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 Eleven – Dragon’s Dilemma

He turned on his heel and more or less towed me out of the throne room and along the sick-making corridors to where our security dragons awaited.
Mandrake made the change and I climbed onto his back. I was intensely aware of some deep level of trouble in him, but equally sure he wasn’t about to tell me what the frag was going on. All I could truly divine was that there was something he was deeply afraid of – and he was not handling this unaccustomed emotion at all well.
Flying seemed to release him a little and after a few wing beats he spoke in my head.
‘Is there anything you need from the cottage for tomorrow?’
‘Ideally there are several things.’
‘Will it take you long to gather together?’
‘Five minutes.’
‘Then we shall go now.’
He whistled a complex tune to our companions and turned on a wingtip. Over the cottage he made the change, and dropped into the garden with me on his back. The sound of singing where there should have been silence was briefly worrying, until a stocky half-fae who I knew lived a fairly miserable life in the village below came to the door. She bobbed a curtesy and looked at me out of huge bruised-looking eyes.
“Mistress Mothwing sent me a message to come up and take care of the cottage.”
I smiled. “That was a good idea.” I scratched about in my brain for her name and found it at the last possible second before looking a fool. “Be welcome Lily. Both you and your little one have a home here for as long as you have need.”
The rigidity went out of her body and she smiled, showing the gap where some brute of a male had knocked out two of her front teeth when she refused to mate with him. Her young looked out from among her skirts and smiled shyly before running away about some ploy of its own.
Mandrake smiled briefly at her before going to stand over by the garden wall. I ran inside and picked up the sword Death Day and the matching dagger. Lily mutely held out boots with a dagger sheath, which were polished to a conker shine, as was the sword belt. I thanked her with a smile and she bustled into my dressing room emerging with an overdress of old-gold velvet and a bundle of underthings. She looked at me and I nodded so she folded the dress and picked it into a bag.
“Matches your eyes, lady. You will look beautiful.”
“Thank you Lily. Now. Do you need money for foodstuffs?”
She nodded, mutely, looking somehow diminished by her need. I leaned down and brushed my mouth across her forehead. This marked her as under my protection, and I spoke quite formally.
“Blessings be upon you.”
“Thank you, mistress.”
I realised I had no money on me so I shouted for Mandrake. “Loved dragon, do you have money?”
He came to the window, rather than walk inside, and I felt a cold finger on my spine. This needed sorting, but not here and not now. Instead I showed him my dimples as I took a handful of silver coins.
“Thank you. I will be out in a minute.”
He stepped back, but not before I saw the pain in his dark gaze.
I picked up the bag Lily had packed and handed her the money.
“Live well, and I shall see you soon.”
She put a timid hand on my forearm. “Don’t let him go, my lady. Dig past your pride and don’t lose your love for such foolishness.”
“I won’t,” I promised, as much to myself as her.
Mandrake and I descended the steps to the meadow where he could resume his dragon form in silence. The flight to where the wing awaited was the most joyless experience of my life and it would have been easy to either cry or retreat behind a wall of pride.
However, I had too much at stake to do either. As soon as we landed, Mandrake resumed his human shape and made me a cool, closed bow.
“I would have private speech with you, great lady.”
My heart felt ripped open by the unfeeling formality of his words, but I let nothing show. I merely gave my bag into the care of one of the waiting dragons and followed his rigid figure across the clearing to a snowy bench. He turned to face me.
“Lady. I would break our bond.”
“No.”
Something flashed in his eyes, but he persevered. “You cannot refuse me.”
“Can and have.”
His voice broke like shattered ice. “Very well then. Let me put this another way. With or without your consent our bond is no more.”
The desire to cry and beg him to reconsider was almost irresistible, but I couldn’t put that on him, so I searched for anger instead. “It doesn’t work like that, dragon. You gave me your bond, and unless I release you, you are tied to me.”
“Why will you not let me go?” he cried.
“If you give me sufficient reason, I might.”
“I cannot give you anything. Do you not see? I need you to walk away with your head held high.”
I was almost beyond anger now. “Oh yes. I see.” Only iron-hard will kept my voice low and my eyes dry. “I see. You want to break my heart and I have to make it easy for you. Again I say no.”
The pain in him all but brought me to my knees, but I was fighting for my life and I could afford no softness. So I firmed my chin and gave him stare for stare.
He turned to walk away, and I exerted myself to extrude a small glamour, holding him where he stood.
“Don’t turn your back on me.”
He turned around. “Why not.”
“Because I ask you not to.” The word ask brought tears to his eyes and I put up my hand to touch his cheek. “Will you not tell me?”
He shook from his head to his feet, but then he stiffened like a condemned one awaiting a firing squad.
“No,” he said harshly. “I am not your creature to be an open book for your prying eyes.”
“You are,” I said in the coldest voice I could summon, “within about an inch of having me kill you where you stand.”
He snarled. “You? Kill a hardened battle dragon?”
The words had barely left his mouth when he was on his back in the snow with my blade at his throat.
“You, my friend, should be thankful I don’t have Death Day in my hand, because she cannot be re-sheathed before she tastes blood.” I stood back and let him see the hurt in me. “Talk to me, loved dragon. Just tell me.”
For a few seconds I thought I had failed, then he put a hand to my face.
“The Queen is in egg.”
I nodded.
“She called me to her mating flight.”
I was beginning to see. “So you may have fertilised her eggs.”
“Not may have, my life, she called only me.”
I looked into his eyes to see him begging for understanding and I moved close enough to feel his body heat.
“Do you feel responsible for the clutch?”
“No. No more than I would for any dragonet of Dragonheart.”
“What is the problem then, my dear one? As I understand it, most dragons neither know nor care who provided the sperm that fertilised the eggs.”
He looked at me as if he couldn’t quite believe his ears.
“And it doesn’t matter to you?”
“No. Should it? It is the way of dragons and no worse nor better than any other way.”
He gathered me into his arms and rested his chin on my hair. After a moment he lifted his head. “I have always been taught that other races do not understand draconic matriarchy. And I was afraid. Afraid that you would be told I mated with the Queen and hate me as an ‘absent father’, an unfaithful lover, and one who would abandon a female in egg. I think that feeling fear made me stupid.” A single tear rolled down his cheek. “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t stand the thought of your contempt.”
I punched his upper arm. “Idiot. You don’t get rid of me so easily.”
And then, just like that, we were okay again. He took my hand in his and we walked back to where a stone-faced fighter stood holding my bag. He handed it to Mandrake and dropped me a slow wink before turning away and ambling off about his business.
Mandrake looked down at me. “Did Stinkwort wink at you?”
“If that dragon is called Stinkwort, yes he did. I reckon he was saying I did good.”
“Probably.”

Jane Jago

Hail the harrowed pumpkin!
Tormented, scraped and cut,
Your entrails ripped out from within,
To bake pies with your guts.

Hail the hallowed pumpkin!
Thy glorious grinning face,
Carved from the orange of your skull,
Brings grim mirth to this place.

Hail the hollowed pumpkin!
Upon the doorstep set
Your eldritch light and feral look
Will guard the household yet.

Hail the hero pumpkin!
When brightly lit your grin
Doth scare and freet uncanny beasts
And keep us safe within.

Eleanor Swift-Hook

Oliver bought the kitten in a pub, because he felt sorry for the tiny bundle of pale fluff.

Halfway home he was regretting the impulse, but he felt responsible so he braved a possible shitstorm.

Except his formidable mother took one look and fell in love. She stroked the kitten with her large, white hands and it fell asleep in her lap.

Tabitha became a fixture, and when Oliver married she stayed with his mother. 

It wasn’t until the old lady died that anyone thought to wonder how a cat had lived for forty years. Or where she was now…

Jane Jago

Some whimsical words on whimsical themes…

They called it the monument when they bothered to speak of it. It had been in the city forever, and sometimes the young stopped to look at it  and wonder that it had neither purpose nor meaning.

Were the strange round things halfway down its mighty bulk eyes? Did it breathe through the holes in the strange beaky thing between them?

But it wasn’t of sufficient importance to occupy them for long and they soon scuttled off about the jobs they were allocated as soon as they dropped from their chrysalis.

Humans were yesterday and insects aren’t given to introspection.

Jane Jago

An everyday tale of village life and vampires…

If Ginny had wondered in her heart of hearts what a meeting of a nest of vampires was going to be like she had never for one minute imagined this.
She knocked on Agnes’ back door with considerable trepidation. The woman who answered her knock was a stunning black-haired beauty dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt that proclaimed her allegiance to an American Football team of whom Ginny knew nothing.
“Hi. You must be Ginny. I’m Jamelia. Excuse the clothing. I’ve been at the estate getting the tenants association drilled in what it needs to do and haute couture would be right out of place.” Her voice was low and musical and Ginny had never felt quite so plain and gawky in her life.
She summoned a sickly grin. “I don’t think I own any haute couture.”
“Me neither, but then we are ordinary mortals not backed by the Vanderbilt billions.”
“Billions?” Ginny was shocked.
“Nothing like,” Jamelia admitted, then laughed. “It’s just compared to the rest of us it sometimes seems like it.”
Still smiling Jamelia took Ginny’s unresisting hands in both of hers and pulled gently. “No need to be shy, none of us bite.”
Ginny had to smile back at that and stepped inside. Her new sister, the thought was a good one, closed the door and then kissed Ginny on both cheeks in greeting.
“Welcome my sister. Now come and meet the rest.”
Agnes’ sitting room was comfortably untidy and four women sat, squashed together on a three seater settee, watching a horse race on the huge TV. They were transfixed by it, oblivious to Ginny’s arrival and suddenly all started shrieking.
Jamelia winced. “They have been boozing all afternoon. And Petunia reckoned she had a hot tip for the four o’clock at Kenton Park. It’s losing.”
The race drew to a close and three of the women piled on top of the fourth in joyfully childlike retribution. After a couple of minutes they sorted themselves out and Agnes noticed Ginny.
“Sorry about that, love,” she said comfortably. “I never heard you knocking.”
“You wouldn’t. Not with the noise you lot were making,” but Jamelia sounded affectionately amused.
Agnes grinned at her. “I take it you introduced yourself.” Jamelia sighed and nodded, and Agnes gave her a quick hug. “I do know you find it trying sometimes, love, but we can’t help what we are no more than you can help what you are.” Then she turned to make the necessary introductions. “Right Ginny. This is us. You know me and now Jamelia. This is Lilian. She’s a worse gossip than me.”
A tiny woman with beaded cornrows in her hair, and a face as wrinkled as a walnut, flipped Agnes the finger before offering Ginny the kiss of welcome. Ginny recognised her as the woman she had sat beside at the meeting of the Ladies’ Association.
“Here’s Ellen. Lesbian of this parish and shouty lefty.”
“Shut up Agnes.”
“See what I mean? Shouty.”
Ellen laughed and added a muscular hug to the kiss of sisterhood.
“The one who should be looking embarrassed because she just lost the rest of us a tenner is Petunia. Veterinary nurse and useful person as long as you never take her racing tips.”
Petunia grinned and blew Agnes a raspberry before kissing Ginny on both cheeks. “You look a darned sight better than the last time I saw you.”
Ginny remembered Agnes saying that Petunia had held her head while Em fed her blood and felt the blush rising over her face. Petunia grinned.
“Don’t be embarrassed by us. You are doing really well. When I was made I knew what was happening but I still screamed for the best part of a month.”
“You did indeed,” Agnes agreed, “but you’re a bloody exhibitionist.”
“And you’re a bloody old tart.”
The smiles and laughter made Ginny realise that this teasing was all good natured, just their way of showing sisterhood. She had seen it before, especially among those who had been brought up not showing affection. Jamelia caught her eye and smiled understanding.
“It’ll settle down in a minute. Be as good as gold once Em appears. But for now. More booze I suspect.”
“Someone say booze?” Agnes thrust a tall glass clinking with ice into Ginny’s hand. She sniffed it suspiciously.
Jamelia came to her rescue again. “Mojito.”
Ginny looked at the glass in some unease. “I don’t actually drink much nowadays. I shouldn’t want to make a fool of myself.”
“I don’t think you can make a fool of yourself with this lot. And anyway, you’re a vampire now. Means you have an all but bottomless capacity for alcohol. The worst you will ever get is mildly lit like them four. And no hangovers. Ever.”
Emboldened Ginny took a sip. The drink was sweet and minty and very much to her taste. Looking up, she saw Agnes was watching and toasted her with an upraised glass. The smile she got in return warmed her from the inside.

Part Twenty-Six 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.

Leap

It is wise to look before you leap
Not to follow along like a sheep
But it takes too much time
And you think you’ll be fine
Though you’re likely to land in a heap!

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…

Pridie Nonas Maia MDCCLXXVIII Anno Diocletiani

Julia Llewellyn was at that stage of her pregnancy where she couldn’t imagine why she ever thought having a baby was a good idea. She was used to having a lithe, boyish body, that ran and jumped with ease and delight, but currently she was close to the shape of an egg and prone to sudden bouts of indigestion and cramp in her limbs. The thought of nearly three more weeks of this with the intense summer heat, was almost too much to bear. So it was with some relief that she sat in the shade in the secluded walled garden where Cookie grew her herbs and found she felt neither sick nor uncomfortable. It couldn’t last, but for as long as it did she was content to raise her face to the sun and daydream a little.
The world, she thought wryly, was rapidly turning upside down. Not only had she and her beloved husband Dai managed to get through the best part of a month without her wanting to throw something at his handsome head, but his sister, Cariad, who she had always thought of as little better than a wharfside strumpet had come home after a break to recover from a very traumatic experience and seemed to have turned over a new leaf.  She appeared to be really trying to appreciate having a good kind husband and two beautiful children. Julia still nursed doubts about the durability of this sea change, but hoped for everyone’s sake it was going to last.
For her own part, Cariad’s children, Felix and Cassia were a big reason she held on to any hope that being pregnant was worth the undoubted discomfort. The duo was one of the delights of her life.
Currently, Felix was out in the hills with his father and his uncle Dai, mounted on one of the sturdy local ponies Dai’s brother Hywel bred as a hobby. Ostensibly Felix was having riding lessons. It would have been rather more honest to say that he was having a whale of a time away from the constraints of being the only son of a very important man.
Julia idly wondered what Cariad and Cassia were up to, and it seemed to her that her fancy had conjured them to her side, because she heard Cariad calling her name urgently then Cassia’s voice sounding uneasy.
“Mam, I think Aunt Julia is asleep. Do you?”
“I don’t know, carissima. But if she is we really must wake her up.” Cariad’s musical voice was not entirely steady. Concerned now, Julia opened her eyes and sat up.
“What is it? Is something wrong?”
She had a sudden private dread that the beauty of the family must have got herself into more man trouble, and braced herself to refuse if she was to be asked to cover up an indiscretion. To her surprise, Cariad’s face was pale with anxiety and her Llewellyn blue eyes were swimming in tears.
It was Cassia who spoke. “We were feeding the ducks on the pond past the fruit trees. Mam got a message on her wrist phone from a man who is playing a game. He said he has stolen Pater and Felix and Uncle Dai. I don’t think that’s a nice game to play. Mam said we should tell you so we came straight here.”
It took a second or two for the meaning of the words to sink in and when they did her own heart tumbled in freefall with fear for Dai. Then something shifted deep in her psyche. It was cold and hard, cutting off the emotion, like a stone door slamming shut. Sleepiness banished, Julia went from somnolence to action in a single breath. She heaved herself to her feet and grasped Cariad’s cold hand.
“Come on,” she said gently, “pull yourself together and let’s see what is to be done.”
Cariad made what had to be a superhuman effort, then forced a smile. “Yes. Silly of me. It’s bound to be a mistake.”
Cassia looked at her with tolerant patience. “I was playing with Mam’s wrist phone when the message came in. I saved it for you.”
She handed over the expensive brand phone and Julia pulled up the menu on it’s curved screen and pressed the play button. The face that looked back at her was mostly covered by the dark fabric of a ski-mask except for a pair of dark eyes.
“We got your man and your son and your brother. You do as you are told and they comes to no harm. Mess us about and we’ll send you your son in pieces. Starting with his fingers.”
And that was it.
Julia felt her throat constrict as a ball of panic and rage bubbled up in her stomach. With sheer force of will she thrust it away again and pulled herself into a place where clarity of thought was possible. She used her own phone and tried Dai’s number. There was no reply and after a few desultory call tones it went to voicemail. Reaching out, she struck a small silver bell on the table beside her and a few moment later a porter stuck his face around the gate which led into the walled garden.
“Please fetch Edbert for me.”
The man nodded and disappeared. Julia gave her attention back to Cariad who hovered like a lost ghost clutching Cassia’s hand tightly.
“I think you should take Cassia indoors to see what Cookie has been baking today.” That made the little girl smile widely and begin to tug on her mother’s hand. Julia held up the wrist phone. “Can I borrow this for a bit?”
Cariad nodded, and even managed a taut smile of gratitude as Cassia towed her towards the house, chattering excitedly about cakes.
Julia input another number on her own wrist phone and Bryn Cartivel’s homely features filled the screen.
She didn’t give him a chance to speak. “Bryn. I need you here as quick as you can and you’d better bring Gallus. There’s something bad going on with the Magistratus and Dai. I’ll tell you when you get here.”

If you want to know how Julia rises to the challenge of investigating the kidnapping you can keep reading Dying to be Fathers by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

Old bench in the falling leaves
So many secrets heard
Lovers and children hand in hand
Speaking without a word
The wooden bench a secret place
Where promises are made
Waits as leaves fall from the sky
In a quiet forest glade

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…

I fed the warrants page by page onto what soon became a nice little bonfire. Being nosy by nature, I read each document before consigning it to the flames. I had all but reached the bottom of the pile when my eye fell on a very different seal. This was a properly official document, which bade the Queen send her representative to The Legislature where a very important vote was to take place. Then I read what the vote was.
“Mandrake,” I said sharply. “I think we know what this is all about now.”
“We do?”
“Oh yes. Somebody is trying to have lycanthropes declared animals, thereby stripping them of all their rights and privileges and putting them at the mercy of humans.”
The Queen stared at me. “They can’t do that.”
“Why not? We allowed them seats in the Legislature. Now they want to legislate.”
“But how would it benefit them?”
“Many ways. Firstly those who are awaiting trial for kidnap and murder would be off the hook. Animal rustling carries barely more than a slap on the wrist. Plus. We gave humans a fair share of the land and if they worked hard they could have good lives. But many of them don’t see why they should work when it would be much easier to just take what we have.”
Mandrake chimed in. “Let is not forget the environmental issues. Currently we don’t allow them to destroy nature for gain.”
“No indeed and we are not about to move aside completely. So they propose to push us.”
The Queen’s eyes whirled green with anger. “We would not allow this. Surely all lycanthropes banded together could defeat a few mere humans.”
Mandrake shook his head. “Think again, my lady. All lycanthropes banding together? Without killing each other?”
“And there are more than a few humans,” I said. “They breed like rats. While our fertility keeps populations at a sustainable rate, humans know no such kerbs. In the valley below our cabin there is a dirt farm. The farmer and his mate have seventeen children.”
“What can we do, then?”
“We have to be at the Legislature and somehow scupper this vote.”
“When?”
I dropped my final bombshell. “Tomorrow afternoon.”
Mandrake swore and the Queen set fire to the drapes. I waited. To be fair to them, it wasn’t long before they composed themselves, but the way they cursed each other led me to suspect that there was some sort of a relationship there. In another place, on another day, I might have chosen to explore the idea – but right then I decided I didn’t have time. Which turned out not to be the best decision I have ever made.
“What must we do, shifter?” The Queen was almost polite.
“Can you appoint Mandrake as your token bearer? And loan us his old fighting wing as security?”
“It shall be done.”
Mandrake bulked his shoulders. “Also send messages to all the lycanthrope clans you have contact with letting them know what is planned. Some may even be able to send their representatives to the Legislature for tomorrow’s session.”
The Queen nodded and clambered back onto her throne. She seemed awkward in her movements and it came to me that she was heavy with eggs.
“Congratulations,” I said formally.
Her eyes softened briefly. “It is a pity that I should finally be in egg when the world is on a knife edge.”
“It is my thought that you would not have been taken in by these folks were it not for the hormones of egg-bearing.” I spoke without thinking, but she nodded.
“There is a certain milky calmness, I have found, and a disinclination for business. I still need help.” She looked at Mandrake who refused to understand the question in her eyes.
“I will find you reliable assistance,” he said, and went to the great brassy doors.
I felt impelled to apologise. “I’m sorry…”
She swept my apology aside with an impatient claw. “It was ever thus with him.” Then she smiled at me in the way of dragons. “It really isn’t your fault. He is such a stubborn male.”
She sighed and I became aware that her back hurt and that being gravid and unable to make the change was wearing on her mind and body. I felt sudden pity and laid a tentative hand on her shining scales.
“Would a back rub be pleasant?”
“It would indeed.”
So it was that when Mandrake returned he found me rhythmically rubbing my oiled hands over the muscles of the Queen’s back. He seemed more surprised than a simple act of sisterhood warranted, but males are odd even the best of them.
He brought with him six grizzled dragons, three male and three female, who bore signs of battle, and a motherly-seeming female with a crumpled and kindly face.
The Queen sighed. “My faithful advisers, pushed aside by those who sought our downfall. Will you forgive your Queen?”
They all bowed low and the oldest spoke. “Will you trust us once more, my beloved Queen?”
“I will, with gratitude.”
The motherly female came over to me and bowed her head briefly. “Does this ease the Queen’s Majesty?”
The Queen answered. “It does.”
“Then will you show this dragon what it is you do?”
While the dragons settled their plans for the security of Dragonheart and its mistress, I was fully occupied teaching a willing female dragon the basics of massage.
Once all was in place, the Queen hung a golden token around Mandrake’s neck and he bent his head in a half bow.
She laughed, but it was a sound that said more of sadness than humour. “There is never any need for you to bend your neck to me. Not you of all dragons.”
I felt the instant when something went click in his head and he withdrew his essence from me, hiding behind a wall of pride and fear. When he answered the Queen, his voice was even deeper than usual. “Especially me of all dragons. Be well.”

Jane Jago

Her errant husband moved out and cat moved in. Sarah was lonely, and its arrogance amused her.

The months passed, and it was noticeable that any man who came offering ‘consolation’ seemed to fall foul of the cat.

One tripped over him and broke an ankle, another developed a serious allergy, a third got his face badly scratched.

Sarah rubbed the broad ginger head.

“I could almost think you wanted me to stay single.”

The cat purred loudly.

The day Adam walked back through the door, cat disappeared. Sarah looked into her husband’s green eyes and understood.

“Bastard,” she said.

Jane Jago