Constantine received his father-in-law with trumpets and torches, as though the disgraced emperor were still clad in imperial purple. In the vast hall at Trier he bowed just deeply enough, proclaimed filial devotion, and lodged Maximian in chambers hung with Tyrian cloth. Courtiers whispered admiration for the young Augustus's generosity; messengers sped east and south carrying accounts of the spectacle.
Yet when the doors closed on a private supper that night the masks fell away. Maximian, livid with thwarted ambition, slammed a silver goblet hard enough to bruise the table.
"They sit on the Danube carving titles for lackeys while Rome lies open!" he snarled. "Your army is the strongest in the West—march it over the Alps and wrench the city from my ungrateful son before Galerius can breathe."
"My army secures the Rhine," Constantine replied, voice mild but immovable. "It is the wall that holds back ruin. I will not tear it down for haste."
"Fortune favors the bold," Maximian barked.
"And endures with the prudent," came the unblinking answer. The conversation died, but its poison lingered.
Over the following weeks Maximian stalked palace corridors in search of sympathizers. He praised old victories to seasoned centurions, compared scars with ambitious tribunes, dropped half-remembered favors into eager ears. Tribune Albinus, a cavalry officer hungry for distinction, emerged from one of these encounters flushed with pride and dangerous ideas. Valerius reported each exchange; Constantine listened in silence, only the tightening line of his mouth betraying thought.
When news arrived of Frankish raids near the Rhine delta, occasion met design. Constantine announced a rapid northern campaign to stamp out the incursions. First, however, he escorted Maximian to Arelate—key to the Rhône valley and the grain routes from Hispania—ostensibly to safeguard Gaul's southern flank.
In the city's praetorium he spread a wax map and spoke so that every officer present could hear. "While I ride north, the custody of Arelate, its treasury, and the detachments stationed here shall rest with Imperator Maximian, revered father of my house. Obey him as you would obey me."
Maximian's eyes glittered; the pretense of humility could not conceal hunger sharpening behind them. "I will defend it with my life, son."
That night Constantine summoned a single trusted courier from Valerius's network. "When the column passes Lugdunum," he said, "seed a tale that I was slain in a Frankish ambush—details, witnesses, the works. Let it drift to Arelate upon many lips, none traceable to you."
The agent bowed once, understanding both the order and its inevitability.
Constantine departed at dawn, banners snapping in a cold mistral, legionaries tramping east of the Rhône toward the Burgundian road. He felt no exhilaration, only the crisp lucidity that came before battle—not with Franks, but with the ambitions of men. Behind him, a dethroned emperor fondled the keys to a city and the weight of a treasury, believing the crown lay unguarded. Ahead of him, riders would soon gallop south bearing a rumor polished to lethal plausibility.
He did not look back. The game was finally under his hand: the rumor a lure, the treasury bait, the old serpent eager to strike. Stone walls, minted coins, reformed taxes—these were foundations. But dominion, Constantine knew, was won by engineering human momentum, steering it into traps from which there was no retreat.
As the northern forests swallowed the column and rain began to fall, he allowed himself a single thought of satisfaction: the empire was learning to dance to his design, and not even an emperor twice crowned could change the steps.