Chapter 11
The HaruspexBy chance or luck or cosmic design Demosthenes, the Greek, arrived at Aquae Sulis the very day the new villa of Aulus Sabinus, the Roman Celt, was completed and the family were moving in.
The small boat that brought him from the town deposited him as close as it could and he made his way, with his few belongings, up the path Ethne had followed the day she had first met Julia.
The wooden house on its stone foundation that had been home to the family for many years was already standing empty like an abandoned shell washed up by the tide. It would be used for storage and administration. The slaves would be housed there with the farm labourers and the occasional seasonal help.
Julia, in a faded dress with her hair bound up in a scarf to keep dust out, was supervising
