‘It also seems, dominus,’ Macrobius went on, with the faint smile of a man who knows his news is good, ‘that Ulpius Caesianus, the governor of Raetia Prima, has now declared for Maxentius. Thus cutting all land communication between Constantine’s territories and those of his erstwhile ally Licinius on the Danube.’
‘Even better!’ Maximian declared. He jumped up from his seat, letting his gold-embroidered purple robe slide heavily from his shoulders. ‘Once he finishes off the rebellion in Africa, Maxentius can use Raetia as a bridgehead across the Alps to strike at Licinius’s western flank, while I deal with Constantine here in Gaul. By winter we’ll be masters of half the world!’
Castus was still kneeling on the floor, trying not to glance up at the emperor. Maximian was pacing fiercely again, fists clasped behind his back. Scorpianus made a quick gesture, then pointed sharply at the door. Rising, the two Protectores gave another salute, but the emperor ignored them as they backed silently out of the room.
Night had fallen by the time Castus made his way back towards his quarters. A southern night: the air felt warm and soft, and every lamp along the portico was hazed with a nimbus of tiny wings. The steady chirrup of insects came from the gardens. He was still turning over Macrobius’s news, still trying to determine how much of it might be true, and what it might mean. As he stepped through the passage from the garden portico and entered the darker enclosed courtyard beyond, he was too distracted at first to notice the figure waiting between the pillars of the colonnade.
‘Domina,’ he said quietly as she approached him. There were others with her, a pair of slaves, a maid, a eunuch bodyguard, but they hung back at a discreet distance.
‘What happened today?’ Sabina asked him, drawing very close. Castus felt himself enfolded in her scent, her presence; but she was scared too, and he could sense it. The imperial household was a place of spies, and it was dangerous to be seen talking with anyone.
‘You heard him, the emperor?’
‘I think half of Arelate heard him. What was he so angry about?’
Briefly he filled in the details of the afternoon’s and evening’s news: the rapid approach of Constantine, the size of his army, Maximian’s swoops from rage to triumphant hubris. Sabina took his arm.
‘Then he’ll fight?’ They were walking together, around the turning of the pillared portico into the deeper shadow.
‘He says so.’
‘But what do you think?’
Castus frowned, only now beginning to consider some of the things he had heard. ‘Constantine has no siege engines,’ he said. ‘I think after a while Maximian might remember that.’
‘But that makes no difference! The walls of Arelate are falling down – an army could just walk straight in through the breaches!’
‘Maybe they could here. But there are cities in Gaul with stronger walls.’
He felt Sabina shudder. She drew the shawl tighter at her neck. ‘Is there any news of the fighting in Africa?’ she asked.
‘None,’ Castus told her. He remembered that her husband was there, supporting the rebel Domitius Alexander.
For a few more paces they walked in silence. Her attendants had dropped out of sight and hearing now. Then Sabina drew him to a halt, and took his hand.
‘Is it true that they tortured you?’
Castus shrugged. ‘They thought about it.’
She appeared confused. ‘So… you genuinely have gone over to Maximian?’
Uncertainty crawled up Castus’s spine; was this a ruse to gauge his loyalty? Were they being observed even now? He had grown used to being watched, guarded, distrusted.
‘Have you?’ he asked in return, and caught her smile in the darkness.
‘This is not the best time for such questions, I suppose,’ she said quietly.
She pressed herself quickly against him, rising to kiss his lips, then stepped away. For a few heartbeats he gripped her hand, not letting her retreat.
‘We all do what we must,’ he said, ‘to survive.’
Then he released her, and she walked away into the shadows without another word.
Five days later, Castus stood on the deck of the liburnian galley Aurata as it rowed slowly downriver towards the sea. On the raised stern platform, Maximian Augustus sat blearily beneath a purple and gold canopy, staring with dull and reddened eyes at the flat marshy land beyond the riverbanks. He was not retreating; this was not flight. Instead it was a strategic relocation.
Behind him the citizens of Arelate waited nervously within their crumbled walls for the arrival of Constantine. Their city, the first to acclaim the new emperor, was stripped of troops now. Their civic leaders had either deserted their posts or gone south down the river with Maximian. The soldiers that had been camped around the city were gone too, marching across the flat stony wastelands to the south-east, heading for the city of Massilia on the coast.
Massilia, with its strong walls and seaport, was to be Maximian’s new imperial capital. Arelate would be left to make the best of things. There had been no cheering, no shouts of loyalty and acclaim, as the emperor had made his departure in the grey of dawn. Those citizens who had stirred from their homes had lined the riverbank and watched with blank expressions as the imperial retinue swept from the palace into the waiting boats, the big Aurata and the troopships and smaller galleys that followed in her wake.
Now the sun was high over the flatlands of the Rhodanus delta. Flights of waterbirds skimmed the lagoons, and flamingos stood balancing on one leg in the shallows. The double-banked oars of the Aurata beat slow and steady, pulling with the current, and around noon the flotilla passed from the river into the straight channel of the Canal of Marius, which would carry them free of the silted branches of the treacherous delta and out to the open sea.
Brinno was sitting perched above the oar box, watching the rowers with open curiosity. ‘I never see one like this before,’ he said to Castus. ‘The oars… so.’ He raised two flat hands, one above the other. ‘In my country, all the rowers sit together, pull together.’
‘It’s a bireme,’ Castus told him. ‘Out in the east you see triremes – three banks of oars.’
Brinno raised his eyebrows, clearly perplexed as to how this might work. But then his eyes clouded and he leaned closer.
‘We could kill him now,’ he said in an undertone. Castus felt his shoulders tighten, but waited a few breaths before turning slowly to look back towards the platform at the stern. ‘It is our duty,’ Brinno added.
How easy it would be. Only a few attendants stood or sat around Maximian: the eunuch Gorgonius, Scorpianus, Macrobius and half a dozen secretaries and slaves. Besides Scorpianus, only the four Praetorians standing along the break of the platform were armed. A rush towards the stern and the job would be done. And, along with the emperor, both he and Brinno would be dead.
So many times over the last month, since his false pledge of allegiance, Castus had tormented himself with plots and plans. He could escape and flee to join Constantine; he could make some wild attack on the usurper. Each time he had held himself back, thinking that the time was not right – it would be a mistake. Each time he had cursed himself for a coward.
At least nobody now believed the fable about Constantine’s death. All knew that the emperor was marching south against Maximian at great speed. Already he was at Lugdunum; in four days he would reach Arelate. He was falling like a thunderbolt out of the north, with the hardest veterans of the Rhine legions behind him, an army that grew larger with every successive report.