Rosemary Rowe - The Chariots of Calyx

I turned back to Calyx. ‘What exactly caused the accident?’ I asked, raising my own voice over the enthusiastic sounds of the crowd. ‘It was not like Fortunatus, by all accounts, to be shipwrecked.’

It was more a comment than a question. In fact I thought I knew the answer. Almost certainly Fortunatus had been caught at an unguarded moment and barged by the chariot of another colour while he was off-balance — that happens all the time, as we had seen earlier, and is regarded as part of the contest. The only surprise was that an experienced charioteer like Fortunatus should have allowed himself to be caught out like that.

The carefully sculpted smile hardened on Calyx’s face, as if it had been suddenly set in wax. ‘Most unfortunate,’ he said loudly. ‘Some fault with the chariot perhaps, or one of the horses skittish. Perhaps we shall never know for sure. No other chariot was involved and Fortunatus himself can remember nothing of the accident.’ He spread out his hands and moved forward as if to usher us physically from the scene. ‘So perhaps you will excuse me, citizen. I don’t think I can be of further help to you, and I have a race to supervise.’

I can be stubborn when I wish. ‘But you saw the fall yourself?’ I said. Or rather I hollered. The hubbub from the track was increasing every moment.

He shrugged. ‘It was all over so quickly. One moment Fortunatus was galloping away from the start and the next moment he was lying on the track. Luckily it was near the starting stalls or he might have gone under the wheels of another colour, and then what would have happened to the team?’

It was hard to keep up a conversation in the circumstances, but I pressed him again. ‘You did not see what caused it?’ I shouted over the din.

The wax smile was slipping little by little, but he kept his manner civil. ‘There must have been some problem with the chariot, citizen. I did not see what, exactly; my attention was elsewhere for a moment. When I glanced back I was simply in time to see him fall.’

In that case, I thought, Fortunatus might have staged the accident. It seemed a desperate expedient — the last driver to feign a fall in Rome was put to death for his presumption. His factio had dragged him before the courts, furious that he had taken bribes and lost the rest of the team their share of the purse. Too risky, surely? Or perhaps the accident was not of Fortunatus’ making.

‘Was there damage to the horse, or chariot? You must have seen them, after the race. .’ I stopped. The roaring of the crowd had risen to a climax, and a moment later the gates burst open and the local teams came trotting in, the victor (it seemed to be Paulus Fatface) brandishing his garland. The others came behind him, most of them looking dazed and dishevelled, although they were all still aboard their cars. They streamed past us in a whirlwind of leather and dust.

Calyx held up his hand, and spoke for the first time in a normal voice. Even the pretence of a smile had left him now. ‘I tell you, citizen, I know nothing about it. It was an accident, is all. These things happen in chariot racing. Even the best drivers have mishaps, often when they are trying hardest. As for the chariot, I could not say. After the race I was more concerned for Fortunatus than for his racing car.’ He was still moving us away from the Blue quarter.

I was almost walking backwards. ‘But surely one of the stable-team. .?’ I protested. ‘Someone must have looked at the chariot?’

‘I will ask them, since you require it, citizen. When the day is over. I cannot interrupt them now. Our next race will begin in a moment. Now, if you will excuse me, I have work to do. I’m sorry to be unhelpful, but I’ve told you all I know.’ He nodded, turned on his heel and hurried back to his team.

The optio turned to me. ‘You want me to arrest him, citizen? I am sure a short session at the guardroom would assist his memory.’

I shook my head. ‘It is too late. No doubt he and his friends are already preparing a plausible account of the event, in case we should ask again.’ I nodded towards the stables where Calyx was already in deep conversation with two men in tunics, whom I had not noticed earlier, who had now emerged from the shadows. An ugly-looking pair too: one was short and fat, with shoulders like an ox, grizzled hair, and a face like a discontented bull, presently lowering in my direction. The other was taller, thinner, greyer and possibly more sinister. The most disconcerting thing about him was not his narrow face, with its long crooked nose and cruel thin slit of a mouth, but the dreadful, casual strength of the long supple fingers which were even now twisting and testing a strip of narrow leather. As I glanced towards him I saw that he had fixed his eyes on me: cold, grey, close-set eyes with a dead, expressionless stare which chilled my blood. He saw me looking and turned swiftly away.

‘You think that Calyx was lying, citizen?’ The officer sounded shocked, as if the idea of lying to an optio was the height of civil disobedience.

‘I don’t think that he was lying,’ I said. ‘I know that he was.’ I turned to my young slave. ‘Isn’t that right, Junio?’

Junio grinned. This was a game we often played. I was trying to instruct him in my skills, and he was delighted by the opportunity to show off his abilities in front of strangers. ‘I think so, master. Obviously he was lying when he said he wasn’t watching Fortunatus,’ he said. ‘The race had just begun, he said so himself, and that is the very moment when the whole event can be won or lost by someone getting into a good position. Calyx is the coach and manager, and there were hundreds of denarii hanging on that race, yet he tells us that his “attention was elsewhere”. Of course he was watching. Or if he wasn’t, that is still more odd. Fortunatus was his most successful driver.’

It was exactly what I had reasoned myself, and I rewarded the boy with a smile. Junio preened.

One of the soldiers looked admiring, too, but the optio said, ‘Oh,’ in the tone of someone who felt he should have thought of it himself. ‘He isn’t watching now,’ he added, as an afterthought.

‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘You would expect him to be out here in the preparation area during a race. If he was in the stadium, it must be because that particular race was important to him. And yet, as Junio points out, he wasn’t even looking at a crucial moment. Or says he wasn’t. Very curious, to say the least. And he seems oddly unmoved by the whole event. Not that he would weep for Fortunatus, but he strikes me as a man who would become very angry if his financial expectations were crossed. Yet he appears to have taken his losses like a stoic.’ I signed. ‘I’d give a great deal to know exactly what happened to cause that shipwreck.’

A small hand tugged at my toga. ‘Citizen?’

I looked down. It was the cold-water slave with his bucket, his arms and shoulders already turning blue from the blows he had received. Around him, the four-in-hands were beginning to assemble again. The drivers seemed twice as lofty and assured after the amateurs of the last race. Even the new driver for the Whites looked perfectly at home in his flimsy car.

‘Citizen?’ the boy said again, more urgently.

‘Well?’

‘I can tell you a little bit. The slave who shares my sleeping space was on duty in the circuit at the time. There really wasn’t anything to see, he says. Fortunatus simply seemed to let go and topple out of his chariot — nobody was near him and there was nothing the matter with his car or horses. He thought perhaps Fortunatus had been ill.’

I stepped aside to let a stable-hand pass with the bandaged chestnut before I asked, ‘And had he?’