Lost in her own thoughts, one hand holding her parasol, the other grasping Murranus', Claudia was startled from her reverie when they reached the Flavian Gate. She glanced up and stared around at the outhouses, barracks and fences, as well as the makeshift market which had grown up there. Guards in half-armour lounged in the shade gambling, whilst their officer, a German clad in tawdry finery, stood surveying the crowd. Claudia wondered idly if the officer was from Burrus' cohort. She knew the real watchers were hidden away. The Ethiopian with his braided hair selling bruised fruit from his wheelbarrow; the scrawny girl offering sulphur matches; the priest of some minor deity clad in dirty saffron robes, chanting over a pot of flame: perhaps they were spies. Or was it the sharp-faced, balding pimp, with three of his ladies, all bewigged, painted and clinking with cheap jewellery, looking for custom, yelling that he had set up an awning in a shady corner just inside the city walls? Any of these could be the 'surveyors' of the Empress Helena, looking for faces, studying those flocking into the city, recalling descriptions and searching for anything untoward.

The entire crowd fell silent as military horns wailed a fanfare. An execution party came marching out, sixteen men under their decurion, divided into squads of four. Each squad guarded a prisoner, a beam across his shoulder, being dragged out to be crucified at the Palace of Bones. Once these had passed, Claudia and Murranus joined the rest of the crowds as they surged through the gateway on to the thoroughfare, which immediately radiated out into narrow runnels, alleyways and side streets.