Lord of Emperors (45 page)

There were those in the Hippodrome that day for whom the racing held more importance than mighty events of war and succession and holy faith. It is always so. The apprentice, decades after, might recall an announcement of war as having taken place the day the chambermaid finally went up to the loft with him. The long-awaited birth of a healthy child will resonate more for parents than the report of an invading army on the border or the consecrating of a sanctuary. The need to finish the harvest before frost overwhelms any response to the death of kings. A flux in the bowels obliterates the weightiest Pronouncements of holy Patriarchs. The great events of an age appear, to those living through them, as backdrops only to the vastly more compelling dramas of their own lives, and how could it be otherwise?

In this same way, many of the men and women there in the Hippodrome (and some who were not, but later claimed to have been) would cling to one private image or another of what transpired. They might be entirely different things, varying moments, for each of us has strings within the soul, and we are played upon in different ways, like instruments, and how could it be otherwise?

Carullus the soldier, once of the Fourth Sauradian, very briefly a chiliarch of the Second Calysian cavalry, had been most recently reassigned- without ever having reported north, and for reasons he didn't understand as yet-to the personal guard of the Supreme Strategos Leontes, receiving his (quite handsome) pay from the Strategos's own accounts.

He was therefore still in the City and sitting with his wife in the military officers" section of the Hippodrome, having accepted that his current position and rank made it inappropriate for him to stand or sit among the Green partisans any more. There was a palpable undercurrent of tension among the officers in attendance around them, and it had little to do with the racing. It had been made clear that an important announcement would be made here today. It wasn't hard to guess what that might be. Leontes wasn't in the kathisma yet, nor was the Emperor here this afternoon, but the afternoon had a long way to run.

Carullus looked at his wife. Kasia was attending her first racing, was still visibly uneasy in crowds. The unaligned officers" section of the stands was certain to be less unruly than the Greens" standing area, but he was still worrying about her. He wanted her to enjoy this, and be present for what was likely to be a memorable moment at the end of the day. He'd been here by himself in the morning and had collected her at home during the midday recess: an entire day at the Hippodrome would have been rather too much to ask of Kasia. Notwithstanding his hopes, he was aware that she was here only as an indulgence to him and his passion for the chariots.

It was wondrous, actually, that a woman would do that.

Officers, especially those attached to the Strategos, were well treated in the City. They had splendid seats, not quite halfway along the opening straight, and low down. Most of the crowd was behind and above them, so Kasia could concentrate on the horses and drivers below. He'd thought that would be good.

Being so near, and with the staggered start line that put the outside quadrigas farther along the track, they were quite close to the last three teams. Crescens of the Greens was starting sixth. Carullus pointed him out to his wife, reminded her that the racer had been among those at their wedding, and then made a quick jest when the Greens" First Charioteer withdrew under the stands just before the race was to begin, leaving his team to the handlers. Kasia smiled a little; one of the other officers laughed.

With a real attempt at self-control-though he was very excited and extremely happy-Carullus tried not to point out
everything
going on to his bride. She did know that Scortius was missing. Every soul in Sarantium knew that. He was aware by now that his voice soothed her as much as his protective presence, however, so he did tell her briefly (as brief as he ever was) about the transaction that had led to the right-side horse in Crescens" quadriga being exchanged for the young rider currently wearing the silver helmet for the Blues in the fifth lane. He'd explained about right-side horses, too. And that meant talking about left-siders, of course, which in turn meant…

She had been interested in some of it, though not in the way he'd expected. She asked him more about how the boy could be sold from one team to another, whether he liked it or not. Carullus had pointed out that no one was
making
him race, or even remain in Sarantium, but he didn't, somehow, think that her underlying question had been answered. He'd changed the subject, pointing out the various monuments in the spina across the track.

Then a roaring had begun, and he'd turned quickly towards the tunnel, and his jaw had dropped as Scortius and Crescens walked out onto the sands together.

People see different things, remember different things, though all might be looking in the same direction. Carullus was a soldier, had been all his adult life. He saw how Scortius was walking and drew some immediate conclusions, even before they came nearer and he noted blood on the man's left side. It affected everything else he saw and felt when the race began, and everything he would recall afterwards: a shading of crimson to the afternoon, right when it began, before anything was known.

Kasia didn't notice any of this. She was watching the other man-quite close to them actually-the one in Green who now mounted up again in the chariot he'd left before. She remembered him at her wedding: burly, confident, centre of a circle, making others laugh in the way that people laughed when the jests were offered by someone important, whether or not they were truly amusing.

Crescens of the Greens was at the very peak of this profession, Carullus had told her (among the very many things he'd told her), had won every important race last week and this morning, with Scortius missing. The Greens were exultant, in glory, the man was spectacularly triumphant.

For Kasia, that made it genuinely interesting how readily she could read the apprehension in him.

He stood just below them in his chariot, methodically wrapping the long reins about his body. Carullus had explained about that, too. But the Green rider kept casting glances back and to his left where the other man, Scortius, was now entering a chariot, nearer the place where all the statues were. Kasia wondered if others could see this anxiety, or if it was simply that, after a year at Morax's, she was attuned to such things now. She wondered if she always would be.

"Holy Jad in the sun, he's riding Second chariot!" Carullus breathed, as one might speak a prayer. His tone was rapt; his face, when she glanced over at him, was transfixed, almost in pain.

She was intrigued enough to ask. He explained this to her, as well. Did it quickly, mind you, because as soon as all the various reins were tied where they appeared to belong and the handlers had withdrawn to the inside or outside of the track and the yellow-garbed officials had done the same, a white handkerchief was dropped by the Master of the Senate in the kathisma, as a single trumpet blew a single note and a silver seahorse dived from overhead, and the race began.

There was quite a lot of dust then.

Cleander Bonosus ceased to be a Green that day. He didn't switch allegiance, but rather-as he would often tell the tale afterwards, including one memorable oration at a murder trial-he felt as if he had somehow been lifted
above
faction alliances during the first race of the afternoon on the second Hippodrome day of that spring.

Or just before the race, perhaps, when he'd seen the man his friends had stabbed and kicked in a dark street, the man he'd heard ordered to remain at rest until summer, come walking out on the sands to claim the
Second
team of the Blues. Not the silver helmet which was his by right.

Or even before
that,
it could be said. For Cleander, looking for his mother and the Bassanid doctor, had been peering into the tunnel, not admiring the charioteers taking their positions on the sand. He'd been low down and close enough and so he-perhaps alone of eighty thousand-had actually seen Crescens of the Greens hammer an elbow into someone's side just as they came into the light, and then he'd seen who that someone was.

He would always remember that. His heart had begun pounding then, and it went on hammering in his chest all the way to the start of the race, which came just as his mother and the doctor reclaimed their seats. Both of them-at a glance-seemed unexpectedly strained, but Cleander had no time to consider that. There was a race on and Scortius was back.

The sea-horse dived. Eight quadrigas burst from the staggered starting line, heading towards the white marking down the track where they could leave their lanes and the wild manoeuvring would begin.

By instinct, habit, force, Cleander's gaze went to Crescens, as the First of the Greens whipped his team off from the sixth position. Not a good start post, but the boy leading the Blues was only in fifth, so it didn't much matter. Scortius was much lower down the track in the second lane, but with a lesser team. Cleander didn't understand how and why that had happened. The Greens" second driver had the rail and would try to keep it until Crescens worked his way down.

Or so it usually unfolded in this sort of alignment.

But Crescens was going to have a slow route down this time, it seemed. Taras of the Blues had his own team out at least as fast. Crescens couldn't cut him off at the chalk without fouling or spilling his own chariot. The two first teams would descend together, and then the Greens would work on the Blue rider in tandem as they had all morning. It was a long race, seven laps. Plenty of time.

Except that everyone knew the starts mattered enormously. A race could end before the first lap was done. And Scortius was in this one.

Cleander turned to see what was happening with the Blues" second team, and then he never looked away. Scortius had brilliantly anticipated the handkerchief and trumpet, had a superb start, was lashing his horses furiously already. He had
burst
from the line, had opened a gap between himself and the Greens on the rail. He might even be able to get down, take the inside lane away as soon as they hit the white chalk. It would be close.

"Which one is he?" his stepmother said beside him.

"Second lane," he rasped, pointing, never turning away from the track. It only occurred to him later that there had been no need to speak the name. "He's riding Second chariot, not First! Watch him try for the rail."

The horses hit the chalk. He didn't try for the rail.

Instead, he went
up
the track, slicing sharply right, well ahead of the slower White and Red quadrigas in the third and fourth lanes. Both of them seized the entirely unexpected opening and went down and left behind him, sacrificing a moment of speed for the vital inner lanes.

Later, Cleander would understand how that must have been part of it. They went to the left, had to slow to do it, and so space was created. It was all about space. Cleander felt, in retrospect, as if all these thundering, bunched chariots at the start, spinning wheels, thirty-two flying horses, lashing, straining men, were all like small wooden toys, the sort a boy played with, imagining a Hippodrome on his bedroom floor, and Scortius was moving them the way that boy might move his toys, godlike.

'Watch out!"
someone shouted, just behind them. And with cause. The two Blue quadrigas were on a collision course, the boy in the First chariot heading down as expected with Crescens right beside him, Scortius angling straight towards them both, going entirely the wrong way,
away
from the rail. Scortius's mouth was wide open, Cleander saw, and he was screaming something in that chaos of dust and speed and incoherence.

Then it wasn't incoherent at all, for something exquisite took place, clear as anything in the fury and mire of human life could be, if you understood enough to see it.

And being careful in his recollections, tracking back along the arc of his feelings, Cleander would finally decide that
this
was the true moment when allegiance and partisanship gave way to something else in him: a desire that never left him, all his life, to see that level of skill and grace and courage again, garbed in whatever colours they might choose to wear for a moment's bright, sunlit glory on the sands.

In a way, his childhood ended when Scortius went up the track and not down.

His stepmother saw only the same initial confusion of dust and fury that Kasia observed from her similar vantage point farther along. There was a roiling tumult inside her, making it quite impossible for her to sort out the chaos below from the chaos within. She felt unwell, thought she might be physically sick, a humiliation in this public place. She was aware of the Bassanid physician on her other side, was half inclined to curse him for being the agent of her presence here, and for seeing what he… might have seen in the dim light under the stands.

If he spoke a single word, Thena'i's decided, if he but asked after her health, she would… she didn't
know
what she would do.

And that was such appalling, unknown terrain for her-not being sure of exactly what to do. He didn't speak. A blessing. Stick at his side-that ridiculous affectation, as bad as the dyed beard-he seemed intent on the chariots with all the others. It was why they were all here, wasn't it? Well, it was, for everyone but her, perhaps.

I expect you to win this race,
she had said. In that strange, filtered half-light. After trying to kill him. Had no idea why she'd said that, it had just come out, from the tumult inside her. She
never
did things like that.

It was declared and taught in the holy chapels of Jad that daemons of the half-world hovered, always, intimately close to mortal men and women, and they could enter into you, making you other than what you were, had always been. The knife was in her cloak again. He had given it back to her. She shivered in the sunlight.