"At Delphi a monster has been born—four ears, four eyes, two snouts, all covered with hair. The augurs say it is a bad omen—that the Holy Empire will be split up...."
"We shall see! we shall see! Write it all down in due order and submit it to me."
The Emperor went on with his morning toilet. He consulted his mirror again, and with a fine camel's-hair brush took up a morsel of rouge from the casket of filigree silver, shaped like a reliquary and crowned by a little cross, at his elbow. Constantius was devoutly religious; enamelled crosses and the monogram of Christ adorned every trinket in his private rooms. Exquisite and expensive paint called purpurissima, extracted from the scum on the purple mollusc while in a state of ebullition, was specially prepared for him. Constantius adroitly spread a faint flush of this over his withered brown cheek. From the room called Porphyria, where the regal vestments were kept in a pentagonal wardrobe, eunuchs bore forth the Imperial dalmatic. It was stiff, heavy with gold, encrusted with precious stones, and with lions and dragons embroidered on its amethystine purples.
In the main hall of the palace on that day was to be held the great Arian council. The Emperor slowly took his way thither along a gallery of pierced and fretted marble. Palace guards, or palatines, two-deep formed a long lane, mute as statues and holding lances fourteen cubits long crossed above the head of their master, as he paced in state between them. Constantine's banner of cloth of gold, the Labarum, surmounted by the monogram of Christ, shone rustling behind, borne by the officer of the Imperial largesses (comes sacrarum largitionum). Mute body-guards (silentiarii) heralded the procession, imposing silence on everyone they met.
In the gallery the Emperor encountered the Empress Eusebia Aurelia. She was a mature woman with a pale and weary face, delicate and noble features, a mischievous raillery sometimes kindling her keen eyes. Crossing her hands on the omophorium covered with sapphires and heart-shaped rubies, the Empress bowed profoundly and pronounced the habitual morning salutation:
"I am come for the joy of beholding you, O spouse well-beloved of the Lord! How has your Holiness deigned to sleep?"
Then, at a sign from her, the attendant maids of honour drew to a distance and she murmured sweetly, in a simpler and sincerer tone—
"Julian is to be received by you to-day. Receive him kindly! Don't believe these spying reports. He is a poor innocent boy. God will repay you, sire, if you grant him favour."
"You ask favour to him as a favour to yourself?"
The husband and wife exchanged a rapid glance.