The Chariots of Calyx

Chapter Eleven

The next morning we were woken by a soldier, a double-pay officer in full uniform, who brought us a breakfast of hard wheaten biscuits and thin wine.

‘Standard army rations,’ he told me, with a smile, ‘though the commander has sent you some fruit in too, seeing that you come from the governor. Oh, and I am to give you his apologies, citizen. He didn’t want to rouse you early, but I think you said you wanted to attend the chariot racing? It is already an hour after dawn, and if you and your servant want to be sure of a seat…?’

We did. Junio was on his feet almost before the optio had finished speaking, and was already splashing cold water enthusiastically from the jug beside the door into a large bowl which he had found on the stone bench. Very cold water, I suspected, since the promised brazier had never arrived, and I eyed these preparations rather reluctantly from the comfortable warmth of my bed, while the optio bowed himself out with promises to return as soon as I was ready to leave. He would personally escort us to the stadium — on the commander’s express instructions.

I was dressed only in my tunic, but I rose and stood shivering on the stone floor while Junio rinsed my hands and face. Then I gnawed my way through some breakfast and allowed myself to be dressed once more in my toga, though Junio was so excited by the prospect of the day ahead that he had to make two attempts at draping the cloth. He was so eager and anxious to be gone that I took pity on him in the end and fastened my own sandals, while he crammed food into his mouth. When I looked up he was standing ready at the door, before he had really finished swallowing. Army biscuits are said to breed hard men — certainly they exercise the jaws.

I clapped Junio on the shoulder and we set off together.

The optio, true to his word, was waiting outside the door, and as soon as we made an appearance he took up a place beside me, gesturing for two other members of his company to bring up front and rear. Junio had naturally stepped deferentially behind me, so I found myself forming the central part of a little procession as we walked out of the barracks. The guards at the gate of the fort moved smartly to let us through, and in the streets outside, the townsfolk stood even more hastily aside, abandoning their business to whisper and goggle at us as we went by.

I am not used to being stared at, and I found myself falling into step with the soldiers and marching along rather importantly, the townsfolk in the busy streets parting before us like cheese under a cook’s cleaver.

‘Wonder what he’s done, poor fellow,’ I heard a trader mutter, as he and his laden donkey tried to squeeze themselves into a doorway to let us pass. I suppose I did look as if I were under some kind of military arrest. I walked the rest of the way to the stadium in a more chastened frame of mind, and my feet deliberately out of time with those of my marching escort.

The stadium had been set up just outside the town walls, at the foot of a small hillock, and was obviously large. A high wicker fence surrounded the enclosure, with an impressive entrance gate at one end through which the public were currently pouring.

As we made our way to the head of the jostling mob, I noticed a large and heavily built guard using a cudgel on an unfortunate youth in an ochre tunic who was trying to scale the fence, although entry to the stadium was free. I grimaced in sympathy, but the boy had been taking an obvious risk. The organisers of race meets always take a dim view of visitors who attempt to get in without running the gauntlet of fast-food sellers, wine and water vendors, souvenir stalls, soothsayers and official betting booths which have been granted expensive licences to operate inside the fence.

If the people in the streets had not known who we were, here we were certainly expected. The same cudgel-bearing guard appeared, and wielded his weapon — rather indiscriminately I thought — to open a path for us among the throng. People do not argue with a cudgel, and we were soon inside.

My patron, Marcus, would doubtless have thought it nothing, after the Circus Maximus in Rome, but compared to the races I had seen in Glevum this was a revelation. The stadium was huge. The slope of the hill itself formed a natural grandstand on one side of the track; a wooden framework had been erected on the other side, with tiered benches on top of it, while at the further end, behind the turning post, was a covered viewing box for town officials and any visiting dignitaries.

The track was impressive, too. There was a purpose-built central reservation, with a wide track around it — sand laid on hammered clay, by the look of it — and a dozen slaves were already raking the surface flat. Proper hurdle fences separated the spectators from the action and there were portable wicker starting-stalls provided for the horses. A pair of wide wooden gates under the civic box led from the stadium into the stables and changing yard beyond. At the turning point, six rocking dolphins, made of gilded wood, were permanently displayed on poles, ready for the circuit-slaves to tip them forward one at a time, as the horses passed, and so help the crowd keep count of the laps.

The optio was right about obtaining a seat. Already the far bank was packed with spectators, many of them waving red, white or blue scarves in anticipation. I was surprised how few Green supporters there appeared to be. In Glevum there are always hundreds of them, not least because the Green faction is notoriously ‘for the people’ and against the governing classes, and supporting them is one of the few ways in which ordinary citizens can safely demonstrate their lack of sympathy with the Emperor.

(In fact, as I discovered later, support for the Greens was very strong in Verulamium. The absence of scarves was on my account — rumour of my imperial warrant had spread, and upon my arrival at the racecourse all the Green colours had been hastily hidden. Even in this outpost of Empire, it is sometimes dangerous to be seen cheering for the wrong people.)

Perhaps because of the presence of my escort, finding ourselves somewhere to sit was not a problem. Spectators melted away at our approach, and we were able to commandeer an excellent vantage point on the hill, near the turning point. We had hardly settled ourselves there before a slave arrived to invite us to join the civic dignitaries in the box over the stands, but I (very politely) declined on the grounds that I was acting on the governor’s instructions and wished to have a closer view of the horses. I did not want to be part of the civic party — people in the official box become almost as much of a spectacle as the chariots themselves and I wanted to observe Fortunatus without half the town knowing I was doing so.

I know from experience that the best view is always obtained from a point just before the apex of the corner, where one can see the horses turning at the other end and the whole of the straight — where the speed is greatest — and obtain a wonderful view of the entry to the bend, where the skill of the horsemen is most in evidence, and — as Junio could tell you — most of the spectacular crashes occur.

Pertinax’s bounty as we left permitted me the unaccustomed luxury of buying a handful of ‘hot nuts and crispy pork pieces’ from one of the itinerant vendors who moved among the crowd. They were not very warm and not remotely crispy, but as we sat back upon the bank and joined the rippling anticipation of the crowd I began to share something of Junio’s excitement. I handed him the little container made of twisted bark, and he helped himself to a piece of greasy pork with a sigh of pure happiness. The soldiers were all three staring into the distance with an expression of loftiest disdain, so I did not offer them any. I gave Junio a few coins to stake on one of the teams, and he set off to find someone to bet with, while I huddled the rest of my purchase to myself and settled back to wait for the spectacle.

I did not have long to wait. First the donor of the games entered, a candidate for local office in a gleaming white toga, heralded by a flourish of trumpets. He was warmly greeted by the assembled company, and made his way to the official box. Then came the old priest of Jupiter, who had doubtless performed the morning’s sacrifice for a successful day. He was shaky and senile, but he too was politely applauded. So were the traditional tumblers, dancers and pipers who followed him.

I was smiling at the antics of one of the acrobats when Junio came struggling back through the crowd, looking rather pleased with himself.

‘Did you bet on Fortunatus?’ I said, leaning forward to speak to him — he had settled himself on the far side of the optio. ‘I hope you got good odds?’

Junio grinned a little sheepishly, but before there was time to say another word a sudden surge of anticipation ran through the crowd. A moment later there was the thundering noise of hooves as the horsemen cantered down the road outside and wheeled through the gates. Urchins danced daringly at their wheels, to be seen off in no uncertain fashion by the cudgelled guard, and a moment later the whole stadium was on its feet, cheering, stamping, whistling and waving. Even the occasional green scarf made an appearance.

It was a spectacular and unexpected entry. Even a non-enthusiast could scarcely fail to be impressed. The magnificent horses (the first race was clearly to be a four-in-hand) were obviously the finest money could buy: wonderful creatures, coats gleaming, heads tossing, their harness decorated with the colour of their factio. The drivers, too, were dressed in coloured tunics, under the leather bandages which covered chest and legs, with coloured plumes on their helmets; and the little lightweight wicker chariots, shaped like upturned shells, were painted in the same hues of blue, green, red or white. The four professional teams were followed by their local counterparts, to the more muted delight of their supporters. Three times they trotted in procession round the course, while the crowd cheered and roared, and women threw garlands at their feet.

Then the local teams withdrew through the inner gates, the stalls were moved into position, and the four professional charioteers drew up to await the start. The cheering had ceased now, and the crowd waited with a kind of hushed anticipation. Then the donor of the games came to the front of the civic box and threw down a handkerchief as a signal, the slaves whisked away the wicker stalls and in an instant the race had begun.

What followed was almost too quick to see. Hooves thundered, whips cracked, wheels leapt and drivers cursed. I felt my own pulse racing as the speed increased, and the murmur of the crowd became a growl and then a roar. I have seen good racing in Glevum, but the Londinium teams were in a class of their own. As they turned, almost in front of us, I could see the chariots bouncing off the ground with the speed of it, the drivers using their own weight to balance their fragile vehicles, and urging the horses on as though Cerberus himself was after them. Then they were gone, around the turning point in a cloud of dust, and there was only the drumming of the hooves to mark their progress up the other side of the central barrier.

Around the further turn they came, the horses snorting and straining. White’s driver barged the Green’s, and the crowd went wild. One of Green’s wheels left the ground, and the chariot almost overturned, but the man was skilled and with supreme effort threw his whole body over the upper rim as it toppled and brought the vehicle juddering back to earth. He had lost time, as the other teams swerved past him: yet a moment later he was thundering down the course in pursuit.

The gods were evidently watching, for at the next corner the White driver glanced backwards at his rival, and in that instant lost the race. He took the bend too sharply and too fast, and lost control of his chariot. It leapt into the air and he was catapulted forward, losing the reins. He pulled his knife out to cut the chariot free from the leather traces, but he was not quick enough. Driver, chariot, broken wheels — all came tumbling down together in an untidy heap to be swept remorselessly onwards by the charging horses. I saw him try to struggle upright, bruised and wounded, and then he was thrown clear, almost unseating the driver of the Reds. He lay on the track motionless, blood seeping from under his helmet, until the circuit-slaves came running out to seize his legs and pull him off the course before the horses came round again.

His horses streamed on, dragging the chariot with them.

Three dolphins down. Four. Five. The rogue horses made it difficult for the remaining drivers, who had to keep their wits about them. On the sixth lap the driverless chariot whipped about on its traces and threatened to entangle itself under Red’s wheels but the pace scarcely seemed to slacken. The crowd gasped, hoping for another ‘shipwreck’, but the driver steered himself clear, overtook Green on the apex of the bend and thundered home to victory. Blue came in a disappointing third.

I glanced at Junio. His face was glowing with excitement. ‘So much for the famous Fortunatus,’ I said. ‘I hope you didn’t stake all my money on him.’

He took on that sheepish look again. ‘Fortunatus isn’t here,’ he said.

I rounded on him. ‘What?’

‘That is what they told me, master, when I went to bet.’

‘It is true, citizen,’ the optio put in, clearly sensing my irritation with my slave. ‘Fortunatus was thrown from his chariot in the very first race, on the first day, and he has not competed since. He didn’t break anything, so the team surgeon says, but he hit his head. They took him back to the team inn on a shutter, but it took him hours to come to himself and even then he was complaining of headaches and — worse — of not being able to see. He won’t be racing again in this tournament, though the medicus says he may recover, in time. People were very disappointed. It was quite the talk of the town.’

I was angry. ‘Why didn’t someone tell me this before?’

The optio shrugged. ‘You merely asked to attend the chariot racing, citizen. I did not know it was only Fortunatus that you wanted to watch.’

There was justice in that. I had not explained to the commander why I wanted to come to the racing, just in case any rumours reached Fortunatus. I muttered crossly, ‘And after I have travelled from Londinium expressly to talk to him. Where is this inn they have taken him to?’

The optio shook his head. ‘I am afraid, citizen, that Fortunatus has already returned to Londinium, under the care of one of the team guards. Or so the rumour goes. They say the medicus decided that the only cure was rest, and that Fortunatus could do that better in his own quarters. If I had only known that you wished to speak to him in particular, citizen, I could have saved you a wasted journey to the circuit.’

But Junio knew, I thought to myself, and he had not seen fit to tell me, though he discovered the truth before the race began. I whirled to face him. ‘Why-’

He was already looking contrite. ‘I did not know that he was not in the town. I merely heard that he’d had a fall, and naturally I assumed that he was being tended by the medicus at the team inn. And then the horses were coming, and since you could hardly leave in the middle of a race. .’ He gave me an uncertain glance.

I scowled. ‘I suppose so,’ I said ungraciously. ‘But we have wasted time as a result of your silence.’

He gave me a sideways look. ‘I’m sorry, master. Truly I am. But you have gained something by the delay.’

‘Which is?’

‘That denarius you gave me. When I heard that Fortunatus was not racing after all, I bet it on the Reds. You have doubled your money. And you did enjoy the racing.’

There are times when I find it very difficult to be angry with my servant for long. Under the incredulous eyes of the optio, though, I did my best.