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four blue—their horses prancing with high steps on the way to their boxes.
    The
scenica
turned in her seat as we settled in. “You did well tonight.” Her hand caressed the back of her patron’s neck. “Begging before these men was daring.”
    I searched for malice in her face but found none. “Better than begging on the street.”
    “Extremely pragmatic for one so young.” Her eyes twinkled as the consul gave a great yell and tossed the red and purple
mappa
into the air. The mechanical gates to the starting boxes swung open, and the chariots bolted onto the track amid cheers so loud the courtesan had to yell to be heard. “My name is Macedonia.”
    I knew the name—Macedonia was Constantinople’s greatest
scenica
, but she had started as a dancer in the Kynêgion. They said she knew tricks only the devil could have taught her.
    “I’m Theodora,” I said. “And this is Comito.” My sister shrank back—apparently she wasn’t keen on the idea of befriending a known whore. I had no such scruples.
    “And your mother?”
    “Is with our sister.”
    Macedonia raised an elegantly penciled brow. “With her new husband?”
    I didn’t know how this woman knew Vitus even existed.
    She must have guessed my thoughts. “Asterius made a bit of a gaffe when he installed his paymaster as the Greens’ Master of Bears.” She glanced at the first heat. A blue chariot had overturned on this side of the Egyptian obelisk, its driver impaled through the ribs by one of the shafts—quite messy.
    A man behind us cursed and launched a handful of roasted almonds toward the track, landing several in my lap. I helped myself and handed one to Comito. “I’m afraid I don’t understand why the Blues would take us on.”
    “The Blues’ bear master recently made an unfortunate miscalculation.” Macedonia shivered. “They recovered most of him after the bear was finished. The Blues will take your new father as their bear trainer. At least then you’ll have a roof over your head.”
    “How do you know all that?”
    She smiled. “Men like to talk. I prefer to listen.”
    A giant cage of gray parrots was released as the first chariot crossed the finish. I was happy to note its horses were festooned with blue ribbons. The birds would be captured later, but now they squawked as they flew over the spectators toward false freedom.
    Macedonia smiled and turned her attention to her patron. “Good luck, girls. I hope everything works out for you.”
    We didn’t have a coin to our names, but we’d had plenty of luck tonight.
    Unfortunately, luck never lasts.



Chapter 3
    I yawned into my hand as we approached the Boar’s Eye. Comito and I had stayed at the Hippodrome until after the last race was won, enjoying our new celebrity. A man old enough to be our father’s father—or possibly even his father—had offered three goats for Comito’s hand in marriage. She refused him, but I thought it a rather generous offer.
    I wished I’d had at least a few coins to bet—the Blues won seven of the ten heats, and then there were the wrestlers and tightrope walkers to cheer. I’d gritted my teeth until they threatened to crack when the Greens paraded out their bear to finish, the same flea-infested beast my father had trained.
    Oil lamps flickered outside the taverna, illuminating the flaked painting of a fat brown pig with one enormous eye like a Cyclops. Drunken laughter spilled onto the steps. Inside, the open room stunk of stale barley water and unwashed male bodies. Several curvaceous women sat on the laps of grinning patrons before the tiny hearth. Its oversized pot hung from a giant chain suspended over the smoking fire. The fug of boiling onions and carrots reminded me that I hadn’teaten all day, save for the few almonds. Decades of fires in the hearth had blackened the walls, and a dull haze hung low in the air. The Boar’s Eye was a good place for trading secrets, but I had none to tell, not now that the entire city knew my