When she saw Lupus’s sword she looked up anxiously into his face and knew that she was doomed. She stretched out her neck. ‘Strike clean,’ she said. ‘Don’t bungle it like the other assassins did.’ Caesonia was no coward. He struck and the head fell. He then caught up the little brat, who came rushing at him, biting and scratching. He held her by the feet, swung her head against a marble pillar, and so dashed out her brains. It is always unpleasant to hear of the murder of a child: but the reader must take my word for it that if he too had known little Drusilla, her father’s pet, he would have
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