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PROLOGUE



Near Constantinopolis, August 521 AD

''Constantinopolis is in sight'' launched a sailor as he entered the cabin. Senator Liberius and Princess Serena were lunching with the captain at this moment.

The old senator, nearing his sixties, looked relieved that the long trip was nearing its end. The great traveller he was had already conducted many diplomatic missions between Narbo and Constantinopolis and was now very tired, but he knew he had to do it. This last mission was surely the most critical of his carreer.

The princess, 35 years old, looked more resignated than happy. All her life, she had lived within palaces and the churches, and now, she found herself sent thousands of miles away from her home as were her elder sisters. Her father had told her her role, her duty. For the previous two years, she had known it would happen, from the moment the old Senator had returned from his diplomatic trip to meet the new August of Oriens.
Justinianus. Senator Liberius had long spoken of him to her father when he came back. His uncle was maybe the new August, but Justinus was old. Justinianus had become a very important adviser to his uncle and was the heir apparent. Everyone in Narbo, and especially her August father, had become convinced that Justinianus, a man born to a family of peasants, was then the power behind the Eastern throne, and an important detail to everyone, he wasn't married.
It was the perfect occasion. Since the days of Orestes, relations between Narbo and Constantinopolis had never been very warm, but now, there was a proper Orthodox Chalcedonian August in Oriens. The first contacts taken by Senator Liberius had been very promising and let hope of a common front against the Ostrogoths. Her father resigned himself to let leave his last daughter, but for the good of the Western Empire, she would become an Empress.


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Half a century earlier

AD 469 - This year, the Saxons came to Aquitania, and all the wrath of God fell on the Visigoths.
Chronica Saxonum, Isidorus of Tolosa (late 6th century)


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In our TL :

The Britton army and its mercenaries was routed at Déols by the Visigoths. The surviving Saxon contingent mutinied and attempted to make its way back to Britain. Some stayed in Gallia to serve Eadwacer in the Loire valley. Aurelianus, wounded, took refuge in Burgundia and died at the town of Aballo, today Avallon. After his death, the Saxons and the Jutes resumed war against the Brittons. After the death of Aurelianus, there was no one, even Einion Yrth who became Dux Bellorum, able to maintain his work. The petty kings retook their autonomy and the centralized military government of Aurelianus fell apart. There was to wait another generation before the Dux Bellorum King Owain of Gwynedd, nicknamed Owain the Bear, succesfully relieved the besieged Mons Badonicus, effectively halting Saxon expansion for a generation. But then, it was not longer possible to divert flows of Saxons from Germany to Gallia where the Franks and the Visogoths had firmly established their grip. Eventually, in the late 520's, the Saxons resumed their advance, capturing Londinium, and half a century later cut the Brittons of Dumnonia from those of Cambria at the battle of Deorham, while central Britannia and the eastern side of the Pennines were overrun by the Angles.

Meanwhile, on the continent, the Visigothic victory allowed King Euric to consolidate his hold over Gallia between Loire and Rhone valleys, conquering Auvergne, Tarraconensis and Provence, and pushed the Romans back into Italy. In 476, the usurper Orestes, unwilling to give one third of the Italian motherland to the foederati who helped him to conquer power as a reward, was killed and his son was deposed. In northern Gallia, the Franks annexed the last independent Roman land in Occidens in 486.
Thus disappeared the Western Roman Empire.

But, what if ...​
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