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

men berserk, making them deal dreadful death to any enemy. Including Roman soldiers.

He looked at Quintus, waiting for the haughty Italian to dress down the young centurion.  To Tiro’s surprise, Quintus seemed to take stock carefully.

‘No head, you say? I have served in Britannia previously, Centurion, and I remember during the Caledonian campaign headless bodies sometimes turning up. A mark of the regard the Caledonians had for their enemies, I seem to recall?’

The centurion responded with relief. ‘Right, sir.  And the British warriors of these parts also followed that practice once, long ago, believing the head is where the soul resides. To separate a dead enemy’s head from his body as a trophy was a great honour.’

‘Long ago? No recent reports of Druids in action round here?’

‘Oh no, sir.  I haven’t heard of that happening for many years. In fact, never in my lifetime. To kill a civilian that way and take his head in peacetime is unprecedented.’

’Maybe a relic of ancient superstition, then. Or perhaps someone disguising the identity of their victim. Impossible to tell which.’ The investigator seemed to ponder. Tiro was intrigued. Their dull mission to chase down missing Imperial silver was turning into something darker and more interesting. How do you like the real Britannia, Imperial Investigator? Not just a muddy backwater, eh?

There was a note of impatience in Quintus’s movements as he remounted. The frumentarius flicked the reins to turn his horse’s head.

‘I am on an urgent mission, but as there may be an aspect of provincial security to this death, I will have to find the time to investigate. If the body was found near here, it might be useful to search the vicinity. Lead on, Centurion Crispus.’

Chapter Six

The trooper left to guard the scene saluted as they drew up. A large puddle of blood was clearly visible, a thick sticky mass coagulated on the road.

‘Rained here overnight?’

‘Yes sir, not heavily.’

‘Right. Centurion, spread your men out to check the verges on either side for anything that shouldn’t be there.’

Crispus raised an eyebrow in inquiry. ‘Sir?’

‘Anything like a head!’

Quintus turned away abruptly, calling Tiro.

‘I want you to go further into the woods on this side, a spear-cast from the road. I’ll search the other side. Take one of the centurion’s men with you. Spread out, move carefully, check the undergrowth. It’s not just the head we want. Find me anything that connects this murder with something else. We need to get this investigation out of the way quickly.’

The woods away from the road’s verge were utterly silent as Tiro cast to and fro. He kept the trooper behind him, not trusting the rural clod to avoid trampling evidence. In his capacity as optio of a century of the Governor’s Guard in Londinium Tiro had had occasion to conduct investigations from time to time. He’d led military details to help the City Vigiles find missing people, tracked down contraband, and generally ridden the streets of criminals and thugs. The city, with its day and night din, was his natural environment. But as well as good eyesight, he had a sharp eye for detail, allied with a strong sense of things that didn’t belong. A sense that had saved his life and limbs many times on the mean streets of Londinium.

Nothing.

Tiro extended his search, moving carefully on into the darkening woods. There was a single sound:  the call of a solitary bird, making a “dit, dot” sound. If Tiro had been a country boy, he would have recognised the song of the chiffchaff. What he did recognise — immediately — was the smell of rot. The stink of old filth, a sign of blocked cesspits and dead dogs. He was used to narrow alleys smelling of piss, rubbish, and violence, of dark corners where the sewage system had backed up. He was used to every kind of foulness, and he could smell that rot right here.

After that it wasn’t that hard to spot the head. It wasn’t even hidden, just lying among bushes as if someone had tossed it away. Tiro had a strong stomach, coming from years of living in flea-ridden dosshouses before he signed up with the army. And some latrine-cleaning since. He crouched down to pick up the sightless head, cradling it carefully. A young face, pale and fair-haired, with an expression of trepidation lingering on it. Poor sod, you never knew what hit you. Very young, perhaps only fourteen. Too young even for the army postal service. Maybe a private courier?

The clots of the great gaping wound had long since solidified, but he could see that it was a clean cut. The neck vertebrae had been sliced superbly. A single stroke, with a sharp sword blade. Could hardly be any other kind of weapon. He pictured a long leaf-shaped iron sword, like those once carried into battle by the old warriors. The sort used by Boudica’s boys to wreak revenge nearly two centuries ago.

He sighed, holding the boy’s head in his arms.

‘Sir – found anything?’ It was the rural clod.

‘Yes.’ He stood slowly, reluctant to reveal the dead boy to public repulsion. He shrugged off his birrus and wrapped the head in it, shivering as the chill afternoon breeze filtered through his tunic. Something white and fluttering caught his gaze. A strip of coarse white cloth, tethered on a long black spike of hawthorn. With a telling blood-brown smudge at one end, where the fabric was torn.

The troop clattered over the Abona bridge towards Sulis Minerva’s temple in Aquae Sulis. It was dusk, getting cold now, and the flambeaux lighting the way for wealthy tourists and pilgrims were wavering and flaring in the breeze. At the entrance to the sacred precinct Marcellus Crispus dismounted and dismissed his troop to their headquarters, taking with them Quintus and Tiro’s tired horses. Tiro’s horse had thrown a hipposandal