Echoes in the Moselle

Night pressed cool and clear against the palace windows, scattering torch-light across the Moselle like molten coin. Constantine stayed on the balcony long enough to watch the last patrol lanterns wink into place along the wall. Only then did he turn back inside, where Valerius waited amid a low murmur of clerks and orderlies sorting the day's spoils.

"The treasury books," Valerius said, offering a leather folder sealed with Tiberianus's signet. "Less silver than promised, more notes of credit than coin."

Constantine accepted the ledger, weighing it as though it were a blade. "Coin can be minted. Loyalty cannot." He handed the folder to a scribe. "Strike the dies at dawn—my father's image on one face, mine on the other. A double guarantee."

Reports followed in crisp succession. The city's grain stores were ample for two months' provisioning; the mint was secure; the bridge gates now flew Constantine's eagle and Chi-Rho. Legio XXII's tribuni had pledged obedience after a curt inspection of the courtyard where Tiberianus had knelt. The junior officers of Legio VIII, still marching up from Mogontiacum, had sent word requesting instructions. Constantine dictated a reply that was equal parts welcome and warning: enter the city under arms, but leave decision-making to your emperor.

Near midnight, Claudius Mamertinus arrived to accept the prefecture. The older man offered a soldier's salute rather than a senator's bow—gesture enough to show where he believed power now lay. Constantine briefed him swiftly: rebuild civic confidence, audit the missing silver, keep the baths open and the bread ovens hotter than the gossip. Mamertinus left with eyes bright, already issuing orders to aides who trailed him like sparks from a torch.

Only Crocus remained to be placated. At first light the Alemannic king presented himself in the basilica arcade, iron rings clinking on his harness. "Your Romans kept their purse closed," he growled, half amusement, half complaint. "My riders thirsted, and the wine stores were locked."

"They are unlocked now," Constantine answered, leading him onto the veranda that overlooked the parade square. "Your warriors will receive the same ration of wine and salt pork as the Sixth. They will also guard the northern road. Anyone claiming to rule in my stead will try to slip couriers through that valley."

Crocus studied him, rough beard catching the dawn. "Guard duty is dull."

"It is profitable." Constantine signaled a steward; two chests, heavy with freshly struck aurei, thudded onto the tiles. "Half now, half when the road is still clear in thirty days."

Crocus laughed, deep and genuine. "A Roman who bargains like a trader. Very well, Augustus. The valley will be silent."

Throughout the day messengers rode out: one west to Lutetia instructing the civic council to mint coin only with Constantine's authority; another south to Lugdunum to requisition river barges for grain; a third east toward the Rhine, offering pardons to frontier forts that swore loyalty before winter solstice. Each parchment carried the new seal—an eagle clutching a Chi-Rho, Constantius's memory welded to Constantine's claim.

In the afternoon Constantine summoned the local bishops and pagan priests together, a gesture that surprised them both. He granted the Christians use of an abandoned granary outside the walls and confirmed the old temples' tax exemptions. "Prayers differ," he told the uneasy gathering, "but Gaul will kneel to one throne." They dispersed in guarded harmony, muttering that the young Augustus played fates and gods alike as pieces on a board.

Dusk brought a rare lull. Constantine walked alone through the corridors his boyhood self had navigated behind his father. The mosaics seemed smaller now, the victories they depicted almost fragile. At the old map chamber he stopped; dim lamplight limned the empire in fading pigments—Dacia lost, Mesopotamia bleeding, Africa restless under faltering grain quotas. So many fractures, he thought, and yet the marble beneath his boots felt steady in Trier tonight because he had refused to hesitate.

He stared longest at Italia. Severus prowled there with Danubian legions, while Galerius plotted from the east. They would come, one by one or together, demanding proof that the storm in Gaul was more than local weather. When they arrived, they would find roads repaired, coffers filling, and legions drilled by a commander who answered to no shrinking prefect.

Constantine left the map unrolled for the scribes who would work by candle-glow. In the courtyard below, the watch changed—a crisp clash of spear on shield echoed upward. He felt the sound resonate in his chest like a slow drumbeat. Britain had been the first step, Gaul the second. The march toward Rome itself would follow, not as rumor but as iron certainty.

Above the rooftops, a pale moon rose over the Moselle. Constantine watched it awhile, thinking of his father's last breaths and of a future minted in his own image, bright and hard as the coins cooling in the treasury vaults. He turned away at last, cloak stirring in the night breeze, and the corridors of power closed behind him with the promise of battles yet to come.