And then the mortal chariots would run, in the god’s glorious name, all through a summer’s day in the holy city of Sarantium. And the Blues, Jad willing, would triumph over the stinking Greens, who were no better than barbarians or pagan Bassanids or even Kindath, as everyone knew. ‘Look,’ someone said sharply, and pointed.
Fotius turned. He actually heard the marching footsteps before he saw the soldiers appear, shadows out of the shadows, through the Bronze Gate at the western end of the square.
The Excubitors, hundreds of them, armed and armoured beneath their gold-and-red tunics, came into the Hippodrome Forum from the Imperial Precinct. That was unusual enough at this hour to actually be terrifying. There had been two small riots in the past year, when the more rabid partisans of the two colours had come to blows. Knives had appeared, and staves, and the Excubitors had been summoned to help the Urban Prefect’s men quell them. Quelling by the Imperial Guard of Sarantium was not a mild process. A score of dead had strewn the stones afterwards both times.
Someone else said, ‘Holy Jad, the pennons!’ and Fotius saw, belatedly, that the Excubitors’ banners were lowered on their staffs. He felt a cold wind blow through his soul, from no direction in the world. The Emperor was dead.
Their father, the god’s beloved, had left them. Sarantium was bereft, forsaken, open to enemies east and north and west, malevolent and godless. And with Jad’s Emperor gone, who knew what daemons or spirits from the half-world might now descend to wreak their havoc among helpless mortal men? Was this why he’d seen a ghost? Fotius thought of plague coming again, of war, of famine. In that moment he pictured his child lying dead. Terror pushed him to his knees on the cobbles of the square. He realized that he was weeping for the Emperor he had never seen except as a distant, hieratic figure in the Imperial Box in the Hippodrome.
Then-an ordinary man living his days in the world of ordinary men-Fotius the sandalmaker understood that there would be no racing today. That his reckless wager with the glassblower was nullified. Amid terror and grief, he felt a shaft of relief like a bright spear of sunlight. Three races in a row? It had been a fool’s wager, and he was quit of it.
There were many men kneeling now. The Holy Fool, seeing an opportunity, had raised his voice in denunciation-Fotius couldn’t make him out over the babble of noise, so he didn’t know what the man was decrying now. Godlessness, license, a divided clergy, heretics with Heladikian beliefs. The usual litanies. One of the Excubitors strode over to him and spoke quietly. The holy man ignored the soldier, as they usually did. But then Fotius, astonished, saw the ascetic dealt a slash across the shins with a spear shaft. The ragged man let out a cry-more of surprise than anything else-and fell to his knees, silent.
Over the wailing of the crowd another voice rose then, stern and assured, compelling attention. It helped that the speaker was on horseback, the only mounted man in the forum.
‘Hear me! No harm will come to anyone here,’ he said, ‘if order is preserved. You see our banners. They tell their tale. Our glorious Emperor, Jad’s most dearly beloved, his thrice-exalted regent upon earth, has left us to join the god in glory behind the sun. There will be no chariots today, but the Hippodrome gates will be opened for you to take comfort together while the Imperial Senate assembles to proclaim our new Emperor.’
A louder murmur of sound. There was no heir; everyone knew it. Fotius saw people streaming into the forum from all directions. News of this sort would take no time at all to travel. He took a breath, struggling to hold down a renewed panic. The Emperor was dead. There was no Emperor in Sarantium.
The mounted man again lifted a hand for stillness. He sat his horse straight as a spear, clad as his soldiers were. Only the black horse and a border of silver on his overtunic marked his rank. No pretension here. A peasant from Trakesia, a farmer’s son come south as a lad, rising in the army ranks through hard work and no little courage in battle. Everyone knew this tale. A man among men, that was the word on Valerius of Trakesia, Count of the Excubitors.