The Belt of Gold (32 page)

Here, as the little parade climbed the last few yards to the bronze gateway into the Palace, they met the first real crowds; the stragglers on their way to the Hippodrome filled the last street they crossed, and some turned curiously to look at Daniel on his pretty donkey, and John Cerulis with his feathered parasol and swarms of hangers-on, but most of them went on shouting about the races, arguing, and making bets.

They entered the Palace through the great double gate of the Chalke, passing between mosaics of outlandish beasts and men in armor. There they were met by a little group of gaudy men who bowed and scraped to John Cerulis and escorted him away. Daniel was shuttled off into a chapel, with some of the guards, as a creature of no importance.

He went toward the altar. There on the domed ceiling was a great image of God, the ultimate blasphemy, as if God were contained within the form of a human; Daniel drew his eyes away. He felt contaminated by this place. Soon, he told himself, it would be over. He would recompense the Lord for the evil he had done, bringing John Cerulis here, and go back to the mountain, to the hard rocks and the bitter water and the hawks and the enormous sky. He sank down on the slates of the floor, waiting.

28

The crowd was boiling into the Hippodrome, a wild rush of bodies and noise, swiftly mounting the tiers of seats, filling up the lower reaches, and spilling steadily higher and higher along the sides. Hagen went up to the top level of the racecourse, where the broken statues stood, and worked his way through the chunks of worn marble, the bits of bodies and topless pedestals, until he stood above the Imperial balcony.

The great purple canopy floated above it, gripped at the corners on golden spikes, and buoyed up in the middle by the wind off the sea. Nobody was under it yet. He sank down on his heels to wait.

Whatever happened today, he meant to see John Cerulis die. It did not interest him who was emperor, but John Cerulis would not be. He meant to tear up this foul weed by the roots, and if it required him to die also, that was a fair price.

The crowd had taken up all the seats. Down on the oval of sand, several people were running up and down, pretending to be horses, as he had seen them do the first time he came to the races here. The people on the seats nearest him were eating food out of baskets, shouting to their neighbors, spreading cushions and robes on the hard benches.

This section was clearly one of Blues. Each wore his color on his arm, a flutter of silk, and some of the boisterous young men lower down the long swoop of the benches had brought a great blue banner that they strung up across their tier. From across the way came hoots and shrieks of derision as another group unfurled a long green banner in response.

Now the roar of the mob rose in a crescendo to a blast of sound. The Empress was coming out on to the balcony.

A glittering figure dressed all in gold, she blessed them all; her arms flashed in the sun when she made the Sign of the Cross in the air. Her people cheered her with lusty voices. Then behind her, coming out on to the balcony through the door at the back, came John Cerulis.

Hagen's hand slid down his side to his sword hilt. He had not seen the man who had murdered Theophano since that night in the tent when he killed Karros. The would-be emperor was dressed in spotless white, with gold embroidery and jewels on cuffs and neckline, and a dark red cloak over one shoulder, caught up in a big filigree brooch. After him, into the balcony, came an enormous man.

This man wore armor, and carried a two-handed axe. He looked like a giant from an old story, with his curly black beard and red headband. Hagen pursed his lips. This was going to be more of a problem than he had wanted. He crouched down between a marble boy and a bull's head, his eyes on the figures below him; they were so close he could hear the low melodious voices of the Empress's women as they made her comfortable in her chair. The little girl was there, Philomela, with a lute, her cheeks red.

The horns blew. The chariots were coming out on to the track.

Hagen stood up, his eyes keen on the little bouncing cars and the leaping horses. The roar of the crowd that greeted each one was like thunder in his ears. He had not seen Ishmael since the day in the tavern when he had said he would not race.

The first car that emerged carried the Green color, a wisp of a scarf in his leather cap, but was not Ishmael. These horses were matched bays, which jittered and pranced and reeled from the crowd noise like virgins at a wedding. After them came Prince Michael.

The voice of the crowd swelled and swelled until Hagen thought his ears would burst, and the enormous sound coalesced into a single roared name: “Michael! Michael! Michael!” The whole Hippodrome seemed to rock with it. Hagen's back prickled up; he had been a fool to think Michael was powerless.

Down there, on the track, the Prince urged his team in a quick burst past the leader, galloped them easily down the track, acknowledging the adulation of the crowd. He wheeled them neatly around at the end of the oval and went back to his place in line. On his arm, a red scarf waved.

Hagen grunted, wondering what that meant; he thought he had invented it, back in John Cerulis's camp, but here it was, actually happening, as if by force of mind he had brought it into being.

Someone had. His gaze slipped sideways, down to the only other person who knew of that, down to the Empress.

She sat there with her hands in her lap, smiling. He had seen matronly women at the court in Aachen sit like that, their tatting on their knees, smiling benignly on the antics of children. Michael had said she was capable of anything. Hagen had not believed it. Now he opened his mind to suspicion, and in that space, she seemed to swell and grow.

The crowd's voice dimmed an instant, and then shrieked up, piercing, wild, full of one name.

“Ishmael! Ishmael!”

Hagen jerked his head around; he looked down on the track, and saw the blacks and greys wheeling out on to the course. The driver raised his hand to the crowd, and Hagen, out of himself, beat his palms together, delighted.

The fourth team appeared, and the racers formed up a rank and advanced toward the ribbon, the horses' necks arched to the bits. They pranced and cavorted on their slim long legs, and the cars bounced after them. The crowd hushed its voice. Leaning forward, they hovered on the edge of their benches, waiting.

Ishmael leaned back, getting his weight into the leathers, and spared a quick glance sideways. The driver next to him was a novice from somewhere east of the City, who probably had no chance. Just beyond him, Michael stood in his car, his head high.

Their eyes met, Michael's and Ishmael's, for an instant. They straightened forward again, and all over Ishmael's body his skin tingled alive, unbearably sensitive. He could not keep from smiling. Before him lay the track; his horses were in his hands. “Yah!”

The boy between him and Michael burst forward in a false start. Ishmael's horses leapt after him, and Ishmael reined them back. To the hoots and jeers of the crowd, the boy, red-faced, turned his team and circled decorously around the line and came up into his place again, between Michael and Ishmael. He mumbled some apology, and then, before anyone could speak in answer, the horns blasted.

The horses sprang forward. Ishmael was rocked back off balance, gasping, and nearly dropped his whip. On his left the boy was surging along even with him; just beyond him, Michael, also taken unawares by the quick start, was a little behind. The team on Ishmael's right had been left stock-still at the ribbon.

“Go!” Ishmael shouted. He gathered his reins, steadied his horses and urged them on. If there was an advantage here, he meant to seize it.

The sand splattered the front of the car. The lashing tails of his horses struck his wrists like tiny whips. They swept down on the curve, and he collected the inside horses and drove the outside wheelers on faster, and they whirled into the curve in a perfect line.

The boy was good at this as well; he held the curve as tight as Ishmael, but not as fast, and gained nothing of the track. On the inside, Michael was surging ahead, carried into the lead by the shorter distance he had to travel, and whirling into the straightaway they pounded down the track at full speed, Michael, the boy, and Ishmael, a dozen horses head to head across the track.

Ishmael screamed. He felt the power of his horses like an irresistible call. They flew down the center of the track as if the wind bore them, and at the far end, swinging into the curve, were half a length ahead of Michael and the boy.

They wheeled around the curve, and the boy, lashing his horses, overestimated their speed. They lost stride and faltered, and Ishmael shot out ahead of them on the one side and Michael surged to the lead on the other. The track curved around and straightened out before them again, and now, with the crowd howling and stamping its feet and screaming and weeping and pleading and raging in triumph, Ishmael and Michael went head to head down the straight, their horses flattened to their work.

Stride for stride they raced the length of the straightaway, and in the curve, they wheeled around in a spinning, sliding spray of sand, Ishmael's horses like a shadow of the team on the inside. He gripped the reins in fists as soft and pliable as clay, that yielded to every motion of the horses' heads, hands firm and strong as iron, that held them steady when they needed it.

He had never felt so alive. He knew he was going to win.

They rolled into the straightaway again, still head to head, and now Ishmael asked his horses for more speed, a little more, a little more yet, and as they gave it to him, calling up from the depths of their blood the strength and courage of generations of champions, he steadied their power and blended it together and asked, again, for more.

They answered him. By slow inches they crept into the lead. Ishmael saw Michael's head turn, noticing the blacks and greys draw past his own horses, and saw the champion bend to his work. He raised his hands, begging for more, and his own team responded. They dragged up the last of their strength, and for half the length of the Hippodrome, although they won back not an inch of the lead Ishmael's horses had stolen from them, they gave up not an inch more.

They raced into the final turn. Ishmael felt his inside flanker come back a little, and guessed the horse was tiring; he drew them all in slightly, to rest them for the last run down the straight to the finish line. Beside him, Michael's team surged up into the lead again. Michael was calling to them, pleading with them. Their ears swept back to catch his voice, and they strained for more speed.

Coming into the straightaway, they were head to head again, the Blue and the Green, and the crowd surged to its feet. The noise was like an ocean that swept down on the racers. Ishmael felt the tremor through the reins as his horses shrank from it. He held them on line. He needed no whip. They turned into the straightaway and before them was the finish line, and they raced forward toward it, bringing from the last of their heart and muscle another swelling surge of speed.

Michael's team stayed with them, their heads bobbing in unison. Ishmael screamed and laughed and sang and wept, the fire of God dancing in his veins. The finish line swept toward him. Still Michael's horses clung to a hair's breadth of a lead. But now Ishmael's horses lunged forward, faster with each stride, flinging themselves at the victory. They swept out ahead of the Blue team, by a head, by half a length, by a full length, and charged across the line, the winners.

Irene sank back into her chair, half out of breath. “Ah, what a race.”

“A thrilling finish,” said John Cerulis, smiling. He drew his napkin through his fingers, his eyes keen on her. “Of course, one that you knew beforehand.”

“I! Never. I would have thought no man alive could defeat Michael and his team.”

John sniffed at her. “You dissemble to one with inner knowledge, Madame. I am aware that the scarf your worthy cousin wore predicated a loss on the track, and doubtless a great win at the bet-makers' expense.”

Irene leaned back and laughed, long and richly. “Oh, no, my fool. You are in serious error there, although I know by what course you came into such a mistake. No, seeker of illusions. The scarf is a signal to my people, that your plot has been traduced.”

“My plot! I assure you, lowly born one—”

“Hold! What is this?”

Irene leaned forward, her eyes caught on a motion on the track. The crowd was surging in its place, content as a fat man at a feast, but there on the golden sand, a strange figure had appeared, gyrating with its scrawny limbs, and shouting.

“What is that?” she said, and looking around her saw John Cerulis canted forward to see, frowning.

“That fool,” he said, under his breath. “It is the holy man, Daniel.”

Irene clenched her fist. All the many threads of this were drawing together now; she felt a tingle of alarm at this unexpected intrusion of some force she had not foreseen, that might wreck all her plans.

Down on the track, the holy man was reaching up his arms, was calling out, his voice thin and piping from his distance, and yet audible. The crowd hushed, and he began to speak.

“This John Cerulis,” he shouted, “this man who wants to be emperor—he is no more emperor than any one of you!”

Irene glanced at the man at her side and saw his face harden. She refrained from smiling.

“I made a mistake!” the holy man was screaming. “When I proclaimed him emperor—that was not God's choice, but a mistake!”

Through the crowd, now, as voices carried on this message to those too far to hear it, a ripple of laughter spread.

“Denounce these wicked men!” the holy man was crying. “Come to God—give off the unnecessary trappings of pride and power and wealth. You need no City, no emperor—only God. These races with which they stuff your ears and eyes are tawdries, to deceive you!”

At that, the crowd growled at him. But Daniel heeded nothing; he danced up and down on his thin knobby legs, waving his arms.

“These champions, this Golden Belt—it is sin. It is work of the Devil.”

Now the crowd's bad-tempered snarl deepened to a thundering roar of disapproval, and from the benches sailed a volley of missiles, pieces of fruit, empty wine flasks, pelting the holy man.

He kept on. Fending off the objects that struck around him, he shouted again, “God will give you life eternal, if you open your hearts to Him Who made you from the dust—”

Something hard hit him, and he went to one knee. Irene's stomach tightened.

He struggled up again, and his mouth opened, but the crowd now had scented his blood. With a howl like a cruel beast, they leapt to their feet. They tore off pieces of the benches and threw them at him; they hurled down their shoes and bottles, their apple cores and empty dishes.

He stood there, pleading with them, his voice now lost in their shouts and curses. Irene saw bits and pieces strike him, and although he tried to keep his feet, he sank down slowly to the sand. Still he tried to speak to them. But they heard nothing anymore, saw nothing in him anymore but a momentary amusement, a target for their blows. Long after he lay there motionless on the sand they flung whatever they could find down on his body.