by AM Kirkby
***
The games would last two days. The boxing and the wrestling and the swordplay and javelin throwing on the first day, and the horse racing and the chariots on the second.
There was blood. There was always blood. What would the hinthial have to drink if there was no blood spilt? Hands wrapped with leather thongs split scalps, spread noses open; blood spat into the air, spattered the dusty ground. He saw one man, a cut over one eye and a mouth full of blood, spit a red fountain over his opponent, blinding him; it didn't win him the match, for a lucky swing caught him on the ear, stunning him.
Then the wrestlers came, oiled bodies glistening wetly in the sun. They grappled like crabs, four arms, four legs scrabbling sideways in the dirt, turning one way, then the other, till one man managed to flip the other over. Phersu-masked men lurked, green-faced and scowling, to keep order, or drag the injured off the field. Phersu waited for the dead man after the doors of the tomb had closed; and these Phersu too dealt with death, though their huge hammers were now only ceremonial, like the bronze axes of the lucumo's guard. But they still cast a gloomy pall on the occasion; some of the children hissed them, but their parents passed by trying to avoid their glance, and some made the sign of the fig with their fingers to avert the ill fate they represented.
There was no training during the games, so Master had left his horses with Rasce, and came to watch with the general. They'd met Laris, who had a pair running in the two-horse race as well as a chariot sponsored for the next day; the general had asked him about the chariot race, and Laris, caught in the trap, had talked about his chances, his trainer, his driver, and forgotten all about the fact that Master was entered for the paired event till the general proposed a bet it, and then he'd stammered some kind of excuse. Master could see how his eyes turned shifty, flickering about till he saw some acquaintance he could claim to need to join. The general turned to him as soon as Laris' back was turned, and winked, with a cruel, momentary half-smile.
Ramtha was there with a Greek visitor, an aristocrat from one of the southern colonies who called himself Tyrant, whatever that meant, and wore a laurel circlet on his head. His face seemed set in an expression of disdain; clearly the flower of Etruria's athletes meant nothing to him.
“But they're wearing clothes,” he said, with a shudder, as if this was something horrible. Then he used a Greek word Master didn't understand, unhygienic. Ramtha asked him to explain; it was something to do with a goddess of housekeeping, but the explanation was too long-winded, and didn't make much sense. What they did find out was that the Greeks competed naked, which appeared to make good sense - less to get hold of in the wrestling, for instance, though Ramtha insisted with a wicked laugh that it left at least one thing you could get hold of for a win to be certain.
Still, the Greeks understood gambling, though the Tyrant didn't seem to have a good grasp of local odds; by half way through the day Ramtha was on a winning streak, the general was on an even keel, and the Tyrant had lost several amphoras of wine and half next year's crop of olives.
The last event was the long footrace, a stamina event that Master would have considered had he not been involved in the horse-race the next day. There were seven men in the field, and two women, one young girl who didn't look old enough to line up, and a tall woman in her mid-twenties who was well muscled and had thrust her hair into a woollen cap to keep it out of the way. (Strangely enough, the Greek was shocked; not at the extreme youth of the girl, who the general thought shouldn't be running this year - she hadn't reached her full growth, she might damage her future prospects - but at the fact that women were running at all. What on earth did women do in Greece, Ramtha asked. Not much, seemed to be the answer.)
The first few laps saw the field bunched up, no one willing to make a move, to go in front, to make themselves vulnerable, to give the others their slipstream. It felt uneasy, all the competitors watching all the other competitors, all the spectators watching for the break; shifty eyes, distrustful. No one was willing to drop back, not knowing how far off the pace they might end up, how much ground they'd have to regain. They ran, fast but not free, constrained by their mutual suspicion.
Then about the fifth time round, not quite two thirds of the way through the race, the older woman broke free, moving into a new more flowing rhythm as if she'd heard a wild music to which the others were deaf. After a second, one of the men followed her - not one of the youngsters, but a veteran, a thickset man who pumped his arms and legs hard, looking clumsy against her fluid style. The two of them moved ahead, opening up a clear space between themselves and the rest of the runners, she ahead, he a few paces behind, him running a stride and a half for every stride of hers.
They came into the last lap with her still ahead, but as they rounded the last turn Master saw a movement out of the following pack; it was the young girl, suddenly surging, picking up her feet and pushing herself forwards. Within a few strides she was making ground on the leaders. The veteran looked behind - fool! Master thought; you look the way you're going, to look behind is to fall behind, a sure way to lose - and sure enough, his rhythm began to falter. He'd be tired after the pace the woman in front had set, and he'd still never closed the gap on her. Half the distance to go on this last circuit, and the girl had caught the veteran's heels, and now she was past him, and hauling in the leader, as if she had her on a string. The woman in front never looked back, never lost her rhythm, but stride by stride the girl was closing the gap, running with the fresh energy of youth, and the advantage of her easier race with her; so that when they crossed the line, the older woman was just a step ahead.
The two women slowed, jogging to a stop, breathing hard; and then the younger woman took the older in her arms, and kissed her on the mouth, hugging her hard. The veteran, overtaken by a younger man, had taken fourth place; the others were straggling in, as the two women raised their arms in the air, and their voices in a scream of triumph.
In that moment, Master looked at the two women, and knew what he wanted from life; he wanted to win.
The older woman had taken off her cap and was shaking her hair loose when the general approached to congratulate her. “Second time you've won, isn't it?” he asked.
“Yes, but I lost last year. To one of your men, I remember.” She was still stretching her legs out, paying half attention to him, bending to take her ankle in her hands and push the foot straight out.
“And the second girl. Not bad. But too young to run, I would have thought. Only looks fourteen. Never like to see anyone in the long distance much before fifteen.”
“She's fourteen. But it's her last chance to run against me. I'm retiring next year, so I told her if she wanted to, do it now.”
“Your lover?” the general asked, casual and polite.
“My daughter.”