A Mixture of Madness, Book II of The Bow of Heaven (52 page)

“Drusus,” Betto observed
coolly from below, “you look like a horse breaking a rider.” A flailing arm sent a glass cup into the air but I caught and set it down out of harm’s way.

“Left-handed,” Malchus said, impressed. “‘Guess all that extra work you and Betto did up in the Circus Flaminius paid off.”

“I could give him something,” Livia said, reaching for her kit.

“No,” I said. “
We’re not giving Hanno any of your Egyptian opium. He may never be this close to a chariot race again. Let him enjoy it.”

“M
y lord governor, why such pessimism?” my wife said with joyful sarcasm. “You may yet preside over many more races.”

A withering glance was all I had time to give her, for Varro had arrived.
The newcomers crowded about the railing.

“You’re
the winner your name is Varro!” a delighted Hanno said.

“I am.”

“My name is Hannibal, but my secret name is Hanno. This is my master and his secret name is—”

“Varro needs to get ready for the next race, Hannibal,” Livia said, introducing herself as the boy’s doctor.

“An honor to meet you, Hannibal. Shall I tell you a secret?”

Hanno drew in his breath. “What
is
it?” he whispered, leaning over the railing as far as Malchus would allow.

“As of today, h
e is my master, too.”

This sent Hanno into the rapture of one of his smiles, and Varro was too close not to be infected. “Tell me, Hannibal, do you have something to give me for luck, for the next race?
”

Malchus almost lost his grip
on the boy as Hanno’s level of thrilled excitement spun into frantic indecision.

Betto, his mouth full of grapes,
said, “Give him a glove.”

Malchus whipped around to glare at his
thoughtless friend, but it was too late. Hanno insisted, and as Livia untied the laces, she explained about an ‘accident,’ but nothing could prepare the charioteer. The look on Varro’s face when he saw the mutilated hand froze not only his own features, but everyone else’s who could see the horror in the young man’s eyes. And then it was gone, most of it.

“That’s pretty awful,” Varro said.

“Yeah, it is,” Hanno agreed. “I have two of them they look just the same. You can see—”

“I had a little brother who died when he lost just one of his fingers. He got a fever and he never got better.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t know I’m really really sorry.”

“
Of course you didn’t know,” Varro said, looking up at the boy looking down upon his new hero. “But if you’d let me, I can’t think of anything better than this glove to take with me for luck.”

Ten charioteers began the next race, this time driving three-horse teams on larger, stronger chariots
five times around the
spina
. I won’t keep you in suspense. Varro won. The One Who Sings walked up the steps at the railing and made a solemn and grateful ceremony of returning Hanno’s lucky talisman. Livia held the glove while Varro grasped the boy’s bare hand in both of his and told him how he was sure that when he sang of its owner to his horses, they practically grew wings. After a short moment, Hanno withdrew his hand and as was his usual custom when he had no words, pressed his head onto the charioteer’s chest and let his arms do the talking for him.

B
ecause of the more spacious accommodations in the larger chariot, this time when the new governor of Antioch drove round the track with the red-headed boy who, with this new purse, was only 150,000
sesterces
shy of buying his freedom, they had company. I venture to say that for that third boy, his deformities hidden by kind distance from the crowd, his brown-gloved hands extended in victory, his smile evidence of a delight unmarred by a single grain of impurity, this had been the happiest moment in his life.

I cannot write more about that circuit or the look in my wife’s eyes when it was done.
I simply do not have the words. Now mark me. I am not one for sentimentality. Do not expect it of me often.

•••

Two of the participants
that ended in that touching moment, however, did not make it across the finish line. And one of the spectators had to be dragged first to the center of the field, then carried off it. No one died, but perhaps there were one or two that wished they had.

It may be a lesson for other fields of endeavor that those who
lag behind find themselves not only in the exponential difficulty of gaining the lead, but also in the most danger. Certainly the physics of a race track lends itself to such a theory. As any equestrian well knows, running to the inside of the track means there is less track to run. Therefore, horses, riders and chariots all tend to congregate close to the
spina
. How is one, then, to break free of the mob? The inside track is jealously guarded; but to outdistance the leaders by hurling yourself around the outside circumference means having to run both faster and farther then everyone else, making the task that much more difficult.

Two
contestants, one of each color, found themselves in just such a predicament. Mid-way through the fourth lap, they were forced to the outside as they came out of the turn on the far side of the track. From our seats we did not have a good view of what happened, which is the only good thing I can say about the incident. Remember, we were sitting at the finish line halfway down the length of the hippodrome. We were therefore looking across the near track, the
spina
and
the supine obelisk resting on its back, in addition to the width of the far track. Above all this the car of a chariot came briefly sailing in a most distressing arc. It was upside down, its pole broken, its driver nowhere in sight. The sound of the crash followed instantaneously, accompanied by gouts of screams and billows of dust.

Careening round the turn to our left
raced the remaining six teams, Varro among them. Though we told Hanno that his new friend was safe, he would not leave his chair; for the remainder of the race he sat with his face buried in his gloved hands.

The wreckage
—human, equine, wooden and iron was barely removed in time. Two of the six horses survived; the rest were put down. The charioteers lived, but would never race again. It was almost enough to make one believe in the gods:  neither driver had been killed and each raced for different stables. Had either of those conditions not been met, a riot might easily have ensued. Even the horses were slaughtered equally between the greens and the blues.

As for the overzealous devotee of
the greens who, whether to impress his girlfriend or win a bet, had thrown a nail-encrusted curse tablet onto the track, to his great and everlasting misfortune, he had neither good aim nor good luck. He been seen and seized. Because of this malefactor, the final race of the day, the most grueling and the most demanding, the contest Antiochenes had been thinking of as they packed their baskets of fruit, bread, cheese and wine in the dark that morning, would have to be postponed a while longer while the track and justice were restored.

I had not noticed them before, but beneath
the bronze legs of the giant outward-facing horses that reared at each end of the
spina
were two seven-foot iron posts set five feet apart. The southern set of these were still awash in full sunlight, and to them the officers of the hippodrome had the hapless man chained, one arm to each post. He faced inward, toward the verdigris flanks of the great horse. There was just enough room at the tapered tip of the
spina
for the bare-chested
lorarius
to stretch and get his footing for the work ahead. Not once so far in the day’s events had the crowd ever grown as quiet as during those seconds as when the slave prepared to give the criminal twenty of his best. It was critical to their enjoyment of this moment that they strain to hear the whisper of the whip as it descended, the crack as it bit into flesh, the scream of the prisoner as muscle and nerves that were never meant to be disturbed were violently aggrieved.

The distance from us was not so
great that Hanno could not both see and hear. He sat now between Livia and myself. At the instant of the first strike, his eyes widened and he put his hand up to my cheek, turning it toward him. “Master, master can you make him stop, can you?” I shook my head. “Then you must look away,” he implored, “look at Livia look at me here I am look at me. It’s all right it will be over soon look at me till it’s over, master.” I needed no more encouragement. Livia, Hanno and I sat with heads bowed until it was over.

But what of the thousands
on the opposite side of the hippodrome? Never fear. They were not to be denied. The perpetrator was unchained and assisted to the floor of the track. Feet trailing wavy patterns behind him in the dirt, arms draped over the shoulders of two guards, he was dragged the length of the
spina
to the unused iron posts waiting for him at the other end of the stadium. On that side, only the grand head of the horse remained in golden sunlight. There, the second half of the punishment was administered.

The man, whose name is irrelevant,
had been a citizen. Had he been a slave, he would have been executed. Since before this day he was not a slave, he became one. The auction was postponed until the two injured charioteers were well enough to bid. They were both veterans of the Antioch hippodrome, and therefore were both exceedingly wealthy. I am told that on the day of his sale, the auctioneer noted record attendance, but only two bidders when his lot number was called. It is said that a private, shared accommodation was reached.

The last race was the most grueling.
Eight contenders at the reins of
quadrigae
, chariots drawn by teams of four horses, raced ten laps around the track. From the very beginning, it was a two-man contest between Varro and Galeno. Long before it happened, Varro realized they were going to lap their opponents. He intentionally “lost” the fight with Galeno for the inside, pretending something had gotten into his eye, letting the blue charioteer veer left. With only a little more than one circuit left in the race, Varro’s blacks and Galeno’s snow white teams came upon a wall of impenetrable dust and thunder.

Varro was on the outside, the only way to pass, but he faced another difficulty I had not thought to mention earlier. The pilot horse, the one used to steer the others, is always positioned to the left, since races are run in a circle from the right hand to the left. Varro held the reins for this animal separately in his left hand. The leads for the others, the power horses, were wrapped about his waist. It was a delicate matter to nudge these other three to go against their natural instincts when the slightest misstep at such speed meant instant disaster. But that is what he did, knowing that some chance of breaking through was better than no chance at all.

Leaning over the top of his car, The One Who Sings asked his four blacks to lift them all beyond the dust and noise and take them into the clear air
waiting for them before the finish line. He did not see until his team had done what he had asked of them that Galeno, too, had accomplished the impossible. Nearest to the
spina
had been a blue driver, a green, and then another blue. Galeno, as Varro had known he would be, was bogged down behind them. Sensing what was about to happen, another green dropped back and boxed Galeno in. One could almost hear his curses. The blue charioteer in lane three broke this deadlock by pulling ahead into the second lane as they made the turn into the final run to the finish line. What this clever driver did then was slow his team, forcing both greens back and creating a gap for Galeno to slip through.

Varro was ahead, but he was on the outside. Galeno came up fast.
Marcus Antonius had ripped the cushion off a chair and was punching it to the rhythm of his profanity. Petronius, I was somewhat shocked to see, had joined Livia, Hanno and myself and was jumping up and down and cheering for Varro.

•••

“I won’t allow
that
in my chariot,” Galeno said.

I shrugged.
“Your blue fans will be disappointed. I imagine they would like to see you take your victory lap with your governor.”

“
And I don’t think they’ll like it if you refuse, seeing as how you’ve already done it twice with Varro.” The bearded wretch smiled at me. So, the sweaty charioteer had beaten the lofty politician. I longed to tell him he could feel proud having bested an impostor, and a slave at that.

Livia stood behind Hanno, both arms around him, not in restraint but pure affection. “I don’t want to go I don’t. I went twice already with Varro
.”

“You don’t have to, love.”

“One time with Varro would be better than five, no ten times with Not Varro.”

As before, I congratulated the second place finisher. As I shook his hand, it was as if Varro could read my mind.
Before I could say a word he said, “My lord, free or not, I will still race for the greens.”

I
wished him good health and good fortune, then turned away to step up into the winner’s chariot. Slipping the ribbon over Galeno’s head, I gave him his purse. I even took his hand and held it aloft. I had to let the charioteer have his way or it would seem I was favoring the greens. However, I did take an inordinate amount of satisfaction from the less than deafening roar as we made our circuit around the stadium.