Or he tried to be. The people brought him back to it. He was here, after all, watching the chariots run, even today. Bonosus had a theory about the attraction of the racing, actually. He was prepared to bore people with it if asked, or even if not. In essence, he'd argue, the Hippodrome stood in perfectly balanced counterpoint to the rituals of the Imperial Precinct. Courtly life was entirely structured around ritual, predictable as anything on earth could be. An ordained practice for everything from the Emperor's first greeting when awakened (and by whom and in what order), to the sequence of lighting the lamps in the Audience Chamber, to the procession for presenting gifts to him on the first of the New Year. Words and gestures, set and recorded, known and rehearsed, never varying.
The Hippodrome, by contrast, Bonosus would say, and shrug… as though the rest of the thought ought to be transparently clear to anyone. The Hippodrome was all uncertainty. The unknown was… the very essence of it, he would say.
Bonosus, chattering and cheering this morning with the others in the Imperial Box, prided himself on detached perspectives of this sort. But jaded as he might be, he was unable to entirely control the excitement he was feeling today, and it had nothing to do with the uncertainty of horses, or even the younger riders down below.
He had never seen Valerius like this.
The Emperor was always intense when engaged by matters of state, and always irritably distracted when forced to attend at the Hippodrome, but this morning the ferocity of his concentration and the endless stream of notes and instructions aimed in a low voice at the secretaries-there were two, alternating, to keep up with him-had a rhythm, a compelling pace, that seemed, in the mind of the Master of the Senate, to be as poundingly urgent as the horses and quadrigas below.
On the sands the Greens were proving wildly triumphant, as they had been a week before. Scortius of the Blues was still absent, and Bonosus was one of the handful of people in the City who knew where he was and that it would be weeks before he reappeared in the Hippodrome. The man had insisted on secrecy and he had more than enough stature in Sarantium to have his wishes obeyed in this.
There was probably a woman involved, the Senator decided-with Scortius, never a difficult surmise. Bonosus didn't at all begrudge the charioteer the use of his own smaller city home while he recovered. He rather enjoyed being privy to cloaked affairs. It wasn't as if being Master of the Senate conferred any real significance, after all. His second home wasn't available for his own diversions in any case, with the bone-dry Bassanid physician staying there. That part of the current situation he owed to Cleander, who was a problem that would need attention soon. Barbarian hair-styling and outlandish garb in the cause of faction identity was one thing, murdering people in the street was… another.
The factions could become dangerous today, he realized. He wondered if Valerius was aware of it. The Greens in full rapture, the Blues seething with humiliation and anxiety. He decided he was going to have to speak with Scortius after all, this evening perhaps. Secrecy in one's own causes was something that might have to give way to order in the City, especially given what else was awesomely afoot. If both factions knew that the man was all right, would be returning at some named date, some of this tension could be dissipated.
As it was, Bonosus felt sorry for the youngster riding First for the Blues. The boy was clearly a charioteer, had instincts and courage, but he also had three problems that Bonosus could see-and the god knew he ought to be able to see things down there on the sands, given the number of years he'd been coming here.
First problem was Crescens of the Greens. The muscular fellow from Sarnica was superbly confident, had had a year to settle in to Sarantium now, and had his new team under perfect control. Nor was he the sort to show any mercy to the disorganized Blues.
That disorganization was the other part of the difficulty. Not only was the youngster-Taras was his name, a Sauradian apparently-unfamiliar with riding First chariot, he didn't even know the horses of the lead team. Magnificent as a stallion such as Servator was, any horse needed a hand on the reins that knew what it could do. And besides, young Taras, wearing the silver helmet for the Blues, wasn't getting any adequate back-up at all, because he was the one who'd been training to ride Second and knew those horses.
Given all this, the Blues" temporary leader had been doing well to come in second place, three times beating back aggressively coordinated attacks from both Green riders. Jad alone knew what the mood would be if the Greens succeeded in sweeping the board once or twice. Such sweeps of the first and second placings gave rise to the most exultant of faction celebrations-and sullen despair on the other side. It could yet happen before the day was out. The Blues" rider might have the stamina of youth, but they could wear him down. Bonosus thought they would, in the afternoon. On another day he might have considered some wagers.
There was, one might say in a literary mode, a grand slaughter building down below. Being the man he was, Bonosus was inclined to perceive it this way, to see it as an ironic foretaste of the Imperial announcement of war, still to come at the end of the day.
The mornings last race came to an end-as usual, a minor, chaotic endeavour among the Reds and Whites, driving two-horse bigas. The Whites" lead driver emerged triumphant in a typically sloppy affair, but the victory was treated by the Blues and Whites with an enthusiasm (more than slightly forced, to Bonosus's ear) that was almost certainly unique in the experience of the White charioteer. Surprised or not, he appeared to greatly enjoy his victory lap.
The Emperor stopped dictating and rose at the Mandator's murmured hint. He briskly saluted the fellow passing beneath him just then and turned to go. An Excubitor had already unbarred the door at the rear of the kathisma. Valerius would go back down the corridor to the Imperial Precinct for final consultations before the afternoon's proclamation: the Attenine Palace for the Chancellor, the Master of Offices, and the Quaestor of Revenue, then across through the old tunnel under the gardens to the Traversite to meet Leontes and the generals. Everyone knew his routines. Some people-Bonosus among them-believed they had by now discerned the thinking behind this separation of advisers. It was dangerous, however, to assume you understood what this Emperor was thinking. As everyone else rose and stood gracefully aside, Valerius paused by Bonosus.
"Do our honours for the afternoon, Senator. Barring the unforeseen, we shall return with the others before the last race." He leaned closer and lowered his voice. "And have the Urban Prefect find out where Scortius is. A bad time for this sort of thing, don't you think? We may have been remiss, ignoring it."
He didn't miss anything, Bonosus thought.
"I know where he is," he said quietly, breaking a promise without compunction. This was the Emperor.
Valerius didn't even raise an eyebrow. "Good. Inform the Urban Prefect, and tell us about it after."
And while eighty thousand of his people were still reacting in a variety of ways to the White rider's last lap, and just beginning to rise and stretch and think about a midday meal and wine, the Emperor left his kathisma and that thronged place where the announcements and events that defined the Empire had so often been witnessed.
Even before he passed through the opened door, Valerius had begun removing the ornate ceremonial garb he had to wear in public.
The servants began spreading a meal on large side tables and smaller round ones beside the seats. Some of those in the kathisma preferred to go back to the palaces to dine, while the younger ones might venture into the City itself, tasting the excitement of the taverns, but it was pleasant to linger here if the weather was fine, and today it was.