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

name. He cuts and slashes, pushing forward, frantic to regain sight of Flavius.

Then he sees him, holding his oval shield up. The Capricorn insignia glimmers through the rising hill mist. Flavius has outstripped his fellow soldiers, gone too far forward. The young man is alone, forlorn, with a circle of warriors closing round him like wolves. Quintus cries out, ‘Flavius!’ but still his voice fails and only the noises of battle and death answer. His brother has disappeared into the mists again. Then the curtain parts for a frozen moment. He sees one of the plaid-cloaked wolves slash at Flavius from behind, slicing into his brother’s hamstring so he falls, landing heavily on his knees in the mud.

Quintus leaps forward. Gaius advances with him, covering his sword arm. Quintus cracks the metal edge of his shield hard against a naked back covered in blue circles.  The Caledonian falls away, and Quintus reaches his brother. Flavius, still on his knees with a puzzled searching expression on his face, looks up and opens his mouth to call to Quintus and then jerks, as a spear is thrust through his body from behind. A gush of bright blood rushes out of his mouth and down his chest. Flavius seems to look down to study it. His body is pinioned by the blade of the man who has just killed him. Quintus gasps, unbelieving. Time freezes. Silence blankets the field once more.

Quintus never sees the warrior who trips him, slashing open his right thigh from knee to groin. Gaius Trebonius tells him much later of how he rescues Quintus, how his brother’s body is snatched up by the retreating legion. They leave the mountains and glens to the swirling fogs, to the half-naked savages and their curved calyx war horns.

Quintus struggled in his sleep to ward off the scene, fighting to open his eyes and return. How long, oh you gods? How many times will you inflict this horror on me? I thought my punishment was over.

He lashed out, seeing with the eye of dreaming while knowing himself to be awake. A hand, smooth and firm, gripped him by the elbow.

‘Quintus! Quintus, come back. None of it is real. Let it go, Quintus …’

His head swam. Now there was bright light on his face. The mists had withdrawn. The sounds of battle were gone too, along with the dreadful metallic stench of his brother’s hot blood. Instead there was a faint scent of roses.

He was sitting on the ground, back propped against the stable wall in Bo Gwelt. Now he remembered: he’d wandered out here after leaving the garden. He’d sat down, just for a moment; must have fallen asleep.

He drew a hand unsteadily across his eyes, and when he opened them, Julia was there. She released his arm, and sat down on the muddy grass next to him, heedless of her pale robe. She looked at him intently.

’Still the nightmares after so long, Quintus?’

There was nothing to say. These visions, sent by the gods as waking trauma too —these were his punishment. Ever since Flavius was butchered in front of him in Caledonia he had denied the truth. He had tried to flee his guilt as he rode the long boundary roads of the Roman Empire. If he turned his back on anyone who tried to get close to him, surely they would know his unworthiness and leave him alone.

Julia was watching him with an uncertain look on her face as if she didn’t know him. What did that matter? She’d abandoned him, left Eboracum without a backward glance, never replied to his letters. He was alone in the world, alone with his duty to his work and to his Emperor.

Yet she kept watching him.

‘Quintus, you can tell me. Maybe I can help.’ There was a look on her face of …what? Pity, of course.

He stood abruptly. He needed to get away. But she trapping him there with her coaxing hand and low voice.

‘Quintus, come to the Sacred Spa. There is healing there.’

What could he say that she would understand?

‘I can’t walk away. It’s my sworn duty to uncover the plot and bring the culprits to justice.’

‘But … I thought you had done that already. You’ve recovered the silver, and with most of the conspirators dead and Caesulanus in custody, surely the plot has failed? You’ve solved the murders of Catus and Velvinna, and put down the Durotriges’ unrest. Lucius and the girl may have gone for now, but what more can one young lad do? Don’t you see? Your mission is over! You can come to Aquae Sulis with me.’

Quintus stared at her. She had no idea, of course. How could she know about the blow that had just fallen, bringing the ghosts of his past back to life?

He turned to leave.

She called after him in a breaking voice, ’What about Aurelia? She needs her father, more now than ever. You can’t leave her!’

‘Aurelia had a father, who she will never stop loving. She has you, and all her establishment here to help her. What she doesn’t need is a damaged man, someone who can never be a proper father to her.’

He left, not looking back. She must see now that he had failed all his life. He was worthless. Wounded too deeply to heal. There was only his duty left: to reveal the ultimate betrayal, and finish the mission.  If he survived. And if he didn’t? No-one would care.

He hurried into the stable. The chestnut whickered on seeing him. Someone else saw him too.

He should have known. If he’d thought about it, he might have supposed that Aurelia was sleeping, as Julia thought. Or sitting mourning the man she loved as her father. But here she was, arms flung round the rough neck of her pony. The puppy Cerberus crouched at her feet.