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

fun. He fleetingly regretted not being able to bet on himself, then brought all his attention to bear. Messalinus was swift, skilled and astonishingly strong. Deserving of his opponent’s full regard. Just how Tiro liked it.

It was all over in five minutes, but not before Tiro had a bleeding eyebrow and Messalinus was stretched out in the dirt, knocked senseless by one of the shorter man’s crafty moves. Someone threw Tiro a rag, and he mopped the blood off his face to see Quintus and Marcellus applauding.

‘Just won five sesterces on you, Tiro.’ Quintus slapped him on the back as they walked back to the command tent. Tiro was insulted, and said so. The bout had been worth more than that. Quintus actually laughed out loud. Some good news must have come to lift the frumentarius’s mood.

Inside the tent the slave poured watered wine and they sat down round the jug. Senecio bustled in, and Quintus nodded at Marcellus, who waved a hand in deferral back. Quintus looked round at all of them.

‘Right. The scouts should be back soon with their reports. Let’s start making our plans.’ Outside the first rain for many days began to patter on the leather roof of the tent. Tiro drew a slow breath, and leaned forward to listen.

Chapter Twenty-four

Julia dozed fitfully. Her thoughts jostled, trying to make sense of the senseless. She grieved for Velvinna, hoping her friend had not suffered. Her heart jolted faster as she pictured the witch Fulminata, pretending coy gratitude as she entered Velvinna’s little house, leaving poison in her wake. The stomach-churning image of Antoninus Labienus, stalking the innocent boy Catus and killing him with a single barbaric blow. And now Marcus, struck down too—

She was suddenly roused by Britta calling.

‘Mistress, come quickly! It’s the man from the mines, Tiro’s friend. He’s lying here bleeding on our doorstep!’  Julia tumbled out of bed, thrusting her feet into sandals and flinging a shawl around her shoulders. She grabbed her nightlamp, and made her way downstairs as quietly as she could. She was trying not to disturb Aurelia, who had been unusually quiet the whole way back to Aquae Sulis. She’d refused any food at the funeral feast. Only once they had arrived home had she finally given in and sipped a cup of hot milk and honey pressed on her by the worried Senovara.

By the smoking light of wall lamps Julia saw that most of her household was in the atrium. Not including Aurelia, thank the Lady. She glanced at Tertius lying unconscious on the tiled floor, and called to a maid to fetch a blanket. She knelt down by the little man.

‘Who found him?’

‘Me, Lady Julia. I opened the door when I heard a faint knocking. The man fell in, and collapsed as you see him.’ It was Senovara, looking shaken.

‘All right. Britta, take Rufus and a lantern, get to the hospital and bring Anicius Piso back with you. Fast as you can!’

Britta turned to find Rufus already coming in from his bedspace above the stable. The two left at a run, Rufus holding the lantern, Britta catching her plaid throw around her as she struggled to keep pace with the young groom.

Julia crouched low over Tertius, and pressed a finger into the skin beneath his jaw. His pulse was thready, very faint. She lifted up his outer garments and tunic, and discovered why. There were several bleeding slashes on his arms, but the real problem was a deep stab below his ribcage. Blood was pulsing from the wound. Not the bright red arterial colour that would bring quick death. This was a welling, purplish flow of blood, not fast but thick and unstoppable. Julia guessed the major vein in his liver had been severed. Tertius was dying.

Julia prayed briefly, while she leaned hard on his abdomen, pressing both hands into the wound to try to slow the bleeding. Lady, I beg you, please preserve this man. There have been so many deaths already. Don’t let this brave innocent man die too!

She sent to Senovara to get cloths, and balled them up to thrust into the bleeding. It slowed somewhat, and she saw the man’s eyes flicker.

‘Senovara, tell me what happened.’

‘It were so quick, mistress, and I was fast asleep.’

‘Yes, never mind, you heard the knocking, opened the door. What then?’

‘I found this man swaying on the doorstep. He was trying to say something. And then I saw a woman, just out of the corner of my eye, like.’

‘Saw who?’

‘I dunno, mistress. Just a flash really, someone running down the street. Wouldn’t have seen her at all, if she hadn’t stopped by a street lamp and looked back.’

‘Well? For goodness sake, what did you see? Did you know her?’

‘No mistress, though I would know her again.’

Julia, still pressing on the bloody heap of cloth as hard as she could, found her teeth gritting.

‘What — did — you — see?’

‘Well, mistress, she was youngish, quite tall I think. With eyes!’ Senovara paused as if in triumph, then seemed to realise this wasn’t enough. ‘Black eyes, like sloes. Creepy-like, the way she looked at me.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Oh yes, mistress. Then there was the hair.’

Julia decided to cut short the agony. ‘Long, red, curling?’

Senovara gawped. ‘You must have seen her too, mistress! Exactly right. She looked at me, or mayhap at him, the man here lying at our door. Then she ran away.’

The body under her hands stirred, and she looked down to find Tertius awake and looking at her.

’Shush, Tertius, don’t try to speak. I have sent for the surgeon. We’ll get you to the hospital and you’ll be fine.’ She pulled the blanket across his legs and lower body, knowing it was too little, too late.

His face was very pale, the olive skin whitened