He bowed his head as shame shuddered through him. His last words had been angry to this woman he’d sworn to love, and there was no way to call the guilt back. He had been too stupid to help her, somehow sure that she would always be there and that the arguments and the ugly words didn’t matter. And now she was gone and he clenched a fist against his head in anger at himself, pressing harder and harder and welcoming the pain it brought. How he’d boasted to her. His enemies would fall and she would be safe.

At last he stood, but could not turn from her.

A voice shattered the quiet.

“No! Don’t go in there!”

It was Clodia, calling outside. Julius spun round, his hand going to his sword.

His daughter Julia came running into the silence, halting as she saw him. Instinctively, he moved to block Cornelia from her sight, stepping toward her and lifting her into his arms in a tight embrace.

“Mummy’s gone,” she said, and he shook his head, tears spilling out of him.

“No, no, she’s still here, and she loves you,” he said.

*                                                      *                                                      *

Pompey’s men almost gagged at the smell of rot that came from the man they held. The skin they could feel under the cloak seemed to move too easily in their grip, and as they shifted their hands the hooded man gasped in pain, as if something had torn away.

Pompey stood facing them, his eyes bright with malice. At his side were two young girls he had found in the house deep in the warren of alleys between the hills. Their faces were pinched with fear, but there was nowhere for them to run and they stood in terrified silence. The threat was clear. Pompey wiped a line of sweat from his cheek.

“Remove his hood. I want to see the man who killed my daughter,” he said.

The two soldiers reached up and pulled back the rough cloth, looking away, nauseated, as they saw what was revealed. The assassin glared at them all, his face a mass of pustules and scabs. There was not an inch of good flesh to be seen, and the scarred and bleeding skin cracked as he spoke to them.

“I am not the man you want,” he whispered.

Pompey bared his teeth. “You are one of them. You have a name for me, I know. But your life is mine to take for what you have done.”

The man’s rheumy eyes flickered to the two girls, creasing in fear. If Pompey hadn’t guessed already, he would have known then that they were his daughters. The senator knew that fear very well. The assassin spoke quickly, as if to cover what he had shown them.

“How did you find me?”

Pompey drew a knife from his belt, the blade shining even in the shadowy darkness of the room.