‘Looks like the Reds ain’t too happy with us, lads,’ Magnus commented as a surge from the Red area, adjacent to the Greens on the Aventine side of the circus, headed towards them. ‘That’s just as I’d hoped.’ Within moments fighting had broken out and blood had been spilt. Magnus looked at his brothers and fellow Greens around him and shouted: ‘Let’s be having them, lads!’ All around, Green faction supporters were having the same idea and a tide of anger began to push towards the Reds.
With Marius and Sextus to one side, Tigran and Cassandros to the other and supported by many more of the South Quirinal Brotherhood, Magnus barged his way through streams of spectators fleeing the violence, knocking men aside in his eagerness to close with the Reds. Bunching his fists he flew at the first person he saw sporting Red colours. Slamming his right into the man’s midriff, Magnus knocked the air out of him, doubling him over; he brought his knee sharply up to crunch into the fast-descending face, crushing the Red’s nose in a splatter of crimson. Next to him, Sextus, with a straight right jab of his ham-like fist, belted a Red back; blood arced through the air from a shattered mouth as Cassandros caught a knife-wielding hand by the wrist and forced the arm down across his knee, snapping it with such force that a shard of white bone ripped open the skin to the earsplitting howl of agony. Screams of pain, yells of anger and grunts of exertion replaced the roars of encouragement, shouts of victory and groans of disappointment as the two factions ripped into each other with a venom born of years of mutual loathing and rivalry. Magnus worked his fists with the mechanical precision learnt during his time as a boxer, blocking and dealing blows with rapid jerks and unfailing accuracy, as Marius wrapped the stump of his left arm around a neck and pulled the head forward, bringing his own down abruptly to crack into the face with a sickening, dull crunch.
Above the din came the call of a horn answered by another not far off.
‘That’s the Cohorts arriving, lads, best be going before they try and introduce us to their iron.’ With a well-aimed kick at the genitals of a young man trying to get away he broke off from the fight, turned and sprinted towards the nearest exit that did not contain onrushing units of the Urban Cohorts; his brethren followed.
‘I do love a ruck with the Reds – more than anything, Magnus,’ Marius puffed as they barrelled down the steps.
‘That weren’t just a ruck, brother; that was the means to get a couple of bridges closed.’
‘I imagine that you were right in the thick of that,’ Gaius Vespasius Pollo boomed, waddling down the steps holding a heavy-looking purse and a scroll.
Magnus took his place with his brothers ready to beat a way home through the crowds for his patron. ‘Indeed, but it was more business than pleasure, sir, and very successful it was too; the Reds will be seething with resentment for a good few days. I’m not looking forward to seeing their behaviour on the next race-day if they haven’t calmed down by then; it’s only four days away. How was your business?’
‘Equally successful, I’m pleased to report. I got twenty to one for a Green one-two in the order you told me. This purse contains two hundred in gold and this is Ignatius’ promissory note for a further two hundred. Did you profit as well?’
‘Very much so; I’ve sent a couple of the lads back with our winnings.’
‘I’m told by an acquaintance that Ahenobarbus was equally successful in the same race.’
‘That’s gratifying to hear, senator.’
‘Well, yes and no, Magnus. The Lady Antonia sent me a note just before she left the circus: Ahenobarbus is very enthusiastic about the information as he feels that it’s impossible for someone of his family to be too rich.’
‘A noble sentiment.’
‘I couldn’t agree more. However, there’s one small snag.’
‘Which is?’
‘Which is that before he lays out such a huge amount on a wager he wants to meet the person who provides the information; he wants to find out just how he intends to fix a Red one-two-three, seeing as no one has ever managed it previously.’
‘Ah!’ Magnus’ face fell.
‘Ah, indeed. Antonia said in the note that he expects that person at his house tomorrow morning as soon as he’s finished greeting his clients. Obviously there’ll be no mention of my name.’
‘Obviously.’
Magnus waited in a thin drizzle outside an old and elegant marble-clad house on the east of the Palatine next to the Temple of Apollo. Despite its age the house was well maintained, reflecting the wealth of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus whose family had first held the consulship over two hundred years before.
With the rain soaking into his toga, Magnus watched the stream of clients come down the half-dozen steps from the front door in reverse order of precedence, calculating that there were at least five hundred – the sign of a very influential man in possession of a very large atrium.
As the last of the clients, a couple of junior senators, came down the steps the door closed behind them. Magnus crossed the street and knocked.
A viewing slot immediately pulled back to reveal two questioning eyes. ‘Your business, master?’
‘Marcus Salvius Magnus, come at the request of the Senior Consul, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus.’
The door opened and Magnus walked in, through the vestibule and into an atrium that could easily hold five hundred people.
‘Wait here, master,’ the doorkeeper requested, ‘whilst I inform the steward of your arrival.’ He whispered an order to a waiting slave of inferior rank and dress before returning to his post as the messenger walked quickly off.
Magnus studied his surroundings: everything spoke of immense and long-held wealth. Engraved silver candelabras, the height of a man, with eagles’ feet of gold; golden bowls on low marble tables polished to reflect the high, brightly painted ceiling. The statue in the impluvium was a bronze of Neptune spurting water from his mouth and lifting his trident in triumph. Magnus smiled to himself as he thought of Ignatius seated next to a statue of the same god in the Circus Maximus, the god that was evidently the guardian deity of the Domitii.
‘Very auspicious,’ he muttered, clenching his thumb in his hand to ward off the evil eye that might be drawn to him by his assumption of a good omen.
‘The master will see you now,’ a voice from the far end of the atrium informed him. ‘Please follow me, sir.’
Magnus did as he was bid and followed the steward through the atrium and to the door of the tablinum.
A gruff ‘enter’ greeted the steward’s knock and he swung open the black and yellow lacquered door soundlessly. Magnus stepped in and the door closed behind him.
A heavy-set, balding man with full cheeks, a small, mean mouth and a long nose that curved up towards its tip stared at Magnus with malevolent eyes. He sat behind a carved, wooden desk; behind him a window looked out on to a damp and dismal courtyard garden waiting for the first shoots of spring. ‘Who are you, Marcus Salvius Magnus, that you can fix a race?’
Magnus paused before answering and then realised that he was not going to be offered a seat. ‘I’m the agent for the man who has paid to fix a race.’
The eyes bored into him with unsettling intensity as Ahenobarbus slammed both his palms down on the desktop with a hollow crack; colour exploded alarmingly into his cheeks. ‘I asked for the fixer to come, not his agent; how dare you disobey me!’
‘We are aware of that, Consul, and I’ve come solely because I’m the one who made all the arrangements and am therefore in a better position to explain to you how it would work.’
Ahenobarbus’ small mouth pursed into a tightly clenched moue as he considered this for a moment. ‘Very well, tell me.’
Magnus set out his plan, leaving out not the slightest detail; when he had finished Ahenobarbus’ mouth remained puckered but the colour in his cheeks had subsided into a less alarming shade.