"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…