Cast Not the Day (27 page)

He saw my eyes move to the closed door.

‘You need not fear; Constans had no friends in this house. Besides, he is dead. The question is: who is emperor now? Constantius, because he is his brother? Or Magnentius, by force of arms? We all know Gratian owes his loyalty to the House of Constantine: for him the choice is clear. But he will be hard pressed to carry the province with him.’

I looked at him. It seemed a whole new world of doubt was opening up beneath my feet. ‘But sir—’ I began; but before I could continue there was a tap on the door. It was Clemens, come to say that a deputation of city councillors had arrived.

‘Tell them to wait,’ said Aquinus. And, to me, ‘They have heard; and now they have come to ask me what they should do.’

‘And what will you tell them, sir?’

His eyes met mine, and I saw the glint of humour there. ‘I shall tell them,’ he said, ‘that they must decide for themselves. That will stir them up. But if you ask my own view, then I choose the path of stability; for without that we shall have the barbarians once again at our gates, and no one to protect us.’ He paused, then added, ‘But which path is that? Which charioteer do we back? That, at the moment, I cannot tell you. Be prepared, young man. You are going to have to make hard choices. We all are . . . But come, let us see what these councillors have to say.’

He stood, and we made our way towards the inner courtyard, where they would be waiting. As we walked I asked after Marcellus.

‘He has gone to the villa. He said there was estate business he wanted to attend to – though I cannot think what was so urgent – and that he had had enough of the city for a while. I think he missed you, while you were away. He has been sullen as a Pictish slave these past days, which is not like him at all.’

At dawn next day the palace courtyard rang with the hooves of horses – of couriers bearing urgent dispatches from Gratian to the captains of the outlying forts, from Brancaster and Richborough in the east to Pevensey in the west. He ordered the stable-master to lead out his fine grey mare, and wearing his finest dress armour with its gold-embossed cuirass and helmet of white and scarlet plumes, he rode in procession from the palace, through the streets and up the hill to the city fort.

Overnight a dense autumn mist had come rolling up the river from the sea. It lay over the city like a mantle, obscuring our view and muffling our marching footfalls. Within the wide square parade-ground of the fort the troops of the garrison stood waiting, line after line, standing to attention, their ranks receding into the mist.

Already, in one night, rumour had spread like a heath-fire in a gale. The centurions had reported that the men were nervous. They did not like political upheaval. One sensed unease everywhere.

I saw Gratian look about and scowl at the weather. He knew the power of a fine entrance and saw the day could not have been worse. But it could not wait. He said something to Leontius, then mounted the dais.

He liked to think he had the common touch, having come from peasant stock and risen through the ranks. When he was before the troops he adopted an easy bluff, swaggering manner. Many men do it, and it can be carried off well or badly: either way it is an art, a deception, a rhetoric; an attempt to convey what is not; or, at best, to create the illusion of what once was. I do not know what went wrong on this day – the weather, or his own mood, or something in the men – but from the start his address to the troops was ill-starred and faltering. His words, which he had intended to be booming and uplifting, were engulfed in the damp haze like pebbles tossed in mud. He recounted Constans’s murder, going on at length about the foul injustice of it. Even as he spoke, as if to mock him, the mist swirled and thickened round the dais, and the men, whom he had intended to fire to anger, stared at him in stolid silence.

Not far from where I was standing, I saw a trooper lean over and whisper something to his neighbour. His neighbour smiled and nodded and whispered back. It was an unacceptable lapse in military discipline; but the centurion at the end of the line, though he must have noticed, looked resolutely ahead. They talked on, and discreetly I turned my head to hear. Their conversation was not in Latin, but British, and though I could not hear all their words, I could tell enough. What did they care for Antioch and the Persians, and for remote divine Constantius in his perfumed Eastern palaces? Magnentius would see them right; he was one of their own. Their words were close to treason; but even as I thought this, I recalled what Aquinus had told me.

In front, Gratian was talking on, indistinct, irrelevant. I glanced once more at the centurion. He was dark-haired and olive-skinned: no Kelt then; he would not understand the troopers’ words; and, judging from the look on his face, he did not wish to. Just as well, I thought. He knew enough of army discipline to know that it was not the time to haul the men out of line, with the mist descending and the troops unsettled.

I gave a loud cough into my fist. At this, one of the whispering men glanced up and met my eyes through the haze. I glared at him, and made a gesture at my ear to show he could be heard. He closed his mouth and jabbed his neighbour in the ribs; and after that they stayed silent.

Meanwhile, Gratian was losing his stride, hesitating, departing from what he had planned to say. He was losing the men, and he was too old a hand not to sense it. He hurried on, bringing the address to a swift end. Then the tribunes raised their batons and called for an acclamation. I waited, scarcely daring to breathe, for silence then would have been open mutiny. But eventually a weak cheer rumbled along the line, dying to nothing even before Gratian was off the dais.

Back in the mess hall there was uproar. As soon as I walked in, Leontius called me over. ‘Did you see Gratian’s face? Whoever told him the garrison is loyal is in for a drubbing.’

The cadet beside him, a broad youth with lank brown hair who was in with the wrestling set, chimed in with, ‘They may as well have had “Magnentius” written on their shields, the dogs. I say Gratian should ship them all off to the Persian frontier to teach them a lesson.’

Leontius gave him a shove and said, ‘Shut up, Marius.’ But I saw a fleeting veiled look pass between them – a look that was new to me, but which I should soon come to know.

I sat down with them on the bench. That morning, while we were up at the fort, another messenger had arrived from Gaul. I asked what news there was.

‘Only this,’ said Leontius frowning; and he went on to tell me what had happened the night Constans was deposed.

Magnentius, he said, had waited till his tour of duty brought him to Autun, where that year Constans was wintering. On an appointed night, he invited the foremost men of the court to a banquet; they feasted late, and Magnentius made sure the wine flowed freely. When the party was at its height, he withdrew on some pretext, changed his clothes, and returned clad in imperial purple and wearing the diadem.

‘He must have had supporters there, waiting for the moment. It was all rehearsed. As soon as he appeared they all cried out, hailing him as Augustus and emperor.’ The other guests, drunk, and bewildered at this spectacle, had gone along with the prevailing mood and added their own voices. Then the guards beyond the door were called in, and were asked to take the oath of loyalty; after that the city gates were sealed, and Magnentius spent the rest of the night securing the garrison, the treasury, and the imperial palace.

‘But where was Constans all this while?’ I asked.

‘Away; out of the city, hunting.’

‘Ah, hunting.’ I raised my brow and nodded; and this was enough to draw down on me a grim line of Pannonian faces, glaring from along the length of the mess table.

After that, I returned my attention to my food and said no more. It was later, from Catius the Spaniard, that I heard how Constans had met his end.

When the news of Magnentius’s coup had reached Constans, he had vowed to fight and regain what was his. But his courtiers, the same men who had fed his vanity and promised him he was invincible, now wrung their hands and said that all was lost: the Gallic legions had already declared for the usurper. No one dared tell him, even then, with what speed and enthusiasm they had done so. Upon hearing this, Constans flew into one of his rages. Why had they not warned him? Surely someone among them must have caught a rumour of what was afoot. For what other purpose had he kept an army of costly spies?

The courtiers stared at one another, and repeated what they had already said; and eventually, as realization dawned, Constans’s rage turned to terror. He would go to Autun, he said, and throw himself at Magnentius’s feet. He would ask for mercy. ‘No!’ retorted the courtiers, thinking of their own fate; better to make for the East and his brother Constantius, who would surely help.

And so Constans fled.

He had reached the town of Elne, at the foot of the Pyrenees, when Magnentius’s horsemen overtook him. He ran to the church there, and sought sanctuary. The troops dragged him out, and on the steps they put him to death.

In London, Gratian summoned the Council to assembly. On the afternoon before it met, a deputation of Pannonians went to him, asking to attend him as his escort.

He thanked them, but declined. To take an armed guard into the Council chamber would be a clear sign of his distrust, just when his purpose was to persuade. The Pannonians protested. In the end, he agreed to take Leontius and one other – but unarmed.

No one said what was becoming clear to us all, that the corps, of which we were so proud, was beginning to fracture and divide. One saw it in the mess hall, or in the chance gatherings in corridors and courtyards: Pannonians with Pannonians, Gauls with Gauls, Britons with Britons. Old friendships frayed; whispered conversations were suddenly broken off as one passed, and resumed after.

But it is generosity in adversity that one remembers. Soon after mess there was a tap on my door; it was Leontius, asking me to be the one to accompany him to the Council. He could have chosen a Pannonian, and there were many whispered complaints later that he had not. But he chose me, to show he was above the faction.

We woke next day to low grey sky and steady rain; but at least the fog was gone. At the porch of the basilica a crowd was waiting – decurions, city officials, clerks and common citizens, all curious and afraid. The falling rain hissed on the wrought iron of the cressets; the torches flared and spluttered, sending smoke curling upwards under the coffered stone roof.

Leontius was tense. It would be an easy thing, among so many, for an assassin to strike Gratian down. From the corner of my eye I saw his hand move instinctively to his sword belt; then move away as he remembered we were unarmed. I scanned the crowd as it parted around us, looking for the telltale signs – a conspiratorial nod, an arm seeking under a cloak, an edging forward, a sudden step. But there was nothing; and moments later we were through them, passing over the threshold of the council chamber with its tall bronze doors and marble lintel.

A hush fell as we entered. From the tiered seats the assembled decurions stared. Eyes moved from Gratian to Leontius and me, and then to the place where our swords would have been. I saw their faces and understood that Gratian was right to refuse an armed guard: these men were no threat; an entourage with swords would have smacked of tyranny.

In the front row, I saw Aquinus sitting among the senior magistrates and other officers of the Council; behind them, from the rising tiers, the decurions looked down like birds on a wall. Voices resumed. There was a buzz of tension. The air smelled of incense and lamp-smoke. Leontius and I took up our places, out of the way beside the doors; the presiding magistrate spoke a few words; then Gratian stepped forward, his boots sounding on the black granite floor.

First he outlined the military situation in Gaul, speaking disparagingly of Magnentius, calling him traitor and usurper, predicting that soon Constantius would bring his mighty armies from the East and crush the rebellion. His voice boomed; he spoke too fast. He seemed oddly ill at ease. As I cast my eyes over the faces staring down at him, it came to me that he was used to addressing soldiers, men who listened and obeyed.

Eventually he paused. The only sound was the splutter of the hanging lamps suspended on their long chains. He had not invited questions; but now, breaking the brief silence, someone from high up in the tiered seats called out, asking which legions in the West were loyal to Constantius.

Gratian’s head jerked up, searching for the speaker. For a moment, before his face set, his irritation showed. Who were these civic nobodies to question him on military matters?

‘They have all declared for the usurper,’ he answered.

‘So Magnentius holds Gaul, Spain and Italy?’

‘For now, that is true.’ He turned his head away, indicating that the exchange was over.

But the speaker continued, ‘There is a rumour that Illyricum has also declared.’

Gratian’s mouth hardened.

‘I did not tell you,’ he answered slowly, ‘that the emperor would not have to fight—’

‘You mean Constantius?’

‘I mean the emperor. There is no other.’

‘But Constantius is at war with the Persians. He must be half a year away.’

‘He will disengage, or make peace, or send another army.’

‘How long,’ someone else called from the back, ‘will it take him to assemble such an army?’