Dawn of a New Rome

The basilica's audience hall breathed cold through the morning, its air thick with the old scent of wax smoke and limestone. In that space, where every voice once trembled before Rome's authority, Constantine presided as judge and master. He wore the robes of office not for spectacle, but as armor: an emperor cloaked in the duties of a magistrate. Before him, a line of petitioners wound along the colonnade, each carrying the weight of a province's hope or complaint.

Justice here was neither slow nor uncertain. A pair of Gallic landowners disputed a river boundary for the third time, circling each other with the practiced rhetoric of old adversaries. Constantine let them run until the arguments grew thin, then cut through with three words-river, marker, title-deed. The case closed, the hall emptied in a stunned hush. His authority did not shout; it pressed down, hard and clear.

Valerius entered, boots silent on the mosaic, the lines of his face etched with a new tension. Constantine signaled the next case aside and met the prefect's eye.

"A rider from Italy," Valerius said quietly. "One of ours. The man is near collapse."

Without another word, Constantine left the hall for a narrow chamber lit only by the flicker of campaign maps on the walls. The scout was brought in, clothing stiff with dust, blood dried at one temple. He managed a bow, then delivered his report through lips cracked with exhaustion.

"Augustus… Severus is broken. His army deserted on the march. Maxentius holds Rome. Severus fled to Ravenna and is besieged."

For a long moment, silence pressed in. Constantine dismissed the scout to food and rest, then faced Valerius across the campaign map as if it were a chessboard swept clean by an unexpected hand.

"No field army in Italy loyal to Galerius now," Constantine said, his voice low but certain. "The Western Augustus is trapped. Pannonia and Noricum leaderless. Africa watching-and Rome under the rule of a usurper who wears his father's image like a mask."

Valerius's gaze lingered on Italy, then drifted north to the broad sweep of red pins that marked Constantine's own reach. "All while Hispania has sworn to you, Dominus. The West is yours in all but name."

Constantine's eyes sharpened, the look Valerius had come to recognize as the threshold of decision-the instant when analysis became action.

"Severus's failure gives us months of freedom," Constantine said. "Galerius faces an ugly choice: rescue a disgraced subordinate or march to crush Maxentius himself. Either move bleeds him. Meanwhile, we dig in and wait."

He tapped Trier on the map. "Double all patrols over the Alpine passes. Every mule train, every wandering monk, every rumor-nothing crosses the snow without a report on my desk by sundown. Crocus continues folding Aquitanian cohorts into our legions. Metellus locks down the Rhine watch. We show no weakness."

Valerius nodded. "And the armories?"

"Claudius Mamertinus will audit every warehouse-swords, spearheads, mail, grain, coin. If a single ingot goes missing, the guilty man will be nailed to his own storeroom door." The words were spoken without anger; the fire in the brazier flickered in response, as if the chill of resolve had reached it.

Outside the chamber, the city pressed on: bakers' carts rolling toward the barracks, the clang of smiths in the forges, the hush of clerks cataloging taxes and donatives for the winter's campaigns. Constantine stepped back from the table, fingers lightly on the wooden rim, his eyes not on the pins but on the empty space beyond the map's edges.

"Maxentius believes the purple itself makes an emperor," he murmured. "Galerius still thinks fear will keep an empire whole. They will teach each other their errors. We will be ready when the lesson is over."

Valerius allowed himself the smallest trace of a smile. "A ladder of chaos, Augustus-one you climb while the others quarrel over broken rungs."

Constantine's gaze moved westward, over Gaul and Hispania, toward storm-tossed seas and the edge of old maps. "A ladder is only useful if it stands on solid ground. We make Gaul and Hispania that foundation. Then, when the dust in Italy settles, we decide who ascends and who vanishes."

Orders spread across the palace before dusk. Quartermasters counted helmets and spear points under torchlight. Scribes scrawled new directives onto wax tablets, the stylus biting deep. Cavalry messengers thundered out of Trier, bound for Alpine passes already white with the year's first snow. In the old basilica, benches still warm from the day's verdicts were stacked away, but the echo of Constantine's decisions lingered-sharp, unyielding, impossible to mistake.

He met Claudius Mamertinus in the treasury, where the new coins were struck and counted. "You will begin winter stockpiles at Vesontio and Lugdunum," Constantine ordered. "No gap between the supply train and the legions. Use Spanish grain first; keep Gallic reserves as our anchor. If a river freezes, have river barges loaded and waiting on the ice."

Mamertinus bent over his ledger, the scratch of his quill the only reply. No one doubted the numbers would tally by morning.

Constantine conferred with Crocus and Metellus next. Crocus's barbarians, drilled and hungry, would patrol the southern routes. "No theft," Constantine warned, "no banditry. Your warriors are paid in silver and pork, not loot."

Crocus grinned, wolfish, and clapped a mailed fist to his breast. "They obey you, Augustus. The Aquitanian sons join my column tomorrow."

Metellus delivered news from the Rhine: "The Danube roads are thick with refugees-traders, priests, families. The old order crumbles in Pannonia. Some speak of Sarmatian warbands, others of Roman deserters forming gangs."

"Let them run," Constantine replied. "Offer sanctuary to those who bring skill or coin. Turn away the rest, unless they swear by the eagle."

The night deepened. In every corner of the palace, preparations hummed: stables checked, workshops locked, signals agreed for watchfires on distant hills. Constantine walked alone into the candle-lit chapel and knelt in the cold, breathing in the silence that pressed on the ancient stone.

Helena joined him there, a brief hand on his shoulder. "Severus falls," she whispered. "What will you do?"

He stood. "Wait. Hold steady. Build. The time will come."

By morning, the city's rhythms resumed as if nothing had changed. The grain ships unloaded, the forges rang, the Sixth drilled in the parade square beneath new banners. Yet all knew a threshold had been crossed: Italy was leaderless, Gaul unbreakable, Hispania bound by oath, and the empire's heart beating not in Rome, but in the frost-lit halls of Trier.

To the south, Rome and Ravenna glimmered in the winter night-beacons of turmoil. Between them and the Rhine, a young emperor hammered silence into discipline, patience into power, and the chaos of others into the surest path to a throne no one would dare contest.

He watched the dawn from the palace roof as the first light caught the towers and river, and allowed himself a single thought, as cold and bright as the winter air:

Let them quarrel. When the world needs a master, it will know where to look.