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  When Ballista had seen all that he wanted to see, he gave the priests some money to make sacrifice and left the grove. The urchins looking after the horses led the party to an inn, which they said would serve them a good lunch even at this late hour. Ballista thought they were probably relatives of the innkeeper or that he paid them a small fee for every customer they produced. But the inn was fine. Vines were trained over trellises to make a pleasant out-of-doors dining room with a view over the distant plain of the Orontes. Having checked with the others, Ballista ordered their meal, a salad of artichoke hearts and black pudding followed by suckling pig.

  Ballista thought that his reunion with his son was going as well as one could hope. At first Isangrim had been silent and resentful. I waited for you. I sat on the stairs all the time. I did not think you were coming back. But the boy had an affectionate nature, and soon it was as if there was nothing to forgive.

  ‘I love sausages, Pappa.’ Isangrim ate hungrily, with both hands. None of the men told him off for eating with the left hand, which was impolite. Maximus asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up.

  ‘When I get as big as you I will be a forester.’ Isangrim looked round at the famous cpyresses. ‘I chop all these trees down.’ He turned to his father, his earnestness unshakeable. ‘I have to get up very early in the morning to do all the work.’ The three adults laughed.

  The laughter carried clear across the terrace to where, eating chickpea broth, the cheapest choice, the assassin sat watching them.

  The assassin had been watching for them all day. The client had led him to the house in the Epiphania district at first light. The assassin had given the client a threadbare old cloak and a tattered, broad-brimmed travelling hat. He had told the client to sit with him under the wide eaves on the far side of the street, leaning against the wall close by the closed wine shop, just like the vagrants did. There they had waited, the assassin occasionally scratching the jagged scar on the back of his right hand.

  It had been a long wait; time enough for the assassin to begin to really dislike his client. They had not spoken, but that was not necessary. There was something about these smooth, rich young men, an assurance and a swagger that simply putting on some old clothes could not disguise. They looked life in the eye in a way that a pleb down on his luck would have had beaten out of him. The assassin felt nothing about the man he was going to kill. If he was a bad man, so much the better. If, on the other hand, he was a good man, let the judges of the underworld send him to the islands of the blessed. But the client – him he would very much like to kill. But a man has to eat.

  Eventually they had come out. The client had actually raised his hand to point. The assassin had grabbed his wrist and dragged it down. He had thought that the young nobleman was going to hit him. The moment had passed, but neither was likely to forget it.

  The assassin had studied them. There were four of them. Two mattered. The target was, as the client had described, a big, blond barbarian. Then there was the bodyguard, a vicious-looking brute with the end of his nose missing. The other two were of no consequence, a delicate-looking youth and a handsome small boy.

  ‘Do you want me to kill the son as well?’

  Again the nobleman’s eyes blazed with anger. ‘What do you think I am? A barbarian like him?’

  The assassin had said nothing.

  When the horses had been led out, the barbarian and his party had mounted and ridden off to the south. Shortly afterwards, the assassin and his client had got up and walked away. Around the corner, money had changed hands and they had gone their separate ways.

  The assassin had walked to the alley, where he had tethered his donkey. He rolled up the disguises and strapped them to the saddle then set off to follow the target. As he knew the town like the back of his hand, there had been no need to hurry. He had killed many men. He was good at killing men. He just needed an opportunity – the barbarian distracted, the bodyguard at a distance. Then he would strike. It might not happen today, but the opportunity would come. Then he would collect the other half of the money, and it would be a good winter.

  III

  The day of the circus dawned, the twenty-fifth day of October, the fourth day since Ballista had told the emperor’s consilium the fate of Arete. But for most of the inhabitants of Antioch on the Orontes, any city on the Euphrates was a long way away, its fate an irrelevance. Only three years had passed since the Persians had sacked Antioch, but to the average Antiochene that was as distant as the Trojan War.

  The day of the circus started well. Long before sunrise the vault of the sky was a delicate blue, cloudless and bright. Even at that hour the six bridges to the island in the Orontes were already thronged. Of all the inhabitants of the imperium none took their pleasures with quite the deadly seriousness of the people of Antioch. Thousands of Antiochenes could be found who loved the theatre – the thousands who gazed with wonder at the turn of a pantomime dancer’s leg. Then there were tens of thousands of devotees of the amphitheatre, their hearts in their mouths when the gladiators clashed and the blood splashed on the sand. But possibly even the gods themselves could not hope to number the inhabitants of Antioch-on-Orontes who lost their heads to the chariot races.

  And it was not any run-of-the-mill races that they were thronging towards. This was no regular, local, Greek-style meeting, the teams funded more or less willingly by a member of the town council. This was racing in the grand Roman manner, truly metropolitan, complete with the four factions from the eternal city, the Greens, Blues, Reds and Whites, racing in the imperial style, directly commanded by the emperor, the most pious Augustus Valerian himself. The old emperor’s reputation for being tight-fisted was obviously false. The ever-confident Diocles was driving for the Greens. He genuinely believed that he was by far the best; others held him arrogant. Calpurnianus was up for the Whites – if ever a man was on form, it was him. The legendary Spanish horse Candidus, as white as his name suggested, with his driver, Musclosus, and the venerable Mauretanian charioteer Scorpus had been coaxed out of retirement for the Blues and Reds respectively. It was not just politicians who were prepared to follow wherever the emperor travelled.

  In the half-light, the queues, as noisy and jocose as only Antiochenes could be at such an hour, stretched back from the great red-brick hippodrome. Tickets were free, and no one could doubt that the racing arena would be full to its eighty thousand capacity, or beyond. When finally the chariot of the sun appeared over the jagged crest of Mount Silpius, almost all those waiting turned to the east and either performed complete proskynesis, prostrating themselves full length on the road, or at least the minor version of bowing slightly and blowing a kiss. The people of Antioch might or might not be considered god-fearing, but no race crowd was ever anything less than superstitious.

  As the sun was coming up over the mountain, Maximus stepped out of house in the Epiphania district. There was nothing much to see in the street – a couple of men driving three laden camels, another adjusting some sacks on a donkey and, over the way, just like the day before, a vagrant sitting under the eaves close up to the still-shuttered wine shop. The litter that Maximus had hired was late. He crossed over. The beggar was asleep. Maximus stopped himself from throwing a handful of low-denomination coins. Instead he crouched down and quietly placed the coppers under the man’s hand. The man did not move. Maximus noticed a long, dog-legged scar on the man’s right hand. He stood up and turned his back. He looked away down the street, waiting.

  The litter, a sturdy affair in light blue, rounded the corner. Maximus called to one of the houseboys to tell the dominus that it had arrived.

  As the litter reached the house, Ballista emerged. His body servant Calgacus was fussing around him. Ballista was clad in a gleaming white toga with the narrow purple band of the equestrian order. The golden ring of that order that flashed on his finger was eclipsed by the blaze of the golden crown on his head. The crown, about three inches high, was in the stylized shape of the walls of
a city. Very few men had the right to wear the corona muralis, the mural crown that proclaimed that its wearer had been the first to scale enemy battlements. Few men lived to tell the tale and receive the honour. As a youth serving in North Africa, Ballista had been desperate for distinction, and he had been very, very lucky.

  Julia emerged, dignified and demure in the stola of a Roman matron. She held Isangrim by the hand. The boy’s long hair, so carefully brushed, to its owner’s fury, shone in the sunlight. He regarded the litter solemnly before announcing that it was blue, and that it was a good omen. Ballista, Calgacus and Maximus exchanged a smile. Although all three men followed the Whites, they knew that the boy supported the Blues. It was no accident that the litter was light blue.

  The family were handed in and the litter was lifted on to the broad shoulders of its eight bearers. Maximus sent a couple of burly porters with big sticks in front to clear a passage. He adjusted the sword on his left hip and the dagger on his right. Maximus took his station by Ballista’s side of the litter, Calgacus by Julia’s. The bodyguard looked round to check that all was well, and gave the signal to move off.

  Under the eaves of the wine shop, the vagrant stirred. He picked up the coins and scratched the scar on his right hand as he watched the litter set off. After a few moments he stood up and followed.

  The passage of the litter from house to hippodrome was not quick. The notoriously independent-minded hoi polloi of Antioch were never keen to show due deference to rank or station. They were remarkably reluctant to move aside, even for big men with big sticks. As the litter passed they called out jibes, some funny, many innovative in their obscenity. The family, Calgacus and the bearers feigned deafness. Maximus shot glowering glances from side to side. Once, Ballista leant out and laid a restraining hand on the Hibernian bodyguard’s arm when a pleb was about to pay the price for having the temerity to barge up against the litter. The Antiochene crowd was always volatile. It never took much to spark a street fight, or even a riot.

  At length the litter was set down outside the southern end of the hippodrome, reasonably close to the gate in the tall, left-hand tower. Maximus and Calgacus helped the family out, then the body servant fussed with the cumbersome swags and drapes of Ballista’s heavy ceremonial toga. The bearers kept the worst of the crush away until they reached the gate. Only those with tickets were allowed further. The three members of the family, Maximus and Calgacus went on. In the high, vaulted passageway under the west stand, the press of bodies grew worse. Elbows everywhere, it was impossible not to be jostled. Maximus swung Isangrim up on his shoulder. Julia walked in the comparative shelter between the three men.

  Eventually, they came to the stairwells that led up to the seating reserved for senators and equestrians. They passed by the first set of steps, one of those that zigzagged up the back of the building to the very top of the stands. They stopped at the next flight, a straight, broad sweep of stairs that led through the heart of the stand to emerge halfway up, at the bottom of the bank of seating reserved for the social elite. Maximus gently set Isangrim on his feet between his parents. Again, Calgacus straightened Ballista’s toga. With a jerk of his thumb, Maximus indicated the next arch, which was the entrance to a passageway which ran at ground level to the very front of the stands – he and Calgacus would not be all that far away, just there in the poor people’s seats if they were needed.

  Maximus stood still for a few moments. Calgacus waited. Maximus watched the family climb the steps – the small boy flanked by his tall father and mother, each holding one of his hands. Maximus could not understand the fidelity his friend had for this woman. He himself would never want to lead such a life of domesticity. But he knew that he would die before he let harm come to any one of the three.

  The assassin watched, as Maximus and Calgacus turned and walked away. Having given them long enough to clear the passageway, he followed them into the section of ground-level seats.

  The massed ranks of senatorial and equestrian togas shone in the morning sunshine – a bank of dazzling white with broad and narrow purple stripes. The arena was still crowded, but the threatening crush was gone. Ballista found their seats with reasonable ease. As the holder of the corona muralis, his seat and those of his family had been reserved. They settled themselves within the thin grooves on the stone bench that marked the extremities of their three spaces. Ballista called over a boy and rented some cushions and bought a racecard, some drinks, and a sweet confectionary for Isangrim. From somewhere within the folds of her stola, Julia produced a toy chariot for Isangrim – in the colours of the Blues.

  They were only just in time. A thunderous blast of trumpets, and the gates of the monumental arch in the northern, rounded end of the hippodrome opened. As always, Victory led the procession. She seemed to hover over her chariot on wide-spread wings. A great, rolling cheer from the whole audience greeted her. The ivory images of the gods that followed were applauded by their particular devotees: Neptune by sailors, Mars by soldiers, Apollo and Artemis by soothsayers and hunters, Minerva by craftsmen, Bacchus and Ceres by drunks and countryfolk in town for the day. Venus and Cupid were cheered by all – who could be so dull as to deny ever being touched by any aspect, physical or otherwise, of love? The applause rose to a crescendo as a gilded chariot brought in the Tyche, Fortune, of Antioch.

  The cheers fell away as the images of the gods made their way down the track to their appointed places on the spina, the central barrier. The monumental gate stood empty.

  Another loud blast of trumpets, and priests of the imperial cult appeared, carrying the small altar on which burned the sacred fire of the emperor. The crowd rose to its feet. Perfume and rose petals floated down from dispensers high up in the awnings. With stately deliberation, the imperial chariot entered the circus. Hail Caesar! Hail Imperator Publius Licinius Valerianus! The chariot was golden and encrusted with jewels. It was drawn by four snowy-white horses, their trappings purple and gold. Hail Valerian, Germanicus Maximus, Pater Patriae, Restitutor Orbis. The emperor stood motionless in the chariot, a laurel wreath on his head. He looked neither left nor right. He was as remote yet also as immanent and powerful as the gods that had proceeded him.

  The crowd roared. Hail the theos, the god Valerian.

  Ballista was on his feet with the rest. Like all the other military men, and a good many more besides, he was saluting. He looked down at the isolated man in the ornate chariot. The emperor was wearing the red boots and purple toga of a triumphator. Unlike during a Triumph, there was no one in the chariot with him, no slave to whisper in his ear, Remember you are but mortal.

  Ballista’s lips mouthed the rhythmic chants of welcome, but his mind was far away. Caligula, Nero, Domitian – no wonder so many of the emperors had been corrupted by it all. Commodus, Caracalla, Heliogabalus… the list went on and on. No one had accused the elderly Italian senator Valerian of any great vices except a certain meanness since his elevation to the throne of the Caesars. But he had not told the truth when he had ordered Ballista to Arete: that there never had been any hope of a relief army. The old emperor was a callous liar, and disturbing rumours of vice floated back from the banks of the Danube and Rhine of the behaviour of his son and co-emperor Gallienus. Ballista carried on mouthing the welcoming chants. As everyone said, Pray for good emperors, but serve what you get.

  The imperial chariot reached the winning post and stopped. Grooms rushed forward to hold the horses. Valerian dismounted. Servants opened a gate in the wall of the track and, moving slowly, the emperor climbed the broad steps to the pulvinar, the royal box.

  The strange, low hum of thousands of conversations resumed as the emperor was settled on a throne at the front of the pulvinar. The racecard largely forgotten in his hand, Ballista gazed up to his left at Valerian. Flunkeys were plumping up cushions, arranging rugs, setting food and drink near to hand. Already, several secretaries were in attendance. And there also were Successianus, the Praetorian Prefect, Cledonius, the ab Admissionibus, and
Macrianus, the Comes Sacrarum Largitionum et Praefectus Annonae.

  Ballista studied the royal box. Open on three sides except for some Corinthian columns, the pulvinar gave an impression of accessibility. The emperor could be seen by all eighty thousand of his subjects gathered in the hippodrome. The games – the theatre, the amphitheatre and, above all, the circus, or hippodrome as the Greeks called it – really were the only occasions when the emperor appeared available to large numbers of his subjects. On these occasions, the emperor was expected to attend. His subjects might shout out requests. The emperor was expected to listen. Yet, as Ballista studied the pulvinar – raised above and cut off from the stands by cross walls, a double rank of praetorian guardsmen keeping watch at the back – he thought such interaction counted for little. Having spent half of his lifetime in the imperium had taught the northerner that, in an autocracy, real power lay in physical proximity to the autocrat; it lay up in the pulvinar with the officials such as Successianus, Cledonius and the lame Macrianus, or even with the flunkeys placing the finger bowls or holding the imperial chamber pot.

  ‘Pappa, Pappa, the first race is about to start, and I don’t even know who is running.’ Isangrim was tugging at his father’s toga.

  The boy was right. The crowd was whistling and, far off to the right in the stewards’ box over the starting stalls at the southern, flat end of the hippodrome, the lots were being drawn. A groan went up from the crowd – obviously the team of some favoured charioteer had been allotted a bad stall.

  With a smile at Julia, Ballista opened the racecard and studied it with his son. The first race was a team event for four-horse chariots. Two teams from the Blues and two from the Greens would run. The first-string charioteer for the Greens was the renowned Diocles. For the Blues it was not the leading driver that drew the eye, competent though Musclosus was, but the lead horse of the first team, none other than the legend of the Circus Maximus, the pale grey Candidus. While stewards, both mounted and on foot, cleared the track, Ballista quickly placed bets on both teams from the Blues. Only the first string had much of a chance, but it had been known for the second string to come in, and it would not do for Isangrim to be disappointed if there was any form of win for the Blues in the prestigious first race.