Emperor

final victory near Byzantium…'

Audax forbore from telling Thalius any war stories, and the older man was glad of it. The civil was had been another terrible internal grinding-up of resources that could surely have been better deployed against external enemies, like the Franks and the Alamanna, new barbarian federations on the Rhine border, and the Goths on the Danube, and the revived Persians in the east. Even while Constantine fought Licinius, Visigoths had taken the chance to cross the Danube, and Constantine found himself at war along a front three hundred miles long.

After Constantine's victory over Licinius he called for Audax to join his own personal bodyguard, the scholae palatinae. 'You saved my life once already,' he said in Brigantian, on greeting the boy. 'So I believe I can trust you to do it again!'

So it was that Audax followed Constantine on the next great adventure of his reign-the move to the east. Again Aurelia had been right, and decade-old rumours were proved true. The site Constantine chose was Byzantium, a minor Greek city in Asia Minor-the place where he had won his final victory over Licinius. The new city was inaugurated only two years after that victory, and after some frantic rebuilding was dedicated four years after that.

'The new capital must be a marvellous place.'

'Not really,' Audax said candidly. 'It was thrown up quickly. Some of the new buildings are pretty shoddy, and it has attracted a scruffy class of people, I can tell you. It does have a forum and a senate of its own, and a dole of free grain, just like Rome. But it isn't Rome yet!'

'Ah, but it will grow.' And, Thalius thought sadly, soon the empire's wealth would flow from the east, from trade routes to India and beyond, and nobody would care about the western provinces with their poverty and long, vulnerable land borders: it was just as Aurelia had feared. But he said none of this to Audax. 'It is the epicentre of empire, and will be for a thousand years. And it was founded in our lifetimes, Audax. Think of that!'

The young man's eyes shone. 'I do miss you, Thalius. You always did fill me with a sense of wonder.'

Thalius, moved, took his arm. 'Then we must write. That way perhaps my fancy will enrich your life as your strength and courage have always enriched mine.'

They reached, at last, a small church. One of several in Camulodunum, it was modest, a boxy building on a rectangular plan. But it was neatly built of stone reused from some expensive ruin, and a wooden cross rose up above its tiled roof.

'Towards the end of his life, this is where Tarcho came to worship,' Thalius said. 'In fact this church grew out of a soldiers' chapel-there was once a mithraeum here, I think.'

Audax seemed briefly unable to speak. Then he said gruffly, 'And he is buried here?'

'Inside the church. His grave isn't marked.'

'It's a fitting place for a soldier.'

'Yes. The time was right for him to go, perhaps. He was always an admirer of Constantine, you know. A 'good lad', he would say. He enjoyed reports of the preparations for a campaign against Persia. The dream of Alexander revived again, Tarcho said! I think it pleased Tarcho, in a way, to die in the same year as such a man.' He prompted gently, 'But Tarcho gone, and Constantine too-what next, do you think, Audax?'

'Things may be a little difficult,' Audax said with grim understatement. 'The campaign against Persia was controversial even in the Emperor's court. The east has always defeated the Romans if they push too far. And then there is the succession. Constantine's three sons have spent their youth fighting like puppies in a sack. I fear blood will be spilled before one of them emerges as top dog.'

Thalius sighed. 'And more strength bled from the body of the empire, while our enemies watch and wait. Audax, you must be careful.'

'I will be,' Audax said. 'I'm thinking of a change of posting, away from the court.'

'Then you're wise. You know, sometimes I am glad I am no longer young-sometimes it seems a comfort I won't see much more of the drama. But perhaps every old man thinks the world is decaying as fast as his body.'

'You mustn't think like that.'

'One must be realistic,' Thalius admonished him. 'But, Audax…' He asked cautiously, 'What of the Prophecy?'

Audax's face hardened. 'I suppose I have to thank it for saving my life. I'd have surely died in that hole in the ground if you hadn't come to find me, and it. But when I joined the army I had the tattoo burned off my back.'

Thalius winced. 'But the scarring-'

'I'd rather wear that than the hateful thing which preceded it. Thalius, do you still believe the true purpose of the Prophecy was to change the destiny of the Church?'

That took Thalius aback. He had spoken with nobody about such matters since the day of the attempted assassination. 'So you have been thinking this through.'

'Look, I'm no philosopher,' Audax said. 'But I had that thing tattooed to my back since birth, and, on long campaigns, there was plenty of time to puzzle about its meaning. The way I see it is this: the Prophecy was a message, and somebody sent it. Now, whether it was God or demon, or even a wizard-'

'The Weaver,' Thalius said softly. 'And if Constantine had been killed, Christianity might not have been incorporated into the empire, and the capital might not have been moved east. History would have been changed- the history of the whole world, for all time.'

'Yes. Well, whoever sent back the Prophecy had a purpose. The question is, what could that purpose be? Christian symbols were written into that acrostic, the A and the O. Could it really be that the sender was trying to deflect Constantine's adoption of Christianity?'

Thalius said, 'It is what I believed at the time, I think-though others made their own interpretations of the Prophecy, and its lost promises of 'freedom'. Perhaps the Weaver wanted what I always wanted-strange thought! Certainly Constantine has remade the Church, and the results have been just as I feared. The bishops have taken to chastising those who won't follow the official line. The persecuted turned persecutor! Oh, I believe that thanks to Constantine the Church will live for ever. It is just that it is not my Church.'

Audax grunted. 'So if the intention of the author of the Prophecy was to 'save' the Church, he or she failed.'

'Really? Perhaps you just don't want to believe, Audax, that all of the future hung on your choices in those few terrible heartbeats when you held that knife-but it did, you know. And consider this.' He shivered, an inchoate dread stealing over him. 'If history has been changed around us, Audax, if we are now living in the wrong history- how would we know?'

Audax had no answer.

'Will you tell your son about the Prophecy?'

'No.'

'You must,' Thalius said firmly. 'Ours is a remarkable family with a remarkable story. You would be depriving him of his past, his identity otherwise. Here,' he said impulsively, and he handed Audax the scroll of Claudius's memoir. 'You take this. Keep it for when he's older. Claudius was bound up with the Prophecy too, and perhaps it will help little Tarcho fill in the blanks in the story. If he's as clever as you say, he may end up understanding far more of this strange business than I, than any of us, ever did. I never even saw the Prophecy itself,' he recalled wistfully, 'not even the few lines which might have described the great upheaval of our own lives…'

Audax hesitated, then took the book. 'Very well, Thalius. I'll make sure he understands it is from you.' He looked around a cloudy sky, seeking the angle of the sun. 'Thalius, I must go. My duties-I have people to see here on behalf of the imperial heirs.'

'I understand,' Thalius said.

Audax stepped away, returning to the crowded street. 'I hope I'll see you again before I leave.'

'You know where I am-I never go far these days!'

But Audax was already lost in the crowd. Thalius, alone, empty-handed, felt his bruised belly twinge again. Moving cautiously he turned away and headed for home.

EPILOGUE AD 418