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

The centurion led them into the hospital adjoining the temple. The courtyard building surrounded a herb garden, and included a small room that served as a morgue. Tiro was still carrying the bloody head, his arms quivering with the effort. Quintus made no effort to help him.

They were greeted at the morgue door by the army doctor. He wasted no time in introductions, merely holding out his arms to take the head before leading them inside.

‘Lady Julia!’ he called.

A tall slim woman emerged from a side cubicle. She was wearing a white stola over a homespun tunic. Her fair hair was tied up in a cloth on her head. Quintus guessed her to be a cleaner or some sort of orderly. Then he looked again, wondering.

‘Ah,’ said the doctor, ‘I’m glad you’re still here, my lady. I’m sorry to delay your leaving, but could you help me with this?’

The woman moved forward quickly, and without hesitation and to the amazement of the three soldiers, unwrapped the bloody head.

‘Anicius, you’ve found him.’

‘No credit to me. It was our friend Marcellus here, and his, er … colleagues.’

Crispus saluted, saying quickly, ‘Surgeon Piso, may I introduce Frumentarius Quintus Valerius, and his assistant, Tiro?’

And to Quintus, ‘Sir, the Lady Julia Aureliana. She dispenses medicines, and assists Anicius Piso here at the clinic of the Goddess.’

The woman turned sharply to look at the two strangers. Her movement felt disturbingly familiar to Quintus. She gazed at them in silence. A moment more, and her attention was back on the head. Looking at her fair oval face, he felt an unwelcome tug of old memory. Surely not, though —it couldn’t be her, this far south?

The doctor pulled back a cloth covering a body on a nearby pallet, and gently placed the head where it had been joined in life. Young, headless: it didn’t take a genius to realise this was the reassembly of the murdered messenger boy.

‘Your thoughts, my lady?’

Quintus jumped a little. He hadn’t misheard the first time; judging by the doctor’s respectful address, the woman must be some local priestess or noble. Why here, in the hospital? Then he realised. Of course, this was Aquae Sulis, the renowned healing spring and temple of Sulis Minerva. The woman must be part of the Goddess’s cult here.

Without hesitation she picked up the gory head, looking carefully at the severed neck. She even sniffed it; again Quintus was taken aback. She ran her fingers over the neck stump.

‘One stroke, a clean cut of great force by an expert. I should say no more than two days ago.’ The doctor nodded gravely.

Quintus twisted the bronze ring on his fourth finger in an attempt to still his suddenly shaking hands. Memories poured back, but he did not want to believe it. Could it be true?

His gaze shifted to the doctor. The little man seemed to fit here: the type of mediocre medical officer to end up in a clinic at the end of the world. Nothing out of the ordinary, apart from his respectful manner with this native woman. What had he called her? “Lady Julia”?

Quintus watched as the woman peered closely at the dead boy’s face. She opened his mouth and, searching with her slim fingers, took out a small crushed sprig. It was mangled and bloody but two whiteish berries were still attached to the stem. She sighed, and closed her eyes fleetingly. Her movements had slightly disturbed the line of her white stola; it slid down a little, revealing the neckline of the brown tunic underneath. On top of the tunic lay an unusual necklace, a ring of yellow-gold owls. Minerva’s owlets, linked together to form a circle of gold around her beautiful arched neck.

Quintus stared at her. He felt sick, a rising nausea that had nothing to do with the dead boy and the stuffy little morgue, and everything to do with long-suppressed memories of horror, pain and long slow recovery. It was her, the girl from the north. Damn her! He thought he had completely crushed the shock of his losses: first his brother, then the girl. This girl, now a beautiful disdainful woman, who had reappeared in utterly the wrong place and time. He forced himself to speak.

‘Lady Julia, may I know your status here?’ He tried to speak evenly but even to his own ears he sounded stiff and suspicious. The woman’s glance dropped to his hand. Then she looked at him with palpable hostility. What right had she to be hostile? Quintus had never been raked by such angry eyes, scorched by such a gaze of burning blue. But yes, he had—once. A long time ago, a long way from here.

“Don’t you know, Frumentarius? Shouldn’t I be asking you — why are you here?’

Quintus turned abruptly and left the room, ignoring the startled call of the doctor and a whistle of surprise from Tiro. He couldn’t stay in that room, where claws he had long thought sheathed would tear down the defences he had built with such effort. If he had stayed any longer all the calm control he had built over the years would desert him, and leave him to the mercy of his feelings. That couldn’t be allowed to happen, not in front of her. There could be nothing between them now, once the business of the dead boy was resolved. Quintus was a senior Roman officer, and by Mithras, his pride would hold him together. At least till he got outside.

In the dark courtyard garden, faintly scented by rosemary bushes, he strode around until his leg struck a bench. He sat down heavily. His heart was racing and he still felt nauseous and light-headed. He tried to watch his breathing as he had learned in the east. It was no good; the thudding of his pulse and racing thoughts were too distracting. Unbidden,