Rivals in Blood Read online

  He was then told to stay out of sight and find some food and rest within the many rooms available in the south wing. This he did, wandering the empty spaces and wondering who the busts of previous incumbents were with their dead, bulbous eyes giving nothing away. The palace itself provided little warmth to the cool spring night yet the boy was enjoying being away from home especially as the warm baths were made available to him and previously under employed slaves rushed to attend to his every whim. His father in law would be slavishly placating the new emperor and also attending to his every wish whilst Salvius playfully ducked his head below the tepid water.

  Martinus found Magnentius, his bodyguard and court attendants, in the main reception hall of the palace and managed to briefly eavesdrop on their conversation before choosing his moment to step forward. The emperor was sitting imperially on the dais. At the sound of approaching footsteps, a slave who had agreed to identify who Flavius Martinus was had a knife pushed unfairly and tightly against his throat and was ordered to point out the vicarius and no-one else.

  ‘That is my master’ he said ashamedly, indicating towards the new arrival.

  ‘That is Flavius Martinus.’

  ‘There is no need for this’ protested Martinus steadfastly, at which the slave was pushed to one side.

  ‘Word was quickly sent that I would be attending you.’

  ‘Word was sent!’ shouted Magnenetius rising to his feet.

  ‘You sent messages that you would be attending me! I command who comes, not you! Know it that you are addressing Flavius Magnus Magnentius Augustus, the new emperor of the West!’

  ‘My Lord’ said Martinus submissively.

  ‘Forgive me my ignorance in not recognising you; but what of Flavius Julius Constans Augustus?’

  ‘What news of the old emperor?’

  ‘Constans is dead and you knew the son of Constantine?’ questioned Magnentius, staring directly at his subject in an attempt to intimidate him and force a mistake.

  ‘No I didn’t. We didn’t meet’ rapidly answered Martinus for he had nothing to gain from saying otherwise.

  ‘I remember that he was here but all too briefly.’

  ‘I also know that he was here on a false errand allowing a plot to develop behind his back. What man would travel in the cold of winter unless to avoid the assassin? A seed had been planted in his mind by others that Britannia was rebellious and over he galloped in suspicious haste. There was nothing here to maintain that lie and so he retreated. You personally knew that there wasn’t a threat to his authority or his church so he left you alone. Or did you? Is there a threat or a rebellion quietly rising here in Britannia, Martinus? Is there a threat? Will I find you a threat to me once I have left?’

  ‘No my Lord, you will not. My loyalty is to the emperor’ he meekly replied never wishing to compromise his future position or the luxury it afforded and scared of the huge man standing before him.

  Neither would he want to die as Constans had.

  Magnentius stalked across the mosaic floor between them without paying any attention to its beauty or form. There he saw before him a perfumed, manicured and cultured man of middle height with little muscle and looking tired; the kind of man he felt crafted his life in lying. Bending down he whispered calmly in his face.

  ‘I am the emperor and I want your soldiers. I want all those that you can spare Martinus and I want them quickly. Organise it, and then I want you to raise taxes on the richest landowners. Look up at the eagles of Jupiter and Hercules’ and he pointed to his standard.

  ‘Remember them and then decide at whose altar do you wish to pray for victory? Pray to Christos if you will!’

  This wasn’t the time for a report upon affairs in Britannia and the vicarius, keen to demonstrate that he had authority, beckoned his secretary to bring over the papers that they had been working on throughout their journey.

  ‘My Lord, you are aware of the military threat to the island from outside?’ he said unfurling a parchment roll.

  ‘Only lately my own daughter was perilously in danger of being taken. Is it wise to risk opening the gates of our fortresses to invaders because their soldiers are elsewhere? How long will they be gone? I will need to confer with the Comes as to who can be spared. How much time are you giving me?’

  Magnentius stretched an arm out and easily tore the roll from his grip and threw it across the floor where no one dared to pick it up.

  ‘Nobody here cries for your daughter’ he said bluntly.

  ‘You will have to organise your own defence as very shortly I march east to win over the garrison of Illyricum and after that I plan to confront Constantius in battle. Once victory is assured you can have his miserable war prisoners to protect you but I am demanding that you have two months in which to send me soldiers. The Prefect shall remain here to ensure that you do obey.’

  Having said all he was going to and maybe too much at that, he looked about the court and was disappointed at what he saw. Where had the golden imperial majesty gone? Where was mighty Jupiter, Apollo or Mars? Where had the unsullied glory gone? What was it that he had chosen to rebel against? With his own banner disreputably held aloft by his standard bearer he made ready to leave when Salvius interrupted them by mistake. Up to then previously idle blades were skilfully drawn from their scabbards and a tight knot of men quickly formed around the emperor.

  ‘Who are you?’ Magnentius demanded to know.

  ‘He is Salvius Castus and he is my son in law. He is harmless and unarmed’ Martinus replied for the boy not wanting him to speak and risk incriminating himself.

  ‘Salvius; come here’ and he beckoned the young man towards him but Magnentius, pushing his way through his bodyguard, cut him off.

  ‘What is he doing here?’ He asked holding him tightly by the arm as the hunter would the hare.

  Salvius lacking the experience to understand the arguments or the bartering that was going on became stranded. Martinus had told him that it may be an opportunity to be presented to the emperor and a way of ensuring that he was enrolled in the army through his influence. That may have been for happier times though. Any such diplomacy had suddenly deteriorated and he was about to be swept up against his will.

  Magnentius leant in closer to the boy and sniffed about him but the aroma of perfume was absent as it always had been.

  ‘He doesn’t smell like one of you and he is stronger. Look at his hands and see how worn they are’ and he twisted his wrists.

  ‘Look at the legs and see how wide apart they are. What do you know boy? What can you tell me?’

  The question was simple, but Salvius, looking across and catching the vexed look upon his father in law’s face, remembered all too well his wedding day. The way Martinus spoke intimately about the secrecy of the old religion and the way he spoke of patronage where everything would work out. There was a debt of loyalty owing to him and that now required repaying. The boy, never having to be compromised before, carefully chose his reply.

  ‘I only know about horses’ he briefly said.

  ‘Then here’s one!’ Magnentius triumphantly retorted before throwing the spinning body into the sinewy arms of his guards.

  ‘That’s just the first of many, Martinus. I want hundreds more. Let him be my hostage helping you influence your legions to my side and by my word that my father was a Briton, he will be safe until I return.’

  With that the prefect saluted and the guard were ordered into their ranks and marched out behind the twin eagles. Tightly held amongst them and now prisoner went Salvius.

  ‘Where am I going?’ he shouted in protest whilst his father in law was forced aside.

  Augustodunum was now alert to the war horns of revolt and empty of all its important officers except those who were required to ensure the continuing support of the civilian elders. No swords were drawn and no doors were broken down in the gathering of provisions and favours. On the plains outside the town paraded troops from all disparate corners of the Gallic empire
and many hadn’t seen the like of this in their lifetime. They had known past tales of insurrection with its consequences but hadn’t worried believing instead in the invincibility of their forces. Between them, and the beleaguered Constantius far to the east, sat the garrison of Illyricum and its military riches just waiting to be harvested.

  Magnentius, returned from his surprise visit to Britannia took a sip of sweet wine from a beautifully relief decorated silver cup and sat down. Running one hand across his forehead to push his hair back he was willing to accept that everything was suddenly a success. He hadn’t been assassinated or faced a rival and the army were gathering as he had commanded them to. With military awareness one fortress after another had quickly been refilled with eager fresh cohorts as his army prepared to snake its way dangerously out through Gallia. It was left to Decentius, his brother, to report the current situation was now to their advantage.

  ‘Was Britannia inflamed by your being there?’ he asked provocatively from his couch.

  Although the younger man was of the same family, he had to assume the role of submissive to the emperor and broached the subject in talk as diplomatic as it could be.

  ‘There’s a question, Decentius! Britannia isn’t a virgin to revolt and I am not expecting it to be either’ Magnentius knowledgably replied.

  ‘It has to be despondent of its past history in having wanted to break away and as long as Flavius Martinus completes what he is ordered to do then I will keep it happy and help it.’

  He took another careful drop of wine before wiping his mouth dry with a napkin.

  ‘Is this how the emperor has his drink?’ he comically probed, aware that there was nobody there to guide him in the matter.

  ‘Any way you like’ replied his brother.

  ‘They will follow you!’

  At that they laughed loudly together.

  The emperor however, and unable to publically show it, was anxious with fear and required advice. Can you trust your family? He beckoned his brother to come to his side and explained to him that Britannia was the land from where no educated man had ever attained senatorial class in Roma. However, the Britons weren’t fools either and in the event of a catastrophic defeat they may have to escape there and winning the support of every side in the war could be necessary. There were difficult men to deal with; wealthy, influential men. Some sixty years previously the rebel Mausaeus Carausius had succeeded by appealing to their individual loyalties and so could they, although Decentius hadn’t won the support to create a personal following and that worried his brother. Reaching out he aimed to gently reassure him.

  ‘Our dead father sitting with us would be proud. Little can alter that as my blood is yours, but what will you do if I die? Killing Constans was easy. He had no protection but he did have a court following. It is all or nothing for us.’

  He spoke with a strange sincerity and without evoking any sympathy continued to say...

  ‘You know that I may not always judge correctly what the right decision is. Have you an escape plan because I would willingly give you the command of legions loyal to me. Yet fate is fickle and you may not get to use them?’

  None of this was easy to say but Magnentius went on in a terse voice.

  ‘What I am potentially offering you is your death alongside my own but by amassing the largest army that the west has known I am planning to destroy Constantius in one great battle. It is my only chance and by winning over Vetranio’s army in Illyricum it is possible. With every god on my side how can I lose? Are you with me?’

  His brother nodded his faithful affirmation before fondly grasping his arm. He couldn’t beg forgiveness either. It had been to the finish all along.

  In the north, Flavius Martinus too was making his plans but with his own gods. He had lit the pine cone with shaking hands and waited for its smoke to gently coil from the red embers at its source; the intoxicating aroma reminding him of the previous occasions when he had needed to seek favour. Bent over and head respectfully covered he whispered the first of the incantations he hoped would ensure the fates were going to attend his offering and hear his prayers. There was nobody else there at the family shrine situated near the spring that fed his villa. A bowl of wine reflecting the sky above and ready for the god’s consumption had been placed on the roughly carved stone altar. It was the end of a sultry day and Martinus, although tired and aggressive as a result of weeks of stress that he had suddenly been placed under, knew precisely what he wanted to say. The Prefect had left with all the cavalry, legionaries and auxiliaries that he could take and the remnants braced themselves for a change in their fortunes depending upon who became the eventual winner in the impending conflict. This civil war was to be fought across lands far away and its tides wouldn’t wash the recriminations up on the island shores for years. He had been warned therefore, and pulling his cloak tighter to shield himself from any external interference he concentrated fully upon speaking the correct message.

  ‘Gods or goddesses of this place attend me this day and grant me your favours’ he said quietly.

  ‘I have witnessed your anger and displeasure with the recent amphitheatre of low black cloud that you cast over my fields before unleashing missiles of ice. These have decimated my crops and served to remind me of your power to starve. In my pleasing you, I have provided sustenance for yourself that I may go without and thirst. It shall remain here after I leave. Grant me therefore that Magnentius’ imperial banners are cut to shreds in the same manner and that his army gorges upon defeat. Grant me too that my daughter is returned safely to my side and that my son in law is spared death. I ask for no more except a sign that you have accepted my prayer today’ at which he retreated.

  The evening breeze, that wandered across the land throughout the late afternoon, all too briefly ran its hand across the tired facial features of this man as he expected it to, and then it was gone, whilst in the west Sol fell slowly to his daily fate and all horizons the world over merged into one: darker.

  Chapter IV

  AD350

  THE FULCRUM

  The swaying masonry settled in its mortar whilst through the dust curtain descending the population of Antiochia was seen running for their lives. The emperor Constantius, clutching tightly both the plans of the octagonal Domus Aurea and his sister’s letter in his right hand, shared their fear and ran. Only stopping when the shifting ground appeared to be still, he shouted above the low rumbling noise echoing down the valley.

  ‘I command you to be silent! Which god disturbs my father’s foundation stones? Which traitor envious of his church must we chase from their altar?’

  Still shaking, he chose to face the danger and refused to run any further. Standing by his side was Florus his elderly advisor, who by quickly removing his own cloak and wrapping it around the shoulders of the emperor, kept him free of light debris and therefore distinguishable from the other grey figures coughing about him. Constantius thanked him for the unprovoked gesture. Warnings of earth movements had been predicted and omens pointed at the strange behaviour of farm creatures that couldn’t settle in their pens; of strange lights seen emanating from the ground but the old soothsayers had been dismissed with scorn for their predictions and ignored.

  ‘My Lord, it could be a sign hidden amongst other signs’ said Florus.

  ‘Have belief in that after twenty three years of construction your father’s great church still stands this day and shall be completed another. Perhaps you are being directed towards finishing more important work first?’

  Constantius, his heart beating fast yet having trust in the man next to him, followed as he tentatively beckoned them to walk towards a patch of grass untouched by debris. There his imperial scholae gathered around to form a mounted wall and allow them to speak on in private.

  ‘Do you profess to understand these things Florus? What is it that is both unnatural to the land and sky? Is this my destiny? What does Christos have me to do? Where will my father’s sign lead us?’ questio
ned the emperor in some emotional disarray.

  ‘Look about you at Antochia’ Constantius said pointing towards the theatres, the temples, the aqueducts, the circus and the great Forum.

  ‘This is a mighty city like Roma is but not of Romans. It wants to change but will not and despite the damage, its many temples still stand. Must it eventually fall to the ground only to rise again? Will I gift it to the Persians in defeat whilst fleeing? Everything that I want, others want and everything that I do is failing!’

  Florus remained silent in his agreement. Antochia had to change in order to rival Constantinopolis, but there were more urgent matters at hand for the emperor to resolve. In one form or another, the city would always survive but who would rule from it? Not the Bishops he prayed? Not the ever powerful and politically influential men of the new religion that could threaten his place. Not even the emperor’s sister Constantina?

  ‘Your father, the great Constantine, forged his empire with an army that was loyal to him and with the belief in his faith to go forward and do so’ he said.

  ‘You are familiar with him recognising the path he took before defeating Maxentius in battle? You are all too familiar with the sign of Chi Rho?’

  ‘Of course I am!’ replied Constantius imperiously.

  ‘Look at my legions and their shields. The cross protects them in their danger.’

  Florus, accustomed to the ways of the second son of Constantine, nevertheless went on.

  ‘Therefore is this your signal that you must start to build again but on more permanent foundations? You can finish your father’s great church another time. The Persian Sharpur is quiet because of your cunning yet can we trust him not to continue to pursue the war behind your back? No. Look away then and towards the West whilst you can. Your youngest brother is dead and his murderer Magnentius now rules defiantly in his place. I suggest that you elevate a trusted man here and then prepare to march towards the greatest threat.’