CHAPTER 9
Now that he was as clean as he could get without visiting the baths, Longinus was beginning to feel like himself again. He had burned that night’s silks and was now wearing a burgundy brocade waistcoat inwrought with thread of gold over matching trousers and with a fine silk smoking jacket. He didn’t smoke, but no assassin should be caught dead at home without a smoking jacket.
He leaned back in his chair, allowing his eyes to drift across the bottles of poison that lined his shelves. The soft glow from the vapour lamp glanced off the curve of the bottles, and they almost looked like a hundred benevolent eyes, watching over him. The thought comforted him, gave him strength. He was going to need it to deal with that devil child. Blackmailing him like that. No shame, no shame at
