The roar of thousands gradually subsided into a sustained, fervent ovation as Alistair was carefully helped down from the shield. His legs felt unsteady, not from the precarious perch, but from the sheer, unyielding pressure of the moment. Crocus, the Alemannic king, was first to his side, his massive hand gripping Alistair's forearm in a warrior's pledge. "Augustus! We will follow you to the gates of Rome itself, if need be!"
Valerius, his face a mask of solemn pride, knelt, quickly followed by the other tribunes and centurions of the household guard who had pressed close. "Dominus Augustus, our lives are yours."
Alistair looked at their faces – fierce loyalty, opportunistic zeal, genuine grief for his father now transferred to the son. He inclined his head, a gesture of acknowledgment rather than humility. Constantine's memories supplied the expected words, the grace notes of leadership. "Your loyalty honors my father's memory, and binds me to you. Rome will remember this day, and the devotion of her soldiers in Britannia."
He needed to move, to channel this raw energy into order before it dissipated or curdled. "Valerius, ensure the men are seen to. There will be a donative, a proper one, in my father's name and mine." The promise of gold – the lifeblood of military loyalty. Constantine knew this. Alistair knew its absolute necessity. "Crocus, your counsel will be invaluable. Stay close."
Returning to the Praetorium was like entering a different building. Where before there was hushed anxiety, now an electric tension crackled. Staff hurried, eyes downcast or darting towards him with fear and awe. He was no longer just the grieving son; he was the source of power, however contested, however fragile.
Helena met him in the antechamber to his father's – now his – rooms. Her face was a storm of conflicting emotions: pride warred with a deep, maternal fear. "Constantine… Augustus?" The title was a question, a marvel, a dread.
"By the will of the legions, Mother," he confirmed, his tone flat. He saw the physician from his father's room hovering nervously nearby. "The formal rites for my father must be prepared. With all honor due an Augustus." That, at least, was a sentiment both Alistair and the shade of Constantine could agree upon. A proper burial was also a public statement.
"Of course, my son." She searched his face. "But the other Augusti… Galerius… they will not accept this."
"Their acceptance is not my primary concern at this moment," Alistair stated, perhaps more bluntly than Constantine would have. "Securing Britannia, then Gaul and Hispania – our father's territories – that is the first order of business. And the legions must be rewarded for their faith."
He quickly established a temporary command center in a large adjoining strategy room, its walls lined with maps of the provinces. Valerius, Crocus, and two senior tribunes of the Legio VI Victrix, men whose loyalty Constantine's memories marked as reliable, formed his initial, impromptu council.
"The donative," Alistair began, his gaze sweeping over them. "How much is in the provincial treasury here? And in Augusta Treverorum?" (Trier, his father's main capital in Gaul). Constantine's memory provided a baseline of figures, but current realities were needed.
The discussion was brisk, practical. Alistair listened more than he spoke initially, absorbing their assessments, cross-referencing with Constantine's knowledge of these men and their capabilities. His mind was a cold engine of calculation: so much gold available, so many troops to satisfy, so many logistical challenges in securing the wider territory. He noted who spoke with sense, who postured, who seemed to be holding back.
A message to Galerius, the senior Augustus in the East, was unavoidable. "We will dispatch an envoy," Alistair declared, after a period of intense internal debate. "He will carry a portrait of myself, wreathed in laurel, as is custom for a new Caesar. And a letter. We will inform him of my father's passing and my… elevation by the troops. We will request his formal recognition, but we will make it clear that the West remains under the governance of our house."
It was a carefully calibrated gamble. Claiming the full title of Augustus outright in the first message would be an immediate declaration of war. Requesting recognition as Caesar, while still asserting control over his father's territories, offered a sliver of a chance for a negotiated, if temporary, peace, or at least time to consolidate. Alistair knew Galerius's likely fury from Constantine's memories and his own historical knowledge. But buying time was paramount.
As one of the tribunes left to draft the letter under Alistair's precise, cold instructions, his gaze fell upon a detailed map of the Eastern Mediterranean. For an instant, the immediate pressures of Britannia and Gaul faded, and a different city, a place Constantine had never seen but whose future significance resonated within Alistair like a deep, alien chord, flashed in his mind: Byzantium. The thought was intrusive, anachronistic, a whisper of a grand, far-distant strategic imperative. He dismissed it. Survival came first. Empire building on that scale was a dream for another decade, if he lived to see it.
He turned back to the pressing reality. "Valerius, I want riders sent to every major garrison in Britannia by nightfall. They carry news of my acclamation and the promise of the donative. Their loyalty must be absolute."
Crocus grunted approval. "Words are wind. Gold speaks loudly to a soldier."
Alistair nodded. The price of acclaim was steep, paid first in promises, then in treasure, and ultimately, he knew, in blood. The legions had made him an Augustus. Now he had to prove he was worthy of the title, or die trying. The game for the Roman world had new stakes, and he was all in.