Fausta’s weeping filled the halls of my Massilia residence. A slave appeared with my boots, a light tunic and a waxed cloak, which I threw on. Without a look backwards, I left, stepping into the billowing night storm.
Thunder pealed and rain billowed around Batius, Krocus and me as we strode through Massilia’s soaked streets with splashing footsteps and a martial clank of iron from the ten Cornuti escorting us, spear tips glittering with every shudder of lightning. Rain battered from my men’s helms, drenched my hair and my bare head. From the lamplit cracks in shutters, confused, anxious faces peeked out, knowing something grim was afoot.
We entered the dungeon, where the stink of damp was rife. The full fury of the storm fell away but the dull, demonic roar of thunder outside was almost amplified by the subterranean vaults – as if angered that we had dared to take shelter from it. And the hiss of rain outside turned into a trickle as the many cracks and holes in the dungeon stonework spewed tiny streamlets of water down the walls and along the corridor floor. The cell door at the end was black one instant, then illuminated by a flash of lightning that lit up the whole corridor. Without discussion or delay, we strode forth and the cell was opened.
Inside, I found Maximian on his knees, shivering and panting, two Cornuti swords on his throat, his hands bound with rope. He looked up, his sweat-damp, tousled hair plastered across his face. I could see the manic glint was back in his eyes. It had only ever been hidden.
‘She’s lying,’ he snapped. ‘Bring her here and you’ll see.’
The feeble claim almost had me laughing. ‘I asked you to make peace with your gods,’ I spat. ‘Instead you poisoned your daughter’s mind.’
Just then, Maximian saw the thick loop of rope Batius held. His eyes widened. ‘You cannot! I am an emperor… I was… I was the master of…’ His words tailed off, his head dropping.
I approached, crouching on one knee to be level with him. Memories of my youth – so foul so often – suddenly seemed to glow and call out to me like a lost friend: the day I arrived, at Father’s side, in Treverorum to see the great Maximian ascend to Diocletian’s side. I recalled that first time I had seen him, painted silver and strutting on the plinth of Treverorum’s old basilica. I was but a boy, naïve and ill at ease in the presence of him and his then co-emperor, the now long-decrepit Diocletian. So mighty were they both, that day… ‘These are your last moments,’ I said firmly. ‘Use them wisely.’
His shoulders rose and fell with deep, full breaths, and after an age, his head nodded in understanding. ‘Very well. When next you see Maxentius,’ he said at last, ‘tell him…’
My eyes grew wide, my breath stilled. I was rapt. Maxentius. I saw him and me in our youth again, Maxentius building his wooden city and me offering him words of advice like an elder brother. Damn the past, I thought, blinking hard to stave off a wave of sudden and sharp grief. I wondered then what Maxentius knew of his father’s fate… of my decision. The boy who had once called me his hero and his saviour would now know me as the slayer of his father. Would this be the cutting of the strained, gossamer-fine threads that still stretched between us?
‘Tell him…’ His head rose again, a grin broadening his flaccid features like a snake’s hood. ‘No, sing him the song… the song of battle.’
My heart grew cold. So this was the last hiss of the asp who once called himself Hercules.
‘You know it well, don’t you, Constantine?’ He held up his bound hands and wagged both forefingers at me. ‘You sing him that song, when you finally meet him again: the ballad of battle, the melody to which men die. For it is in battle that this will end for one of you.’
The storm clashed again as if to underscore his proclamation.
‘You realise it’s down to you and him now don’t you?’ he went on. ‘Severus is long dead. Your father too. I am to die. Diocletian is a virtual shade, muttering about cabbages as he wanders alone and forgotten in his vast Dalmatian palace. Galerius is a diseased, pus-filled boil – soon to burst and seep away into the earth. Yet each of us once thought we could harness the beast of empire. Each of us at one stage sought to do what was right and proper – to honour the gods and our country. And, boy , let the gods be the ones to judge us! Take my life, but you and my son should ask yourselves this: when the last of the old emperors are gone…’ the hooded eyelids descended until his eyes were but slits ‘…will you do better than any of us?’
A baleful silence was rent by another clap of thunder and a shiver of lightning.
‘Domine?’ Batius said in a low burr, holding up the loop of rope. Not one person in that cell needed the big man to elaborate.
Maximian’s head flicked to Batius then back to me. ‘My boy slew Severus just like this,’ he stammered, nostrils flaring. ‘And it is his path and yours, would-be emperor, to kill old leaders like us. To take the poisoned mantle as your own.’ A feral sneer twisted his face. ‘Only to become the prey of the brave young lions of days to come. You are but a single breath of an immortal plague…’
One of the Cornuti raised a hand to strike him but I lifted a finger to stop the soldier. Maximian and I shared a gaze until, like the lightning outside, he lurched suddenly in my direction, teeth bared, face ferocious but neck extended like a soldier pleading for a swift end. ‘Do it… but hear Jove’s wrath!’ he snarled. Lightning scored the darkness, casting his manic form in blinding white for a heartbeat. ‘Do it! ’
The thunder above and the thunder within my breast crashed in step. I flashed a look at Batius. For him, there was no doubt or hesitation about taking this Roman’s life. The big man’s face was like a shard of granite as he swiftly looped the rope around Maximian’s neck then drew the ends tight, yanking it back, his oak-like arms bulging. I closed my eyes, hearing the breaking of vertebrae and the awful sounds of a man fighting for that one more breath he will never attain. Finally, I felt the dull vibration of his body toppling lifelessly to the cell floor.
As the storm raged high above, I sensed the great board shift once more, another piece gone, so few remaining.
It is in battle that this will end for one of you! the freshly risen shade of Maximian screamed in my ear.
I was sure then that I heard Fausta’s wailing carried on the storm. And in the blackness behind my closed eyes, I saw the face of the dead man’s son: Maxentius. My old friend stared back at me, eyes glacial, expression flinty.
I had no choice, old friend, I mouthed.
But such words were useless now. The storm had begun in earnest.