In the silence that followed, Gafon took up a torch and turned to the alleyway in which Ragas was standing, hood up and cloak held tightly to his body. ‘Come, friend, and see that they are all dead. Then you can return to your master and give him the news.’

Ragas declined to move. ‘I can see well enough from here.’

‘Then you have the eyes of a god. For me, I would rather come closer so that I could be certain.’

Good with a sword, Gafon was less accomplished at the telling of falsehoods, so his words struck a false note that was highlighted by the torchlight and the bodies around his feet. Ragas, looking into Gafon’s eyes, saw no humour, no reassurance in those eyes, all he saw was the possibility of his own death. Having committed such a crime, the whole gang should have dispersed instantly. Yet there was still a lingering doubt, for his death would have had to be ordered and he could just not bring himself to believe that even Lucius Falerius would stoop so low.

‘Go on your way,’ he said to Gafon, ‘and I will return with the news of your success.’

‘Look at them,’ Gafon demanded, jabbing toward the bodies with his sword. Ragas threw off his cloak and ran then, and the voice behind him cried out the words he had dreaded to hear, words that told him that his fears were real. ‘Get him. Ten gold denarii to the man who brings me his head.’

The pitch-black alleys of the port were both a help and a hindrance. He was aided by the sheer number, but handicapped by the lack of certainty as to his direction, as well as the numerous objects that lay hidden in his path, objects which saw him more than once crashing painfully onto the hard packed earth. That he had to do silently, so that his ears could alert him to the proximity of the noisy pursuit. There were stars above his head, but not enough to steer a course by, and they were often cut off from view by the overhang of the higher warehouses. Common sense told him to stop on occasions and listen to see if the pursuit had passed him by. Renewed fear made him move, there being no security in noises, the distance of which he could not discern. Several times he nearly ran into one of Gafon’s thugs, alerted only by a flicker of torchlight that the route he had chosen was one to take him into danger, not out of it.