The tall, thin eunuch pressed his fingers together and inclined his head gravely, as if Adrastus's arrival was a source of support and consolation to him. But Bonosus had been watching his face when the ornate doors- rather the worse for their earlier battering-were pried open by the guards.

Gesius had been expecting someone else.

Bonosus had a pretty good idea who that might have been. It was going to be interesting, he thought, when all the players in this morning's pantomime were assembled. Adrastus, clearly, had arrived on his own behalf. With the two most powerful-and dangerous-strategoi and their forces each more than two weeks" hard marching from Sarantium, the Master of Offices had a legitimate pathway to the Golden Throne-if he moved decisively. His lineage among the «Names» was impeccable, his experience and rank unsurpassed, and he had the usual assortment of friends. And enemies.

Gesius, of course, could not even imagine Imperial status for himself, but the Chancellor could engineer a succession-or try to do so-that would ensure his own continuance at the heart of power in the Empire. It would be far from the first time one of the Imperial eunuchs had orchestrated affairs of succession.

Bonosus, listening to the bland shuffle of speeches from his colleagues-variations on a theme of grievous loss and momentous decisions to come-signalled a slave for a cup of chilled wine and wondered who would take a wager with him.

A charming blond boy-from Karch in the far north, by his colouring-brought his wine. Bonosus smiled at him, and idly watched the boy walk back to the near wall. He reviewed, again, the state of his own relations with the Daleinoi. No conflicts that he knew. Two shared-and profitable-backings of a spice ship to Ispahani some years ago, before his appointment. His wife reported that she greeted the lady wife of Flav-ius Daleinus when they met at the baths they both preferred, and that she was always responded to politely and by name. This was good.

Bonosus expected that Gesius would win this morning. That his patrician candidate would emerge as the Emperor Designate, with the eunuch retaining his position as Imperial Chancellor. The conjoined power of the Chancellor and the wealthiest family in the City were more than a match for Adrastus's ambition, however silken might be the manner and the intricate webs of intelligence spun by the Master of Offices. Bonosus was prepared to risk a sizeable sum on the affair, if he could find a taker.

Later, he, too, would have cause to be privately grateful-amid chaos- that a wager had not taken place that day.

Watching as he sipped his wine, Bonosus saw Gesius, with the smallest, elegant gesture of his long fingers, petition Oradius to be allowed to speak. He saw the Master of the Senate bob his head up and down like a street puppet in immediate acknowledgement. He's been bought, he decided. Adrastus would have his supporters here too. Would doubtless make his own speech soon. It was going to be interesting. Who could squeeze the hapless Senate harder? No one had tried to bribe Bonosus. He wondered if he ought to be flattered or offended.

As another rote eulogy of the dead, thrice-exalted, luminous, never-to-be-equalled Emperor came to a platitudinous close, Oradius gestured with deference towards the Chancellor. Gesius bowed graciously and moved to the white marble speaker's circle in the centre of the mosaics on the floor.

Before the Chancellor began, however, there came another rapping at the door. Bonosus turned, expectantly. This was remarkably well timed, he noted with admiration. Flawlessly, in fact. He wondered how Gesius had done it.

But it was not Flavius Daleinus who entered the room. Instead, an extremely agitated officer of the Urban Prefecture told the assembled Senate about Sarantine Fire loosed in the City and the death of an aristocrat.

A short time after that, with a grey-faced, visibly aged Chancellor being offered assistance on a bench by Senators and slaves, and the Master of Offices displaying either stupefied disbelief or brilliant acting skills, the august Senate of the Empire heard a mob outside its much-abused doors for the second time that day.

This time there was a difference. This time there was only one name being cried, and the voices were ferociously, defiantly assertive. The doors banged open hard, and the street life of the City spilled in. Bonosus saw the faction colours again, too many guilds to count, shopkeepers, street vendors, tavern-masters, bathhouse workers, animal-keepers, beggars, whores, artisans, slaves. And soldiers. There were soldiers this time.

And the same name on all their lips. The people of Sarantium, making known their will. Bonosus turned, on some instinct, in time to see the Chancellor suddenly drain his cup of wine. Gesius took a deep, steadying breath. He stood up, unaided, and moved towards the marble speaker's circle again. His colour had come back.

Holy Jad, thought Bonosus, his mind spinning like the wheel of a toppled chariot, can he be this swift?

"Most noble members of the Imperial Senate," the Chancellor said, lifting his thin, exquisitely modulated voice. "See! Sarantium has come to us! Shall we hear the voice of our people?"

The people heard him, and their voice-responding-became a roar that shook the chamber. One name, again and again. Echoing among marble and mosaic and precious stones and gold, spiralling upwards to the dome where doomed Heladikos drove his chariot, carrying fire. One name. An absurd choice in a way, but in another, Plautus Bonosus thought, it might not be so absurd. He surprised himself. It was not a thought he'd ever had before.

Behind the Chancellor, Adrastus, the suave, polished Master of Offices-the most powerful man in the City, in the Empire-still looked stunned, bewildered by the speed of things. He had not moved or reacted. Gesius had. In the end, that hesitation, missing the moment when everything changed, was to cost Adrastus his office. And his eyes.

The Golden Throne had been lost to him already. Perhaps that dawning awareness was what froze him there on a marble bench while the crowd roared and thundered as if they were in the Hippodrome or a theatre, not the Senate Chamber. His dreams shattered-subtle, intricate designs slashed apart-as a beefy, toothless smith howled the City's chosen name right in his well-bred face.

Perhaps what Adrastus was hearing then, unmoving, was another sound entirely: the jewelled birds of the Emperor, singing for a different dancer now.

Valerius to the Golden Throne!"

The cry had run through the Hippodrome, exactly as he'd been told it would. He'd refused them, had shaken his head decisively, turned his horse to leave, seen a company of the Urban Prefect's guardsmen running towards him-not his own men-and watched as they knelt before his mount, blocking his way with their bodies.

Then they, too, raised his name in a loud shout, begging that he accept |the throne. Again he refused, shaking his head, making a sweeping gesture of denial. But the crowd was already wild. The cry that had begun when he brought them word of Daleinus's death reverberated through the huge space where the chariots ran and people cheered. There were thirty, perhaps forty thousand people there by then, even with no racing this day. A different contest was proceeding towards its orchestrated end. Petrus had told him what would happen and what he had to do at every step. That his reporting of the second death would bring shock and fear, but no grief, and even some vindication following hard upon the too-contrived acclamations of Daleinus. He hadn't asked his nephew how he'd known those acclamations would come. Some things he didn't need to know. He had enough to remember, more than enough to keep clearly in sequence this day.

But it had developed precisely as Petrus had said it would, exact as a heavy cavalry charge on open ground, and here he was astride his horse, the Urban Prefect's men blocking his way and the Hippodrome crowd screaming his name to the god's bright sun. His name and his alone. He had refused twice, as instructed. They were pleading with him now. He saw men weeping as they roared his name. The noise was deafening, a vail, pumshingly loud, as the Excubitors-his own men this time- moved closer, and then completely surrounded him, making it impossi-for a humble, loyal, unambitious man to ride from this place, to escape the people's declared will in their time of great danger and need. He stepped down from his horse. His men were around him, pressing close, screening him from the crowd where Blues and Greens stood mingled together, joined in a fierce, shared desire they had not known they even had, where all those gathered in this white, blazing light were calling upon him to be theirs. To have them now.