Prunella teaches you how to cook like a toff!

The nemesis of all right-thinking women. But sadly unavoidable. You can dig your heels in all you like, you can even have a lovely plebeian tantrum, but in the end you are going to have to buckle down.
The Hon. Rodney, or your own equivalent thereto, is almost bound to have a whole slew of exceedingly wealthy clients who choose his services above others because he’s a posh boy.
There’s no way to avoid it. Being the daughter of an impoverished Scottish Earl carries with it a certain cachet, and every so often one’s indecently wealthy (but infinitely less well-connected) spouse is going to want to take advantage of a lineage that stretches back to Macbeth and Duncan. In this house we have a bargain. Twice a year I will dust off his mater’s exceedingly ugly diamonds, and remember to smile while explaining that the Hon. Rodney won’t become a Lord until his pater (currently residing in a kindly home for the terminally bewildered, where he has a lovely time shouting at the television and only addressing his carers in Latin) shuffles off this mortal coil.
However. To the meat of this dissertation. What to feed the philistine hordes.
Keep it simple, hearty and wholesome. The men will scoff it and their thin, overproduced, wives will be able to feel superior.

To begin. Soup. Potato and leek (or tinned tomato) with grated sharp cheddar on top and bread rolls. NB. Do make sure the butter is at room temperature – there is little as annoying as trying to spread an iceberg of yellow dairy product.

Main course. Something that cooks very slowly and can be prepared a long time in advance. My own go to is beef in booze. Which is prepared the evening before the shindig.

You need.
(Serves 8)
3lb-ish beef skirt cut in about half-inch cubes (By weight about 12oz per person.)
6 large mild onions peeled and finely sliced
6 trimmed leeks also sliced finely
250ml passatta
2lb peeled chopped tomatoes (or the equivalent of canned)
2lb button mushrooms
4 large red bell peppers sliced
2 cooking apples peeled and chopped
4 large potatoes peeled and cut into small cubes
6 large juicy cloves of garlic
2 litres cheap red wine
1 can stout
1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp Dijon mustard

You will also need a large casserole dish with a very tight fitting lid. Grandmother’s for preference or something French, cast iron, and eye-wateringly expensive.

Brown the beef and bung in the bottom of the casserole, fry the onion until darkly caramelised and put atop beef. Throw the leeks, mushrooms, peppers, apples, potatoes, passatta and chopped tomatoes in on top. Mix crushed garlic, stout, oregano, soy, and mustard and pour over beef etc. Finish with wine. Clamp lid on tight and shove in the slow oven of the Aga. Leave severely alone until lunchtime next day. Remove from oven. Check seasoning. Add more wine if gravy level looks low. Shove back in oven until it’s time to serve. (If necessary, gravy can be thickened with cornflour mixed to a paste with cooking brandy.)
Serve with mashed potatoes and peas.

Alternative main course – slow cooked lamb shanks from your nearest German supermarket, which you shove in your own casserole dish with extra wine and give another couple of hours cook. Same accompaniments.

Pudding: either Eton Mess or some sort of steamed sticky with custard. Or it can be glossed over altogether by providing a humongous cheese board and some of the Hon. Rodney’s aged port (or, better still, cheapo port in a pretty decanter or three).

Look out for more tips on how to cook like a toff next week!

Primrose was feeling sad. Her paint was faded and her garland of flowers looked like pallid overcooked Brussels sprouts. It seemed as if nobody could help her. Not even the garden fairy, and all her nome friends feared she was going into a decline. 

At midnight, under a fat, full moon, Brenda dragged Primrose into the centre of a ring of tiny mushrooms.

“What’s supposed to happen now?”

“I don’t know. Just you set still and wait.”

In the morning, Primrose looked just the same. But her smile was back.

“That’s moon magic. You never knows what it might do.”

©jj 2022

Somewhere in a Wild West that never was…

He smiled and she felt a traitorous warmth in her chest.
That ride through the darkness was so like how it had been when she first met Cuchilo that Mir was hard put to know whether to embrace the joy of being with him or cry out loud for the pain of not being with him. Of course, she did neither. Instead she set her mind to the job in hand, crushing emotion under the weight of the necessary work.
“How much did they tell you?” she asked softly.
“About the job? Nothing except I was to meet an operative and help where I could. Not a dangerous job, they said. Usual rates. I was bored so I came along.”
Mir sighed. “That is about typical. They offer me a fortune for one last job. But they treat you like your life don’t matter.” She frowned. “First off. It is dangerous. So if you want out.”
She saw his teeth gleam briefly. “No. I’m in. Partner.”
“Thanks, Cuchilo. I’m not sure I can do this on my own. There’s girls going missing. Young ones. Some from the streets, more from poor families. They are supposed to be mail order brides. But. Something stinks.” She arranged her thoughts. “The only thing the girls have in common is they are all very young and all are effectively illiterate. Which means nobody is too surprised when they don’t hear from them. Apparently there has been a certain amount of disquiet in some places, but nobody with sufficient money or clout to start looking.” She fell silent.
“So what has changed?” his deep voice broke into her thoughts.
“A girl turned up in the flesh markets of New Amsterdam. A girl of Deutsch antecedents. Something about her seemed off-kilter enough to catch the interest of one of Redhill’s operatives, and he bought her. She was hugely traumatised and had been pretty badly treated. But once she recovered enough to talk it became plain that she was a girl from a poor family, whose ma and pa had let her go, believing she was off west to a better life as the wife of a dirt farmer called Joseph. So how the heck was she about to be sold to a knocking shop in NA?”
“How indeed?”
“Best guess seemed to be that the girls were being brought back east from Trail End. But how and by whom? The Church Army sent a girl. But she ain’t been heard of since. Then they sent an agent. He turned up dead. So they raised a bit of money and went to see Redhill. He took the case on. Lost Emma Bright. She got on the train two months since. And poof. Gone.”
“Emma? Gone? But next to you she’s the best female agent Redhill has.”
“Yeah. Well she was the best he had at the time. I resigned a while ago. Allen Redhill pissed me off so I told him to stick his job. He wasn’t best pleased.”
Mir felt, rather than saw, Cuchilo’s grin. “I’ll just bet he wasn’t. So why’d you take this on?”
“Two reasons. First of all, me and Emma used to be friends of sorts. Thought the least she deserved was somebody finding out what happened to her. And I went to see the rescued girl, just to make sure Redhill wasn’t razzing me. He wasn’t, but there seemed to me to be something they’d all missed. Why did none of the girls realise they were going east not west?”
“Why indeed? And why had nobody thought about that?”
“I think that all the men who went to see Gretel – that’s the Deutsch girl who got rescued – just assumed she was stupid. Because she is as placid as a milk cow, and because she has never been taught to read nor write, they wrote her off and nobody really talked to her. I did and I came to some interesting conclusions.”
“You did?” the smile in his voice was encouraging rather than the belittling smirk Allen Redhill had greeted her idea with.
“I did. Look. I’ll summarise what she had to say. See if it makes you think the same.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Gretel said they spent the first night in a big tent hard by the station, and they boarded wagons after breakfast next day. She said she’d some concerns about the direction they were taking, but the wagon master rode along the train explaining they had to make a detour so they could cut into the wagon trail west. Says she bought it because she had no reason not to. She described the place they camped in some detail and I am hoping it’s where we’re headed. After that, her recollection of the journey gets muddled. She says that sometimes at the end of the day she was convinced they were heading away from the sunset not into it, but she couldn’t bring herself to care too much.”
“So the girls were drugged?”
“That’s what I’m thinking. But neither Redhill nor none of his deputies could even see why that might be. They just fixated on the girls being as stupid as sheep.”
“They would, though, wouldn’t they?” Cuchilo was scathing. “Because if they admitted you were probably right, they’d have to accept that women can think. All women – not just rich ones, or educated ones. Even illiterate girls from the ghettos.”
“Precisely. And only by accusing Redhill himself of facilitating rape could I get any help at all out here.” She looked at Cuchilo’s profile before she carried on speaking. “I’m glad for whoever thought it would be funny to pair us up again. Beside you I have half a chance of success.”
He said nothing, but as they rode knee to knee Mir knew he had her back.

From The Redhead, the Rogue and the Railroad by Jane Jago which is available all through February for 0.99.

Because life happens…

Life is a glorious dance
Where your partner is much down to chance.
You might find your true mate
On a casual date
Or from friendship develop romance.

E.M. Swift-Hook

I had been told the sand has no smell – but it does: a brittle and flaking scent which assaults the nostrils at the same time as the over-bright shimmer dazzles the eyes. My ship-of-the-desert was making me feel sea-sick and watching the ease with which Kerry was taking to it, chatting so casually to Drew, one of the better-looking of our companions, and the main reason I had been persuaded out here in the first place, only made me feel worse. Then there was the grainy residue which seemed to invade even the most intimate places, plus my hair felt like straw and I was sure it looked like it too. But worst of all was the heat – the relentless, oven-baked sensation which made me fantasise incessantly about the swimming pools and cool shower I had left back at the hotel.

Perhaps if I had been day-dreaming a bit less I would have caught the scarf, worked loose by my continual brushing away of sand, before it lifted off my head, startling my noble steed. One moment I was flying through the air and the next I made an interesting discovery: sand is not as soft as it looks when you land in it from camel-height. I lay there in an undignified heap, feeling bruised in the ego and painfully aware everyone was laughing at me. The head of my camel loomed large, looking down with an expression that was clearly condescending, as it reluctantly knelt itself in the sand beside me.

When our guide’s strong arms almost literally lifted me to my feet, I was so startled I didn’t even stutter thanks. The dark eyes that held my gaze were not laughing, if anything they were angry – probably at me for falling off so stupidly! His secure hands boosted me onto the deep saddle with a surprising gentleness and then urged my camel back to its feet. My misery was now complete.

I was only two hours into my ‘Genuine Saharan Overnight Adventure’, the supposed highlight of this Tunisian package tour, and already I wanted out.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Cheezer and Chigger had an argument one night, which culminated in Chigger having to be rescued from the bog garden. He was sullenly angry, and the nome community thought him bent on vengeance. They were right. At midnight the twang of a sprung nome trap was followed by horrendous bellowing.

First there was Granny, followed by Brenda and Bernard. They looked up into the suspended face – of Chigger .

“I thought you laid a trap for Cheezer,” Brenda remarked.

He swore loudly. Brenda shrugged.

“If you makes a nome trap,” she said, “it’s as well to remember where you set it.”

©jj 2022

Imagine waking up one day unable to recall who you are or where you came from – only to find you are serving a sentence as a convict conscript for crimes you have no memory of ever committing…

Avilon woke up as his training taught him – moving from sleep to full consciousness in less time than it took to draw a breath.
In the past this was followed by instant physical movement: to rouse, rise and be ready for anything within moments. His life depending upon it. But today he lay still, eyes open on a blank ceiling, noticing the fine lines where the printed construction panels joined, noticing the slight unevenness which hid the recessed lighting and noticing the absence of the data stream downloading information from the Lattice.
The strangeness of it still left him with a vague uneasiness. All his conscious life he had been accompanied by its intrusive companionship. All his conscious life he had been trained to equate its absence with the inevitability of death, with the knowledge if he stayed out of range of live-linkage for more than a brief period of time the wiring in his brain would burn out and kill him. He was adjusting to the lack, although sometimes he forgot and then there would be a stab of panic until he remembered.
He missed it.
The Lattice.
It troubled him when he could not call up the data he needed on something he had not encountered before or when he needed information about his environment. He knew there were public link networks he could access, but they were not tailored to his needs – they needed him to use them. Shut off from the Lattice he felt isolated and alone. It had been his guide and companion for as long as he could remember and without it he often had to stifle an illogical sense of abandonment and loss.
The Lattice would have given him an ID on every individual he encountered, marked them as friend or foe so he would know how to deal with them. Even without access to tactical data, the subdural sensors that were standard equipment for all Special Legion troops, would have given him readings revealing the emotional state of those around him: heart-rate, muscle tension, changes in blood flow – the small signs warning of attack long before it came.
It sometimes felt like going deaf or blind. Or both.
He lay still, realising for the first time ever in his conscious life, he had no reason to rise that day – unless he made the active choice to do so.
 A totally new experience. 
In its own way a little overwhelming too, pushing onto his shoulders the responsibility for making the decision about what to do with his time. Every other day of his life as a Special he had been assigned tasks. That carried on as part of the Legion’s discharge process and then through the CRD who had arranged his relocation and given him a new identity, culminating in the last ten days of work at the reclamation plant.
At least the work taxed neither his physical nor his mental resources, although it seemed to do so for some of those he worked with. They complained a lot about the stench, the weight of the skips they were required to manhandle when the robotics failed, the inadequacy of the maintenance team, the dangers of the hazardous materials they sometimes needed to deal with and the incompetence of the management. Avilon obeyed the instructions, mastered the tasks his manager expected him to perform and avoided, as far as possible, involving himself in conversations or any other social interactions with his co-workers. He knew he could have no real grasp of their motivation and values. To engage with them on any other than the most superficial level was bound to result in their hostility. And. sure enough. it had done so on the previous day.
“What did you do?”
He had been eating the food provided from the meal-synth in the plant’s cafeteria during his mid-shift meal break when one of his co-workers sat down at the same table, a man Avilon already identified as one of the informal leaders amongst the workers. His hair was cropped close to his head and a large animated tattoo of a winged female covered over half his face. He sat down purposefully, easing off the works issue jacket which would restrict movement and displaying muscles testifying to a good many leisure hours spent working out.
“Do?” Avilon asked, not wanting to antagonise his unwanted table companion by ignoring him.
“Shit. This stuff is worse than the crap we get out of the toxic waste cans. Yes, friend, do. You are here from CRD, right? So what did you do?”
“You mean what crime did I commit?”
The tattooed man nodded.
“That’s the one. You’re a bright bastard, catch on right quick, don’t you?”
At this point Avilon heard the odd snort of muffled laughter from those sitting at the other tables nearby. A large, well muscled, woman made a gesture towards him with one arm and there was more laughter. He had seen new grunts in the Specials go through much the same social farce. He also knew the trajectory it always took and the end result. But here, unlike the Specials, he must make sure not to let anyone end up dead or maimed. He took the time to remind himself, consciously, because he knew when it kicked off he might otherwise just react. With that thought very clear in his mind he looked back at the tattooed man.
“I killed people.”
The tattoo lifted up and moved back and the animation revealed more of the female form, as the other man grinned, baring his teeth.
“Bit of a hard man then?”
 “No. Not really. No more than anyone else.”
 The other man frowned, then gave a short laugh.
“You think you could take me?”
Avilon realised he could predict with precision the course of this conversation. He wondered if, no matter how he responded, he could avoid the inevitable. He tried.
“I don’t want to fight you. I don’t want to fight anyone. I am eating. Then I have work to do.”
“You sound like a coward to me.”
Avilon had not needed any sub-dural sensors to warn him. This man broadcast his intentions a long time before the tray left the table aimed at his face. Avilon deflected it, caught the punch that followed, then drove his hand under the skirts of the winged woman tattoo to strike at the nerve cluster at the base of the neck, deliberately taking care to use much less than lethal force. The man doubled over on his seat, making odd noises.
It happened fast enough that Avilon got to his feet and moved clear of the table, ready to deal with any further trouble, before the tattooed man stopped gasping. But none of the other workers in the cafeteria had even moved. They sat in a frozen tableau of shocked faces, some with food part-way to their mouths, others caught mouth opened, half-masticated food visible within. The only sound and movement came from the tattooed man as he struggled to breathe.
At that moment Avilon realised precisely what he was in this civilian world.
So he stared down the other workers, his gaze steady until all eyes looked away from him. Then he walked out and went back to work. At the next break, the shift manager sent for him and told him he would receive his first pay and, as he earned a rest day, he should be sure and take it the following day – oh and he could go home early if he wanted. He had stayed to finish the shift.
So now he lay in bed with an entire day of unallocated time and a seemingly infinite range of possible things he could do with it. But only one thing that mattered. Jaz had promised him if he came to Starcity he would find Avilon. So far, having been here over ten days he had not been found. Most likely Jaz did not know of his discharge here. But maybe Jaz knew and had deliberately decided not to approach him or had forgotten what they had agreed. He did not want to think like that – but he accepted both as a possibility. For now, though he would assume Jaz simply did not know about his discharge. After all he had to live under a new name here – Vitos Ketzel. There was no reason Jaz would know to look for him under that name, so perhaps he should be the one going to look for Jaz. The thought gave his day its plan and purpose, he got up and dressed and headed out.

FFrom Trust A Few – book one in Haruspex, the second Fortune’s Fools trilogy by E.M. Swift-Hook – which is only 0.99 to buy for a limited period.

Because life happens…

The secret of living, I know,
Is all about having a go.
You don’t have to be fast
If you’re having a blast
A comfortable screw can be slow!

E.M. Swift-Hook

Bolded Hearts is a love story from Jane Jago free until 16 February

The fog came down suddenly: sleek and white and thick and cold. It felt like being draped in a clammy cobweb, and it became impossible to hear one’s own footsteps on the grassy pathway. If it wasn’t for the feel of the warm fur of the great dog who paced majestically at her side Amal would perhaps have been afraid. But she had walked worse than this with Chin-Cha as companion and protector. She wove her fingers into his great ruff of grey and silver hair, leaning on his strong presence as she had been able to do for so many years. Chin-Cha, she thought, the love of my life and my biggest single regret. She knew that the great dog now pacing at her side was a shape changer trapped in his present form by a powerful bear witch, who had then ensorcelled him to the service of a six-year-old girl. That child had grown up to be Amal the healer and witch-woman. A woman who loved her protector with every fibre of her being but would rather die than burden him with the knowledge of that love.
As the fog grew even denser, a voice spoke in her ear, it was woody and breathy, and sounded like a poorly tuned wind instrument.
“People ahead. Hiding. Ill intentioned. Those who have been hunting you since harvest moon Yuri thinks.”
Yuri was a frost imp and trusted friend. Amal put up a hand as if to touch him, and he blew on her fingers. Surprising warmth.
“How many?”
“I will see” and the sense of his presence was gone.

Chin-Cha pressed himself against her leg, silently urging her off the path. She allowed herself to be guided to the rough trunk of a big tree. He pushed her thigh with his nose, indicating that she should climb. Doing as she was bid Amal soon found herself on a wide branch beside a sheltering hole in the trunk. Wrapping herself in the blanket from her pack she crept into the very heart of the tree. She could no longer see her companion, but had the reassurance of his spirit as he hunkered down in the brownish bracken. Then he was coming towards her. Fast. She felt him bunch his muscles and erupted out onto her branch. He made a prodigious leap and she grasped his harness to steady him. They both crawled into the tree cave and huddled together for warmth and comfort.

It was not long before Amal got the sense of Yuri’s presence. She was about to speak when a small icy hand was placed on her lips.
“They are here” the woody windy little voice whispered, seeming to come from right inside her head. “Be still and silent and listen.”

At first Amal heard nothing, then she made out the sound of laboured breathing. There was a noise as if a heavy boot hit flesh.
“Where is the woman, tracker?” a harsh voice demanded.
“She came this way. She can’t be far. But I can no longer feel her presence. It must be the fog.”
“You had better not be lying to me. Gopal get the hounds. They will track her dog, and the old woman said that once we kill it the witch woman will lose her magic.”

You can keep reading here for free until 16 February…

Cheezer parked his wheelbarrow and lifted out its precious cargo. He was all but extinguished beneath pink rosebuds and baby’s breath. His brother Chigger snorted derisively.

“Stealing flowers from the cemetery ain’t gonna make her want an ugly nome like you.”

Brenda clipped him across the head and he subsided.

Cheezer bore the bouquet to where Primrose sat, sadly regarding her faded reflection.

He put the flowers down beside her and essayed a smile.

“Primrose. Would you consider being my Valentine?”

She jumped back startled, but then she smiled and touched the flowers with one chubby finger.

“Yes, please, Cheezer.”

©jj 2022