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Another wave of booing rang out, as a group of late-coming senators took their seats.

‘Your people are very disrespectful,’ said Darius.

‘They are,’ she said, ‘but they are still my people.’

‘I have many enemies back home, yet they are nice to my face. Always smiles and open arms in front, whispers and plots behind my back. I don’t know which is worse.’

Claudia made an ambiguous yet agreeable noise.

The prince’s eyes flicked to Cassius, standing beside her.

‘Where is your woman guard today?’ he asked.

‘Gia is busy with an important mission, so her brother Cassius has agreed to guard me.’

‘Her brother, eh?’ he said, looking Cassius up and down as he did the same in return.

‘He has survived the British barbarians so I’m confident he can handle whatever trouble you might have in store for me,’ she said.

‘I am fond of trouble,’ said Darius.

‘Then I am sure you two will get on,’ she said.

She glanced to Cassius expectantly.

‘Certainly, your highness,’ he said, bowing to the prince. ‘I have many pertinent questions about your menagerie of animals.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, I was eating lunch yesterday when a small golden monkey appeared from nowhere to steal my bread… I don’t suppose you know anything about that, do you?’

The prince’s eyes glittered at this bold approach.

‘Aha,’ he said. ‘I see you’ve met Navid.’

As they conversed, Claudia thought about Gia, worrying how her search for evidence was getting on, and what she’d think if she knew Cassius disapproved so strongly of them even being friends, let alone anything more. How seriously would Gia take his opinion?

She was so tired of all these wretched men interfering.

When she resumed paying attention to the prince’s conversation, they were talking about Cassius’s near-death experience.

‘I am rapt by such stories,’ Darius was saying. ‘I have my own tales of that place between life and death. I am sure that there is another world, along with this one. Tell me, Cassius, what was it like?’

‘I don’t remember it well. As time has passed, the memory is surrounded by an aura,’ he said. ‘My recollection is hazy. But I was shot, right here in the side.’

He pulled up the tunic beneath his armour, revealing the scarred skin above his hip.

The prince’s eyes lingered.

‘One moment, I was staring up at the stars, blood in my eyes and my mouth. It was just as people say. I saw this bright, white light, and felt this immense sense of peace. I saw the face of the goddess Fortuna. The next thing I remember, I was lying in bed in a charming little stone house in front of a fire, being tended to by the witch doctor of the tribe. He healed me with herbal medicine, and it was as if I was born again.’

‘That good?’ said the prince, lifting his dark brows. ‘And what were they like, the British?’

‘They are coarse, sometimes dirty. They like their drink even more than us Romans. But they were always game for a laugh and a dance. They loved music, and making pottery. They were people, just like you and me. I had never felt better, or happier, in my life…’

His face was cast in shadow by a cloud moving past the sun.

‘If not for my family, I may have stayed.’