“It will be well planned, you can wager on that,” Dacius agreed. “But that’s a game two can play. Now we’d better get a good night’s sleep; we’ll have a long ride tomorrow.”
Constantine had no idea what time it was when he was awakened by the touch of a hand upon his shoulder. He turned over quickly, instinctively reaching for the wall peg upon which he had hung his sword before retiring, but he let his hand fall when he recognized the face of General Licinius, revealed by a shaft of moonlight pouring through the single window of the cuhicula. Licinius was unarmed, he saw, and, realizing that whatever the reason for the nocturnal visit it was not an attack, he sat up on the sleeping pallet.
“Speak only in a whisper,” Licinius warned. “I have the letters you are to take to your father. Augustus Galerius drank a great deal of wine before he retired tonight and will be sure to sleep late tomorrow. I thought you ought to get an early start.”
Constantine had not missed
“How early?” Constantine had not missed the emphasis on the word “ought.”
“Now, if I were you. Centurion Longinus is saddling two horses; they will be ready as soon as you are. May Jupiter and Mithras guard you.”
The visitor’s hand was on the door when Constantine asked, “Why are you doing this for me, sir?”
“Your father and I have been friends for a long time.” He was gone and Constantine wasted no time in waking Dacius and telling him of the visit.
“Licinius is an honorable man,” the centurion said, as he dressed hurriedly. “Galerius no doubt intended to hold you here another day with the pretext of the letters, so the messengers he sent ahead to arrange our deaths would be sure of reaching Sirmium in time.”
“I would like to see his face when he learns the route we have chosen,” Constantine said, as he buckled on his sword and took his cloak from a peg. “But by that time we should be safe at Treves.”
Only a little over two weeks later Constantine stood in an upper room of an inn on the outskirts of the Italian city of Neapolis,® waiting impatiently for Dacius to return from the errand he had sent him on that of discovering whether the Lady Fausta was in residence at her father’s country home in the lovely Campana district nearby. As he had expected, Dacius had exploded into anger when he revealed his real reason for including Neapolis in their route to Gaul, arguing with considerable reason that it would be nothing short of foolish for him to try to see Fausta after Maximian had expressly forbidden it.
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