"Lord of Emperors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kay Guy Gavriel)

CHAPTER X

Cleander had done well by them, it appeared.

They were not among the enormous block of Green partisans-his mother had expressly forbidden that-but it seemed the boy had sufficient contacts by now among the Hippodrome crowd to have obtained excellent seats low down and near the starting line. Some of the morning attendees among the wealthier classes were inclined to miss the afternoon, it seemed. Cleander had found three seats that way. They had a clear, close view of the cumbersome looking start apparatus and the jumble of monuments along the spina, and could even see into the roofed interior space where the performers and charioteers were even now awaiting the signal to come out for the afternoon procession. Beyond that, Cleander had pointed out another entrance to and from the vast spaces under the stands. He called it the Death Gate, with evident relish.

The boy, dressed with perfect sobriety in brown and gold with a wide leather belt and his long, barbarian-style hair brushed back, was urgently pointing out all that took place to his stepmother and the physician whose servant he'd killed two weeks before. He seemed wildly happy and very young, Rustem thought, aware of ironies.

Thenai's had already been saluted by at least half a dozen men and women sitting nearby and had introduced Rustem with flawless formality to them. No one asked why she wasn't in the kathisma with her husband. This was a well-bred, well-dressed section of the Hippodrome. There might be shouting and jostling above them in the standing places but not down here.

Or perhaps, Rustem thought, not until the horses began running again. He acknowledged, with professional interest, an excitement within himself, undermining detachment. The mood of the crowd-he had never in his life been among so many people-was communicating itself, undeniably.

A trumpet sounded. "Here they come," said Oleander, on the far side of his mother. "The Greens have the most wonderful juggler, you'll see him right after the Hippodrome Prefect's horse."

"No faction talk," said Thenai's quietly, eyes on the gateway to the sands, where a horseman had indeed appeared.

"I'm not," said the boy. "Mother, I'm just… telling you things."

It became difficult to tell-or hear-things just about then, as the crowd erupted into full-throated salutation, like a beast with one voice.

Behind the single horseman came a dazzling, multicoloured array of performers. The juggler Cleander had mentioned was tossing sticks set on fire. Beside and behind him capered dancers dressed in blue and green, and then red and white, doing back flips and wheel-like movements. One walked on her hands, shoulders twisted into a position that made Rustem wince. She'd be unable to lift a cup without pain by the time she was forty, the doctor thought. Another entertainer, ducking his head to clear the tunnel roof, came striding out on high sticks that elevated him to giant size, and he managed, somehow, to dance on the sticks from that great height. Clearly a favourite, his appearance led to an even louder roar of approval. There came musicians with drums and flutes and cymbals. Then more dancers sprinted past, criss-crossing each other, long streamers of coloured fabric in their hands, drifting in the breeze and with the speed of their running. Their clothing was lifting, too, and there wasn't over-much of it. The women would have been stoned in Bassania for appearing in public so nearly naked, Rustem thought.

Then there came, just after them, the chariots.

"That's Crescens! Glory of the Greens!" shouted Oleander, ignoring his mother's injunction, pointing at a man in a silver helmet. He paused. "And beside him, that's the young one. Taras. For the Blues. He's riding first chariot again." He quickly looked across at Rustem. "Scortius isn't here."

"What?" said a florid, ginger-haired man behind Thenai's, leaning forward, brushing her. Cleander's mother shifted to one side, avoiding the contact, her face impassive as she watched the chariots emerge from the wide tunnel to the left of them. "You expected him? No one has any idea where he is, boy."

Oleander said nothing to that, which was a blessing. The boy didn't entirely lack sense. Behind the two lead chariots, the others came rolling quickly out as the performers ahead of them danced and tumbled down the long straight towards the kathisma at the far end. It was impossible to make out who was sitting there, but Rustem knew that Plautus Bonosus was among the elite in that roofed box. The boy had told him earlier, with an unexpected note of pride, that his father sometimes dropped the white cloth to start the games if the Emperor was absent.

The last chariots, riders clad in white and red over their leather, rolled out of the tunnel. The single horseman and lead dancers were on the far side now, beyond the monuments, would exit through a second gate over there after leading the parade past those seats and stands.

"I believe," said Thenai's Sistina, "that I require a moment out of the sun. Are there refreshments of any kind through that gate?" She gestured at the space through which the horses had come.

"Well, yes," said Oleander. "There are all sorts of food stands inside. But you go back up and then down the stairs to get under. You can't go through the Procession Gate, there's a guard there."

"Indeed there is," said his mother. "I see him. I imagine he'll let me through, spare a woman the long walk around."

"You can't. And you certainly can't just go alone, mother. This is the Hippodrome."

"Thank you, Cleander, I appreciate your concern that there might be… unruly people here." Her expression was unreadable, but the boy flushed crimson. "I have no intention of stepping where all those horses have gone, and I wouldn't dream of going alone. Doctor, will you be so good…?"

More reluctantly than he'd have wanted to admit, Rustem stood up, holding his walking stick. He might miss the start of this now. "But of course, my lady," he murmured. "Do you feel unwell?"

"A moment in the shade and something cool to drink will be enough," the woman said. "Cleander, remain here and conduct yourself with dignity. We will be back, of course." She rose and moved past Rustem in the aisle to walk down two more steps and then along the narrow space between the first row of seats and the barrier to the sands. As she went, she put up her hood, hiding her face within it.

Rustem followed, stick in hand. No one paid them any attention. He saw people moving about all over the Hippodrome, taking their places or heading for refreshments or the latrines. All eyes were on the noisy procession below. Stopping a discreet distance behind the Senator's wife, he saw her address the guard at the low, gated barrier where the walkway ended, just beside the grand Procession Gates a few steps below.

The guard's initial expression of brusque indifference melted quite swiftly as Thenai's said whatever it was she said. He looked quickly around to be sure there was no one nearby, and then unbarred the low portal at the end of the walkway and let her through into the covered space beneath the stands. Rustem followed, pausing to give the man a coin.

It was only when he walked into the vaulted tunnel, watching carefully to avoid the evidence that horses had just passed, that Rustem saw a man standing alone in the muted light of this atrium, clad in the leather of a charioteer, and a blue tunic.

The woman had stopped just inside, was waiting for Rustem. She said quietly, from within her sheltering hood, "You were correct, doctor. It seems your patient, our unexpected houseguest, is here after all. Do give me a moment with him, will you?"

And without waiting for a reply, she walked towards the man standing alone in the tunnel. There were two yellow-clad track attendants by the wide, high gates, not far from the small one where Rustem stood. They had clearly been about to swing them shut. Equally clearly, from the way they were looking at Scortius, they were not about to do so now.

He hadn't yet been noticed by anyone else. Must have remained hidden in the shadows here until the chariots rolled out. There were three main tunnels and half a dozen smaller ones branching from this large atrium. The Hippodrome's interior space was vast, cavernous, could hold more people than dwelled in Kerakek, Rustem realized. People lived their lives here, he knew, in apartments down those corridors. There would be stables, shops, food stalls and drinking places, doctors, whores, cheiromancers, chapels. A city within the City. And this open, high-roofed atrium would normally be a bustling, thronged gathering place, echoing with sounds. It would be again in a few moments, Rustem guessed, when the parade performers returned down tunnels from the far side.

At the moment, it was nearly empty, dim and dusty after the bright light outside. He saw the Senator's wife walk towards the charioteer. She pushed back her hood. He saw Scortius turn his head-rather late-and notice her, and so Rustem registered the sudden change in his posture and manner, and some things came clear with that.

He was, after all, an observant man. A good doctor had to be. Indeed, the King of Kings had sent him to Sarantium because of it.

He had anticipated a number of things, including the distinct possibility that he might collapse before getting to the Hippodrome, but having Thenais appear in the empty, echoing space of the Processional Atrium had not been one of them.

The two attendants at the gates had seen him as soon as he came out from one of the residential tunnels, after the last of the chariots had gone. A finger to his lips had ensured their immediate, slack-jawed complicity. They would be drinking until all hours on this tale tonight, he knew. And for many nights to come.

He was waiting for the right moment to go forward. Knew that he had-at best-only one race in him today, and a message had to be given with maximum impact, to sustain the Blues, quiet the roiling of unrest, serve notice to Crescens and the others.

And assuage his own pride. He needed to race again, remind them all that whatever the Greens might do during this opening of the season, Scortius was among them yet and was still what he had always been.

If it was true.

He might have made a mistake. It had become necessary to acknowledge that. The slow, long walk from Bonosus's house by the walls had been amazingly difficult, and the wound had opened up at some point. He hadn't even noticed, until he'd seen blood on his tunic. He was very short of breath, felt pain whenever he tried to draw in more air. He ought to have hired a litter, or arranged to have Astorgus send one, but he hadn't even told the factionarius he was doing this. Stubbornness had always had a price-why should it be different now? This arrival for the afternoon's first race, this entrance on foot across the sands to the starting line, was entirely his own statement. No one in Sarantium knew he was coming.

Or so he had thought. Then he saw Thenai's approaching in the diffused light, and his heart thumped hard within his broken ribs. She never came to the Hippodrome. If she was here, it was because she'd come looking for him, and he had no idea how-

He saw the Bassanid then, behind her, grey-bearded, slender, holding that stick he affected for the dignity of it. And silently in that moment, Scortius of Soriyya swore, with intense feeling.

He could see it now. The accursed physician would have felt some wretched sort of professional duty. Would have found him gone, deduced it was a race day, sought a way to attend, and-

This time when he swore it was aloud, like a soldier in a caupona, though under his breath.

The man would have gone to Bonosus's house, of course.

To Cleander. Who was banned by his father from attending the races this spring-he had told them so. Which meant they'd have had to talk to Thenai's. Which meant-

She stopped directly in front of him. Her remembered scent was with him again. He looked at her, met that clear gaze, felt a constriction in his throat. She seemed cool, poised-and he could feel the force of her rage like a blast from an oven.

"All of Sarantium," she murmured, "will rejoice to see you well again, charioteer."

They were alone in a vast space. For a little time. The parade would be ending, the others coming noisily back through the tunnels.

"I am honoured that you are the first to say as much," he said. "My lady, I hope you received my note."

"It was so thoughtful of you to write," she said. The brittle formality was its own message. "I do apologize, of course, that I was with my family for a short while that night when you felt such an… urgent need for my company." She paused. "Or for that of any woman who might offer her body to a celebrated charioteer."

"Thenai's," he said.

And stopped. She had, he belatedly saw, a knife in her right hand. And so he finally understood what this encounter really was. He closed his eyes. There had always been this possibility, in the life he'd lived.

"Yes?" she said, the tone as detached, as composed as ever. "I thought I heard someone say my name."

He looked at her. He could not have named or even numbered the women who had shared his nights over the years. All the years. Not one had found a way to unsettle him as this one had, and still did. He felt old suddenly, and tired. His wound hurt. He remembered the same feeling, the night he'd gone looking for her. His shoulder aching in the night wind.

"It was me," he said quietly. "I said your name. I say it most nights, Thenai's."

"Really? How diverting that must be for the woman lying with you at the time," she said.

The two gatekeepers were watching them. One still had his mouth agape. It could have been amusing. The wretched physician remained a precise, polite distance away. It was probable that none of them had seen the dagger in the soft light.

Scortius said, "I went to the house of Shirin of the Greens to present her with an offer from Astorgus."

"Ah. He wanted to bed her?"

"You are being unkind."

He winced at what flashed in her eyes then, realized anew just how enraged she was.

The lifelong mask of control, of absolute, flawless poise: what happened to such a person when something broke right through. He drew a too-deep breath, felt the shock of pain in his ribs, said, "He wanted to invite her, discreetly, to join the Blues. I had promised to add my voice to the proposal."

"Your voice," she said. There was a glitter in her eyes. He had never seen it before. "Just your voice? In the middle of the night. Climbing up to her bedroom. How… persuasive."

"It is the truth," he said.

"Indeed. And did you bed her?"

She had no right to ask. To answer was a betrayal of another woman who had offered him wit and kindness and shared pleasure.

It never occurred to him not to answer, or to lie. "Yes," he said. "Unexpectedly."

"Ah. Unexpectedly." The knife was very still in her hand.

"Where did they hurt you?" she asked.

There were noises now from one of the tunnels. The first dancers had left the sands. Beyond her, through the Processional Gates, he could see the eight chariots of the first race wheeling back around and up towards the slant of the start line.

And suddenly it seemed to him that it might actually be enough, what he had done with his life thus far. That the look in this woman's eyes spoke to a level of pain he'd caused-an unfair burden, perhaps, but how did fairness enter into life? — and he could die here, after all, accepting it from her, in this place. He had never expected to grow old.

He said, "Left side. A stab wound, broken ribs around it."

All he had wanted to do once, long ago, was race horses.

She nodded, biting at her lower lip thoughtfully, a single line across her brow. "How unfortunate. I have a knife."

"I did see that."

"If I wished to hurt you very, very much before you died…?"

"You would stab me here," he said, and showed her. There was blood, in any case. It could be seen welling through the blue tunic.

She looked at him. "You wish to die?"

He considered it then. "Not really, no. But I would not want to live if it caused you so much grief"

She drew a breath then. Courage and pain and a kind of… madness. That fierce, never-before-seen glinting in her eye. "You can't imagine I'd be long behind you."

He closed his eyes again, opened them. "Thenai's, there is… so much wrong in that. But I am prepared for whatever you desire."

The knife still did not move. "You should have lied to me, just now. When I asked."

So small he had been, that first time his father let him sit astride a stallion. They'd had to lift him up, his legs sticking out almost straight when he was seated on the big horse. Laughter at that. Then a sudden silence from the men around them, when the animal grew still under the touch of the child on its back. In Soriyya. Far away. Long ago.

A lifetime. He shook his head. "You shouldn't have asked," he said. It was truth, he would not lie.

She drew back the blade then. He was looking straight into her eyes, at what was-so terribly-revealed there when another lifetime's composure fell entirely away.

And because he was doing so, almost falling into her gaze, entangled in her and in memory, oblivious even to the hard upward movement of the small hand that held the knife, he didn't see the swift-striding man come from behind her then and seize her by the wrist, screening the gesture with his own body.

He twisted. The knife fell.

She made no sound, after the first sharp whimper of shock.

"My lady," said Crescens of the Greens, "forgive me."

She looked at him. Scortius looked at him. The three of them stood alone in a huge, dim space. Crescens said, "No man who ever lived is worth what this would mean to you. Put up your hood, please, my lady. There will be people here very soon. If he has offended, there are so many of us who will deal with that."

It was uncanny-and the memory was to stay with Scortius-how swiftly her face changed, how the conduit to a kind of fever in her soul slammed shut to the world as Thenai's looked at the Greens" charioteer. She didn't even give any sign that her wrist was paining her, though it had to be. He had moved very fast, twisted hard.

"You misunderstand," she murmured. And even smiled. A perfect court smile, detached and meaningless. The iron bars of control crashing down again. Scortius actually shivered, seeing it, hearing her voice change. He was aware of the rapid thread of his pulse. A moment ago he had actually expected…

She put up her hood. Said: "It seems my wayward stepson played a role in our mutual friend's injury. He has told my husband a version of the tale. It is not believed. Before we punish the boy-the Senator is furious, of course-I wanted to ascertain from Scortius himself just what took place. It involved a knife, you see, and an allegation of a stabbing."

It was nonsense. Words spoken to have words spoken. A tale that could not possibly hold, unless one wished to allow it to hold. Crescens of the Greens might be a brawling, hard man on the track and in the taverns and the in Green compound, and he'd only been a single year in Sarantium, but he was First of the Greens, had been invited to court by now, spent a winter in the aristocratic circles the leading racers came to know. He'd have seen his share of bedrooms, too, Scortius thought.

The man knew what this was, how to conduct himself.

His apology was passionate, immediate-and brief, for there were loud sounds now in the southern tunnels. "You must allow me," said Crescens, "to call upon you, I beg, to more fully express my contrition. I appear to have blundered like an untutored provincial. My lady, I am ashamed." He looked over. "And I must return to the sands, while you should-if I may urge you-allow your escort to take you from this space, which will be no place at all for a lady in a moment."

They could hear rolling wheels and boisterous laughter around the dark curve of the largest tunnel. Scortius had said nothing, had not even moved. The knife lay on the ground. He bent now, carefully, and picked it up with his right hand. Gave it back to Thenai's. Their fingers touched.

She smiled, a smile thin as river ice in the north when the winter's freezing has not yet made it safe. "Thank you," she said. "Thank you both." She looked over her shoulder. The Bassanid doctor had stayed where he was through all of this. Now he came forward, impeccably grave.

He looked at Scortius first. His own charge. "You understand your coming here… alters things?"

"I do," Scortius said. "I am very sorry."

His physician nodded. "With this," said the Bassanid, "I will not contend." There was a blunt finality to his tone.

"I understand," said Scortius. "I am grateful for all you have done until now."

The doctor turned away. "May I escort you, my lady? You mentioned a cooling drink?"

"I did," she said. Thank you, yes." She looked at the Bassanid thoughtfully for a moment as if considering new information, and then turned back to Scortius. "I expect you to win this race," she murmured. "From what my son tells me, our dear Crescens has won sufficiently in your absence."

And with that, she turned and went away with the physician, towards the stairs and the concession booths and stalls on the level above them.

The two charioteers stood alone, looked at each other.

"What was he talking about?" Crescens jerked his chin towards the receding figure of the physician.

"Disclaiming responsibility if I kill myself."

"Ah."

"They do that in Bassania. You needed a piss?"

The Green rider nodded. "Always do, after lunch."

"I know."

"Saw you. Came to say hello. Saw the knife. You're bleeding."

"I know."

"Are you… back for good?"

Scortius hesitated. "Probably not yet. I recover quickly, mind you. Or I used to."

Crescens smiled sourly. "We all used to." His turn to hesitate. People would be emerging any moment now. They both knew it. "She couldn't possibly have hurt you unless you let her."

"Yes, well, that's… Tell me, how's your new trace horse?"

Crescens looked at him a moment, then nodded his head in acceptance. "I like him. Your young driver…"

"Taras."

"Taras. Bastard has the makings of a racer. I didn't see it last year." He grinned, wolfishly. "I'm planning to break his heart this spring."

"Of course you are."

The Green rider's smile deepened. "You wanted a lovely appearance all by yourself, didn't you? Returning hero, walking across the sand alone? By Heladikos, what an entrance!"

Scortius's expression was wry. "I'd thought of it."

But he was really thinking about the woman, images interwoven with memories of his childhood, amazingly, and the feeling he'd had looking into her eyes just before the knife moved. You should have lied to me. He had been about to let her stab him. Crescens was right. An other-worldly mood, a state of being she had shaped, with those glittering eyes, in the dusty half-light. It seemed a dream already, only moments after. He didn't think the dream was going to go away.

Crescens said, "I don't believe I can allow you that entrance. I'm sorry. Saving your fucking life's one thing. Trivial. But giving you that kind of a return's another. Very bad for Green morale."

One had to smile. One was back in the Hippodrome. The world it made within the world. "I can see that. Let's go together, then."

They went together, just as the first dancers began emerging from the darkness of the tunnel to their left.

"Thank you, by the way," Scortius added, as they approached the two yellow-clad guards at the doors.

I expect you to win this race, she had said. After the doctor had formally disclaimed responsibility if he killed himself. She had come under the stands with a knife. She had come to the Hippodrome with one. She knew what she was saying. You can't imagine I'd be long behind you. He had long thought, before ever really knowing her, that there was something extraordinary beneath her celebrated reserve. Then he'd thought, arrogantly, that he'd found it, defined it. He'd been wrong. There was so much more. Should he have known?

"Thank you? Not at all," said Crescens. "Too boring here without you, winning against children. Mind you, I do want to keep winning."

And as they passed the two guards, just before they walked out on the bright sands together, into the sight of eighty thousand people, he hammered an elbow entirely without warning into the injured man's left side.

Scortius gasped, staggered. The world reeled, went red in his sight.

"Oh! Sorry!" the other man exclaimed. "Are you all right?"

Scortius had doubled over, clutching his side. They were in the entrance now. Would be seen in a stride or two. With a shuddering, racking effort he forced himself to straighten, started moving again, an act of will more than anything else. Was still desperately fighting for breath. Heard, as in a fever, the first roars of the crowd nearest to them.

It began. The volume of noise growing, and growing, rolling along the first straightway like a wave, the sound of his name. Crescens was beside him but it was a mistake on his part, really, for only one name was heard, over and again. A screaming. He struggled to breathe without passing out, to keep moving, not to double over again, not put a hand to his wound.

"I am a terrible man," said Crescens cheerfully beside him, waving to the crowd as if he'd personally fetched the other rider back from the dead like some hero of the ancient tales. "By Heladikos, I really am."

He wanted to kill, and to laugh at the same time. Laughing would probably kill him. He was back in the Hippodrome. The world of it. Out on the sands. Saw the horses up ahead. Wondered how one walked so far.

Knew he was going to do it, somehow.

And in that same moment, seeing the drivers ahead of them swivelling to look back and stare, looking at the teams and their positions, and at one in particular, he had his idea, swift as horses, a gift. He actually smiled, baring his teeth, through breathing was very difficult. There was more than one wolf here, he thought. By Heladikos, there was.

"Watch me," he said then, to the other charioteer, to himself, to the boy he'd been once on that stallion in Soriyya, to all of them, the god and his son and the world. He saw Crescens look quickly over at him. Was aware, triumphantly, through the red, stabbing pain, of sudden anxiety in the other man's features.

He was Scortius. He was still Scortius. The Hippodrome belonged to him. They built monuments to him in this place. Whatever might happen elsewhere, in darkness, with the sun below the world.

"Watch me," he said again.

West of them, not all that far, as the two charioteers are leaving their tunnel, the Emperor of Sarantium is heading towards his own, to pass under the Imperial Precinct gardens from one palace to another where he is about to make the final dispositions for a war he has thought about from the time he placed his uncle on the Golden Throne.

The Empire had been whole once, and then sundered, and then half of it had been lost, like a child might be lost. Or, better put, a father. He has no children. His father died when he was very young. Did these things matter? Had they ever? Did they now? Now that he was an adult, growing old, shaping nations under holy Jad?

Aliana thinks so, or wonders about it. She'd put it to him directly one night not long ago. Was he risking so much, seeking to leave so bright and fierce a mark on the world, because he had no heir for whom to guard what they already had?

He didn't know. He didn't think this was so. He'd been dreaming of Rhodias for so long-a dream of something made whole again. And made so by him. He knew too much about the past, perhaps. There had been three Emperors once for a short, savage time, and then two, here and in Rhodias, for a long, divisive span of years, then only one, here in the City Saranios made, with the west lost and fallen.

It felt wrong to him. Surely it would to any man who knew the glory of what had been.

Though that, he thinks, walking through the lower level of the Attenine Palace with a courtly retinue hurrying to keep pace with him, is a trick of rhetoric. Of course there are those who know the past as well as he and see things differently. And there are those-such as his wife-who see a greater glory here in the east, in the present world, under Jad.

None of them, even Aliana, rules Sarantium. He does. He has guided them all to this point, has strings in his hand and a very clear vision of the elements in play. He expects to succeed. He usually does.

He comes to the tunnel. The two helmed Excubitors stand rigidly at attention. At a nod, one swiftly unlocks and opens the door. Behind Valerius, the Chancellor and the Master of Offices and the wretchedly inadequate Quaestor of Imperial Revenue all bow. He has dealt with them here in the Attenine over a rapid midday meal. Given orders, heard reports.

Has been awaiting one particular dispatch, from the north-east, but it hasn't yet come. He is, in fact, disappointed in the King of Kings.

He has been expecting Shirvan of Bassania to attack in Calysium by now, to set in motion the other part of this vast undertaking. The part no one knows about, unless Aliana has divined it, or perhaps Gesius, whose subtlety is extreme.

But there has come no word yet of an incursion across the border. It's not as if he hasn't given them enough signals as to his intentions, or even his timing. Shirvan ought to have sent an army over the border by now, breaching the bought peace in an attempt to undermine a western campaign.

He will have to deal with Leontes and the generals differently, as a consequence. Not an insurmountable problem, but he'd have preferred the elegance of things had there been a Bassanid attack already launched, appearing to force his hand and divert troops before the fleet sailed.

He is, after all, pursuing more than one goal here.

It is, one might say, a character flaw. He always has more than one goal, entwines so many threads and designs into everything he does. Even this long-awaited war of reconquest in the west is not a thing that stands entirely alone.

Aliana would understand, even be amused. But she doesn't want this campaign, and he has made things easier for both of them-or so he judges-by not discussing it. He suspects that she is aware of what he is doing. He also knows her unease, and the sources of it. A regret, for him.

He can say, with uncomplicated truth, that he loves her more than his god and needs her at least as much.

He pauses a moment at the open door to the tunnel. Sees the torches flicker ahead of him as the air ripples through. Shirvan has not yet attacked. A pity. He will have to deal with the soldiers now, at the other end. He knows what he will say. Leontes's pride as a military man is his greatest asset, and his core weakness and there is a lesson, the Emperor has judged, that the younger man must learn before various next steps can properly be taken. A staying of reckless pride first, and then a moderating of religious zeal.

He has given thought to these matters, as well. Of course he has. He has no child, and succession is an issue.

He turns briefly, acknowledges the genuflections of his advisers, and then enters the tunnel alone, as he always does. They are already turning to leave as the door closes; he has given them a great deal to do this afternoon before they reconvene in the kathisma at the end of the racing to tell the Hippodrome and the world that Sarantium is sailing to Rhodias. He hears the door close and lock behind him.

He walks over mosaic floor tiles, in the footsteps of Emperors long dead, communing with them, imagining silent dialogues, luxuriating in that silence, the achingly rare privacy of this long, winding corridor between palaces and people. The lighting is steady, the air and ventilation carefully devised. The solitude is a joy for him. He is the mortal servant and exemplar of Jad, lives his life in the bright eye of the world, is never alone save here. Even at night there are guards in his chambers, or women in the rooms of the Empress when he is there with her. He would linger now in the tunnel, but there is much to do at the other end as well, and time is running. This is a day awaited since… since he came south from Trakesia at his soldier uncle's command?

An exaggeration, with truth in it.

His pace is brisk, as always. He is some distance down the tunnel, under the evenly spaced torches set in iron brackets in the stone walls, when he hears, in that rich silence, the turning of a heavy key behind him and then a door and then the sound of other footsteps, not hurrying.

And so the world changes.

It changes in every moment, of course, but there are… degrees of change.

Half a hundred thoughts-or so it feels-run through his mind between one step and the next. The first thought and the last are of Aliana. In between these he has already grasped what is happening. Has always been known-and feared-for this quickness, has taken an unworthy measure of pride in that, all his life. But subtlety, swiftness, may have just become irrelevant. He continues walking, only a little faster than before.

The tunnel, twisting slightly in the shape of an S for Saranios-a conceit of the builders-is far below the gardens and the light. Meaningless to shout here, and he'll not get close enough to either door to be heard in the lower corridors of either palace. He has understood there is no point running, because those behind him are not: which means, of course, that there is someone ahead of him.

They will have entered before the soldiers meeting him in the other palace arrived outside the door, will have been waiting underground, perhaps for some time. Or perhaps… they might have entered through the same door he did and gone towards the other end to wait? Simpler that way? Only two guards to suborn. He thinks back and yes, he does remember the faces of the two Excubitors at the door behind him. Not strangers. His own men. Which means something… unfortunate. The Emperor feels anger, curiosity, a surprisingly sharp grief.

The sense of relief that Taras felt when he heard the rolling, rapidly growing explosion of sound and looked back was as nothing he'd ever felt in all his life.

He was saved, reprieved, divested of the massive burden that had been crushing him like a weight too heavy to shoulder and too vital to disclaim.

Amid the noise, which was stunning even for the Hippodrome, Scortius came walking up to him, and he was smiling.

Out of the corner of his eye Taras saw Astorgus hurrying over, his square, bluff features creased with worry. Scortius got there first. As Taras hastily untied himself from the reins of the first chariot and stepped down, lifting off the silver helm, he realized-belatedly-that the other man was not walking or breathing easily, despite the smile. And then he saw the blood.

"Hello there. Have a difficult morning?" Scortius said easily. He didn't reach for the helmet.

Taras cleared his throat. "I… didn't do very well. I can't seem to-"

"He did just fine!" said Astorgus, coming up. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

Scortius smiled at him. "Fair question. No good answer. Listen, both of you. I have one race in me, maybe. We need to make it count. Taras, you are staying in this chariot. I'm riding Second for you. We are going to win this race and stuff Crescens into the wall or the spina or up his own capacious rectum. Understood?"

He wasn't saved, after all. Or, perhaps he was, in a different way.

"I… stay First?" Taras mumbled.

"Have to. I may not be able to go seven laps."

"Fuck that. Your doctor knows you are here?" Astorgus asked.

"As it happens, he does."

"What? He… allowed this?"

"Hardly. He's disowned me. Said he takes no responsibility if I die out here."

'Oh, good," said Astorgus. "Should I?"

Scortius laughed, or tried to. He put a hand to his side, involuntarily.

Taras saw the track steward coming over. Normally this sort of delay for an on-track colloquy would be prohibited, but the steward was a veteran and knew he was dealing with something unusual. People were still screaming. They would have to quiet a bit before the race could start in any case.

"Welcome back, charioteer," he said briskly. "Are you riding this race?"

"I am," said Scortius. "How's your wife, Darvos?"

The steward smiled. "Better, thank you. The boy sits out?"

"The boy rides First chariot," said Scortius. "I’ll take Second. Isanthus sits. Astorgus, will you tell him? And have them redo the reins on the trace horses the way I like them?"

The steward nodded his head and turned away to report to the starter. Astorgus was still staring at Scortius. He hadn't moved.

"You are sure?" he said. "Is this worth it? One race?"

"Important race," the injured man said. "For a few reasons. Some that you won't know." He smiled thinly, but not with his eyes this time. Astorgus hesitated a heartbeat longer, then nodded slowly and walked away towards the second Blue chariot. Scortius turned back to Taras.

"All right. Here we go. Two things," the Glory of the Blues said quietly. "One, Servator is the best trace horse in the Empire, but only if you ask him to be. He's conceited and lazy, otherwise. Likes to slow down and look at our statues. Scream at him." He smiled. "Took me a long time to realize what I could make him do. You can go faster in the turns with him holding the inside than you will ever believe you can-until you've done it the first few times. Stay wide awake at the start. Remember how he can make the other three cut with him?"

Taras did remember. It had been done to him, last fall. He nodded, concentrating. This was business, their profession. "When do I whip him?"

"When you come up to a turn. Hit on the right side. And keep yelling his name. He listens. Concentrate on Servator-he'll handle the other three for you."

Taras nodded.

"Listen for me during the race." Scortius put a hand to his side again and swore, breathing carefully. "You're from Megarium? You speak Inici at all?"

"Some. Everyone does."

"Good. If I need to I'll shout at you in that tongue."

"How'd you learn…?"

The older man's expression was suddenly wry. "A woman. How else do we learn all the important lessons in life?"

Taras tried to laugh. His mouth was dry. The crowd noise was amazing, really. People were still on their feet, all over the Hippodrome. "You said… there were two things?"

"I did. Listen carefully. We wanted you in the Blues because I knew you were going to be as good as anyone here, or better. You've been thrown into something hideous and unfair, never even handled this team before, having to face Crescens and his Second here. You are a fucking idiot if you think you've been doing badly. I'd whack you on the head but it'll hurt me too much. You've been astonishing, and any man with half a brain would know it, you Sauradian lout."

There was a feeling hot mulled wine could give you, sipped in a tavern on a damp winter day. These words felt like that, actually. With all the self-possession he could command, Taras said to him, "I know I've been astonishing. It's about time you came back to help."

Scortius let out a bark of laughter, winced in pain. "Good lad," he said. "You're fifth in the lanes, I'm second?" Taras nodded. "Good. When you get to the line there will be room for you to cut. Watch me, trust Servator, and leave me to deal with Crescens." He grinned, a thin smile, without any amusement in it.

Taras looked over to where the muscular First of the Greens was wrapping his own reins around himself, in the sixth lane.

"Of course I will. That's your job," Taras said. "Make sure you do it."

Scortius grinned again, and then took the silver processional helmet Taras was still holding and gave it to the groom beside them, taking the battered race helmet in exchange. He put it on Taras himself, like a stable boy. The pandemonium grew even wilder. They were being watched, of course, every movement they made studied the way cheiromancers examined entrails or stars.

Taras thought he was going to cry." Are you all right?" he asked. Blood was visible through the other man's tunic.

"We'll all be just fine," said Scortius. "Unless I get arrested for what I'm about to do to Crescens."

He walked up, rubbed the head of Servator for a moment and whispered something in the horse's ear, then he turned and went down the diagonal line to the second Blue chariot, where Isanthus had already stepped down-his face showing as much relief as Taras's had a moment ago-and where the handlers were furiously adjusting the reins to suit Scortius's well-known preferences.

Scortius didn't get into the chariot yet. He stopped by the four horses, touching each of them, whispering, his mouth close to their heads. There was a change of drivers taking place, they needed to know it. Taras, watching, saw that he presented only his right side and right hand to the stallions, shielding the presence of blood.

Taras stepped back up into his own chariot. Began wrapping the reins around his body again. The boy beside Taras gave the silver helmet to another groom and hurried to help, his face shining with excitement. The horses were restless. They had seen their usual driver but he wasn't with them now. Taras picked up his whip. Set it in its sheath beside him for the moment. He took a deep breath.

"Listen you stupid, fat ploughhorses," he said to the most celebrated racing team in the world, speaking in the gentle, soothing tone he always used with horses, "you don't fucking run for me this time, I'll take you to the tanners myself, you hear me?"

It felt wonderful to be saying that. To feel he could.

The race that followed was remembered for a very long time. Even with the events that ensued that day and immediately after, the first afternoon race of the second Hippodrome session that year was to become legendary. An emissary from Moskav, who had accompanied the Grand Prince's entourage and remained behind through the winter in slow negotiations over tariffs, was in attendance and would chronicle the race in his diary-a record that would be preserved, miraculously, through three fires in three cities, a hundred and fifty years apart.

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.

The doctor looked over then. Said nothing. Blessedly. Turned back to the track.

"Which one is he?" she asked Cleander. He answered, pointing, never taking his eyes from the impossible confusion below. "He's riding Second chariot, not First!" he shouted.

That obviously meant something, but she hadn't the least notion what. Or that it was partly directed at her, and what she had said about winning the race.

Rustem found and began watching his patient from the very start, as soon as he'd sat down again, just as a trumpet sounded. Saw him controlling four racing horses with his left hand, his injured side, while whipping with his right and leaning absurdly far forward on the precarious, bouncing platform on which the racers stood. Then he saw Scortius tilt his body hard to the right, and it seemed to Rustem as if the charioteer was pulling his team that way, with his own damaged body above the flashing, spinning wheels.

He felt suddenly and inexplicably moved. The knife he'd seen flash and fall under the stands had been, in fact, quite unnecessary, he now judged.

The man intended to kill himself before them all.

He had been, in his own day, as celebrated as any racer who'd ever driven a quadriga in this place.

There were three monuments to him in the spina, and one of them was silver. The first Emperor Valerius-this one's uncle-had been forced to summon him from retirement twice, so impassioned had been the beseechings of the Hippodrome crowd. The third time-the last time- he'd left the track they'd made a procession for him from the Hippodrome Forum to the landward walls, and there had been people lining the streets several bodies deep all the way there. Two hundred thousand souls, or so the Urban Prefecture had reported.

Astorgus of the Blues (once a Green) had no false modesty at all, no diffidence about his own achievements on these sands where he had duelled and won, and won again, against a succession of challengers and the Ninth Driver, always, for two decades.

It was the very last of those young challengers-the one he'd retired from-who was before him now, riding Second chariot, with broken ribs and an open wound and no longer young. And of all those watching in those first moments of the race, it was Astorgus the factionarius-blunt and scarred, immensely knowledgeable and famously undemonstrative-who first grasped what was happening, reading eight quadrigas in a single capacious glance, their speeds and angles and drivers and capacities, and who then offered a savage, swift prayer aloud to banned, blasphemous, necessary Heladikos, son of the god.

He was along the outside wall, standing for the start where he usually did, two-thirds of the way down the straight, past the chalk line, in a safety zone carved out for the track officials between the outer railing and the first row of seats, which were set back here. As a consequence, he had the illusion that Scortius was driving straight towards him when he took that absurd, unprecedented careen towards the outside, not the rail.

He heard the Glory of the Blues (he who had once been the Glory here, himself) screaming over the crashing din, and he was near enough to realize that the words were in Inici, which only a few of them knew. Astorgus was one. The boy, Taras, from Megarium, would be another. Astorgus saw the lad jerk his head swiftly left and immediately, splendidly react, without an instant to think what he was doing. Astorgus stopped breathing, cut off his prayer, watched.

The boy screamed in turn-howling the name of Servator-and went hard to his whip on the horse's right side. It happened at a breakneck, utterly insane speed, destructively close to the jammed, crowded start in a madness of thirty-two pounding stallions.

In a precisely simultaneous pulsebeat of time, with no margin at all, none, cut so near there was no space to be seen between the chariot wheels as they crossed each other, Scortius and the boy, Taras, both hurled their bodies left, bringing their teams and chariots with them. The sound was deafening, the dust a choking cloud.

And through that dust, right in front of him, as if done for his private, intimate entertainment-dancers hired for a night by an aristocrat- Astorgus saw what happened next and his soul was moved and his spirit shaken and overawed, for he knew that for all he had ever done out there, in a career acclaimed by two hundred thousand souls crying his name, he could not have even conceived, in his prime, in his own glory, what Scortius had just implemented.

Taras was angling down, Scortius up. Straight for each other. When the boy pulled violently left, the magnificent Servator pulled the other three horses and the chariot across the track in exactly the same manoeuvre the Hippodrome crowd would still remember from the last day of autumn, when Scortius had done it to him. And that was-oh, it was- part of the humbling elegance of this, the perfection. A remembered text being echoed, used again in a new way.

And Scortius threw his team as hard to the left in the exact same needful instant-else the two chariots would have smashed each other to bits

of wood, sending screaming horses crashing, riders flying into shattered bones and death. His team slewed, the wheels sliding, then biting up the track, straightening out with a terrifying precision right beside Crescens and his Green team. In full flight.

Meanwhile, the third and fourth lane teams had been slicing down.

Of course they had. There was room made for them when Scortius bolted from the start and cut up. They'd slowed, seized the startling invitation-and so opened the way, like double doors in a palace, for Taras to make his own violent cut left and straighten back up, and so discover a clean, clear, glorious sweep of open track in front of him near the rail.

He was just behind the Greens" number two, and then-as the boy went to his whip again-he was beside him, entering the very first turn under the kathisma, taking the wider route but with the better team, leaning hard left still, crying the name of his magnificent lead horse, letting Servator hold them tight to the Greens, and then he was past as they came out. And then there was nothing and no one ahead of him on the proving track as they came out into the far side… and it had all been done in one single straightway.

Astorgus was crying. Moved as if by something holy in a sanctuary, knowing he had seen a creation as perfect as any artisan had ever made: any vase, gem, poem, mosaic, wall hanging, golden bracelet, jewelled, crafted bird.

And knowing, too, that this sort of artistry could not endure past the shaping moment, could only be spoken of after by those who recalled, or misrecalled, who had seen and half seen and not seen at all, distorted by memory and desire and ignorance, the achievement of it written as if on water or on sand.

It mattered, terribly, and just now it didn't matter at all. Or could the fragility, the defining impermanence actually intensify the glory? The thing lost as soon as made? In this moment, Astorgus thought, his big hands clenched on the wooden rail before him-for this one flawless, diamond moment offered to time-it was the two charioteers, the young one and the genius guiding him, who were lords of the world on the god's earth, lords of Emperors, of all men and women, fallible and imperfect and one day to fail and die leaving nothing at all behind, lost as soon as made.

Plautus Bonosus stood up in the Imperial Box as the two lead chariots came towards them and pounded into the first turn together. He was unaccountably stirred by what was happening, felt briefly self-conscious until he became aware that half a dozen others among this overbred, jaded cluster of courtiers were also on their feet. He exchanged a fleeting, wordless glance with the Master of the Imperial Horse and turned again to the sands below.

There was a quadriga above their heads on the elegantly arched ceiling of the kathisma: a mosaic of Saranios, crowned with victory's wreath, driving a team. Below, the young boy for the Blues who had been courageous but overmatched last week and all this morning was now screaming like a barbarian at his team and whipping them past the Greens" second chariot while still in the kathisma turn.

It happened sometimes, it could be done, but not easily or often, and never without an awareness-among those who knew the track-of the risk and skill involved. Bonosus watched. The boy, Taras, was no longer overmatched, no longer diffident.

No longer behind the Green team or beside it.

He had started in the fifth lane. He came out of the first turn half a team in front and then a full length, and then, smooth as eastern silk on skin, he let Servator glide to the rail along the back straight.

Bonosus, instinctively, turned back to watch Scortius and Crescens. They came up to the same turn side by side but at the widest part of the track, for Scortius was refusing to let the other man down, and showed not the least desire to do so himself. He was driving the Second team. His task was to ensure a victory for his teammate. Keeping Crescens wide as long as possible was the way to do just that.

"The other Green's coming back to them," said the Master of Horse in his raspy voice. Bonosus glanced over, saw it was true. The Greens" Second driver, faced with a miserable choice-to chase the Blues" young leader or come back to aid his own First team-had opted for the latter.

Among other things, Crescens of Sarnica was reported to have a vicious, whip-wielding temper with lesser drivers who forgot who was First of the Greens.

"They'll try for second and third now," said Bonosus, to no one in particular.

"He can catch the lad if he's sprung free quickly enough. We haven't even done a lap." The Master of Horse was excited. It showed. So was Bonosus. Even with all that was yet to come today, a war that would change their world, the drama below was overwhelming.

The Greens" number two was slowing, drifting back, looking over his right shoulder to judge his angle. As the two celebrated drivers came out of the turn, still wide, still right next to each other, the Second Green team floated out towards Scortius. He was ahead of him. Could, with impunity, move right in front of him. It was delicate-he had to arrest the progress of the Blue quadriga while finding a way to get his own leader free to come sharply down to the rail and take flight after the young boy leading the race. This, however, was what Second teams did here, it was what they were trained to achieve.

The three quadrigas began to merge, coming together into one six-wheeled, twelve-horsed figure in the swirling dust and noise.

"I believe," said Bonosus suddenly, "that Scortius expected this to happen, too."

'What? Impossible," said the Master of Horse, just in time to be proven wrong.

He had to be careful, extremely careful. If he fouled either of the others now, any Blue victory would be erased. That was always the constraint on those riding Second or carrying the lesser colours. The yellow-garbed officials were all along the track, watching them.

In addition, he was acutely aware that although he might just manage to roll through seven laps and stay upright, he didn't have much left for manoeuvres. Every shallow breath was a struggle against pain. The very idea of having to pull the team hard again was enough to make him wish he were already dead.

There was, he knew, a pool of blood, dangerously slippery, about his feet. He didn't look down.

He watched the Greens" Second team, instead, as it came back towards them-as he'd known it would. Crescens frightened his teammates. In doubt, they'd come to his aid. Not a bad practice, on the whole, but there were moments when it might be. He intended to make this one such moment.

He had pictured this from the moment he'd walked onto the track and seen that the new right-side trace horse on Crescens's team in the sixth lane wasn't blinkered.

He knew the horse they'd traded. Knew it very well. Had slotted a bit of information in his mind back in the winter. It obviously hadn't come up in last week's races or this morning: the Greens" lead team would rarely find itself all the way to the outside.

It was about to do so, any moment now.

The Second team came right back to them, staying in front, but not by much, which gave it licence to drift wider, forcing Scortius to do the same. Crescens was also slightly ahead of him to the outside, which raised the risk of foul if he drifted too much and clipped the other team. The Greens were trying to make him rein up. The moment he did so, the Second team in front of him would do exactly the same thing and Crescens would go to his whip and spring free of both of them like a prisoner from an unlocked cell-then he'd cut down. They knew how to do this. It was delicate, precise work, done at speed, but these were veteran drivers who had worked together for a full year.

It didn't matter.

He let his team drift up, just a little. Crescens looked over quickly, snarling an oath. If the other Green team could be said to have pushed Scortius over then no foul would be called. Especially against the returning champion: all three of them knew that was also a part of the game today.

Crescens went a little higher, nearer the rail.

Scortius and the other Greens went with him. They were most of the way down the back straight now. Scortius slid right again, the smallest amount. Had to be very cautious: these horses were not his usual team. All three chariots were terrifyingly close now. Had the wheels been spiked as sometimes in the old days, in Rhodias, someone would have been flying from a smashed-up chariot by now.

Crescens roared another oath at his teammate and went a little higher yet. As high as he could go, in fact, racing along the outermost lane, right against the rail and the screaming, on-its-feet, fist-waving, thunderous crowd.

The new right-side trace horse for the Greens didn't like screaming thunderous fist-waving beside him. At all. He was, in fact, a horse that needed a right-side blinker. It hadn't come up. Crescens had never run him so wide, and this was only the second meeting of the year. They hadn't figured that out yet, the Greens.

A mistake.

Scortius held steady, watched for the moment. Crescens had a tight, grim smile on his face as the quadrigas pelted along. Now that he was at the rail, any further movement towards him by Scortius would have to be seen as a foul. The other Green chariot, still ahead, could safely slide a bit farther over and slow, and Scortius would have to pull up hard.

Experienced strategy, sound reasoning. Might well have worked, if the right-sider hadn't jerked its head just then, in blind panic right beside the howling crowd, and broken stride, pulling the other three horses hopelessly out of their own pace, just as the Greens" number two performed the entirely correct tactical movement of moving a little more right and slowing a shade.

Scortius did pull up, as hard as they'd ever have wanted him to, even a little sooner than they'd expected, as if he was afraid, or weak.

Doing so, he had an exceptionally vivid, close view of the crash. Crescens's quadriga slewed back inwards, pushed by their panicked, undeniably powerful new right-sider, while the other team was still committed to angling out. They met, unfortunately.

Two wheels flew, instantly. One stayed in the air like a discus, spinning halfway to the spina. A horse screamed and stumbled, dragging the others down with it. A chariot skidded sideways, banged the rail, and then came back the other way, and Scortius, pulling sharply left (and crying aloud with the pain of it this time) saw Crescens's knife flash as he cut his reins and leaped desperately free.

He was past them, then, didn't see what happened to the other Green driver, or the horses, but he knew they were down.

He dealt with the turn then looked back. Saw the Reds and Whites toiling behind him now, four of them, closely bunched, labouring. Had a new idea. There was that odd, crimson hue to his vision again, but he suddenly decided it might be within him to bring one last element into this day's aspiring towards immortality.

Ahead of him, the boy, Taras, was slowing for him, looking back. He lifted his whip hand, waved Scortius forward, offering him the lead and the victory.

Not what he wanted, for more than one reason. He shook his head, and as he came up towards the other driver he shouted, in Inici, "I'll castrate you with a dull knife if you don't win this race. Keep moving!"

The boy grinned. He knew what they had just done. The glory of it. He was a chariot-racer, wasn't he? He kept moving. Crossed the line six laps later to win the first major race of his life.

The first of what would be one thousand, six hundred and forty-five triumphs for the Blues. By the time the boy in that chariot retired eighteen years later only two names in the long history of the Sarantium Hippodrome would have won more races, and no one who followed him would do so. There would be three statues to Taras of Megarium in the spina to be torn down with all the others, seven hundred years after, when the great changes came.

The First of the Whites came second in that race, the Second of the Whites came third. The track record of the day, meticulously kept by the stewards, as ever, would show that Scortius of the Blues came a wretched distance behind during his only race that afternoon.

The records can miss everything, of course. So much depends on what else is preserved, in writing, in art, in memory, false or true or blurred.

The Blues faction, with their White partners, came first and second and third. And fourth. Fourth, in what was, all things considered, very likely the most spectacularly triumphant race of his entire career on the sands, was Scortius of Soriyya, who had shepherded the White teams through and past him while blocking, with precision, the two hapless Red charioteers, who were all that was left on the track running for the Green faction.

He ought to have died when that race was over. In some ways he should have died, he was later to think during some long nights, setting a seal of perfection on a racing life.

Those who came running over saw the pool of blood about his soaked sandals when the race ended. The chariot platform was slippery with it. The Ninth Driver had been beside him for those last laps, running very near from the time the fifth sea-horse dived, and closer yet down the final backstretch as he kept on swinging back and forth, almost unable to breathe, holding the Reds before pulling away at the end- alone on the track, in fact, his teammates having finished already, a lap ahead, the Red quadrigas slipping back.

Alone, save for that unseen Ninth beside him, brushing wheels, dark as superstition had him, and crimson, too, like the day. But then, unaccountably, he drifted away, let this reckless mortal go on beneath the streaming sunlight, gathered and held in the enormous cauldron of sound that was the Hippodrome.

No one knew it then, no one could have known, among eighty thousand and more in that place, but there was richer blood for the claiming in Sarantium that day.

There would be time yet to take a charioteer.

Scortius slowed, just across the finish line, swayed where he stood as the quadriga drifted to an awkward halt. He was unable to even begin unwrapping his reins, which were also soaked through with blood by then. He was alone, motionless, done.

They came to help him, sprinting across the track, leaving the victory lap to the boy and the two White teams. Astorgus and two others cut him free, tenderly, as if he were a babe. He saw, with some surprise, that all three of them were weeping, and others who came up behind them, even the stewards. He tried to say something about that, a jest, but couldn't seem to speak just yet. It was very hard to breathe. He suffered them to help him back under the stands, a redness in the air.

They went past Crescens, in the Greens" space along the spina. He seemed to be all right, and the other Green rider was there as well. There was something odd about their faces, a working of emotion being fought. There really did seem to be a lot of noise. More, even, than usual. They took him-carried him, mostly-back through the Processional Gates to the dimly lit atrium. It was a little quieter here, but not very much.

The Bassanid was there. Another surprise. There was a pallet next to him.

"Lay him down," he snapped. "On his back."

"I thought… you had disowned me," he managed to say. First words. There was so much pain. They were laying him down.

"So did I," said the grey-haired physician from the east. He threw aside his stick, angrily. "Makes two fools here, doesn't it?"

"Oh, at least," said Scortius, and then he did, finally, by the very great mercy of Heladikos, lose consciousness.