Rome: The Emperor's Spy: Rome 1 by M. C. Scott

sawdust pathway were a nightmare of open possibilities and the horse barns beyond were worse: four long, low buildings with shadowed doorways along their lengths and narrow grassed alleyways between.
    At the nearest end, almost blocking the path between the barns, clusters of tents marked the professions that kept each team running: the wainwrights, the harness-makers, the loriners, the boys who boiled the axle grease, the weavers who made the banners. Above each flew the colours allocated for this race: Red at the front for the magistrate, then Blue, then White and finally the Green of the home team.
    ‘The Red team will win, of course,’ Nero said. ‘The horses were a gift to the magistrate from the king of Parthia, who wishes to buy our favour and does it by flattering our friends. That team we cannot buy, and so our task for today is to decide which of the other three teams is worthy of our attentions and our gold. They are the best in Gaul. One of them must be good enough.’
    Following the emperor’s gaze, Pantera saw a team of four grey colts grazing at the side of the track further down near the hippodrome. As yet they bore no ribbons in their manes to identify them, but even at this distance, with the high walls of the wooden hippodrome behind, it was clear these four were of a different stamp to their thicker, heavier brethren who ran for the other teams.
    Pantera had lived five years in Britain where the tribes prided themselves on breeding horses to beat the world. The women of those horse runs would have given an entire year’s crop of colts for even the least of these.
    Pointing, he said, ‘That’ll be the Red team there? The four matched greys? They look fit to beat anything Gaul could produce. Are they the magistrate’s gift?’
    ‘They must be. Come.’ Nero’s cheeks dimpled with the pleasure of finally finding a man who understood his passion. Together, he and Pantera turned back towards the training track.
    The magistrate’s team of gift-horses was momentarily blocked from sight by the passing of two other beribboned teams – chestnut colts sporting Blue and a team of blacks spectacular in White – already hitched and warming up ostentatiously before groups of watchful gamblers who changed the odds with each slow circuit. Knowing they were watched, the drivers trotted sunwise on the thick layer of sawdust, showing off their paces, but not tiring their horses. In the race, they travelled in the opposite direction; knowing this made the difference.
    The colts in both teams were snappy and moody, snaking bites at their teammates and opponents. Their drivers called to them, cajoling and threatening in turn. Other men ran alongside, shouting instructions and encouragement, or calling for a stop to change the set of the harness. Only the local Coriallum team was not out yet, and still last in the betting.
    The grey colts grazing at the track’s end had not even been harnessed, which said a lot for the confidence of their driver, but even as the emperor’s party turned to watch, two boys in the magistrate’s livery began to weave ribbons of brightest scarlet into their manes, leaving the ends hanging loose to fly back as banners with their speed.
    Appreciatively, Nero said, ‘They’re built of the wind, with desert storms in their blood and stars lighting their feet. They’ll win today unless each of them breaks a leg; they outmatch the others by more than a track’s length without trying.’
    ‘If you wanted to buy a team to race in Rome, surely these are they?’ Pantera asked.
    ‘But Cornelius Proculus, the magistrate, has long been our friend, and these are his heart’s joy; it would be theft for us to buy them from him. In any case, they may be fast as the wind now, but they won’t stay that way for long.’
    To Pantera’s frustration and the evident consternation of the Ubian guards, Nero turned away from the peeled hazel barrier at the edge of the training track and turned left