CHAPTER 57: THE FURNACE OF DECEIT

With Helena’s convoy already far past Crete, a deeper quiet settled over the Palatine. Constantine, sunk in calculations for harbor dredges and revisions of provincial grain quotas, mistook the tension for routine bureaucracy. He had grown more comfortable among maps and figures than in the world of living men and women. It was a habit born of conquest, and in peace, it dulled his instincts to shadows that moved beyond the edge of his lamp.

Yet in the corridors of his palace, the air trembled with the weight of things unsaid. Palace chamberlains whispered in alcoves and fell silent when Fausta’s litter swept past. Her ladies obeyed with nervous precision. Valerius, returning from an inspection of the arsenal, sensed it in the posture of every doorkeeper and the jump in every slave’s hands. Jealousy and fear, those acid solvents of trust, were everywhere-except in the Emperor’s own study.

Constantine did not notice. He trusted process: the forms of loyalty, the reports of trusted eyes, the habit of obedience. Hearts were a distraction; ledgers, at least, did not betray. So when news came from the east that Sassanid riders had been spotted probing the Armenian frontier, he received the report with a satisfaction he could never have felt for family.

Fausta struck then, precisely as the astrologer had advised. No escort, hair unbound, stola torn in a way that was at once artful and savage. She staggered into his study, breath catching in practiced sobs, the skin at her neck marked faintly-too faintly, perhaps, for real violence. Her timing was perfect; the Emperor had just dismissed his secretaries and was alone with his ink and silence.

She fell to her knees before his desk. "My lord... I have held my tongue, but to be silent now is treason to your house."

He regarded her without sympathy, his one eye as flat as iron.

"Name the crime," he said.

"It is the Caesar. He boasts the army belongs to him alone. He met me in the gardens-spoke of throwing off the burden of an aging Emperor, of ruling Rome with me at his side. When I rebuked him, he threatened me. I escaped only by-" She let the words trail off, her hand covering her face, leaving the rest to dread and imagination.

Her accusation touched three nerves that Constantine, even at his most disciplined, could not ignore. The first was treason: a son plotting against his father and sovereign. The second, sexual violation-an unspeakable betrayal within the imperial household. The third, the corruption of the legions, the ultimate test of power in a soldier’s world. All three, in Roman law and custom, demanded death.

He asked no questions. Suspicion did not permit delay. He lifted Fausta from the carpet, ordered a slave to bring wine, then summoned the commander of the Scholae Palatinae. Within minutes, a runner found Crispus drilling with the Praetorian cohort on the Field of Mars. The young man entered the imperial study expecting new orders or an urgent briefing.

Instead, he found his father seated rigid behind the desk, eyes opaque.

"You are charged with seducing the Empress, conspiring to seize my throne, and corrupting the loyalty of the legions," Constantine said, voice drained of warmth.

Crispus stopped in the doorway, shock scattering the poise of a dozen campaigns. "Father, it is not possible. I would never-"

"You revere the Empress?" The Emperor’s hand rose, palm out, as if to halt a phalanx. "Ambition has eclipsed your discipline. You are stripped of rank and title. You will remain under guard, pending judgment."

The Scholae Palatinae entered, led by Valerius, their faces carefully blank. Crispus tried once to catch his father’s gaze. He received only the icy shield of a will hardened by years of war and decision. The guards led him away. His stride, once the measured rhythm of Rome’s future, now faded into the silence of the corridor, echoing through the palace like a verdict.

Constantine signed the order for execution the next morning. No tribunal, no deliberation, no trial before the Senate. The warrant authorized transfer to the fortress of Pula on the Istrian coast. The charge: high treason and sacrilege. The sentence: death by imperial decree, with all honors quietly erased from the records. Bureaucracy, once a tool of survival, became the engine of a cold, irreversible logic.

Within weeks a single ciphered message arrived at the Palatine, confirming the sentence had been carried out. Constantine read the words without change in expression. He initialed the report, closed the file, and turned to the day’s agenda-a summary of the Cilician aqueducts, a letter from the bishop of Antioch, a new schedule for minting gold solidi. Only Valerius, watching from the doorway, saw the brief contraction at the corner of his mouth.

But Valerius could not be still. He had marched with Crispus, measured his character in frost and hunger, trusted his courage in battle. Something in the Empress’s accusation stank of incense, not iron. The logic did not fit. Using his own web of informants, Valerius sifted for the truth. It was a humble chambermaid, browbeaten by threats and guilt, who broke. Under the promise of sanctuary, she recounted Fausta’s envy, her daily rehearsals, the carefully orchestrated meetings with slaves, and the orders to keep silent. A trail of small lies became a mountain of proof.

Valerius gathered the testimonies, placed them under seal, and asked for a private audience after the night’s security report. The Emperor, alone with the sweep of city lights beyond his study, waved him in. Valerius laid the sealed scrolls on the desk. Constantine broke them open, read them twice, and did not speak for a long time. In that silence, years of habit and pride cracked like old marble. He had moved with the certainty of a commander-fast, decisive, unwilling to question himself-and now that certainty had become the instrument of a terrible error.

He allowed himself rage. Not at Fausta, nor at the dead, but at himself. A single miscalculation-a refusal to doubt, a failure to test-had turned a dynasty into a graveyard. Power was supposed to be armor, yet the simplest human motives had breached it.

He summoned Fausta at once. She arrived in fresh linen and pearls, expecting another inquiry. The evidence lay on the desk, her fate written in other hands. She tried to speak, but Constantine’s voice was as cold and final as any sword.

"You presented a threat, and I destroyed it. I trusted you with the heart of my line. Now I find the threat was not real, and the destruction is on my head."

Her tears, at last, were not feigned. But no amount of pleading could change the calculation. Constantine gestured to the guards.

"The Empress requires a bath. Make it hot. Secure the room from interruption."

Fausta’s eyes widened as the guards closed in. The door thudded shut behind her. Within the hour, steam drifted under the doors. She died quietly, with no witness but water and silence.

At dawn, Valerius found the Emperor on a balcony above the Forum Romanum, eyes set on the horizon. The city below woke to business as usual. In the distance, laborers hammered medals of the Emperor’s image, soon to be scattered from Londinium to Alexandria. Constantine did not move. When Valerius asked for new orders, he answered, "Triple the guard at every gate. The Empress will be honored with full imperial rites. The empire must see only justice."

Valerius saluted and withdrew, understanding more in that moment about the limits of power than he had in a lifetime of campaigns. Constantine remained alone, hand clutching the stone balustrade, face unreadable.

The dawn washed the city in red and gold. In the garden below, a single laurel tree grew where accusations had once flowered. For the first time in years, Constantine felt the edge of real risk. Not from the Sassanids, not from the barbarians, not from rebellious generals. The wound had come from within, from the soft tissue that no law could harden. Empire was his, unchallenged and secure-yet as the morning bells rang, it felt suddenly as fragile as the heart he had long ignored.