Right at the beginning of the sixth lap, just as they came out of the turn, the Red team running in second place-the Greens’ teammate- suddenly and shockingly went down, taking the Blues’ second quadriga with him in an explosion of dust and screams.
A chariot wheel flew off and rolled across the track by itself. It happened directly in front of Crispin, and his clearest single image amid the chaos was of that wheel serenely spinning away, leaving carnage behind. He watched it roll, miraculously untouched by any of the swerving and bouncing chariots, until it wobbled to rest at the outer edge of the sand.
Crescens and the other Green beside him avoided the wreck. So did Scortius, pulling swiftly wide to the right. The trailing White second team wasn’t quite quick enough to steer around. Its inside horse clipped the piled, mangled chariots and the driver hacked furiously at the reins tied to his waist as his platform tipped over. He hurtled free, to the inside, rolling and rolling across the track towards the spina. Those behind him, with more time to react, were all heading wide. The driver was in no danger once free of his own reins. One of his inside yoked horses was screaming, though, and down, a leg clearly broken. And beside the initial wreckage, the second driver of the Blues lay very still on the track.
Crispin saw the Hippodrome crew sprinting across the sand to get the men away-and the horses-before the surviving chariots came round again.
‘That was deliberate!’ Carullus shouted, looking down at the chaos of horses and men and chariots. ‘Beautifully done! Look at the lane he opened for Crescens! On, Greens!’
Even as Crispin dragged his eyes away from the downed chariots and the motionless man and focused on the quadrigas flying down the straightaway towards the Emperor’s box, he saw the Greens’ number two driver, sitting in second place now after the accident, pull his team suddenly wide to the outside as Crescens, just behind him, lashed his own horses hard. The timing was superb, like a dance. The Greens’ champion hurtled past his partner and was suddenly right beside the White team that had been leading to this point-and then past it, outside but astonishingly close, in an explosion of nerve and speed, before the White driver could react and swing out from the rail to force him wider as they entered the turn.
But even as Crescens of the Greens hurtled brilliantly by, accelerating into a curve, the White charioteer abandoned the attempt to slow him and pulled his own horses up sharply instead, reins gripped hard, holding them right on the rail-and Scortius was there.
The Blue champion’s magnificent inside bay brushed up against the White’s outside horse, so close was the move that his own wheels seemed to blur into those of his teammate, and in that instant Crispin surged again to his feet shouting along with everyone else in the Hippodrome, as if they were one person, melded by the moment.
Crescens was ahead as they swept under the Imperial Box, but his ferocious burst of speed had forced his horses wide on the curve. And Scortius of the Blues, leaning madly over to his left again, his entire upper body outside the bouncing, careening chariot, the great bay horse pulling the other three downwards, had curled inside him only half a length behind as they exploded out of the curve into the far straight with eighty thousand people on their feet and screaming. The two champions were alone in front.
Throat raw with his own shouting, straining to see across the spina, past obelisks and monuments, Crispin saw Crescens of the Greens lash his horses, leaning so far forward he was almost over their tails, and he heard a thunderous roar from the Green stands as the animals responded gallantly, opening a little distance from the pursuing Blues.
But a little was enough here. A little could be the race: for with that half length gained back again, Crescens, in his turn, leaned over to the left and, with one quick, gauging glance backwards, sacrificed a notch of speed for a sharp downwards movement and claimed the inside lane again.