The Governor's Man Read online

  ‘Remember the Druids! Remember your heritage, your old Gods! Throw down the Eagles, and the falsely-divine Emperors who keep you enslaved! Join your brothers the Dobunni, and follow me to freedom and victory over our long oppression!’

  Standing as they were to one side, Julia couldn’t see the speaker’s face clearly until the woman suddenly swept off her hood. She raised her fist to punch the air and turned round in a slow circle, mesmerising the audience. Julia bobbed down, holding her own hood in place. She dragged Tiro into a crouch beside her.

  What? his startled look said.

  ‘I know her. That’s the actress Fulminata. I’ve seen her — where have I seen her? Yes, yes, outside the theatre in Aquae Sulis. And again at the Great Baths. The day I met Velvinna there, she came right past us.’

  ‘If she was hooded, how do you know it’s the same woman?’

  ‘Because I saw her face clearly at the theatre. Look! How many redheads have you seen with such black eyes?’

  Tiro stared at the woman on the stage, and nodded. Then it was his turn to grab Julia. He put his mouth right next to Julia’s ear, and breathed, ’That bloke standing with her is the man who killed Catus, Tertius’s Blue Cloak, who I also saw in Londinium. What the hell is he doing here?’

  Julia watched the tall blond man intently. She was rewarded by the sight of the tall man turning as a second man approached into view. Young, with long dark curls, wearing a saffron-coloured cloak. He had an arrogance of look and posture that failed to cover his fear of the fairer man. Lucius Claudius, again. Very eager to talk to Blue Cloak. The older man drew Lucius away to speak. Julia waited till they had both disappeared from view.

  ‘Come on,’ she hissed. ‘Now is our chance.’

  Julia had always been fit and athletic. She put on a turn of speed, keeping the hood of her long white robe up. She weaved through the crowd and leapt up onto the portico. Fulminata turned in surprise, and Julia pushed her, hard. The girl lost her balance, teetered, and fell into the crowd below.

  Julia pulled off her hood to show her face clearly.

  ‘Listen to me, Durotriges!’

  The crowd pushed forward to see who was causing the fracas. There were gasps, and voices cried, ’Julia Aureliana! It’s our own Wise Woman, the noble healer, Lady Julia. Lady Julia of the Durotriges!’

  Julia took a deep breath, and began to speak, loudly and firmly.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Quintus was never one to cry over spilt milk. He boarded the small ship anyway, catching its master readying to depart. The man was in a hurry, but the sight of Quintus’s official hasta made him pause.

  ‘All I know, sir, is my sailing orders. I do a regular run across the Severn Sea. I was to dock in Iscalis as usual, and load a mixed cargo including a special consignment for Isca. But the cargo hasn’t come, and I can’t wait now, tide’s on the turn.’

  The man had been told only to hand the special cargo over on docking at the legionary fort of the Second Augusta, to a soldier who would show authorisation from the legate’s office. Quintus looked round the ship but found nothing out of the ordinary.

  He headed back into town. At least he now knew that the special consignment for Isca had not arrived at the docks. And he knew Blue Cloak was mightily put out with Bulbo. Quintus saw an opportunity to drive a wedge between these conspirators. The edge of a turning tide, perhaps.

  He found Tertius and Enica waiting at the snug little posthouse on the western outskirts of Iscalis. They looked relieved to see him, but he ignored Tertius’s questions and the waiting jug of wine until he had collected his mail. In small rural establishments like this, mansio-keepers doubled as Imperial postmasters.

  There were two letters addressed to Frumentarius Quintus Valerius: one bearing the stamp of the Aquae Sulis garrison; and a short tablet of a few lines only, signed by the innkeeper at Calleva. Quintus broke the ties on that tablet first, and read:

  Hail and greetings, sir. The dead man stayed here three nights in total, but as I told you, the other two men left after the first night. My stable boy saw them depart for the west. They came back the following day, heading east. They stopped briefly to speak to the other man again, before moving on. That was two days before your honour arrived here.

  I hope this helps. My duty to you and salutations.

  It certainly did help. It meant that Blue Cloak and his companion had been travelling westbound from Calleva, nicely in time to ambush and kill Catus, and had then come back east the following day. Perhaps to report to Londinium? To Procurator Aradius Rufinus at his Londinium headquarters, perhaps, where Tiro had seen them?

  The letter from Marcellus was longer. Piso’s examination of Velvinna revealed that she had long suffered from a heart condition, but had apparently died of an unknown poison. Not digitalis. The surgeon said it was a skilful murder, with no signs of struggle or spasm. That reminded Quintus that he too had thought the dead woman blessedly calm. From what Quintus knew of poisons, that would rule out powdered foxglove as the cause. The unfortunate Dalmatian tribune whose death he had investigated previously had suffered appalling nausea and vomiting, and died in obvious distress.

  Velvinna’s elderly steward had remembered something more, and faithful to his promise to Quintus had reported to Marcellus. The trainee herbalist of a few days earlier had attracted his notice, the old man said. She had been wearing a long hooded robe, not surprising in the cool weather. But Silvanus had noted the remarkable eyes under her deep hood, impossible to miss. Unfortunately, Marcellus commented drily, that was all he could remember — not the colour, or shape, or even some defect. Just that they were “remarkable eyes”. Well, that’s indeed helpful. Thank you Silvanus! I’ll just cast about the Summer Country until I meet a pair of striking eyes, and then all will be solved.

  There was a final item that Marcellus had witnessed himself, although he couldn’t see how it was linked in any way to the death of the old herbalist. Being a conscientious young man he reported it anyway, at length.

  You may remember, Brother, that my garrison is a vexillation detached from the Second Legion Augusta, based further west at Isca. I keep in touch with my fellow legionary officers, and recently attended the birthday party of one of the tribunes there. The wine and beer flowed, of course, and the officers were in high spirits. Surprisingly high spirits, I thought, as my fellow officers have often made it a point to complain about being buried out there in the backwoods of the Empire, with no glory to win and not even good hunting.

  This time there were no such complaints. I also noticed that money was flowing even more freely than the wine, and high stakes in denarii were being offered at every table. The bets concerned mere pranks for the most part, such as a fence-jumping dare for the cavalry decurion. One young officer was heard offering his colleagues odds on how long the young Emperor would last on the throne. I was shocked to hear the camp prefect say, ‘Who cares? It won’t matter soon, after all.’

  I covered up my disapproval, Brother, but know you will share my distaste. I was amazed that the legate, a man of rank and experience and successor in that post to our esteemed Governor Trebonius, uttered no word of chastisement. Perhaps he didn’t hear the prefect’s remark. He looked very pale, and left the party early.

  I have no idea what is at the root of this, but doubt it bodes well. I enclose something that might help you to the truth.

  Farewell, Brother, in hopes of your success and swift return,

  Centurion Marcellus Crispus.

  Quintus smiled as he pictured the upright young officer and his shock at the lack of respect for the Emperor. It seemed, as Marcellus admitted, unlikely that any of the birthday party behaviour was more than high spirits and boredom. Nevertheless, Quintus thought he would report in due course to Governor Trebonius, who would discipline the legion as he saw fit.

  He read the report through again. The business of the flowing money troubled him. Silver denarii, of course. In itself, that wouldn’t be unusual. The arm
y was always paid in silver. The bit he didn’t like was the sudden abundance. Where there was unexpected money, there was invariably trouble. And in this case, he suspected, silver was at the root of all the evil. He shook the wrapper of the letter, and tipped a small coin into his palm.

  Quintus looked at Tertius, who was sipping his wine appreciatively.

  ‘Just before we got interrupted at the mines office, Tertius, you were telling me something about the stolen silver bullion being made into coinage.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Counterfeiting is an old trade here in the Summer Country. I believe Sextus Caesulanus, as I told you, has revived one of those forges, but I don’t know exactly where.’ The dark little man spread his hands in a gesture of regret.

  Quintus thought. Caesulanus might well be liaising with local forgers, but someone else who knew the area, with more authority and freedom to move around, was playing a bigger role. That someone must be either Bulbo or Lucius Claudius. Or they could be running the scam together. Lucius had left the mines office in a panic just before the arrival there of the man in the blue cloak; and now Bulbo had driven away from Blue Cloak at the Iscalis docks, sweating and in a whirl of dust. What were they hiding, and where had they gone? Well, there was nothing for it. Tertius would have to help once more.

  ’Tertius,’ he said to the accountant, ’I hesitate to ask this of you, but I can’t think of a more reliable help than you. Would you be willing to deliver an urgent message for me? I’ll cover your costs, and I promise you’ll be able to take Enica with you to a safe — very safe — place. You’ll both be well-treated by a colleague of mine.’

  The freedman looked up eagerly. ‘What more do you know, Frumentarius?’

  ‘We already know the silver is being shipped away from the mines by Caesulanus, in league with Lucius. I have discovered that a secret shipment of money expected at the Iscalis docks for shipping to Isca Silurium has gone missing. That has made Blue Cloak very angry, and frightened Bulbo into melting away like a streak of yellow snow in sunlight. And now Commander Crispus at Aquae Sulis has sent me troubling news of the Second Augusta. With this.’

  Into Tertius’s outstretched hand he tipped the silver denarius. It looked a perfectly ordinary coin, bearing the face of the boy Emperor Severus Alexander on the obverse. Quintus hardly knew a clever counterfeit from a true coin. But maybe Tertius knew better.

  It was Enica who spoke up. Tertius held the coin out to her. She looked carefully at it.

  ‘I believe this could be a local counterfeit, as Tertius says. I have seen such before, when I was a young girl in Bo Gwelt. Making coins is an old industry in the Polden Hills. Folks are not too fussy about whether it’s lawful or not. To find out for sure you need to go there, sir. There are people there who can tell you.‘

  ‘People where? Where are the Polden Hills?’

  ‘Bo Gwelt, sir. You need to go to Bo Gwelt.’

  The list of Quintus’s concerns was growing. Added to two murders, the report of Imperial fraud, his missing aide, potential tribal rebellion and continuing attacks by ruthless criminals, he now had rumours of disloyalty within the Province’s most famous legion. Even the slightest risk of the Second Augusta being suborned needed urgent action, well above Quintus’s head. Or even Governor Trebonius’s level, although of course he had to be informed. The Frumentariate Commander at the Castra in Rome would also need to know, such was the potential peril to the Emperor. But Londinium was distant, and Rome even more so. There would be no help from either any time soon.

  The trouble was, the evidence he had was still mostly circumstantial. He hadn’t yet joined the dots enough to know for sure. Just straws in the wind, the evidence of a little Syrian freedman, reports by worried countryfolk of a Druid revival. And a roiling in his guts that he had learned to trust over the years of investigating crimes.

  Quintus asked the innkeeper for a birchwood tablet and ink, and sat down to write back to Marcellus. He saw off Tertius and his little girlfriend with an escort to Aquae Sulis, taking with them the signed and stamped letter in a stout satchel. Then he joined a local guide, hired with the help of the mansio-keeper. Heading back east to pick up the Fosse Way, south to Lindinis, and west again along the Poldens to the Bo Gwelt estate would take too long. Not enough time before dark. Quintus followed his guide due south across country instead, along the narrow droves crossing the fens of the Summer Country. The pale spring sun was already beginning to slant, reddening, towards the west. His scarred leg grew cold, itching and prickling as they rode on between stunted willows and into thin fog across the sodden levels. He prayed to Mithras that the guide knew his way.

  He also found himself praying to Minerva, and thought he heard the low hoot of Minerva’s sacred bird in answer. Perhaps that was just wishful thinking. Then again maybe not, he thought, when their horses crested a low ridge above the fen fog and he saw the large honey-coloured villa ahead. He paid off the guide, and dismounted to take a path round to the stables. All was quiet, but as he led his chestnut to the stable entrance, he heard a young voice murmuring inside.

  ‘Here, boy. Come. Milo won’t hurt you. That’s right, just let him smell you a little. Then you’ll be great friends.’

  A thin dark-haired girl in a rough woollen cloak crouched in the straw near a pony, stroking a small white dog with brindle splashed across half of his face. Cerberus was already looking bigger than when Quintus last saw him.

  ‘Hello, Aurelia.’

  The mobile face looked up quickly. Grey eyes met grey eyes. The girl remained crouching, holding the wriggling puppy to her chest defensively.

  ’Sir — I mean, Frumentarius Valerius. Please don’t tell my stepmother Claudia I’m here. She hates me spending time in the stables, and it’s my favourite place. And she makes me keep Cerberus kennelled!’

  Quintus heard the nervous passion in Aurelia’s voice, and couldn’t help a slight smile. All that energy, that lack of discipline reminded him of the boy he had once been, desperate to be freed from the shackles of his tutor and to be roaming his family’s country estates in Etruria. So long ago. He sighed. Aurelia cocked her head and stood up, holding out the little dog. ‘This is Cerberus, sir. Tiro rescued him for me. Isn’t he wonderful? He’s a fine tracker already. I’m training him, well, me and Rufus are training him.’

  A little pink tongue darted out to lick his hand.

  ‘Cerberus and I have met before. I thought it would be better for him to grow up here with you at Bo Gwelt rather than in Tiro’s satchel. I see I was right about that.’ He studied the girl more closely, seeing familiarity in the quick movements and dark wavy hair. He also recognised the wide mouth, quick to smile and just as quick to harden into fierce reproof. That sensitive mouth was all her mother’s. I can spare one moment, he thought, feeling tired. They sat down together on the muddy straw, Cerberus nestled between them, and chatted. He felt strangely as if they were old friends.

  Aurelia told him of Aunt Julia coming to rescue her from a despicable marriage. She spoke of her beloved father, who wasn’t very well; of Demetrios her tutor, who taught her wonderful things about the world, and the heavens, and truth and justice, and how machinery like pumps worked, and the marvels of Roman engineering, and Greek art and medicine. She talked of Rufus, the groom and her friend, who looked after her horses and taught her how to medic and curry them.

  Quintus winced at the mention of her beloved father. He knew he should be grateful to Marcus for giving his daughter such a loving home. He stopped listening while he dwelled on the times he’d missed: Aurelia as a baby, clapping and smiling to see her father; as a toddler, sitting on a pony for the first time while Quintus held her chubby little body safe and steady; as an older child, full of curiosity, asking endless questions as she showed him her books and written assignments, with the tutor Demetrios looking on, smiling. And on and on.

  He switched back to attention when, a little shyly, she told him about Lucius Claudius.

  ‘Do you know, sir, how I firs
t met Lucius?’ Quintus looked encouraging, and Aurelia told her tale.

  She’d been out riding, and had paused on the brow of a ridge, spotting something shiny in the grass. She dismounted, and found a brooch under a dusting of dirt.

  ‘This brooch, sir.’ She touched the little bronze owl pin that kept her cloak fastened.

  As she been remounting her pony, Milo gave a start and tossed his mane in sudden alarm. A bright rust-coloured flash passed right under the pony’s belly and dashed down the soaked grass towards the meadow. Aurelia heard the baying of hunting dogs, and nearly lost hold of the pony when two huge brindled hounds charged by within a few feet of them. The baying of the dogs rose to a climax, their long shaggy ears streaming back as they raced to catch the fox. Aurelia struggled to control the plunging pony, and had managed to calm him somewhat when she heard the shrill scream of the little russet animal, caught and tossed in the air. Sickened, she let go of the pony’s halter and turned to run after the dogs; to do what, she didn’t really know. It was madness to come between such highly-trained dogs and their prey. Before she had taken more than a few steps a black horse ridden by a gangling youngster appeared over the crest of the ridge, charging downhill so recklessly it nearly trampled her. She grabbed hard at Milo’s reins and managed to swing him away. There was a curse, and the rider yelled, ‘Out of the way, girl!’, as he swept past. Aurelia caught a flash of metal and glimpses of dark tossing curls, a flowing bright-coloured cloak and long breeched legs as the horse and rider charged after the dogs. Two slower horsemen followed over the ridge, a well-dressed fair-haired boy and a slave groom. The fair boy vainly called after the other.

  ‘Lucius! Lucius! Halloo, slow down a bit, wait. We’re on Bo Gwelt land here ...’

  Aurelia saw the dark boy dismount, shrugging and shouting at the dogs who were baying in a frenzy and darting around in a tight circle. He bent, knife in hand, giving a shout of triumph and brandishing the unfortunate fox’s tail. Aurelia ran as fast as her trembling legs would allow.