She rolls her eyes. “Lysander the Lightbringer. Lysander the Peacemaker. A maker of peace wouldn’t keep that scar. Hideous. Does Atalantia like it?”
“No. She detests it.”
“I love it. Savage. From Darrow’s own boot, no?” She eyes the burn on my face and sucks down another oyster. “I’m a simple woman. I like ships. Flying them, building them, taking them from my enemy and painting my centaur on them. I do the eyes myself, then have a cigar. What do you like, and don’t say peace.”
“Power,” I reply and look up as thunder rumbles from above. Against the blue sky, huge Obsidians painted white beat their drums on each of the Hippodrome’s fourteen towers. The main gates open and the chariots of the four-horse grand prix emerge one by one. An announcer declares each rider and their team, sending each team’s supporters into convulsions. “After all, what else makes peace?”
“This isn’t power. This is theater,” she replies. “Expensive theater. The love of the people won’t buy you the Morning Chair, Lune.”
“But it affords me the opportunity to ask what would.”
She grins. “You know what I want, Peacemaker. That which the Minotaur stole. That which Atalantia was only too ready to trade away. That which my father withholds and my siblings covet. My inheritance.”
“Really. I had no idea.”
“Stop. Our politics are…opposed,” she says. “Reformers are…in denial of humanity’s basic lowness. But we have much in common, you and I. Atalantia and her father gobbled up all those Lune ships and fortresses and men and then slapped the Grimmus skull onto them. Has she returned what belongs to you?” I smile. Everyone knows she hasn’t, even though by law she should. “It seems we’ve both had our inheritance stolen by an usurper. If only there was a way to help one another…”
Her eyes drift to the box to the right of ours where Apollonius’s brother, Tharsus au Rath, parties in all his race day finery, surrounded by his cadre of new sycophants—exiled Martian Golds, lithe courtesans, preening poets. Raths did not exist at the time of the Conquering, so no matter the vastness of their wealth, the depths of their infamy, or the quality of their wine, to their everlasting chagrin they’ve never been considered a premier gens.
“I fear your inheritance is already spoken for, as is mine,” I say. “For now.”
She smiles. “For now?”
Tharsus seems to glow as he feels our eyes on him. I’ve sworn him to keep public distance from me lest others suspect I am in league with his brother. I must maintain the appearance of neutrality.
He prances to the edge of the box. Just a few paces off, he shouts: “Either you want to fornicate with me or kill me. I don’t know which, Valeria. The first would be fine, but the second is improbable if not impossible.” He idly probes a passing Pink. “I am immune to glares, knives, and all between, for my brother has atomics pointed at your inheritance and he is…”
He gestures to one of his drunker sycophants.
“Mad as a bull!” the friend cries and makes horns with his fingers. The rest make bull sounds and dance around before breaking down into laughter and blowing kisses at the Carthii.
Horatia returns with news of Cicero. “He didn’t,” I say, reading her expression. “Tell me he’s not.”
“He did. He is,” she says, apologetic.
I wince and the crowd roars as the announcer proclaims the entrance of the reigning champion of the individual circuit. Riding as always for Team Hermes, Cicero au Votum drives his chariot out onto the sands, his four-horse team led by the indomitable Blood of Empire.
Wearing a white tunic with leather straps tightly bound to protect his chest, Cicero’s powerful arms and legs are tan and oiled. Like all charioteers in the classic prix, he is woefully under protected. My blood boils at the sight of him riding with a smile toward mortal jeopardy. “He promised he wouldn’t race,” I mutter.
“Stakes after all,” Valeria says in delight.
I sigh. “Pardon me. Theater calls.”
“For now?” she asks.
“For now,” I reply. “But not forever.”
She toasts to that.
I signal Flavinius before jumping over the wall of the pulvinar to land below where Kyber is already waiting. She really does look like a Copper actarius with her datapad and lithe limbs. If she has a weapon on her, I can’t see it. Shocked by my descent into the common stands, the crowd cheers as I make my way amongst the midColors, not to sit with my own men but to honor the Votum legions. Cicero’s Grays receive me with the hero’s welcome Rhone paid their centurions for. As I place my bet with the roving bookie, Cicero guides his chariot past and lifts his hand in formal salute to me. His voice, aided by some unseen microphone, booms out across the arena.
“I dedicate this race to the savior of Heliopolis! The steward of Mercury! The image of Silenius, last of his line. Lysander the Lightbringer!”
He blows me a kiss.
Cicero guides his chariot to the starting line and the crowd roars. Silence falls. The charioteers fix their eyes forward, and when the long, mournful note bursts from a great white horn, the chariots lurch forward, and the sands swirl.
6
DARROW
Mortal Concerns
LIKE A DEEP SPACE remora, the Archimedes stirs from its idle drift and creeps into the wake of the convoy of Votum cosmosHaulers. The Haulers are accompanied by powerful destroyers freshly painted with a purple Minotaur’s head.
After journeying from the Marcher to Venusian orbit, we waited days for a convoy whose wake could mask our approach to the dockyards. It gave us time to plan. Thus far the stealth hull has allowed us to avoid two Carthii patrol squadrons, but the dockyards, with their far more sophisticated sensor suites, will be a different affair.
I lean over Cassius’s shoulder as he guides the Archimedes closer to the hull of a cosmosHauler at the end of the convoy.
“Easy does it. The blind spot isn’t large,” I murmur.
“I know how to fly,” Cassius says. “If you want to worry about anything, worry about the hull.”
“Considering the only way we’ll know if they’ve spotted us is if they shoot at us, perhaps you should both focus,” Aurae says from the co-pilot seat. I sit down in a pop-out seat behind them and hold my breath until we’ve matched speed with the hauler, a bare ten meters from her starboard. Cassius breathes out.
“There. We’re in her shadow. Quicksilver must hate you, Darrow. Or he’s working for the Golds. Why else would he not equip the White Fleet with this tech? Five destroyers with this hull could cut apart the Society like a scalpel.”
“Apparently the material is one hundred times more expensive per ounce than razors are to produce,” I say. “Outfitting the Morning Star alone would have bankrupted the Republic.”
“So?”
“That’s what I said.”
He laughs. “No wonder the Senate didn’t like you.”
In the blind spot of the hauler, I have time to appreciate the view as we approach Venus.
At a distance the Dockyards of Venus, the greatest structure ever built by mankind, resemble little more than a scratch on a sapphire marble suspended alone in the darkness. If ever I needed a reminder for how small we are in the scheme of things, I needn’t look any further than Venus.