‘Positions for the first race?’ he demanded.
‘Everyone?’
‘Of course not. Crescens and Scortius.’
The tout grinned, showing black, erratic teeth. ‘Interesting rimes today. Sixth and eighth, Scortius is outside.’
‘He won’t win from eighth. What are you giving on Crescens of the
Greens?’
‘For an honest officer? Three to two.’ ‘Copulate with your grandmother. Two to one.’ ‘At two to one I am doing that, in her grave, but all right. At least a silver solidus, though. I won’t do those odds for beer money.’ ‘A solidus? I’m a soldier not a greedy race tout.’
‘And I run a bet shop, not a military dispensary. You have silver, wager it. Otherwise, stop blocking my booth.’
Carullus bit his lower lip. It was a great deal of money. He dug into his purse, pulled out what Crispin was fairly certain was the only silver piece he had, and passed it across the makeshift counter to the other man. In return he received a green chit with the name ‘Crescens’ on it above the name of the tout. The man had marked, painstakingly, the race number, the amount of the wager, and the odds given on the back of the chit.
They walked on amongst a tide of people. Carullus was silent amid the noise as they approached the looming gates of the Hippodrome. As they passed within, he appeared to revive. He clutched his betting chit tightly.
‘He’s in the eighth position, the last one outside. He won’t win from there.’
‘Is the sixth post so much better?’ Crispin asked, perhaps unwisely.
‘Hah! One morning at the races and the arrogant Rhodian with a false name thinks he knows the Hippodrome! Be silent, you poxed artisan, and pay attention, like Vargos. You may even learn something! If you behave I’ll buy you both Samican red with my winnings when the day is done.’
Bonosus quite enjoyed watching the chariots.
Attending at the Hippodrome, representing the Senate in the Imperial kathisma, was a part of his office that gave him genuine pleasure. The morning’s eight races had been splendidly diverting: honours closely divided between Blues and Greens, two wins each for the new Green hero, Crescens, and the truly magnificent Scortius. An exciting surprise in the fifth race when an enterprising fellow racing for the Whites had nipped inside the Greens’ second driver in the last turn to win a race he’d no business winning. The Blue partisans treated their junior colour’s win as if it had been a dazzling military triumph. Their rhythmic, well-coordinated tauntings of the humbled Greens and Reds caused a number of fistfights before the Hippodrome Prefect’s men moved in to keep the factions apart. Bonosus thought the young White driver’s flushed, exhilarated face beneath his yellow hair as he took his victory lap was very appealing. The young man’s name, he learned, was Witticus, a Karchite. He made a mental note of it, leaning forward to applaud politely with the others in the kathisma.
Occurrences of that sort were exactly what made the Hippodrome dramatic, whether it was a startling victory or a charioteer carried off, his neck broken, another victim of the dark figure they called the Ninth Driver. Men could forget hunger, taxes, age, ungrateful children, scorned love, in the drama of the chariots.
Bonosus knew that the Emperor was of a different mind. Valerius would as soon have avoided the racing entirely, sending a stream of court dignitaries and visiting ambassadors to the kathisma in his stead. The Emperor, normally so unruffled, used to fume that he was far too busy spend an entire working day watching horses run around. He tended to go to bed at all after a day spent with the chariots, to catch up.
Valerius’s work habits were well known from the reign of his uncle. Then and now he drove secretaries and civil servants to terrified distraction and a state of somnambulant hysteria. They called him The Night’s Emperor, and men told tales of seeing him pacing the halls of one palace or another in the very dead of night, dictating correspondence to a stumbling secretary while a slave or a guard walked alongside with a lantern that cast high, leaping shadows on the walls and ceilings. Some said strange lights or ghostly apparitions could be seen flitting in the shadows at such hours, but Bonosus didn’t believe that, really.