The Governor's Man by Jacquie Rogers (best beach reads TXT) 📕

The Governor’s Man

Jacquie Rogers

© Jacquie Rogers 2021.

Jacquie Rogers has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

First published in 2021 by Sharpe Books.

For Peter,

cheerleader and first reader.

Table of Contents

life is warfare, and a visit to a strange land...

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Prologue

AD 224

Roman Britannia

The bitter day was dying. In the settling dusk, the messenger boy swaying on his stumbling horse could no longer make out the milestones set into the verges of the road. He was as tired as his mare, but forced himself to stay upright, searching in the easterly gloom for the pale limestone gateway of Cunetio. How many more days until he reached Londinium? He tried to remember what the clerk had told him, but all he could think of was thawing his numb feet at a tavern fire.

The mare shied. The boy grasped the reins, pressing his feet reassuringly against her flanks. She was usually responsive to his signals, but now she stopped, refusing to walk further. He stroked her neck, murmuring into her ear. Still she would not budge. He dismounted to lead her on foot. There was a rustle to one side. He had time to wonder if an owl was swooping nearby when a sword struck him, taking his head off in a single blow.

Two men had been waiting in hiding. The taller, dressed in a fine cloak dyed an expensive bright blue, signalled to his companion to retrieve their horses while he crouched down to look at the detached head. He slid the boy’s mouth open, placed something on the boy’s tongue, and gently pushed the jaws shut.

‘No idea who that is.’

‘Did you expect to know him?’

The tall man shrugged. The other man, dark face twisted in the fading light, handed him the reins of a handsome roan, and picked up the head to launch it spinning into the trees. The taller man moved to a hawthorn tree on the verge. Then both remounted, the slighter with economy, the taller with practised grace. The fine wool of the tall man’s cloak slid easily over his shoulders as he pulled the roan’s head round. They set off west, leaving the headless trunk soaking blood into the gravel.

The boy’s horse nudged the sprawling body, shivering at the raw smell of death.

Chapter One

Rome, two months earlier

Two mud-spattered riders, one an officer in his early thirties, the other a young slave, dismounted at the gates of the Castra Peregrina, headquarters of the Roman secret service. Frumentarius Quintus Valerius handed his reins to his shivering groom.

‘Get the horses stabled, Gnaeus; I’m going home first. I’ll be back later to report to the Commander.’

Quintus shrugged off his own fatigue. He did not notice his slave’s ashen face as the man took the plodding animals around to the stables.

Quintus walked across the city, up the Quirinal to his family home. The Valerii had lived here time out of mind.  It was a venerable old house, the embodiment of their status as an ancient Roman family, but today the house seemed unusually quiet as Quintus banged on the front door. His elderly steward Silenus opened promptly, bowing with a look of surprise on his face.

‘Sir, welcome home! We didn’t know when to expect you, that is the mistress didn’t …’ The man trailed off, as Quintus looked past him into a deserted atrium. Completely empty of furniture, lamps, not even a household slave in sight. It was dark and cold in the room. At this time of day there ought at least to be someone lighting the oil lamps and candles.

A door opened.

‘Brother!’ A young woman, petite and dark-haired, dashed across to him, crocus-yellow palla trailing.

‘Lucilla!’

She flung her arms around him. ‘Come into the salon. The hypocaust isn’t lit but Silenus brought in braziers.’

He allowed her to drag him into a large dimly-lit room, where Lucilla’s husband, tall and quiet, was waiting.

‘Justin? Why are you here? Is my mother with you?’ Quintus glanced round, dreading the mournful chill that trailed his mother into any  gathering. And where was his wife, Calpurnia? It was unlike her to miss the chance to act the Roman society matron.

’No, just we two. I heard from the Castra you were expected. We wanted to be here to welcome you back,’ said his brother-in-law, standing to grasp his arm in greeting.

Justin and Quintus had both joined the Praetorian Guard at sixteen. They became firm friends. A couple of years later they were joined by Quintus’s younger brother, Flavius Valerius, and the three of them had been posted as junior officers in the army of Emperor Septimius Severus to serve in his Caledonian campaigns. When Quintus returned from Britannia after months of injury, he found his sister hero-worshipping the quiet young Praetorian. His mother made Lucilla and Justin wait years; she had hoped for a more prestigious match for her only daughter than a career army officer from Etruria, without patrons or suitable connections. But in the end the despised Justin became a relief to the dowager when the family lost almost everything; he was welcome then to take Lucilla away to his modest estate.

Lucilla was fidgeting round the room.

‘My dear, we must tell him,’ said her husband calmly.

‘Tell me what? What’s going on?’ Quintus brushed down his uniform and sat on one of the two remaining couches in the room.

Lucilla also sat, taking his hand and stroking it. She was the only person in the world he would accept this intimacy from.

‘Calpurnia …’ her voice trailed off. Quintus stiffened. He should have guessed that this had something to do with his wife. Justin lifted a heavy scroll of papyrus off a