I had spent much of the twenty-day journey in the company of Valeria. Firstly on board the ship from Ostia around the west and south coasts of Italia and across to Dyrrhachium in western Moesia, and then in the covered wagon from there across the hard, dry rippling landscapes of my enemy’s domain to our destination. Only for the past few days had I taken to riding a horse at the front of the column.
I had felt a shudder as our ship landed, knowing that I now travelled openly in lands controlled by, and loyal to, the dreaded Galerius. In fact, I had shivered almost constantly through the latter stretch of that journey, as though I were walking brazenly through the cave of a slumbering bear. We had encountered numerous military units that in previous years I had seen chased back from my lands with their tails between their legs, and half expected to be stopped and executed offhand by them, but Valeria and her missive were enough to see us past any checkpoint, and we had even spent recent days with an escort of Galerius’ own soldiers.
I had felt an odd wrench once on the journey, when one of my escorts informed me that we were passing the great imperial city of Naissus, but would not be stopping. Naissus, I knew, was the city where Constantine had been born, and dark, troubled thoughts of my old – former – friend assailed me all that day and during the fitful dreams of the following night. From Naissus we had taken a more northerly path alongside some unnamed river on a recently constructed road, stopping to overnight at a place called Timacum before rising once more and following a narrow, ancient route above a winding stream to our goal.
I wasn’t sure what I’d expected from Felix Romuliana, but whatever it had been it certainly wasn’t what faced me as we crested the rise and I beheld the great palace of my enemy.
I fear I have leapt ahead of myself. Forgive me. Galerius was dying. There had been rumours abounding now for so long that many considered them to be just that. And judging by the dreadful descriptions of his ailment, we had assumed them to be, if not fictional, then at least blown out of all proportion. And then the letter had arrived in Rome, and we had learned the truth of the matter. Galerius was on his deathbed – this from his own mouth, apparently. And he had called for his daughter to visit him before his passing.
I had actually tried, very carefully and very obliquely, to persuade Valeria not to go. Galerius had all but foisted her off on me those many years ago and had shown precious little interest in her progress throughout our cold marriage. I could count on one hand the number of times he had even sent missives to her in almost two decades. And now, just because he was sick and frightened, suddenly he began to show an interest in her. In truth, who was I to argue, given my own complicated love – hate relationship with my father? But despite his apparent lack of care, Valeria still bore a daughter’s love for her father, and she would not be dissuaded.
And because that embrace with Valeria to which Miltiades had driven me had healed so much of the dreadful rift between us, for months now she and I had begun to live tentatively almost as man and wife once more – a situation I could never have imagined coming about, and one that had finally blunted a little the edges of my grief over Romulus. I would not let her return and face the fat old monster alone. Perhaps it was less noble than that, in truth. Perhaps I thought that I had finally found the wife I had hoped for when first we were paired and now feared her staying in Moesia and my being left alone once more. Whatever the case, I decided I had to accompany her on her journey.
Volusianus tried to persuade me not to go, of course. Walking into my enemy’s lair of my own volition? How stupid was I? But in the end, since I would no more be dissuaded than Valeria, he came along with a unit of Praetorians as my escort.
Other news reached us en route as we passed through imperial way stations and mansios . Galerius had issued an edict from Romuliana, calling an official end to his long-term persecution of Christians. The East would finally know the peace that the West had experienced for years. Peace? No, perhaps not that, remembering the endless infighting of the Lapsi and the warring Christian sects. Not peace, then, but at least a lack of oppressive fear from the authorities. Freedom to worship openly. Welcome news I suppose, but while the forgiving and the naïve thought it a sign of the emperor’s mellowing and his largesse, I saw it as a desperate man facing his final days and suddenly panicking that he had backed the wrong chariot in the race. An anxious penitent trying to put things right, in case the Christian God took a disliking to the man responsible for such bloodshed among his followers.
I still think I was right. Galerius was an oaf and little more. There was less forgiveness and love in him than in a block of tufa, and Romuliana only supported my theory of his bet-hedging policy.
But it was not this empire-shaking news that unsettled me, so much as the discovery that a similar letter to Valeria’s had been sent to the old bastard’s former protégé. Constantine had also been summoned to Romuliana. My heart was in my throat. Had I known that before we left Rome, would I still have come?
Regardless, we finally reached the great new palace of Galerius in late spring, the strong scent of red helleborine and wild green-winged orchids drifting on the near-still air. I had heard this place described variously as the emperor’s death palace, the world’s most sumptuous mausoleum, the golden dungeon, and much more. They were all wrong. Yes, Galerius had built it when he discovered he was ill and had clearly intended to live out his final days here, but there was more to it than that. The road we were following was old. Very old. This hillside was far older than Galerius’ palace. And it was a high place – one of those that carries an atmosphere of ancient sacraments. There was a feeling there that this was the continuation of something as old as man itself.
No birds sang at Felix Romuliana, I noted. Not even the ever-present Moesian woodpeckers or the goshawks I had seen performing their spectacular sky dance over every hill throughout our journey. No birds at all. No bees hummed either. There was no rustling in the grass. It was as if life shunned the place. Or perhaps the place shunned life ?
But for all that, it was not a mausoleum. If anything, it was a fanum – a temple complex. And it was enormous – as large as my new villa on the Via Appia, and more so.
Romuliana rose impressively from the high ground – a great white edifice in the greeny-grey. Whatever it had been constructed of, it had been whitewashed heavily and gleamed in the spring sun, immaculate and pure, its red-tiled roofs only giving counterpoint to the glory of the white walls. The whole complex was surrounded by a wall some thirty feet high, each side of the deformed square punctuated by six projecting towers – huge things, among the largest I had ever seen, each pierced by dozens of perfectly glazed windows. A high gate was almost hidden between the central pair of towers, and we were making for it at our guide’s directions, but my gaze was drawn to the side of the complex and beyond. Behind the place, and visible only briefly from a rise before we turned to approach the gate, was an ancient circle of standing stones such as those in old Gaul of which dusty academics speak. And beyond even that I could see a high hill, upon which stood a great tetrapylon gate and a huge, circular mausoleum. Interestingly, a second identical mausoleum was taking shape, surrounded by workmen and wooden scaffolding.
I didn’t need to ask. It was said that the emperor’s mother was buried here, and clearly Galerius was preparing to rest beside her.
Again I felt a chill as I passed through that gate. I was in the spider’s web now. In the bear’s cave. And the evil old bastard wouldn’t even need to be able to heave his worm-ridden carcass out of his bed to condemn me to death here.
The huge gateway opened into one of the most glorious ensembles of Roman architecture I have ever seen. In a clever use of space that fitted the topography, the buildings were not all aligned to grid as one would consider normal, but juxtaposed at interesting angles, such that nothing quite sat as expected and the visitor was constantly kept on his toes. Everything was arcades and colonnades and high walls of many windows. And all of it was whitewashed like the outside, with similar red-tiled roofs.
I was always a keen student of architecture, as I’ve noted before, and I could pick out certain buildings without explanation. A huge bath complex at the far end, identifiable by its curves and chimneys. Two great ornate palaces. Stables, guard quarters and, what struck me as surprising and informed to some extent my opinion of the place’s purpose – a number of temples. Two in particular rose above the rest, and I could see that one was a temple of Cybele – the Great Mother – from the fossa sanguinis before it – the pit where worshippers of that most ancient and terrible deity could bathe in the blood of the slaughtered bull. The other temple was, I believed, consecrated to Jove.
In addition to his edict for the Christ God, Galerius had tried to hedge his bets by adopting a place of ancient spirits and so honouring Jove and the Great Mother. It all screamed of a man trying to please all the gods who might have a hand in his afterlife. Had I not been where I was, for what I was and to meet who I was, I might have laughed.
As we stopped outside one enormous building palace lackeys came forth, offering to help me dismount, aiding Valeria in her descent from the carriage, taking the horses away to the stables and the like. As I stamped life back into my feet, Valeria alighted and looked around with the most complex expression born of curiosity, fear, sadness and hope in varying amounts. This was the land of her family, and it was as much a home as she could ever imagine, and yet it was also the place where her father would be buried, close to her grandmother – a monument to the fact that they were gone, or soon would be. I crossed to her and put my arms around her, trying to take away some of the fear and sadness, though my eyes were roving the area, searching for something. I half expected to see Constantine or one of his men strolling around without a care in the world. Nothing, though.
We were shown into a palace proper and through beautifully decorated rooms to a lobby, where I was told my escort could go no further. I caught the tense, disapproving look in Volusianus’ eye, but shook my head. I had come this far and I would see it through.
Leaving the Praetorians under the watchful eye of Galerius’ household guard, I escorted Valeria – just man and wife in the palace of the most powerful enemy I had ever made – to the great door where two more soldiers stood.
Valeria proffered them the note from her father, and a guard took it and bowed his head while his colleague opened the grand, red-painted door, studded with bronze lions.
The room beyond was surprisingly Spartan, given the rest of the place, and I was rather taken aback. Galerius and austere were not two words I had ever expected to use in the same sentence. In the centre of the room was a bed of enormous proportions. Atlas himself could have lain comfortably in that bed, and even coupled with Titanic Phoebe therein. Galerius was almost lost in the thing.
I smelled the emperor before I saw him. He reeked not of death, nor even decay. In truth it was the most foul odour I had ever encountered – a smell that made death and decay seem sweet by comparison. He lay naked as a babe amid purple sheets of silk and linen. Only a single fold of plum-coloured bedsheet covered his modesty, and that – I find it hard to fight the revulsion enough to describe it – was stuck to his flesh with something dark that had seeped through the material and glistened wetly on the outside. The smell increased as I approached and I wondered how long a man could reasonably hold his breath without passing out.
Valeria seemed not to be suffering from it, or perhaps her grief was strong enough to override it. I cared nothing for the man, and felt only revulsion at his presence, which only added to my hatred of the odour.
The head turned to face us, as though he’d just realised we were there, though we had been in the room for two dozen heartbeats now. His face was greasy – waxy, pallid and grey, bags under his eyes voluminous enough to hide a pomegranate within. His eyes were bulbous and yellowed. In short, he was the sickest-looking man I had ever seen; had ever even heard of. The dreadful tales of his condition were not exaggerated accounts. If anything, they downplayed the horror.
I was gagging as he spoke.
‘Va… Valeria? Child.’
‘Father.’
Valeria edged closer to the bed. I wished for nothing more than to leave the place. The old emperor cast a sickly, unpleasant smile at his daughter, then his gaze slipped to me, and something of his old power and ire returned as his lip curled.
‘You would bring this u… usurper to my san… sanctum?’
‘Father, he escorts me. The way is long and dangerous, and he is my husband. Once you must have thought him worthy, for you gave me to him.’
Galerius looked me up and down and his power seemed to drain out of his open wound, his figure deflating once more. ‘He is not wel… welcome in my house. He shall not be h… harmed while he is here with you, but should he enter my do… domain without you, I will have him s…. skinned. Out, son of M… Maximian. I have no wish to l… look upon you.’
I gave him the most unpleasant smile I could muster, attempting to carry all the smugness of a man who was hale and hearty looking at an enemy who was not, and turned. ‘Find me outside,’ I said to Valeria, and strode from the room. In truth, I could not leave the place fast enough. I had almost vomited several times at the smell, and I would relish being able to breath something that wasn’t filled with the stench of his bloated near-corpse.
I opened the door, stepped out into the spacious lobby, and froze.
Constantine stood, freshly arrived, at the far side of the room.
While I was dressed in white and purple court clothes as was wholly appropriate for an emperor accompanying his wife, he was in military uniform, looking ever the veteran. He was older, more worn, and haunted about the eyes I think, but he looked masterful and in control of himself. I envied him that, and wondered what he saw when he looked at me.
Gently, I closed the door behind me, shutting out the murmured conversation of Valeria and her father. I noted with some irritation that Constantine had clearly entered the building alone, not like I, escorted by my Praetorians. He had, however, surrendered his weapons.
I struggled. I fought against it, but I must certainly have appeared apprehensive and uncertain. Even as I masked my churning stomach with a veneer of cold calm, my emotions raced. It had been so long, and the world had done its best to drive a wedge between us. I constantly hoped deep in my heart that we could bridge the gap that wedge had made, but I was unsure how to do so, or even if it could be done. Did he see me as an enemy now? Did he believe it was me who had sent the blade to his throat? If so, how could I hope to reason with him? I spoke before I had even decided what to say, banal words of fact. No emotion.
‘Valeria is with him,’ I said. The first words I had spoken directly to my old friend in many years.
‘Then I will wait,’ he replied, equally flatly. ‘Father and daughter deserve time, no matter who the father is.’
I gave an odd smile. It felt very strange after all this time and all these chasms between us to be talking as one man to another with even a hint of civility. Words had to be chosen carefully now. A bridge had to be built carefully, with bricks of just the right shape and size, lest we be plunged into the cold waters of chaos when it collapsed. Nothing confrontational. Nothing political. Nothing personal. It had to be something light. A breaker of the winter ice. A joke, perhaps? And at the expense of a mutual enemy. Surely that would fit the course of bricks I had to lay?
‘Take many breaths of good air before you go in,’ I warned him. ‘The stink of the old monster is unbelievable.’
‘I have already encountered the stench.’ Constantine laughed. ‘I arrived yesterday and have already been insulted and abused once.’ And suddenly, despite everything, I could see hints of my old friend before me. The years had fallen away and we were the same comrades who had rescued Romulus from the burning granary. ‘Besides, he always stank.’
‘Not like this,’ I said, feigning gagging. ‘An open sewer full of corpses would be a nosegay next to this.’
‘So more like Severus, then?’ he prompted with a mischievous smile.
I chuckled. ‘Or like my father,’ I retorted, and with those ill-chosen words all humour and ease fled the room, leaving us facing one another in an awkward silence. Damn it. Wrong-shaped brick. I felt the bridge begin to crumble as dust fell and the water below yearned.
‘I am sorry it had to be done,’ Constantine said. ‘Not sorry that I did it, but that it needed to be done at all.’ Remarkably diplomatic, really. I doubt I’d have chosen my words so well.
‘It is regrettable that you were put in that position in the first place. He should never have come to you. I should have had his head struck off when he tried to usurp me. My advisors called for it, and I almost did. He was my father, for all his faults, but I should have killed him cleanly then.’
A tense pause.
‘Why, then, did you dignify the old snake with deification?’ my old friend said, and the temperature dropped just a little again. Dust scattered from the shivering, half-built bridge.
‘He was an emperor ,’ I snapped. ‘And for Rome, not a bad one. There have been worse who have made it to Olympus. Perhaps he did deserve to die, but that was not your decision to make.’
‘He hated you,’ Constantine said with disdain. ‘Despised you. You should have condemned him, not deified him.’
‘This from a man who murders his father-in-law like a common criminal?’
Constantine’s face hardened as he straightened. ‘This from a man who sends knives in the night like a common criminal?’
I felt my blood heating, my temper fraying. No matter how much I liked to consider myself a temperate, sensible, cautious man, there was ever that streak of my father in me that reacted badly at times like this.
‘And here we are,’ I said icily, as I searched my vocabulary for something that would cut him and put him in his place.
‘Here we are,’ he echoed.
It was one of those moments where the world hangs in the balance. Where destiny spins on a knife-point. Could the whole span of our lives have turned out different if I’d managed to control my ire that day? I do not know. All I know for sure is that what I did say was probably the worst thing I could have said in such circumstances…