Then he left the track. Slaves carrying baskets began climbing through the stands, tossing out handfuls of little wooden markers. Spectators dove for them, cheering if they caught one, groaning if they missed. When a handful was flung toward Margo’s seats, she caught one by reflex, then wondered what it was. She couldn’t read what it said. Quintus Flaminius grinned and babbled something incomprehensible. At a signal from the Emperor’s box, those who had caught markers descended toward the track. Margo gulped. Surely the “winners” wouldn’t be sacrificed in the arena?
Those who had caught the wooden disks grinned like sweepstakes winners. Quintus snapped his fingers at Achilles. The boy bowed and took Margo’s wooden disc, then hastily followed in the wake of other winners. When he and the other winners returned, Margo discovered there was a reason those who’d caught the disks grinned like sweepstakes winners: they were. Each person who had presented a “ticket” had received a prize. Achilles presented hers formally: a small leather pouch.
She opened it and shook out a blood-red gemstone carved with a racing chariot and the obelisk from the Circus’ barrier wall. Margo gasped. “Ohh …”
Quintus Flaminius whistled softly and examined the stone. Then smiled and returned it to her. Other lucky winners nearby displayed bags of coins to their friends, or parchments that seemed important. She heard the word terra and concluded they’d won deeds to land parcels. Margo tucked her prize back into its leather pouch and secreted that in her money pouch as the second event began, a race where jockeys rode horses in something approaching the modern style of horse racing. They ran from the turning post near Margo’s seat to the far end of the barrier where the starting stalls were located, racing past the emperor’s platform in a cloud of dust