Part 27 (1/2)
I pretended not to hear the whispers as the servants settled me in my old apartments, or the curious glances at the bundle I cradled in my arms. All of the staff here were new. Drusilla had died long ago, and Vitellia had retired to Londinium, and most of the people who had served Crispus and his Helena had been sold off as well. Constantine and Fausta were still at the summer palace in the hills north of the town. I wondered how long it would take him to get up the nerve to come to me.
The next morning I ordered my bearers to take me to the home of young Helena's parents, where she had been living while Crispus was with the Emperor. Lena was, as my grandson had told me, beautiful, with pale skin and smooth dark hair. But that white skin was almost translucent, and when I embraced her I could feel the fine bones, as if her own grief were gnawing at her from within.
In all her life she has never known tribulation, I thought, releasing her.She does not know how to survive . Then the nursemaid brought in little Crispa, almost a year and a half old and bright as a sunbeam, and I sat down so that I could take my great-grand-daughter into my arms. What future awaited this child? I wondered as I breathed in the sweet scent of her hair.
”My Crispus was no traitor,” murmured Lena as the child slid from my arms and ran to her. ”He could never have done what they say of him. He loved the Emperor.”
”I know it, and I swear to you that I will vindicate his memory,” I answered her. Inscriptions and statues to Crispus were being defaced already as men sought to rewrite the past byd.a.m.natio memoriae . ”In the meantime, you must write to me and tell me how you are getting on. Be brave and take care of yourself for the sake of your child.”
Her eyes filled with tears. ”I will try...”
That evening, the court arrived. I waited for some word from Constantine, but in the morning it was Bishop Ossius who came to me.
”He is waiting for you.” The bishop's gaze flicked to my face and then away. ”I know what you have come to say. I have tried, myself, to remonstrate with the Emperor for this... atrocity. But he does not seem to hear me. I think it preys upon his mind, but he will not face it. Come, perhaps a mother's words will reach him where mine cannot.”
”If they do not,” I said softly as I picked up the silk-wrapped bundle I had brought so far, ”I have something here that may.”
We moved along a corridor which terrified rumour had emptied. They were wise, I thought as I limped after Bishop Ossius, my black robes hissing like the whisper of Nemesis along the tiles. When the G.o.ds quarrel, mortals must take cover lest a stray thunderbolt destroy them as well.
Constantine was sitting in the little dining room, whose ochre-painted walls were frescoed with scenes from theaeneid . Light from the door to the garden lay like a barrier across the mosaic floor, but the Emperor was sitting in shadow. A flagon was on the little inlaid table, and a wine cup in his hand. I paused by the door.
”Augustus...” the Bishop said softly.
”Have you come to nag me again, Ossius?” Constantine answered tiredly without looking up. ”You speak of the laws of heaven, but I am responsible for the Empire. You have no right to reproach me-”
Ossius started to object that he was responsible for the Emperor's soul, but my gesture silenced him.
”Perhaps not, but here is one who does!” Pulling the cloth away, I stepped forwards and thrust Crispus's death-mask into the light.
”My son!” Constantine recoiled, hands splayed in self-protection, and the table lurched and sent cup and flagon flying. Spilled wine spread like a tide of blood across the tiles.
Constantine's gaze moved from the mask to the wine and then, finally, to me. His face was pasty and there were dark circles under his eyes as if he had been unwell.
”I had to do it! I had no choice!” he cried. ”G.o.d called me to sacrifice the son I loved, just like Abraham, but He provided no subst.i.tute, no lamb. So Crispus must have been guilty! G.o.d would not be so cruel!”
His head swung back and forth, eyes bulging, as if he could not see me at all. I wondered suddenly if he ever had seen me, or only an icon that he called ”mother”, with no more resemblance to the person I really was than a holy image painted on a wall.
”Did G.o.d send you a vision, or was it some mortal who persuaded you, Constantine? What did you think Crispus haddone ?” Did he even know who was talking to him, or was my voice echoing the accusations of his own soul?
”He wanted me to abdicate, and when I would not he was going to rebel against me-he had consulted an oracle! He meant to make Fausta his wife to legitimize his rule. Another civil war would have destroyed the Empire. Crispus consorted with sinners. He was an adulterer, and G.o.d would have cursed us all. One G.o.d, one Emperor-we must have unity, can't you understand?”
Fausta! Perhaps Constantine did not understand, but for me, a picture was beginning to come clear.
”Is that what Fausta told you?” I said in a still voice. ”Has she given you hard proof of all this-or any proof at all? Did you allow Crispus to defend himself-did you ask him any questions, or were you afraid to see the judgment of G.o.d in his clear eyes?”
Constantine flinched at each question, but he was still shaking his head in denial.
”You are wrong! You hate her because she is the half-sister of Theodora, who took my father from you!
But Fausta's first loyalty has always been to me-she told me when her father was plotting against me, she supported me against her own brother-”
”She betrayed her own blood for the sake of power-do you think she would hesitate to sacrifice yours?” I spat back at him. ”She did this for the sake of her own sons, not for you, intending that one day they would give her the authority you have given me!”
”Your mother speaks reason, my lord,” said Ossius softly. ”My investigations have revealed no evidence of treachery.”
”Are you a traitor too?” A vein bulged at the Emperor's temple as he turned. ”I had to safeguard the succession,” he said then. ”Crispus was only a half-brother. There would have been war between him and Constantinus... Fausta kept on and on about it, and I could see how the people loved him...”
”Did you think she would poison you in a dish of mushrooms as Agrippina poisoned the Emperor Claudius, for the sake of her son?”
”She said that Crispus had tried to make love to her!” he cried.
”You are not Abraham-you are Theseus, and a fool!” I raged, waving the mask in his face until he cowered away. ”Even if he had tried, which I do not for a moment believe, what kind of sin is a failed seduction compared to the murder of your own child?! Perhaps the Christian G.o.d can forgive you-He allowed his own son to die! No pagan deity could forgive such a crime!”
Like a great tree falling, Constantine sank to his knees. ”G.o.d has abandoned me...” he whispered.
”G.o.d will forgive you.” With a reproachful look at me, Bishop Ossius stepped past and set his hand on the Emperor's head. ”But you must repent and make rest.i.tution.”
”If it is Fausta who persuaded you to this deed then you must punish her,” I echoed. ”Do it, or Crispus will forever haunt you, and so will I!”
”G.o.d, have you forsaken me?” whispered Constantine. ”Father, forgive me for my most grievous sin...”
”Leave us,” whispered the Bishop, pointing towards the door. ”I will deal with him now.”
I nodded, for I was sick and shaking, and had no desire to watch as the master of the Roman world grovelled before his G.o.d.
For the rest of that day I lay in a darkened room, refusing food. Cunoarda thought I was ill, but if so, it was a sickness of the soul. I was waiting, though until I heard the shouting late that afternoon I did not know what I had been waiting for.
I was already sitting up when Cunoarda hurried into my chamber.
”Lady! The Empress Fausta is dead!”
”How did it happen?” I snapped back. ”Was it an execution?” I had demanded Fausta's punishment, but I had not expected Constantine to compound one crime by committing another, scarcely less terrible.
”No one seems to know,” Cunoarda replied. ”She had gone to the new baths, and guards came to take her to the Emperor, but before they could arrest her they heard screaming. Someone had raised a sluice to let in the scalding water, and Fausta was caught in it, boiled to death in her bath! They are bringing the body back now. They say it is horrible to see.” Her voice shook with an awful suppressed glee.
”Crispus, you are avenged!” I sank back upon the bed, wondering why the knowledge only increased my desolation.
My son had become a monster, at the mercy of his fears. But was I any better, who had urged him to an equal crime?
Of course there was an investigation, but no one ever learned how the accident had been arranged. In truth, although the Emperor meant to punish her, I am not certain that the manner of Fausta's death was ordered by Constantine. Crispus had been very popular in this city where he had governed for so long, and it is possible that some servant at the baths, hearing that the Empress was condemned, had taken advantage of the opportunity to give her a foretaste of the h.e.l.l she so richly deserved.
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
AD 327-8 ”I think you should see him,” said Bishop Sylvester. ”I believe the Emperor to be sincerely repentent, but he is still troubled in mind. They say he has caused a sculptor to make a golden image of his son which he has placed in a kind of oratory. He stands before it, lamenting. Perhaps you can give him ease...”
I stared at him in amazement. Surely I was the last person to offer Constantine comfort now.