‘I ain’t your slave,’ the watchman growled. ‘I ain’t running at your beck and call. And the master won’t want me to disturb him during a party.’

‘Touchy type, is he?’ Macro asked sympathetically.

For an instant the watchmen’s expression betrayed a touch of anxiety. He clicked his tongue. ‘Seneca’s all right. It’s that woman friend of his - the bitch. If anyone interrupts her night then she’ll have the skin scourged off their backs quick as anything. Seneca will see to it. Obeys her like a dog.’

‘That’s tough.’ Macro nodded. He cocked his head slightly to one side, as if in thought. ‘All right then, I’ll give this place a miss. I’ll tell my master that I couldn’t find the party.’

‘Would be for the best, for all of us,’ said the watchman, with relief. Then his face hardened again and he let his club swing loose. ‘So, on your way.’

Macro nodded and stepped back into the middle of the street and walked off. He passed the back of two more houses before he cut back up another alley to rejoin Cato.

‘Find out anything?’ asked Cato.

‘Enough,’ Macro grinned. ‘The house belongs to young Nero’s tutor.’

‘Seneca?’ Cato breathed out deeply.

‘Not only that, but I saw the Emperor’s wife there among the guests.’

‘You saw that? How?’

Macro explained how he had climbed the wall and then approached the watchmen on the rear gate.

‘That would seem to rule out any link between Lurco and the Liberators,’ Cato responded. ‘Agrippina and her followers are no more likely to be in favour of a return to the Republic than Claudius.’

‘Unless Lurco’s spying on them for the Liberators,’ Macro suggested.

‘Then why would Sinius want him killed?’

Macro grimaced, cross with himself for not grasping the point at once. ‘All right. Then maybe they want him dead because he is a follower of Agrippina.’

‘Or maybe it’s simply a coincidence that Lurco is there. Did you see him speak to her? Or Seneca?’

‘No.’

‘Hmmm.’

Both men were silent for a moment before Cato hissed with frustration. ‘I can’t see my way through all this. What the hell has Narcissus shoved us into this time? There’s no question about there being a conspiracy … or perhaps more than one conspiracy.’

Macro groaned. ‘Listen, Cato. This is making my head hurt. What do you mean, more than one conspiracy?’

Cato tried to put together the information they had been given by Narcissus at the start of their mission and all that they had uncovered since then. ‘Something doesn’t feel quite right about this. There’s too much contradiction and too much that just doesn’t make sense.’ He paused and glanced towards his friend with a rueful smile. ‘You’re right about this line of work not being for us. Give me proper soldiering any day.’