“So he said in a letter Galerius received last night. He wants Constantine to join him.”
“He wouldn’t say it unless he were.” Helena turned quickly to her son. “He needs you, Constantine. You must go to him at once tonight.”
“If I leave without a military order, Galerius could have me killed on sight,” Constantine reminded her.
“But he will never let you go to Gaul. Not with your father ill.”
“My information is that Galerius intends to let Constantine go,” Marios interposed. “Or at least start.”
All of them understood the significance of Marios’ words, so there was no need for explanation. It was a long ride to Gaul and almost anywhere along the route an assassin could be waiting.
Constantine barely had time to dismount in the military compound behind the palace at Nicomedia the next afternoon when an aide of Emperor Galerius appeared. “Tribune Constantinus is ordered to report at once to Augustus Galerius,” he said.
Nicomedia for Salonae
When Constantine had left Nicomedia for Salonae a few months before, Galerius had been a hardmuscled, obviously fit fighting man. But already he saw, when he saluted the Augustus of the East in the same audience chamber where he had so often stood beside Diocletian the role of Emperor had put its mark upon the latest wearer of the purple robe and pearl circlet. Galerius had thickened noticeably about the middle, and the cold eyes that had always had something of the hooded look of an eagle or a falcon about them were pouched now and dull.
“Your promptness in obeying orders does you credit, Tribune Constantinus,” the Emperor said with the nearest to warmth even if feigned Constantine had ever heard in his grating voice. “How did you leave my fatherinlaw in Salonae?”
“His health improves each day, Augustus perhaps because he is happy.”
“He and his precious cabbages.” Galerius appeared not to notice that Constantine had addressed him only as Augustus, not with the title of Dominus Lord he had always given to Diocletian. “How is your mother?”
“Very well.”
“And your son?”
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