Daylight rarely reached this part of Rome, but at night the shadows took on a fearful aspect. There was no law there, no soldiers who could come, and no citizens who would dare answer a call. Antonidus gripped his dagger even more tightly, starting as something scrambled away from their footsteps as they passed. He didn’t investigate, but stumbled on almost blind, counting the corners by feeling them out with his hands. Three corners from the entrance, then four more down to the left.

Even in the night, the alleys carried the foot traffic that the bulk of Rome would never see. There was little conversation between the people they saw, and that muted. Hurrying figures passed the three men without acknowledgment, skirting the filthy pools with their heads down. Where single torches lit the path for a few paces, the people stepped around the light, as if to fall within its scope was to invite disaster.

Only his fury made Antonidus push on and even then it was not without fear. The man he had met had told him never to come uninvited into these streets, but losing his home gave him a courage born in anger. Even that was fading in the dark and the rising discomfort.

At last he reached the point he had found before, a cross path between mildewed walls, somewhere deep in the heart of the warren. He paused to look for his man, his eyes straining in the darkness. Water dripped slowly onto stone nearby and a sudden scuffle of feet made his men spin round nervously, flourishing their own daggers before them, as if to ward off spirits.

“You were told not to seek me out until the last night of the month,” a sibilant voice said by the general’s ear.

Antonidus almost fell in panic, his feet slipping on the wet stones as he jumped in horror at the closeness. His dagger cleared his belt in reaction, but his wrist was clamped in a grip that held him helpless.

The man who faced him wore a cloak and hood of dark rough cloth, his features covered, though it was hardly necessary in the inky blackness of the alleyways. Antonidus almost gagged at the strange sweet scent coming from him. It was the smell of disease, of soft corruption masked with perfumed oil, and he wondered afresh whether the cloak hid more than just identity. The dark man leaned so close as to almost touch his ear with the hidden lips.

“Why have you come clattering in here, disturbing half my watchers with your noisy fumbling?”

The voice was a hiss of anger and so close that it carried the sweetness in a rush of warm breath that made Antonidus want to gag. He shuddered in reaction as the hood touched his cheek lightly.

“I had to come. I have more work for you and I want it done quickly.”