AD 284-85
As the Empire mourned Carus so did I, though my sorrow was more for Constantius's lost chance for greatness than for the Emperor, whom I had known only for a little while. If I had understood the inevitable consequences of my husband's elevation, I should have rejoiced. Because Carus died when he did, I had Constantius for almost ten more years.
The Emperor had died as a consequence of the flux which was a constant hazard on campaign. But the death had occurred during a thunderstorm, and when the Emperor's tent caught fire, the troops believed he had been killed by lightning, the most evil of omens. Our forces had been well on the way to conquering Parthia at last, but there were prophecies, it was said, that the River Tigris would forever mark the limits of Rome's eastern expansion. Indeed, there were any number of signs, omens and portents for folk to gabble at in those first, horrified weeks after the news arrived.
The troops acclaimed Numerian as co-emperor with his brother Carinus, but refused to continue the war. And so the Army of the East was making its slow way back home while Carinus ran riot in Rome. Did he know that Carus had intended Constantius to supplant him? Suddenly Dalmatia seemed entirely too close to Italia, and when Maximian, who now held the command in Gallia, requested Constantius to join his staff, we agreed that he would be prudent to resign his post as governor of Dalmatia and accept the invitation.
Our new home was a villa in the hills above Treveri. It was not Britannia, but the country folk here spoke a language not unlike the British tongue, and even two hundred years after Julius Caesar had suppressed them, the Druids were remembered. Someone among the servants whom we had engaged to assist our household slaves must have recognized the fading blue crescent upon my brow, for I soon found they were treating me with a respect that went beyond duty. When I went about in the countryside people would bow before me, and from time to time offerings of fruit or flowers appeared by the door.
Constantius thought it was amusing, but it made Constantine uncomfortable, and from time to time I would catch him watching me with troubled eyes from beneath the shock of fair hair. It was his age, I told myself, and pretended unconcern. He was twelve now, leggy as a young hunting dog, the big bones out of proportion, and the superb co-ordination that had carried him through childhood likely at odd moments to let him down. If he could have laughed at himself it would have been easier, but Constantine had never had much of a sense of humour. With the approach of adolescence he was becoming reclusive, fearing to expose himself to ridicule.
But there was nothing wrong with his mind, and Atticus found that he suddenly had a willing pupil, eager to sink his teeth into the meat of Greek philosophy and literature. At present they were studying the works of Lucian. As I directed the girls who were cleaning the mosaic of Dionysos with the dolphins on the floor of the dining room, I could hear the murmur of voices from the study, Constantine's uncertain tenor rising and falling as he translated the passage his tutor had assigned.
Tomorrow would see the beginning of the month the Romans had named after Mercurius's mother, Maia. In Britannia, I thought, smiling, they would be preparing for the festival of Beltane. If I read the signs rightly they celebrated here as well. The weather, which had been chill and rainy, had suddenly turned warm, and wildflowers starred the green hills.
I took a deep breath of the sweet air, then paused to listen, as the maids opened a door and Con's voice grew suddenly louder.
"They saw that… the thing that both the ones who fear and the hopeful ones needed and, uh… wanted the most was to know about the future. This was the reason Delphi and Delos and Clarus and Didyma had ages ago become rich and famous…"
I paused to listen, curious to learn what they were reading and what my son would make of it.
"I don't understand," said Constantine. "Lucian says this man Alexander was a fraud, a deceiver, but it sounds as if he thinks that Delphi and the rest of the oracles are just as bad."
"You must take the statement in context," Atticus said soothingly. "It is true that Lucian was one of the leading Sophists of the last century, and naturally prefers to base his conclusions on reason rather than superstition, but what has aroused his ire in this essay is the fact that Alexander intentionally set out to trick people, pretending to discover the snake in the egg, and substituting another, big one, with its head hidden by a mask in the ritual. Then he told everyone it was Aesclepius reborn and said it gave him the oracles that he had written himself. But it is true that he sent clients to the great shrines to keep the priests from denouncing him."
I remembered now hearing something of the story. Alexander had been quite famous at one time, and Lucian had not only written about him, but actively tried to unmask him as well.
"Do you mean to tell me that none of the oracles are true?" Constantine said suspiciously.
"No, no—my point is that you must learn critical thinking, so that you will be able to judge for yourself whether something is reasonable, rather than accepting blindly what you are told," Atticus responded.
I nodded: that was more or less what we had been taught at Avalon. It was as foolish to deny that oracles could be faked as to blindly believe in them.
"That doesn't make sense," protested Constantine. "Those who are wise should decide what is true and be done with it."
"Ought not every man be allowed to decide for himself?" Atticus said reasonably. "Learning how to think should be a part of everyone's education, just as everyone must learn to care for a horse or use numbers."
"For simple things, yes," answered Constantine. "But when the horse falls sick you call in a healer and you employ a mathematicus for higher computations. Surely in the realm of the holy, which is so much more important, it should be the same."
"Very good, Constantine, but consider this—the flesh is tangible, and its ills can be perceived by the senses. Numbers are symbolic of items that can be physically counted, and they are always and everywhere the same. But each man experiences the world differently. His nativity is ruled by different stars, and he has a unique history… Is it so unreasonable to allow him his own perception of the gods? This world is so rich and varied—surely we need myriad ways to understand it. Thus, there are the Sophists, who doubt everything, and the followers of Plato, who believe that only archetypes are real, the mystical Pythagoreans and the Aristotelian logicians. Each philosophy gives us a different tool with which to understand the world."
"But the world stays the same," objected Constantine, "and so do the gods!"
"Do they?" Atticus sounded amused. He had been sold into slavery by his uncle, and I suspected he found it more comfortable to believe in no gods at all. "How then, do we reconcile all the stories about them, or the claims of all the different cults, each of which declares that its deity is supreme?"
"We find out which is the most powerful, and teach everyone how to worship Him," Constantine said forthrightly.
I shook my head. How simple it all seemed to a child. When I was his age, there had been no truth but that of Avalon.
"Come now," Atticus was replying, "even the Jews, whose god permits them to worship no other, do not pretend the other gods do not exist."
"My father is beloved of the greatest of gods whose face is the sun, and if I prove worthy, He will extend that blessing to me."
I lifted an eyebrow. I knew that Constantine had been impressed by the solar cult of Dalmatia, to which most of the officers Constantius had served with belonged, but I did not realize how far his attempt to model himself on his father had gone. I must find some way to teach him about the Goddess as well.
Constantine continued, "There is one Emperor on earth and one sun in the sky. It seems to me that the Empire would be much more peaceful if everyone worshipped alike."
"Well, you are certainly entitled to your opinion, but remember, Alexander the Prophet gave his oracles in the name of Apollo. Just because a man speaks in the name of a god does not mean he is speaking true."
"Then the authorities should stop him," Constantius responded doggedly.
"My dear boy," said Atticus. "The Governor Rutilianus was one of Alexander's most devoted supporters. He married the prophet's daughter for no better reason than because Alexander said her mother had been the goddess Selene!"
"I still think people should be protected from false oracles."
"Perhaps, but how can you do that without taking away their right to decide for themselves what they believe? Let us continue the translation, Constantine, and perhaps matters will become clearer…"
For the first time, I wondered if we had been wise to let Constantine study philosophy. He did tend to take things rather literally. But the flexibility of mind that characterized Greek culture would be good for him, I told myself, secretly relieved that it was Atticus who had the task of getting the point across, not I. Still, I told myself as I opened the door to let in the soft spring air, the time was coming when I must talk to my son about Avalon.
I had sung him to sleep with the teaching songs I had learned as a little girl, and amused him with wonder tales. He knew how the swans returned to the Lake at spring's beginning, and how the wild geese sang in the autumn skies. But of the meaning behind the tales, and the great pattern to which swans and geese both belonged, I had said nothing. Such matters were taught to initiates of the Mysteries. If Constantine had been born on Avalon as Ganeda planned, he would have learned these things as part of his training. But I had willed otherwise, therefore it must be my responsibility to teach him.
Constantine was a child, I thought as I listened to the two voices. It was natural that he should focus on the surface of things. But it was the external face of the world that was the most varied and full of contradictions. On the surface, there was truth in all the different cults and philosophies. It was only at a deeper level that one could find a single truth behind them.
"All the gods are one God, and all the goddesses are one Goddess, and there is one Initiator." I had heard that watchword more times than I could count when I was at Avalon. Somehow I must get its meaning across to Constantine.
The breeze that wafted through the open doors came laden with all the scents of spring, and suddenly I could no longer bear to remain inside. I slipped through the open door and stepped out along the path that led between two rows of beech trees to the high road. I should tell Atticus to give his pupil a holiday—it was too lovely a day to spend locked in one's head debating philosophy. That was the mistake that some of the Pythagoreans, despite their understanding of the Mysteries, had made, to fix their minds so firmly on eternity that they missed the Truth proclaimed by this green and lovely world.
From our hill I could see fields and vineyards, and the gleam of the Mosella. The town nestled along the river, protected by its walls. Treveri was a place of some importance, a centre for the production of woollen cloth and pottery, with good communications to both Germania and Gallia. Postumus had made it the capital of his Gallic empire, and now Maximian had made it his base of operations as well. They were repairing the bridge again; the local reddish stone glowed pink in the bright sun, but the temple of Diana, higher up on the hillside, was a glimmer of white amid its sheltering trees.
A good road ran up the hill and past our villa. A rider was moving swiftly along it, passing a farmer's cart and continuing up the hill. My interest sharpened as he drew close enough for me to recognize the uniform and realize that he was coming here.
Had there been some disaster? I could see no unusual bustle of activity in the city. I waited, frowning, until the man drew up, relying the neckcloth with which he had been wiping his brow. I recognized him as a youngster on Constantius's staff, and acknowledged his salutation.
"And what has my husband sent you up here in such haste to say? Is there some emergency?"
"Not at all. The Lord Docles has arrived, my lady, and your husband bids me tell you that they will be dining with him here this evening."
"What, all of them?" I shook my head. "It is an emergency for me! We were planning to spend the day spring cleaning, not preparing a banquet."
The young man grinned. "That's right—Maximian will be coming as well! But I have heard about your dinners, lady, and I feel sure you will gain the victory."
It had not occurred to me to view a dinner as a military engagement, but I laughed as I waved him on his way. Then I hurried inside to consult with Brasilia.
Despite my words, a meal for three men accustomed to the food of army camps would not place any unusual demands upon my kitchen. They might not be so devoted to austerity as Carus had been, but I knew from experience that all three would pay more attention to what they were saying than to what they were eating. It was Drusilla who felt that both the cooking and the service must be, if not elaborate, at least accomplished with restrained perfection.
Fortunately it was a season when fresh food was plentiful. By the time Constantius and our guests came riding up the hill, we were prepared for them with a salad of spring greens dressed in olive oil, hard-boiled eggs and new bread, and a roasted lamb, garnished with herbs and served on a bed of barley.
The evening was mild, and we opened the long doors in the dining chamber so that our guests could enjoy the flowerbeds and the fountain in the atrium. As I moved back and forth between the diners and the kitchen, supervising the service, I could hear the deep rumble of masculine voices growing more mellow as more of the tangy white wine of the countryside was served.
It was clear that this was to be a business dinner, not a social occasion, and I had not sat down with them. Indeed, even though it had been years since I had celebrated the Eve of Beltane, old habit kept me fasting. The men were talking of troop strengths and city loyalties, but as the evening drew on, I felt the energies that flowed through the land increasing in intensity. Drusilla was complaining because some of the kitchen servants had disappeared as soon as the first course was served. I thought I knew where they had gone to, for when I walked in the quiet of the garden, I could feel the throbbing in the earth and hear the drums that echoed it, and a hilltop above the town blazed with Beltane fire.
My blood was warming in answer to the drumming. I smiled, thinking that if our guests did not stay too late, Constantius and I might have time to honour the holiday in the traditional manner ourselves. The laughter in the dining room had deepened. Perhaps the men did not recognize the energy in the evening, but it seemed to me that they were responding to it all the same. As for me, the scent of the night air had made me half-drunk already. When I heard Constantius calling, I draped a palla across my shoulders and went in to them.
My husband moved over on his couch so that I could sit and offered me some of his wine.
"So, gentlemen, have you decided the future of the Empire?"
Maximian grinned, but Docles's heavy brows, always startling below that high bald brow, drew down.
"For that, Lady, we should need a seeress like Veleda to foretell our destinies."
I lifted a eyebrow. "Was she an oracle?"
"She was the holy woman of the tribes near the mouth of the Rhenus in the reign of Claudius," Constantius replied. "A Batavian prince called Civilis, who had been an officer in the auxiliaries, began a rebellion. They say the tribes would make no move without her counsel."
"What became of her?"
"In the end, I think we feared Veleda more than we did Civilis." Constantius shook his head ruefully. "He was the kind of enemy we could understand, but she had the ear of the eternal powers. Eventually she was captured, and ended her days in the Temple of Vesta, as I have heard."
In the pause that followed the chirring of the crickets seemed suddenly very loud. Beneath that audible rhythm I sensed rather than heard the heartbeat of the drums.
"I have heard," Docles said into the silence, "that you yourself have some training in the seeress's craft."
I glanced at Constantius, who shrugged, as if to say it was not he who had spread that word. It should not have suprised me to learn that Docles had his own sources of information. His parents were freed slaves who had become the clients of Senator Anulinus, their old master. For Docles to have risen from such humble origins to command the young Emperor's bodyguard indicated that he was a man of uncommon abilities.
"It is true that I was trained as a priestess in Britannia," I answered, wondering whether this was only idle conversation or if some deeper meaning was implied.
Maximian raised himself on one elbow. He was country-bred himself, and I had noticed his fingers twitching to the drumbeat, though I did not think he realized he was doing it.
"Mistress, I know what powers fare abroad this eve," he said solemnly." 'Tis a night when the doors do open 'tween the worlds. Don't waste the moment, lads—" he gestured a little tipsily with his goblet, and I realized that they had stopped watering the wine. "Let the strega use her powers for us, an' show us th' way out o' the tangle we're in!"
I drew back, startled at his language—in my own country folk did not speak so of a priestess of Avalon—and Constantius laid a protecting hand on my arm.
"Take care, Maximian—my wife is no hedge-witch to brew you up a pot of spells."
"Nor did I ever say she was." He gave me an apologetic nod. "Shall I call her a Druid priestess, then?"
They all twitched at that, remembering how Caesar had dealt with the Druids of Gallia. But I had recovered myself: it was no more than the truth, after all, and better they should think my craft a survival of lost Celtic wisdom than suspect the existence of Avalon. Constantius's grip tightened, but my sudden fear had left me. Perhaps it was the power of Beltane Eve, like a fire in the blood. I felt my head swimming as if I already scented the smoke of the sacred herbs. It had been so long, so very long, since I had done trance-work. Like a woman meeting an old lover after many years, I trembled with re-awakened desire.
"Lady," added Docles with his usual dignity, "it would be an honour and a privilege if you would consent to divine for us now."
Constantius still looked uncertain, and I realized that he too had grown accustomed to seeing me as his mate, the mother of his child, and forgotten that I had once been something more. But the other two out-ranked him. After a moment he sighed. "It is for my lady to decide…"
I straightened, looking from one to the other. "I promise nothing—it has been many years since I practised this craft. Nor will I instruct you how to interpret what you may hear, or even whether what you are hearing is my own ravings or the voice of some god. I can promise only that I will try."
Now all three men were staring, as if, having got what they asked for, they were wondering whether they wanted it after all. But with every breath the ties that bound my spirit to the waking world were loosening. I rang the little bell that would summon Philip and asked that he take the silver bowl that was kept in Constantius's study, fill it with water, and bring it to us here. Hylas, who had somehow escaped from my bedchamber, settled himself across my feet, as if understanding that I would need an anchor when I fared between the worlds.
When the basin had been brought, and the lamps positioned so that their light swirled in a liquid glitter on the surface of the water, I instructed Philip to make sure we would not be disturbed. He looked disapproving, and I remembered that the Christians were forbidden to seek pagan oracles, though in their own meetings it was said that sometimes young men and women would see visions and utter forth prophecies.
When he had gone, I unbound the fillet that hid the crescent upon my brow, and loosened my hair from its knot so that it tumbled down about my shoulders. Maximian swallowed, his eyes widening. This one is still close to the earth, I thought, lowering my gaze. His soul remembers the old ways.
Docles's eyes were hooded, his features unreadable. I admired his control. But Constantius was gazing at me as he had when first I came to him by the Beltane fire. Look well, I said silently. For nigh on fifteen years I have ruled your household and shared your bed. Have you forgotten who and what I am? Abashed, he looked away, and I smiled.
"Very well, gentlemen, I am ready. When I have blessed the water, I will gaze into its depths, and when I begin to sway, you may ask your questions."
I cast a little salt into the water, consecrating it in the old tongue of the wizards who had come to Avalon from the drowned land across the sea. Then I leaned forwards so that my hair hung down about the bowl like a dusky curtain, and let my eyes unfocus, gazing within.
Light rippled across the dark surface as my breath stirred it. With an effort of will I controlled my breathing, in and out, ever more slowly, sinking into the rhythm of trance. Now the light on the water flickered in time to my breathing. Awareness narrowed to this circle of light in darkness, water and fire. I suppose that by that time my body had begun to move as well, for from what seemed an immense distance away I heard someone calling me.
"Say then, seeress, what shall come to the Empire in times to come. Will Numerian and Carinus rule well?"
The light on the water flared. "I see flames…" I said slowly. "I see armies that harry the land. Brother against brother, an emperor's funeral pyre… Death and destruction will come of their reign."
"And what comes after?" came a new voice that some part of my mind recognized as that of Docles.
But already the scene before me was changing. Where I had seen bloodshed now lay peaceful fields. Words came to me.
"All hail to the Emperor who is blessed by Fortune. One becomes four, and yet the first is the greatest still. For twenty years he will reign in glory, Jupiter with Hercules at his side, and Mars and Apollo serving him.
"The son of Jupiter is here, but you will bear another name. Your strong right arm bears witness, and another, who blazes like the sun. Only Mars is missing, but when you have need of him he will appear. Fear not to seize the moment when it comes. You will rule in splendour, Augustus, and die full of years, having at length released the sceptre to younger hands…'
"And what comes after?" This voice was golden, blazing in my mind with its own light.
"The son of the sun rules in splendour, but sets too soon. And yet a brighter dawn shall follow, and a new sun shall rise whose light will blaze across the world."
Light blossomed within my vision, shaping itself to a face I knew. Constantius, I thought, for a fair beard fringed the strong line of the jaw. But the face was altogether more massive in structure, with a long nose and eyes deeply set under the curve of the brow, a face of such stubborn strength it made me a little afraid.
Then this vision also, faded. I sagged forwards and my hair touched the water. Then Constantius had his arms around me, holding me as I shuddered with reaction. I opened my eyes, and as I tried to focus, the after-image of my vision superimposed itself upon a shape that was emerging from the darkness of the doorway.
I blinked, and realized it was Constantine. How long had he been standing there? And how much had he heard? I sat up, suddenly aware of how I must look to him, with my hair unbound, my eyes dazed with trance. I stretched out one hand towards him in an unvoiced plea. For a moment longer he stood there, on his face an expression half-avid and half-appalled. Did he think I was like Alexander the Prophet? My eyes filled with tears as he turned and disappeared.
"Lady," said Docles in his deep voice, "is it well with you? You have given us a great blessing." His face had its usual calm, but his eyes shone. In Maximian's face I saw something almost like fear. I looked from one to the other, knowing that all three would wear the purple one day.
"Only if you make it so," I whispered, remembering how the last two emperors had died.
"You have told me what I needed to know," answered Docles. "Constantius, take your lady to her chamber. She has done us good service this night and should rest."
"And what will you do?" asked Maximian.
"I shall return to Numerian and wait. Jupiter smiles upon me, and will make my way clear."
In the months that followed, all seemed confusion. In November of that year, Numerian died. Docles seized the opportunity, accusing the Praetorian Prefect, a man called Arrius Aper, of having poisoned him, and executing him on the spot. The next thing we heard was that the army had acclaimed him Emperor. But he had changed his name, and now he was calling himself Diocletian.
Carinus, who was a good commander when he put his mind to it, roused himself from his debaucheries to defend his throne, and Roman warred against Roman once more. Maximian and Constantius declared for Diocletian and prepared to hold the West against Carinus. But when the compaigning season opened the following spring, the gods, or perhaps it was Nemesis, decreed against another lengthy civil war. In the confusion of a battle a tribune whose wife Carinus had seduced seized the opportunity to slay his commander and take his own revenge.
Diocletian was now supreme. His first act was to name Maximian as his junior colleague. And that summer, when the new Caesar, who had appointed Constantius to be his praetorian prefect, was busy dealing with the latest incursion of Germans, Diocletian sent a letter requesting that my son Constantine join his household in Nicomedia.
Constantine's bedchamber was strewn with gear and clothing. I paused in the doorway, arms full of linen undertunics fresh from the clothesline. In such confusion, it seemed impossible that all this gear would be packed and ready by tomorrow's dawn. A brief fantasy of a midnight raid to steal the baggage played through my imagination. But no attempt to delay my son's departure could achieve more than a momentary confusion, and Constantine was of an age to be embarrassed by his parents even when they were acting sensibly. Even Constantius, had he been at home, could not have resisted an imperial command.
"Has your bodyservant packed your woollen leggings?" I asked, handing the tunics to the maidservant to add to the pile.
"Oh, Mother, I won't need those old things. Only peasants wear them: I'd look like a peasant parading through Diocletian's marble halls."
"I remember very vividly just how cold it got in Bithynia, the year we lived in Drepanum, and imperial halls are likely to be draughty. If it is cold enough for you to wear the leggings, I assure you that you will also be wearing enough outer gear to hide them from view."
The young Gaul we had bought to be Constantine's body-servant when he turned thirteen looked from one of us to the other, comparing frowns, then turned towards the chest that held the things his master had intended to leave behind.
"Come with me, Constantine, and let us leave the slaves to their work. Here, we will only get in the way." In truth, I would have preferred to pack his gear myself, with a blessing on each garment as I put it in, but that was something that others could do. No one else could tell my son what was in my heart.
Gravel crunched softly beneath our feet as I led him to the garden and sat down on a bench carved from the local reddish stone. The summer had been a good one, as if the gods were blessing Diocletian's reign, and the garden was bright with flowers.
But soon enough, they would fade. And in the morning my son would be gone. I had thought to have five years more before I lost Constantine to the army, time enough for Atticus to train his mind, and for me to awaken his soul. Con was tall for his age, his muscles developed by exercise. He would be able to meet whatever physical demends might come.
But he still viewed the world with a child's rigid convictions regarding right and wrong. Diocletian might well be the most virtuous emperor since Marcus Aurelius, but his court would be a hotbed of intrigue. How could I armour my son against it without myself compromising his innocence?
"Don't be sad, my mother—"
I had not realized how my face betrayed me. I managed a smile. "How can I not be? You know how much I love you. You are a man, and I knew that you must leave me one day, but this seems very soon." I was choosing my words carefully, for it would not do to frighten the child, since this separation must be.
"When the letter first came, I was frightened too, but now I want to go," said Constantine. "But I will not forget you, Mother. I will write to you every week, as surely as the sun shines above!" He lifted a hand as if calling on Apollo to bear witness.
I gazed at him in surprise, for that oath had been spoken with adult sincerity.
"It will not be easy," I told him. "There will be new things and new people, exciting things to do…"
"I know—" He paused, searching for words. "But kindred are important, and since you have no other children, I must be your whole family."
My eyes filled with tears. "Would you have liked brothers and sisters?"
Constantine nodded. "When I am a man I want a big family."
"I am sorry I was not able to provide them," I said with difficulty. "But I always thought that the purpose for which the gods had put me in this world was to give birth to you."
His eyes rounded, for I had never spoken of this so explicitly before. "Do you believe that my stars have ordained some great destiny?"
I nodded. "I do. That is why I have been so concerned about your education."
"Perhaps living at the court of Diocletian will be part of it," Constantine said soberly.
"Oh, I am sure that it will." I tried to keep the bitterness from my tone. "But will it be what you need? I had hoped to teach you something of the Mysteries in which I myself was trained when I was young."
Constantine shook his head. "I do not think I am meant for a priesthood. When I am grown I will enter the army and command troops, or perhaps even a province, in time. I think I would do well at that, don't you?"
I suppressed a smile. Certainly he did not lack for confidence. I wondered if he, too, saw himself wearing the purple one day. Carinus had been an appalling example of the dangers of gifting a man unprepared for it with imperial power. My son might well be right to think that he could learn much from the Emperor if that was his destiny.
"If you rise high, Constantine, you must never forget that the gods are still above you, and the Theos Hypsistos, the Power that is beyond the gods. You must seek to fulfil their will for the people you rule."
"I understand that," he said confidently. "The Emperor watches over his people as a father rules his family."
I lifted one eyebrow. Apparently the boy had thought about it, and perhaps he had reason. His father had almost become heir to the Empire, after all. Constantine might well dream of an imperial diadem.
"The sun watches over me, just as He does my father." Constantine patted my shoulder. "Do not be afraid for me."
I took his hand and held it against my cheek. My son certainly had the confidence to make his way in the world. Only later did it occur to me to wish that he had possessed a little more humility.
AD 293-296
"The court has become ever more splendid," Constantine's large script straggled across the page. In the eight years since he had gone to join the Emperor's household he had no doubt learned many things, but elegant handwriting was not one of them. I shifted the page so that the wavering lamplight fell full upon it. The house which Constantius had rented for me in Colonia Agrippinensis was elegant, but not quite proof against the winds of a German spring.
"A simple salutation is no longer enough, when one approaches the Emperor. Our deus et dominus, Diocletian, now requires a full prostration, as if he were the Great King of Parthia instead of the Augustus of Rome. But I must admit it is all very impressive, and the foreign ambassadors appear to be appropriately awed."
Maximian, thank the gods, remained the same bluff, hearty soldier he had always been, even though he was now co-Augustus with Diocletian. But no one could doubt which of the two was the senior partner. Diocletian's coins bore the image of Jupiter, while those of Maximian were adorned with the muscular form of Hercules.
But even if Maximian had been inclined to indulge in ceremony he would have been too busy to do so. The year he became Augustus, Carausius, the Menapian admiral they had appointed to defend Britannia from Saxon raiders, had been charged with misappropriating the spoils. Rather than stand trial in Rome he had rebelled and proclaimed himself Emperor of Britannia. The man was a brilliant seaman, who had roundly defeated not only the Saxon pirates, but the fleet Maximian sent against him. After that, our forces had been fully engaged with incursions of Franks and Alamanni in the east, and slave rebellions in the west of Gallia, with no time to worry about Britannia.
I missed my garden in Treveri, but Colonia, on the banks of the Rhenus in Germania Inferior, was close enough to the fighting for Constantius to visit me between campaigns. Our house was near the eastern wall, between the Praetorium and the temple of Mercurius Augustus, and had been occupied by the families of many commanders before us.
At least at the moment I did not have to worry about my husband's safety, for he had been summoned to Mediolanum, which Maximian had made his capital, to confer with him and Diocletian. I wondered sometimes if during those months spent away from me Constantius remained faithful, but in truth, if I had a rival it was not another woman but the Empire. When first we met I had loved him for his dreams. I could hardly complain because he now had an opportunity to make some of them reality. Still, with my husband off fighting and my son away with the Emperor there was little for me to do, and I found myself missing the responsibilities that would have been mine on Avalon.
For the moment, Diocletian and Maximian had accepted Carausius as a brother emperor. I wondered how long that would last. When I heard a rumour that Carausius was married to a British princess who had been trained on Avalon I was astonished. Ganeda had always feared and discouraged contact between Avalon and the outside world. That policy of isolation had been one of the reasons I left. But now I could not help thinking that if I had become High Priestess, it would have been I, not Dierna, who would now be deciding what role Avalon should play in this rapidly changing world. Sometimes I wished I could return to Britannia and find out what was happening there, but such a voyage was unlikely so long as Carausius ruled the British Sea.
On a bright day in the middle of March, when the wind, brisk as a hunting wolf, chased the little clouds across the sky, Constantius returned from Italia. At first, seeing his face as stony as it had been once after a lost battle, I thought the Emperor must have given him some reprimand, though I could not understand why Diocletian should be displeased. Surely it was Maximian, if anyone, who would be blamed for not having disposed of Carausius. If Diocletian was unhappy, I thought angrily as I directed the unpacking, he could come to Gallia and try his own hand at dealing with the situation here.
But the Germans led by Crocus, who had become Constantius's permanent bodyguard, were in fine fettle, filling the courtyard with their deep laughter, and surely they would have been gloomier if something were wrong. Most of them were quartered in the barracks at the Praetorium, of course, but there were always a round dozen or so about the house when Constantius was here.
I had grown accustomed to their size and their sometimes grim humour. I was a little surprised, to be sure, that Crocus himself had not come to greet me, as he had treated me with the deference due one of his own seeresses ever since our first meeting. Had something happened to him? That might explain my husband's mood.
I was in our bedchamber, sorting through the tunics from Constantius's baggage to see which ones might require mending, when my husband appeared in the doorway. I looked up, smiling, and saw him flinch. His face grew more forbidding as he glanced around the room.
"Constantius," I said softly, "what is wrong?"
"Come for a walk with me," he said harshly. "We need to talk, and I cannot do it… here."
I could have assured him that none of our servants would eavesdrop, but it seemed better to change my slippers for sturdier sandals and take up a warm wrap without argument, and in truth, I would not be sorry to get out of the house on such a brilliant, restless day.
Ever since the rebellion of Civilis, in the time of the first Agrippina after whom the city had been named, Colonia had been a frontier town. Other cities might neglect their defences, but Colonia's walls had been rebuilt at regular intervals until they rose high and strong, punctuated at regular intervals by guard towers. In times of peace, citizens could climb up by the stairs at the north gate and walk around to the east all the way to the gate by the Praetorium. Here, the banks of the river were already high, and the walls gave one a spectacular view of the bridge across the Rhenus and Germania Libera beyond.
I followed Constantius up the stone stairs, reassuring myself that it was not his health that was the problem, for he climbed without a pause for breath, the hard muscles of his calves flexing with each step. I, on the other hand, began to wish I had taken more regular exercise, for by the time we reached the walkway I was panting, and had to stop to catch my breath. Constantius put out a hand to steady me, then retreated to the wall, where he stood, arms resting on the crenellations and gazing northward where the barges moved smoothly down the river, until I joined him.
By this time my belly was knotting with apprehension. After so many years, I knew Constantius's moods as well as my own, and an angry confusion of emotion emanated from him so that he seemed wrapped in shadow, even while he stood in the sun. As I began to speak he started off and I followed him, recognizing that I would have to let him get to it in his own time and way.
The walls of the fortress at the other end of the bridge glowed, and sunlight glanced and sparkled from the blue waters of the river, very wide at this point and flowing strongly towards the sea. On the eves of festivals I would pour a little wine into the river, asking the gods of the waters to carry it to Britannia. As we passed the corner tower and turned towards the Praetorium, we moved into the wind off the river and I clutched at my shawl.
Constantius's steps slowed, and I realized that here, halfway between the tower and the gate where the cobbled road between the wall and the cloisters of the Praetorium was widest, must be the best place in Colonia to speak without being overheard.
"Surely," I said aloud, "You have not brought me here to speak of treason to the Emperor!" I stopped short, surprised how much anxiety had sharpened my tone.
"Do not be so sure!" Constantius answered harshly. "He has put me in a position from which I must betray someone. The only choice I have is whom—"
"What do you mean?" I touched his arm and his other hand covered mine, gripping so tightly I winced with pain. "What did he say to you?"
"Diocletian has had an idea… a way to extend the imperial power equally across the Empire and secure a peaceful succession. He vows that when he and Maximian have reigned for twenty years, they will retire in favour of their Caesars, who will then take the title of Augustus, and appoint two more."
I stared at him, amazed at the idea that a man would voluntarily give up the supreme power. But it might just work, if all four of the emperors remained loyal to each other. The idea of an empire that was not torn apart by civil wars of succession seemed like some fantasy.
"So he means to appoint two Caesars…" I prompted, when the silence had gone on too long.
Constantius nodded. "For the East, it will be Galerius. He's another man from Dalmatia, a hard fighter. They call him "the Herdsman" because his father kept cows—" He realized that he was babbling, and paused. "For the West… he wants me."
It seemed to me that I had known this even before he said it. It was the dream of a lifetime, this gift from the Emperor. Or perhaps it was not a gift, for why was Constantius so unhappy? I looked up into his dear face, permanently reddened by exposure to weather, the flaxen hair fading now to silver and receding from his broad brow. But to me he was still the fair lad I had met in Britannia.
"But there is a price," he answered the question I could not ask. "He requires that both Galerius and I marry into the imperial families."
I could feel the colour draining from my face, and reached out to the stone to keep from falling. Constantius had his eyes fixed on the horizon, as if he were afraid to see. I had heard that when a man is severely wounded, he feels first the shock, and only later, the pain. In that pause between the blow and my own agony, I found a moment to pity Constantius, who had had to bear this knowledge all the way from Mediolanum. And I understood now why Crocus had not come to see me. He was a man whose thoughts showed clearly in his face, and I would have read the truth of this disaster in his eyes.
"Galerius will marry Diocletian's daughter Valeria," he said tone-lessly. "They want me to take Maximian's step-daughter Theodora."
"I didn't even know he had a step-daughter," I whispered, and then: "They want you to take her? You mean you have not yet agreed?"
He gave a violent shake of the head. "Not without speaking with you! Even the Emperor could not require that of me. And Maximian remembers you with kindness—he gave me this much reprieve, that I should be allowed to tell you myself, before everything was arranged—" He caught his breath on a sob. "I vowed my heart's blood to the service of Rome, but not my heart! Not you!" He turned to me at last and gripped my shoulders so hard that the next day I would find bruises there.
I leaned my head against his chest and for a long moment we simply stood, locked together. For more than twenty years my life had revolved around this man; I had wondered sometimes if it was because I had given up so much for him, that I dared not feel any other way. And surely he, with so much more to occupy his mind, must be less dependent on me. But now I realized it was not so. Perhaps because his career had required him to be a creature of mind and will, all his heart was given to me.
"At the end of that river lies the sea," he murmured against my hair, "and across the sea is Britannia. I could take you there, offer my services to Carausius, and to Hades with the rest of the Empire! I have thought about it as I tried to sleep in the posting-houses on the way home…"
"Constantius," I whispered. "This is the opportunity you have dreamed of. All your life you have been preparing to be an emperor…"
"With you by my side, Helena, but not alone!"
My arms tightened around him, and then, like a spear to the heart, the realization came.
"You will have to do it, my beloved. You cannot defy Diocletian—" My voice cracked. "He has Constantine." And with that, the ice that had armoured me cracked suddenly and I wept in his arms.
Night was falling by the time we made our way back home, our eyes swollen with weeping, but for the moment emptied of tears. I drew my palla down and turned my face away when I told my maidservant to have a meal brought to our bedchamber. Drusilla would have known immediately that something was wrong, but Hrodlind was new, a German girl who was still learning Latin.
Constantius and I lay down together on our bed, while the food sat untouched. I had not even removed my palla, for I was chilled to the soul. If I killed myself, I thought numbly, it would be no better for Constantius, but at least I would be spared the pain. I said nothing, but Constantius had been the other half of my soul for too long not to sense what I was feeling, or perhaps it was his own experience that told him.
"Helena, you must live," he said in a low voice. "In every campaign, when danger threatened, it has been the knowledge that you were safe at home that gave me the courage to carry on. I can only do the duty that is being forced upon me now if I know you are still living, somewhere."
"You are unjust. You will be surrounded by people, distracted constantly by responsibilities. Who will there be to need me, when you are gone?"
"Constantine…" The name hung in the darkness between us, my hope and my doom. For his sake I had left my home to follow Constantius, and for his sake we now must part.
We lay together in silence for a long time, while Constantius stroked my hair. I would not have thought that with our spirits so exhausted, the body could make any demands, but after a while, despite my despair, his familiar warmth began to relax me. I turned in his arms, and he brushed my hair back from my face and almost hesitantly, kissed me.
My lips were still stiff with grief, but beneath that gentle touch I felt them softening, and soon my whole body warmed and opened, yearning, one final time, to welcome him in.
In the morning, when I woke, Constantius was gone. On the table he had left a letter.
"Beloved—
'Call me coward if you will, but only thus, when your beautiful eyes are closed in sleep, can I leave you. I will inform the household of the coming change in our situation, so as to spare you the need to explain to them what seems, even to me, to be an evil dream.
'I will be at the Praetorium for a short while, but I think it best, for my peace and yours, if we do not meet again. I am transferring this house to your ownership, with all of the slaves. In addition, my bankers have been instructed that you may continue to draw upon my account for whatever you may need, and if you should desire to move elsewhere, to transfer funds in your name.
'I will communicate with our son, of course, but I hope that you will be able to write to him as well. It will be you for whom his heart grieves, even as, I suppose, loyalty will compel him to congratulate me. But indeed, he ought to grieve for me as well.
"I hope, if the bounty of your heart allows it, that you will find a way to let me know where you go, and whether you are well. Whatever may befall, believe that while my heart beats, it is yours—"
His usually careful signature trailed off, as if, at the end, his resolve had failed. I let the piece of papyrus fall, staring at the empty bed, the empty room, and an endless, empty succession of days through which I must somehow learn to live, alone.
For the better part of a week I scarcely left my bed, as devastated as I had been after I lost my first child. There was no further word from Constantius, though a badly-spelled note did arrive from Crocus, pledging his continued loyalty. I ate when Drusilla forced food upon me, but I would not let Hrodlind dress my hair, or change the bedding that seemed to me still to bear the impress of Constantius's body and the scent of his skin.
Hylas's silent devotion was the only sympathy I could bear, and I think now that it was the dog's warm body curled against my own and the poke of a cold nose when he wanted to be petted that kept me from losing contact with the outside world entirely. He was white-muzzled now, and moved stiffly when the weather chilled, but his heart was still warm. It would have been so easy, in the first shock of my loss, to retreat into madness. But as long as one creature needed me, as long as Hylas still offered me his unquestioning love, I was not completely alone.
I was not aware of any logic to my mourning, but when Philip came to me one afternoon to tell me that Constantius had departed Colonia for Mediolanum and his wedding, I realized that this was the news for which I had been waiting. Now I was truly alone. It was easy enough, in the end, to dissolve our union. No negotiations over the return of a dowry were required, for all I had brought to him were my skills as a priestess and my love, which could not be priced; or the custody of children, since our only son was in the keeping of the Emperor. In Rome, we had never truly been married, only in Avalon.
My mind seemed to move very slowly, but eventually I allowed Hrodlind to bathe and dress me, and the servants to come in to clean the room. But I did not leave the house. How could I bear to go abroad, where any passer-by might point to the cast-off concubine of the new Caesar, and laugh?
"Lady," said Drusilla, setting down a platter with spring greens dressed with a little olive oil, hot barley cakes, and some new cheese. "You cannot live like this. Let us go back to Britannia. You will be better at home!"
Home is Avalon … I thought, and ," cannot go there, where I would have to admit before them all that Constantius has abandoned me. But though relations with Carausius's island empire were tense, Britannia and Rome were not yet at war. Ships still sailed across the British Sea to Londinium. Surely there, a wealthy woman could live alone in respectable anonymity.
Philip made arrangements for us to embark from the port at Ganuenta just after the first day of summer. My first act, when I finally emerged from my chamber, had been to free him and the other slaves Constantius had left to me. Most of those we had purchased to staff the house in Colonia accepted their manumission gratefully, but I was surprised by how many of the older members of my household chose to remain. So it was that Philip and Drusilla and Hrodlind, whose own father had sold her into slavery, along with Decius, the boy who had tended my garden, and two of the kitchen maids, were to take ship with us for Londinium.
On the day before we were to depart, I walked out along the road to the old temple of Nehalennia. Hrodlind followed, carrying Hylas in a basket, for he could no longer walk so far, yet he whined pitifully whenever he was parted from me.
Perhaps the lichens covered more of the stones, and the tiles of the roof had a more mellow glow, but otherwise the place seemed unchanged. And the Goddess, when I confronted Her inside the temple, gazed past me with the same serenity. It was only I who was different.
Where was the young woman who had made her offerings at this altar, the British tongue still adding its music to her Latin, her gaze apprehensive as she faced this new land? After twenty-two years my speech had flattened, though it was much more eloquent, and it was Britannia which I would view with a stranger's eyes.
As for this temple, how could it be expected to impress me, now that I had seen the great shrines of the Empire? And how could the Goddess speak to me, now that I had lost my soul?
But I had brought a garland of spring flowers to lay before her, and when I had done so I stood with head bowed, and despite my depression, the peace of the place began to seep into my soul.
The temple was quiet, but not entirely silent. Somewhere in the eaves sparrows were nesting, their cheeps and twittering the grace-notes to a deeper murmuring which I eventually identified as the sound of the spring. And suddenly I had no need to descend to those waters, for the sound of them was all around me, an overwhelming sense of Presence that told me the Goddess had entered into her temple and I stood on holy ground.
"Where have you been?" I whispered, tears smarting beneath my closed eyelids. "Why did you abandon me?"
And after a while, as I waited, I sensed an answer. The Goddess was here, as She had always been here, and in the running water, and upon the roads of the world, for those who were willing to be still and listen with their souls. Hylas had poked his head above the rim of the basket and was staring at a spot near the statue with the look usually reserved for me when I came home after a journey. I thought the place was just above the hidden spring.
I turned, lifting my hands in salutation. "Elen of the Ways, hear my vow. I am a wife no longer, and I have been cast out of Avalon, but I will be Your priestess if you will show me what you wish me to do…"
I closed my eyes, and perhaps the sun, descending, chose that moment to shine through the high windows, or perhaps one of the temple servants had brought a lamp into the room, but suddenly I sensed a blaze of light. And though my eyes were still shut, that glow shone into the darknesff that had engulfed my spirit when Constantius left me, and I knew that I would survive.
Londinium was the largest of Britannia's cities, larger than Sirmium or Treveri, if not so great as Rome. I was able to purchase a comfortable house in the northeastern part of the city, near the main road that led out towards Camulodunum. It had belonged to a silk merchant before his trade was disrupted by Carausius's wars, and in this part of the city, there was still enough open land for vegetable gardens and pasture, so that it was almost like being in the countryside.
I settled into the quiet life suited to the widow most of my neighbours believed me to be. I did not trouble to correct them, but made a regular circuit to the baths, the theatre, and the markets. And little my little, my inner turmoil eased. Like a legionary who has lost a limb in battle, I learned to compensate, and even at times to enjoy the things I had without immediately remembering those I would never have again.
From time to time, news would reach us from Rome. Constantius had taken Flavia Maximiana Theodora in marriage at the ides of Maia, a month which was said to be unlucky for marriages. I could not help hoping that in this case the tradition would prove to be true. But if Constantius still mourned for me, it did not prevent him from doing his husbandly duty, for at the end of the year we heard that Theodora had borne him a son, whom they called Dalmatius.
Theodora was not only younger than I, but she appeared to be the kind of woman who gets pregnant as soon as her husband hangs his belt on the bedpost, for after Dalmatius, another son, Julius Constantius, and two daughters, Constantia and Anastasia, were born in quick succession. I never saw Theodora, so I do not know whether she was, as the panegyrists were bound to say, beautiful.
I was now cut off from army gossip, but I could not help hearing talk in the market-place, and the political situation was degenerating. After getting Theodora pregnant, Constantius had returned to the army, and used his new authority as Caesar to mount an attack on Gesoriacum, the port from which Carausius had maintained his foothold in northern Gallia. The naval fortress was impregnable, but by building a mole across the entrance to the harbour, Constantius was able to cut the place off from support by sea, and shortly after mid-summer the garrison surrendered.
His next move was an attack on the Franks who were Carausius's allies at the mouth of the Rhenus. Trade was already suffering, and now, for the first time, people began to murmur against their upstart Emperor. It was said that his wife Teleri, the one who had been trained on Avalon, had gone back to her father, the prince of Durnovaria. Had she loved her Roman husband, I wondered, or was the marriage a political arrangement from which she was happy to be freed? And if so, had the alliance been made by the Prince of Durnovaria, or the High Priestess of Avalon? Teleri might be the only woman in Britannia who could understand me. I would have liked to talk with her.
And then, just before the feast that begins the harvest, men came crying through the streets with the news that Carausius was dead, and his minister of finance, Allectus, had claimed his throne, rewarding his old master's Frankish auxiliaries richly to support his claim. When it was announced that he would marry Teleri I shook my head. Allectus might call himself an emperor, but clearly he meant to be High King in the old way, by wedding the queen, and with her, the land.
I stood among the crowds who watched them on their way to their wedding feast. Allectus waved with a feverish gaiety, though there was tension in the way he gripped his reins. When the carriage in which Teleri was riding with her father passed by, I caught a glimpse of a white face beneath a cloud of dark hair, and thought she looked like a woman going to her execution, not her marriage bed.
Surely, I thought, Constantius would put an end to the pretensions of Allectus soon. But one year passed, and then another, with no challenge from Rome. Allectus pressed out an issue of hastily-minted coins and then lowered taxes. I could have told him that short-term popularity might prove a poor trade for repairs to fortifications when the Picts attacked or Rome decided to reclaim its errant province.
But I had taken care that no one should learn my identity. Constantine wrote regularly, letters filled with robust good cheer but few personal opinions, as if he suspected someone in the Emperor's household was reading his correspondence. I doubted that anyone was reading mine. It was not unusual to have a son in service abroad, after all. It was not my connection with Constantine that was the danger.
I had not heard from Constantius since he left me, but sometimes I saw him in my dreams and I did not think he had forgotten me. I would have made a valuable hostage, if Allectus had known who was living in his capital.
In the third year since I had come to Britannia, at the beginning of autumn, I had a series of dreams. In the first of them, I saw a dragon that emerged from the waves and coiled itself along the white cliffs of Dubris, guarding the shore. A fox came, and fawned upon it until the dragon ceased to pay attention to it, and then the fox leapt and bit the dragon's throat, and so the great beast died. And now the fox grew great, and decked himself in a purple mantle and a wreath of gold, and rode in a golden chariot about the land.
That dream was not hard to interpret, though I wondered why the gods had sent me a vision of something that had already come to pass. Still, I thought that perhaps some change was coming, and sent Philip more often to the forum to hear the news.
The next dream came with more urgency. Across the sea I saw coming two flights of eagles. The first group was driven back by the wind, but the second used mist and cloud to hide its approach and soared to the land. A flock of ravens rose up to combat it, and I saw they were protecting the fox, but the eagles overcame them and killed the fox, and the ravens retreated, shrieking, towards Londinium. Then the first group of eagles reappeared, descending just in time to defeat the ravens once and for all. And when they had done so, a lion appeared among them, and the people came out of the city to greet it, rejoicing.
When I awoke, a storm was lashing the rooftops. Bad weather for sailors, I thought sleepily, and then sat bolt upright with the sudden conviction that Constantius was out in that storm. But he would be safe, if my dream was a true one. It was Londinium which was likely to be in danger if the Frankish troops, whom I had seen as ravens, were defeated and in retaliation attacked the town.
I told Brasilia to lay in enough food to last us for several days. By sunset, we knew that the Roman army was on its way at last. Some said the legions would attack Portus Adurni, where Allectus's fleet was waiting for them, while others thought they would come to Rutupiae and march on Londinium. But if I had dreamed true, Constantius was splitting his forces and would attack both places. That night I slept badly, waiting for what the morning would bring.
Throughout the next day, reports and rumours flew through the city. The storm had driven the Romans back, said some, while others told of an advance north from Clausentum and fighting near Calleva. Darkness had already fallen when Philip came back from the forum to tell us that a rider had come with the word that Allectus was dead, and his Frankish barbarians, who had taken most of the casualties, were falling back towards Londinium, vowing to make the city pay for their losses.
Philip was all for fleeing, having lived through the sack of a city when he was a child, but so far, all I had dreamed was coming to pass, and I had faith that Constantius would arrive in time. I had not yet determined what I would do when he did. Could I resist the temptation to see him once more, and if I did so what would become of my hard-won serenity? I went to bed that night as usual, partly to reassure my household, and somewhat to my surprise, I dreamed once more.
The fox lay dead on the battlefield. From its side rose a black swan that winged desperately through the stormy air, pursued both by the eagles and the ravens. When it settled to earth at last beside the governor's palace, it was the lion that menaced it. But from one of the side-streets appeared a greyhound, that held off the lion until the swan had the strength to make her escape.
When I woke, the first light of morning was filtering through the bed-curtains. From outside I could hear shouting, but someone would have roused me if there had been immediate danger. I lay still, going over the details of my dream until I was sure I could remember it.
When I did rise, I found the household gathered in the kitchen.
"Oh, Mistress," exclaimed Drusilla, "there's been a battle outside the city! Asclepiodotus, the Praetorian Prefect, beat Allectus at Calleva, and here's the Master's fleet come up from Tanatus to save us from the Frankish barbarians!"
He is here— I thought, or he soon will be. I felt my heart beat more quickly, and the wall which had protected me from my memories was beginning to crumble away. If we met, would he still find me fair? I was past forty now, my body grown more solid with time, and there was silver in my hair.
"They are saying that by afternoon his legion will enter the city," said Philip. "The garrison Allectus left here has already fled, and his ministers and clerks and the rest of his household are scurrying about, gathering up their belongings and preparing to be gone before Constantius arrives." He laughed.
But in my dream, I thought then, the swan had been unable to flee. I finished my porridge and set down the bowl.
"Philip, I will want the carriage in an hour, with you and Decius to walk beside it. Bring your sticks to discourage any trouble from the crowds."
His face showed his amazement, but he had learned that commands given in that tone were not open to discussion. A little before noon we were turning out of our gate into the road. The cart was more suitable for country transport, but the top had leather curtains which could be drawn. Through the space between them I could see that the streets were full of people in a holiday mood. Some were already building an arch of greenery across the main road that led to the forum and adorning it with flowers.
I fingered the fabric of my gown nervously. I had bought it many years ago, because it was almost the blue of Avalon, and for the same reason rarely worn it. My thin woollen palla, of a darker blue, shadowed my face like a veil. Philip had not dared to question me. If we came home empty-handed he would think me mad, though he might doubt my sanity more were we to succeed.
There was no one guarding the gates to the palace. I directed my driver to a side door that I remembered from the one time I had accompanied Constantius on a visit to Britannia, descended, and slipped inside. The corridors showed the signs of a hasty departure.
I made my way swiftly to the suite of rooms that were normally occupied by the Governor, which I suspected Allectus had made his own.
And there, sitting alone in the great bed, half-dressed and staring, I found my black swan.
As I had expected, she was very lovely, with white skin and curling black hair that fell about her shoulders. And not as young as she had looked at first glance, for there were lines of bitterness at the corners of the full lips and shadows beneath the dark eyes.
"Teleri—"
It took a long moment, as if her spirit had been wandering, before she stirred. But her vague gaze focused as she saw the blue gown.
"Who are you?"
"A friend—you must come with me, Teleri. Gather up whatever you would take with you."
"The servants took my jewels," she whispered, "but they were not mine, but his. I have nothing… I am nothing, on my own."
"Then come as you are, but quickly. The Caesar would do you no harm, but I do not think you would wish to be a trophy of his victory."
"Why should I trust you? Everyone else has betrayed me, even Avalon."
I was glad to see she retained some sense of self-preservation, but this was no time to waver. In the distance I could hear a sound like the surf on the shore and knew that the people of Londinium were cheering. I pulled back my palla so that she could see the faded crescent between my brows.
"Because I too was once a priestess. In the name of the Great Mother of us all, I beg you to come away."
For a long moment we stayed with locked gaze. I do not know what she read in my eyes, but when I held out my hand and turned to go, Teleri gathered up one of the bedcovers for a mantle and followed me.
We were just in time. As my carriage creaked through the gate and turned down the side-road, from the direction of the forum I heard the blare of military clarions and the rhythmic slap of hobnailed sandals. My grip on the wooden seat of the waggon tightened until the knuckles showed white. The people were shouting—the words came clearer as we moved on:
'Redditor Lucis, Redditor Lucis!'
Restorer of the Light…
My closed eyes could not shut out the brightness that was blossoming in my awareness. Constantius was coming, his presence a radiance in my soul. Did he feel that I was near, or were the responsibilities of his office and the tumult around him a sufficient distraction?
As the people of Londinium cried out in welcome to their saviour, my cheeks grew wet with silent tears.
AD 296-305
During the weeks that Constantius spent in Britannia I remained true to my vow and made no attempt to see him, but my self-discipline took its own toll. My woman's courses, never regular, had almost ceased, and now a variety of other symptoms, from a pounding heart to waves of heat that left me drenched as if even my body were weeping, added to my misery.
Meanwhile the city was rejoicing at the word that Theodora had borne Constantius another child. I knew he had been devastated by our parting, but by now he must be appreciating the advantages of a wife who was royal, young and fertile. Prudence, which had kept me out of his sight before, gave way to despair.
The counsels of wisdom I had meant to give Teleri went unspoken. For her sake I had missed even the glimpse of him I might otherwise have had, though at the time I had thought even that much unwise. Constantine wrote to tell me that he was going to Egypt with Diocletian to fight someone called Domitius who had started a rebellion there, and so to my other troubles I could add anxiety for his safety.
And then Constantius left Britannia, and I learned the true meaning of despair. Lying with curtains drawn in my bedchamber I refused to rise and dress myself, and neither Drusilla's most delicate recipes nor Hrodlind's pleading could persuade me to eat. For most of a week I lay, accepting no company but that of Hylas, who was now grown so old that he spent his days dozing by the brazier, though when I was in the house he still insisted on following me from room to room. I rejoiced in my growing weakness, for though I had promised Constantius I would not take my life, this gentle slide into oblivion seemed a welcome surcease to my suffering.
And as weakness loosed the fetters of my mind, a vision came.
It seemed to me that I was wandering in a misty landscape like the borders of Avalon. I had come to confront the Goddess, to learn the next step in my own passage, to go beyond the Mother and meet the Crone. Before, I could never see beyond the Mother, who must be the central face of the Goddess, and the two on either side, Nymph and Crone, only Her handmaidens.
But what I was enduring now was the ultimate childbirth, the ultimate test of strength and courage. Now, confronting my own transition from the status of motherhood, I was forced to see the world-tragedy of mothers. Even Jesus, according to the Christians, had a mother, and again and again and again I saw him leaning on her arm, and when life deserted and defeated him he cried out to her too. I said, "Just like a man; he went on and died bravely and left the women to put his work together again afterwards." Fear for my own son overwhelmed me and I cried bitterly, "Does the Mother have to let her children go just to be crucified?"
I asked what was beyond. Again and again I received only the sense of being a ship's figurehead cleaving water towards the unknown.
Then I seemed to perceive woman's central tragedy. I had lost my own mother before I could even know her, and was left alone, lost, desperate, crying out for comfort. It was a situation in which we women continue to find ourselves lifelong. We are forced to lend strength to men, to bear and feed our own children. Outsiders saw me as strong, but I was a child crying in the dark for comfort and my mother had gone away and would never be there for me again.
And then the twist of the knife. Before I was barely old enough to stand alone, before I had had time or strength to know who I was, a smaller hand had been tucked into mine and the Voice had said, "Here. This is your little cousin. Look after her."
And this is the confrontation with Life, the first awareness that perhaps we should cry out, "No," and strike down that little form and batter it until it lies dead and cold and no longer demanding, and run on free, untrammelled, shouting, "Mother, wait, there's only me."
Or else we must make the other choice, being deprived of the Mother, to become the mother, and pick up the little one when she falls down, and wipe away her tears, and rock her to sleep, clinging together against the dark because she is as much in need of comfort as you, and you are the stronger so it is yours to give…
And that, I realized as the bright images misted away, was what I had done, first for Becca and Dierna, and later for a succession of maidservants and soldiers' wives and junior officers in my husband's command. And for Teleri, though I had failed her, at the last.
And then I realized that someone was with me in the room. I had left strict orders that I was not to be disturbed, but I was too weak now even for anger. I opened my eyes.
Teleri was sitting beside my bed, slumped a little in the chair, as if she had been there for some time. In her lap she held a bowl of porridge. It still steamed, and the scent brought back memories of the Hall of the Priestesses on a frosty morning, when we had all gathered to eat our daymeal around the central fire. It was this scent, I realized, that had brought me back from my vision, the fragrance of porridge with honey and dried apples as they made it in Aval on.
"Your servants dared not trouble you," she said softly, "but I will not add to the sins I already bear that of letting you die when there is something I can do."
I reached out for the bleak security of despair, but my stomach was growling. Apparently my body had decided to live, and it was no use arguing. With a sigh, I held out my hand for the bowl.
"When you are well," said Teleri, "I will leave you. I am going back to Avalon. I should never have left it, and if Dierna casts me out, I will wander until death takes me in the Mist between the worlds."
That was what I had been doing, I thought grimly, and without the trouble of travelling to the Summer Country, but it seemed to me that I had lost the right to criticize.
"Come with me, Helena. I do not know your story, but it is clear that you are a priestess of Avalon."
I swallowed a bite of porridge, considering. Had I been forgotten already? Ganeda might well have been bitter enough to erase my name from the rolls of priestesses. But perhaps the explanation was simpler.
"When I dwelt on the Holy Isle I was called Eilan," I said slowly, and saw her eyes widen.
"You are the one who ran away with a Roman officer! Not since the days of the first Eilan who was High Priestess at Vernemeton has there been such a scandal. But Dierna said that you were kind to her when she was a little child, and always spoke well of you. Is your Roman dead, then? Your servants do not speak about him."
"Not dead, except to me," I said through stiff lips. "He is Constantius Chlorus, the father of my son Constantine."
Teleri's eyes filled with tears. "I was married to Carausius, who was a good man though I could never love him, and to Allectus, whom I did love, though he was good neither for Britannia nor for me."
"This was Dierna's will?" In the end, it would seem that Ganeda had trained her grand-daughter well.
"She wanted to bind the Defender of Britannia to Avalon."
I nodded, understanding that this was the same hope that had originally sent me out to seek Constantius.
"Dierna is a great priestess, however badly things turned out for me," Teleri said earnestly. "I am sure that she would welcome you—"
And then attempt to use me, all for the good of Avalon, I thought bitterly. Once, I might have had as good a claim to be Lady of the Holy Isle as she, but I had been away too long, and though Constantius had abandoned me, his son, whose last letter lay even now on the table beside my bed, had more need of my counsel than the priestesses of Avalon.
"To Dierna, and to her only, you may say that I still live, and that I send my love to her. But I think that the Goddess may still have work for me in the world."
A week later, when I came down to breakfast, they told me that Teleri had gone. She had what was left from the money I had given her to buy clothing, and all I could do for her now was to ask the blessing of the Lady upon her journeying.
Spring had come to Londinium. The Tamesis ran high with rainfall and new leaves were springing from every branch, welcoming the returning birds. Life returned to my limbs, and suddenly I needed to be outside, walking through the pastures and along the stream that divided the city. At other times I would go past the forum and over to the baths, or farther still, to the Temple of Isis that had been built near the western gates to the town. With each day I grew stronger, and less content to sulk at home, brooding on my misery. I missed the patter of paws at my heels, but as soon as I began to recover, Hylas had died, as if he felt his duty was now done. He had lived a long time for a dog, but I could not bring myself to get another.
A stone-carver had his workshop between the Isaeum and the Temple of Diana, and I conceived the idea of commissioning from him a relief of the matronae, the trio of ancestral mothers who were honoured all over the Empire. But it had come to me that my carving should be different, and so in addition to the usual three figures, two of them holding baskets of fruit and the third a child, I asked the sculptor to carve a fourth Mother, this one holding in her lap a dog.
Perhaps the Mothers were grateful, for within a moon, I met three people who were to make a profound difference in my life during the remaining years I spent in Londinium.
I encountered the first immediately after finishing negotiations over the carving. I had set out in search of a cookshop where I could have a bit of bread and sausage before starting home. But as I turned the comer, I nearly tripped over something furry, and looking down, found myself surrounded by cats. If this was an omen, I did not understand it. There must have been two dozen, of all shapes and colours, waiting impatiently in front of a rather ramshackle building that had been added on to the back of the Temple of Isis.
I heard a ripple of words in some foreign tongue, turned and saw a small, round woman draped in several tunicas and a palla of brightly clashing colours, and leaning on a cane. Dark hair was partly covered by windings of purple, and she was carrying a basket that smelled strongly of fish even from here.
She looked up and saw me. "Oh I am sorry," she said in Latin. "They get very insistent, the greedy pusses, but I am the only one who will feed them, you see."
As she opened the bag and began to dole out fish heads I could see that her dark eyes had been elongated with kohl, and her skin had a warm glow that had never come from a British sun. Around her neck hung a pendant of a cat in the Egyptian style.
"Are you a priestess?" I asked.
"I am Katiya, and I serve the Lady Bast—" She started to touch one hand to her forehead in homage, realized that she was holding a piece of fish, laughed, and cast it to a big orange tomcat who waited to one side.
"Eastward we gaze upon Bast, the Queen-Cat," she chanted softly. "In the east we seek for the soul of Isis, Light-bearer, Moon-mother, gentle protectress. To the shrine of Per-Bast we direct our prayers… But I am the only one in Londinium who does so," she added, shaking her head. "In Egypt all people know that the cat is sacred to the Goddess, but merchants bring cats to Britannia and leave them, and no one seems to care. Only the priests of Isis let me stay here because they know that Bast and Isis are sisters. I do what I can."
"My goddess favours dogs," I told her, "but I suppose that Bast is her sister as well. Will you accept an offering?"
"In my Lady's name," she answered, and from amongst her draperies fetched out a net bag, somewhat less redolent of fish than the basket, into which I could drop a few coins. "I feed my little ones, and I make songs. Come to me when you are sad, noble lady, and I will cheer you."
"I think it very likely you will!" I answered, laughing in spite of myself. And thereafter, for as long as I lived in Londinium, I would visit Katiya every week or so and make my offering. Just to keep the scales balanced, however, I made a donation to the Temple of Diana, who loves hounds, for the care of the city's stray dogs. From time to time I would take one of these foundlings home with me, but though I enjoyed the patter of paws about the house, with none of them did I find the bond I had had with Hylas and Eldri.
The second meeting occurred one day when I noticed the name "Corinthius" on a sign above a door and paused, remembering the old Greek who had been my tutor when I was a child. From inside I could hear the sound of young voices declining Greek verbs. Corinthius had told me he intended to set up a school. I asked Philip, who was with me, to knock and enquire, and soon I was taking wine with a young man who told me he was the son of my old tutor, who had married when he got to Londinium, and begotten this son to eventually inherit his school.
"Oh yes, my lady, my father often spoke of you," said Corinthius the Younger. Crooked teeth showed as he grinned. "He used to say that you were brighter than any boy he ever taught, especially when I had not done well at my lessons."
I could not help smiling in answer. "He was a good teacher. I wish I could have studied with him longer, but I was lucky my father believed a girl-child should be educated at all." I did not tell him that my studies with the old Greek had been followed by a much more extensive education at Avalon.
"Oh indeed," Corinthius nodded. "I am so sorry sometimes, when I see my lads with their sisters, that I am not able to teach the girls as well. I think that some of their parents would be willing, but they do not like to send their girls to a male teacher, and of course there are not so many educated women here as in Rome or Alexandria…" He poured more wine.
"Do you know," I said eventually. "I have always wished that I had a daughter, to whom I could pass on some of the things I know. You might suggest to the mothers of some of these hoys who have sisters that they pay a call on me. My husband left me with enough to live on, but I find myself a little lonely, and would welcome a… circle… of friends."
"You will be like Sappho in the meadows of Lesbos," exclaimed Corinthius, "beloved of the gods!"
"Perhaps not quite like Sappho," I replied, smiling, for when we lived in Drepanum I had read some of her poems that my tutor had never shown me. "But tell the women, and we shall see."
Corinthius kept his word, and by the time the carving of the matronae was finished and installed in a shrine, a group of mothers and daughters were coining to my home at the new moon and the full, and if what I taught them owed more to Avalon than it did to Athens, it was no one's business but our own. But not even to these, the first sisters in spirit I had had since I left the Holy Isle, did I confide whose wife I had been.
The third meeting took place at the baths, where one was assured of eventually meeting everyone in the city, during the hours reserved for women. Seen through clouds of billowing steam, everyone looks mysterious, but it seemed to me that the voice that was so loudly complaining about the price of wheat was familiar, and the long-boned, dark face as well.
"Vitellia, is it you?" I asked when she drew breath at last. Through the steam I could see that the golden fish still hung from its chain about her neck.
"By Heaven's blessings, it is Helena! When I heard about—the marriage—I wondered—"
"Hush!" I held up one hand, "I do not speak of that here. I was well provided for, and people think me a rich widow with a son serving abroad."
"Well then, let us be widows together! Come, let us eat a bite, and you shall tell me all that has happened since your son was born!"
We dried and dressed ourselves and went out through the marble portico. As we passed the statue of Venus I saw Vitellia glance at it nervously, but there was nothing there to account for the disgust with which she hurried past, only a garland of flowers that someone had draped across the pedestal.
"I am sure that people would not do that if they knew how difficult it is for us," she muttered as we passed out into the road. "I know that you are not of the true faith, but in the days when our husbands were serving together, all the officers paid honour to the Highest God, so perhaps you can understand. We are commanded to avoid idolatry, you see, and yet we are surrounded by graven images and sacrifices."
She gestured down the street, and I saw, as I had seen a hundred times without thinking anything of it, that we were surrounded by gods. An image of Neptune rose from a fountain, nymphs and fauns grinned from the corbels of houses, and the crossroads was marked by a shrine to some local spirit who had recently received a plateful of food and a bunch of flowers as an offering. I remembered being struck by the lavish display when first I came from Avalon, where we knew that all the earth was holy, but saw no reason to emphasize the point with all these decorations, but I had become accustomed to it, after more than twenty years.
"But no one asks you to honour them," I said slowly—for it had been years since any emperor had tried to enforce that requirement.
"Even to touch them, to see them, is a pollution," Vitellia sighed. "Only in the church we have built in the woods outside the walls can we feel truly free."
I lifted one eyebrow. I had walked out along the north road at Beltane, when even the fields inside Londinium were too confined for me. I thought now that I remembered the building, a modest daub-and-wattle structure with a simple cross over the door. But the woodland that surrounded it had hummed with the power of the spirits that were abroad that day, and patches of flattened grass showed where young couples had honoured the Lord and the Lady in their own way the preceding eve. How could the Christians imagine they would avoid the old gods by moving outside the town?
Still, it was not for me to open their eyes to what they so manifestly did not desire to see. Vitellia was still talking:
"And one of our older members donated a building near the wharves that we have made into a refuge for the poor. Our Lord commanded us to care for the widow and the orphan, and so we do, nor do we ask what faith they hold, so long as they speak no demon's names within our walls."
"That seems a worthy work," I told her. Certainly it was more than any of the magistrates were likely to do.
"We can always use helpers, to treat their ills, and serve out the food," said Vitellia. "I remember hearing that you knew something of herb-lore, when we were in Dalmatia."
I suppressed a smile. Teaching had blessed, but did not quite fill, my days. It might prove interesting, I thought, to work with these Christians for a while.
And so it proved, and for the next seven years, my life was both rich and full, and more useful, I suppose, than it had been when my only responsibilities were to keep Constantius's house and share his bed.
It was at the end of February in the third year of the new century that the news that was to change everything arrived. I was on my way home from my weekly visit to the priestess of Bast, when I heard a tumult from the market-place. When I turned in that direction, Philip, who had been my escort that day, stopped me.
"If there is a riot, Mistress, I may not be able to protect you. Stay here—" He grimaced as he realized we were in front of the Mithraeum. "Here you will be safe, and I will go and see what the excitement is all about!"
I smiled a little as I watched him stride down the road, remembering the scrawny boy he had been when he first joined our household. He was still lightly built, but he had a very solid presence now. I tried to remember whether that change had come when he became a Christian, or when Constantius freed him. I rather thought it was the former, that had liberated his spirit even before his legal status was altered. Perhaps that was why, given his freedom, he had chosen to stay with me.
It seemed a long time before he returned. I seated myself on a bench in front of the Mithraeum, contemplating the relief of the god slaying the bull. I wondered if Constantius had visited this place when he was in Britannia. I knew that he had continued to rise in rank in the cult, for I remembered times when he had been absent for additional initiations, but of course the worship of Mithras had no place for women and he was forbidden to tell me what went on. Still, to sit here was almost like being under his protection. I was glad to find that the thought made my heart ache only a little, now.
Then I heard quick footsteps and saw Philip coming, his face white with shock and anger.
"What has happened?" I rose to meet him.
"A new edict! Diocletian, may God curse him, has begun the persecutions again!"
I frowned, hurrying to catch up as he started down the street again, for the murmur of the crowd was beginning to sound ugly. I remembered hearing rumours of trouble a few years before when the presence of Christians was said to have spoiled the Emperor's ritual. A few officers in the army had been executed for refusing to join in the sacrifices, and some others expelled, but nothing more had come of it. In most places, the Christians, though considered peculiar, got along well enough with their neighbours.
How could Diocletian be so stupid? I had been around Christians long enough by now to know that far from fearing martyrdom, they welcomed it as an easy way to cancel out all sins and win the favour of their gloomy god. The blood of the martyrs, they said, was the nourishment of the Church. Killing them only reinforced their belief in their own importance and made the cult stronger.
"What does the edict say?" I repeated as I caught up with Philip.
"Christianity is outlawed. All copies of the scriptures are to be turned in and burnt, all churches to be seized and destroyed." He spat out the words.
"But what about the people?"
"So far, only the priests and bishops are mentioned. They are required to offer sacrifice in the presence of a magistrate or be jailed. I must get you home, Lady—the garrison is coming out, and the streets will not be safe."
"And what about you?" I asked, between breaths.
"With your leave, I will go out to the church and offer my help. Perhaps something can be saved if we are in time."
"You are a free man, Philip," I said, "and I do not presume to command your conscience. But I beg you in the name of your god, take care!"
"If you will also do so!" He managed a smile as we neared my door. "Keep the rest of the household indoors. Though you are still a worshipper of demons, the High God loves you well!"
"Thank you! I think!" I watched him hurry off down the road. Still, blessings should be welcomed, from whatever quarter. Shaking my head, I went in.
For a day and a night, the detachment from the fortress tramped through the streets, searching out Christian leaders and property. By the time it was over, the bishop of Vitellia's church was in custody, and the little church in the woods by the north road had burned to the ground. The holy books, however, had been hidden safely, and a pile of church accounts given to the authorities to destroy.
The smoke of the burning was carried away by the wind, but the stench, both physical and metaphoric, lingered longer. Diocletian had ruled wisely for almost twenty years, but in his attempts to preserve our society, the Emperor was effectively dividing it. As I had predicted, persecution only made the Christians more stubborn, and there were more of them than most of us had realized.
These days the Christians met in secret in their houses. Philip reported to me that letters from the eastern part of the Empire told of arrests and executions. But to my relief, Constantius did no more than enforce the letter of the new law in those portions of the Empire under his control. And once the first excitement was over, the general population showed little enthusiasm for persecuting their neighbours. How those Christian neighbours might view the rest of us was not a question which at that moment applied.
Still, it seemed to me that in times such as these, I ought to offer the maidens I was teaching something more relevant than Homer and Virgil, and so, from time to time, I would turn our discussions to the issues that divided men today.
"It is necessary," I said one morning, "that the educated person understand not only what she believes, but why she believes it. And so I ask you, who is the Supreme God?"
For a long moment the girls looked at each other, as if not quite certain I really meant what I was asking, much less that it applied to them. Finally, Lucretia, whose family exported wool, raised her hand.
"Jupiter is the king of the gods, that's why the Emperor puts his image on his coins."
"But the Christians say that all deities except the god of the Jews are demons," offered Tertia, the sandal-maker's daughter.
"That is very true, and so I ask you, how many gods are there?"
This elicited a babble of discussion, until I held up a hand for silence once more. "You are all correct, according to our way of thinking. Every land and district has its own deities, and in the Empire, our practice has been to honour them all. But consider this, the greatest of our own philosophers and poets speak of a supreme divinity. Some call this Power "Nature", and others "Aether", and still others, "the High God". The poet Maro tells us,
"Know first, the heaven, the earth, the main,
The moon's pale orb, the starry train,
Are nourished by a Soul,
A Spirit, whose celestial flame
Glows in each member of the frame,
And stirs the mighty whole."
"But what about the Goddess?" asked little Portia, pointing towards the altar in the corner of the sunny chamber we used as a classroom, where a lamp was always kept burning before the relief of the Mothers. Sometimes, when no one else was present, I would pat the head of the dog in the fourth Mother's lap, and feel it warm and smooth beneath my hand as if Hylas had come back to me.
I smiled, having hoped that someone would raise this point.
"Certainly, it makes more sense to see the Highest Power as female, if one must assign a gender to Deity, for it is the female who gives birth. Even Jesus, whom the Christians say was the son of God, or even God himself, had to be born from Maria before he could take human form."
"Well of course!" answered Portia. "That's where the heroes and demi-gods come from—Hercules, and Aeneas, and the rest of them."
"But the Christians say their Jesus was the only one," observed Lucretia. The rest of the girls contemplated this lack of logic and shook their heads.
"Let us return to the original question," I said when the discussion came to an end. "Pythagoras tells us that the supreme Power is 'a soul passing to and fro, and diffused through all parts of the universe, and through all nature, from which all living creatures which are produced derive their life.' This is very much the same teaching as I received among the Druids, except, as I said, that we tend to think of this Power as being female when we give it a gender.
"This being so," I gestured towards the matronae once more, "why do we feel impelled to make images of that which cannot, in truth, be pictured, and divide it up into gods and goddesses and give them histories and names? Even the Christians do it—they say their Jesus is the Supreme God, and yet the stories they tell about him are just like our own hero tales!"
There was a long silence. In a way, I thought, it was unfair to ask these girls to answer a question whose solution had eluded the theologians and philosophers. But perhaps, just because they were female, they might find it easier to understand.
"You have dolls at home, don't you?" I added. "But you know they are not real babies. Why do you love them?"
"Because…" Lucretia said hesitantly after another pause, "I can hold onto them. I pretend they are the babies I will have when I grow up. It is hard to love something that has no face or name."
"I think that is a very good answer, don't you?" I asked, looking around the circle. "In our minds we can understand the Highest God, but so long as we are in human bodies, living in this rich and varied world, we need images that we can see and touch and love. And each one of them shows us a part of that supreme Power, and all the parts together give us a glimpse of the whole. So the people who insist there is only One God are right, and so are those who honour the many, but in different ways."
They were nodding, but I could see a glaze of incomprehension in some of their eyes, and others were looking out into the garden, as if they found more truth in the play of light on the leaves. Still, I could hope that something of what I had said would stay with them. Laughing, I dismissed them to go out and play.
For two more years, Diocletian's edict remained in force in Britannia. The year after the edict, when everyone was ordered to sacrifice, a soldier named Albanus had been put to death in Verulamium for refusing to do so, and one day I found Vitellia weeping because she had heard that her fourteen-year-old nephew, Pancratus, had been killed in Rome, but in Londinium there were no executions, though the bishop had been imprisoned and stayed under guard.
The Christians continued to meet in their houses, and when even that became too dangerous, I allowed them to hold services in mine. Or rather, in my atrium, since even with veils thrown over my images and altars, the interior was considered too polluted for them to expose the holy things of their god. They were happy, however, to welcome me to those parts of their service open to the uninitiated.
Nathaniel the rope-maker, who, since he was only a deacon in the church, had escaped arrest with the others, was holding forth to his congregation, the men on one side of the garden and the women on the other, heads covered and eyes cast down in piety.
"Oh God, the heathen have come into thy inheritance;" he intoned, moving his finger along the line of writing.
Vitellia sat in the first row, eyes closed and lips moving. Why did they not allow her to speak, I wondered, since obviously she knew the holy writings as well as he?
"They have defiled thy holy temple; they have laid Jerusalem in ruins. They have given the bodies of thy servants to the birds of the air for food …"
As he continued I reflected on the appropriateness of the words, which had been written, so I was told, by one of the ancient Jewish kings.
"We have become a taunt to our neighbours, mocked and derided by those round about us…"
Apparently those who served the god of the Jews had always had difficulty in getting along with their neighbours. Was it because they were wrong, or because, as they believed, they were ahead of their time? I had suggested that since the Christians did not believe in our gods, it could do no harm for them to go through the motions of making an offering, but Vitellia reacted with horror. I realized then that the Christians did believe in the gods, and considered them evil. I did not understand her reasoning, but I had to admire her integrity.
"… let thy compassion come speedily to meet us, for we are brought very low. Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name…"
For the past few minutes I had been aware of a distant murmur. As Nathaniel paused, it grew louder—the sound of many feet and many voices. The Christians heard it too.
Softly, one of the women began to sing—
"The eternal gifts of Christ the King,
The martyrs' glorious deeds we sing;
And all, with hearts of gladness, raise
Due hymns of thankful love and praise…"
I caught Philip's eye and nodded, and he got up and went through the house towards the door.
Then we heard a heavy banging, and even Nathaniel's voice failed. Some of the women were weeping, but others sat straight with burning eyes, as if hoping for martyrdom. And they continued to sing.
"They braved the terrors of the time,
No torment shook their faith sublime;
Soon, holy death brought peace and rest
And light eternal with the blest."
I rose to my feet. "Do not be afraid. I will go out to them."
When I got to the door, Philip had it open, confronting the crowd. I stepped past them, and as the first man opened his lips to speak, stared him down.
"I am Julia Coelia Helena. For twenty years I was the wife of Constantius who is now your Caesar, the mother of his first-born son. And I promise you, it is his wrath that you will feel if you dare to invade my home!"
Behind me, the Christians were still singing—
"Redeemer, hear us of thy love,
That, with thy martyr host above,
Thy servants, too may find a place,
And reign forever through thy grace."
"Oh Lady!" the leader shook his head, and I saw that he was laughing. Now I could see that many of those in the crowd had garlands on their heads, or carried wineskins, and I began to realize that the fervent souls who were singing behind me were going to be frustrated in their desire for martyrdom.
"That was never our intention! In the name of Jupiter and Apollo, we are not bent on slaughter, but celebration! Have you not heard the news? Diocletian and Maximian have abdicated, and your Constantius is now Augustus!"
AD 305-306
In my dream I was walking with Constantius along the banks of a river. I could not tell if it was the Rhenus or the Tamesis, for the sky was a dim, featureless grey. It hardly mattered, since my beloved was with me. His features were shadowed, but my body knew the strong grip of his hand. It was unexpectedly sweet, after so many years in which I had denied even my memories, to have his companionship.
"Where are you taking me?" I asked.
"To see me off on my journey—"
"Not again!" I stopped, trying to hold him, but his steady progress drew me on. "Please, do not leave me again!"
"This time," he told me, "it is only by leaving you that I can be with you once more."
"Is night falling?" I asked through my tears.
"No, my beloved, look—it is the morning!"
I blinked, for his face was growing more radiant as the sun rose above the horizon. And then he was all light, slipping through my fingers as I reached out to embrace the dawn…
Light blazed through my eyelids, and someone was banging on the door. I struggled free of the bedclothes, rubbing my eyes as the ordinary reality of my bedchamber, frescoed with scenes of the nymphs of wood and fountain, replaced the misty radiance of my dream. It could not be danger—though Vitellia was still living with me, in a new wing we had built onto the house where no one had ever honoured the gods. Since Constantius became Augustus, even the pretence of Christian persecution had ceased. But spring sunlight was flooding through the windows. Clearly I was going to get no more sleep, and it was time to start the day.
As I pulled off my sleeping shift and began to wash from the basin I could hear voices below. My hair showed a few threads of silver at the temples, but I still walked everywhere instead of taking the carriage or a chair, and my body was firm. Hrodlind appeared in the doorway, and seeing that I was up, hurried to set out a fresh shift and one of my finer tunicas, the saffron silk with embroideries of wheat sheaves around the hem.
When she saw the surprise on my face she grinned. "You have a visitor, Mistress. You will want to look your best today!"
I considered forcing the truth out of her, but apparently it was not some disaster. I held out my arms for her to pin the gown without a word, suppressing a smile at her expression. She had not expected me to give in so easily.
By the time I approached the dining room, settling a palla of light-weight, creamy wool across my shoulders against the early morning chill, I could smell the tantalizing aroma of nut custard, which Brasilia used to make as a holiday meal when Constantine was a boy. And with that, I stopped short, understanding who, beyond all hope or expectation, my visitor must be.
My heart pounded in my breast and I took a deep breath, grateful for the sense of smell which is the key to memory, and which had given me this warning. Constantine could not be bringing bad news, I thought, or the servants would not have been so cheerful. I waited a little longer, summoning up the courage to face this son whom I had not seen since he had been home for a visit when he was eighteen years old. He had written, of course, but guardedly, as if he suspected his letters were being intercepted. I no longer knew where his heart lay, and I wondered if the intervening thirteen years had changed him more than they had me.
Then I rearranged my palla and made my entrance into the dining room.
A strange officer was sitting by the window, positioned where his moulded bronze cuirass would catch the morning sun. At least he had had the courtesy to remove his helmet. I noted the fair hair, worn rather long with a hint of curl, and my view of him doubled suddenly into the image of a stranger and the recognition that this was Constantine. He had opened the window, and was looking out at the birds splashing in the bath I had set up for them in the atrium, and had not heard me come in.
For a moment longer I indulged myself with the sight of him. A long-sleeved tunic of white wool edged with crimson showed beneath the armour, and well-worn breeches of tan suede. In fact the entire outfit, though it was of the best quality, showed the effects of long use. Perhaps Constantine had not intended to show off, but had come to me in his armour because he had nothing else decent to wear. But I must, I thought then, allow him his pride.
"Uniform becomes you, my son," I said softly.
He turned swiftly and jumped to his feet, surprise changing swiftly to joy that lit his face as if the sun had risen in the room. In the next moment I was being crushed in a hard embrace, held away so that he could look into my face, and hugged again.
"I trust that cuirass is more comfortable from the inside." I smiled ruefully when he let me go, rubbing my flesh where the edges of the armour had dug in.
"One becomes accustomed," he said absently, still holding my hand. After a moment I felt myself flushing beneath that intense gaze. "Oh, my mother, do you know how often I have dreamed of this day? And you have not changed at all!"
That was not so, I thought, smiling back at him. Was the image he had of me so strong that he could not see what I looked like, or was it that most of my changes were inside?
"Sit down, and let Brasilia bring in the breakfast she has been cooking for you," I said at last. "What are you doing here, and how long can you stay?"
"One day only," he said, answering the last question as he sat down. The chair creaked beneath his weight, for he had grown as tall and big-boned as my own father, everything about him just a little larger and more solid than other men. Surely, I thought with satisfaction, watching him, he is worthy to be the Child of Prophecy!
"Father gave me special permission to land here instead of at Eburacum, and tomorrow I must be on my way north to rejoin my legion. The Picts will not wait on my pleasure."
I felt my heart pound suddenly in my breast. Constantius was in Britannia! I suppose I should have expected it. After several years of peace, the wild tribes of the north were trying once more to break the border, and in several places they had overwhelmed the troops stationed on the Wall. It was the responsibility of the ruler of the West to defend Britannia.
I shook my head, trying to deny the sudden, traitorous wish that Constantius had come with his son to Londinium.
"But how do you come to be here at all? I thought you were serving in the East with Galerius—"
Constantine's face grew dark, but clearly, he had learned to control his temper. If he had not, I told myself, no doubt he would not have lived long enough to be sitting in my dining room now.
"Oh, I was," he said grimly. "I was on that dreadful march across the plain east of Carrhae, the one that killed Crassus and ten legions two hundred years ago. Scarcely a tithe of our men made it home again from that campaign. I was surprised Galerius himself survived Diocletian's wrath when we reached Antiochia—did you know he had to walk for a mile behind Diocletian's chariot?"
I shook my head. I was glad now that I had not even known my son was involved in that disaster.
"You did not write to me about this."
Constantine lifted an eyebrow, a habit I recognized as my own.
"My dear mother, my father is an honourable man, and there has always been trust between him and Maximian. Things are quite otherwise in the eastern part of the Empire. Even when I served in Diocletian's household, one of his freedmen read our mail, and Galerius had even less reason to trust me."
I sighed, realizing that my own letters, perhaps in response to the restraint in his, had over the years become increasingly perfunctory, with the result that neither of us really knew the other at all.
Drusilla brought in the porridge and Constantine rose to embrace her. There were tears in her eye when he let her go again.
"Did you go with him on the second campaign as well?" I asked when he had eaten a little.
"By that time I was serving in his bodyguard. I have to say that Galerius learns from his mistakes. The Emperor gave him an army of Illyrian veterans and Gothic auxiliaries, and we took the northern route, through the mountains of Armenia where the people were our friends. I will also admit that the man has courage—he scouted the enemy camp by night with only two men to guard him, and led the charge when we overran them. That day, there was enough glory for everyone. Narses was put to flight, and the treaty we finally made bids fair to secure our eastern borders for at least a generation."
"Galerius must have appreciated you, to keep you in his guard." I set down my own spoon.
Constantine grinned. "Oh, I can fight. I will not tell you about my narrow escapes—they would only frighten you—but I know the gods protect me, for I came through both campaigns with scarcely a scratch. Still, I think Galerius wanted me close so he could keep an eye on me. He thinks he will outlive Father, and be supreme, and I am a threat to his plans." Abruptly his gaze grew grim. "How much news about the abdication did they release to the provinces, Mother?"
I looked at him in surprise. "Only that it had taken place, and two men I've never heard of were appointed as Caesars."
"Galerius made those choices," Constantine said through stiff lips. "I don't know what pressure he put on Diocletian to do it—perhaps he threatened civil war. Do you know, the mint at Alexandria had actually minted a coin with my name on it? I was ready to ask Maximian if he would set a date for my wedding to his daughter Fausta, who was betrothed to me when Father was made Caesar, and is finally of age. Everyone was sure the choice was going to fall on Maximian's son Maxentius and on me.
"We stood waiting on that damned hill, beneath the column of Jupiter, and Diocletian tottered to his feet and complained about how frail he was becoming and that he was seeking rest after his labours, and so my father and Galerius would become the Augustii, and to assist them he was appointing Maximus Daia and Severus as Caesars! People were whispering, wondering if I had changed my name, until Galerius shoved me aside and pulled out Daia, the son of his sister!"
"Some have said it is just because you and Maxentius are the sons of emperors that you were passed over, to avoid establishing a hereditary monarchy," I said mildly.
Constantine swallowed an oath. "I could name you a dozen men who would have been more worthy of the honour! Men I would have been proud to serve. Severus is Galerius's best friend and neither he nor Daia has ever commanded anything bigger than a detachment. Galerius does not want colleagues, but servants, and all Diocletian wants is peace and quiet so that he can continue to believe he saved the Empire!" he said furiously. "Galerius was a good servant, but by the gods, he will make a poor master. He is continuing to harass the Christians in his dominions, when clearly the persecution has failed."
I took a deep breath. "I am surprised he let you go."
Constantine began to laugh. "So was he! Father had written to him, pleading ill-health and requesting my presence. Galerius took his time about replying, and it is amazing how accident-prone I became thereafter. My patrols were ambushed, the beaters who were supposed to hold a boar we were hunting somehow failed, footpads attacked me outside a taverna. Things got so bad I bought a slave to taste my food."
I bit my lip. No use to ask why he had not written to tell me of his danger—the letter would never have arrived. But every morning since he had left me I had prayed for his safety when I made my daily offering.
"Finally, Galerius gave me his permission," Constantine continued. "This was at the end of the day, and he obviously expected me to leave the next morning. But by that time I was wondering if I would live that long. I got a friend in the clerk's office to frank the pass for the post-horses and did my best not only to out-run pursuit but warning, especially once I was travelling through country Severus holds." He grinned wolfishly, then applied himself to his food.
I sat back with a long sigh, reviewing his story as I waited for my heartbeat to slow.
"And so you came to your father," I said presently. "Was it a ruse, when he said he wanted you because he was ill?"
Constantine sat back with a frown. "Well, I don't know. He says so, but he grows short of breath easily, and he doesn't look well. That is the other reason I insisted on coming to you now. He will not allow the physicians to examine him, and I thought that perhaps you—"
I shook my head. "My darling, that right belongs to another woman. It would only bring pain to both of us if I went to your father now."
My son's frown grew deeper, and I realized that despite, or perhaps even because, he had for so long had to act the part of a loyal subordinate, he disliked not getting his own way. But a mother has certain advantages. I met his grey stare, and in the end it was he who looked away.
After that, things grew easier, and when he had finished eating, I showed him my house and introduced him to Vitellia, and then arm in arm, we made a circuit of the town. Constantine did most of the talking, and I delighted to rediscover this glorious young man whom the gods had made my son. By the time we returned to Brasilia's most lavish dinner, night was falling. And this time, Constantine waited until morning before he set out once more.
That summer I followed the military news with more interest than I had since the days when I was an army wife in Dalmatia, and the garrison in Londinium, who had been mightily impressed by Constantine, kept me supplied with news. Asclepiodotus, the prefect who had served Constantius so well in the campaign against Allectus, was once again second-in-command of his army. I remembered him as an earnest young officer when we had been stationed in Sirmium.
The man who had been my husband had always been able to inspire devotion. I, after all, had followed him from Avalon. And Constantine still idolized his father. If Galerius had made Constantine Caesar, my son would have supported him as he did his father. As it was, the Eastern Augustus had made two important enemies.
The troops Constantius brought from Germania had landed at Eburacum and joined with selected detachments from the garrisons on the Wall. As the spring turned to summer, they pressed north through the territory of the Votadini, following an ever-retreating enemy all the way past the Bodotria to the vicinity of Mons Graupius, where Tacitus had defeated their ancestors a little over two centuries before. And there, the reports told us, the Emperor had won a great victory.
This news was proclaimed from the forum and posted on the gates of the Governor's palace. The priestess of Bast, who was one of those to whom I had introduced Constantine, offered her congratulations. I thanked her, but despite the general rejoicing I found myself uneasy, and continued to the Temple of Isis to make an offering.
The goddess in the shrine was portrayed in the Roman fashion, with a crown of wheat and flowers surmounted by a crescent moon, and flowing draperies. The sounds of commerce outside seemed to fade as I cast frankincense upon the glowing coals in the brazier before the altar.
"Goddess," I whispered, "for the sake of your son Horus, the mighty warrior who is the Hawk of the Sun, watch over my child and bring him safely home." I waited for a moment, contemplating the play of lamplight on the marble features, and then cast a second handful on the coals. "And watch over the Emperor also, as you watched over Pharaoh."
Any citizen might make offerings on behalf of the Emperor, but I no longer had the right to pray for him as my husband, and even if I had, the fidelity of Isis is remembered because Osiris died. I went home, but found myself still uneasy. Still, the reports continued to be positive. I am becoming an old woman, I told myself. There is no reason to worry so…
At the end of June, I received a letter from Constantine.
"My father collapsed on the way back from Alba. He is up again now and we have reached Eburacum, but he seems often to be in pain. The physicians will say little, and I am afraid for him. Please come. He is asking for you…"
Constantine had sent an order for post-horses. Travelling by carriage and changing horses at each government mansio, it took a little over week for me to travel north to Eburacum. A fifty-five-year-old body was not meant for this kind of travel. By the time I reached the fortress, I was bruised and exhausted by the constant sway and jolt of the carriage, but though the word of the Emperor's illness had spread through the countryside and I saw many worried faces, at each stop I was told that Constantius still lived, and so hope sustained me through my journey.
I was realizing now that the sorrow of our separation had been eased a little by the knowledge that Constantius still walked the world. And yet, as I travelled, I could not keep from remembering the image of Isis sorrowing for her husband. Even the gods lost those they loved, so why should I think myself immune?
Word of my coming had run ahead of me. Constantine came out of the presidium as we rumbled through the gate, and when the carriage halted, lifted me out. For a few moments I clung to him, drawing strength.
"How is he?" I asked, when I could stand alone.
"Each day he insists on getting dressed and attempting to do a little work. But he tires very easily. I told him that you were coming, and each hour, it seems, he has asked where I think you are now." He managed a smile. "But we persuaded him to lie down a little while ago and he is sleeping."
He escorted me into the building and showed me the chamber they had set aside for me and the slave girl who would attend me. When I had washed and changed my gown I found Constantine waiting in the adjoining room where a table with wine and honey-cakes was laid.
"And how are you?" I asked, noting the dark smudges beneath his eyes. Physically, I might be the more exhausted, but he was suffering too.
"It is strange. When I go into battle I feel no fear. But this is an enemy I cannot confront, and I am afraid."
It is true, I thought sadly, even the strength of a young man who does not believe he can die is helpless against some enemies.
"I remember," he said slowly, not meeting my eyes, "from when I was a child… you can do strange things sometimes. You must help him, mother, or we are lost."
"Did you call me here as your mother, or as a priestess?"
He looked up, and for a moment I thought he was going to crouch against me with his head upon my breast as he had when he was a little child.
"I need my mother, but my father needs the priestess."
"Then it is as a priestess that I answer you. I will do what I can, Con, but you must understand that there is a natural rhythm to our lives that not even the gods can deny."
"Then they are evil gods!" muttered Constantine.
"My heart cries out against this as loudly as yours, but it may be that all I will be able to do is to help him let go."
The chair scraped loudly as he stood up and gripped my hand. "Come—" He pulled me to my feet, and scarcely waiting for me to wrap my palla around me, drew me from the room.
"He stirred a moment ago," said the physician on watch as we appeared in the doorway. "I think he will wake soon."
The Emperor lay on his bed, his upper body raised on pillows. I paused, making an effort to pull myself together. Constantine was right. The wife and mother would dissolve in tears, seeing her beloved lie so still. It was the priestess that was needed now.
I came to the bedside and stretched out my hands above Constantius's body, extending my awareness to sense the energy flow. Above the head and brow the life-force still flowed strongly, but the aura above his chest flickered weakly, and lower down, though it was steady, it was not strong. I bent close to listen to his breathing, and could hear the rasp of congestion inside.
"Does he have fever?" I did not think so, for his skin was not flushed, but abnormally pale; however, I had hoped it might be, for the lung-fever, though serious, was something I knew how to fight. The physician shook his head, and I sighed. "The heart, then?"
"I have made up an infusion of foxglove, for when it pains him," said the physician.
"That is well, but perhaps there is something we can do to strengthen him. Do you have a trustworthy man you can send for the following herbs?" As he nodded, I began to dictate my list: motherwort and hawthorn, nettle and garlic, and Constantine's grim look eased.
Then the man on the bed stirred and sighed, and I knelt beside him, chafing his cool hands between my own.
Eyes still closed, Constantius smiled." Ah, the goddess returns…'
"The Goddess was always with you, but now I am here as well." With an effort I kept my voice firm. "What have you been doing to yourself, to get in such a state? Is it not the place of the Augustus to sit in his palace and leave the fighting to younger men?"
"I have not even opened my eyes, and she is scolding me!" he said, but in truth I think he was not yet certain I was real.
"Perhaps this will take the sting away," I leaned over to kiss his lips, and as I released him, he looked up at me.
"I have missed you," he said simply, and read my answer in my eyes.
Throughout the week that followed, I dosed Constantius with my potions, but though Constantine talked loudly of his improvement, I began to suspect that he had used up the strength that remained to him in holding on until I arrived. Constantine and I took it in turns to sit with him, holding his hand as he rested, or speaking of the years we had spent apart.
One day, as I bathed him, I noticed a livid scar up the side of one thigh and asked when he had risked himself so foolishly.
"Ah, that was in Gallia, three summers ago, and I assure you I did not intend to run into such danger!"
Three years, I thought, and the scar was still red and angry. It had not healed quickly or well, a sign that his circulation was failing even then. I could have given him medicines to strengthen his heart, if I had known. But perhaps it would not have mattered. It was not Theodora who was my rival. Constantius had given his heart to the Empire before he ever offered it to me.
July was drawing on, and even in Eburacum the days were warm. We opened the windows to let in fresh air and covered the sick man with a light woollen cloth, and the chirring of the crickets blended with the rasp of his breathing.
One afternoon when I was alone with him in the room Constantius woke from a brief sleep and called my name.
"I am here, my dearest," I took his hand.
"Helena… I feel that this is one battle I am not going to win. The sun shines brightly, but he is declining, and so am I. I have done most of what I set out to do in this world, but I fear for the Empire, at the mercy of Galerius and his puppet Caesars."
"No doubt Augustus thought the same, but Rome still stands," I told him. "Her safety, in the end, depends on the gods, not you."
"I suppose you are right—when an Emperor receives divine honours, it becomes hard to tell the difference, sometimes. But the gods do not die. Tell me, my Lady, can this body heal?"
For a moment I stared at him, blinking back tears. His gaze was clear and direct, and there had always been truth between us. I could not deny it to him now.
"It has been long since I studied the arts of healing," I said finally. "But each day you spend more time in sleep. The life-force in your body sinks lower. If it continues to do so, I think you may stay with us a week, but no more."
Astonishingly, his face brightened. "That is more than I have been able to make my physicians say. A good general needs as much accurate information to plan an orderly retreat as he does when he seeks victory."
I would not have thought of it that way, and despite my tears I returned his smile.
"Constantine asked you to heal me, but now I ask you a harder thing, my beloved priestess. I have spent too much of my life in trying to stay alive on battlefields, and it is hard to let go. Now you must teach me how to die."
"I can only do this if I become wholly the priestess, and when I do so, the woman who loves you will not be here."
He nodded. "I understand. When I led Constantine in battle, it was the Emperor, not the father, who ordered him into danger. But we have a little time, my darling. Be my beloved Helena today, and we will feast on our memories."
I squeezed his hand. "I remember the first time I saw you, in a vision that came to me when I was only thirteen years old. You shone like the sun, and you do so still."
"Even now, when my hair has faded and my strength is gone?" he teased.
"A winter sun, perhaps, but you light the world for me all the same," I assured him.
"The first time I saw you, you looked like a wet kitten," he said then, and I laughed.
We spent the rest of that day in talk, replaying our every meeting in the gentle light of memory. For a time Constantine sat with us, but it was clear that this was something in which he had only a peripheral part, and he went away to rest before his watch. When I went to my bedchamber that night I wept for a long time, knowing that this had been our farewell.
In the morning, I came to Constantius robed in blue and wrapped in the invisible majesty of a priestess. When he opened his eyes he recognized the difference immediately. Others responded to the change without understanding, except for Constantine, who gazed at me with a child's panic at the loss of the familiar mother he thought he knew.
You are an adult now, I tried to tell him with my steady gaze. You must learn to see your parents as fellow travellers upon Life's road. But I suppose it was not surprising that he still saw us with a child's eye, having been separated from us when he was only thirteen years old.
"Lady, I salute you," said Constantius in a low voice. "What have you to teach me about the Mysteries?"
"All men who are born of woman must one day come to life's ending," I murmured, "and the time is coming now for you. Soul to soul, you must listen, and not allow yourself to be distracted. Your body has served you well, and become worn out in that service. You must make ready now to release it, to depart from it, to rise from the realm of the tangible, which is subject to change and decay, to that place where all is Light, and the true and eternal natures of all things are revealed…"
It had been many years since I had learned these words, and I had spoken them only once, when the other novices and I took turns to read them to an old priestess who was dying; but now need called them forth, complete and perfect.
Throughout that day I repeated the instructions, explaining how the body would become a weight too heavy to be moved, and all sensation would disappear. When that happens, the soul must be ready to will itself upward and out through the crown of the head, seeking its union with the Source of All. The cares of the world and affection for those one has loved conspire to drag the spirit back again, but it is necessary to be steadfast in determination to leave them behind.
"You will pass through a long, dark tunnel, as once you were forced from the darkness of the wornb. This is the journey of your birth in the spirit, and at the end of it you will emerge, not into the light of day, but into that radiance that is the true source of the sun…"
Constantius had fallen asleep, but I continued to speak, knowing that some part of his spirit was still listening. It seemed to me that the gods meant to give him a gentle death, and from one of these sleeps there would be no waking, and the soul would depart from the body, and at last the flesh, without a spirit to direct it, would give up as well.
By this time it was apparent to everyone that the Emperor was dying. In the city, I was told, the clamour of the market-place was hushed, and incense smoked on every altar. The people of Eburacum had always considered Constantius to be one of their own: he had saved them from the Picts, and they were grateful. In the fortress the soldiers stood guard around the Praesidium, and Crocus and his senior warriors had crowded into the corridor outside the Emperor's chamber, waiting with the uncomprehending patience of good hounds.
That night Constantius woke long enough to speak for a while with Constantine. Exhausted, I had gone to bed, but in the grey hour before the dawn a soldier came to summon me. I dashed water on my face, struggling to focus, but in truth, I was not surprised. I had given Constantius permission to depart and instruction in how to do so. There was no reason for him to linger on.
"He is drifting in and out of consciousness," whispered the physician as I came to the door. "And he labours to breathe."
"Here is Mother, come to see you," said Constantine a little desperately as I eased myself down on the low stool beside the bed. Constantius struggled for breath, choked for a moment, and then exhaled.
"Put more pillows behind him," I said, uncapping the vial of attar of rose that hung from a chain around my neck. I saw his nostrils flare, and the next breath came more easily, and then he opened his eyes, and his lips twitched in an attempt at a smile.
For a moment it was enough simply for him to breathe. Then he gathered his forces and turned his gaze towards Constantine. "Remember…" he whispered." Take care… of your mother…and your brothers… and sisters…" Gaze focused in concentration, he drew breath again. "Pray to the Highest God… to preserve the Empire…"
His eyes closed, but he was clearly still conscious, still struggling. The windows were shuttered, but I could feel a change in the air. I gestured to one of the physicians—
"Open the windows!"
As the shutters were folded back, a pale light filled the room. With each moment it grew stronger. The sun was rising; on strong men's cheeks I could see the glistening track of tears. Moment by moment, the face of Constantius was growing brighter. I leaned forwards, and clasped his hands together upon his breast.
"The world fades around you…" I whispered, "it is time to move into the Light…"
His gaze turned towards me, but I was not certain what he was looking at, for in that moment his features were transfigured by an expression of astonished joy. "Goddess…" The word hovered at the edge of sound. Then his eyes widened, unseeing, the body fought for a last breath and failed, and he lay still.
For the eight days between the death of Constantius and his cremation, Constantine had kept to his chamber, eating little and speaking to no one. For me those days passed like a nightmare, in which the memories that came to me waking were worse than my dreams. But when the eighth day came to a close I put on the white garments of mourning and went out to follow my husband's body to the pyre. Constantine was waiting, washed and shaved and wrapped in a snowy toga, and although his eyes were deep-shadowed, he had clearly recovered his self-command. I remember that night now as a series of images—torches whipping in the wind, pale in the gathering dusk, and the white marble of the new-made tomb glowing faintly in their light. Not for Constantius a burial along the road outside the town—the magistrates of Eburacum had claimed him, and if he could no longer protect them, in life, the honours paid to a tomb in the forum might persuade his hovering spirit to confer a blessing.
I have another image—Constantius's body, wrapped in purple and crowned with the wreath of gold, lying upon a pyre, stacked high with good British oak and studded with spices. I remember torchlight on the grim faces of Asclepiodotus and Crocus, who had escorted us, and the glitter of their armour. And Constantine's silence, as if he had been carved of the same marble as the tomb.
There is a sound, a wail that goes up from the populace when Constantine thrusts his torch between the logs. The soldiers who had filled an entire side of the square are murmuring, but their discipline holds, and as the smoke swirls skywards, hiding the still form of the Emperor, except for the weeping of women it becomes quiet once more. I have seen this before, in the vision at my passage into womanhood, but I saw myself wearing the purple, and that never happened, so how can this be true?
I remember the pyre beginning to fall into coals as the first stars pricked through the velvet pall of the sky, and the deep voice of Asclepiodotus, telling Constantine he must speak to the people now. Like a sleepwalker, Constantine turns, and now his eyes burn. He lifts his arms, and it becomes utterly still.
"My brothers and sisters, brothers-in-arms, and fellow-children of the Empire. My father and yours is dead, and his soul ascends to heaven. We are orphaned of our protector, and who will watch over us?"
And a wail rises from among the women, as swiftly overwhelmed by a deep cry from the throats of many men.
"Constantine! Constantine will protect us! Constantinus, Impera-tor!"
Constantine lifts his hands once more as if to quiet them, but the shouting only grows louder, and now the soldiers surge forwards,
Crocus in the forefront, one of them bearing a purple robe, and Asclepiodotus has my arm and is pulling me away.
I do not remember how we got back to the praesidium. But throughout that night it seemed to me that the heavens echoed back the cry—
"Constantine for Imperator!"