‘You want him to disappear?’

‘Yes. How that is done I leave to you. I am about to call for him and give him some instructions relating to your task. He will readily understand that I distrust you, with the same arrogance that makes him think I have complete faith in him. I will ask him to accompany you, and watch to make sure that you carry out my instructions to the letter. How you do it and when I leave to you, but I want him disposed of, yet some sign of his demise to be publicly visible. Carry out that, as well, and your fee for the night’s work will be increased substantially.’

‘I accept,’ Gafon replied crisply.

‘You do not wish to ponder this?’ asked Lucius, with an arch, almost amused expression. The owner of the gladiator school, more concerned with his indebtedness than the prospect of another murder, shook his head. ‘The slave will have with him a scroll, and that too must disappear.’ Gafon nodded, then grinned as the senator continued. ‘He will also have some money of his own, which I expect you will relieve him of.’

That Gafon would have to share, but he was more concerned with how to make a dead body disappear.

‘Make sure you come back alone to tell me what you have done,’ Lucius added. ‘You will never talk of this to anyone, at the peril of the same fate as those you will dispose of tonight. And tell those brawlers you have with you to hold their tongues as well.’

Gafon was well aware of the potency of the threat. Armed with a sword he might be, but against the power and dignity of this man he would be impotent. He could plead till he was blue that he had been hired to do murder, but that would just guarantee his own removal. That his paymaster may suffer subsequently was little compensation.

Lucius went to the door and signalled that Ragas should enter. With a last glance at the assembled thugs he did so; coming into the well-lit study it was possible for Gafon to examine him.