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‘The one I found in your room,’ said Gia.

‘When have you been in my room?’ he said, his eyes darkening.

‘The other day, on the orders of the empress.’

Claudia swallowed as the prince looked to her.

‘You can explain this?’ he said.

‘It is exactly as it sounds,’ she admitted. ‘I didn’t know if you could be trusted, so I sent my guard to perform security checks when you were otherwise occupied.’

‘The important mission,’ said Darius, nodding in recollection, ‘when we watched that terrible play. That was why you sent Cassius here to distract me instead, am I right?’

Cassius bit his lip guiltily.

‘In my defence,’ he said, ‘it was a pleasure.’

‘She recovered a knife,’ said Claudia.

‘I have many knives.’

‘The same kind was used in an attack on the empress,’ said Gia.

‘No. You are confused.’

‘I saw it with my own eyes,’ insisted Gia. ‘We have hard evidence against you. You cannot deny it.’

Claudia was rapidly losing control of the situation. Outside, the streets were still in chaos, the noise of disorder ringing aloud.

‘You’re a snake,’ said Gia.

‘You dare to call me a serpent?’ said Darius.

‘What other kind of man would come to Rome to claim the girl promised to him when she was just a child?’

‘I too was a child.’

‘You are no different to Marcellus. No better, thinking women are prizes for you to win.’

They eyeballed each other with outright hostility, their hands sliding towards their weapons.

‘Let us all take a breath,’ Claudia said. ‘This isn’t the time to—’

‘If you spoke these words to me back in Persepolis, you would not wake to see tomorrow,’ said Darius.

‘You may have fooled her, but you won’t fool me,’ said Gia. ‘You set it up so you could look like a hero and win her favour.’

‘You are wrong.’

‘Then go home. Leave. Us. Alone. You are not needed here.’

‘Gia, please,’ warned Claudia.

‘Is it so?’ he snarled. ‘You were not much use as a guard, when the moment came. If not for me, your mistress would be dead.’

Mistress – like the owner of a slave. Gia moved as if to jump him but Cassius held her back.

‘That’s enough!’ Claudia shouted. ‘We will talk about the matter in due course but we will not behave with such indignity, not when we have just been shot at, not when people are dead or injured.’