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

meeting in a very big house, a palace, and that was when he agreed to help set up the rebellion among the Durotriges. When he got back home, he called all us boys from the big estates together. He said —‘ Drusus swallowed and shot a look at his father, who was black-browed ‘— he said we young men should stand against our old-fashioned parents. That the White Ones would help us, we should take control, rouse the tribe against the tax-collectors and the civitas council…’

‘Yes?’ Quintus’s voice was low, but Julia heard the new firmer note. She began to feel sorry for Drusus Sorio.

‘He promised us there would be money and weapons, a chance for glory, and that if we backed him and Fulminata at the forum meeting, we could be part of the big victory to come.’

Tiro leapt to his feet, tipping over the chair he sat on. His hand strayed to the long dagger strapped to his side. Quintus waved him back down. His voice was harsh and peremptory.

‘The big victory? A battle, then? When, and where?’

‘I don’t know, sir. Truly I don’t.’ The boy’s voice cracked. He looked up, frightened, flicking away the fair hair drooping over his forehead. ‘Just somewhere up north, and soon. That’s all I know. He said once the final payload of silver had been shipped there would be an armed uprising of all the western tribes, and we should get ready for the call.’

‘Did he say where the silver was being shipped? Think, boy!’ Quintus was standing now, facing Drusus. ‘Did he name a port?’

Drusus looked desperate. Perhaps he understood at last how dangerous the position really was.

‘Yes — no. That is …’ A bead of sweat rolled down the boy’s flushed face. ‘I’m not sure, I’m trying to remember -‘

Now Quintus spoke very quietly. It was almost a whisper. Julia felt the flesh on the back of her neck crawl.

‘Was it Isca Silurium, Drusus? Was the silver being shipped from Iscalis to the fort at Isca Silurium?’

‘Yes, yes, that’s it. That’s what he said.’ Drusus looked immensely relieved to have told the Imperial Investigator what he wanted to hear. Quintus had one more question.

’That meeting in the palace, where was it? Where in Londinium?’

Drusus looked puzzled. ‘Umm, he didn’t say. Just that it was a meeting of important people in a big fancy building. He said it was all a big secret, and he and his father were honoured to be in their company. He only told me about Fulminata because she was coming to Lindinis.’

There was a moment of silence. Quintus pushed his bronze ring round his finger, unseeing.

Sorio broke in, looking lost. ‘Does it matter, Frumentarius?’

‘Yes, Decurion. It matters very much.’

Julia drew a ragged breath. Her eyes were fixed on Quintus. She’d rarely seen a more distressed look on his face, not even on that day in Eboracum when they’d parted in mutual anguish. He thanked the Sorii, dismissing them back to Demetrios to confer on the help their estate could bring its neighbour.

Then the Imperial Investigator walked out of the garden, leaving Julia and Tiro to stare after him.

Chapter Twenty-one

The battlefield feels empty. It seems to the young officer that he is alone, in a valley enclosed by bare bleak hills. And yet there is movement all round, flashes of brightness sliced by sound. Listen, listen…

Yes, there it is, the cut of swordsong carving the air round him into jagged chunks. Or is it just his own breath he hears? Ragged, gasping, getting louder. And with each breath, the increasing thud of his heart.

Next to him is a sudden swirl of movement. It’s another young man, lithe, leaping, darting his sword around in attack. His segmented cuirass is wet with hill mist, and Quintus watches as a cluster of droplets join and roll into one, a thin channel of silver flowing down the man’s armour into his elaborate leather belt. The man’s dance is a frantic one, designed to stop the enemy’s weapons reaching him. His intricate footsteps, swerving left and right, weave a magic pattern. A Roman defence against the northern barbarians. The young man dances on, while the light dims. His armour is drained of its brightness to a dull sheen.

Who are you? I know you.

The young man makes no answer, and now Quintus sees the enemy confronting them. Many men bursting out of a hidden defile, spilling out to range up against the young man and himself. Could this be Flavius? Flavius, his brother—wiry like Quintus, but a little shorter, a little younger, a little less experienced. Flavius, who was mad to join the Praetorians like his big brother. Flavius, who Quintus begged his commander in the Second Augusta to appoint as a junior aide-de-camp so he could keep an eye on his eager little brother.

He sees that a superior officer, his friend Gaius Trebonius, is now at his side. As should be. He knows that Justin is somewhere on this battlefield too, leading a company of the Praetorians. Tall, calm, cutting the Caledonians down with measured deadly swings of his spatha.

A small wedge of the Second Augusta legion moves about him now, his new British colleagues. They pass him by and surge ahead. He frowns. A sudden barrier of enemies emerges from his left and separates him from the armoured Romans.  A sideways manoeuvre of northern tribesmen: bare-chested, tartan-breeched, long hair swinging. All barbarian cries and long heavy swords. They come from nowhere and everywhere, flowing down the sides of the wet-grassed hills, filling the little glen with a deadly rising tide.

He yells to his colleagues. They take no notice, moving further away beyond the screaming barbarians, out of sound and reach. And now he can’t find his brother. The clamour of battle deafens him as he uselessly shouts his brother’s