Dawn of a New Rome

The dawn after the wedding feast broke gray and biting across Augusta Treverorum. Mist drifted in veils over the palace grounds, threading through clipped box hedges and collecting on statues in the silent garden. Constantine was already awake, pacing the frosted gravel between hedgerows, his cloak trailing over brittle leaves. Work began at sunrise; pleasure, even if it were a possibility, waited in line behind iron.

He found Fausta standing beside a mosaic where Orpheus tamed wild beasts with a lyre-a scene of imposed harmony, not natural order. Her maids clustered behind, distant but vigilant. She did not look up until she heard his boots on gravel.

"My father departed before sunrise," she said, studying the tilework. "He believes yesterday secured Italy's future."

"He believes he's bought a northern sword to guard his walls," Constantine replied, halting beside her. "He will soon discover who really holds the hilt."

She finally met his gaze, unblinking. "Do not underestimate him. Maximian can smell advantage the way a wolf scents blood on snow. You have strength, Augustus, but he has cunning-and an old man's patience."

"A trait we share," Constantine said. The faint curl of his mouth was as cold as the air. "Tell me, Augusta, where does your loyalty travel now? South with your father, or here with your husband?"

Fausta's smile was measured, not unkind. "My loyalty is to the survival of the house I've entered, and the man best placed to master it. At this moment, that man controls three prefectures, half the western legions, and a mint that strikes his image on every coin. Our interests align-until they do not."

That was the marriage Maximian had delivered: two minds, wary as chessmasters, locked by treaty. Allies for now, rivals as soon as the balance tipped. Constantine nodded, satisfied. The rules were clear.

The first evidence of the new order showed in the palace. Fausta's Roman ladies, trained for the marble courts of the Tiber, regarded Constantine's spartan halls as crude-too many iron fixtures, too few mosaics. His Gallic secretaries and Praetorian officers found the newcomers alarming: clever with words, skilled at ceremony, and ready to claim invisible authority. The deepest chill, though, ran between wife and mother.

Helena kept to her rooms with quiet dignity, a silver cross hidden beneath her robe, surrounded by Christian women whose charity and plain dress stood in contrast to Fausta's pagan rites. The emperor's mother moved in silence and prayer; his wife presided at sacrifices, incense thickening the corridors. Their courtesies were perfect, their eyes cold, and Constantine let the tension simmer. Emotions could be exploited-or culled-if they threatened the equation.

With Maximian's legitimacy now hammered into new gold coins-IMP CONSTANTINVS AVG stamped crisp and shining-Constantine returned to government. Tax ledgers arrived from Lugdunum to Segontium, some so riddled with theft that two procurators vanished into military custody within a week. Their estates were auctioned, proceeds filling the treasury. Roads, scarred by neglect, were resurfaced with sandstone and volcanic ash from Auvergne. Foundries rang day and night, casting pilum heads and lorica for the new recruits. Training in the fortress yards was relentless. Officers broke a dozen candidates for every one accepted. Rain, snow, and darkness meant nothing-by spring, Gaul would field a machine.

The common people of Gaul, weary of extortion and Frankish raids, discovered a new sensation: order. Grain moved unmolested, shrines went unsacked, and while the tax rate was collected with iron discipline, it was not doubled through graft. They spoke of the one-eyed emperor with a strange blend of gratitude and dread.

Late winter brought a new test. As dusk pressed against frosted panes, Valerius entered the study and set two sealed tablets on the table.

"It is confirmed," he said, voice gravel-rough. "Galerius brands you and Maxentius hostes publici. Your marriage to Fausta is, in his words, 'a poison poured into the cup of lawful rule.'"

Constantine turned the first tablet, reading every word, then traced the map with his finger to the Taurus mountains. "And his march on Italy?"

"Postponed," Valerius answered. "His men grumble after Severus's disgrace. He distrusts them now, and prefers words to blood. He calls for a Tetrarchs' conclave at Carnuntum. Diocletian leaves Salona. Maximian is summoned. Galerius intends to mend his system with signatures, not steel."

"Words and legal seals," Constantine murmured. "Tools Galerius favors when iron fails him." He stared at the message, weighing the threat. The retired Diocletian still carried the gravitas of empire; a signature from him could sway bankers, border kings, even sullen legions.

That night, after the lamps had been doused and even the officers' halls had quieted, Constantine found Fausta on a balcony, her cloak dark against the marble rail. Snow drifted in the lantern glow, melting on her hair. She turned as he approached, a wisp of breath on the night air.

"Galerius courts parchment," she said, her voice level. "He'd rather convene old men than test your legions."

"He wants the ghost of Diocletian to unmake me," Constantine replied. "To strip the mask of Augustus from my face and name me usurper."

"Will Diocletian oblige him?"

"He will try. It offends every bone in his body that a son inherits a throne. But principles are parchment, too. He is cloistered in palace gardens. I command the Rhine. There is a difference."

Fausta studied him, her eyes resting on the ruined socket and the hard flame in his remaining gaze. She seemed to measure him anew, weighing how much of the man was iron, how much calculation.

"Then keep your armies loyal and your coffers full," she said. "If Carnuntum tries to erase you with decrees, answer with realities-legions on the Rhine, fortresses in Gaul, and discipline in the treasury."

He nodded, a rare warmth flickering for a heartbeat. "You speak like a partner, not a consort."

"I intend to be more than a decorative link in a treaty chain," she replied. "And you aim for more than half an empire. Our ambitions fit well."

They stood in silence, watching the city lamps flicker over snow-veiled streets, bells ringing out the hour. Each torch along the avenues was a promise of order, a warning to any watching envoy or spy: this city, this region, bent to a will forged in hardship and blood.

Inside, Helena prayed with her Christians, the cold and incense intermingling down every corridor. In the officers' mess, old centurions grumbled about the "Emperor's wife and her Roman manners," but their mutters fell silent when the morning orders called them to drill.

Constantine returned to his study and signed a dozen decrees-some for grain, some for coin, some for the crucifixion of a corrupt official in Segontium. He worked until dawn, rising only when the first bell called the city to life.

The winter days ground on. Reports came from Spain: the legions there had accepted his portrait on their coins; the governors sent congratulations, some genuine, others forced by circumstance. A message arrived from Britain, signed by the Dux Britanniarum: "No raiders cross the Wall. Your rule is secure."

He ordered the building of new granaries on the upper Rhine and sent Crocus north with a roving column of Germans and Britannic veterans-"A demonstration of what discipline means to this new empire," he wrote in the orders.

But always the threat of Carnuntum loomed: an imperial summit where his fate might be rewritten with a penstroke. Constantine prepared as if for siege. Legates were ordered to reinforce every road to Italy, with grain and fodder ready for sudden movement. The treasury was counted, the arsenals checked, and the best tribunes given sealed packets-"To be opened only if Augustus does not return from the spring campaign."

He did not fear the gathering of old emperors. He respected its danger. Yet he also saw its futility. The world did not turn on paper anymore, but on the discipline of armies and the hunger of cities for order. He would face whatever verdict Carnuntum delivered, but when the snows melted, it would be Constantine-one-eyed, unbending-who decided what was law, and what was memory.

Beside him, Fausta watched the snow fall, a partner in ambition and in danger. Their motives, for now, matched; their futures, tangled. But no matter what Rome's ancients pronounced, the future belonged to the one who could hold it-and Constantine meant to seize it with both hands.