‘He did it!’ Carullus howled, pounding Crispin’s back. ‘Ho, Crescens! On, Greens! On!’
‘How?’ Crispin said aloud, to no one in particular. He watched Scortius belatedly go hard to his own whip, lashing his team now, and saw them respond in turn as the two quadrigas flew down the far straight. The Blue horses came up again, their heads bobbing beside Crescens’s hurtling chariot once more-but it was too late, they were on the outside now. The Green driver had seized the rail again with that brilliant move out of the turn, and at this late stage the shorter distance along the inside would surely have to tell.
‘Holy Jad!’ Vargos suddenly screamed from Carullus’s other side, as if the words had been ripped from his throat. ‘Oh, by Heladikos, look! He did it deliberately! Again!’ ‘What?’ Carullus cried.
‘Look! In front of us! Oh, Jad, how did he know?’ Crispin looked to where Vargos was pointing and cried out himself then, incoherent, disbelieving, in a kind of transport of excitement and awe. He clutched at Carullus’s arm, heard the other man roaring, a sound suspended between anguish and fierce rapture, and then he simply watched, in the appalled fascination with which one might observe a distant figure hurtling towards a cliff he did not see.
The track crews, administered by the civil office of the Hippodrome Prefect and thus resolutely non-partisan, were extremely good at their various tasks. These included attending to the state of the racecourse, the condition of the starting barriers, the fairness of the start itself, judging fouls and obstructions during the races, and attempting to police the stables and prevent poisonings of horses or assaults on drivers-at least within the Hippodrome itself. Attacks outside were none of their business.
One of their most demanding activities was clearing the track after a collision. They were trained to remove a chariot, horses, an injured driver with speed and skill, either to the safety of the spina or across to the outside of the track against the stands. They could disentangle a pair of mangled quadrigas, cut free the rearing, frightened horses, push twisted wheels out of the way, and do all of this in time to enable the surviving chariots coming around to proceed apace.
Three downed and wrecked quadrigas, twelve entangled horses, including a broken-legged White yoke horse that had dragged its thrashing, yoked companion awkwardly over on its side when it went down, and an unconscious, badly hurt driver presented something of a problem, however.
They got the injured man on a litter over to the spina. They cut all six trace horses free and unhooked two pairs of-the yoke horses. They dragged one chariot as far to the outside as they could. They were working on the other two, struggling to unyoke the terrified healthy horse from the broken-legged one, when a warning shout came that the leaders had come back around-moving very fast-and the yellow-garbed track crew had to sprint madly for safety themselves.
The accident had taken place on the inside lanes. There was plenty of room for the thundering quadrigas to pass the wreckage to the outside. Or, in the alternative, just enough room for one of them, if they happened to be running nearly abreast and the outside driver was disinclined to move over enough to let the inside one pass safely by.
They were, as it happened, running nearly abreast. Scortius of the Blues was outside, a little behind as the two quadrigas came out of the turn and the sea-horse dived to signal the last lap. He drifted smoothly outwards as they came into the straight-just enough to take his quadriga safely around the wreckage and the two tangled horses on the track.
Crescens of the Greens was thereby faced, in a blur of time and at the apex of fevered excitement, with three obvious but extremely unpalatable choices. He could destroy his team and possibly himself by tearing into the obstruction. He could cut towards Scortius, trying to force his way around the outer edge of the pile-up-thereby incurring a certain disqualification and a suspension for the rest of the day. Or he could rein his steaming horses violently back, let Scortius go by, and veer around behind the other driver, effectively conceding defeat with but a single lap to go. He was a brave man. It had been a stunning, blood-stirring race. He tried to go through on the inside. The two fallen horses were farther over. Only a single downed chariot lay near the spina rail. Crescens lashed his own splendid left-side trace horse once, guided it to the innermost rail and squeezed his four horses by. The left one scraped hard against the rail. The outside trace horse clipped a leg against a spinning wheel-but they were by. The Green champion’s chariot hurtled through as well, bouncing into the air so that Crescens appeared to be flying for a moment like an image of Heladikos. But he was through. He came down, brilliantly keeping his balance, whip and reins still in hand, the horses running hard.