With Cato leading the way, the two centurions moved over to the end of the line of stalls stretching alongside the steps that led up to the walls of the inner temple. The nearest stalls belonged to the moneylenders and bankers, who sat in comfortable cushioned chairs as they conducted business with their customers. Beyond them was the smaller section where the tax collectors and their hired muscle sat waiting for payment from those who had been assessed for taxation. At their sides were stacked the waxed slates that detailed the names of those to be taxed, and how much they should pay. The tax collectors had bought the right to collect specific taxes at auctions held by the Roman procurator in the province’s administrative capital at Caesarea. Having paid a fixed sum into the imperial coffers, they were legally entitled to squeeze the people of Jerusalem for any taxes they might be deemed to be liable for. It was a harsh system, but it was one that was applied right across the Roman Empire, and the tax collectors were a deeply resented and despised social class. That suited Emperor Claudius and the staff of the imperial treasury very well indeed, since the odium of the provincial taxpayers was invariably focused on the local collectors and not the people from whom the latter had bought their tax-collecting rights.

A sudden outburst of shouting and screaming drew Cato and Macro’s attention to the far end of the line of stalls. A group of men had charged out of the crowd. Sunlight flashed off the side of a blade and Cato realised the men were all armed as they closed in round one of the tax collectors, like wolves at the kill. His bodyguard took one look at the blades, turned and ran. The tax collector flung up his arms to protect his face and disappeared from sight as his attackers fell on him. Cato’s hand automatically snatched at his sword as he ducked round behind the line of stalls.

‘Come on, Macro!’

There was a rasp as Macro’s blade was drawn behind Cato and then the two of them sprinted towards the killers, thrusting the moneylenders aside and leaping over their stacks of record slates. Ahead of him Cato saw the men draw back from the tax collector, now slumped over the top of his stall, his white tunic torn and bloody. In front of the stall the crowd drew back in a panic, crying out in terror as they turned and ran.The attackers turned on the men behind the next stall.They had frozen for an instant before realising the terrible danger they were in, but now they attempted to scramble away from the men brandishing the short curved blades that gave them their name: the sicarians - assassins of the most extreme fringe of the Judaean zealots resisting Roman rule.