‘Yes,’ the guard said, his eyes darting left and right to check no one was snooping in on their conversation. ‘We quietly take them off the streets, bring ’em to the palace and deal with them.’ He made a throat-slitting gesture. ‘Senators, knights, magistrates. Even the odd legate. The sons get exiled, or worse, thrown into the gladiator schools. The list seems to grow by the week. No one is safe, I’m telling you.’

‘Not sure I like the sound of that,’ Macro said tersely. ‘Soldiers shouldn’t get involved in politics.’

The guard raised a hand in mock surrender. ‘Hey, don’t look at me. You know how it is. Orders are orders. If you ask me, it’s those freedmen the Emperor has been surrounding himself with we need to watch. You should see the way they talk to us. But they’ve got his ear.’

The guard straightened his back and approached a set of wrought iron gates at the entrance to the imperial palace complex. A blast of cool evening air swept through the street as the guards ushered Macro up a wide staircase leading into a dimly lit hall with marbled walls and a bas-relief frieze depicting the famous battle of Zama, the decisive victory against Carthage masterminded by Publius Cornelius Scipio, the great reformer of the Roman military. They swept along a vast corridor and cut through a lavish garden adorned with fountains and statues and surrounded by marble arcades. Beyond, Macro could see the rooftops of the Forum and the columns of the Temple of Castor and Pollux. Arriving at the opposite side of the garden, they climbed a flight of stone stairs and entered a large hall with an apse at the far end. The guards escorted Macro across the hall to where a shadowed figure stood at the step of a raised dais used by the Emperor when he was holding court.

The man at the dais was not the Emperor. He had the dark, curly hair and sloping nose of a Greek. His smooth skin and willowy physique suggested he had never done a day’s hard labour. He wore the simple tunic of a freedman, although Macro noted the tunic appeared to be made of fine-spun wool. His eyes were black like the holes in a stage mask.

‘Ah, the famous Macro!’ the freedman said with an exaggerated tone of praise. ‘A true Roman hero!’

He approached Macro, his thin lips twisted into a smile.

‘Leave us,’ he ordered the guards in a sharp, shrill voice. The Praetorians nodded and paced back down the centre of the hall. The freedman followed them with his dark eyes until they were out of earshot.