Thalius and Aurelia, he nervously, she with smooth confidence, began to describe Audax’s scarring and how it had come about. Audax could understand a little of their Latin talk, of a family history, a rich woman who sold her descendants into slavery ... Constantine listened with an expression of faint boredom. Audax imagined him listening to hundreds of people every day, each of them with a story they needed him to hear.

Then came the revelation of the scar itself. Aurelia turned the boy around and had him lift his tunic over his head. Audax waited, his head swathed in his tunic, smelling his own sweat, hearing the muffled voices of the adults as they discussed the one thing about him that made him interesting to them. An acrostic ... Christian elements, the alpha and the omega ... encrypted words. He felt a warm, heavy finger tracing across his back, perhaps the Emperor’s own, and his gruff voice teasing out the words: Constare, perire.

The boy was straightened up, his tunic flopped down, and he was turned around to face the Emperor. Audax saw that one of the guards had drawn his sword. Everybody understood the true meaning of the two words. Suddenly the tension in the room was enormous, and Audax, at its focus, was very afraid.

It was Helena who spoke next. Are you threatening my son? Is he to die today?

Thalius spoke rapidly, clearly terrified; he hadn’t anticipated this reaction. Nobody will die ... Not a threat ... We bring you the Prophecy in good faith, we did not make it ... We hope you will take it as guidance for a better future for all of us ... We bring you a letter ... He fumbled beneath his toga for his document, and the guards glared at him even more intently.

And while they were distracted Audax discovered a knife in his hand, a fine, polished blade. It had been put there by Aurelia. As he looked down on the blade, her cold fingers closed around Audax’s hand, and the knife.

And she pushed Audax, stretching his arm, and the blade was thrust forward. Audax saw all this as if watching from outside his own body. It had been beaten into him across a lifetime that when an adult pulled you around you didn’t resist, not so much as a muscle. So it was his hand that held the knife, but Aurelia’s strength that shoved it through layers of cloth, a briefly resisting skin, and then into a wet warmth beyond.

Even as the knife pierced the Emperor’s chest, Aurelia screamed, ‘No! The slave is a rogue! Help me hold him back, oh help me!’ When the knife was embedded to its hilt, Aurelia fell back with a cry.