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‘A strange statement, from a man in a dungeon. It doesn’t appear to me that you’re very fortunate at all,’ said Claudia.

The charioteer had a pock-marked face, a broken nose and wide-set eyes: a poor man, whose grubby appearance suggested he was fond of the drink. He was just a fool, but he’d almost killed Gia… and Claudia wouldn’t stand for that.

‘Your master will be displeased when he learns that you failed,’ said Claudia. ‘I am assuming it is a he who paid you.’

‘No one paid me,’ grunted the man. ‘I did it for pleasure.’

‘You won’t know pleasure when I get my hands on you,’ said Gia, showing her sword through the bars.

‘I’d start talking, if I were you,’ said Cassius.

‘Your employers will kill you,’ said Claudia. ‘You understand that, don’t you? You are a walking corpse, whether I let you free or not. Your only hope is to tell me who you’re involved with.’

‘I am happy to die for the cause,’ he said. ‘I will march through the underworld with pride.’

‘What cause?’ asked Claudia. ‘You have no cause.’

‘No woman shall rule Rome, by the name of my god.’

‘You’re a bit late for that,’ she said.

The charioteer spat at her – a noxious glob of phlegm that hit her robes like a missile. She recoiled in disgust, as Damocles pulled out a handkerchief to hastily dab it away.

‘You have one last chance to spare yourself,’ said Claudia. ‘Tell me who you’re working for.’

He spat at her again, this time hitting Gia’s arm.

‘Let me in there,’ she said, wiping it off in disgust. ‘Just a few minutes and I’ll have him weeping blood.’

‘It will not work,’ said Claudia. ‘Look at him, he’s a masochist. He’d probably love for you to rough him up a bit.’

The charioteer licked his lips in response, clutching his crotch and making obscene gestures.

Gia slammed her sword into the bars, making a loud clashing noise that drove him back into the shadows.

‘You are fraying my last thread of patience, you revolting pig.’

The charioteer merely laughed.

‘You still maintain that no man paid you?’ pressed Claudia. ‘No man hired you? Where did you get your arrows?’

‘My god has his ways,’ he said. ‘He has his servants. I am but one of them. I bring him offerings, and his men bring offerings to me.’

Claudia didn’t believe he could organize the attempt alone, even with the assistance of a deity.

‘Tell me who sent you,’ Claudia raged.

A slow smile spread across his face, making him look unnatural.

‘My god, he came to me in a dream.’

The man fell to his knees, raising his hands to the sky.

‘I was chosen! My glory is promised. He knows I am important. He told me I was special, that I had an important job to do. He said I would dine with the gods as a holy martyr.’

Claudia made a scornful face.

‘And you believed him?’ she said. ‘If only every mortal tool put to use by the gods had such luck. Most of them are probably toiling in Tartarus now, long forgotten by the deities who used them.’