Britannia by M. J. Trow

Author:M. J. Trow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BLKDOG Publishing
Published: 2020-08-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter XIV

‘D

ux Britannorum?’ Constantine stared at the man.

‘There’s a vacancy at the moment,’ Stilicho said.

‘But, I thought Justinus Coelius ...’

‘On borrowed time, that man,’ the general assured him. ‘I need someone up to the job.’

‘Sir, I am a legionary tribune ...’

‘And Justinus was a pedes once, Constantine, the shit on your boots. I’m not interested in lineage and family and all that crap. If I find a man I can trust, I promote him. I can trust you, can’t I, Constantine?’

The tribune looked rather sheepish. ‘I have just taken part in a rebellion, sir,’ he said.

‘Ah,’ Stilicho chuckled. ‘We’ve all done that. It’s what we Romans do, isn’t it? So, do you accept?’

Constantine hesitated. The events of the past weeks were still whirling in his brain. It was all so ... unreal. He looked at the Vandal general, the emperor’s right hand man. ‘I accept,’ he said and Stilicho clasped his arm in the old Roman way.

Londinium

‘Tell me again.’ Chrysanthos sat, grim-faced, in his chambers at the basilica. Outside, the sun danced on the rippling waters of the Thamesis and the city went about its business.

‘Beaten to death, sir.’ The centurion was still standing to attention because the vicarius had not told him to do otherwise. Neither was he offering the man any refreshment after his long ride from Anderitum. ‘The Fustuarium.’

Chrysanthos frowned. ‘I thought that went out with chariots and the lorica segmentata.’

‘The general has an affinity with the past, sir,’ the centurion said.

It wasn’t the past that bothered Chrysanthos; it was the present and beyond that, the future. Terentius Marcus, the man he had set up as a would-be emperor, a man whose strings he could have pulled with ease, was no more, smashed into the mud under the cudgels of a legion. ‘Sic semper tyrannis,’ he muttered. ‘So it is always with tyrants.’ He looked up at the centurion, noting suddenly his rank and unit. ‘The Second Augusta, centurion,’ he said. ‘What does the general intend to do with you?’

‘We have been pardoned, sir. All of us. The tribune Flavius Constantine is Dux Britannorum.’

Chrysanthos’ eyelids flickered for a moment, the only outward sign of his inner fury. ‘He has no right to make such an appointment,’ he said, ‘especially as Justinus Coelius is still in post.’

‘Is he, sir?’ the centurion frowned. ‘We heard he was dead.’

Din Paladyr

‘I heard you were dead,’ she said, her eyes big with tears.

‘A slight exaggeration,’ he smiled. ‘But only slight.’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve lost two loves in my life,’ she whispered. ‘I won't lose another.’

He sank back on the wolfskins, grateful for the rest and the warmth of the hearth fire. It had taken Justinus nearly three weeks to get this far north, stopping at mansios, way stations and army camps on the way. He couldn’t remember much of the journey, except that for most of the way north, the snow had lain thick. He had left Calpurnius and his family at Onnum on the Wall. It was not the most

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