CHAPTER 56: SHADOWS UNDER THE LAUREL

The city’s marble and banners glowed for Constantine’s Vicennalia, but beneath every gold-embroidered awning, Rome was a hive of calculations. Twenty years had passed since he had seized the purple, twenty years since York and the long march through blood and oath. Yet as the processions wove through streets strung with garlands, he felt an undercurrent colder than the Tiber. The people cheered him, yes-but they roared for Crispus with a warmth that did not stop at ceremony.

In the morning, amid incense and sacrifices, the Emperor entered the Curia for the official thanksgiving. Senators and patricians bent in low, practiced bows, yet their glances flicked to the tall, sun-browned figure behind him: Crispus, a crown of laurel glinting above clear eyes, his gait effortless after two years of victories in Gaul and along the Rhine. Every rustle of their togas was another subtle recalculation. Rome’s future, once a given, now seemed to rest in the hands of a young man the city had come to love.

Constantine returned the greetings with a smile. Inside, he measured each word of praise, each surge of applause for his son, as a moneylender tallies coins. Adoration was currency, and too much concentrated in one hand made for dangerous inflation. In the privacy of his study he demanded every dispatch mentioning Crispus from the last campaign. Not for the archives, as his secretaries assumed, but for a careful, unblinking audit: which legions adored him, which officers wrote in filial tones, which provinces celebrated him as a second Augustus. The lines of support mapped themselves into constellations that gave Constantine pause. He remembered the loyalty that once surrounded his own father before a civil war shattered the world. The warning was clear.

But Rome was determined to celebrate. On the second night of games, torches filled the Colosseum with a trembling gold haze. Exotic beasts prowled the cages below; in the stands, the people shouted Crispus’s name as he saluted from the arena floor, helmet in hand. For a moment Constantine saw his own youth-how easily adoration could be gathered and how easily it could turn. His chest tightened, not from envy, but from the intuition of danger. He knew the crowd’s heart, knew the alchemy that could turn cheers to weapons.

Fausta watched from her place near the imperial box, every line of her posture composed, her eyes two dark lanterns reading the tides. She had never complained about Crispus’s success, but Constantine knew calculation when he saw it. Her own sons were years away from command; their inheritance depended on their father’s undivided trust. When she joined Constantine in their private dining chamber, she discussed legal reforms and the discipline of youth. "The city loves a champion," she observed, refilling his wine with a casual flick. "But affection is fickle. All it takes is one shadow, one careless word, and the people will turn. We must always watch for appearances." Her tone was mild, but beneath it lay an unspoken warning: applause, in the wrong hands, could spark a fire.

Helena sensed it too. She had survived the jealous courts of Diocletian and Galerius; she recognized the taste of a brewing purge. She watched her grandson retell battle stories to a ring of junior officers, saw the respectful hush that followed him out of a room. She saw Fausta’s servants passing notes to the chief eunuch. Scented oils and nervous laughter, old perfumes to mask new fear. She requested leave for pilgrimage, citing devotion, but Constantine saw the prudence in her timing. He granted it at once, knowing her presence might become a silent rebuke if worst came to worst.

When Helena departed, Crispus himself rode with her to the city gate. He kissed her hand and promised relics for his half-brothers. She whispered, "Greatness has many corridors, and not all are lit." He laughed, shaking his head, and rode back toward the city, unaware of the web drawing tight.

The pace of empire did not slow. Constantine shuttled between Rome and the Bosporus, trading marble for raw mud, senators for shouting engineers. On the windswept promontory of Byzantium he stalked half-built walls, correcting stone angles and mapping future aqueducts. His mind ran always to permanence-walls that would outlive rumors, foundations to stand when passions cooled. Yet even in the bite of sea air, his thoughts circled back to Rome, to Crispus, and to the fragile thread between praise and envy.

He returned to Rome unannounced in midsummer. The palace seethed with gossip. First a litter ride: Crispus and Fausta, alone after games on the Via Flaminia, the curtains drawn. Then a bathhouse encounter, retold by a slave whose name shifted with every telling. Fausta moved through the halls with a serenity that now looked like strategy; her veil drifted lower, her silences suggested more than they revealed. Constantine summoned witnesses. No proof surfaced, only smoke and rumor-but smoke, he knew, could suffocate a dynasty as surely as fire.

If the Praetorian Guard caught wind of scandal, if the army doubted the Caesar’s purity, the imperial image could shatter. Constantine remembered Maxentius, the rival who had nearly ended his reign, who once used the pretext of morality to rally wavering legions. Rome’s loyalty was conditional: it belonged to whoever kept the streets quiet, the grain cheap, the spectacle endless-and scandal at bay.

Crispus, oblivious, drilled recruits at Albanum, composed a treatise on river crossings, and held evenings of philosophical debate with Lactantius. When he greeted Fausta, it was with easy warmth, never noticing her answers had lost all true warmth in return. He trusted his father, believed his victories had bought him a place above suspicion.

The Vicennalia games in the Circus Maximus brought the tension to a peak. Under red awnings, senators and plebeians watched as Crispus raced the first lap in a white chariot, his name thundering through the stands. Constantine’s hand tightened on the arm of his ivory chair. The cheers, so loud and so eager, sounded less like honor and more like an omen.

Fausta caught his eye and gave the smallest nod, the kind that meant nothing unless you already knew what it meant. Constantine understood. He convened a secret council: Valerius, steel-eyed; Ablabius, tireless and methodical; Palladius, commander of the household guard. "Rumor is a spark," Constantine said, no ceremony. "We serve the empire, not sentiment. Investigate every tale concerning Crispus. Quietly, completely. No mistakes. No hesitation." No one protested. Orders followed: surveillance, gentle but persistent interrogations, scrutiny of Fausta’s correspondence, and a discreet search for any weakness that might compromise the line of succession.

In the days that followed, the machinery of suspicion creaked into motion. Notes vanished, bath attendants disappeared, Fausta’s ladies were quietly questioned in the barracks. Each report landed on Constantine’s desk and was read with the same careful detachment he reserved for the disposition of armies. No confession, but too many patterns to ignore. Proximity became suspicious, courtesy became damning. And all the while, Crispus prepared to leave for Gaul, believing it a routine tour of the Moselle.

Before departing, Crispus asked for a private word with his father. They met in the lamplit study where, years before, Helena had pleaded for mercy. Crispus spoke of supply routes and reform, of ideas for a bridge at Trier. Constantine listened, noting the hope in his son’s voice. He dismissed him with measured praise and a clasp of the wrist, cold and unyielding. Crispus left, smiling, unaware that the path behind him had begun to close.

Night fell on the palace, but few slept. Fausta composed her letters, Valerius posted guards at the corridors to the women’s quarters, and Constantine stood at his balcony, watching the city shimmer beneath the moon. The cheers had faded, but the memory lingered, doubled in its danger. Two laurels on one stem, he thought. The weight might break them both.

In the shadow of Mars’s statue, Constantine understood at last: the wars of empire were over, but the struggle for survival was not. Power, once won by sword, was now preserved by silence, suspicion, and the hard, pitiless gaze of a man who had learned that no one-son, wife, or friend-could be exempt from the logic of rule.

Below, the revelers called his name. Above, the night pressed in, watchful and cold.