by Ian Ross
‘Domina,’ he said with a smile, ‘you keep unorthodox hours!’
Fausta merely smiled. Then she pursed her lips and hooded her eyes, knowing that it gave her an inscrutable air.
‘You have a new appointment,’ she said.
‘The nobilissima femina keeps herself informed.’
‘What else do I have to do but keep myself informed?’
Luxorius gave a light shrug. ‘Well then,’ he said. ‘As you doubtless already know, the Caesar Crispus is to be sent west, to Treveris, to take charge of the western provinces in his father’s name. Apparently it was felt that the Gauls and the barbarians needed an imperial presence, to remind them of the emperor’s majesty. He is to be given a full official and military staff, headed by a Praetorian Prefect, his eminence Junius Bassus. I have been appointed to the staff of the prefect, to act as his cubicularius.’
He inclined his head slightly, as if to register that he gave away no secrets. Unlike many eunuchs, his voice was not high and lisping. Fausta guessed that he had been castrated after puberty. An illegal act, and a very dangerous one; few survived the shock or the loss of blood. But Luxorius had been lucky in many ways since.
She nodded. ‘No doubt,’ she went on, dropping her voice, ‘my husband wants his bastard offspring to gain some military experience? He is scarcely a martial figure at present, after all.’
‘That I could not say, domina.’
Fausta tutted. ‘Don’t be coy with me,’ she said. ‘You know it as well as I do. Is there already some conflict being hatched, so Crispus can win a little glory and be saluted by the troops?’
‘If that is the case,’ Luxorius said in a careful murmur, ‘the information has not been widely shared. It would be a hazardous undertaking...’
‘I doubt the boy himself would be exposed to many hazards. You mentioned he has a military staff? Who are his commanders?’
Luxorius frowned, puffing his cheeks in a mime of recollection. ‘His eminence Junius Bassus is to have supreme control of the troops in Gaul, the field army, under the Caesar’s authority. Of the subordinates, I’m not sure. Most are already in place... But it seems the Dux Limitis Germaniae, commanding the garrisons on the lower Rhine frontier, was killed in somewhat mysterious circumstances two months ago. I believe one Aurelius Castus is to be appointed to replace him. He is currently in charge of the field troops at Aquileia.’
Aurelius Castus. Fausta glanced away for a moment, hoping that Luxorius would not notice her pause. Yes, she knew that name well. Castus had been a Protector in her husband’s retinue, then a tribune during the war in Italy. But Fausta knew more about him than his official titles. She remembered that his wife had died quite recently – back in November, was it? At the time the news had saddened her; Fausta had liked Domitia Sabina, even if the woman was flighty and ruled by her emotions, lacking in self-control. She had even considered writing to Castus, although there was a rumour that he was illiterate. Perhaps even summoning him to meet with her – but what consolation could she have offered him? And she was wary of showing favour to any of her husband’s officers. Such things made her vulnerable.
Several times in the last eight years Aurelius Castus had been of service to Fausta. In the male-ruled world that surrounded her, he was one of the very few men she felt she could trust. For all that he lacked intellectual qualities, grace or subtlety, he was honest and resolute. He had treated his wife well, while she lived. He was also extremely tenacious, and Fausta could respect that. Of course, there was more to it than that: she had never forgotten the night, years before, when he had been deceived into her bed. Terrifying at the time, sordid in retrospect, and it had only been moments before he had realised her true identity and fled. Even so, no other man save her husband had touched her in that way. And she had never known such passion from Constantine.
Now the thought that Castus would be one of the young Caesar’s commanders brought a fresh crab-scuttle of anxiety to the back of her mind. If there was to be fighting on the Rhine, then Flavius Julius Crispus must be the clear victor, not any of his subordinates. Military officers, even good ones, were expendable. Caesars were not.
‘You served my brother once, didn’t you?’ Fausta asked Luxorius, gazing sideways at her own reflection.
‘I served the former ruler of Rome. That is no secret,’ the eunuch replied. ‘As I serve your husband now. Loyally.’
‘As you serve me.’
‘If you say so, domina!’ Luxorius stifled a quick smirk.
‘And your superior back then – your instructor, I might say – was Valerius Merops, yes? My brother’s head chamberlain. One of your countrymen, I believe. And I don’t just mean the country of the emasculated.’
‘Valerius Merops was also from Egypt, yes.’ Luxorius peered at her, obviously wondering where these questions were leading, perhaps half guessing the destination. ‘He was an extremely loyal and effective supporter of your brother. A shame he was unable to accommodate himself to the new regime.’
Fausta smiled briefly. A nice euphemism. Merops had died in agony after hours of torture, finally garrotted to death in a dungeon of the Palatine. It was widely believed that, immediately upon the fall of his master Maxentius, he had seized and secreted the ancient Roman imperial regalia. It was never found, and Merops had died with his secrets intact. No matter: Constantine had ordered his goldsmiths and jewellers to create new regalia, more magnificent even than the old set. Emperors were not troubled by such minor inconveniences.
‘And what would this Merops have done, would you say,’ she asked, ‘had he been working for me now? In the matter of my stepson, for example. Might he consider that it is a long road to Treveris?’
The eunuch drew a sharp breath. More in relief, Fausta guessed, that the subject was in the open at last.
‘You raise a notion that is... quite possibly treasonous. Domina.’
‘And yet? I am the emperor’s wife. I have a certain influence, and I could see that anyone who aids me is rewarded. What would your Merops say to that?’
Luxorius took a few moments to think. Not too long though.
‘Doubtless he would be most interested. Doubtless he would ask time to consider various options that might become available. It is, as you say, a long road to Treveris. A long and perhaps dangerous road.’
Fausta nodded, then dismissed him with a wave, and Luxorius got up and moved to the door as quietly as he had arrived.
‘One more thing.’
The eunuch paused at her words.
‘The soldier,’ she said. ‘Aurelius Castus. It would displease me if he came to any harm.’
Luxorius regarded her with narrowed eyes. He smiled faintly. ‘The domina is nothing if not warm-hearted,’ he said.
CHAPTER III
Sheets of rain moved across the surface of the lake, hazing the iron-grey water. At the top of the slope, Castus reined in his horse and gazed to the north. On the horizon, he could see the distant mountains appearing for a moment along the far shore and then vanishing once more. The rain beat upon his shoulders, soaked through his cloak and dripped down his back.
‘A sight to chill the spirits, is it not?’ a voice said. Castus turned to see a mounted man on the road behind him, stocky and well dressed, with the rain dripping down his jowled face and chinstrap beard. Junius Annius Bassus, Praetorian Prefect of Gaul.
‘Your eminence,’ Castus said, bowing his head slightly. As commander on the Rhine, he was now vir perfectissimus, addressed as ‘excellency’; but the Praetorian Prefect, as vir eminentissimus, still outranked him. Castus found the inflated-sounding titles a tedious annoyance. However grand they might sound in the gilded halls of the imperial palace, they seemed quite absurd here in the rainy frontier province of Raetia. But he knew some men enjoyed them. Bassus clearly did.
The prefect was peering past Castus at the lake and the distant shore. Around him, his cavalry bodyguards and secretaries stood waiting in the rain, miserably silent.
&n
bsp; ‘Once, years ago in the glorious times of our forefathers,’ Bassus announced in a ponderous tone, ‘all of that lake was a Roman domain! But now our power has receded, and the barbarians have the far shore. The Lentienses, I believe, an Alamannic people... Ah, but if I’m not mistaken you have travelled through that country yourself?’
‘Many years ago, eminence.’
‘Then I’m sure you remember it well,’ Bassus said as he nodded gravely, apparently pleased with his observation. He peered a moment more, then signalled to his followers and jogged his horse into motion.
Castus remained where he was, letting the prefect and his party move on up the road. His horse, the ageing ox-solid grey mare named Dapple that had carried him from one end of Constantine’s domains to the other and back, shook her mane and pawed the wet turf. Castus leaned forward and rubbed at her neck.
He had certainly not forgotten that journey through the wild country of the Alamanni: over five years before, in the aching heart of winter, he had carried Constantine’s offer of alliance to the court of Licinius in Pannonia. Only Castus himself had survived it. One of the dead had been his best friend Brinno, the son of a Frankish chieftain, who was serving in the Protectores. Brinno had sacrificed himself to allow Castus to escape, and in all the years since then Castus had never met another man he trusted as much, or mourned as deeply. It perplexed him now to think that he was returning to the lands of the Rhine frontier, the home of Brinno’s people. What would his friend have thought if he had known that Castus would one day be appointed commander of all that territory? Doubtless he would have been amazed – and amused.
Castus was amazed himself. He had never expected the promotion, or wished for it. Dux Limitis Germaniae: that was some other man’s role, not his own. Even after years as a tribune, he was not accustomed to high command, to the deference of others, the weighty dignity and protocol of rule. His first inclination had been to refuse the honour. Since Sabina’s death, he had lived in a dark half-world, uncertain of his purpose. Grief sat like a cold black stone in his gut, and even when it eased he felt bereft of happiness. He had spent the last three months commanding the troops at Aquileia, his spirits sinking ever lower in the frustrating routine of garrison life, his body settling into middle age. The idea of returning to the frontiers once more was attractive. Perhaps, he considered, this was a challenge he needed – perhaps it was his chance to regain the clarity of mind that Sabina’s death had stolen from him.
Still, he knew it would not be a simple assignment. He was not returning to Germania as a mere tribune, but as senior commander of the troops on the lower Rhine, in charge of Rome’s defences in the north-west. And he would be commanding in the name of the Caesar Crispus, a boy of only fourteen.
‘Such things are not unknown in our history,’ Diogenes had told him, back in Aquileia when they first heard of the appointment. ‘The deified Gordianus was only thirteen, I believe, when he first assumed the purple – and he was supreme Augustus. As I recall, the deified Severus Alexander was only a year or so older...’
‘And what happened to them?’ Castus asked. His grasp on Roman history had never been that strong.
Diogenes gave an uncertain shrug. ‘Gordianus lost his life in mysterious circumstances, in Persia...’ he said. ‘And Alexander, of course, was murdered by his senior army commanders. And then, of course, there was Saloninus, the son of the deified Gallienus. He was sent to Gaul as Caesar when he was sixteen, I think.’
‘He did well?’
‘Ah, not quite. He was also murdered. Again by his own officers.’
‘You’re not reassuring me.’
‘Apologies... But, you see, in this case we have no such worries! His eminence Junius Bassus is hardly likely to revolt against the young Caesar. And the senior military commander... would be you.’
Not quite true, Castus knew – there were other regional commanders in the west, already holding their positions, besides the officers of the field army units billeted across the province under Bassus’s overall control. Even so, he was far from easy about the arrangement. Crispus had spent the last six months in his father’s court, observing the business of imperial rule. But he was still an adolescent, and from the little Castus had seen of him over the years he did not have the makings of a soldier. Would the provincials accept him as their true emperor? Would the barbarian peoples beyond the frontier respect his rule? The youth was not even Constantine’s legitimate son, or so the rumours claimed.
Turning away from the lake and the distant mountains, Castus watched the tail of the column climbing the slope behind him. A stream of men, horses, carriages and wagons, and they had been travelling for twenty days since leaving Aquileia in mid July. Castus had his own small official staff and household with him, and a mounted escort. The rest were the Caesar’s retinue: three hundred soldiers, slaves and officials. It had been raining solidly ever since the column had crossed the Alpine passes between Clavenna and Curia. The plains of Italy had been bathed in summer sun, but north of the mountains it seemed a different season altogether.
A carriage reached the top of the slope, labouring on the muddy road, and Castus jogged his horse forward and rode along beside it. His orderly Eumolpius was seated beside the driver, more than usually bleak-looking in his waxed rain cape. Castus tapped on the louvred window of the carriage, and a moment later the panel slid open.
‘Sabinus,’ came an accented voice from within. ‘Salute your father!’
The boy’s face appeared in the window opening, then his palm. Castus leaned from the saddle, his mouth twitching into a crooked grin as he reached out and rubbed his knuckle against the boy’s cheek.
‘Not too uncomfortable in there?’
‘No, Father,’ the boy said, unsmiling.
Castus ran his fingers clumsily through his son’s fine black hair. Sabinus took after his mother in appearance: that same dark complexion and smooth oval face. Castus was glad of it; he would not have wished his own lumpen looks on anyone. But it troubled him all the same. The boy’s only memories were of Rome, and the luxurious life he had lived there. All his friends were in the city, along with his extended family, now headed by his uncle Latronianus. Since joining Castus at Aquileia, the boy had not been happy. Was it only selfishness, Castus thought, to drag him from all he had known and try to mould him into a soldier’s son, away on the far frontier?
He had been in Rome himself back in March. A terrible visit. The city had seemed like a necropolis to him, a place of cold stone and hard bitter sunlight. Sabina had died intestate, and her property was being contested by a plague of lawyers. Castus wanted nothing but his son. In the gardens of the Domitii family mansion on the Esquiline Hill he had walked with Latronianus, the senator’s lip curling into a feigned smile as he explained the technicalities of inheritance law, as if he were speaking to a particularly simple child. Sabinus would inherit half his mother’s property, and the family would get the rest. But the senator wanted more than that.
‘Your boy is a member of our household now,’ he had said. ‘A true son of the city of Rome. His mother would surely have desired him to stay here, where he feels at home.’ Latronianus wanted formally to adopt the boy, and to pay Castus off with a portion of the inheritance funds. Castus had refused, and they had parted with an ill-concealed mutual disgust. Whether it had been wise, whether it had been proper, Castus neither knew nor cared. But he had made his decision, and he must stick to it.
Now the boy stared gloomily at him from the carriage window, before slumping back into his seat. Castus leaned a little closer. Inside the carriage, sitting beside his son, was the boy’s nursemaid, the blonde barbarian slave Ganna.
‘How much longer until the next stopping place?’ she said, her Germanic accent giving the words an accusatory sound. ‘He’s hungry.’
‘Only another two hours to Arbor Felix,’ Castus said. ‘Maybe three at most, on this road.’
The woman nodded. For a moment she caught his eye, and her ex
pression softened. Castus reminded himself that this journey was taking Ganna back towards her homeland, a place she had not seen since she was captured and enslaved by the Roman army nine years before. But if she felt any eagerness, any anxiety, at the prospect of seeing her own lands again, she gave nothing away.
Rain was dripping in at the carriage window. Castus slid the louvred screen back into place, then raised himself upright in the saddle. As the carriage moved away from him he glanced back down the road at the last few wagons and mounted men climbing the slope. One of the riders drew his attention: a small man with dark skin and a round bald head shining in the rain. Castus had encountered him often enough during the journey – he was an Egyptian eunuch named Luxorius. Cubicularius to the Praetorian Prefect.
‘Good day, excellency!’ the eunuch said as he drew level with Castus.
Castus nodded to him warily. He did not dislike eunuchs as instinctively as many other men did – he had known a couple that were quite decent – but something about this Luxorius troubled him. A memory, perhaps, that he could not place. And why was the prefect’s chamberlain lingering at the rear of the column?
But the eunuch was already moving away between the carts, jogging along on his pony. Castus paused a few moments more, looking once more across the bleak grey surface of the lake; then he turned his horse and rode on into the rain.
*
It was nearing dusk when they reached Arbor Felix. The fortress stood on a low rocky promontory jutting into the lake, a clutch of stone drum towers rising almost directly from the water’s edge. Soldiers of the garrison, Cohors I Herculia Pannoniorum, lined the ramp up to the gateway and cried out acclamations as the Caesar and his retinue passed beneath the massive buttresses and into the cramped circuit of the walls.
Castus found the young emperor an hour later, sitting with his tutor in one of the rooms of the commander’s residence, now requisitioned for imperial use. Stamping in from the rainy courtyard, his two bodyguards waiting at the door, Castus passed through the cordon of Protectores. He flung his wet cloak at one of the attendants, then saluted and dropped to one knee. The boy made a lazy gesture of acknowledgement.
