Dawn of a New Rome

Snow lingered on the tile roofs of Augusta Treverorum, whitening the riverbank where traders still loaded cedar planks and salted pork. Constantine entered the city as winter's breath gnawed at the Moselle. Cheers rose from the crowd-women waving branches, merchants flinging coins in thanks for the grain ships, even a gaggle of bishops bowing as his standard passed. He acknowledged them with the briefest lift of his hand. Applause, he knew, was as fleeting as weather. Better to command respect than to bask in it.

By noon he was behind the doors of his study, windows open to the iron-grey river. Claudius Mamertinus arrived with the day's ledgers: provincial tax rolls, customs receipts, and a dispatch from Bracara Augusta. Constantine read the script without looking up. "Bracara Augusta claims its docks are under water," he said, running a finger down a column. "Yet its wine exports grow. How does one sell more wine from a drowned cellar, Mamertinus?"

Mamertinus hesitated. "The city treasurer, Cassius, assures us-"

"Cassius assures himself a profit," Constantine interrupted, slicing a line through the man's name. "Remove him. Assign Decimus Valerianus in his place. Audit every estate along the Douro and Minho. I want the results nailed to the forum door by Saturnalia." He spoke with the chill certainty of a judge passing sentence. Mamertinus bowed, already sweating, and retreated with a sheaf of scribbled notes.

These interviews filled the mornings. Constantine was a surgeon with no patience for rotten tissue. Every week, some new road was surveyed, a bridge re-decked, a customs post moved to cut off a smuggler's shortcut. Mule-paths widened to military highways. New weights and measures replaced local cheats. The apparatus of state creaked and shuddered, but it bent to his hand. He did not shout or threaten-he gave orders as if stating facts. Men either met his standard or vanished from the rolls.

As the sun faded, Valerius appeared-always at dusk, always silent until the doors closed. He laid a fresh set of sealed packets on the desk, the wax stamped with marks from as far off as the Black Sea or Antioch. Some letters smelled of Danubian mud, others of incense and foreign oil. Constantine read them all by lamplight. He weighed each line: troop numbers in Dacia, unrest in Nicomedia, whispers among bishops in Antioch. Every fact was a stone in the foundation of his next campaign. Every silence, a gap to be filled.

Reports from the East thickened as winter thinned. Maximinus Daia, last of the pagan Caesars, had crossed the Bosporus in the teeth of a February storm, dragging eighty thousand men into Thrace. Licinius, his rival, had half the number-veterans and hastily levied peasants, little cavalry. Yet within a week the couriers brought word: Daia's horde routed at Tzirallum, their bodies left for the crows. Valerius traced the map with his knuckle. "Licinius fought as if reading from a manual-two lines of infantry, wings of horse. No tricks, only iron will."

Constantine studied the map. "Against a butcher, discipline is enough. But discipline alone cannot break a man who plans. Next time, Licinius will need both." He noted the hour of the decisive charge, the use of Thracian scouts, the steadiness of Illyrian reserves. Strengths and weaknesses, filed away for later.

Spring thawed the Moselle. Rafts drifted downstream, stacked with timber for the mints. One morning, as mist clung to the shore, a last scroll arrived, stamped with Daia's broken serpent. Maximinus Daia was dead in Tarsus. The cause was debated: poison, fever, curse. Constantine read the name, not the speculation. The Empire was now divided between two men. The arithmetic of destiny had only one vacancy.

He cleared the room, then faced his map of the Empire. Red markers lined his frontier: Deva, Lugdunum, Augusta Treverorum, Rome. Across the Danube, emerald stones showed Licinius's holdings-Sirmium, Thessalonica, Antioch. The river snaked between, black and thick, the cold blade of Europe. He pressed his knuckles to the glass, considering. How would he cross? Where would Licinius strike first? Every province, every fort, became a variable in the sum he must resolve.

Fausta entered, silent until her perfume curled past the scent of cold wax and parchment. She joined him before the map. "Licinius has the East. Will he be content with it?" she asked.

Constantine's reply was ice. "Contentment is for smaller souls. He has no more peace in him than I have in mine." His gaze swept the emerald stones. "The truce ended the moment Daia's corpse cooled. We are only counting the days."

She drew a line with her finger along the Danube's winding course. "He will fortify the Hebrus, blockade the sea, hire more Illyrians. He will imagine the river is his wall."

"Then we show him it is only an anvil." Constantine's eye narrowed on Adrianople, then Byzantium. "He will prepare, but so will we. And when the hammer falls, the river will run red."

Fausta's expression tightened. "And Crispus?"

"He trains with the cavalry at Bonna. When the legions march, my son will command a wing. An emperor's heir must learn the taste of dirt and the weight of armor before he tastes the weight of a crown."

Governance continued even as strategy sharpened. The mints in Trier produced new coins stamped with the Chi-Rho, the reverse a labarum piercing a coiled serpent. The symbol was more than a creed; it was a warning. Laws reformed the market's weights, forbidding the practice of shipping underweight bars for tax. When Nabatean traders protested, Constantine summoned them to witness a fraudster's punishment: his hand was branded, his ledgers burned before the city. The traders left without further appeal.

As summer lengthened, the Rhine sent new intelligence. Alemanni warbands tested the frontier, thinking Rome distracted by civil strife. Constantine rode north to Brigobannis with only a handful of guards. The German chiefs arrived with boasting and bluster. Constantine stood on the riverbank, voice cold as iron. "The Rhine is my moat, not my fence. If you wish to measure Rome, set one foot across. You will not return with both."

They left, wordless. No raids followed. Word travelled on the wind.

With harvest came letters from Licinius. He sent gold torcs for the nephews, thanks for efficient grain shipments, a polished emerald as a token of amity. Constantine rolled the gem in his palm, watching it catch the candlelight. He sent back a chest of Baltic amber and a bronze copy of the Milan Edict, both tokens and warnings. Beneath the surface, both rulers understood: gifts did not mean trust.

The day after, Valerius entered with a terse report: Licinius had summoned the Gothic king Alica to Sirmium, offering subsidies for peace along the Danube. Constantine's smile was a knife's edge. "He buys time. So do we." Orders went out: reinforce the bridge at Bononia, double wagons at Sirmio, fill the granaries in Pavia. Supplies for a war not yet declared, but already certain.

Autumn leaves turned gold along the river. Helena visited, speaking of basilicas and hospitals for the wounded. Constantine nodded, signed the decrees, but his mind always wandered back to the war map, to the inevitable arithmetic of two rulers sharing one world. Mother and wife both knew to let him work. Ambition could not be reasoned away; destiny would not be denied.

By December the Danube froze, a white road stretching east into Licinius's provinces. Constantine stood atop Trier's ramparts, watching the northern stars shift. Somewhere beyond, his rival watched the same sky. Across the silent fields, two intellects measured, calculated, waited. There would be no true peace, only an intermission.

Fausta joined him at the wall, cloak wrapped tight. "The river is still," she said quietly.

"It will wake," Constantine replied, "and so will we."

She leaned against his arm. "Does the endless calculation never tire you?"

He shook his head, not unkindly. "I was born for this. Rome endures only beneath one scepter. Licinius knows it as well as I. Our truce is tinder. The first wind of ambition will set it alight."

She kissed him once, tasting frost. "Then let the world shape itself."

He gazed east, where dawn waited. "It will, Fausta. By one hand alone." Already he pictured the banners unfurling, eagles and Chi-Rho side by side, marching toward the field where Rome's fate would be written in blood and iron.