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

Tertius knew a surprising amount. It was obvious he had been an effective investigator for some time. He’d realised the mine accounts were being falsified to cover irregularities in the silver smelting processes, and had kept his own secret records. He’d overheard the security manager Caesulanus talking. Then he’d gone searching in the old barracks in the crumbled Claudian fort, and found silver ingots stored illicitly. He’d witnessed a recent meeting between the owner Bulbo, his son Lucius, and two strangers.

‘I have some written evidence too, a letter inviting my master to a meeting in Londinium last winter. He was instructed to bring with him samples of silver coins.’ He passed a white wax tablet to Quintus, who quickly scanned it. Coins, perhaps to pay troops? Army pay was always in silver denarii, and keeping the army happy was of critical importance to the security of the province. He looked again at the letter. He was disappointed by the lack of any names or signature, but that would only have confirmed what he already suspected. With any luck Tertius would have other corroborating documents.

‘Praise be to Mercury that you’re so sharp and conscientious, Tertius. But how is the silver being sent out?’

‘Normally the finished ingots, both lead and silver, are sent direct from the cupellation works here, lowered in sledges down the cliffside of the Great Gorge.’

‘The Great Gorge?’

‘Yes, it’s a mighty chasm in the Mendip rock, splitting the hills in half. At the bottom the ingots are loaded onto wagons to be taken the short distance to the dockyard in Iscalis. The pigs are loaded onto river barges and rowed to the coast, where they’re transhipped onto trading vessels heading to all parts of the Province and the wider Empire.’

‘Right. Well, to escape notice I expect them to stick to normal patterns. That is, if the silver is leaving this area. Tiro, I want you to take up position in Iscalis by the docks. Watch the comings and goings, and try to trace back to where the silver is being coined.’

Tertius shifted nervously in his seat.

‘Frumentarius, I believe the silver pigs are being offloaded nearby for minting into coins before leaving Iscalis.’ He told of the meeting between Bulbo and Lucius and the two strangers. ‘I, err…’ he coughed, ‘could hear some of what they said. The visitors weren’t happy. Something to do with discrepancies between the weight of the silver and the amount of coinage produced. They seemed to think the silver was being debased. One of them made a threat. It was then my master offered to bring a sample of the silver coins to Londinium. By his voice, the threat came from the taller of the two strangers, the softly-spoken one wearing a fine blue cloak. Then—‘

‘Blue cloak!’ A memory held back for too long flooded into Tiro’s mind like the cool overflow of a drinking fountain on a hot afternoon. He leapt up, slapping his head. ‘What a fool! If only I hadn’t been drinking; I had such a hangover, it’s just come back… Sir, I’ve seen that blue cloak myself. At the Palace of Procurator Aradius Rufinus, in Londinium. Two men, one tall, low-voiced and wearing a fancy blue cloak, on a roan; the other smaller, darker, with a scarred eye. They came out of the Procurator’s headquarters while I was waiting for you on the day we left Londinium. And they spoke to another bloke, greasy-looking. I remember now – I’m pretty sure that third bastard was the low-life who attacked me in Calleva, the one you killed, sir.’

Quintus frowned at him, but Tertius nodded.

‘Yes, the other man does have a badly scarred face — his eye droops from the pull of it. And I can tell you who is in league with them, arranging the coining of the silver. It’s Caesulanus, our noble head of mines security. I’m pretty sure how they’re stealing the silver, too. During the first phase of smelting, some of the lead pigs are being stamped as if the silver had been removed. Then they’re stored away as if for future shipment.’

Tertius glanced up and must have realised he was making no sense. He stumbled on, eager to explain, ‘You see, I know to a gram the exact production and destination of everything here: lead, silver, zinc. When I found some of our lead pigs stamped in the usual way and apparently ready for shipment, but stored in separate piles, I got suspicious.  I weighed one of them. It was too heavy. You see what that means? The silver hasn’t yet been removed from the galena ore. These pigs are smelted without the silver being floated off.

‘They must be making the pure silver ingots secretly, later, after the pigs have supposedly left site for export in the usual way. Only then is the silver removed. The lead ingots are also then properly refined and sent for shipment as usual. The books are cooked to cover the delay. The retained silver is never recorded in the paperwork. And it’s being made to look as if I’ve been colluding. If I hadn’t got the wind up, copied the crooked records and checked the old barracks while everyone else was away on Saturnalia, you might well be investigating me now.’ The accountant looked upset.

‘Right,’ said Quintus, ticking items off on his fingers. ‘So now we know how the silver is being siphoned off; how the removal has been hidden by false over-stamping of some of the pigs; where the silver is stored; how the books are being cooked; and the possibility of silver denarii being minted locally from Vebriacum silver. I suspect these coins would be the samples requested in the letter from Londinium, meaning this business is well underway.’

Tertius continued eagerly, ’Yes, once the stolen silver has left the recorded production process, I believe it’s being sent instead by Sextus Caesulanus to be secretly