“Please forgive my brother for being a bore, Tribune,” she said with a dazzling smile. “Word of how you stopped the whole army of Narses before Antioch has reached us, so naturally he is envious of your fame.”
Maxentius flushed. “My sister Fausta, Tribune Constantine,” he said with mock courtesy. “And my friends.”
He did not name them, a deliberate act of discourtesy, Constantine was sure. But the girl took his arm and went in turn to each of the others, introducing him. He spoke the conventional words of greeting, and several of the young women responded eagerly, but Fausta made it quite clear that she had taken him under her personal wing. She was, he guessed, about sixteen but, though slender, already mature for her age.
“Maxentius chased a few Moors into the desert during the recent trouble in Mauretania,” Fausta said with a malicious smile. Since then he hasn’t been fit to live with not that he was before either.
“What were you and Diocletian doing so long in Alexandria, Constantine?” Maxentius asked loudly and Constantine realized that he was quite drunk. “Fishing, I suppose?”
Constantine joined
A round of laughter followed, which Constantine joined, but not Fausta. “Silence, fool!” she snapped. “Do you want to bring the wrath of Diocletian upon your head?”
“There are two Emperors, dear sister,” Maxentius said. “And in a few years there will be only one. Then we will move the capital back to Rome, where it should be.”
Fausta took Constantine’s arm and led him away, as much, he suspected, to get him away from her brother, before Maxentius revealed too much of what Maximian was planning for the future, as from any desire for his company.
“My brother always babbles foolishness when he’s drunk,” she confided. “Is this your first visit to Rome?”
“Yes.”
“Then you must see more of it. Milan is so new and rough as an imperial capital; I’m always happy to be back in Rome where the shops really have something to see. I’m going shopping tomorrow. Will you go with me?”
“The Emperor of the East may have other plans for me. I’m a soldier, you know.”
“And Diocletian’s favorite; everybody knows that. Just leave it to me,” she assured him. “I shall see that you are free tomorrow afternoon. Then there is a theater tomorrow night and another ball. We shall be very busy.”
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