Julian muttered his thanks, made brief mention of the hospitality he had been shown since arriving in Milan, and then fell silent. The Emperor stared at him expectantly, and with some irritation perhaps, as if waiting for further utterings to drop from his mouth. With a sigh, he turned to his chamberlain, who was hovering at the Emperor's elbow, wringing his hands in impatience.
'My lord,' said the eunuch, 'the platform has been prepared and the crowds assembled. I am afraid they are becoming impatient.'
'Very well. Come, Julian. I would prefer to keep your obvious discomfort to a minimum, and to finish this distasteful duty as quickly as possible.'
The young man blanched, though without losing his composure, and glanced quickly over at me. I could be of no help on this score, and after a moment averted my gaze. Resignedly, he straightened his shoulders and followed the Emperor's quick, waddling pace out the wide double doors and onto the broad wooden platform that had been assembled for the occasion over the stairs and balustrade that coursed up to the entrance. I remained with a small knot of advisers immediately behind them, in the shadows inside, just out of sight of the crowd.
Julian stepped into the harsh sunlight blinking in bewilderment, and a deafening roar rose up as the throats of thousands of men and women opened at the sight. For a hundred ranks away from the platform stood the Emperor's Praetorian guards and home legions, in perfect formation and attention, their spears in unerring vertical alignment over the thousands of brightly polished battle helmets and crimson horsehair crests, multicolored silken pennants fluttering lightly in the cool breeze. Beyond the ranks of soldiers stood the more motley crowds Julian had passed on his way into the city — townsmen and merchants who had been given the day off from their labors and summoned to the palace grounds with their families. In the distance, children and wives sat on the men's shoulders for a better view, while clusters of young, single laborers stood here and there shouting their encouragement to their fellows on opposite sides of the courtyard, waving skin wine bags and gourds, and flirting with gaggles of cackling prostitutes nearby.
Julian stood transfixed at this view of perhaps the largest crowd he had seen in his life. His reverie was broken by the booming voice of the Emperor, who stood beside him. Even with Constantius' powerful vocal range, however, and the excellence of the plaza's acoustics, the size of the crowd required that heralds be posted along the edges to pick up the gist of the Emperor's words and relay them in their own bellowing shouts to the crowds in the back of the space and beyond to the nearby streets of the city, where the multitudes were continuing to arrive to witness the extraordinary event.
'Soldiers and citizens!' the Emperor shouted. 'I come before you to plead your impartial judgment for the step I am about to take.' The crowd fell silent as his words echoed along the sides of the stone buildings ringing the plaza, and were taken up and reechoed by the relays of heralds.
'As you are aware, the barbarians, as if to appease their unhallowed gods with an offering of Roman blood, have disturbed the peace of our western frontier, and are raging through Gaul. In so doing, they are relying on the fact that harsh necessity requires that my attention be devoted to events at the other end of the Empire. If this mischief is countered while there is still time, by measures that have your united support, the criminal insolence of these animals will subside, and the Empire's frontiers will remain sacrosanct. It is for you to strengthen my hope for the future, and to approve my decision.'
He paused a moment to allow the heralds time to relay his words. The soldiers in the front ranks stared up with wide eyes beneath their bronze visors, at the Emperor and his young cousin, who slouched beside him.
'You see before you: our Julian!' he resumed with a bellow. 'My cousin! As dear to me for his personal qualities as for his kinship, a man of exceeding intelligence! It is Julian whom I propose to elevate to the rank of Caesar, to serve directly under me in my capacity as Augustus, a proposal which must be ratified by you, should you deign to grant your approval.'
Constantius again paused for a moment, to allow the expected applause and shouts of acclamation to rise from the crowd. What we heard instead was puzzled muttering among the troops, broken only by the receding calls of the heralds in the distance. Julian seemed to shrink even further into himself with embarrassment. Constantius, determined to wring an acclamation out of the crowd if he had to stand there all night, had just taken a breath to begin his harangue again, when a single centurion rose and shouted enthusiastically that it was the will of God. 'Ave, Julianus Caesar!' he cried. The man had obviously been planted in advance.
Nevertheless, the men in that centurion's company joined in their leader's example. 'Ave, Julianus Caesar!' cried sixty or seventy other desultory voices, a shout that was immediately taken up by several other companies scattered around the plaza and by the heralds on the perimeter, themselves doing their level best to stir the crowd's excitement. Slowly, almost reluctantly the volume of cheers mounted, filling the plaza and spreading to the mob thronging the streets beyond.
Constantius' round, sweating face broke into a broad smile. As he turned to Julian, his mouth remained fixed in its grin, though his eyes narrowed. Glancing briefly to a point behind his cousin, he gave a slight nod. Immediately an enormous eunuch, a Sicilian giant who normally performed menial tasks around the palace, stepped forward, dressed in the elaborate furs and plaid cloth breaches of a Gallic chieftain, his face painted with horrifying blue stripes, a gaudy hairpiece with long russet braids draping down his back, silver serpent-shaped bangles clamped around his massive biceps. The crowd fell into awestruck silence as the man walked ponderously to Julian's side, carrying a large bundle, which he shook out with a deliberate, dramatic flourish. He draped the heavy purple embroidered cloak over the new Caesar's shoulders and fell prostrate at the young man's feet in a position of abject fear.
As Julian stood staring in a combination of wonder and mortification at the huge trembling man, another roar went up from the crowd, this time accompanied by the deafening rattle of shields as the troops clashed them against their knees with a fearsome din. It was only later, after my careful explanation to him, that he understood that this was an indication of the troops' complete approval, and was, in fact, much to be preferred to their striking their shields with their spears, a sign of rage and grief.
'Beloved cousin!' Constantius shouted above the roar. 'You have thus attained, while still young, the distinction for which you were destined by your ancestry. Be therefore my partner in toil, my colleague in danger! Assume for yourself the government of Gaul! Relieve its suffering people by generous treatment! Meet the enemy in battle, and raise high the standards of your legions! Command these men, whose valor matches your own! We will wage war simultaneously; we will aid one another with constant and mutual affection; and God willing, we will govern together, collaborators in righteousness and humility, over a world finally at peace.'
The men cheered wildly, and the Emperor raised Julian's hand in his own, high over their heads, acknowledging the vast and rather incompetently choreographed demonstration of approval. When the applause continued even after many moments, Constantius led him to a sedan chair that had been positioned at the side of the platform, and which was borne by eight slaves, all of them costumed identically as fierce Gallic warriors. After the Emperor and his new Caesar had clambered onto the broad, carved, and curtained bench, the slaves carefully lifted their poles and lumbered, rocking, around the circuit of the massive plaza to the general acclaim of the thronging crowd. They were led by a squad of fifty hard-muscled Praetorians who cleared a path through the mob, sometimes with the flats of their swords. Julian stared out into the middle distance, his expression impossible to read. The slaves finally conveyed the two men back to the foot of the platform, where they stepped out and with a concluding wave, walked arm in arm back through the double doors into the reception hall.
Once inside, Julian threw off the stifling purple cloak and stuffed it into
the arms of the nearest slave, as Constantius watched coldly, though with an amused gleam in his eye.
'You might have warned me,' Julian muttered accusingly, certain now of his physical safety for at least the time being, and unconcerned with any offense he might give to the Emperor. 'I have been weeks in Milan, begging you for an answer, any answer, as to why you might have brought me here. And this is how you tell me?'
Constantius snorted. 'A life of command is full of surprises, young Julian. To this you must become accustomed.' He paused, and then glanced at his young cousin with a wry smile. 'Actually, I confess I may be as astonished as you. As late as yesterday, I was still undecided as to whether to erect a gallows or an investiture platform. You should be down on your knees thanking God. You have a very persuasive patroness in the palace.'
Julian stared, bewildered. 'Persuasive?' he said. 'This is a reward? You pluck a poor student from his studies, make him commander of six legions, and order him to defend Gaul? This is merely a slower form of execution than the one you had planned! "Shrouded in death's dark purple by almighty fate…"'
Constantius chuckled. 'Very perceptive of you — and clever use of Homer, though somewhat melodramatic, I would say. But please — don't flatter yourself that you will actually have any role in commanding these men. You would merely be in the way. The western legions will remain under the control of Ursicinus and Marcellus. Barbatio will assist in several capacities, as he has in the past. With you as Caesar, the Empress Eusebia is content, though only God knows why. With Marcellus in command, my generals are content. And you, my boy, will enjoy the ride and keep your nose out of the way.'
Barbatio, standing behind the Emperor, stared coldly over his patron's shoulder at the younger man, his face betraying the hatred he felt for this latest young cousin of Constantius to have been vested with the purple, for no reason other than a tenuous blood relationship. Julian avoided his glare, focusing instead on the Emperor, amazed at his words.
'You mean to say I have no duties?' he inquired, astonished.
The Emperor chuckled. 'Only one. Since you so rudely insist upon being forewarned about plans that affect your little life, I will do so now. You have met my sister Helena, your cousin? No, of course not. You will soon enough. In two days' time you will be marrying her.' And nodding to his courtiers he strode away from the astonished Julian, resuming his earlier conversation with Barbatio as if all the events of that morning had been of no more consequence than a review of his troops.
VI
The next day, upon entering the gynaeceum escorted by me, the trusted family physician, harmless as an elderly eunuch and familiar as a lapdog, Julian marched directly to the couch on which the veiled empress was casually reclining, talking quietly with several of her ladies nearby, and knelt down on one knee. She glanced at him quickly, nodded to me politely where I knelt next to him, and then returned to finish the quiet conversation she was having. During this interval I took the opportunity to peer discreetly from beneath my brows in frank appraisal of the Empress. Though I am a professional, I am still a man, and though a Christian, I have not forsaken the appreciation of beauty.
She was a woman of exquisite taste, and with all the wealth of Rome and the goods of the world at her disposal, she had not stinted on her appearance. Indeed, I often marveled at the fact that rather than the fine linens and wools worn by most ladies of the court during the cool fall season, she still preferred the soft, clinging cotton shipped from India, and the lovely antique silks that had been carried painstakingly by caravan from China a century before, when the Parthian peace had still held. In these two materials she had draped herself voluminously yet delicately for this meeting, in the fashion of the day. The long, blindingly white cotton upper tunic fitted her body closely. A gauzy, almost transparent silken veil was thrown casually over her head and face, streaming over her shoulders and reaching down to her feet. The fabric hid and yet revealed in its folds the contours of her face, the whiteness of her teeth and eyes, and the long, olive smoothness of her slender upper arms. Around the hem of her tunic a purple braid embroidered in gold had been painstakingly stitched, a sign of her exalted status. This was matched by a similar braid fastened tightly around her slender waist, setting off the rounded fullness of her breasts and hips. Her jewelry was simple yet costly: a golden diadem in her hair, set with a single pearl; matching pearls in tiny rings on her ears; and a simple pendant on her breast. I was always pleasantly surprised to see that she had not succumbed to the current fashion of multiple bracelets, rings, and ankle circlets, for like the Greek sculptors, I detest such trappings as interruptions in the otherwise smooth, harmonious flow of the female form — from rounded shoulder to gently curved fingertip, from soft, white thigh to arched toe, an unbroken, gently undulating line that achieves perfection in its continuity and for which even the most intricately wrought Spanish silver clasp is an unendurable violation of purity.
I glanced sidelong at Julian and saw that he, too, was surreptitiously peering up at the Empress under raised brows. I returned my glance forward, and as my eyes traveled stealthily up her body to her face, I was surprised to find that even as she was talking with her maidservant, she was looking at Julian, appraising him quite as frankly as he was her; indeed, I noticed with some amusement, she was actually watching him watch her, and moreover seemed quite unabashed, even fascinated at what she saw. I raised my head as her conversation came to a close, and noted with disappointment her silent gesture with one finger of her right hand, indicating to her companions, and to me, to leave her alone with Julian.
The door clicked softly shut behind me, but Julian afterwards recounted the extraordinary conversation he had had with the Empress.
'I have long wished to meet you, my lady,' he began, 'and express to you my gratitude for the books and kind words you delivered to me during my wait.'
There was tinkling laughter behind the veil, which he found oddly familiar.
'I'm so glad you were able to enjoy them,' she said in her warm and unprepossessing voice. 'Was Plotinus properly filed, then?'
Julian looked up, startled.
'You… you're the cleaning girl that replaced Lucilla… I mean… begging your pardon, Your Highness, but…'
Eusebia looked down at him in amusement and carefully drew back the veil, folding it across the top of her head. 'You didn't know it was me, then? Oh, I am indeed delighted!'
He was stunned. 'But, Your Highness, why? After all my pleading for an audience, why did you not reveal yourself to me?'
'What, you are asking me now why I did not visit you alone in your rooms, without the Emperor's consent?' She laughed teasingly. 'My poor bewildered cousin-in-law. I am as fond of my head's position on my own two shoulders as I'm sure you are of yours.'
She continued to laugh, then sat up on the couch.
'Though you didn't think I would propose you for the rank of Caesar without first obtaining a proper glimpse of you myself?' she asked slyly. 'A woman may marry her husband sight unseen, as I did, but she does not make such a blind choice twice in her life. After all, when you arrived at Milan, your career, indeed your life, Julian, could have taken either of two different paths. To the extent that I could have an impact on the Emperor by… assisting him in his decision, I wished to have every possible fact at my disposal.'
At this he remained silent, at a loss for words. He was overwhelmed by her beauty, as he had not been by that of any woman before, for never in his short, sheltered life had he been in the presence of a female quite so lovely, and so powerful. The combination was intoxicating, suffocating, even, and he felt the room become suddenly very hot, the air stifling. He kept his eyes fixed upon the ground for a long moment, while she looked on in bemused detachment. Finally standing up, she walked slowly toward him, and placing her hand lightly under his chin lifted his face to meet her eyes, and with a smile gestured to him to rise.
He was surprised, when he did so, at her stature, for though he was only of medium
height for a man, she was of extraordinary height for a woman, standing fully as tall as him, while wearing only her thin palace slippers. She seemed to have no compunction about compressing the aloof distance she usually maintained with her staff, and stood facing him barely a foot away, her shoulders back and spine straight, almost in a military stance, but with the laughing gleam in her eye and the smooth lines of her cheek effacing any thoughts of the harshness of command. Most disconcerting of all to Julian, as he recounted it to me afterwards, was the soft contours of her breasts, mere inches from his chest, their swelling outline visible beneath the quilted silken robe draped over her body. Unlike a physician, Julian had had little contact or experience with the female form, and her extraordinary beauty was something to which I was so accustomed that I had not even bothered to describe it to Julian beforehand. As she stood facing him, he forced himself with a supreme effort not to step back or look down, either of which might have been interpreted by the Empress as an insult or an indication of fear on his part. Rather, he stood straight and immobile, facing her, his eyes focused on a point beyond the top of her head. A trickle of sweat ran down his side under his left arm, soaking into the belt of his tunic, making him long to scratch his ribs.
She examined his face carefully. 'Certain things you have already received from us,' she said, using the royal plural, 'and if God wills it, you will receive others. This is provided that you prove to be faithful and honest toward us.'
'You know I am grateful for all you have done, my Empress. I would be honored to be of service in any way I am able.'
Eusebia again examined his face, though this time her eyes were not smiling as before.
'I assume you have been told by our physician Caesarius about the Emperor's… condition?'
Julian blushed, and gracefully lied. 'I would not presume to discuss such intimate matters with one outside the family, my lady…'
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