Chapter 38 - In Hoc Signo

For fourteen measured days Verona's broken walls rang not with cries of battle, but with hammer blows and the clatter of repair. Field surgeons packed wounds with honey and wine; armourers riveted fresh plates where axes had bitten; quartermasters emptied the city granaries with ruthless efficiency, filling Constantine's magazines until every legionary carried double rations of grain and dried pork. In the evenings the campfires burned high—by the emperor's order wine flowed freely—and from the ramparts citizens watched the victors singing their harsh Rhine-frontier marches beneath new banners sewn in Verona's workshops. Constantine walked the lines each dusk, cloak unfastened despite the October chill, speaking little, noting everything. Soldiers who met his lone eye found it unreadable, yet they felt seen, and their loyalty settled still deeper into the marrow.