Asportus, indeed.

He jerked hard and felt the tunic tear at the shoulder. The jewelled brooch holding it fell onto the sand. He laughed-and then let out a scream as something smashed him across the back of the knees. He staggered, collapsed in the dust. Just as the charioteers fall, he thought.

He looked up, tears in his eyes, pain taking his breath away. Excubitors. Of course. Three of them had come. Armed, impersonal, merciless. They could kill him as easily as crack him across the knees, and with as much impunity. This was Sarantium. Commoners died to make an example every day. A spear point was leveled at his breast.

"Next man who strikes another here gets a spearpoint, not a shaft," the man holding the weapon said, his voice hollow within his helmet. He was utterly calm. The Imperial Guard were the best-trained men in the City.

"You'll be busy, then," said Daccilio bluntly, unintimidated. "It seems the spontaneous demonstration arranged by the illustrious Daleinoi is not achieving what might have been desired."

The three Excubitors looked up into the stands and the one with the levelled spear swore, rather less calmly. There were fistfights breaking out now, centred around the men who had been shouting that patently contrived acclamation. Fotius lay motionless, not even daring to rub his legs, until the spear point wavered and moved away. The green-eyed imposter in the torn blue tunic was no longer among them. Fotius had no idea where he'd gone.

Pappio knelt beside him. "My friend, are you all right?"

Fotius managed to nod. He wiped at the tears and sweat on his face. His tunic and legs were coated with dust now, from the sacred ground where charioteers raced. He felt a sudden wave of fellow-feeling for the balding glassblower. Pappio was a Green, to be sure, but he was a decent fellow for all that. And he had helped unmask a deception.