I felt sick. “I am dishonoured by her vile invitation, and Theodora is no Empress but a common prostitute. Take your greasy paw off me.”
“You are making a grave mistake, young man,” he whined as he backed away, “why do you insist on being so pure? The Empress’s favour is far preferable to her displeasure.”
I noticed that some of the revellers were looking at me with puzzled expressions. It was time to get out. “I am happy to risk it,” I said, and moved past him towards the door.
There was a hiss of steel on leather. I spun around just in time to catch the dwarf’s wrist as he slid a dagger from a hidden sheath in his sleeve. He squealed as I crushed his soft wrist in my grip until the bones ground together, forcing him to drop the blade.
“Vicious little brute,” I snarled, and gave him the back of my hand. He wailed and crumpled to the floor, blood spurting from his mouth and making an indescribable ruin of the already half-melted paint on his face.
The music clattered to a halt. A man reached for the fallen dagger. I stamped on his hand, making him scream, and dived for the door. Shouts of alarm and outrage erupted behind me. Strong arms locked around my legs, trying to bear me to the floor. I drew my own knife and stabbed wildly. The arms slackened their grip and another scream resounded in my ears. I broke free, put my foot to the door and rushed through into the passage.
There was nothing between me and freedom except the stocky figure of the doorkeeper. He was slow to turn as I pounded towards him and launched myself at his midriff. He grunted, and hot breath gusted into my face as I butted him in the chest and forced him back. I tried to stab him in the belly, but my knife got caught in the thick folds of his cloak.
I heard the door fly open again, and the sound of angry voices and racing footsteps. The doorkeeper was monstrously strong, with arms like knotted steel that clamped around my ribs and refused to let go. Panic surged through me. In desperation I head-butted him again, and felt the crunch of bone and cartilage as his nose snapped. He groaned and fell onto his back. I took one last stab at him with my knife, missed, and scrambled away on all fours.
The steps were just ahead, and beyond them the dim glow of harbour lights. There were people there, sailors and merchants and the like.
Something rebounded off the wall to my left — I believe it was a knife — and then I was hurtling up the steps, yelling like an idiot and expecting to feel the sharp kiss of a blade in my back.
It didn’t come, and I reached the safety of the crowds with no sign of pursuit. The naked degenerates in the cellar were hardly likely to chase me in public. I pushed and shoved and fought my way through the startled throng until I was several streets away and felt safe enough to pause for breath.
A fortunate escape, you might think, but I had only delayed Theodora’s vengeance. To her, revenge was an exquisite dish, and one to be savoured over a long period.
Chapter 10
I spent the next few weeks living in fear of assassins, but life at the Hippodrome continued as normal. No-one mentioned the orgy in the cellar, even though Leo and a number of the athletes had been present. I was careful to say nothing about that night to anyone, not even Felix, and became more withdrawn than ever. I was miserable as well as afraid, for Elene deliberately avoided my company and refused to listen when I tried to speak with her. In the end she secretly quit the city, leaving no word as to where she had gone.
In the meantime I was still chained to the arena, and obliged to take part in further races. My brief celebrity was thankfully forgotten as the exploits of other charioteers surpassed mine. I performed with deliberate caution, hanging back with the other stragglers and taking as few risks as possible. Aquila and Leo were dismayed by my apparent lack of effort, and for a time I hoped that they would expel me.
To my great relief, Theodora fled the Hippodrome and Constantinople in the company of a Syrian official named Hecebolus, whom she had doubtless seduced during one of her private performances. He offered her a better life as his spouse, and in return she milked his promises and affection for all they were worth. She did not return to the city for four years.
I thought I was rid of Theodora for good, but she left a reminder of the unsettled account between us. On the evening after she quit the city, the body of my dear friend Felix was discovered in an alleyway near the Golden Gate. His throat was split from ear to ear, and his tongue pulled through the dreadful wound. His murderers had dyed his tongue green, in a crude and successful attempt to place the blame on our rivals. Some half-hearted attempt was made at investigating his death, but the Emperor Anastasius was known to favour the Greens, and so it was quickly dropped.
I had no doubt that Theodora was responsible for Felix’s death, and blamed myself for it. Had I accepted her invitation, disgusting though it was, he might have lived to a ripe age.
I must turn from the memory of private sorrows to the general state of affairs in the Empire. These are vital to understanding how I finally obtained my freedom from the Hippodrome, and was able to resume my search for Caledfwlch.
Anastasius finally died and was replaced by Justin, an extraordinary man who had risen from the ranks of the peasantry to Commander of the Excubitors, the Emperor’s personal guard. At the age of seventy he was still as crude and illiterate as when he fled his father’s pig-farm, but did have the advantages of vast wealth and the command of most of the troops in the city. This was enough to secure his election as Emperor, and so he was crowned Justin I.
Justin might have achieved his life’s desire, but was too far gone in drink and years to do much with it. He delegated most of his duties to his nephew, Justinian, a clever and ambitious little man who was more than happy to labour at affairs of state while his uncle drank himself to death.
The old Emperor came from hardy stock, and for years his liver survived everything he could throw at it. Much happened in that time. In the East, the thinly-spread imperial garrisons struggled to repel the endless attacks of Sassanid Persia on Roman territory. In Constantinople, the simmering hatred between the Blues and the Greens grew steadily worse, spiced by religious as well as political and sporting rivalries.
Worst of all, Theodora returned to the capital. She came minus the Syrian lover who had abandoned her, and in the improbable guise of a respectable wool-spinner. She set up a little shop near the palace, where she sat on the step and made eyes at passing dignitaries. I didn’t believe the stories of her reformed character for a moment, and gave the shop a wide berth.
As for myself, I was not expelled from the Hippodrome for my increasingly mediocre performances, but demoted from charioteer to a lowly assistant trainer. That was Aquila’s decision, one of the last he made before a fever broke down even his strong frame. His body was barely cold before Leo was elected the new chief overseer of the Blues, largely thanks to his long service and ability to offer generous bribes.
Leo’s first act was to enter into talks with his opposite number in the Greens. The nature of these talks was revealed to few outside his immediate circle. Certainly not to me, for reasons he made clear.
“You could have been a good man, Britannicus,” he said — by which he meant I could have been his crony — “but your nerve went. A pity. These days you’re good for nothing but rubbing down horses and scolding trainees.”
Now, if ever, I waited for Leo to make reference to that dreadful night in the cellar beside the Harbour of Julian. But he said nothing, and I knew from long experience how difficult it was to read anything in that crooked smile of his.
“I am sorry to disappoint,” I replied humbly, hating myself and every word, “but am happy to serve the Blues to the best of my poor ability.”