The Poisoned Throne: Tintagel Book II

by M. K. Hume

  ‘I’m persuaded that you would have taken the same approach to those men as I took, so you needn’t treat me with such censure. I was trained from my earliest days in the legions to leave no one at my back who could become a danger to me and my men. I might add that I’ve been forced to deliver kind deaths to my wounded comrades rather than leave them to the torture of the enemy. I did what war dictates, and you’ve done the same thing on many occasions. War sometimes creates dishonourable consequences. If my young sons had been in Gallia with me, they would have met Honorius’s strangler already, so where is the honour in the murder of children? At least, Honorius’s cousins were full-grown. If they had any sense, they would have left Hispania months earlier.’

  ‘I agree that your sons would have been long dead if they were in Gallia. But, as you say, such is war. At any road, I had just finished a long convalescence in Ravenna when the emperor summoned me to his presence. Honorius asked me if I was prepared to lead the last of his legionnaires into Gallia to face your army. He told me that I was Rome’s last roll of the dice. I agreed, for I have no truck with men who seek to further their personal ambitions at the cost of innocents. Where are your legions now, Constantine?’

  The prisoner stared fixedly at his ragged sandals and dirty toes. The man who would be emperor had finally been trampled into the dust. All that remained for him was his life and the promise of a safe passage to Ravenna.

  Oh, Constans! Where are you now? Even your little wife – and the child she carried!

  ‘My men are dead! I know what I have done in the pursuit of my dream, Constantius. Might I suggest that you look into your own heart and take care that you don’t travel down the same road, for you’ll learn what choices a man has to make when he’s caught like a rabbit in an iron trap. When that day arrives, you’ll learn exactly what a man will do to stay alive. He will chew off his own foot, repudiate his lifelong scruples and trample on his honour. You must take care if you ever decide to aim above your place in the good Lord’s scheme of things.’

  ‘Me?’ Constantius blenched. ‘I hold no ambition that will place me in another’s boots, and I’ll always remain a loyal Roman. You insult me, Constantine.’

  ‘But so was I, Constantius. I served my masters well for twenty years, but the patricians never reciprocated. Does Honorius treat you with the respect you deserve?’

  The general clenched his fists. ‘Only a fool would insult a man who controls his destiny. You’re worse than a fool, Constantine, and I’m beginning to believe that you’re courting death.’

  ‘I’m a fool who has finally given up all hope, General. Only my life can be taken from me now, so I’m warning you of the pitfalls I faced in my search for glory. I wish you well, General Constantius, for our names are very much alike and you remind me of myself.’

  The distant horseman’s outline was distinct now and Constantius could see that the rider was wearing the emperor’s livery. The general longed for an answer, especially one that would stop the mouth of this man whose every utterance made him acutely uncomfortable.

  By the time the wagons were ready to trundle down the empty road once again, the rider had reached the column and presented the general with a small scroll cylinder. Constantius broke the wax seal and read the few terse words that sealed the prisoner’s fate.

  Execute him immediately and leave his body for the scavengers.

  An ugly order for a dishonourable death, but this sin will no longer sully my soul, Constantius thought, so he summoned four men to assist him, including one giant Visigoth who had served in Stilicho’s force and was still mourning his dead commander.

  When Constantine saw the approaching men, he could tell that the legionnaires were marching in step. He realised immediately what was to take place and rose to his feet with a curiously untroubled expression on his face.

  ‘I understood I’d been given safe conduct,’ he said loudly in the vain hope that he could attract some sympathy from the legionnaires who were resting in the shade of the tree-lined road.

  ‘The clemency no longer applies! Honorius has revoked the safe conduct so that the shades of his cousins may be at peace. The emperor has ordered your immediate execution. There is no appeal!’

  Constantius spat out these words sharply, but the doomed man thought he saw a flicker of pity in the general’s eyes.

  ‘Balbas?’ Constantius called to the tall Visigoth. ‘Your sword is sharp?’

  ‘Aye, master! It has been especially cleansed for the killer of General Stilicho.’

  Constantine wanted to retreat to the very end of his chains and tug at the iron links as if his frail human flesh could break them. But the last traces of the centurion within him made him reluctant to beg for his life.

  ‘Come, Constantine! Do you wish to be held down like a woman? Honorius has spared you from the indignity of the strangler in recognition of your status as an emperor. Your death will be speedy, for Balbas has honed his blade to a fine edge. Be a man, sir, and don’t force me to batter you into unconsciousness before we send you into the shades.’

  Some last shred of courage stiffened Constantine’s spine and he ceased to struggle with himself. He consented to kneel in the dust while one of Constantius’s legionnaires pulled his cowl and the neck of his robe away from the back of his throat. Another man bound his hands behind his back.

  Constantine turned his face towards the general and spoke clearly, so that the whole detachment could hear every word.

  ‘I forgive every man who takes part in my execution, so that my shade will not await them at the hour of their own deaths. You, Constantius of the legions, are absolved from any guilt, or lies, and I only ask that you remember me from time to time.’

  ‘Do you have any final words for the emperor?’ Constantius felt constrained to ask. ‘Or for your kinfolk?’

  Constantine merely shook his dust-covered head.

  Oh, Constans! Would that I could have saved you!

  Then, scorning to look down at the earth, he raised his eyes to stare out at the distant mountains on the blue horizon, with their snow-capped peaks that pointed out the route he would take to reach the heavens.

  Constantine thought of Paulus, of his children and, finally, he recalled Severa, far away and safe in Britannia.

  Then he thought no more.

  AUTHOR’S NOTES

  There is a significant amount of confusion surrounding the figure of Constantine III, so much so that I found it difficult to extract a real man from the limited amount of recorded material associated with this strange warrior during the passing of the years.

  Was it coincidence that the same general who presided over Constantine’s execution was eventually elevated to the purple as Constantius II? Was it hubris? Or was it just another cautionary tale that paralleled the story of Constantine’s rise and fall?

  The many years of famine, disasters and armed conflict that occurred in Britannia during the Dark Ages destroyed many of the records kept in monasteries, handwritten scrolls that would have simplified our understanding of early British history. Unfortunately, the Saxons and other raiders from the northern climes spared little of the Roman and Celtic history of these times when they burned the churches which were the repositories of records. This period will always be truly dark, for modern historians can never really know what happened during these years. The records of heroes who lived among the British inhabitants have been irrevocably lost. Or altered, either by design or accident!

  I have always wondered, however, why a man who was capable of conquering the province of Gallia, a man who was fully cognisant of the mistakes made by Flavius Magnus Maximus, would repeat the same errors of judgement displayed by his predecessor. I would have thought that Constantine would have learned from Maximus’s mistakes.

  I endeavoured to show my Constantine was a talented man who, for the large part,
was thrust into extraordinary political situations where his wildest dreams seemed to come true.

  But I found myself liking my early hero, Constantinus, an able man whose only weaknesses were a deep-seated resentment of the patricians of doubtful talents who controlled the legions, coupled with a long-held, secret desire to prove that he was as worthy as any other Roman of good birth and selective breeding.

  Of course, such a man was always doomed to fail. In part, the prejudices of my Constantinus made him blind to Severa’s talent, although she was an aristocratic woman in her own right. He could never understand the pitfalls of rubbing patricians’ noses in the dust, and he couldn’t gauge the capacity of all men to be dishonourable. Those men whom Constantinus trusted brought about his downfall, and they included the turncoat, Gerontius, and the Praetorian, Rusticus, both of whom were higher up the ladder of caste than he.

  Once Constantinus became Constantine, he appeared to change, but as a legionnaire and a centurion, he was always capable of necessary acts of cruelty. He was eventually trapped by his own total power or, as has often been said: ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely.’

  Most men who are blessed by chance would consider themselves fortunate for any opportunity to achieve greatness, but they would choose to remain, perfectly safe, within the security of their homes and hearths. But a man who possesses secret dreams, one who marries a woman who was the daughter of an emperor, would consider himself to be blessed by God and Fortuna. I can imagine such a man being swept away by his own importance and, eventually, acting rashly.

  This novel covers a wide expanse of ground, one that is much larger than in most of my previous novels. It is also peopled by a panoply of real characters who have been passed down to us from the histories of ancient Britain and Rome as shadowy figures that lack flesh, blood and motives. Their names come to us through the murk of the ages with a distressing lack of detail. I have tried to flesh them out to suit my storyline, so I apologise to any of those old shades who might be offended by my guesswork. Even Severa, a few brief lines in old Latin script, is an enigma who was difficult to unravel. To me, she is a woman of her times, trapped by conventions as a baby machine and a source of earthly power, while possessing little of her own.

  I made her a silly girl, a besotted wife, a tortured mother and, at last, a queen. I hope that I’ve given her a soul.

  Most modern women would look at my Severa with contempt. She makes no attempt to run away from a conflict, for she knows that there is no escape for her and few enemies would deign to lift a sword against her person anyway. The position of wealthy women in those days would be incomprehensible to most modern women, except those females who are still seen as property in the less enlightened parts of the world. I tried to make her believable, rather than heroic, so she presents as a woman who endured because she had little or no choice.

  Two places in Britain call to me whenever I fly into Heathrow from far-off Australia, two places that have captured my heart above all others. These are the town of Glastonbury and the ruins of Tintagel castle. The first scarcely has any fences, let alone a wall that must be scaled, while the other is an impregnable fortress. Both sites are ancient and are misunderstood, for they sleep now in the peace and quiet of the British countryside. Of all the places I visit in the British Isles, I am always surprised to discover how few of our English cousins have visited these two important historical centres.

  Once again, these two remarkable places have found their ancient way into my narrative. For what it’s worth, I can still feel the ghostly presence of Britannia’s past with every step I take when I am in Tintagel or Glastonbury.

  I believe that the educated reader will find flaws in this novel, but I have done my best to make sense of a time of turmoil and power-hungry men who survived on the edge of extinction. I can see unfortunate parallels with the present day, for history is repeated again and again. I hope too, that some of the readers who wind their way through this tale will visit Glastonbury and Tintagel, strip away the commercial nonsense that permeates them and picture the faces and places as they would have been in those times, 1,500 years distant, when the characters that live in my novels were young and vibrant. Think, too, about two of Fortuna’s fools who walked the cobbles of these ruins as you can still do to this day. Flavius Magnus Maximus and Constantine III gambled for the throne of Rome but, ultimately, they lost everything except their place in the history of a great nation.

  Ave.

  M. K. Hume

  Brisbane, 2015

  GLOSSARY OF PLACE NAMES

  Abus Flood Humber River, Lincolnshire, England

  Albis River Elbe River, Germany

  Armorica Brittany in Europe (then Gallia)

  Anderida Pevensey, East Sussex, England

  Anderida Silva The district surrounding Anderida

  Antonini Wall A Roman defensive wall in Scotland

  Aquae Sulis Bath, Somerset, England

  Arelate Aries, France

  Branodunum Brancaster, Norfolk, England

  Caer Fyrddin Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire, Wales

  Caerleon Newport, South Wales

  Caernarfon Carnarvon, Gwynedd, Wales

  Calleva Atrebatum Silchester, Hampshire, England

  Camulodunum Colchester, Essex

  Castra Exploratorum Netherby, Cumbria, England

  Causennae Ancaster, Lincolnshire, England

  Constantinople Istanbul, Turkey

  Corinium Cirencester, Gloucestershire, England

  Cymru The Celtic term for Wales

  Deva Chester, Cheshire, England

  Dubris Dover, Kent, England

  Durobrivae Rochester, Kent, England

  Durovernum Canterbury, Kent, England

  Dyfed A kingdom in the west of ancient Britain

  Eburacum York, Yorkshire, England

  Fosse Way A Roman road that linked Exeter (Isca Dumnoniorum) in south-west England to Lincoln (Lindum Colonia) via Ilchester, Bath, Cirencester and Leicester

  Gaul (Gallia) An ancient Celtic area in Europe that comprised most of France and parts of Germany and Spain

  Gesoriacum Boulogne, France

  Glastonbury Glastonbury, Somerset, England

  Glevum Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England

  Hadrian’s Wall The Roman defensive wall that protected Britannia from the Picts

  Hibernia The ancient name for Ireland

  Hispania Spain

  Isca Augusta Newport, Wales (Caerleon). The major Roman garrison in Wales. It was generally referred to as Isca

  Italia Italy

  Lindinus Lichester, Somerset, England

  Litus Saxonicum The English Channel

  Londinium London, England

  Lutetia Paris, France

  Massilia Marseilles, France

  Metaris Aest The Wash, England

  Middle Sea The Mediterranean Sea

  Navio Brough, Yorkshire, England

  Portus Adurni Portchester, Hampshire, England

  Portus Lemanis Dympne, Kent, England

  Ratae Leicester, Leicestershire, England

  Rhenus River The Rhine River

  Rhodanus River The Rhone River

  River Styx A river in Greek mythology that is the boundary between the earth and the Underworld (Hades)

  Rutupiae Richborough, Kent, England

  Tamesis River The River Thames, England

  Tanatus Thanet Island, Kent, England

  Ticinum Pavia, Italy

  Tintagel A fortress in Cornwall, England

  Valentia Valence, France

  Venta Belgarum Winchester, Hampshire, England

  Venta Icenorum Norwich, Norfolk, England

  Venta Silurum Caerwent, Monmouthshire, Wales
r />   Verulamium St Albans, Hertfordshire, England

  GLOSSARY OF BRITISH TRIBAL NAMES

  Atrebates

  Belgae

  Brigante

  Cantii

  Catuvellauni

  Coritani

  Cornovii

  Deceangli

  Demetae

  Dumnonii

  Dobunni

  Durotriges

  Iceni

  Novantae

  Otadini

  Ordovice

  Regni

  Selgovae

  Silures

  Trinovantes