Etruscan Blood

by AM Kirkby

  ***

  At the palace later there was a good deal of discussion about that driver. He went by the name Servius, slave, which was odd; she wondered if it was an act of protest, or a recognition of his untried status in the new order of things, or simply if he'd had a Roman sponsor called Servius, but she couldn't find anyone who knew. He was a soldier from Velx, a general or a mercenary depending on who you listened to. His horses and his harness were not at issue – unlike the northern team, which had used a strange crossed harness that might apply scientific principles to redistributing the weight, but was probably ornamental, but if it wasn't ornamental was definitely cheating, at least as far as Manius was concerned, though what did Manius know about chariot racing anyway, one of Gaius's friends asked.

  Anyway, about this new driver and his tactics, that late switch in front of the runner-up (who, it turned out, must have had some inkling of what was about to happen, and pulled his horses up smartly, avoiding most of the flak). Some said it was cheating; others believed anything was legitimate in a chariot race.

  "He didn't prove his horses were the best," said one Sabine; "isn't that what these races are about?"

  "Anyone can buy a good horse. But he was the best driver."

  "That move was dangerous."

  "Drivers know the risks they take."

  "He deliberately deceived the other driver. I just don't like that kind of behaviour."

  "He won, though," Tanaquil said, and her acid tone stopped the chit-chat, or at least, they found something else to talk about.

  She made her way through the crowd to find the driver – smartened up a bit, though his hair was still dusty and the nape of his neck smeared with dirt, and with a flimsy wreath of thin beaten gold leaves sitting cock-eyed on the tight curls of his hair. She didn't head straight for him, but stopped to speak to friends – an Etruscan girl who had helped her with some weaving a few months ago, a couple of Sabines she'd helped to settle in when they moved to Rome from Eretum; she kept her eyes on him, though. He had a cup of wine in his hand, but she never saw him drink it; he spoke to a number of people, and yet none of the conversations lasted more than a few sentences before his interlocutors drifted off.

  When eventually she did approach him, she'd decided to be direct; congratulations meant nothing, he wouldn't want them or value them, and she had ten second, she thought, to capture his attention. This wasn't a man who had time for the easy fictions of politeness.

  "How long did it take you to train the horses not to bolt when you crash?"

  For the first time she saw his eyes flicker; interest or anger, perhaps both.

  "You don't approve of the manoeuvre?"

  "On the contrary. I admire it. I would have done it myself."

  He moved back on his hips a bit at that, and looked at her sceptically. "I suppose you drive?"

  "I've won at Tarchna. I came second at Velzna, once."

  His frown lifted very slightly, and the wrinkles of his face seemed to smooth out.

  "That tight track at Velzna is a bastard."

  "So, how long did it take?"

  "Over a year, till they stopped spooking."

  "You have a lot of patience."

  He didn't answer that.

  "You went very wide the first corner."

  "I thought there'd be trouble. It was too fast, some of those horses running a bit too free for my liking. And I knew I could make up the lost distance."

  "I thought you'd beaten that last team, though. They looked completely unsettled. And then they came back into the race."

  "Yes, that was tricky. Mine didn't have too much running in them. But I remember, a long time ago, out on patrol in the bad lands, I learned my lesson. An enemy's still a threat till he's dead."

  "You're still alive."

  He nodded, grim. "He isn't."