Usurpers

by Q V Hunter

  We rode sixty-five miles with few horse swaps, slowed only by the passage of a lengthy slave-train trudging to the markets in Mediolanum. We arrived at the state mansio in Emona, an old legionary camp turned boomtown, on the same night to eat and rest.

  Gaiso and the others were soon washed and back downstairs feeding their faces at rows of communal tables. I could hear them trading jokes with a party of tax collectors heading north.

  I found Gregorius still upstairs in the senior officers’ quarters. Across the bedroom, I watched him struggle with his uniform alone, using his good hand to detach his sword belt and work his way out of his tunic.

  Now that I was no longer his slave, he had proudly rejected my offer of help. So without asking, I ignored his protest, fetched a basin of fresh hot water and scraped his back clean with a strigil for him in equally stubborn silence. He suffered my attention, gave me a curt nod when I finished, and wrestled back into his tunic.

  He watched as I took my turn to scrape my hands and neck clean of the day’s grime. ‘You still wear the Senator’s bulla?’

  My hand shot up and enclosed the crude little lump of bronze-covered clay dangling from its cord. Was Gregorius still resentful enough of my freedom to demand it back?

  ‘He told me to keep it always, Commander. It’s brought me the good luck he promised, though I’ve been mocked for wearing a boy’s token.’ I waited for him to add his ridicule.

  ‘The Senator was right. Never lose it . . .’ He replaced his pugio in its belt scabbard. ‘You saw my father at home? Was he well?’

  ‘I’ve seen him in far better health, though the Lady Kahina is taking good care of him, I’m sure.’

  ‘Clodius writes me that the Senator is “not himself.” He asks me to transfer over legal control of the Manlius estates to his management.’

  ‘I see.’

  I made no further comment. It was no longer my place to interest myself, much less meddle, in the family’s affairs, though no one cared more than I did about its future.

  He hesitated. I could hear a note of appeal temper his proud diction.

  ‘Do you think that’s a wise idea, Marcus? Being on campaign all these years, I hardly know my nephew. And whenever I am at home, he’s always ‘out’ and busy with friends. I don’t pretend to keep up with the city’s high society doings when I’m there, nor do I understand the ways of civilians now any more than when Laetty forced me to use fingerbowls.’

  ‘I broke one of those fingerbowls by accident.’

  ‘But you grew up with him. You must know him.’

  I thought of the bruises I’d suffered from Clodius’ vicious little boots but I wanted to seem as impartial as possible. ‘I believe your son’s interests and those of your nephew differ by a very long shot, Commander.’

  ‘Well, yes, that’s my worry. Leo has displaced Clodius as my heir. Am I wrong to put Leo’s interests first? Am I being unfair to Clodius? Could I trust him until Leo came of age?’

  ‘You are not wrong to hesitate, Commander. That’s my opinion. I’d give my life to protect your blood from theft, fraud or someone’s bad luck at the races.’

  It was the most honest answer I dared put into words.

  ‘Thank you, Marcus.’

  ‘You had a right to ask me,’ I swallowed hard.

  ‘You owe the Manlius House less than you know, Marcus. Such unexpected loyalty—from a freedman . . .’ His voice took a bitter twist.

  ‘All the more valuable for being willingly offered, Commander.’ If my Numidian blood churned at my natural father’s continuing rejection, my Manlius honor stood watch.

  He detected the anger underneath my pride.

  ‘We’ve stopped over here before, Marcus. Do you remember?’ He gazed out the window at the stable hands currying and watering our dozens of mounts and spares by torchlight. He was recalling a ride taken when he was still a whole man, leading his ambushers towards Aquileia to lure Constantine to his death. He’d followed orders on behalf of the young Emperor Constans who hung back in the safety of Naissus. Magnentius had been the only source of concrete support. How much did his love of Magnentius feed off a secret hatred for Constans using him as a ‘catch dog’?

  ‘I remember the peasant girls stared up at you, Commander, wherever we trotted past.’

  ‘I was handsome in the old days, wasn’t I?’

  ‘Sure enough, Commander, the best-looking officer in the entire legion.’

  ‘Marcus, if something happens to me, I mean, something worse than this,’ he touched his empty eye socket, ‘I would value your promise to look after Leo and his mother.’

  ‘It would be only natural, Commander.’

  ‘Indeed?’

  He went down to the dining room, leaving me alone with his anxious, ravaged face imprinted on my eyes.

  The next lap, taking us to Siscia, was twice the distance and the best we could hope for at the end of that ride was a sub-standard mansio. With any luck Gaiso would let us rest. There might be clean beds for our saddle-calloused bums, even if the chambermaids were worn-out ‘ladies’ on their second careers.

  Riding at the head of the line with Gaiso and Gregorius, I hailed an outgoing agens as soon as we dismounted at the stopover. He was heading back towards Aquileia. We asked him if he’d seen Constantia on the road ahead of us.

  ‘I passed her about a few hours ago in a gold-framed livery dragging four carriages and a dozen pageboys in her wake. They might be hoping to take the river route to the Danube and the East by sea,’ he said.

  ‘The Imperial party? You’re looking for the Imperial party? She stayed here last night,’ the stationmaster said with obvious pride in his services.

  The commander handed his mount over to a stable boy. He looked tired as he flexed his good hand, sore from hours of clutching the reins. He protected his reduced sight against the winter drizzle and dust of the road with a fine woolen bandana. But he never complained.

  ‘She must be desperate to contemplate a winter crossing, even a coastal one,’ Gaiso said.

  ‘She must be truly afraid of Magnentius’ tightening control over Roma If she’s fleeing to her imperial brother,’ I added.

  ‘Then we’ve lost her.’ I could see Gaiso felt torn. His own horse tugged his head back towards Aquileia, as if anticipating a twitch on the reins signaling a return to the West. But Gaiso’s gaze stayed eastward. I could see how badly he took the possibility that, at this very moment, Constantia was tossing in flatboats down a turbulent water network and beyond his grasp.

  The stationmaster came back snacks. We drank deep and gobbled down the food. Whichever way we were headed now, Gaisco didn’t like delays.

  ‘It’s too early in the year for a sea journey,’ I said. ‘And I know this woman a little. The Lord Chamberlain told me that Constantia fears Constantius more than she loves him. How can she trust her own husband’s murderer?’

  ‘I hope you’re right, Numidianus.’ Gaiso turned to my ex-master. ‘So, where could she go, Gregorius?’

  He took a deep breath, bit into a blackened meatball, and thought hard as he chewed.

  Finally he swallowed and said, ‘There is only one man kind and powerful enough in his own right to shelter Constantia between here and Constantinopolis.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘General Vetranio.’

  ‘Of course! Old Vetranio! She’s gone to Vetranio!’ Gaiso roared. He threw down his food and roared to the other riders with relief. ‘She’s hiding with Vetranio!’

  ‘I’m not sure they were boys,’ the stationmaster interrupted us. ‘They all wore masks in gilt and colored paint and never left each other’s side, eating and sleeping in a cluster away from the other travellers. They might have been maids in disguise.’

  ‘What about a fat man, Manceps? Was he beardless? Perfumed?’ Gaiso’s nostrils were flaring again as if Constantia were a deer bounding just out of his reach.

  ‘Oh, yes, Magister. The eunuch gave orders for us to water and br
ush down the horses, but said the Augusta and he would eat their meals on couches inside her carriage. We supplied fresh water for her wine, of course, but the Chamberlain said our food was too poor to feed her lapdog.’

  ‘Quite right, too,’ jeered a cavalrymen as he wolfed down the last of the cold meatballs.

  Despite Gaiso’s excitement, the next day’s ride was more tedious. As we moved eastward, heavy traffic had helped to melt off the frost covering the Empire’s most vital artery but the road was crossed by a junction or blocked by official traffic every few miles. Only two lanes of fitted stones carried the flow of all the world’s bloodlines moving their riches and news east or west, north or south, to the four capitals of the Empire and its hundreds of busy markets beyond.

  I rode a few miles ahead of our group, checking diplomata for forgeries and clearing any traffic off the Cursus Publicus if I could find the excuse. Despite my diligence, we saw no more sign of a gold-wrought carriage or masked entourage.

  By dusk we neared a river hub. Through the clopping of our hooves, we heard the rushing torrents of the Odra tributary and the heavy currents of the colder Colapsis colliding into the broad Sava spreading out ahead of us. Clumps of ice bounced past us on white-capped rapids swelled with mountain runoff.

  ‘We ride through the night,’ Gaiso ordered. ‘I’m getting tired of traffic jams.’ And so we kept on, under heavy woolen cloaks pinned fast at three places. I felt we were rushing to catch the sun itself, and forgetting politics and private woes, I rejoiced in the rhythm of man and horse thundering freely as if one body.

  At dawn we crested a hill and stopped to catch our breath. There, nestled next to the river under a heavy granite sky, stood the walls of the seven-hundred-year-old Sirmium, one of Diocletian’s great capitals.

  From this sleight elevation, I made out the elongated horseracing arena, the bishop’s imposing palace, and the imperial buildings. I’d been here many times already, as a soldier and then agens turning around here at the border city that marked off the Eastern Empire.

  I loved Sirmium’s western vigor and laughter mixed with eastern comfort and warmth. It was the birthplace of nine emperors, including Constantius himself—and who knows how many more to come?

  Some of the Gauls riding behind me hadn’t ever seen until this bright morning what one writer nicknamed the ‘glorious mother of cities.’ But Sirmium the city was not our destination.

  ‘Look, over there!’ Gaiso pointed beyond the city walls, where stretching for half a mile, a grid of army tents stood, taut and filed as neat as a child’s game.

  ‘The army of Illyricum, including the Danubian legions, the IV Flavia Felix and the VII Claudia,’ Gaiso said.

  Gregorius scanned the horizon. ‘With only one eye, I can see a camp of well over ten thousand men, perhaps even twenty? Vetranio must have called them all together for a winter conference.’

  ‘Or to council Constantia?’ Gaiso raised one eyebrow.

  Both officers were right, of course. Embroidered bulls flapped on the pennants of half the encampment. On the other side of a broad boulevard wide enough for twenty horses, standards carved with the Capricorn and Pegasus swayed.

  And through the very center of this temporary city of fighters, between thousands of men moving about their first chores of the day, we trotted towards a tall, wide carriage shining with oxblood varnish and fitted on all its corners and windows in gold.

  The Augusta Constantia was here.

  ‘We have Magnentius’ letter ready?’ Gaiso asked Gregorius.

  ‘I have it here, Lieutenant Commander.’ I patted my dispatch satchel.

  ‘And I have the ring. Good. Let’s go.’

  On foot, our delegation approached the General’s headquarters, a complex of half a dozen tents at the very center of the camp for himself and the legions’ top officers.

  But before we could hear ourselves announced, the grizzled old Vetranio himself emerged from under the furry leather flap shielding his tent from the cold. He threw himself at Gregorius, pulling the Commander to his barrel chest.

  ‘A Manlius hero! Your father must be proud of his clan!’ His eyes squeezed shut as he held Gregorius to his breast, but over the edge of the commander’s shoulder, I saw that the shock of seeing my ex-master’s vicious wounds sent a few tears of pity down the General’s cheeks.

  ‘Come in. Get warm,’ he said, releasing Gregorius at last. ‘So glad to see you. Send your riders along with Gaius here. They’ll be well looked after. Now, I really want to hear the news of your rebel hero, Magnentius. Share my delicious breakfast.’

  ‘Happily, we can combine two pleasures in one, Vetranio. Gaiso said, stepping in between Gregorius and the robust older man. ‘We need to see the Augusta, General,’

  ‘Oh, you’ll see her all right. She hasn’t been here long. But let’s use an augusta as our excuse to indulge our bellies first, right?’

  We entered Vetranio’s meeting tent and saw a long table set for breakfast surrounded by camp chairs. Vetranio’s command staff rose to their feet as we exchanged greetings. The only person who stayed seated drew all eyes to the far end.

  There she was, sunk deep in her own wide-armed gilt cathedra. Her journey had not been comfortable. She looked like an unmade bed of maroon velvets, bronze wools and teal silks. As before, both forearms glistened with female armor—stacks of embossed cuffs and bracelets of heavy gold studded with gems.

  There was no man standing there among us that morning who could refuse his admiration for her resilience and speed on the road. If she was tired, some trick of cosmetics or medicine disguised it a little. If she was bruised by days of painful jouncing over hundreds of miles, her soft garments revealed nothing but a moist neck and shoulders.

  There was no sign of the Lord Chamberlain Eusebius. Artful inquiries outside General Vetranio’s tent told me that the eunuch had left the camp that morning on the main road for Naissus to the southeast.

  I suspected another falling out between the two grasping personalities, if there had ever been a falling in, for that matter. Eusebius could no more linger in Magnentius’ West than she could. They were foul weather friends at best. He was speeding ahead to Constantius’ protection.

  Instead of masked eunuchs, two young waiting women stood sentry behind Constantia. They were unused to hours of exposure to the unrelieved cold. Their teeth chattered and they clutched their fashionably thin cloaks close around their shoulders. Their faces betrayed the exhaustion and fear that their mistress refused to let show.

  For a moment, seeing her huddled under Vetranio’s protection, I forgot Constantia’s unattractive tastes in private recreation. I felt sorry for the friendless woman widowed so violently by her closest kin and now surrounded by hardened soldiers. But for all my sympathy, I was relieved she didn’t recognize me standing back a little behind Magnentius’ high-ranked representatives.

  Then she smiled at Gaiso and Gregorius. Those teeth were the same—as pointed as ever and even more unnaturally white.

  Gaiso offered Vetranio a letter. He and Gregorius had cooked it up the night before, to pretend that they’d known all along where to run Constantia to ground.

  Vetranio looked at the folded packet with hesitation. He dreaded the possibility of these envoys expecting him to read something out loud and reveal his illiteracy. But he was an old underdog, a survivor in a field of warriors. He knew all the tricks. The old soldier waved it back and said, ‘Please. Do us all the honor.’

  For a moment, Gaiso looked taken aback. Then he began to read out: ‘A message from the Emperor of the West, General Flavius Magnus Magnentius. Ave. We greet General Vetranio and extend our warmest personal greetings with a gift for the Augusta—’

  Vetranio nodded in appreciation and stretched his arm towards the unhappy woman glowering at us from under thick black lashes at the end of the tent.

  ‘Our imperial guest takes precedence above any further salutations between soldiers, no matter how welcome,’ Vetranio said wit
h a chuckle. Gaiso bowed and handed the expensive vellum to one of Vetranio’s military secretaries.

  Gaiso strode down the line of officers and fell to one knee at Constantia’s feet. He bowed his head again and removed his leather gloves. From a lambskin pouch wedged under his cuirass, he pulled out the vulgar ring, laid it on his right palm and held it out to her.

  ‘Flavius Magnus Magnentius sends you his warmest salutation, Augusta.’

  ‘I salute the bloody usurper and murderer right back,’ she said, tossing her thick dark coils of hair with undisguised contempt.

  ‘He also sends his respect and admiration. With this jewel, his most cherished possession, long in his family, he bids me to propose marriage to you. He offers to lay the Western Empire, from the wild lakes and moors of upper Britannia to the lush olive orchards of the Aurès Mountains, at your feet. He humbly begs you to accept his material protection as well as manly love and devotion. He implores you, the most beauteous fruit to ever ripen on the Great Family Tree of Constantine Chlorus, to become his wife and empress.’

  I appreciated that the ‘beauteous fruit’ bit was Gaiso’s own improvising but all his mountains and moors weren’t going to help at all. Constantia curled her lip, repeating with astonishment under her breath, ‘Long in his family?’

  Gaiso tried a new tack. ‘In return, Magnentius offers his own his own child, a precious daughter, the treasure of his heart, as a bride for Constantius, His Imperial Excellency of the East.’

  ‘You are ridiculous,’ Constantia spat out at Gaiso. ‘My brother is already married to Flavia Aurelia Eusebia, the daughter of a former consul of Roma from a pure Greek family in Thessaloniki. You think he’d divorce Eusebia for the mongrel daughter of our brother’s barbarian assassin?’

  With a sudden kick of her pointed travelling boot, she sent the Lieutenant Commander Gaiso toppling right onto the pounded earth. Gaiso was left scrambling to recover Magnentius’ ring in the pounded dirt underfoot. I was grateful Gaiso suffered this indignity and not Gregorius.

  ‘You’re all ridiculous!’ The howl came from the mouth of a Fury rising up from her chair. ‘You think a granddaughter of the Great Constantine who subdued the Franks in battle, now needs to marry one? I bring a present of my own—for Vetranio, the Empire’s loyal servant and and I offer nothing to that superstitious tyrant, Magnentius.’