Kay, Guy Gavriel – Sarantine Mosaic 01 – Sailing to Sarantium

It was Pertennius of Eubulus who had most comprehensively chronicled the events of the Victory Riot. He was Leontes’ military secretary, an obvious sycophant and flatterer, but educated, manifestly shrewd, and carefully observant, and since Bonosus had been present himself for many of the events the Eubulan recorded in his history, he could vouch for their essential accuracy. Pertennius was, in fact, the sort of man who could make himself so colourless, so unobtrusive, that you forgot he was there . . . which meant he heard and saw things others might not. He enjoyed this, a little too obviously, letting slip occasional bits of information, clearly expecting confidences in return. Bonosus didn’t like him.

Notwithstanding this, Bonosus was inclined to credit his version of events in the Hippodrome two years ago. There were a good many cor­roborating sources, in any case.

The subversive work of men strewn through the crowd by Faustinus had managed to set Blues and Greens somewhat at odds towards the end of that day. Tempers frayed with uncertainty, and the allegiance between the fac­tions seemed to be wearing thin in places. Everyone knew the Empress favoured the Blues, having been a dancer for them herself. It had not been difficult to make the Greens in the Hippodrome anxious and suspicious that they might be the prime victims of any response to the events of the past two days. Fear could bring men together, and it could drive them apart.

Leontes and his thirty archers of the Imperial Guard made their way silently down the enclosed corridor from the Precinct to the rear of the kathisma. There followed an ambiguous incident with a number of the Hippodrome Prefect’s men, guarding the corridor for those in the box, allegedly undecided where their immediate loyalties lay. In Pertennius’s account, the Strategos made a quietly impassioned speech in that dark corridor and swayed them back to the Emperor’s side.

Bonosus had no obvious reason to doubt the report, though the elo­quence of the speech as recorded, and its length, seemed at odds with the urgency of the moment.

The Strategos’s men-each one armed with his bow as well as a sword- then burst in through the back door of the kathisma, joined by the Pre­fect’s soldiers. They discovered Symeonis actually sitting on the Emperor’s seat. This was confirmed: everyone in the Hippodrome had seen him there. He was to argue plausibly, afterwards, that he’d had no choice.

Leontes personally ripped the makeshift crown and the porphyry robe from the terrified Senator. Symeonis then dropped to his knees and embraced the booted feet of the Supreme Strategos. He was permitted to live; his abject, very public, obeisance was a useful symbol, since every­thing happening could be seen clearly throughout the Hippodrome.

The soldiers made ruthlessly short work of those in the kathisma who had placed Symeonis on the Emperor’s chair. Most were popular agita­tors, though not all. Four or five of those in the box with Symeonis were aristocrats who saw themselves as having cause to dispense with an inde­pendent Emperor and be the powers behind the throne of a figurehead. Their hacked bodies were immediately thrown down to the sands, landing bloodily on the heads and shoulders of the crowd, which was so densely packed that people could scarcely move.

This, of course, became the principal cause of the slaughter that followed. Leontes had the Mandator proclaim the exile of the hated taxation officer. Pertennius reported this speech at some length as well, but as Bonosus understood events, it was likely that next to no one heard it.

This was so because, even as the Mandator was declaring the Emperor’s decision, Leontes directed his archers to begin shooting. Some arrows were fired at those directly below the kathisma; others arched high to fall like deadly rain on unprotected people far off. No one on the sands had any weapons, any armour. The arrows, randomly strewn, steadily and expertly fired, caused an immediate, panic-stricken hysteria. People fell, were trampled to death in the chaos, lashed out at each other in desper­ate attempts to flee the Hippodrome through one of the exits.

It was at this point, according to Pertennius, that Auxilius and his two thousand Excubitors, divided into two groups, appeared at entrances on opposite sides. One of these-the tale would linger and gain resonance- was the Death Gate, the one through which dead and injured charioteers were carried out.

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