Chapter 26
The Second Wager
It was customary for the charioteers and their attendants to parade from their stables, which were located underneath the tiered seating of the long northwest side of the Hippodrome, to the forecourt of the Great Palace and on into the hysplex, the gates where the races began. This gave the betting public a chance to examine the fitness of horses, cars, and drivers. A man bearing a placard recording each team’s victory record walked beside the nose of each trace horse. Cyn was impressed by the quality of horseflesh which passed by - tall blacks, powerful chestnuts - bred for speed and endurance. Ribbons of either blue or green were braided into their manes and tails. For the parade each horse wore a headdress of olive leaves. Their polished hooves clipped along. Dogs barked and children ran alongside singing rhyming cheers for the teams which their fathers supported, or rhyming heckles for the opposing faction.
Pons pushed his way to the fore and shouted to the nearest driver, “Which one of you is called Alexander the Great?” The driver pointed with his thumb to the last of the eighteen chariots in the procession. There were only to be three races today with six chariots racing in each - three teams of horses pulling for the Greens and three for the Blues. Long gone were the glory days of the hippodrome when eight or ten chariots at a time raced in each of the dozen heats held between midmorning and sundown.
The final charioteer was a youth in his late teens, small but broad across the shoulders with powerful forearms and calves. No placard bearer walked by his leftmost horse. Pons asked if he was Alexander from Pella, but Cyn could already see the man’s resemblance to his younger brothers.
“Yes I am. Why do you ask?”
Pons was walking alongside the car and had to look up at Alexander. “We passed through Pella not ten days ago and enjoyed your parent’s hospitality. Your sister… What was the sister’s name again?”
“Anna.” Cyn supplied.
“Anna, yes, she gave us this good luck charm to give to you.” Pons handed him the plait of hair and comb.
“Truly? From Anna? You have seen my family? How are they?”
“Very well. They pray for you and wish you every success. Anna wanted me to give you a kiss, but I am not going to.”
The charioteer carefully pinned the comb to his tunic. Pons noted the way he effortlessly managed his team of horses among the crowd using one hand. “Thank you, Sirrah.” The charioteer beamed. The chariots made their way to massive starting gates which were capped with a magnificent bronze statue of a quadriga chariot pulled by four horses.
Pons and Cyn made their way past vendors with sausages and skewers of meat roasting over portable charcoal braziers, but paused where a barrel of wine had been broached. For the price of an obol they dipped a fair sized cup in and drank.
“Did you see the way his face lit up when I gave him his sister’s favor?” Pons commented. “His heart is in it. We bet on this boy and we bet heavily.”
“You could lose Lord Guilhem’s coin.” Cyn warned.
“Did you not see his smile? Did not the holy hermit on the column this morning say, ‘He is due’? What other signs do we need? We have arrived safely. We have met friends who remember us. This is a lucky day. Even if I lose - I have set aside enough silver with Senator Doucas to pay for Lord Rainier's funeral. No - this boy will win.”
Outside of the main pedestrian entrance stood several small stalls - some selling woven palm frond umbrellas, some with gamblers shouting for trade:
“Place your bets. Parasinoi or Venetoi? Who do you like? Place your bets.”
“How many shipwrecks are we going to have in the final race? Bets on Blues - bets on Greens.”
“You Sirrah. With the pretty lady on your arm -yes, you. You are already the luckiest man at the hippodrome today. Why not show her how fortune smiles? You have to make a bet. Otherwise you are just watching horses trot in a circle. You must have something to cheer for.”
“Who do you like to win? Odds given. Who wants to bet? Look to the chart on the wall behind me. Pick your race, pick your team. Today could be your lucky day.”
Pons stopped. “I wanna make a bet.”
“Step into the shade under the awning. You see we have a list of all the chariots both synoris and tetra-hypos,” the professional gambler invited.
“Do I have to bet by team or can I bet by driver?”
“Either. Both. If you say which driver you like out of the six cars pulling - and he wins - why the increase on your wager is tremendous.”
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Pons raised his voice so all the stall holders hawking nearby could hear. “Give me Alexander the Great of the Venetoi. He has drawn the outside spot in the final race, no? What number of chance will you give me on the probability?”
With a flourish the gambler hung a bronze disk with a hole in it from a nail on the Hippodrome’s exterior wall behind him. The nail was in the slot indicating third race - sixth team which was clearly marked onto the wall with chalk. “How much would you care to bet, sirrah?”
“First, what number do you give against this driver?”
The gambler smiled. He was not sure what to make of Pons, a Latin to be sure from his accent. He was certain he had never seen the man before. Some western bumpkin who was seeing the races in the city for the first time? “Three. I give you the lucky number three. Each coin you wager will come back to you threefold.”
“Ha. My charioteer has to beat five other cars to win. The number should be five.”
“True, but two of those cars are on his own team. They are Blues, as he is. They do not mean him harm. He has three opponents’ cars to beat. The number is three.”
“His teammates mean him no harm, but they will not let him pull ahead for kindness. They race to win themselves. You have seen more races than I. How often does the outside car avoid all the shipwrecks, hold position on the spina, and cross the white sand first? Almost never, yes? Has this Alexander ever crossed first? No. Yet, that is what I wager. Let the number be four.”
The gambler considered it - an outside team with a first season driver. The old man might not be the yokel he had first assumed him to be - he looked so cocksure. “Four is not lucky. Let us say seven pay back for two coins wagered. Seven is lucky even if against two.”
“Agreed.”
Then Pons reached into his coin bag and pulled out a handful of gold hyperpyron which he had been saving and slapped them on the counting table. The gambler was staggered. Such an amount. How much? He counted. Thirty coins would require a payback of one hundred five - in gold. Impossible. If the unthinkable happened, he would fall indebted to his financial backer, who would be obliged to cover it. But - gold coins - and he was throwing them away on a stupid wager. Who was this fellow? Had he robbed his master and lost his mind? The man’s loud voice and confidence had started to gather watchers. The other nearby professional gamblers were still calling for bets, but they had their eyebrows up and were lending an ear. The gambler, unsure of himself, glanced about.
“Half. I could cover half. If you have come by it honestly. I mean no offense, but obols and bronze coins we see aplenty, silver - yes, even an electrum aspron from time to time, but this…” he spread his hands. “You must understand a bet is not like buying a horse. At the end of a horse trade one man has a horse, the other coin. At the end of a wager one man has coin, the other nothing.”
“I see what you are about. This coin is mine to spend as I see fit. Should my chosen chariot tip or even come in second place you will have won and the coin is yours. Even in Italia we know how a wager works. Will you still be here - with my winnings - when I come out to collect?”
“Kosmas pays. My reputation is beyond reproach. Ask anyone.”
“Any of these other gamblers you spend all day with? Are those the ones to ask? I remember your face. I trust my memory more than I trust them.” He took back fifteen gold coins from the table and took the bronze disk matching the one nailed to the wall.
They made their way to the public entrance next to the starting gates by the Zeuxippus Baths and began climbing stairs up to the seating. Emerging at the top of the seating they had a fine view of the entire course. Cyn had been to tournaments and had seen first hand how jousts, melees, and archery competitions could draw crowds, but the scale of the Hippodrome, like everything else in this city, amazed him. Tiered seating around the U-shaped length of the track could have easily accommodated a hundred thousand people, but scarcely a fifth of that number were currently scattered about the space. Most of the spectators were clustered along the rail near the track and at either end of the spina - a stone barrier some four hundred meters long which ran down the center of the track and around which the chariots would race. At each end of the spina the chariots would have to make a sharp, one hundred eighty degree turn and it was here the “shipwrecks” - as chariot crashes were called in the common slang - were most likely to occur.
The chariots would race alongside some of the finest sculptures ever created which decorated the length of the spina. Cyn could see a bronze she-wolf with human babies suckling which was similar to one he had seen once in old Rome. There were several marble heroes from the old myths, on one plinth an emperor held a sword in his hand, and on another a different emperor from a different age held a scroll. Gleaming cauldrons mounted on tripods flanked an ornate serpentine column made of bronze, the metal came from broken weapons, armor, and the beaks of defeated Persian warships which had been melted down. The seventeen centuries which had passed since its casting had oxidized the metal to a deep green hue. The color was perfect for this column which was shaped to appear as three intertwining snakes, heads rearing for the sky, with fountains of water springing from each of their mouths to fall into a circular tiled pool at the base. Near the north end of the spina - past the statues of a sphinx, and several legendary charioteers along with their horses - stood an impressive pink granite obelisk carved with Egyptian picture writing so old it beggared belief. It sat on a marble base carved with bas-relief images, which Cyn was too far away to make out, and rose twenty five meters into the air. Towards the southern end of the spina was another, even taller, obelisk - gleaming and golden capped with the orb of the world.
As they made their way along the tiered seating, they found Nestor the storyteller had laid claim to a spot with a good viewing position. Not allowing the opportunity of a crowd to pass by, he had taken advantage of the extra space he had created to spread his cloak. On top of that he had set his bowl to hopefully catch a tossed coin. He regaled those within earshot with a fable about a fox who had lost his tail. He wrapped up his story when he saw the Italian mercenaries approach. Nestor used his walking stick to shoo some children away from the spot he had saved.
“Look Sirrah, look. What a fine spot I have kept. So close to the track we shall surely be covered in dust.”
Pons was pleased to see they were also near the kasthima - the private viewing box of the Imperial party. He wanted a good look at this new Emperor. He handed over the promised coin with a flourish and the storyteller beamed. Before the attention of Nestor’s audience was diverted back to their own conversations, Pons spoke loudly.
“I have coin to wager on the final race,” he announced to the nearby crowd.