But either way, if the Picts mustered or if they didn’t, the late summer would see the end of them once and for all.
XLIX
Londinium, Southern Britannia, 306 A.D.
At Valerius' villa Lucius was questioning Juliana about her meeting with Crocus. He was sitting on the edge of his bed. She was standing a few paces away, her head respectfully down.
He shook his slowly, distractedly, when he heard Crocus had threatened her.
“We will be grateful to you, Juliana. I hold a great responsibility. Many of my people are depending on this mission.”
“What else will I have to do?” she said.
“Nothing for now, Juliana, absolutely nothing.”
She stared at the floor. She knew what for now meant. It meant that there’d be more meetings with stony-faced piss-drinkers who could split you open just for looking at them the wrong way.
“Now, tell me every word that passed between you and him.”
L
Londinium, Southern Britannia, 306 A.D.
Sybellina was in the bath house. Two slave girls were working hard on her with the villa’s most pungent oils. They were using long cleaning strigils to rub the oils in and the dirt out. One wall of the warm massage room was covered in a tiled wall painting depicting the Goddess Hecate, the guardian of the veil between the material and heavenly worlds. A shrine cut into the wall held a small marble statue of the goddess. Rumors of the defection of Britannia from the worship of the Roman gods to the one god were clearly lies.
Sybellina wondered would Constantine hear that she'd been with his father. She hoped he would. Everything was working out exactly as had been predicted.
And now it was time to call on Hecate. The goddess had helped the Great Mother's priestesses many times before. In the time of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius she'd brought storms down upon the enemies of Rome. She could be counted on to do something small, such as bringing ruin onto the head of the one who had stolen her charm and threatened her mission.
She ordered the slave girls to kneel, one on each side of her, then prostrated herself, naked, on the marble floor in front of Hecate. She banged her head lightly against the floor, so the goddess might hear her supplications. Finally, she turned on her back and ordered the slave girls to massage her as she recited the secret chants her mother had taught her to gain the attention of the goddess. Her breathing became labored as the massaging continued on every part of her body, as she directed, until her exhortations grew louder and finally reached a crescendo as she stuck her tongue out and her legs quivered in bliss.
LI
Londinium, Southern Britannia, 306 A.D.
When the full moon arrived, a few days later, the army broke camp and began the long journey north over the endless cobbles of Ermine Street. Members of the imperial entourage, such as the priestess Sybellina, travelled by heavy covered wagon to the rear of the main force. Juliana travelled on horseback with a group of other high-ranking slaves.
Constantine and Lucius rode with the emperor's personal guard at the center of the column. He was glad to be on the road again.
“There is no better sport than hunting men,” the Emperor Diocletian used to tell him. Soon he'd be enjoying that sport again. In fact, he was looking forward to it. Every evening he had to listen to Sybellina’s theories about spies around every corner and how he had to be careful. And now he was sick of it all. She would run from him whenever he’d tried to get close to her and had even had Juliana’s room searched early one morning before they left Londinium.
Nothing had been found there of course, but Juliana, her eyes wide with fear, had threatened to kill herself afterwards. Lucius had to swear she was not going to be tortured to get her to calm down. A terrible screaming, that had stopped almost at once, like the sound of someone being crucified in their nightmare, had woken him late the following evening. Juliana had denied it was her when he and Lucius entered her room.
She’d been quieter than ever since then. He’d seen such behavior before when slaves were accused wrongly of something.
He was glad he was not travelling with Sybellina.
LII
Gesoriacum, Northern Gaul, 306 A.D.
The Empress Theodora, Constantine's stepmother, arrived at Gesoriacum looking for a ship to take her to Londinium on the very day the emperor and his army began their march north across the channel in Britannia. She was escorted by a troop of legionaries and personal slaves.
Theodora exuded the haughtiness of an elegant and attractive woman, exactly how you'd expect the eldest daughter of the retired Emperor Maximianus to behave.
Unsettling news had reached Theodora’s ears. She'd decided after hearing it, that she must speak in person with her husband as soon as possible. Messengers would not do. Leaving most of her court behind she'd set off as quickly as she could in the hope of catching him before he made any decisions that he, or she, might regret.
Theodora did, however, arrive at Gesoriacum just in time to catch the post ship about to sail for Londinium.
As they neared the coast of Britannia she stood at the prow of the galley with the captain.
“My lady, you must be looking forward to having your family reunited. We heard all about Constantine. We wish you well. His return is a marvel.” The captain had spoken to her on only two occasions since they'd left port. His guttural Latin marked him out as being from a tribe based around the old port at Rutupiae in Britannia, whose skills in these waters were legendary.
“Constantine is not my son, captain. He is the son of a tavern girl who my husband, the emperor, kept around out of pity, because her bastard was so sickly. If you have any good wishes for a reunion, save them for me and the emperor. Constantine’s mother isn't worthy of your good wishes and his connection with the imperial family will soon be over.” She turned away.
The captain bowed and left her at the prow. Below her the dark sea rushed past.
When the galley eventually tied up at the wharf in Londinium, Theodora sent a messenger to the governor of the City. A detachment of legionaries and a chariot arrived for her soon after.
When she was ushered into the main reception hall where the governor was waiting for her, she let him know exactly how she felt.
“You provincials! You have no idea how to welcome an empress, do you? You are extremely lucky I don't ask my husband to have you flogged in the forum.” She held out her hand to be kissed.
“I beg your forgiveness, empress.” The governor prostrated himself, then stood and kissed the edge of her robe and then her ring.
“I am in need of your services for only one night, governor. I expect you’ve run out of all luxuries anyway, after Constantine’s visit. I'll be leaving tomorrow morning to follow the emperor. Have all that I might need readied at once.”
“I’ll make the arrangements myself, empress.”
Early the following day Theodora left the city accompanied by a troop of guards and her own slaves. It was a perfect crisp morning with a clear blue sky and a light, auspicious wind.
As they rode north other travelers on the road moved out of their way when they spied Theodora's purple cloak. Any who were slow to do so were brusquely ordered to clear the road by the guard.
Drifts of pink and white blossoms covered the gravel verges in some places, where clusters of cherry trees (Gean trees, the locals called them) huddled close by on each side of the paved roadway.
At one point, bluebells ran in a great carpet over a thin woodland to their right, which stretched to the top of a distant ridge. In some places the roadway was paved with red brick, at other times with gray or veined white slabs of stone. Occasionally it was simply rough gravel.
Yew trees, looking as old as the empire, grew beside the ivy-clad oaks that crowded at times up close to the path. Thistles and nettles flourished everywhere in a great profusion. When the road entered a valley, rushes spread away on both sides, then disappeared as they gained higher ground. In places the landscape wa
s alive with industry. They passed woodsmen coppicing ash for spear shafts and farm tools and other workmen felling older cherry trees, for furniture most likely.
The villages they passed through bustled with people coming and going, the women in long drab garments to their ankles and the men in trousers strapped to their legs or long tunics, depending on their occupation.
The farmland was often being tended by gangs of slaves, who stopped and stared as they rode past. Theodora saw little use of the whip and shook her head at the mistakes being made by the masters here. Occasionally she saw evidence of an army or a horde of people having passed this way recently: flattened fields patterned with rutted cart tracks and signs of great encampments.
They made good time, stopping at night at the biggest taverns or at other lodgings along the way. Most of the forts they passed were located at bridges, some had whitewashed workshops open to the cobbled streets from which the sounds of hammerings and apprentices being chided could be heard.
Five days after leaving Londinium, they discovered that her husband’s army was only two days ahead of them and was expected to camp for some time at the major colony of Lindum, a day’s march further on. She would catch up with them there.
As they progressed further north she noticed that people wore their hair longer and that the salutes of the sentries at the forts were slower than the salutes down south and in Londinium. The local tribespeople here were clearly in need of a sharp lesson in who their masters were. How they could resent Rome, after all the benefits of expanded markets and central administration and the peace they had brought, was beyond her.
She spoke only when absolutely necessary with her guards. The senior centurion who led them was a veteran. He'd earned this prestigious duty because of his taciturn disposition, she guessed. But his manner suited her. The empress had learnt while very young that if she spoke to the slaves and guards who surrounded her, they would presume a friendship, and soon after would expect favors, or worse still, would use everything she said to start the most incredible rumors. Such were the trials of being raised in the strict confines of an imperial palace.
Even travelling by horseback, rather than by slower covered wagon, would, she knew, be enough to spark waves of gossip in her wake.
The road skirted a marsh edged with lichen and fern on the morning of the day they reached Lindum. Sodden clouds broke open and tumbled cloak-penetrating sheets of rain on them as they went on. As the rain whipped at her, anger filled her heart. He would pay for all these indignities. She'd make sure of that.
She turned her head, checked the road behind. It was empty.
But she had heard something.
She looked again. Yes, there. Out of the mist a single horseman was riding at full pelt toward them, his black cloak flapping wetly behind him, a hood pulled tight over his head.
The rider slowed to a walk as he went past but didn’t stop. He simply held out a small bronze pass to the centurion who'd taken up a position beside her and was waved on. As she watched him disappear into the rain ahead, she wondered if she should have stopped the rider and asked him what mission made him ride so fast in treacherous conditions.
LIII
Lindum, Northern Britannia, 306 A.D.
Just beyond the city of Lindum, on the road north to Eboracum, lay a wide grassy sward where Roman armies camped to practice their maneuvers. The emperor, after consulting his officers and then ignoring their advice, decided that his army would rest there for three or four days, depending on when the rain stopped.
The old fortress at Lindum had been built on a limestone scarp overlooking a pool in the River Witham. A colony of veterans had been established there in the earliest days of Roman rule and the town had spread out from the fortress down toward the river. It had been enclosed soon after by a rampart, wall and ditch.
Monumental, recently-constructed stone gatehouses topped by oversized equestrian statues barred the main roadways into the town. Horses were the chief source of wealth for the local Coritanian tribespeople and the prospect of selling horses and provisions to the Roman army had brought large numbers of traders into the city the day the emperor arrived.
Accompanied by two hundred and fifty legionaries from the imperial guard, the emperor and his retinue were welcomed at the main gate by the governor of Lindum. Rooms had been made ready in the governor's palace where the private baths had been redecorated hastily in anticipation. Local flaxen-haired slave girls, overawed at the prospect of serving an emperor, waited there, ready to pander to his every whim.
It was late in the afternoon when the emperor finished in the bathhouse and strolled, thoroughly refreshed, into the governor's private meeting hall. A single slit, no wider than a hand, in the middle of the far wall provided an unimpeded view over the town. Smoke from cooking fires and forges rose plaiting ribbons in the air. The sounds of horses neighing, the pounding from forges, and occasional muffled shouts or peals of laughter came to him as he watched from his vantage point. Beyond the town walls a line of horses headed away toward where his army was setting up camp.
He rubbed a finger along the thin crack of mortar between the rust red bricks, testing its consistency. He’d heard that brick makers in these parts had been persuaded by druids to water down their mortar and sell bricks not left for two years to dry, though whether that was true, or simply a way for the brick makers down south to make greater profits, he did not know. Certainly, this mortar seemed a good grade with fewer pebbles mixed in than some he’d seen.
He was sure that many of the claims made about the wiles of the druids were no more than tales for frightening children. But it was not always clear which ones.
He'd received a report that the druids and their acolytes were massing on an island off the coast, beyond Hadrian’s Wall, and that they were planning to flee to Hibernia, though that too could be a ruse. But what if it was true? Had the sworn enemies of every emperor who’d ever set foot on this island finally come to see they’d been irreversibly vanquished? Or was that what they wanted him to think?
He banged his fist against the brick wall. He'd give a lot to know what they were planning, whether he would face the Picts in open battle, or would they hold a fortress, like Vercingetorix had done in Gaul, and allow themselves to be wiped out as one. A flash of light bloomed on the horizon. Was it a signal?
Were their spies trailing him even now, as he’d been warned? They certainly would want to know what he was planning, and they were cunning enough to make use of any flaw in his plans. Cunning was one of their main strengths. It was a strength he should not underestimate.
Directly below his vantage point were the red tiles of a small Mithraic temple. A puff of white smoke rose from an opening in the temple roof as he gazed down at it. Some of his officers would most likely already be there, confessing their sins no doubt and appealing to Mithras, their god of light and truth, for personal success in the forthcoming battles. They'd be sending messages soon, he expected, begging him to attend their sacrificial meal.
But he wouldn't go. He joined Mithraic celebrations for the rebirth of the sun every midwinter. But that was more than enough for that lot. It was all the alms-grasping priests of Mithras would ever get from him again.
A rampart of cloud, slate hued, edged in gold by the setting sun, was rolling in from the south. He felt a spit of rain on his cheek.
Soon it would be time to get ready for the feast. Every town he visited had to have one. He patted his stomach. It was bulging a little in a way he did not like. Feasts were not what he needed now, and being forced to listen to endless speeches, praising him, followed by the local magistrates exaggerating the woes of the town and the terrible problem of ever-rising prices.
If he was lucky, as he usually was, all that would be followed by testimonies about the delinquency of youth these days and the corruption of old men. All these aimed at local targets and accompanied by appeals for him to solve every problem, as everyone knew he could, with the merest flick
of his little finger.
The first night in any Roman town was always the same. Every ugly prostitute and their pimps would line the main street in their finest tunics, and every criminal would show off his wife and her pearls. Sometimes the two groups were indistinguishable. This was what it was like to be emperor. And it was not what he’d imagined his life would be.
But there was one thing he was looking forward to tonight. She would liven up his table. He patted his stomach. And the sausage this far north was always good.
LIV
Lindum, Northern Britannia, 306 A.D.
Lucius had only just arrived at his lodgings in the military prefect's oversized villa when he received the summons. Leaving Juliana to sort out his things he went, in a state of high anticipation, to find out if his lure had been taken.
Cavalry officers and members of the imperial guard were milling around at his destination, the town’s stables, each one intent on giving detailed instructions as to how their particular horse should be treated. Excitement filled the air. Soon these men would be enjoying the pleasures of the taverns and the she-wolf’s lair.
One of the Alemanni officers told him Crocus could be found at the far end of the yard assessing a disused stable block. He found the low stone building and pressed at its rotten wooden door. It opened, creaking loudly.
A musty odor came out. Dust thickened the air in the shaft of gold evening sunlight, coming through a small round window high up on the far wall. Stacks of chariot wheels on the floor were illuminated, as if they’d been discarded by the gods. The peeling carcass of a once impressive cart had been pushed into a corner. A cloak of dust coated everything. A chariot stood near the doorway, forlornly waiting for those who'd started to rebuild her to return and finish the job.
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