Two Women and Some Books
My love is like a grouchy bear
That someone asked to dance
My love he really does not care
For kisses or romance
Yet what’s left of his hair is fair
And very blue his eyes
And he will be about somewhere
Till all the bars gang dry
Till all the bars gang dry of beer
And all the wine is gone
Yes I will love you still my dear
And bore you with a song
So goodnight, my friend goodnight
And sleep now for a while
And in the morn I’ll look a fright
But you’ll still make me smile
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…
Ante Diem Septimum Idus September MDCCLXXVIII Anno Diocletiani
The body lay sprawled on the cold, mosaic floor of the Basilica Viriconia. Dai found irreverent and irrelevant thoughts going through his mind about how having a murder scene so close to the Vigiles House was so convenient and considerate of the killer. He recognised them for what they were. An instinctive protection against the horror.
And horror this was.
The headless corpse had been carefully arranged so its posture fitted to the Caput Deum, the head of the Divine Diocletian, picked out on the floor there as it was in every official building in the Empire. Haloed in tiny golden tiles, it replaced in two dimensions the murder victims own head. The body was naked, male, and the only obvious identifying mark was the silver ring of Citizenship. Whoever this was they were most-likely Romano-British.
“Same M.O. as the last one,” Senior Investigator Bryn Catrivel observed. “This is getting sick and creepy, Bard.”
His familiar tone and form of address drew an odd look from the other man present, Sextus Catus Bestia who had recently taken up the role of Magistratus for Demetae and Cornovii. Recently enough, Dai knew that he had yet to realise Bryn and Dai were long time friends and work partners. That they had served together in the Vigiles in Londinium for eight years before Dai was appointed to be Submagistratus based here in Viriconium.
Dai looked around the broad expanse of the civic building’s portico and noticed the dead-eyed cameras.
“They even found a way to take the surveillance offline, I’m guessing.”
The Magistratus cleared his throat. His long face looking distinctly sallow beneath the carefully trimmed black hair. He lifted one hand, palm forward, the heavy gold patrician ring of Citizenship very obvious on his index finger.
“Um. I’m terribly afraid that might be my fault. I was testing it late yesterday afternoon and I told the disadattatus I would restore it to normal mode as it was the end of his working day, but I must have forgotten and I suppose it stayed down overnight. Mea culpa. Isn’t there a night watchman of some sort?”
“Used to be, dominus,” Bryn said heavily. “Until Aprilis. That was when the last man retired and as the automatic surveillance had been upgraded it wasn’t felt necessary to replace him.”
“Oh dear. That is not good, not good at all.” The Magistratus looked profoundly unhappy and shook his head. “The poor, poor man.”
Dai was wondering whether the ‘poor man’ in question was the retiring watchman, the disadattatus or the deceased when he caught the look Bryn sent him.
“Dominus, we should allow SI Cartivel to continue this murder investigation. As long as we are here it is getting in the way of what he needs to do.”
“Oh. Yes. Of course.” He started walking towards his office and Dai walked with him leaving Bryn giving clipped and efficient orders to his team. “Two Roman Citizens killed in this bizarre way.” He frowned heavily. “Wasn’t there some extreme Anti-Roman group operating in this area recently?”
“Yes, dominus. We had an unpleasant encounter with such a group last year. But they were dealt with conclusively.”
“Such evil can grow deep roots and spring up like mushrooms. But if you are certain, Llewellyn…” He trailed off as another thought clearly distracted him. “Considering how this is going I think I should take over the investigation myself.”
Dai felt his guts tighten. The new Magistratus had been in Viriconium for less than three weeks and in that time the impression he had made was not one to inspire any confidence in his ability to lead an investigation.
“Might I suggest, dominus that as you are still settling in and are not fully acquainted with the local circumstances, it might be better to let me do so.”
The Magistratus stopped on the spot.
“Well isn’t that the point? How am I ever going to get to know how things are here if I don’t jump in and get my hands dirty? Oh, don’t worry. I won’t be breathing down the neck of the local Vigiles – I’m sure they know what they need to do, I’ll just be overseeing not interfering. This is the kind of thing that can echo all the way to Augusta Trevorum and even Rome, you know. I just want to keep across it so if there is any come back I am the one who gets to do the testudu and your Vigiles won’t have to worry about taking any flak.”
Dai stifled the urge to snap that the Vigiles wouldn’t need any protecting if they were just left to do their job, but clearly the Magistratus meant well and was trying to show care and consideration for his subordinates.
The Magistratus placed a heavy hand on Dai’s shoulder.
“I know I have a very large set of sandals to fill to be able to measure up to Magistratus Ambrosius, but I want my people to know I have their backs. So I’ll have my primus secretarius – what’s his name again? Turtle? Turnbull? Terfel. That’s it – arrange for SI Cartivel to brief me twice daily and on any key developments. I can provide any support and resources as the investigation might require.” He nodded as if well satisfied by his own solution to the issue then smiled encouragingly at Dai. “It’ll be for the best.”
From Dying on the Mosaics by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago
This is primarily aimed at the distaff side of the population – although it wouldn’t hurt the male of the species to read it, or a similar essay, before charging off to Victoria’s Secrets with lust in their eyes and no idea of size.
But I digress.
Underwear.
What a daily conundrum it is.
Let’s see if we can unwind it a bit.
The brassiere. Nature’s way of reminding us that being a woman sucks. If you are possessed of a small, pert bosom ignore the next couple of paragraphs they probably don’t apply. But for the rest of us there is always the brassiere dilemma.
To wear. Or not.
Underwires. Or not.
Padding. Or not.
Front fastening. Rear fastening. Climb in.
There are too many choices and most are lousy. So let’s dig down to the best advice there is – that of an old woman who has tried the effing lot.
If you can get away with it, don’t wear a bra – they are the inventions of Satan.
If you have to immolate yourself because you need to for comfort and to avoid having pendulums swinging over your stomach, get measured properly and buy the best you can afford. With a bit of luck you will avoid shoulder ruts and undertit pinches. Good luck.
Having disposed of the bustenhalter let us take a passing slap at leg coverings.
sighs and lights ciggy
In an ideal world we would all wear trousers. All of the time. Long trousers in winter and maybe a little shorter in warm weather. But the world is not ideal, and women wear skirts. Why is beyond my comprehension. However, it is a fact and it needs to be dealt with.
In the summer you may be tempted to go for the bare-legged look. This is fine and very comfortable. But. If your legs are neon white and look like some child has been drawing on them with a blue biro it may be kinder to the rest of the world to slap on a bit of fake tan before venturing out. Or not if you really don’t care.
For more formal occasions there are the horrors of delicate fine tights, or, even worse, stockings and suspenders. Don’t do either. The tights will either crawl up your bum crack or droop into concertina like folds. And it goes without saying that one leg will be twisted – giving your walk something of the air of Quasimodo on a night out. Does that leave us with the huge physical and mental discomfort of stockings and suspenders* as our only option, do I hear you cry? No. If you really have to look like a member of the royal family on a walkabout get a pair of hold-ups with a decently wide elastic top and hope for the best.
*Hint. If you must wear these godawful things the suspenders straps go inside your knickers (not how it is depicted on the front of your/his favourite soft porno). Get this wrong and you will be unable to drop your pants to piss.
An aside here is those items of underwear that claim to slim you that’s anything from corsets to control knickers. They. Do. Not. Work. All they do is shift unwanted flesh from A to B or C. That roll around your waist will just be pushed up above your foundation garment in such a way as to make you appear to have grown an extra pair of breasts. If you care about being fat lose weight.
And finally. Knickers, or panties as our colonial cousins call them. You’re on your own here. I have only one piece of wisdom to impart. Thongs…
Just don’t.
You can now have a collection of Granny’s inimitable insights of your very own in Granny Knows Best.
Sol sat hunched in front of his computer. His sister, Sal, stood behind him, her impatience was like little needles in the back of his neck.
“Back off sis. I can’t afford to make a mistake now.”
She moved away with evident reluctance.
When Sol rolled his chair back, Sal pounced on him.
“Have you done it?”
“I hope so.”
“What do you mean, hope? Have you done it? Will it work?”
He grabbed her by the shoulders.
“Be quiet. Watch. We’ll know soon enough.”
She wriggled in his grip and he turned her to face the screen.
The figures had stopped and the screen was blue.
“Good,” he mumbled, “so far so good”.
He watched intently as the blue started to bleed into green, then yellow.
“Come on,” he whispered, “work”.
For about fifteen seconds the yellow held and Sol sighed. He opened his mouth to explain that he had failed, but the yellow gave way to a blank screen.
He leaned forward and touched the shift key. The printer at the other side of the room started to chatter and he ran to look at the sheet of paper it was spewing out. The loopy handwriting and random crossings out made his heart swell with pleasure and pride.
“There it is,” he exulted, “the algorithm we wrote has created the first chapter of the next Inspector Evans novel. We don’t need Mother, she can carry on drinking herself to death and we won’t starve.”
Dear Reader Who Writes,
It always behoves me to assume that there will be at least one new reader of my inspirational course on ‘How to Start Writing a Book’. So to that gentle reader I doff my hat and reveal that I am none other than Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV – author of the brilliant and inventive novel, “Fatswhistle and Buchtooth”, a seminal work exploring the furthest conceptual reaches of science fiction and fantasy.
Today’s topic came to me a while ago and then I was distracted by my Muse offering other, more pressingly urgent dangleberries of wisdom and demanding that those took precedence. But then my focus was rehoned to the point by Mumsie walking into my writing cave, bearing her trademark pernod and ginger wine in a champagne flute with the inevitable green olive drifting in the murk. “Oh my god, Moons, this place stinks worse than a sumo wrestlers jock-strap!” I delicately pointed out that she was referring to my vetiver, bergamot and lemongrass aromatherapy oil, blended expressly to induce higher states of creativity.
Mummy was not, however, much impressed by this revelation. Instead she picked up my pristine first edition copy of Fatswhistle and Buchtooth and opened it, bending the spine and splattering droplets of her alcoholic creosote over it’s pages. Before I could recover from the horror of her deed, she had dropped the irreplaceably precious item back on my desk. “Don’t they say you can’t tell a book by the cover? Got it wrong with yours though. Shite inside and out.”
A book cover needs to be a visual precis of your prose. It should capture and enrapture the roving eye as a reader runs through the rows of books either on a shelf in a shop or on a scrolling screen. Yours must be the cover that cries out as that putative reader sifts through stacks of books to find their next favourite fiction.
But how is this achieved? If you read the academic artists they will talk of proportions, the Golden Mean, of colour strengths and shades and other esoteric claptrap. It is actually stunningly simple – make it red.
Red is the most eye-catching colour as everyone knows. We are all primally preprogrammed to see red as a signal of something requiring our attention. Therefore, so long as your cover is red your book will be read.
A more sophisticated and subtle touch can be achieved by drawing on that other universal colour combination guaranteed to draw the eye – black and yellow. Our perceptions are precisely honed to hover our eyes on anything that resembles hornets or wasps. So, if red is not appropriate for your magnificent tome – black and yellow may well serve the same end.
Of course, to be sure, combine the two concepts.
Oh and put a naked lady on it, ideally headless.
Follow these infallible rules and you will create a cover that none will miss and your book will bound from shelves be those physical or metaphorical.
Until next time, au revoir mes petites poissons.
Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV
You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.
Built upon an asteroid, these mighty habitation towers are the final stronghold of humanity in a star system ravaged by a long-ago war. Now, centuries after the apocalyptic conflict, the city thrives — a utopia for the rich who live at the top, built on the labours of the poor stuck below. Starway Pathfinders is a science fiction show that entertains the better off and brings hope to the poor…
“We don’t have any real choice, do we?”
They were on the glides home and it was slowly sinking in. Joah had signed a dozen different contracts and now Starways Pathfinders had gone from being an entertainment to… What? A top class project or a political scam?
“No. None.” Zarshay sounded more speculative than upset.
Joah looked at her sharply.
“We are being roped in to con the entire population.”
Zarshay grinned at her and nodded. “That is what our President and his coterie intend, yes. There will be promises and claims. Probably even some attempt at designing a ship that could do the job, but we have nothing that could go fast enough. Everyone knows FTL is pure science-fiction — it breaks the laws of physics.”
“But?”
“But nothing. It won’t work. So, there will be a load of money raised for whatever the Strands’ private purpose might be.”
“And we are the bait — our show is the bait.” Joah could hear the bitterness in her own voice.
Zarshay squeezed her arm and said nothing, but she was smiling to herself as if at some private joke all the rest of the way home.
“Oh please, Dog, just for one event. You, me, dinner, dancing, the media. Is it too much to ask?”
Dog ran his fingers through his hair and looked down into the warm pools of Heila’s eyes. Her face was tilted at the perfect angle to display the soft expression of appeal. He felt his jaw grow tight and his lips compressed. This was not good. There was no escape either as they were waiting together in the changing room. Their basic costume was all they had to worry about, everything else would be added by Joah in the editing — makeup, effects, everything. Dog sometimes felt it didn’t even matter how well or badly he acted as even that could be put right in Joah’s magic post-production booth.
“Pu-leese, darling?” Heila must have thought his hesitation was doubt or indecision. It wasn’t. He just couldn’t think of how to say ‘no’ without sounding too rude.
“I said before; I wasn’t going to do that sort of stuff except for the show,” he told her.
“This is for the show, it’ll be a Captain Gervain and Sub-Commander Stude thing, not a Heila Camarthy and Hengast Gethick thing.”
“I’ve not had any word from Joah about it.”
The soft expression slipped a little, like the padding from a hard chair. He doubted anyone else would have seen it, except maybe Zarshay, but he’d spent too many days in the last three years staring into that face and watching it shift moods with plastic elasticity. He wondered if even Heila knew who she really was or what she really felt anymore.
“It’s not like it would cost you anything, Dog — and the chance to get your face and mine on the top of everyone’s newsfeed has to be worth it.”
Worth it for who?
Dog was spared having to say that or thinking of a better reply by Zarshay bundling into the changing room and dropping her hooded costume on a bench.
“Glad I grabbed you before you got changed,” she said, we have a team meeting with Joah whilst Wilf is setting up.
Star Dust by E.M. Swift-Hook, originally appeared in The Last City, a shared-universe anthology. This version is the ‘Author’s Cut’ and differs, very slightly, from that original. Next week – Episode 0111
Things are not quite how you might remember them in the 100 Acre Wood for Christopher Robin, Pooh Bear and their friends…
***** ***** *****
Puppy dog, puppy dog
Where have you been?
I’ve been in the garden
To keep the house clean.
Puppy dog, puppy dog,
What did you there?
I pooped under the rose bush
Then peed up the chair
Puppy dog, puppy dog
Why did you do that?
I couldn’t quite make it
When chasing the cat.
Puppy dog, puppy dog
That is so bad!
I know I’ve been naughty
But please don’t be mad.
Puppy dog, puppy dog,
You know it’s forbidden
I know and I’m sorry,
So am I forgiven?
Puppy dog, puppy dog
Oh what can I do?
Just cuddle and love me
And I’ll love you too.
The day that a patronising little shit of a TV presenter told our heroine she had won a ‘life-changing’ amount of money was a good day. Firstly because she likes winning, and secondly because the aforementioned patronising bastard had his hand on her ass as he said it, thereby giving her the excuse to haul off and belt him one. It was a good punch, leaving him winded and retching. And the best of it was that the cameras were still rolling. But that’s at the end of the story. It would be better to start somewhere nearer the beginning
Messing around with the iPad can be injurious to your health and no more so than the day Jen Evans came across an advert for a new game show. ‘Little physical exertion’ it said ‘but contestants will need good general knowledge and nerves of steel.’ She passed the pad to her long-time partner Adam, who laughed.
“Nerves of titanium, more like” he grinned. “Whyn’t you apply?”
She did. On a whim. And promptly forgot about it.
An email asking for more details about her caused Jen and Adam great hilarity as they vied with each other to be more and more outrageous whilst remaining more or less within the boundaries of truth.
“They won’t” she said cheerfully “be wanting a forty-year-old woman with attitude.”
He grinned. “No. Maybe not. Most don’t. Ain’t you glad I do!”
“Ditto, smart arse.”
Surprise hardly comes close to their reaction – actually the pair of them giggled like schoolgirls – when a bulky envelope arrived in the post. It contained all sorts of information leaflets and an invitation to attend an elimination weekend somewhere in the Brecon Beacons. As most of the leaflets were about extreme sports, she declined the kind offer.
“Creepy bastards” she said brightly as they walked to the Post Office with her somewhat brisk letter of refusal.
It turned out that not only were the people behind the concept creepy, they were also convoluted, because refusing the offered weekend was the way to pass the first round of eliminations. Jen got a letter, a few days after her ‘stuff it’ missive, offering a place at the next round of eliminations in southern Spain. She gave the letter to Adam, who read it twice: once quickly and once carefully. He put the paper down.
“I dunno what to think. But you might be getting close to being chosen, so you’d better decide whether you want to do it or not.”
“No. Not specially. I think I’ll just duck out now.”
“Okay.”
She stuffed the letter back in its envelope with a post it note saying ‘thanks but no thanks’ and returned it from whence it came.
“Thank fuck that’s over.”
Nothing happened for a couple months, so it came as a complete surprise to get an email asking if some people from the production company could come visit.
“It’s your call.” Adam looked at her over his reading glasses.
“No then.”
But they came anyway.
It was a lovely May morning when Jen noticed the shiny new Range Rover parking opposite and wondered idly who had so far lost their way as to find themselves in the one-cat hamlet she called home. She didn’t have to wonder for long, as two people climbed out of the car and scurried across the road, knocking importantly on the front door of her house.
It was one of the cleaning lady’s days, so she opened the door. The uninvited visitors took a couple steps back at the sight of the mountain of muscle and tattoos that was Albany Brown. To do them justice they recovered fast, and the man surged forward with one hand outstretched. Mrs B ignored the hand and stared down at them.
“We’re from One Thick Monkey Productions” the man said in rather forced tones. “Here to see Jennifer Evans.”
Mrs B shut the door in their faces and came to find Jen.
“Will I let them in, ask what they want, or tell them to piss off?”
Leo was hugely amused. “Ask what they want.”
She rolled back to the door and opened it a crack.
“Ms Evans wants to know what you are here for.”
The man turned a smile of blinding whiteness on her.
“We’re here to persuade her to become a contestant in our newest venture. A global game show like nothing that has ever been before.”
He made to walk in, but the door was firmly slammed shut.
“You hear that?”
“Yes.”
“You want I should let them in?”
“No.”
A couple of hours later Adam found Jen weeding in the back garden. He wobbled his eyebrows.
“They aren’t going to go away, you know.”
“They have to go some time…”
He grinned wickedly. “Not unless you chase them away with the twelve bore.”
“What d’you suggest Clever Dick.”
“Let them in. Listen politely.”
She snarled at him and he just grinned wider.
“Okay. You win. Invite them in. But no offer of refreshment. And if they want the john it’s the one out back.”
“We’re agreed on that” he smirked evilly and sloped off to the Range Rover, returning a couple of minutes later with the dubious duo in tow.
Mrs B decided to join in the fun, and leaned against the kitchen wall with her arms folded across her impressively corseted chest.
Jen was brisk. “Sit. You have ten minutes.”
Mister Corporate started fiddling about in his briefcase.
“Nine minutes thirty seconds.”
He looked up with a hint of panic his eyes before he continued his frantic scrabbling. It was noticeable that his female companion was having trouble keeping a straight face.
“What you lost?” Mrs B showed her gold tooth in a grin.
“The contract Ms Evans needs to sign. It’s not here,” Mister Corporate declared dramatically “Caroline. Go and search the car.”
Jen looked at his hair gel and his revolting tie and felt her gorge rise.
“It must have been you left it behind,” she said. “Whyn’t you go fetch it?”
“Because she’s a girl,” he spluttered. Then he bethought himself and tried for a charming smile.
Jen sneered.
“Tell you what, you pop out and sit in the car and let us girls have a nice chat.”
He opened his mouth again and both Jen and Mrs B glared at him. For a moment there was an impasse then he shrugged his shoulders and left. Adam grinned at his departing back.
“You haven’t made a friend there.”
“That’s fine. I’m not running for election.”
The girl, Caroline, smiled.
“I’m not sure I should thank you for that. He’ll have his vengeance.”
“Not if you get him first.”
I could see her thinking about that one, then a slow, vicious grin spread across her rather plain face. She sat up straight.
“Okay. How long do I have to pitch this thing to you?”
“Not long. I bore easily.”
It was boring. Very boring. But Caroline stuck to her guns. In the end the flood of words wore Jen down sufficiently so that she agreed to read information pack, promising to let the production company know by the end of the week.
Caroline went out and climbed into the Range Rover. A stony faced corporate man started the engine and the car pulled away. Jen put the pack of paper on the table and grinned her three-cornered grin.
“You’re gonna do it aren’t you?” Adam asked.
“Very probably.”
“Because?”
“Two reasons. One. It starts just after you go to Saudi for six months and even if I get right to the end it finishes just as you get back. Two. The buggers see me as canon fodder. I’d kinda like to prove them wrong.”
“Three. You didn’t like Mister Corporate a bit. However you did quite like his sidekick.”
“True. What’d you think.”
“I think it might amuse you while I’m gainfully employed for the last time. So fine. But. No risks. I’ll have your promise.”
“Physical risks?”
“Yeah. I’d not expect you to get through a day without rocking somebody’s boat.”
He grinned and hugged her. She hugged back.
“Looks like I’m going to sign up for Mind Games then don’t it?”
“It does.”
Two months passed and Adam finished his secondment in England. Jen packed his bags for him, and took him to Heathrow, where he boarded a flight to his last ever assignment. In Saudi Arabia.
Jen went home and shut up the cottage before presenting herself at Bristol airport early one Sunday morning. She wore combats and carried a very small bag. The brainless bird who signed her in looked at her luggage with something akin to pity.
“That all you have?’
“No. But the rest is invisible.”
In spite of the rolling syllables of his name Marius Quintillus Sextus was a plain man, plain of features and plain-spoken, and perfectly aware that the Military Governorship of Kythera was a two-edged sword. On one hand, the climate was pleasant and the women had the reputation of being as friendly as they were beautiful. On the other side of the coin, the politics were murky, the religion beyond understanding, and the corruption all but defied belief.
However, he determined to do as good a job as circumstances would permit, and by the time the season of the Bull Dancing was upon them, he and his staff had begun to create order from the chaos left behind by an ineffectual predecessor and his unscrupulous staff.
As tradition demanded, the Governor took a break from his duties to attend the first Bull Dances of the season, alongside the great and the good of Kytheran society.
First up were the littlest dancers who practised jumps and forward rolls and back flips with the aid of imitation bulls made of wood and leather and pushed around on wheels. Marius leaned forward in his seat and applauded the tiny tots’ remarkable athleticism. When their display was over the little ones ran to the side of the arena in front of the governor’s box and all bowed. Marius had done his homework, and was able to broadcast handfuls of wrapped sweetmeats to the row of children who scrambled for the largesse before running off.
As the age of the participants rose, their bovine opponents grew fiercer, and the dances grew more and more complex and beautiful. Time and again, Marius found himself on the edge of his seat as the young men and women demonstrated levels of courage, skill, timing and athleticism that put anything else he had ever seen to shame, as they vied to snatch brightly coloured ribbon rosettes from the horns of the cattle.
He thought he had seen all there was to see and was even becoming a little blasé when the arena gates opened to allow in a huge black bull with sharpened gilded horns and polished hooves. The stable hands whistled and banged pots and the bull careered around the arena working itself up into a state of absolute rage. When it was all but foaming at the mouth, a single bare-breasted girl ran onto the raked white sand – dancing over, under, and around the furious animal, which carried a white ribbon rosette between its horns.
“That is Pasiphea,” Marius’ secretarius murmured, “three seasons champion”.
The girl was like quicksilver, with a taut, athletic little body that had even the normally pragmatic Marius thinking distinctly erotic thoughts. He watched narrowly, coming to realise that she could have snatched the rosette many times and that she was putting on a show for the assembled company. In a final flourish she performed three forward flips along the enraged animal’s spine before plucking the rosette and jumping neatly to the ground.
Then disaster struck. The raked white sand must have been poorly packed and the dancer landed with her foot in a hole. As she went down in a heap the bull was facing away from her, but it was only going to be a matter of time before it turned.
Excerpt from The Bull Dancer which can be found in Pulling the Rug Two by Jane Jago one of many books of poetry, short stories, and full-sized fictional adventures you can find in the Sweet Free Summertime Reads giveaway!
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