"As it happens, he does."

"What? He… allowed this?"

"Hardly. He's disowned me. Said he takes no responsibility if I die out here."

'Oh, good," said Astorgus. "Should I?"

Scortius laughed, or tried to. He put a hand to his side, involuntarily.

Taras saw the track steward coming over. Normally this sort of delay for an on-track colloquy would be prohibited, but the steward was a veteran and knew he was dealing with something unusual. People were still screaming. They would have to quiet a bit before the race could start in any case.

"Welcome back, charioteer," he said briskly. "Are you riding this race?"

"I am," said Scortius. "How's your wife, Darvos?"

The steward smiled. "Better, thank you. The boy sits out?"

"The boy rides First chariot," said Scortius. "I’ll take Second. Isanthus sits. Astorgus, will you tell him? And have them redo the reins on the trace horses the way I like them?"

The steward nodded his head and turned away to report to the starter. Astorgus was still staring at Scortius. He hadn't moved.

"You are sure?" he said. "Is this worth it? One race?"

"Important race," the injured man said. "For a few reasons. Some that you won't know." He smiled thinly, but not with his eyes this time. Astorgus hesitated a heartbeat longer, then nodded slowly and walked away towards the second Blue chariot. Scortius turned back to Taras.

"All right. Here we go. Two things," the Glory of the Blues said quietly. "One, Servator is the best trace horse in the Empire, but only if you ask him to be. He's conceited and lazy, otherwise. Likes to slow down and look at our statues. Scream at him." He smiled. "Took me a long time to realize what I could make him do. You can go faster in the turns with him holding the inside than you will ever believe you can-until you've done it the first few times. Stay wide awake at the start. Remember how he can make the other three cut with him?"

Taras did remember. It had been done to him, last fall. He nodded, concentrating. This was business, their profession. "When do I whip him?"

"When you come up to a turn. Hit on the right side. And keep yelling his name. He listens. Concentrate on Servator-he'll handle the other three for you."

Taras nodded.

"Listen for me during the race." Scortius put a hand to his side again and swore, breathing carefully. "You're from Megarium? You speak Inici at all?"

"Some. Everyone does."

"Good. If I need to I'll shout at you in that tongue."

"How'd you learn…?"

The older man's expression was suddenly wry. "A woman. How else do we learn all the important lessons in life?"

Taras tried to laugh. His mouth was dry. The crowd noise was amazing, really. People were still on their feet, all over the Hippodrome. "You said… there were two things?"

"I did. Listen carefully. We wanted you in the Blues because I knew you were going to be as good as anyone here, or better. You've been thrown into something hideous and unfair, never even handled this team before, having to face Crescens and his Second here. You are a fucking idiot if you think you've been doing badly. I'd whack you on the head but it'll hurt me too much. You've been astonishing, and any man with half a brain would know it, you Sauradian lout."

There was a feeling hot mulled wine could give you, sipped in a tavern on a damp winter day. These words felt like that, actually. With all the self-possession he could command, Taras said to him, "I know I've been astonishing. It's about time you came back to help."

Scortius let out a bark of laughter, winced in pain. "Good lad," he said. "You're fifth in the lanes, I'm second?" Taras nodded. "Good. When you get to the line there will be room for you to cut. Watch me, trust Servator, and leave me to deal with Crescens." He grinned, a thin smile, without any amusement in it.

Taras looked over to where the muscular First of the Greens was wrapping his own reins around himself, in the sixth lane.

"Of course I will. That's your job," Taras said. "Make sure you do it."

Scortius grinned again, and then took the silver processional helmet Taras was still holding and gave it to the groom beside them, taking the battered race helmet in exchange. He put it on Taras himself, like a stable boy. The pandemonium grew even wilder. They were being watched, of course, every movement they made studied the way cheiromancers examined entrails or stars.

Taras thought he was going to cry." Are you all right?" he asked. Blood was visible through the other man's tunic.

"We'll all be just fine," said Scortius. "Unless I get arrested for what I'm about to do to Crescens."

He walked up, rubbed the head of Servator for a moment and whispered something in the horse's ear, then he turned and went down the diagonal line to the second Blue chariot, where Isanthus had already stepped down-his face showing as much relief as Taras's had a moment ago-and where the handlers were furiously adjusting the reins to suit Scortius's well-known preferences.

Scortius didn't get into the chariot yet. He stopped by the four horses, touching each of them, whispering, his mouth close to their heads. There was a change of drivers taking place, they needed to know it. Taras, watching, saw that he presented only his right side and right hand to the stallions, shielding the presence of blood.

Taras stepped back up into his own chariot. Began wrapping the reins around his body again. The boy beside Taras gave the silver helmet to another groom and hurried to help, his face shining with excitement. The horses were restless. They had seen their usual driver but he wasn't with them now. Taras picked up his whip. Set it in its sheath beside him for the moment. He took a deep breath.

"Listen you stupid, fat ploughhorses," he said to the most celebrated racing team in the world, speaking in the gentle, soothing tone he always used with horses, "you don't fucking run for me this time, I'll take you to the tanners myself, you hear me?"

It felt wonderful to be saying that. To feel he could.

The race that followed was remembered for a very long time. Even with the events that ensued that day and immediately after, the first afternoon race of the second Hippodrome session that year was to become legendary. An emissary from Moskav, who had accompanied the Grand Prince's entourage and remained behind through the winter in slow negotiations over tariffs, was in attendance and would chronicle the race in his diary-a record that would be preserved, miraculously, through three fires in three cities, a hundred and fifty years apart.

There were those in the Hippodrome that day for whom the racing held more importance than mighty events of war and succession and holy faith. It is always so. The apprentice, decades after, might recall an announcement of war as having taken place the day the chambermaid finally went up to the loft with him. The long-awaited birth of a healthy child will resonate more for parents than the report of an invading army on the border or the consecrating of a sanctuary. The need to finish the harvest before frost overwhelms any response to the death of kings. A flux in the bowels obliterates the weightiest Pronouncements of holy Patriarchs. The great events of an age appear, to those living through them, as backdrops only to the vastly more compelling dramas of their own lives, and how could it be otherwise?

In this same way, many of the men and women there in the Hippodrome (and some who were not, but later claimed to have been) would cling to one private image or another of what transpired. They might be entirely different things, varying moments, for each of us has strings within the soul, and we are played upon in different ways, like instruments, and how could it be otherwise?

Carullus the soldier, once of the Fourth Sauradian, very briefly a chiliarch of the Second Calysian cavalry, had been most recently reassigned- without ever having reported north, and for reasons he didn't understand as yet-to the personal guard of the Supreme Strategos Leontes, receiving his (quite handsome) pay from the Strategos's own accounts.