Two self-contained stories featuring Junia Secunda, set between the published Books 2 and 3 of Theo Penrose’s The Vestal Mysteries. Both are independent of the novels’ central mysteries.

Browse the published Vestal mysteries in reading order, or explore more of Theo Penrose’s books.

Bonus Story 3 — The Wool Bundle at the Portico

October 113 CE

The accusation began with six missing handspans of wool.

The accused woman was a freedwoman spinner named Prima.

The evidence was a bundle that had arrived short.

“It was full length when it left me,” Prima said.

The household steward who had delivered it shook his head.

“It was sealed.”

“With your seal.”

“Yes.”

“Then perhaps your seal ate it.”

Tertia nodded approvingly.

Junia did not.

“Enough.”

The wool was intended for household repairs, not ritual use, which meant Junia possessed no sacred reason to turn the dispute into an official inquiry.

But the argument was occurring beneath the Atrium portico, Prima was close to tears, and everyone nearby had already decided that freedwomen stole cloth because people found theft easier to imagine downward.

Junia examined the bundle.

The outer cord was intact.

The seal was intact.

The cloth inside was short.

Quintus, delivering a registry abstract nearby, said, “That argues against removal after sealing.”

The steward crossed his arms.

“Then she shortened it before sealing.”

Prima flushed.

“I did not.”

Junia ran the cloth through her fingers.

One edge was thicker.

Not by much.

She turned it over.

The hem had been repaired.

Then repaired again.

“Who mended this?”

Prima looked confused.

“My daughter.”

“When?”

“Before delivery. There was a flaw near the edge.”

“How large?”

Prima held out her fingers.

About six handspans.

Junia looked at the steward.

He looked at the cloth.

Then at the repaired double fold.

The missing length had not disappeared.

It had been turned inward and used to strengthen the damaged edge.

The original measurement had been taken before repair.

The delivery measurement after.

Quintus said, “Two correct measurements of two different states.”

Tertia sighed.

“Administrative romance.”

Junia looked at her.

“Do not.”

“What?”

Prima began laughing through the last of her tears.

The steward apologized badly.

Prima accepted worse.

Junia required the delivery record to state why the measurements differed, because otherwise someone three months later would rediscover the discrepancy and accuse the same woman again.

Quintus watched her finish.

“You dislike unresolved numbers.”

“I dislike numbers that become accusations.”

“That is more specific.”

“Yes.”

The October air carried the first suggestion of cool weather into the portico.

Junia rolled the repaired wool once more.

The strengthened edge was not as elegant as the original.

It was better suited to survive.

She understood the appeal.

---

Bonus Story 4 — Rain on the Wax

November 113 CE

Rain reached the Forum before anyone expected it.

One moment the paving was merely dark beneath clouds.

The next, clerks were running.

Sabina came into the Atrium carrying a wooden tablet box under her mantle.

“It leaked.”

Junia stared.

“The box?”

“The roof.”

“That is worse.”

Inside were three working copies connected with old administrative materials.

Not originals.

But useful.

One tablet had taken water along its upper edge. Wax had softened and blurred where drops fell beneath the imperfect lid.

Sabina looked personally offended.

“I copied it yesterday.”

Quintus arrived half an hour later looking equally damp.

“You sent for me.”

Sabina held up the damaged tablet.

He stopped.

“That is unpleasant.”

“I had reached the same conclusion.”

Junia said, “Can the line be reconstructed?”

“Possibly.”

Quintus did not touch the tablet.

“From memory?”

“No,” Junia said.

Sabina nodded.

“No reconstruction from memory without marking it as reconstruction.”

They found the answer in a second witnessed copy held in another administrative bundle.

The damaged line concerned nothing dramatic.

A date.

A clerk’s title.

A warehouse reference.

Yet Junia felt relief when Sabina copied it again and noted why the new version existed.

Quintus said, “If you had relied on memory, you would probably have been right.”

Junia looked at him.

“That is an argument against relying on it.”

He smiled faintly.

“Yes.”

Outside, rain struck the courtyard stones hard enough to drown most street sounds.

For once Rome seemed enclosed.

Sabina carried the repaired documentary sequence away.

Quintus remained.

Junia said, “You may go. We have solved the catastrophe.”

“I walked here in the rain.”

“You are allowed to walk back.”

“That seems wasteful.”

Tertia appeared with warm watered wine and announced, “No one leaves until the rain decides to become reasonable.”

Quintus looked at Junia.

Junia looked at the rain.

“Administrative necessity,” he said.

“Apparently.”

They sat at opposite sides of the table.

Properly.

Publicly.

With Tertia between them complaining about wet sandals.

The rain continued.

Nothing important was said.

Junia remembered the evening anyway.

---

Reading position: after Book 2, The Veil at the Games, and before Book 3, The Saturnalia Seal.