My eyes seemed to be on fire. I lowered them, and at that moment the priest spoke.
“She hears,” he said.
Curious, it seemed he knew it for a fact. Then abruptly he reached up and plucked two red leaves from the goddess’
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chaplet, and I saw for the first time it was real, not a painted thing.
He turned and took my hand, and put the leaves into it.
“One for each,” he said.
My fingers closed around them, cool and crisp on my palm. The priest nodded and went away again behind his narrow door.
I looked at Barak’s face, and I saw all the darkness had gone out of it. So it had worked, then. Superstition against superstition; and yet I felt it too, the joy and release.
We went out and the day was warmer still. I put one vine leaf in his hand. He said nothing, but, as we walked back toward the farm, I knew he was eager, thinking of the chariot, the team, the roaring crowd, the rushing Straight, the glory, and the prize. I did not know what would come of it, but he was Darak again. And this, to him, was the Day of Victory.
He went first to the stables to make love to the black team, eager and restive under their grooming, as though they sensed this was the time. He came in late to eat, a sparse meal, bread, a slice or two of cold meat, wine and water in equal measure. Bellan hovered around us to keep appetites in check. I did not eat-I could not risk those pains coming to distract me-but I had taken what I needed the night before. Raspar had gone ahead of us to Ankurum. He would have his own fine seat, not far from the Warden’s place. Grooms were running everywhere, and soon the chariot and team were gone too, to the Sirkunix stables for the traditional inspection. We-Bellan, Darak, Maggur, and I-rode after, with an escort of more grooms.
“Every charioteer needs his own army,” Bellan remarked, “on this day of war.”
His own horse, a sturdy bay, he guided only by his knees, the reins looped in the buckle of his belt; but it was his, and knew him.
There were men and women, farmworkers most of them, leaning over walls and fences to watch us ride by. They raised cheers, for now we were dressed for the arena, and there was no mistaking us, or our colors-black for the team, scarlet for the vine. Darak wore the skin-tight black leggings that ended, thong-tied, at the ankles, the black hide belt, with its red enamel clasp, from which swung thick strips of stiffened black hide to mid-thigh-a protection, but allowing free movement of the legs. For the moment he still wore knee-
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high black boots, red tassels set thickly around the ealf. Above the waist theoretically he was bare except for the shield-cuirass, hardened black leather shaped to the body but covering only lower back, abdomen, and ribs, leaving the arms and shoulders free for the team. It was open at the sides, too, held by three straps of black leather with garnet buckles. On the cuirass, front and back, was the scarlet sunburst, which was repeated in turn on the thick black iron armlets which strengthened the charioteer’s wrists. Across his shoulders, looped around his arms, was the blood-bright cloak, superfluous yet glamorous as the tasseled boots. I, the archer, was his echo, dressed the same, except that I had no protection above the waist save the scarlet cloak I wore around me now, and would slough in the stadium. Neither did I sport two armlets, only one to harden my left wrist. The right wrist would carry the black iron shield with its red sunburst, now across my saddle. My hair I wore plaited behind me and wound around itself, secured by scarlet thongs.
When we passed the little temple of the goddess of the vine, I turned to look my thanks. Darak did not turn, but I knew he carried the vine leaf under his left armlet as I did mine.
When we went through the Ring Gate and into Ankurum, the crowds were milling everywhere. They roared and shouted at us-praises, cheers, prayers: “I’ve put a tenth of my silver on you, northerner-get it for me, for the love of the gods!”
Women peered from windows and balconies in the “garden” quarter. Plump, pampered, pretty, they threw out flowers to Darak, yearning their painted-ringed eyes. Indeed, he looked enough like one of their gods. Handsome, his body deep golden and hard as iron, his face arrogant and proud, and the eyes bright, fearless, self-amused. He could have his pick of them if he should win. But, if not, if not … a pit, a heap of earth, no song, and no white Ankurum lady to share that bed with him.
7
Things crumble, civilizations fade; only their tokens are left behind them. Perhaps one day they will find the ruins of the Sirkunix at Ankurum, and say it was made by giants.
It was built partly from the same warm yellowish stone
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that was predominant in the town, but the greater area of it was hollowed out of the rock hills themselves. It was outside the original wall, but a new wall had been extended to wrap it around. From the outside its own walls reared up and up, crowned with round towers, like the ramparts of a fortress. At the town end were ten gates to admit men and women from the various hierarchies of society. At the wall end, the back door of the stadium, there were only five: the Gate of Iron-the wrestlers’ and boxers’ gate; the Gate of Alcum-the gate of the acrobats and dancers; the Gate of Bronzethe gate of duelers and fighters of beasts; the Gate of Silver -the racers’ gate and the men with chariots; and the fifth, at the center of the rest, the Gate of Gold-through which passed the riders of the Sagare. Over that gate, high up, in carved letters that must have been stretched ten feet high or more, was an inscription, Ankurumite, yet with an odd spelling that reminded me of another tongue, close to me, but which I must forget:
MORTAL, NOW YOU ARE GOD
Beyond the Gate of Gold, we rode down a long ramp into red gloom, lit by torches in the stone walls. There was a smell of horses here, and something more besides, inexplicable yet intense. The ramp took a long while to travel, for it led under the high terraces of the stadium to the level of the arena floor.
At last we emerged in,the vast under-rock cavern. To left and right, passages led away to baths, weapons halls, physicians’ rooms, and the stables. Beyond these complexes lurked the other deeper caves-beast pits, and the death crematoria of those who died here without kin. At the cavern’s far end, the long corridor, ten chariots wide, leading out into the open.
Most of the horses were done with their stables now. It was noon, and the Warden would be at his dinner, but in an hour the traditional procession of his gracious self, favored ladies, men of important houses, would amble through this place of strength and tautness, languidly sizing up the form for the last time before all final bets were taken.
The cavern was very wide and high, torches splashing yellow from the walls. There were ten divisions in all, horsehigh stone partitions, and inside each enough space for chariot, horses, and grooms to maneuver in comfort. Six of the chariots were in place, glittering metal and color, the
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horses being coaxed into the shafts. In the fifth stall, the three blacks waited, taking their final grooming patiently enough, while behind them the chariot was taking its own. The bodywork and wheels of every vehicle dripped oil, and oil ran in pools along the floor until it reached the drains. The aroma was mostly of oil, metal too, sweat of horses and men, leather, horse droppings, straw, stone, and the knifesharp, knife-bright smell of tension.
The blacks tossed their heads at Darak as he stroked and caressed them, polished ebony, their manes and floating tails plaited so full of scarlet ribbons that they seemed to be on fire.
“You’ve watched the chariot and team?” Bellan asked his chief groom at once.
“Yes, sir. No one came near. There’s been nothing of that sort I know of. Number seven-the Renshan-one of the grays lost a shoe, but it was all in the run of the thing, nothing tampered with I’d say.”
The charioteers and their grooms were everywhere in the cavern, attending the teams, joking, drinking. “Bad,” Bellan remarked. A man in yellow had sought the Altar of All Gods, in a recess, and was bowed before it.
“Barl of Andum,” Ballan said. “A good driver, not a master. He’ll take second if he keeps steady. Those grays of his have too much temperament.”