How did you go on living?
No answers came to him on the ship when he and the remaining Excubitor came to it and the mariners weighed anchor at the soldier's harsh order and they sailed back to Sarantium.
The Imperial cloak and the golden brooch were left behind on the isle, were still lying there when the stars came out that night, and the moons.
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.