“Are you bowing and scraping now?”
“Oh, I didn’t mean-”
Their conversation was interrupted by the clatter of hooves. Stable hands led a procession of horses past. The animals tossed their heads and whickered in distress.
When the passage was quiet again John asked, “One of the faction members who was murdered at Saint Laurentius-the Green-he visited Porphyrius, didn’t he?”
Junius looked genuinely puzzled. “I can’t say. Why would a Green visit Porphyrius?”
John paused. He was afraid he had already said too much, without eliciting any useful information either. No doubt everything he’d asked would soon get back to Porphyrius. “I take it that it isn’t difficult to sneak women in here when the races aren’t going on?”
“Couldn’t be easier. It’s a huge place, with all sorts of back doors, and deserted most of the time.”
“What if a woman wanted to watch the races?”
“It’s still not that hard to get in, if you know where the merchants bring their wares in or the entrances the laborers use. With thousands of people packed into the stands, intent on the chariots, no one’s paying much attention to whether there’s a woman on the next bench. Especially if she’s wearing men’s clothing.”
“Have you seen a girl disguised like that recently?”
Junius stiffened. “Some aristocrat’s daughter’s run off. Is that what this is about? You don’t suspect me, do you? I only wish I had some sweet, wealthy creatures like that thronging to me. Maybe when I’ve won enough races. I’m happy with a baker’s daughter right now.”
John refrained from asking him how he could be certain a baker’s daughter who’d disguised herself as a man to creep into the Hippodrome wasn’t really a female cousin to Justinian, pretending to be a baker’s daughter pretending to be a man. “You’re free to go now, Junius. Where can I find Porphyrius?”
“He’s out on the track.” Junius waved a hand toward the ramp ascending from the archway. “He’s convinced all the trouble in the city is due to curse tablets, so he’s out there digging for them.”
“Junius!” someone shouted. “The weapons are here!” The rattle of cart wheels echoed in the passage.
John saw a donkey cart piled high with sacks and a variety of lances, swords, and armor. It might have trundled straight from the imperial armory.
Junius must have noticed John questioning gaze. “We’re not joining the insurrection,” he blurted. “Some of our supporters-senators-have arranged to send weapons to guard the horses. The Greens might decide to cripple them….though there’s also the fact that horse meat makes a good meal, and there’s little food in the city. And, well…Porphyrius thinks they’re needed. It’s not for me to question him.”
“No, it isn’t,” John agreed. “It’s up to me. You had best attend to your business.”
***
“Those weapons will allow us to protect the horses and equipment, not to mention ourselves and the Hippodrome.” Porphyrius stood, muscular arms crossed, beside the wall of the spina at the far turn of the sandy track, overseeing several men who were up to their waists in the holes they were digging. “You can’t fault people for trying to preserve their livelihood. We’re taking every precaution, not only against the rioters, but against supernatural threats like curse tablets and natural dangers as well.” He nodded toward the stands.
John saw workers with buckets moving along the tiers damping down the wooden seats to prevent the structure from catching fire. The scattered flakes of ash that swirled down into the arena were black and cold, but they might be replaced by sparks at any moment.
“Don’t you trust the urban watch?”
“They didn’t manage to protect the Great Church did they? Or their own Praetorium, or those two poor wretches at Saint Laurentius. I hope we never have to use those weapons. I’m a charioteer, not a soldier.”
“You led an attack in Antioch many years ago, and you rallied the populace to Emperor Anastasius during the insurrection by Vitalian.”
“Once a man becomes famous they say all sorts of things about him. A man is skilled at one thing and suddenly he is considered skilled at everything.”
“You deny your role in those events?”
“My role has been exaggerated.”
“So you plan to hang back and wait for an attack? Then defend yourself? That isn’t your racing style.”
“I am a great charioteer, not a great general. This is the third day in a row you’ve visited me,” he added with obvious annoyance. “Am I under surveillance?”
John made no reply.
Porphyrius strode over to the nearest excavation. One of the workers stopped and leaned on his spade. “You see we’ve gone right through the lime and crushed brick,” the digger said in querulous tones. “Shall we try somewhere else or do you expect us to continue on to Hades?”
Porphyrius planted a boot in the complainer’s back and shoved his face into the hole he had dug. “Keep going until Cerberus bites off your nose, you fool! How many times do I have to explain? The riots are getting worse, but they began here and that means curse tablets are buried here somewhere! And the turn is one of the favorite spots for them.”
One of the spade wielders working further along the track called out to them. “Found one!” He waved a grayish cylinder hardly as big as a finger.
Porphyrius trotted over, took the rolled lead artifact, and pulled it open. He began reading the words inscribed on the tablet aloud. “Demons of night and wandering untimely dead, you who go by the powerful names of Hecate of the crossroads and Resheph, bringer of plague, bind the horse Servitor, steed of the Blue, Gentius. Hobble his feet and make him fall at the turn with his driver-”
Porphyrius broke off, grunted, and balled the tablet up in his fist.
“It isn’t what you’re looking for?”
Porphyrius gave a snort of disgust. “This must’ve been lurking under the track since Anastasius ruled. Gentius was killed in an accident years ago.”
“On the turn?”
“Fell out the third floor window of a whore house.”
He instructed the worker to keep digging and made a circuit of the rest of the excavations, none of which revealed anything of interest.
After squatting down beside the final hole Porphyrius straightened up, moving with the fluidity of a man decades younger, and smiled at John. “You believe it’s all superstition, don’t you? You’re bemused that I would take such nonsense seriously.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. You’re a diplomat. But I can see that’s what you think. Charioteers have a different way of looking at things. Every time I step into my chariot I’m putting one foot in the Styx. We are all aware of how close the other world is to this one. Close enough that we are never more than a step, or a shove, from leaving this world. But what did you come here to ask me this time?”
“I’ve been pondering your meeting with my friend Haik. You admitted he hinted at the existence of a document by which Justin agreed to adopt Chosroes.”
“It was a rumor he thought I would find interesting.”
“Didn’t you think he might have been judging your interest in such a document? He couldn’t be sure how loyal you are to Justinian. There was no way of telling how you might react. Had he made it plain that he had actually brought such a document to the city, you might have reported him to the emperor for fomenting an insurrection.”
Porphyrius turned his attention to the track, tested the surface with the toe of his boot. Finally he said, “Haik did say that a document like that would be worth an enormous sum…to a collector of historic documents. If there were such a document.”
“Did he offer to sell it to you?”
“There wasn’t any document, so far as I know. It was simply speculation. I suspect he was trying to make conversation, to get me on his side, so I would endorse his business plans.”
John thought Porphyrius might be telling the truth. It would have been prudent to approach potential buyers cautiously. For all John knew Haik might have tried to to sell it to others-senators or wealthy aristocrats-or might have intended to do so. He preferrred to think that Haik was not involved in any plot but had simply been looking for monetary gain from an artefact he’d stumbled across. He’d admitted he was still a mercenary. Is that what he’d meant by the remark? Had Haik even believed that the document could be employed to any great effect? John hoped not.