Avalon - Priestess Of Avalon Part 21

"G.o.ddess," I whispered, "for the sake of your son Horus, the mighty warrior who is the Hawk of the Sun, watch over my child and bring him safely home." I waited for a moment, contemplating the play of lamplight on the marble features, and then cast a second handful on the coals. "And watch over the Emperor also, as you watched over Pharaoh."

Any citizen might make offerings on behalf of the Emperor, but I no longer had the right to pray for him as my husband, and even if I had, the fidelity of Isis is remembered because Osiris died. I went home, but found myself still uneasy. Still, the reports continued to be positive.I am becoming an old woman , I told myself.There is no reason to worry so...

At the end of June, I received a letter from Constantine.

"My father collapsed on the way back from Alba. He is up again now and we have reached Eburac.u.m, but he seems often to be in pain. The physicians will say little, and I am afraid for him. Please come. He is asking for you..."

Constantine had sent an order for post-horses. Travelling by carriage and changing horses at each government mansio, it took a little over week for me to travel north to Eburac.u.m. A fifty-five-year-old body was not meant for this kind of travel. By the time I reached the fortress, I was bruised and exhausted by the constant sway and jolt of the carriage, but though the word of the Emperor's illness had spread through the countryside and I saw many worried faces, at each stop I was told that Constantius still lived, and so hope sustained me through my journey.

I was realizing now that the sorrow of our separation had been eased a little by the knowledge that Constantius still walked the world. And yet, as I travelled, I could not keep from remembering the image of Isis sorrowing for her husband. Even the G.o.ds lost those they loved, so why should I think myself immune?

Word of my coming had run ahead of me. Constantine came out of the presidium as we rumbled through the gate, and when the carriage halted, lifted me out. For a few moments I clung to him, drawing strength.

"How is he?" I asked, when I could stand alone.

"Each day he insists on getting dressed and attempting to do a little work. But he tires very easily. I told him that you were coming, and each hour, it seems, he has asked where I think you are now." He managed a smile. "But we persuaded him to lie down a little while ago and he is sleeping."

He escorted me into the building and showed me the chamber they had set aside for me and the slave girl who would attend me. When I had washed and changed my gown I found Constantine waiting in the adjoining room where a table with wine and honey-cakes was laid.

"And how are you?" I asked, noting the dark smudges beneath his eyes. Physically, I might be the more exhausted, but he was suffering too.

"It is strange. When I go into battle I feel no fear. But this is an enemy I cannot confront, and I am afraid."

It is true, I thought sadly,even the strength of a young man who does not believe he can die is helpless against some enemies .

"I remember," he said slowly, not meeting my eyes, "from when I was a child... you can do strange things sometimes. You must help him, mother, or we are lost."

"Did you call me here as your mother, or as a priestess?"

He looked up, and for a moment I thought he was going to crouch against me with his head upon my breast as he had when he was a little child.

"I need my mother, but my father needs the priestess."

"Then it is as a priestess that I answer you. I will do what I can, Con, but you must understand that there is a natural rhythm to our lives that not even the G.o.ds can deny."

"Then they are evil G.o.ds!" muttered Constantine.

"My heart cries out against this as loudly as yours, but it may be that all I will be able to do is to help him let go."

The chair sc.r.a.ped loudly as he stood up and gripped my hand. "Come-" He pulled me to my feet, and scarcely waiting for me to wrap my palla around me, drew me from the room.

"He stirred a moment ago," said the physician on watch as we appeared in the doorway. "I think he will wake soon."

The Emperor lay on his bed, his upper body raised on pillows. I paused, making an effort to pull myself together. Constantine was right. The wife and mother would dissolve in tears, seeing her beloved lie so still. It was the priestess that was needed now.

I came to the bedside and stretched out my hands above Constantius's body, extending my awareness to sense the energy flow. Above the head and brow the life-force still flowed strongly, but the aura above his chest flickered weakly, and lower down, though it was steady, it was not strong. I bent close to listen to his breathing, and could hear the rasp of congestion inside.

"Does he have fever?" I did not think so, for his skin was not flushed, but abnormally pale; however, I had hoped it might be, for the lung-fever, though serious, was something I knew how to fight. The physician shook his head, and I sighed. "The heart, then?"

"I have made up an infusion of foxglove, for when it pains him," said the physician.

"That is well, but perhaps there is something we can do to strengthen him. Do you have a trustworthy man you can send for the following herbs?" As he nodded, I began to dictate my list: motherwort and hawthorn, nettle and garlic, and Constantine's grim look eased.

Then the man on the bed stirred and sighed, and I knelt beside him, chafing his cool hands between my own.

Eyes still closed, Constantius smiled." Ah, the G.o.ddess returns...'

"The G.o.ddess was always with you, but now I am here as well." With an effort I kept my voice firm.

"What have you been doing to yourself, to get in such a state? Is it not the place of the Augustus to sit in his palace and leave the fighting to younger men?"

"I have not even opened my eyes, and she is scolding me!" he said, but in truth I think he was not yet certain I was real.

"Perhaps this will take the sting away," I leaned over to kiss his lips, and as I released him, he looked up at me.

"I have missed you," he said simply, and read my answer in my eyes.

Throughout the week that followed, I dosed Constantius with my potions, but though Constantine talked loudly of his improvement, I began to suspect that he had used up the strength that remained to him in holding on until I arrived. Constantine and I took it in turns to sit with him, holding his hand as he rested, or speaking of the years we had spent apart.

One day, as I bathed him, I noticed a livid scar up the side of one thigh and asked when he had risked himself so foolishly.

"Ah, that was in Gallia, three summers ago, and I a.s.sure you I did not intend to run into such danger!"

Three years, I thought, and the scar was still red and angry. It had not healed quickly or well, a sign that his circulation was failing even then. I could have given him medicines to strengthen his heart, if I had known. But perhaps it would not have mattered. It was not Theodora who was my rival. Constantius had given his heart to the Empire before he ever offered it to me.

July was drawing on, and even in Eburac.u.m the days were warm. We opened the windows to let in fresh air and covered the sick man with a light woollen cloth, and the chirring of the crickets blended with the rasp of his breathing.

One afternoon when I was alone with him in the room Constantius woke from a brief sleep and called my name.

"I am here, my dearest," I took his hand.

"Helena... I feel that this is one battle I am not going to win. The sun s.h.i.+nes brightly, but he is declining, and so am I. I have done most of what I set out to do in this world, but I fear for the Empire, at the mercy of Galerius and his puppet Caesars."

"No doubt Augustus thought the same, but Rome still stands," I told him. "Her safety, in the end, depends on the G.o.ds, not you."

"I suppose you are right-when an Emperor receives divine honours, it becomes hard to tell the difference, sometimes. But the G.o.ds do not die. Tell me, my Lady, can this body heal?"

For a moment I stared at him, blinking back tears. His gaze was clear and direct, and there had always been truth between us. I could not deny it to him now.

"It has been long since I studied the arts of healing," I said finally. "But each day you spend more time in sleep. The life-force in your body sinks lower. If it continues to do so, I think you may stay with us a week, but no more."

Astonis.h.i.+ngly, his face brightened. "That is more than I have been able to make my physicians say. A good general needs as much accurate information to plan an orderly retreat as he does when he seeks victory."

I would not have thought of it that way, and despite my tears I returned his smile.

"Constantine asked you to heal me, but now I ask you a harder thing, my beloved priestess. I have spent too much of my life in trying to stay alive on battlefields, and it is hard to let go. Now you must teach me how to die."

"I can only do this if I become wholly the priestess, and when I do so, the woman who loves you will not be here."

He nodded. "I understand. When I led Constantine in battle, it was the Emperor, not the father, who ordered him into danger. But we have a little time, my darling. Be my beloved Helena today, and we will feast on our memories."

I squeezed his hand. "I remember the first time I saw you, in a vision that came to me when I was only thirteen years old. You shone like the sun, and you do so still."

"Even now, when my hair has faded and my strength is gone?" he teased.

"A winter sun, perhaps, but you light the world for me all the same," I a.s.sured him.

"The first time I sawyou , you looked like a wet kitten," he said then, and I laughed.

We spent the rest of that day in talk, replaying our every meeting in the gentle light of memory. For a time Constantine sat with us, but it was clear that this was something in which he had only a peripheral part, and he went away to rest before his watch. When I went to my bedchamber that night I wept for a long time, knowing that this had been our farewell.

In the morning, I came to Constantius robed in blue and wrapped in the invisible majesty of a priestess.

When he opened his eyes he recognized the difference immediately. Others responded to the change without understanding, except for Constantine, who gazed at me with a child's panic at the loss of the familiar mother he thought he knew.

You are an adult now, I tried to tell him with my steady gaze.You must learn to see your parents as fellow travellers upon Life's road . But I suppose it was not surprising that he still saw us with a child's eye, having been separated from us when he was only thirteen years old.

"Lady, I salute you," said Constantius in a low voice. "What have you to teach me about the Mysteries?"

"All men who are born of woman must one day come to life's ending," I murmured, "and the time is coming now for you. Soul to soul, you must listen, and not allow yourself to be distracted. Your body has served you well, and become worn out in that service. You must make ready now to release it, to depart from it, to rise from the realm of the tangible, which is subject to change and decay, to that place where all is Light, and the true and eternal natures of all things are revealed..."

It had been many years since I had learned these words, and I had spoken them only once, when the other novices and I took turns to read them to an old priestess who was dying; but now need called them forth, complete and perfect.

Throughout that day I repeated the instructions, explaining how the body would become a weight too heavy to be moved, and all sensation would disappear. When that happens, the soul must be ready to will itself upward and out through the crown of the head, seeking its union with the Source of All. The cares of the world and affection for those one has loved conspire to drag the spirit back again, but it is necessary to be steadfast in determination to leave them behind.

"You will pa.s.s through a long, dark tunnel, as once you were forced from the darkness of the wornb.

This is the journey of your birth in the spirit, and at the end of it you will emerge, not into the light of day, but into that radiance that is the true source of the sun..."

Constantius had fallen asleep, but I continued to speak, knowing that some part of his spirit was still listening. It seemed to me that the G.o.ds meant to give him a gentle death, and from one of these sleeps there would be no waking, and the soul would depart from the body, and at last the flesh, without a spirit to direct it, would give up as well.

By this time it was apparent to everyone that the Emperor was dying. In the city, I was told, the clamour of the market-place was hushed, and incense smoked on every altar. The people of Eburac.u.m had always considered Constantius to be one of their own: he had saved them from the Picts, and they were grateful. In the fortress the soldiers stood guard around the Praesidium, and Crocus and his senior warriors had crowded into the corridor outside the Emperor's chamber, waiting with the uncomprehending patience of good hounds.

That night Constantius woke long enough to speak for a while with Constantine. Exhausted, I had gone to bed, but in the grey hour before the dawn a soldier came to summon me. I dashed water on my face, struggling to focus, but in truth, I was not surprised. I had given Constantius permission to depart and instruction in how to do so. There was no reason for him to linger on.

"He is drifting in and out of consciousness," whispered the physician as I came to the door. "And he labours to breathe."

"Here is Mother, come to see you," said Constantine a little desperately as I eased myself down on the low stool beside the bed. Constantius struggled for breath, choked for a moment, and then exhaled.

"Put more pillows behind him," I said, uncapping the vial of attar of rose that hung from a chain around my neck. I saw his nostrils flare, and the next breath came more easily, and then he opened his eyes, and his lips twitched in an attempt at a smile.

For a moment it was enough simply for him to breathe. Then he gathered his forces and turned his gaze towards Constantine. "Remember..." he whispered." Take care... of your mother...and your brothers...

and sisters..." Gaze focused in concentration, he drew breath again. "Pray to the Highest G.o.d... to preserve the Empire..."

His eyes closed, but he was clearly still conscious, still struggling. The windows were shuttered, but I could feel a change in the air. I gestured to one of the physicians- "Open the windows!"

As the shutters were folded back, a pale light filled the room. With each moment it grew stronger. The sun was rising; on strong men's cheeks I could see the glistening track of tears. Moment by moment, the face of Constantius was growing brighter. I leaned forwards, and clasped his hands together upon his breast.

"The world fades around you..." I whispered, "it is time to move into the Light..."

His gaze turned towards me, but I was not certain what he was looking at, for in that moment his features were transfigured by an expression of astonished joy. "G.o.ddess..." The word hovered at the edge of sound. Then his eyes widened, unseeing, the body fought for a last breath and failed, and he lay still.

For the eight days between the death of Constantius and his cremation, Constantine had kept to his chamber, eating little and speaking to no one. For me those days pa.s.sed like a nightmare, in which the memories that came to me waking were worse than my dreams. But when the eighth day came to a close I put on the white garments of mourning and went out to follow my husband's body to the pyre.

Constantine was waiting, washed and shaved and wrapped in a snowy toga, and although his eyes were deep-shadowed, he had clearly recovered his self-command. I remember that night now as a series of images-torches whipping in the wind, pale in the gathering dusk, and the white marble of the new-made tomb glowing faintly in their light. Not for Constantius a burial along the road outside the town-the magistrates of Eburac.u.m had claimed him, and if he could no longer protect them, in life, the honours paid to a tomb in the forum might persuade his hovering spirit to confer a blessing.

I have another image-Constantius's body, wrapped in purple and crowned with the wreath of gold, lying upon a pyre, stacked high with good British oak and studded with spices. I remember torchlight on the grim faces of Asclepiodotus and Crocus, who had escorted us, and the glitter of their armour. And Constantine's silence, as if he had been carved of the same marble as the tomb.

There is a sound, a wail that goes up from the populace when Constantine thrusts his torch between the logs. The soldiers who had filled an entire side of the square are murmuring, but their discipline holds, and as the smoke swirls skywards, hiding the still form of the Emperor, except for the weeping of women it becomes quiet once more. I have seen this before, in the vision at my pa.s.sage into womanhood, but I saw myself wearing the purple, and that never happened, so how can this be true?

I remember the pyre beginning to fall into coals as the first stars p.r.i.c.ked through the velvet pall of the sky, and the deep voice of Asclepiodotus, telling Constantine he must speak to the people now. Like a sleepwalker, Constantine turns, and now his eyes burn. He lifts his arms, and it becomes utterly still.

"My brothers and sisters, brothers-in-arms, and fellow-children of the Empire. My father and yours is dead, and his soul ascends to heaven. We are orphaned of our protector, and who will watch over us?"

And a wail rises from among the women, as swiftly overwhelmed by a deep cry from the throats of many men.

"Constantine! Constantine will protect us! Constantinus, Impera-tor!"

Constantine lifts his hands once more as if to quiet them, but the shouting only grows louder, and now the soldiers surge forwards, Crocus in the forefront, one of them bearing a purple robe, and Asclepiodotus has my arm and is pulling me away.

I do not remember how we got back to the praesidium. But throughout that night it seemed to me that the heavens echoed back the cry- "Constantine for Imperator!"

Part III

THE WAY TO WISDOM.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

AD 307-12.

In all the years I had travelled about the Empire as Constantius's wife, I had never been to Italia. I had yet to see Rome, but Maximian's new city of Mediolanum, on the north Italian plain, was said to be nearly as magnificent. Today, with the streets newly washed by the spring rains and every archway garlanded with flowers, I could well believe it, as the masters of the Empire attempted to forge yet another alliance by the marriage of Maximian's young daughter Fausta to my son Constantine.

They had been betrothed in the year Constantius became Caesar. At the time, Fausta was only an infant, and in the long years when Constantine was hostage first to Diocletian and then to Galerius, it would have surprised no one if the potential relations.h.i.+p had been forgotten by everyone, including Constantine, except that I was beginning to realize that Constantine never forgot anything he had claimed as his own. I hoped that self-interest would dispose him to affection, and the fact that Fausta had grown up as his intended wife would incline her to respect, though it was asking a great deal to expect much companions.h.i.+p in the mating of a girl of fourteen with a man of thirty-five.

Certainly the past nine months had been bewildering. Although the troops, led by Crocus, had hailed Constantine as Augustus, he had deemed it more politic to claim no more than the rank of Caesar when he informed Galerius that he had a new colleague in rule. Meanwhile, Maximian's son Maxentius had decided to follow his example, and Maximian himself had come out of retirement to help him. They were all calling themselves Augustus now.

I would have been quite content to wait at the palace, but Constantine insisted that all his family, including the half-sisters and brothers, Theodora's children whom we had brought with us from Treveri, should ride in the procession. And so I was seeing Mediolanum from the vantage of a triumphal cart, garlanded and gilded and shaded with pink silk which clashed with the purple palla I wore, though I trusted that it flattered my complexion.

From the sound of the cheers, Maximian and Constantine, riding together, had pa.s.sed through the triumphal arch leading to the main square. More cheering behind me proclaimed the advent of the bride, riding in a chariot drawn by four milk-white ponies which had been fitted with wings, so that each resembled a miniature Pegasus, her face hidden by the flame-coloured silk of her veil.