“You have changed,” she said.

“I’m almost two years older than when you saw me last,” Constantine reminded her. “But I am still a tribune and,” he added with a slight touch of bitterness in his voice, “still the Emperor’s lackey.”

“The change goes deeper than that. You’ve become a man, and more like your father.”

“You haven’t changed, Mother. If anything, you look younger.”

“Having a baby to care for again brings youth to a grandmother. Come inside and see your son.”

Constantine had somehow expected

The baby was sleeping. Constantine had somehow expected him to be a miniature of his mother, but he saw instead a sturdy infant whose resemblance to himself and his own father was startling. If Minervina had given Crispus anything save life thereby losing her own it was his hair, which was light in color like hers.

“He’s the image of you when you were that age,” Helena said happily. “I only pray God that he will grow up to be the fine man you have become.”

“Pray God,” he repeated. “You haven’t become a Christian, have you, Mother?”

“Not yet. But they are a kind and harmless people and much in their teachings appeal to me. Why do you ask?”

“The Emperor dislikes them, I think because Empress Prisca and Lady Valeria have taken up that faith. Galerius is already purging his army of Christians and I hear that Maximian is doing the same. Diocletian is certain to follow.”

“Minervina was a Christian. She was baptized just before death and I’m sure it gave her the strength to die happily.”

Constantine remembered the basin or font in the small room off the meeting chamber in the ruins of the church at DuraEuropos and Josiah’s explanation of its use. Ever since his conversation with Eusebius in the vestibule of the church at Antioch, he had resolutely put all thoughts of the faith built around the figure of the man called Christ from his mind. Nor did he let it enter now, after warning his mother, but turned to touch the tiny hand of the baby sleeping in his crib. The small fingers curled about his own with a surprisingly strong grip, and having one so small and helpless unconsciously show its confidence in his protection and care somehow warmed him through and through, making him feel that he was home at last.

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