struck his father with an ironbound bucket, just before he fled to join the army, and thought he had killed him, until somebody told him otherwise.
Leaning against the saddle, he stared down into the trampled mud of the road. What had he hoped to find here in Taurunum? Certainly not his father – he had known that the old man must surely have died. But he had hoped that something might remain. The house, the forge, or at least some link to that half-forgotten world he had once known.
‘Did he have a family?’
‘Not that I’d know, dominus. Like I said, he was a stranger here. I do think he had a son, so somebody told me. Ran away to join the legions…’
‘What happened to the son?’
‘Who knows?’ The woman let out a sudden cry of laughter. ‘Probably died on some battlefield. So many wars there’s been! At least now we have peace under Constantine, may his name be writ in gold in the heavens. No more young men going off to die!’
Castus grunted. War would never be far away on this frontier. Even now he was in the closing stages of an official inspection of the troops of the Danube garrisons. Next year, or the year after, Constantine would be preparing once more to fight the Goths or the Sarmatians.
He felt a great sadness inside him. He had hated his father for so long, but he felt the loss of him now. Pointless even to ask if he had a grave; with no family to mourn him or pay for a funeral, his body would have been burned and the ashes dumped in the river. Castus had seen it happen many times.
‘I thank you for your help,’ he said. Reaching into his pouch, he took out a gold coin. ‘For you and your daughter. And the child.’
The woman hung back, startled, as if she feared some trick. Taking two steps towards her, Castus held out the coin until she took it from him. She stared at it a moment as it lay in her palm, the wink of bright gold so glaring in the surrounding brown and grey. Then she closed her hand and bowed deeply.
Castus did not look back as he rode up the street to join his escort at the highway junction. The woman, he realised, was probably about the same age as him. He had heard what the daughter said, as she summoned her mother: an old man with a big horse, looks like a soldier, asking questions.
He was an old man: fifty, and he felt it. But the frightened youth who had fled this place over thirty years ago, fearing himself to be a murderer, was gone now. He was a different man, and had lived a different life. He should feel proud of that fact. As he rode through the rain he thought about fathers and sons. About Constantine and Crispus, and about his own son Sabinus, who would be waiting for him at the villa on the Dalmatian coast, with Marcellina. In just over two months he would be with them again, and he longed for it.
