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

Julia kissed the other woman, and went to fetch Aurelia away from her friends. Britta raised her eyebrows in mute question, and Julia nodded slightly.  Rightly or wrongly, she’d set matters in train with Velvinna and the Sisterhood, and there was no turning back.

They left the bathhouse, heading to the marketplace to shop for supper.  At the Sacred Spring a queue of people waited to send urgent messages and requests to the Goddess in her holy pool. A chattering flock of young women muffled up in bright mantles were in the line. They’d probably be wanting blessings for marriage or fertility, or both.  Julia saw that another of the party was a man, tall and fair. His sky-blue cloak swung as he walked away. Julia smiled; one of those girls was likely to find her request of the Goddess answered if she wasn’t careful. Then she spotted the burly man they’d seen earlier. Docilianus was angrily dictating a curse tablet. He leaned over a nervous clerk, shivering a little without his cloak in the fresh spring wind. 'Docilianus son of Brucerus to the most holy goddess Sulis. I curse him who has stolen my hooded cloak, whether man or woman, slave or free, that the goddess Sulis inflicts death...'

Julia smiled at Aurelia, who grinned back. They both worshipped the Goddess, valuing her interventions. But Julia doubted Minerva would deign to deal death in this case, no matter how valuable the birrus was to Docilianus.

As they made their way back across the Sacred Precinct later, laden with warm bread and two fresh plump capons, Julia paused at one of the altars. She often slipped a few coppers into the hot waters of the sacred spring. Today she placed three eggs on the altar, bowed her head and prayed. She did not see Minerva’s image, as she often did in prayer, but she left the temple with her mind more at ease.

Dinner was a casual affair. Julia had adopted the family preference for sitting upright to eat rather than reclining on couches. How do people manage to carry on looking elegant leaning on their elbows? After roasted capons and garlicky wilted spring greens from their own garden, followed by spiced plums and a handful of walnuts each, they relaxed over the local wine. Britta always insisted on eating in the kitchen with the rest of the staff, but she came back into the dining room while Aurelia was telling Julia about a boy who had swum alongside her in the Great Bath. She had challenged a boy she knew to a race, knowing herself to be a strong swimmer, and beaten him hands down.

‘And do you know what, Aunt? Drusus just got out of the bath, and stalked away sulking!’

‘Mistress? I beg pardon. An urgent message. Would you step into your bookroom for a moment?’ Britta was frowning, and shrugging a shoulder in Aurelia’s direction. Julia excused herself, and closed the door as she joined her worried housekeeper.

‘It was Velvinna, my lady. She’s gone now. She refused to come in and wait, or be announced and join you at table. She said she wouldn’t wait for an answer. I don’t know what kind of household she thinks I run, that my lady’s friends wouldn’t be made welcome, dinnertime or no. I wonder she didn’t send a messenger instead.’

Julia soothed Britta’s ruffled pride, asking her to make her excuses to Aurelia.  Then she locked herself in the bookroom to read  Velvinna’s birchwood message. It was short, and written in haste.

My dear, I dare not stay. I worry that I am followed, and do not wish to bring trouble to your house. I have good information that a meeting has been summoned by a White One, but not here in Aquae Sulis.  You were right to be concerned about your people.

Can you go, or send someone to a town meeting in the forum in Lindinis of the northern Durotriges, at sunset in two days? You might get the answers you seek there.

Your friend.

Velvinna had not signed the letter, a measure of caution that underlined to Julia the potential danger. She hoped her friend had got home unmolested. She would send to check at first light in the morning.

Julia moved restlessly round the room, picking up things and putting them down in the wrong places. She was worried by Velvinna’s letter. More than that, she was unsure of how she felt after the difficult meetings with Quintus. The last time she felt this way was many years ago, when she came back from Eboracum heart-broken and sickeningly pregnant.

Naturally it had been Britta—ever-practical —who had come to her rescue then, travelling north to Eboracum to fetch her young mistress home. It was a difficult journey. Julia vomited constantly, unable to keep food down or travel far before becoming exhausted. Britta developed a variety of cover stories in which her mistress had been afflicted by the gods, or was homesick, or had drunk foul water.

On their arrival back in the Summer Country, Britta’s parents had offered a welcoming haven at Home Farm while Julia recovered from the journey. She was heart-broken and feeling low in body and spirits. She needed time to decide what was to be done.

Julia hesitated to tell her older brother about the baby. Julia and Marcus’s parents had both died suddenly when a plague swept through some years ago. Julia was still a young child then, so Marcus and his wife Albania had brought Julia up until she left to stay with her grandmother in Eboracum. Julia loved Marcus, and dreaded upsetting him. He was a generous and cultured man, with a strong sense of duty and more conventional Roman attitudes than Julia herself. Nothing had been said yet, but she guessed Marcus had been expecting to see his only sister married in due course to one of