But Macro was already moving, his sword a glittering blur as it swept round and knocked the blade from the man’s hand. Even as it clattered to the ground another sicarian feinted, causing Cato to turn towards him, ready to parry. As he moved, another of the men jumped forward, knife point flickering out. Cato turned back just in time to meet the threat. He lowered his spare hand and snatched out his dagger, broad-bladed and unwieldy compared to the narrow-bladed weapons of the killers, but it felt good in his hand all the same. The leader shouted another order, and Cato heard the anger in the man’s voice. He wanted this finished at once.

‘Macro!’ Cato shouted out. ‘With me! Charge!’

He threw himself at the men backing onto the courtyard and his comrade followed him, bellowing at the top of his voice. The sudden reversal of roles startled the sicarians and they paused for a vital instant. Cato and Macro slashed at the men in front of them, causing them to jump aside, and then the Romans were through, running across the paving, back towards the entrance to the Great Courtyard. There was a cry of rage from behind and then the scuffling pad of sandals as the sicarians chased after them. Cato glanced back and saw Macro close behind, and just a few paces behind him the leader of the killers, lips drawn back in a snarl as he sprinted after the Romans. Cato knew at once they would never outrun them. They were too heavily weighed down and the sicarians wore nothing but their tunics. It would all be over in moments. Just ahead lay an amphora, abandoned in the rush to escape from the courtyard. Cato jumped over it and immediately turned round. Macro, with a puzzled expression, leaped past him just as Cato slashed his sword down, shattering the large jar. With a gurgling rush the contents sloshed across the paving slabs and the air filled with the aroma of olive oil. Cato turned and raced after Macro, and glanced over his shoulder just in time to see the leader of the sicarians slither, lose his footing and tumble back on to the ground with a thud. Two of the men immediately behind him also slipped over, but the rest skirted the spreading slick of oil and chased after the Romans. Cato saw that they were only a short distance from the stragglers of the crowd: the old, the infirm and a handful of small children, crying out in terror.