Sailing to Sarantium (36 page)

There had been a collective intake of breath in that moment. Bonosus
had seen Lysippus the taxation officer look up at the Emperor for the
first time.

Leontes had smiled, a hand drifting to the hilt of his sword. 'To
take Symeonis?'

'Yes. He's the immediate symbol. Take him there, have him defer to
you.' The Emperor paused for a moment. 'And I suppose there will need
to be some killing.'

Leontes nodded. 'We go down, into the crowd?' He paused, thinking.
Then amended: 'No, arrows first, they won't be able to avoid them. No
armour, no weapons. No way to get up to us. It would create chaos. A
panic towards the exits.' He nodded again. 'It might be done, my
lord. Depends on how intelligent they are in the kathisma, if they've
barricaded it properly. Auxilius, if I can get in with thirty men and
cause some disruption, would you be able to cut your way out of here
to two of the Hippodrome gates with the Excubitors and move in as the
crowd is rushing for the exits?'

'I would, or die in the attempt,' Auxilius said, dark-bearded,
hard-eyed, revitalized. 'I will salute you from the sands of the
Hippodrome. These are slaves and commoners. And rebels against Jad's
anointed.'

Jad's anointed crossed to stand by his Empress at the window, looking
at the flames. Lysippus, breathing heavily, was on his overburdened
bench nearby.

'It is so ordered, then,' said the Emperor quietly. 'You will do this
just before sundown. We depend upon you both. We place our life and
our throne in your care. In the meantime,' Valerius turned to the
Chancellor and the Master of Offices, 'have it proclaimed from the
Bronze Gates that the Quaestor of Imperial Revenue has been stripped
of his position and rank for excess of zeal and has been exiled in
disgrace to the provinces. We'll have the Mandator announce it in the
Hippodrome, as well, if there's any chance he'll be heard. Take him
with you, Leontes. Faustinus, have your spies spread these tidings in
the streets. Gesius, inform the Patriarch: Zakarios and all the
clerics are to promulgate this in the sanctuaries now and this
evening. People will be fleeing there, if the soldiers do their task.
This fails if the clergy are not with us. No killing in the chapels,
Leontes.'

'Of course not, my lord,' the Strategos said. His piety was well
known. 'We are all your servants. It shall be as you say,
thrice-glorious lord,' said Gesius the Chancellor, bowing with a
supple grace for so aged a man. Bonosus saw others beginning to move,
react, take action. He felt paralysed by the gravity of what had just
been decided. Valerius was going to fight for his throne. With a
handful of men. He knew that if they had but walked a little west
from this palace, across the autumn serenity of the gardens, the
Emperor and Empress could have been down a stone staircase in the
cliff and onto a trim craft and away to sea before anyone was the
wiser. If the reports were correct, better than a hundred and fifty
thousand people were in the streets right now. Leontes had requested
thirty archers. Auxilius would have his Excubitors. Two thousand men,
perhaps. Not more. He gazed at the Empress, straight-backed, immobile
as a statue, centred in the window. Not an accident, that
positioning, he suspected. She would know how to place herself to
best effect. The vestments of Empire. A shroud.

He remembered the Emperor looking down at his corpulent, sweating
taxation officer. There were stories circulating of what Lysippus had
done to the two clerics in one of his underground rooms. Tales of
what transpired there had made the rounds for some time now. Ugly
stories. Lysippus the Calysian had been a well-made man once, Bonosus
remembered: strong features, a distinctive voice, the unusual green
eyes. He'd had a great deal of power for a long time, however. He
couldn't be corrupted or bribed in his duties, everyone knew that,
but everyone also knew that corruption could take . . . other forms.

Bonosus was perfectly aware that his own habits went to the borders
of the acceptable, but the rumoured depravities of the fat man-with
boys, coerced wives, felons, slaves-repulsed him. Besides which,
Lysippus's tax reforms and pursuit of the wealthier classes had cost
Bonosus substantial sums in the past. He didn't know which aspect of
the man outraged him more. He did know, because he'd been quietly
approached more than once, that there was more to this riot than the
blind rage of the common people. A good many of the patricians of
Sarantium and the provinces would not be displeased to see Valerius
of Trakesia gone and a more ... pliant figure on the Golden Throne.

Watching in silence, Bonosus saw the Emperor murmur something to the
man on the bench beside him. Lysippus looked up quickly. He
straightened his posture with an effort, flushing. Valerius smiled
thinly, then moved away. Bonosus never knew what was said. There was
a bustle of activity at the time and an endless hammering from over
by the gates.

Having been summoned to this gathering purely for the procedural
formality of it-the Senate still, officially, advised the Emperor on
the people's behalf-Bonosus found himself standing uncertainly,
superfluous and afraid, between a delicately wrought silver tree and
the open eastern window. The Empress turned her head and saw him.
Alixana smiled. Sitting three rows behind her now in the kathisma,
his face burning again with the memory, Plautus Bonosus recalled his
Empress saying to him, in an intimate tone of arch, diverted
curiosity, as if they were sharing a dining couch at a banquet for
some ambassador, 'Do tell me, Senator, assuage my womanly curiosity.
Is the younger son of Regalius Paresis as beautiful unclothed as he
is when fully garbed?'

 

Taras, fourth rider of the Reds, didn't like his position. He didn't
like it at all. In fact, being as honest as a man ought to be with
himself and his god, he hated it like scorpions in his boots.

While the handlers held his agitated horses in check behind the iron
barrier, Taras distracted himself from the pointed glances of the
rider on his left by checking the knot of his reins behind his back.
The reins had to be well tied. It was too easy to lose a handgrip on
them in the frenzy of a race. Then Taras checked the hang of the
knife at his waist. More than one charioteer had been claimed by the
Ninth Driver because he couldn't cut himself free of the reins when
his chariot toppled and he was dragged like a straw toy behind the
horses. You raced between one kind of disaster and another, Taras
thought. Always.

It occurred to him that this was particularly so for him in this
first race of a festival afternoon. He was in the seventh position-a
bad post, but it shouldn't have mattered. He drove for the Reds. He
wasn't expected to win a major race with the first and second drivers
of Blue and Green all present.

He did have-as all the White and Red drivers did-a role in every
race. And this function was greatly complicated for Taras just now by
the undeniable fact that the men in the sixth and eighth slots had
very strong expectations of winning, despite starting outside, and
each carried the fervent hopes of about half the eighty thousand
souls in the stands.

Taras tightened his hold on his whip. Each of the men beside him wore
the silver ceremonial helmet that marked them as First of their
colour. They were taking those off now, Taras saw, glancing to each
side furtively, as the last of the Processional music gave way to the
final preparations to run. On his left and a little behind him, in
the sixth post, Crescens of the Greens shoved his leather racing
helmet firmly down on his head as a handler cradled the silver one
tenderly in his arms. Crescens glared quickly across at Taras, who
was unable to glance away in time.

'He gets down in front of you at the Line, worm, I'll have you
shovelling manure at some broken-down hippodrome on the frozen border
of Karch. Fair warning.'

Taras swallowed and nodded. Oh, very fair, he thought bitterly but
did not say. He gazed past the barrier and down the track. The Line,
chalked in white across the sand, was about two hundred paces away.
To that point each chariot had to hold its lane, to allow the
staggered start position to have its effect and prevent crashes right
at the starting gates. After they reached the white line, the outside
drivers could begin cutting down. If there was room.

That was the issue, of course.

Taras actually wished, at this moment, that he was still racing in
Megarium. The little hippodrome at his home in the west might not
have been very important, a tenth the size of this one, but he'd been
a Green there, not a lowly Red, riding a strong Second, fair hopes
after a fine season of claiming the silver helmet, sleeping at home,
eating his mother's food. A good life, tossed aside like a broken
whip the day an agent of the Greens of Sarantium had come west and
watched him run and recruited him. He would race for the Reds for a
while, Taras had been told, starting the way almost everyone began in
the City. If he did honourably ... well, the lives of all the great
drivers were there to be observed.

If you thought you were good, and wanted to succeed, the Greens'
agent said, you went to Sarantium. It was as simple as that. Taras
knew it was true. He was young. It was an opportunity. Sailing to
Sarantium, men called it, when someone took a chance like this. His
father had been proud. His mother had cried, and packed him a new
cloak and two sealed amphorae of her own grandmother's sovereign
remedy for any and all ailments. The most evil-tasting concoction on
earth. Taras had taken a spoonful each day since he'd arrived in the
City. She'd sent two more jars in the summer, by Imperial Post.

So here he was, healthy as a young horse, on the very last day of his
first season in the capital. No bones broken on the year and barely a
handful of new scars, only one bad spill that left him dizzy for a
few days and hearing flute music. Not a bad season, he thought, given
that the horses the Reds and Whites drove-especially their lesser
drivers-were hopelessly feeble when matched on the great track with
those of the Blues and Greens. Taras had an easygoing disposition,
worked hard, learned quickly, and had grown more than adequate-or so
his factionarius had told him, encouragingly-at the tasks of the
lesser colours. They were the same at every track, after all. Blocks,
slow-downs, minor fouls (major ones could cost your lead colour the
race and get you a suspension and a whip across the back-or face-from
a First driver in the dressing rooms), even carefully timed spills to
bring down a rival team coming up behind you. The trick was to do
that last without breaking a bone, or dying, of course.

He'd even won three times in the minor races involving the lesser
Green and Blue riders and the Reds and Whites-amusements for the
crowd, those were, with careening chariots, reckless corners,
dangerous pile-ups, hot-headed young riders lashing at each other as
they strove for recognition. Three wins was perfectly decent for a
youngster riding Fourth for the Reds in Sarantium.

Problem was, perfectly decent wouldn't suffice at this particular
moment. For a veritable host of reasons, the race coming up was
hugely important, and Taras cursed fortune that it was his lot to be
slotted outside between ferocious Crescens and the whirlwind that was
Scortius. He shouldn't even have been in this race, but the Reds'
second driver had fallen and wrenched a shoulder earlier in the
morning and the factionarius had chosen to leave his Third in the
next race, where he might have a chance to win.

As a direct result of this, seventeen-year-old Taras of Megarium was
sitting here at the starting line, behind horses he didn't know at
all well, sandwiched between the two finest drivers of the day, with
one of them making it clear that if he didn't cut off the other, his
brief tenure in the City might be over.

It was all a consequence of not having enough money to buy adequate
protection against the curse-tablets, Taras knew. But what could one
do? What could one possibly do?

The first trumpet sounded, warning of the start to come. The handlers
withdrew. Taras leaned forward, talking to his horses. He dug his
feet deeply into the metal sheaths on the chariot floor and looked
nervously to his right and a bit ahead. Then he glanced quickly down
again. Scortius, holding his experienced team easily in place, was
smiling at him. The lithe, dark-skinned Soriyyan had an easy
grin-allegedly lethal among the women of the City-and at the moment
he was glancing back with amusement at Taras.

Taras made himself look up. It would not do to appear intimidated.
'Miserable position, isn't it?' the First of the Blues said mildly.
'Don't worry too much. Crescens is a sweet-natured fellow under that
surface. He knows you can't go fast enough to block me.'

'The fuck I am, the fuck I do!' Crescens barked from the other side.
'I want this race, Scortius. I want seventy-five for the year and I
want it in this one. Baras, or whatever your name is, keep him
outside or get used to the smell of horse manure in your hair.'

Scortius laughed. 'We're all used to that, Crescens.' He clucked
reassuringly at his four horses.

The largest of them, the majestic bay in the leftmost position, was
Servator, and Taras longed in his heart to stand in a chariot behind
that magnificent animal just once in his life. Everyone knew that
Scortius was brilliant, but they also knew that a goodly portion of
his success-evinced by two statues in the spina before he was thirty
years old-had been shaped by Servator. There had even been a bronze
statue to the horse in the courtyard outside the Greens' banquet
hall, until this year. It had been melted down over the winter. When
the Greens lost the driver they lost the horse, because Scortius's
last contract with them had stipulated-uniquely-that he owned
Servator, not the faction.