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

a single twist of his gladius. Aurelia screamed with delight as her puppy tumbled out.

‘Right, Aurelia, out of here. Into the courtyard with Julia and Britta,’ said Quintus; but the struggling puppy had scrambled out of Aurelia’s arms and dashed away. With a sob, she flung herself after him.

‘Hades and all the Furies!’

Cerberus was scampering straight for the scaffolding at the end of the west wing, with Aurelia at his heels. Tiro tore off his birrus and plunged it into the stableyard water trough. Quintus was soon with him, soaking his long red cloak. Demetrios had followed them, hobbling as fast as his arthritic hip would allow and holding up a small glazed lantern to light his slippery way across the ash-marked cobbles.

‘My master? Lady Aurelia?’

‘We’ll find them. Give me your lantern, Demetrios.’

Quintus licked his finger, and paused with it lifted up.

‘North of west. Pray to every god you know, Tiro, that the wind doesn’t back much. If the smoke catches us in the hypocaust we’re dead, along with anyone we manage to rescue.’ He strapped his soaked cloak over his shoulders and back.

Tiro spat surreptitiously to allay the Evil Eye. He prayed as hard as he could. It seemed the goddess Minerva heard him. As they neared the doorway to the new hypocaust system, a small tawny owl emerged from the furnace room. In the dark Tiro heard it swoop over their heads, circling and hooting in a plaintive voice. It was the sign they needed.

They plunged into the hypocaust.

The height of the underfloor was knee-high to an adult man, forcing them to wriggle along on their arms. Plus it was pitch-black in the narrow space.

Tiro’s heart sank. How were they to find Aurelia? They had no idea where she’d headed, and the light from Demetrios’ lantern was feeble and uneven. He suspected the small girl would crawl much faster than they could, driven by fear for her precious dog.

Quintus led the way with apparent confidence, and Tiro tucked down in his wake as they slithered across the broken subsoil, scraping and scratching themselves despite the soaked cloaks. Quintus kept calling ‘Aurelia!’ but his cries seemed to fall leaden and be sucked into the darkness unanswered. After what felt like an age Quintus stopped, and Tiro glimpsed the lantern light rocking from side to side.

‘There’s a divide in the way here, Tiro. Wait a moment.’ He moved forward, leaving Tiro blanketed in stifling blackness. Tiro felt his forehead prickling. Sweat was running down into his eyes, spreading dust and particles of building rubble over his face. His breath came short. Waves of panic rose in him. This was a hideous type of Hades, suffocating, dark, without escape.

Jupiter Optimus Maximus, please, I beg you, I’ll make any sacrifice to get out of here.

No sign came, and Tiro couldn’t help himself. He moved forward jerkily, scrabbling like a beetle and slamming into something warm and solid.

’Stop! Tiro, stop! It’s me. Just calm down and follow. I found Aurelia’s owl brooch. I know the way now.’

His boss’s voice was calm and commanding. The remnant of trained soldier left hiding under the blanket of Tiro’s claustrophobia surfaced and took control. Tiro reached out to touch the hob-nailed boot in front of his face.

They wriggled on and on. The air became stale and warmer. Tiro had long ago given up hope of ever seeing light again, or pulling into his chest a breath of cool clean air. Suddenly the heels in front of him disappeared. Quintus said, ’ You can stand up now.’

To his amazement, he could. Quintus lifted the lantern and revolved it. They were thigh deep in a hole in the floor of a small room. Part of the floor, a tiled segment on wood a couple of feet square, had been lifted up and dragged clear using a cunning arrangement of levers and wheels.

From a collapsed table had fallen a scatter of scrolls, an inkpot and several pens. A locked strongbox and a candelabra lay on the floor. Bookshelves lined the walls. A chair had fallen onto a brazier lying tipped on its side. The coals had evidently fallen out and charred the chair legs, but not burnt much beyond.  More books, wooden tablets and birchwood letters remained untouched on the shelves and heaped here and there on the floor.

‘Strange — there’s no fire in here,’ Quintus muttered. An oil lamp, still alight but dim, hung on a bracket from the wall. The light reached the corner of the room, and Quintus paused. ‘Thank your gods now, Tiro. Here she is.’ They scrambled up into the room.

The young girl was sitting on the floor in a corner, dark hair curtaining her face. She neither moved nor spoke. The body of a man lay next to her, his blood-soaked head in her lap. Cerberus was frantically licking her hand, but she ignored him. The puppy began to whine when it saw Tiro, and wriggled across to him. He picked the dog up.

Quintus laid his lantern on the desk, and sank down on his knees next to Aurelia. Still she did not move or look up at him. He gently raised the man’s head. Tiro gasped, letting the puppy drop to the floor.

It was Marcus Aurelianus. His toga was splashed with massive gouts of blood.  The side of his head was cracked open, the bone caved in and splintered in a huge ghastly wound. He was obviously dead.

Quintus gently moved Marcus’s head aside. He stooped to pick Aurelia up in his arms, and carried her across the room away from that terrible sight. He was murmuring to her, his voice so low Tiro couldn’t catch what he said. The girl turned her head against Quintus’s chest, and began to sob. Tiro looked away, feeling awkward.

They were obviously in the estate office, a strongroom where