Being a true shifter isn’t the blessing it may seem. But through pain and darkness Perdita seeks to find her own life despite the ambition of others…

Chapter Ten – The Dragon Queen

Purslane beckoned from the doorway of a log cabin and Mandrake strode over. I waddled along in his wake and about halfway across the clearing he must have noticed I wasn’t with him. He turned around and came back to me.
“Want a lift?”
I nodded and he picked me up under his arm. Once we were inside the cabin, he helped me to crawl out of the heavy embrace of my orc fur coat. Stripping off his own coat he raised an eyebrow at Purslane.
“We decided to move when it occurred to me that we could have been construed to be interfering between houses Lyon and FitzRoy.”
“Ahh. Yes. It doesn’t pay to underestimate your intelligence, my friend.”
Purslane blushed with pleasure.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
I nodded and so did Mandrake.
“Food will be a few minutes.”
“Thank you. My mate and I need a small talk anyway.”
She moved away tactfully and he turned his attention to me.
“Tell me why you were so upset by Moth staying with her sister, beloved.”
“Because I don’t trust Titania. And because I have a worm in my gut.”
He opened his arms and I burrowed into his embrace.
“Do you want to go back to her?”
“No. I’d only get in the way. The fae hate me because in their minds I have corrupted a child.”
“A child? But surely Moth is older than you.”
“Yes. She is. But according to fae law she is not an adult until she chooses her name and gender.”
“Gender? Isn’t she a girl fae?”
“Well no. Not really. Mothwing is actually non-binary. She chose female pronouns for herself, but she has never formally assigned herself a gender.”
“Formally assigned?”
“Yes. When a fae makes the Choice it stands in front of the silver mirror in Castel Seelie and says ‘my name is X and I am a male/female fae’ and then they are fixed and adult.”
I watched him absorbing that and then he smiled a gentle smile. “Does that mean we are sleeping with a perpetual adolescent?”
“Something like that.”
I felt a sob catching in my throat. “I just want her to be okay, but I understand that it isn’t up to me.”
Mandrake cupped my face in his hands. “She’ll be fine. There’s a lot of steel in that small body.”
I stiffened my spine. “There is and she will be so pissed off if I fall to pieces. Except…”
“Are you worried that you are left without an anchor should you need to Shift?”
“Yes.”
“You need not worry. Moth showed me what to do. And I am physically strong enough to drag you back from wherever.”
That was a relief. It didn’t do much for the aching Moth-shaped hole in my chest, but at least I no longer had to fear spending the rest of my days as a dragon/wolf/bear/whatever.
Mandrake’s perceptiveness surprised me as I heard his voice in my head. ‘I miss her too, and it hurts. But we need to do our bit to support her from here.’
I leaned thankfully on his strength and knew myself blessed to have such a one as he in my life. Once I stopped reacting I could think.
“Tell me about the black dragon.”
“His name is Ba’al and he is wolfshead to every dragon that ever left its egg.”
“It must be bad.”
“It is. He was the Queen’s mate and he tried to usurp her throne by selling her to human skin traders.”
I felt my own skin go cold to think that someone would sell his own mate to those who would skin her alive and sell her golden skin.
“If I ever meet this dragon,” I said, “he’s dead”.
Mandrake kissed my hand.
Purslane came to where we stood.
“There is soup and bread.”
“Thank you.”
We went to the table where there was thick vegetable soup, bread, golden butter, and sharp crumbly cheese. It was delicious, and I ate rather more than is my custom, while Mandrake cleared two bowls of soup and most of a loaf.
When our appetites were satisfied I put my hand on his. “How fares your dragon, beloved? Does he need to eat?”
“Not yet, my heart. Tomorrow perhaps, depending on what we need to do.”
“See your Queen?”
“I’d prefer to do that today. The snow has stopped and I can smell no more in the air. Besides which, something in my gut says there is need to hurry.”
“Then that is what we shall do. I just wish I could bathe and change my clothes first. I’m pretty sure I stink.”
“We both do. Luckily this camp has a bathhouse. And Purslane has had the water heated.”
A brisk hot bath made me feel much better, and when Purslane found me a leather riding suit with fur-lined boots and parka I could have kissed her.
The main part of the wing was to remain in the woodland camp, but two of the oldest and most battle-hardened males were to accompany us.
With me riding Mandrake in dragon form, and him leading the way, we reached Dragonheart before I even had chance to get cold. The two seasoned battle dragons backed themselves into what I thought of as garages – frontless rooms with high roofs and large braziers warming the air – and composed themselves to wait.
Mandrake made the change and held out his hand.

Jane Jago

Sir cat. Unblinking
Watches prey
The way you watch me
Every day
Without the pain
Of empathy
Behind the eyes
No care for me
My feline watcher
With jade gaze
Joy of my nights
Despair of days

Jane Jago

Some whimsical words on whimsical themes…

You are young so you shouldn’t be that
All pasty, complaisant and fat
With your mouth-ends turned down
And a grumpy-arse frown
From under your middle-aged hat

Jane Jago

An everyday tale of village life and vampires…

“Okay. So we need a plan.”
Em was thinking at her usual pace, and when Agnes opened her mouth she silenced her with an upraised hand.
“Very well. This is what we do…”
Ginny looked as if she might have been about to argue, but Agnes elbowed her sharply and hissed.
“When the Queen tells us what to do we at least listen before we argue.”
“Ginny. You accept the parish council gig, and if you could remember to appear wispy and ineffectual it would be helpful. Agnes. You set your family mafia on planning applications. Once we find out what they are after we can spike their guns. In the meantime I’m about to sink my principles and make friends with the television bloke who left me his card after the vicar went batshit about the bats. Any questions?”
“Hundreds,” Agnes said cheerfully, “but until we find out what the heck is toward nobody can answer any of them. Ginny, you better come home with me now, and I’ll give you some reading material. Normally you’d be living in my house for a month or so while you learn. But I don’t think we want old Harmless-Peashooter to know you are one of us just yet.”
Em frowned. “Agnes. Less of the Harmless-Peashooter if you please. With money behind him the gormless bastard could be dangerous.”
Agnes sighed. “I know. It just helps to think of him by his nickname. Otherwise he’s….”
She stopped in the middle of what she was saying and stared into the middle distance.
Em looked at Ginny and mouthed ‘thinking’.
Agnes showed her teeth in a feral grimace. “Now perhaps we can begin to understand why the housing association is bullying its tenants.”
“Explain yourself Agnes.”
“Well. If you think back twenty years. When Harmsley-Gunn sold the building land to the council we all thought he rather shot himself in the foot.”
“Of course we did. And now he needs to sort it. Yes. I cede you that point Agnes.”
Ginny made a noise like a confused sheep. “Can someone please explain.”
“Yes. Sorry. Harmsley-Gunn owns a rather large tract of land running from the middle of the village down to the river. It’s no use agriculturally, and there is supposed to be some sort of a covenant preventing it from being built on.”
Agnes took over. “And even if the rotten little chiseller thinks he has found a way around the covenant there’s no practicable access. Except through the little housing estate.”
Ginny narrowed her eyes and Em thought how un-sheeplike she was when aroused to anger.
“We’re saying, then, that the housing association is trying to get rid of its tenants and make a killing selling its land?”
“Looks mighty like. Either that or they are being pressured to do so by an irresistible force and an offer they literally can’t refuse.”
“And I assume we are not going to let them get away with it?”
“No. Not if we can stop it and we can try very hard to do that. I will have a high-powered solicitor here tomorrow. The tenants association just gots itself a fighting fund.”
“Tenants association? Since when has there been one of them?”
“Since about a couple of hour’s time, when Jamelia rounds up a couple of the residents to form one.”
Agnes snorted. “I do wonder if HG realises he has a tiger by the tail.”
Em shrugged. “I doubt he will notice until I bite his face off.” She noticed Ginny’s horrified expression. “Metaphorically, sister.”

Part Twenty-Three of Much Dithering in Little Botheringham by Jane Jago and Eleanor Swift-Hook, will be here next week.

Because life happens…

Exploring the mysteries of life through the versatile medium of limerick poetry.

Showtime

Some say that life’s but a show
And you should take a bow ere you go
But it really is fine
To save your last line
For your will, so the truth all can know!

Eleanor Swift-Hook

In a modern-day Britain where the Roman Empire never left, Dai and Julia solve murder mysteries, whilst still having to manage family, friendship and domestic crises…

Dai watched the familiar countryside roll by and tried to forget, rather than obsess about, the fact that he was lying to his bride of less than a month – and on two issues. Well, lying by omission. He had promised himself he was not going to keep anything from her about his working life. She had lived it herself and her security clearance had been higher than his until his sudden promotion.
Even his friend, and newly appointed Senior Investigator, Bryn Cartivel had warned him. Slapping him on the back the day before Dai’s wedding as they were taking a final drink in the Londinium taberna that had seen so much of their custom over the previous eight years.
“Two bits of advice from a long-married man to one about to take the plunge. One is never forget she is always right, even when you think you are and two – never – and I mean never – keep secrets from her.” Bryn burped loudly and adopted a fatherly look. “You see, if you get to the day you think you’re always right and she’s wrong or start finding there are things you can’t tell her – well, that’s the day your marriage hits the rocks.”
“You can’t tell your wife everything,” Dai protested. “I mean half the stuff from work is -”
“Everything she wants to know,” Bryn cut over his protest, then dropped a heavy wink. “But then my Gwen she’d know if I was keeping things from her. She’s descended from a long line of Druids on her mother’s side.”
The trouble was Bryn was right and these were things Julia would want to know – things Dai wanted to tell her. But it was not in his hands. These were secrets he had been ordered to keep from her.

The first had arisen in a conversation with the Tribune in charge of the praetorians in Britannia – Decimus Lucius Didero, foster-brother to Julia. He had summoned Dai on the pretext of a meeting about some legality around the marriage and had not been at all repentant about his duplicity.
“This is serious, Llewellyn and is a big part of how I swung this post your way. Our intelligence people are saying that a lot of dangerous contraband is getting in through the coast there and Viriconium is the hub of it. We need someone who is accepted by the British community and who we can trust. You fit the bill.”
“And here I was thinking I got the job on my merits as an Investigator alone.” Dai made no attempt to keep the cynicism from his tone. He had been wondering why this had come his way and was not too surprised to find it had been for reasons other than those put out for public consumption.
Decimus grinned at him.
“Well my sister falling for your baby-blue eyes helped as well,” he admitted, then he switched back to the clipped tones of before. “As if the smuggling isn’t enough we are talking a major anti-Roman group somewhere in the area and they have their fingers deep in our pies. We need to know who they are and how they are being financed and supplied before they start out on a major terrorist campaign. I’m sending you out with twenty of my lads under their own decanus, a good man Brutus Gaius Gallus. You may need them. We have no idea how high or deep this thing goes – even the Magistratus is not in the clear. So trust no one there and I mean no one.”
Dai took a moment to digest the implications. He had known it was going to be hard enough taking on a post he had been over-promoted to fill. But he had been looking forward to learning his way in and doing so with Julia’s sharp insight and wisdom to help. But Decimus had just taken that fond daydream of a bucolic honeymoon easing into things and blown it away. He realised now why, when he had asked for permission to relocate with some of his old team he had not met with more resistance.
“Julia will need…”
“Julia will not be told anything about it, Llewellyn.” Decimus sounded almost ferocious. Then he drew a breath and sighed. “She has been through too much, I am not having her dragged into this. She needs a chance to have some simple happiness with no more to worry about than what colour she wants to paint the guest bedroom.”
Which, Dai reflected rather grimly, probably showed more of wishful thinking on Decimus’ part than any true understanding of what Julia would want or need.
“I think she might notice Brutus Gaius Gallus and his men hanging around,” Dai said pointedly. “My wife is many things, but she is neither unintelligent nor unobservant.” And you of all people should know that, he added in the privacy of his own mind.
“Relax, Llewellyn. They have an official reason for being there and wandering around wherever. Amongst his other talents, Gallus once served as a bandmaster and all the men with him can play instruments. They are going to be there to learn some traditional British music as part of a ‘Hearts and Minds’ Arts initiative – a real one, believe it or not, from those effete, money-wasting idiots in Rome. But it gives them the cover we need for this, so some good comes out of it.”
It was sounding more and more complex and Dai’s heart plummeted.
“So you are pitching me in against smugglers, terrorists, corrupt Roman administrators, and whoever is behind them?”
Decimus pulled a face.
“You about have the size of it. But you are not exactly going in alone. You’ll have my praetorians and your own people and as soon as you have anything solid we can act on I’ll bring half a legion in to clean up if need be. But we can’t pounce until we have a target.”
“Don’t you have undercover people doing that kind of stuff? I don’t see how I’m going to succeed where they have failed.”
“This is deep Britannia, Llewellyn,” the Tribune reminded him. “The arse end of the Empire, hanging over the edge half the time. Hell man, you should know you grew up there. These are people who only trust someone they have known from birth and who has a British pedigree you could unroll from there to Londinium. We don’t have that many such people just lying around – in fact we have one. You.”

You can keep reading about Dai’s investigation in Dying for a Poppy by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook

Can you smell the rain?
Lifting the dust from the street
Damping the parched pavements
And bouncing over your feet
Can you hear the rain?
Dancing a tango on the roof
Drops so fat they bounce and split
Tapping like tap-dancing hoofs
Can you feel the rain?
Blessing the thirsty earth
Flowers lift their wan little faces
Drinking their own rebirth
Can you smell the rain?
Thick and soft and sweet
The autumn rain that washed the land
And polished the shining streets

Jane Jago

Being a true shifter isn’t the blessing it may seem. But through pain and darkness Perdita seeks to find her own life despite the ambition of others…

“We help.” Moth declared and I put my hands around the Queen’s head like a cage. Moth and Mandrake joined and the power of the gush of metaphorical water that flowed from my hands and into the Queen’s brain was such that it took all I could do to stand up. Fortunately, brain-washing doesn’t take long and I was able to remove my now freezing hands and step back before I disgraced myself by falling.
The Queen shook herself as if she had just stepped from a bath of ice water. She shivered, but her eyes were now clear – if flat and calculating.
“Oh. Right. Now I see.” She turned her flawless face to Moth and there was a catch in her voice. “Did they really kill Shadow?”
“Seems so.”
For an instant they were like real sisters, but the feeling passed as the room turned dark again and a fat moon floated in a cloudy sky. The sound of feet on the messy floor was loud and when I saw what came into the pool of light I sighed.
The goat-headed creature opened its lips. “Ill met by moonlight, proud…”
He got no further because the sisters turned on him. Her Majesty fired cold flame at him from her fingertips, but Moth was rather more direct.
“Piss off Silenius.”
After a second of offended silence the deity disappeared. Mandrake spoke in my head.
‘There are times when Moth sounds a great deal like you.’
I poked him in the chest. ‘Hush. I have a feeling something vital is about to happen.’
Moth and the Queen had a brief conference before spitting on their hands and slapping their palms together.
Mandrake’s arms tightened around me.
‘Why do I think we aren’t going to like this?’
‘Because Moth is probably going to stay and help. And I have a bad feeling about it.’
I shivered, and Moth landed on my shoulder.
“Mothwing must stay with sister until land is secure.”
“Are you sure?” Mandrake asked.
She nodded emphatically.
“And will they listen to one who is still a child?”
“We make them listen.”
I turned my face and kissed the side of her head.
“You must do what you have to do. Take care though. And come back to us soon.”
She put her arms around my head and hugged me before doing the same for Mandrake.
I looked at the Queen on her ivory throne and frowned my most intimidating frown. “I will hold you responsible for my bond mate’s safety, Titania. Play her false and there will be nowhere you can hide.”
She nodded, although she couldn’t quite meet my eye.
Moth pulled my earlobe and spoke softly in my head. ‘I will have care.’
‘You do.’
Then it was time for Mandrake and me to leave. At the doorway I turned to look at my bonded sister. She smiled and spoke for me alone.
‘Whatever I have to do here, know that I will love you as long as there is breath in my body.’
I was glad of Mandrake’s strong arm as he led me to where the unicorn waited. In a blizzard.
“Dirty weather for flying,” it said by way of a greeting.
“It is.”
The creature looked at me expectantly, then realised Moth wasn’t with us.
“Where is the fae?”
“She stays to help the Queen.”
It stared holes in me for a minute before it nodded. “I see.” I rather thought it did, because it nodded its head three times in a sort of equine salute. “Up and over the weather then, but it will be cold.”
As if in answer to that, a brownie in an apron appeared carrying two very thick fur parkas.
“Warm,” it said and handed us one each before scuttling back indoors. We helped each other into the heavy fur.
“What the frag?”
“Orc.” With which he lifted me onto the unicorn’s broad back and leapt aboard himself.
“Back to where the dragons are?”
“Please sir unicorn.”
The less said about that journey the better, it was cold and bumpy, and the air was thin. The only mercy was it was short. We landed in deep snow right in the middle of Purslane’s wing – although not at the Lyon estate.
Mandrake jumped down and lifted me to the ground. I waddled to the unicorn’s head and touched a hand to its velvet nose.
“I thank you for a safe ride Alsviør, and blessings be on you and your herd.”
It nuzzled my hand and blew a warm breath through my fingers.
“Be steadfast, small one, and all manner of things will be well.”
Then it clapped its wings together and was gone.

Jane Jago

It was one of those sunny days where you have to half squint at times to keep the brightness out. I’d just been round the monthly market in the town square and spent a bit on fruit and veg, and was wandering back to the bus stop when I saw a large orange on the edge of the pavement by the stone wall of the church.
Thinking it lost by someone leaving the market I bent to pick it up and found I was holding a small orange kitten.
And that was how we got our big tom cat, Marmalade!

Eleanor Swift-Hook

Some whimsical words on whimsical themes…

Tammi hated Zoom meetings, and how her colleagues sneered at her humble home. But she squared her shoulders and survived the winter.

When spring came, a skinny geek arrived with a laptop. She gave him a cup of tea and  chocolate chip cookie

“This one has smellivision,” he whispered, “but I ain’t supposed to tell you.”

Tammi’s house smelled sweetly of lavender and home baking.  The chief among her tormentors, however, was a less particular housekeeper and her high-rise apartment smelled of old ashtrays and feet. 

Tammi said nothing, simply watching as the pack turned on its former alpha.

Jane Jago