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

moving quietly towards the town. ‘They’ve both gone,’ he whispered. ‘I told Drusus to stay with Aurelia, make sure she was safe with her host family and does as you told her.’ He didn’t sound convinced, but Tiro found a faint grin from somewhere and plastered it on. ‘Time to move our men out?’

‘Yes, Decurion. Straight in through the gate and on to the forum.’

‘Right you are. Just like old times, eh?’

They saluted each other, and Sorio moved off at the head of the Durotriges. It was a simple desperate plan, but after last night Tiro wondered whether Julia would play her part. He joined the other senior officers for the final briefing in the Principia. Marcellus’s specialists had left the amphitheatre at dusk the previous day. Their work was done now. Their messenger confirmed as much to Marcellus, adding they were standing by as commanded, waiting for the signal. The centurion glanced at Quintus, saying, ’I think all is in place then, Brother. The horses have been mustered, as you ordered. The final scouts have left. Time to move out.’

‘Yes indeed.’

Tiro thought that if he’d had a bad night, the Imperial Investigator’s must have been infinitely worse. He looked ashen despite his olive skin, and his face was rigid. That slight but welcome smile of yesterday was long gone. Tiro sighed, and Quintus snapped his head round to stare.

‘Something to say, Stator?’

‘No sir.’ Tiro saw that the bandage just visible from Quintus’s left tunic sleeve was clean and white. Julia had dressed his burns before leaving in high dudgeon. The boss’s gladius was sheathed, and Tiro wished he’d gone back last night to offer to sharpen and polish it. Too late now. Too late for anything, including regrets, fear, and wishes. All that was left was Fate, and a soldier’s death. He checked his own belt with his long dagger. Marcellus looked at Quintus and nodded. It seemed he had ceded command authority for today to the frumentarius.

‘Right. Marcellus, Senecio, you know where to lead your men. Deploy your men well before the road junction, and don’t allow yourselves to be seen. Make sure you’re masked by the trees, but close enough to hear me speak.’ The young centurion and his grim-faced optio both nodded.

‘Silence is essential. Trebonius may have spies even here. Any stray townspeople you come across must be directed swiftly to safety behind locked doors.

‘Tiro?’

’Sir?’

Quintus held out his hand, and Tiro grasped it.

Quintus spoke softly. ‘Look after her, if—just look after both of them. Right, let’s go.’

Quintus took his share of the men first, a few mounted archers.  They headed south, making their way in single file round outside the walled city. Marcellus left next, leading fully half their detachment silently in the tracks of the first party. Senecio and his troopers followed. All were intent on keeping as closely as they could to the trail set by the initial party, to mask their numbers. All were silent.

Tiro raised his arm in salute and set off on foot at a jog, entering the city through the Aquae Sulis gate.  The adjacent streets were deserted and silent. All the houses and shops, mostly wood-framed with a few newer houses of pale limestone, had closed shutters. He knew water buckets had been placed inside every front door. He devoutly prayed they would not be needed.

Like the amphitheatre, the forum was large, and the few hundred Durotriges gathered in front of the imposing basilica looked a small group indeed. He was relieved to spot Julia on the colonnade. She was talking to Agrippa Sorio, and like him looked the part of the senior tribal noble. She came down into the square, joining three older woman, all in long white robes. They left the forum and turned towards the Glevum Gate.

After that it was a waiting game. The Durotriges, looking apprehensive but proud of their role in proceedings, chatted quietly as the slow dawn crept up the outside of the town wall. The first fingers of sunlight reached the battlements, and hesitated a moment before slanting down across the forum towards the open portico. Thanks to Goddess Aurora, it was a bright morning after all the rain of recent days. The puddles on the street shone silver.

They stiffened at the unmistakeable sound of five thousand feet marching in rhythm, approaching the city gate along Ermin Street from the west. The noise grew as the legion approached, the sound amplified and echoing off the temples and houses lining the main street.

Here it was, then. Tiro knew that Julia and the Sisters of the Corinium Wise Women would be standing at the north gate, welcoming the legion and its leader to Corinium. Soon enough the legion began to file into the big square. They were an imposing sight, a mass of disciplined men all swinging along together, shiny helmets, bright uniforms, their shields bearing the sea-goat Capricornus insignia of the Legio Second Augusta. The legion’s bare-headed aquilifer carried a small round shield strapped to his left arm and bore the eagle standard in both hands. Its upswept wings and  cruel hooked beak were the ultimate symbol of Rome. Tiro felt the hairs rise on his arms at the sight. Next came a group of mounted senior officers, six young tribunes, wearing engraved helmets and bronze cuirasses. With them came the man Tiro looked to as the most significant in any legion: the camp prefect.

Tiro’s eyes widened. Surely he knew this man, with his hard experienced face, his cuirass covered with bronze phalerae awards, swinging his red twisted vine stick?  The years rolled back. Tiro saw the First Spear, the primus pilus of the Londinium cohort, Felix Antonius. The man who had taken him off the streets and trained him as a raw new recruit. The man who’d fostered the fighting talent in the stocky Londoner and helped him reach champion status in