To Love Again (37 page)

She was blushing, but she was also unable to restrain her laughter. His happiness at having been able to overcome the ice in which her soul had been so encased made her happy. “It is you who are shameless, my lord,” she countered. “You preen like a peacock in full plumage, and you fully enjoyed displaying me to those young men.” She giggled. “They all looked so surprised when they saw me. Is your reputation such that they did not think you capable of attracting a pretty woman? They should but know you as I do.”

“If they did, my love, I should be called by a different name, and would have taken Jovian for my lover,” he chuckled.

“My lord!”
Cailin was overcome by another fit of mirth.

He led her up a flight of stairs, explaining as they went that this was the way to the two private boxes allowed in the Hippodrome other than the imperial box. “The patriarch’s box is on the emperor’s right hand, and the box of the First Patrician of the empire is on the emperor’s left hand. I have come early so we will not cause a disturbance with an obvious entry. It would not do to have the crowds hail me before the emperor. We will slip quietly into the box, and then be on hand to greet our guests. The emperor will not come until the races are ready to begin. There will be four races this morning, and four in the afternoon. In between we will see other entertainments, and Zeno will come with our servants to bring us luncheon.”

“I have never seen chariot races,” Cailin said. “Who will be racing today? There was an amphitheater in Corinium for games, but my father never took us. He said the games were cruel.”

“Some are,” Aspar admitted, “but there will be no gladiators today, I have been told. There will be actors, and wrestlers, and more gentle amusements that do not take away from the racing. We have four chariot teams here in Constantinople, the Reds, the Whites, the Blues, and the Greens.
They will be racing, and the passions they arouse in the collective breast of the populace is oft-times terrifying. Wagers will be placed, and you are apt to see a fight or two between the adherents of a particular team and their rivals. You are safe in the box.”

“Which team to do you favor, my lord?” she asked him.

“The Greens,” he said. “They are the best, and the Blues come after them. The Reds and the Whites are nothing, though they try.”

“Then I shall favor the Greens as well,” Cailin said.

They had reached a small landing where the staircase divided into two sets of stairs, and taking the three steps up to their left, they entered Aspar’s box. An awning of cloth of gold striped with purple roofed the box. There were comfortable marble chairs with silken cushions, and benches set about, all with a good view of the arena. The public stands were beginning to fill up, but no one noticed them, and a quick glance showed Cailin that the imperial party and the important religious personages were not yet in their boxes.

“There are no steps going to the emperor’s box,” she said to Aspar. “How does he enter it?”

“There are stairs directly into the box that lead from a tunnel beneath the palace walls,” he told her. “It allows our emperor a quick exit should he find he needs it. I’ve always thought it an excellent place for an ambush, but there is really nothing one can do should that occur.”

“Cailin!” A young woman had entered the box behind them.

Cailin turned and recognized Casia, looking particularly radiant in scarlet and gold silks. Cailin held out her hands in welcome. She had wondered how she would feel seeing Casia again, but the young woman had always been kind to her. “Fortune has smiled on you, I am told,” she said, greeting Casia. “I am happy you could come.”

“My lady Casia,” Aspar said with a smile, and Cailin felt a surge of jealousy race through her. His eyes were too warm and too knowing.

“My lord, it is good to see you once again. I owe you a
debt of gratitude for introducing me to my prince. I had not intended to buy my freedom from Villa Maxima until next year, but when the prince offered me his favor, I surprised my masters and purchased myself from them, that I might avail myself of the prince’s munificence.” Casia smiled warmly at them both, and settled herself comfortably next to Cailin.

Aspar bowed again and replied, “Then you are both happy with the arrangement, and for that I am glad, Casia. You are wise enough still, I trust, to look to your future? Princes are often fickle.”

Casia laughed merrily. “I am a frugal woman, my lord. If Jovian and Phocas had had the slightest inkling of what I had saved during my three years with them, they would have set my price higher. They did not, however, and I came away quite comfortably fixed. The house in which I reside is also mine. I insisted. Basilicus understood, and was generous. I will not end my days in the streets like a foolish woman.”

“I would be unhappy were it so,” he answered her.

There was no time for Cailin to interrogate her lover, for the rest of their guests were entering the box, being introduced, and bowing over the ladies. Bellisarius, the famed classical actor, and his current lover, the ribald comic actor Apollodorus, were first. Elegantly attired in white and gold dalmaticas, and both quite witty, they awed Cailin at first. She was not used to such men, but Casia chatted easily with them, trading gossip and insults as easily as if she had known them her entire life. Anastasius, the great Byzantine singer, arrived and spoke to them in a bare whisper, which was, Aspar explained to Cailin, his custom. Anastasius spoke little, if at all, saving his glorious voice for song.

John Andronicus, the ivory carver, and Arcadius, the sculptor, arrived almost simultaneously. The former was a shy man, but sweet-natured. He greeted his host and hostess politely. The latter was his opposite, a bold fellow with a bolder eye. “Casia I recognize, so it must be this ethereal beauty you want me to immortalize, my lord.” Arcadius stared hard at Cailin. “The body, I can see,” he continued, mentally stripping her clothes away, “is obviously every bit
as beautiful as the face. You will make my summer a joy, lady, for there is nothing I love better than sculpting a lovely woman.”

Aspar smiled, amused, as Cailin blushed again. “I thought her a perfect subject for your classical hands, Arcadius. She is Venus reborn,” he said.

“I shall certainly gain more pleasure from the work you have commissioned me to do, my lord, than all the saints I have been sculpting as of late,” the sculptor admitted.

Suddenly the crowd roared noisily, and the inhabitants of Aspar’s box turned to see the emperor and his party entering their box. Leo had a severe yet serene face, but even in his elegant rich robes, one could not have called him distinguished or regal. It was Cailin’s first glimpse of Byzantium’s ruler, and she had to remember that Aspar had chosen this former member of his household staff for greatness because of his other qualities. The empress, however, was a different matter. She was a blazing star to her husband’s calm moon. The rest of the royal party were made up of men and women among whom only Basilicus’s face was familiar. The clergy in their black robes had already taken their place before the imperial party arrived, but Cailin had been too busy with her own guests to notice them before now.

After a few minutes’ time Aspar said to Cailin, “Watch!”

Standing on a marble step placed at the front of his box, Emperor Leo raised a fold of his gold and purple robes and made the sign of the cross three times; facing first the center tier of seats, and then those to the right, and finally to the left, he blessed all those in the Hippodrome. Then reaching into his robes, he drew forth a white handkerchief which, Aspar whispered to Cailin, was called a mappa. Dropping the white silk square would signal the beginning of the games. The mappa fluttered from Leo’s fingers.

The stable doors of the Hippodrome wall were pulled open, and the first of the four chariots to race drove out onto the course. The audience exploded into cheers. The charioteers, each controlling four spirited horses, were dressed in short, sleeveless leather tunics, which were held firmly in
place by crossed leather belts. Around their calves were leather puttees. All were physically well-formed, and many handsome. The women called out to them, waving the colored ribbons of their favorite teams, and the charioteers, laughing with exuberance, grinned and waved back.

“Women should not be allowed at the games,” the patriarch was heard to mutter darkly in his box. “It is immodest of them to be here.”

“Women attended the games in Rome,” a young priest rashly said.

“And look what has happened to Rome,” the patriarch replied grimly, while around him the other clerics nodded and agreed.

“Has either of you ever been to the races before?” Arcadius asked Cailin and Casia, and when they replied in the negative, he said, “Then I will explain all to you. In which order the chariots line up is chosen by lot the day before. Each driver must circle the course seven times. See the stand down by the spina where the prefect in the old-fashioned toga is standing? Do you see the seven ostrich eggs upon the stand? They will be removed one by one as each round of the race is run. Usually a small silver palm is awarded the winner of each race, but because today commemorates the founding of our city, a golden crown of laurel leaves will be given the winning drivers of all but the last two races. There will be a fierce competition between the Greens and the Blues to see who takes home the most crowns.
Look!
They’re off!”

The chariots thundered off around the race course. Within moments the horses were frothing at the mouth and sweat was flying off their shining flanks. Their drivers drove with a reckless abandon such as Cailin had never seen. At first it appeared that the race course was wide enough to accommodate all four vehicles, but Cailin shortly saw that in order to win, the drivers had to steer their chariots all over the course, this way and that, struggling to get ahead of their competitors. Sparks flew as wheels from opposing chariots clanged together gratingly, and the drivers used their whips not only on their horses, but on the other drivers in their path as well.

The crowd screamed itself hoarse as the Green team’s chariot spun around the final turn on one wheel, almost tipping over but quickly righting itself, only to be cut off by the Blue team’s chariot, which leapt ahead suddenly, crossing the finish line first by just a nose. Both chariots came to a halt, and the drivers of the Blue and Green teams immediately engaged in a violent fistfight. Pulled apart, they left the track shouting curses at one another as the chariots for the next race queued up and dashed off.

Cailin was delighted by the chariot races. A Celt in her soul, she had always admired good horseflesh; and the horses racing were the finest she had ever seen. “Where do those magnificent animals come from?” she asked Aspar. “I’ve never seen better. They are finer-boned than the horses in Britain, and they look high-spirited. Their speed and surefootedness is commendable.”

“They come from the East,” he told her, “and are highly prized.”

“Does no one raise them here in Byzantium, my lord?” she wondered.

“Not to my knowledge, my love. Why are you so curious?”

“Could we not take some of your land, and instead of growing grain, put it into pasture in order to raise these horses? If they are so prized here, then certainly these animals would bring you a fine profit. The market for these beasts would be great, as it would be far more accessible to and less risky for the chariot teams than importing animals from the East. If we raised our own horses, they could see them grow from birth, and even choose early those whom they felt showed promise,” Cailin concluded. “What think you, my lord?”

“I think she is brilliant!” Arcadius chimed in enthusiastically.

“We would have to find an excellent stallion, or two for breeding purposes, and we would need at least a dozen mares to start,” Aspar thought aloud. “I would have to go to Syria myself to find the animals. We should allow no one there to
realize our intent. The Syrians pride themselves on their fine horses, and their profitable export market. I can probably obtain young mares here and there by pretending I want them for the ladies in my family, who amuse themselves riding when in the country. Normally,” he told Cailin, “women do not ride.”

“The Greens have won the second race while you chattered,” Casia chimed in. “The Blues are crying collusion, for the Reds and the Whites seemed to have made a decided effort to cut off the Blue team’s driver at every turn, and he finished dead last.”

Between each of the morning’s four races there was a little entertainment as performed by mimes, acrobats, and finally a man with a troupe of amusing little dogs that leapt through hoops, did tumblesaults, and danced upon their hind legs to the music of a flute. These intervals were brief, but a much longer one came between the morning’s races and those to be run in the afternoon. Then the emperor’s box emptied, as did the patriarch’s.

“Where are they going?” Cailin asked of no one in particular.

“To a small banquet that has been prepared for Leo and his invited guests,” Aspar told her. “Look about you, my love. Everyone has brought food and is beginning to eat it; and here is Zeno with luncheon for our guests. As always, old friend, you are prompt.”

“Aspar positively dotes upon you,” Casia said in a low voice to Cailin as their luncheon was being set out. “You are very fortunate, my young friend, to have found such a man. The rumor is he would marry you if he could, but do not count upon it.”

“I do not,” Cailin said. “I dare not. I have grown to love Aspar, but still something deep within me warns of danger. Sometimes I can ignore that voice within, but at other times it nags, and frightens me so that I cannot sleep. Aspar does not know this. I would not distress him in any way. He loves me, Casia, and is so good to me.”

“You are just fearful because the last time you allowed
yourself to love a man with all your heart, you were cruelly separated from him, Cailin. It will not happen again.” She accepted a goblet of wine offered her by the attending Zeno, and sipped it. “Ahh, Cyprian! Delicious!”

An imperial guardsman entered the box. “My lord general,” he said politely. “The emperor requests that you join him at table.”