June
Beneath the moon
As lovers spoon
I’m sunk in gloom
It is my doom
To act the buffoon
In June

©jj 2021

When your father fights on the losing side in a war, the only thing that is certain is uncertainty. Your home will probably be sequestered, your family assets seized, and your person may be open to abuse. Any young woman so beleaguered should be grateful if the man to whom the victorious leader gifts her family lands decides to marry her to further legitimise his claim. 
Mary Ashleigh reminded herself of this fact, while her reluctant feet trod the worn flagstones to where a fussy little priest with a streaming cold waited to marry her to a man she had never met. 
As she reached the altar rail where her bridegroom waited, she risked a glance before dropping her eyes in proper modesty. She got an impression of great height and very wide shoulders, but little more than that. As the priest stumbled his way through the short service Mary made her responses in her customarily placid manner, while the man spoke equally calmly, if in a voice as deep and unknowable as a thunderstorm in a far valley.
It seemed to take no time at all until the parson was proclaiming them man and wife. To her surprise, her new husband tucked her hand under his arm as he walked her from the building. This emboldened her to such an extent that she looked up.
The face that she beheld was square of jaw and sandy of hair and a little forbidding in its very strength, but withal he seemed to her to be a very proper man and to be looking at her with at least the semblance of friendliness. She smiled up at him and he patted the hand that lay in the crook of his arm.
“I am sorry that we could not meet before this day,” he said.
Mary’s surprise must have shown because he laughed, a deep and somehow comforting sound which emboldened her to speak. 
“It was more kindness than I expected when you chose to wed me.”
His voice when he replied was solemn. “You should not feel like that, although I can understand why you might. Do you know someone who has been misused?”
Mary looked at her feet for a moment before responding. “I do, sir. My cousin Catherine. She has a big belly now, but no husband.”
“Who did such a thing?”
“She don’t know sir. They shared her.”
He made a sound of disgust deep in his throat. “And where is the lady now?”
“She is at the manor. Hoping to become your pensioner as she was my father’s.” Greatly daring she turned and faced her husband. “Catherine,” she said in a tiny voice, “is very beautiful.”
“And you are not?”
“No sir. I am a plain little dab of a thing. My father was at great pains to be sure I understood that.”
He looked down into her earnest features and she could have sworn that the expression that crossed his face was pity. Putting his hand under her chin he held her face still while he looked deeply into her eyes.
“Not so plain,” he said consideringly, “not so plain at all. You have skin like the petals of a rose and your eyes are as clear and clean as a moorland stream. I think we will walk well together if you will it so.”
Mary felt the greatest part of her worries slipping away. “I do so will it sir.”
He patted her hand. “Listen, my wife. When we are in company I must always be the cold, hard master of the house. But when we are alone you may look to see the kinder side of me.”
Mary dimpled. “Will it be wise if I am the colourless, obedient wife in company?”
“It will. And my name is William. It would please me to hear you use it.”
“Yes William. It is a fine name, I think.”
“You, I believe are Mary. A favourite name of mine.”
He smiled benignly down at her and actually caressed the hand that lay in the crook of his arm, before straightening and assuming an expression of cold superiority as they neared the open door of the manor house. 
Mary dropped her eyes to the floor and schooled her own features. They entered the flagstoned hallway to find every member of the small household neatly turned out and awaiting their new master. Mary introduced them, and her husband spoke to each in calm clipped tones. He left no doubt of who was master, and Mary had to admire his composure. Last to be introduced was Catherine. Beautiful raven-haired Catherine whose eyes were as green as grass and whose figure was lissom and graceful even with the slight bulge of her pregnant belly. Mary couldn’t help a little frisson of fear as she saw her husband’s eyes turn to the pretty member of the Ashleigh family. 
Catherine swept a magnificent curtesy, almost seeming to invite William’s attention to focus on the creamy slopes of her bosom. As she rose from her curtesy, with a matchless grace as yet undiminished by her pregnancy, she lifted her eyelids and looked him straight in the eye before dropping her long, white eyelids and wetting her lips with the tip of her pointed, pink tongue. 
William, however, had already stopped looking and was leading his wife into the parlour. Catherine made as if to follow them but the door was shut firmly in her face. She hissed.  
Inside the sunny room, Mary showed her husband a visage of stark misery before managing to pull herself together. He took her sad face in both hands.
“Why so sorrowful?”
Being unused to the arts of coquetry she answered him with the plain truth.
“I was thinking that now you have seen Catherine you must be regretting your marriage to me. She is an Ashleigh too, and so much more what you deserve.”
William laughed. “If I did not understand your way of thinking, my wife, I would be insulted.”
“Insulted? But she is a beauty, and so clever and bright. I can do naught but keep house and stitch…” 
He put a gentle hand over her lips.
“My dear wife. I have seen the like of your cousin before. She is what they would call a light skirt. But you have no idea what that means do you?”
Mary shook her head.
“It means that your cousin encourages men to take liberties with her person.”
“Oh.” Then Mary thought about what William was saying and many things made sense. “Oh, that is why she is so different with men than with women. Do you think her culpable in her situation?”
“I do not know, my wife. But I would not be surprised.”
There came a tap on the door.
“Enter.” William spoke in a cold severe voice.
The door opened to admit Catherine with her eyes carefully downcast. “Cousin, forgive my interruption, I believe I left my needlework in this room.” 
With that, she put a delicate hand to her forehead and crumpled gracefully into a heap of silken skirts. Somehow as she fell her cap came loose and a wealth of night black hair tumbled about her slender form. William looked down at her and smiled tautly. He bent and picked up the still form, throwing her over one great shoulder as if she was naught but a sack of grain. As he left the room, Catherine opened her eyes and shot Mary a look of barbed hatred mixed with scathing triumph. Mary sat down and awaited developments. She had not long to wait. 
William strode back into the room and shut the door behind him with what was suspiciously close to a slam. He came over to where Mary sat and dropped to his knees beside her chair.
“Mary,” he said with a tread of humour in his deep voice, “your cousin is little better than a wharfside whore.”
Having no idea what he meant, Mary kept her counsel, simply looking into his strong, somewhat harsh, features as calmly as she could. He gave a queer groan and pulled her into his arms, bending his mouth to hers. He kissed her lips, gently at first but then she could feel his mouth growing more urgent against hers. He used his tongue to part her lips and the feel of it invading her mouth sent queer little tingles through her body. He abandoned her mouth, and lifted her into his arms.
“I should wait for this,” he murmured, “but I am not made of stone.” 
  It was some goodly while later and Mary, having very little notion how she got from her parlour to the bedchamber, lay against her husband’s chest idly running her hands through the auburn hair that dusted its surface. She sighed.
“Why the sigh, my wife?”
She dared to lift herself onto her elbows and look down into his face. She thought he looked younger now, and somehow less formidable, but even so she arranged her thoughts carefully before she spoke.
“I am thinking that it was a happy sigh. But I am also worrying that I should not have enjoyed that which passed between us quite so much.”
His laugh was a sound of pure joy and he tumbled her from his chest, rolling to pin her between his hard body and the soft feather mattress. He bent his head and kissed her until she lay boneless in his embrace. Then he smiled. “I am only grateful that you are open to the pleasures of the flesh. It is a gift to us.” 
It was with no little regret that the newlyweds dressed themselves and left the sanctuary of their bed, but there was business to be seen to and neither was of that careless nature that can laugh at tasks undone. 

The Puritan’s Wife is one of the stories in in pulling the rug iii by Jane Jago and part two will be our Weekend Wind Down next Saturday.

It doesn’t take much
Just a moment
A smile to lighten the heart
Just one gentle touch
Is maybe enough
Tell someone you’re taking their part

When life is being
all contrary
A stranger’s words can be so right
Just one litle thing
Said with a grin
May help someone else to feel bright

So next time you’re out
and you notice
That face with a sadly worn frown
Please wish them good day
Those words you say
May help them to feel much less down.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Barbecues

Alright so I know we’ve all had to get used to socialising al fresco recently, but there are ways and means. Why a bloody barbecue?

Has nobody got a functioning kitchen any more? There is nothing stopping you cooking up a delicious delight in the house then serving it up to the ravening mob properly cooked and tasting like food, not like someone just emptied the barbecue charcoal onto the plate and cut out the middle man!

I have lost count of the sorrowful events I have attended where the amateur chef of the house proudly serves up chicken/sausage/beefburger which is burnt on the outside and raw in the middle and has bits of grass cuttings, leaf mould and dead flies embedded.

Even Gyp won’t eat it.

Any why is it seen as a test of manhood to be able to provide burnt offerings on a grand scale, whilst alienating the neighbours with the fug of black smoke drifting over the hedge?

In order to barbecue properly it is necessary to have lit the charcoal a week ago last Wednesday and marinated the meat in vast quantities of olive oil and spices for days.

And still…

Honestly? Do. Not. Do. It. You’ll have half your friends down with gut ache from the undercooked offerings and the other half off to the dentist with a cracked tooth from the charred ones.

And worse – you’ll then have to attend their food incineration sessions every bloody weekend for the rest of the summer!

It doesn’t matter what you think – this is Granny’s opinion and it’s not up for discussion!

Next morning, Big Bigger went off in his car, with his goff sticks in the boot while the house remained silent.
Bashem and Royal Flush sat on the lawn picking their noses and speculating.
Royal Flush who saw himself as a psychologist pushed out his lip. “Mid-life crisis,” he opined.
Hamish McSporran who was passing with a barrowload of fertiliser, flicked him with shit.
“Mid-life crisis ma bum, ye big bawbie. The mon’s just asserting his authority.”
Big Bigger returned with an even bigger tv, lots of pizza, and an enormous bunch of flowers.
“Asserting hisself,” Bertha snorted.

©️jj 2021

Excerpt from the bestiary of Thomas Bookbinder: There is a race set apart from the rest of us, who are in appearance half Man and half demon. They call themselves The People and their function is to maintain the balance between good and evil. They are a force for the right, and they are said to speak with Angels…

When Aascko son of Aasgo became a fully fledged Hunter his pride knew no bounds. He had learned diligently, and his Teacher had even managed to shake some of the moral certainties that a rigid and unimaginative upbringing had rooted in his head. He was no longer the arrogant youngling who had reported for training, and he knew that his further development would depend on who had been chosen to partner the greenest rookie in the pack. His first winter saw him paired with a stolid oldster, who steadied him and taught him who might be trusted and who he should be wary of. 
Then the old Hunter retired, leaving Aascko partnerless and vulnerable. He went on a couple of low grade jobs before being called to the home of the Master Hunter to meet his permanent partner. He found himself more nervous than he had been since his first day of training and was forced to wipe sweaty palms on his trousers before knocking on the door of the Master’s office. The old Hunter stood up to greet him.
‘Welcome Aascko. Come and meet Aaspa.’
Aascko felt a cold finger on his spine. Of all the Hunters in the pack,  he was to be paired with the Abomination. He steeled himself and held out a hand. A slight figure uncoiled itself from the chair in the corner of the room and he beheld her for the first time. She was beautiful, slender and strong, with silver-grey skin, aristocratic features, and a crest of night black curls. Then he saw her eyes and it was all he could do not to recoil. He held firm, and kept a smile of polite greeting on his face. Even so, she saw the revulsion in him and the pleasant smile on her own face faded.
‘Forget it’ she said shortly. ‘This one has too much baggage.’
The Master a Hunter held up a hand. ‘Please Aaspa. Do this for me. Aascko deserves a chance.’
‘With respect, Master, I don’t think he wants a chance. He can barely bring himself to touch my hand. What sort of a partnership will that be? How should I trust a partner who thinks my very existence violates the rules of being? The first chance he gets he’ll betray me.’
Aascko felt his cheeks flame with embarrassment. ‘No lady. I would not sink so low.’
She turned to look at him and he saw the hurt that lurked in those blue eyes. It hit him like a hammer blow.
‘The eyes of The People are brown and no other colour’ she said bitterly. ‘I expect you were brought up reciting that alongside the other commandments.’
‘I was. But I’ve already had most of my certainties shaken. That one is about due to be amended too.’
‘Why should I believe you?’
‘I can give you no reason, save my oath.’
‘And why would you give your oath to Abomination?’
He met her gaze straightforwardly. ‘Because I need a partner and so do you. Also, I have heard of your skill and I would learn from the best. I would not offer friendship to anyone on first meeting, but I would promise my loyalty. Will you accept my word?’
She regarded him solemnly for a moment then nodded. He bent his knee before her.
‘Huntress Aaspa I pledge my fealty from this day forward.’ 
Then he stood up and offered his hand. She took it, and he noticed how finely boned she was. 
‘I’m sorry’ he said honestly. ‘I find myself ashamed.’
She favoured him with a twisted grin.
‘Forget it. It happens all the time.’
‘I dare say. But that don’t make it right. It makes it worse.’
‘Maybe we do have a chance at forging a partnership’ she bumped knuckles with him. ‘We’ll give it a go.’   

From Aaspa’s Eyes by Jane Jago

Advice on growing old disgracefully from an elderly delinquent with many years of expertise in the art – plus free optional snark…

If your’re old then you should keep to this
And not be caught having a kiss
With a handsom young buck
Who just had a luck-
Key escape from a much younger miss!

E.M. Swift-Hook

Action replay.
Same arena.
Twenty-four hours later.
This time, though, there were two bodies.

One was another British contestant, Tam Docca ‘Fly Boy’, from the Valentia Game team, but it was the second corpse lying as if awaiting funeral rites that had Dai’s fullest attention. Quintillas Publius Luca – son of a Roman Senator and a proper one at that, from proper Rome – not one of those who sat in Augusta Treverorum, giving themselves airs.
Trev, as Dai and most Britons thought of it, was the capital of Prefecture Galliae, home to the man who ruled Britannia and much of the Northern and Western parts of the continent as well. It was one of the four original Prefectures, each governed by its own Caesar, established by the Divine Diocletian under his sole rule as God-Emperor of a new Roman Empire.
According to the information Dai was getting, Luca was not supposed to even be in the province. There were media images which showed him in some small provincial town, identified as Lutetia in Gallia Lugdunensis, sipping cocktails on a terrace overlooking a river, with his gorgeous patrician bride of a year, one Marcella Tullia Junius. The same article claimed Luca was away from Rome on a long-term project to regenerate and oversee the family’s estates in Gallia.
“You would think,” Bryn observed dryly, “that after last night they would have kept a watch. Security cameras all down still and I bet no one saw a thing, just like before. That’ll put a sour look on the face of that jobsworth Flavia.”
Dai shot his decanus a look.
“Shut up, Bryn, you spado. I’m thinking.”
The decanus chuckled.
“It ain’t often I can get the Bard to swear,” he remarked happily. “Let’s see if I can shake a few more curses out of those pure Celtic lips. You know they’ll sic a Roman on us? This is too big for us local yokels.”
“Yeah. Just as long as it isn’t Titillicus…”
“Oh, course you won’t have heard. Titillicus is no longer a factor. He got in a ruck with the Tribune, who sent him home to his mammy.”
“In disgrace?”
“Nah. In a body bag. Seems he pulled a knife.”
“Moron. But what was the row about?”
“As if you couldn’t guess.”
“He didn’t?”
“Yep. The Tribune’s wife under the very eyes of the family lares.”
Dai grinned viciously. He had never liked working with Titillicus, the kind of Roman who assumed he ruled the Province and owned every provincial he encountered. Surely whoever they sent from Trev HQ would have to be better than that?

From Dying to be Roman by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

The biggers were at it again: something about a trip to the Muffdives being cancelled.
Mother Bigger was throwing one: something about her tan. The teenagers, of course, were completely over the top.
Big Bigger started shouting, and the gnomes all ducked as something flew through a window that wasn’t open.
Everyone fell facedown as a flatscreen tv wound up in the pond, where it made a peculiar hissing noise and sunk without trace.
Big Bertha ambled over for a look.
“Best none of us was here.”
The gnomes faded as Big Bigger emerged to see what he had wrought.

©️jj 2021

Caer sat on his pony looking at the dead body on the ground and wondering if he should send more scouts back towards the road, almost a day’s trek behind the caravan. This man had been alone, half-mad and no threat to the caravan, but others might even now be following the same path that they had taken from the road and for the same reason they had taken it: others who were scouts for brigands, bandits or bigger caravans than his own.
He spat in the dirt and narrowed his eyes as he looked past the file of wagons, ponies and people. It was late afternoon and his breath misted slightly in the air. The long cold winter was over, but in the barren Wastelands, spring was always slow to come. The air still carried a biting chill, even in the heat of the day and the distant peaks kept their mantle of snow and ice, tinged with crimson by the light of the huge red sun. Spring was having to claw its way free of winter’s greedy clutches so that Temsevar could bask in an all too brief season of warmth and growth.
The Wastelands were vast and magnificent. Here and there, standing proud and alone in the plain, like the lost sentinels of a forgotten age, were towering flat-topped mountains of rock, some so massive they were too big to cross in a day on foot. It was as though at some point in the distant past the ground had simply dropped away, leaving the high plateaux stranded above, like giant stepping stones, creating a two-tier terrain. If in the winter, these high grounds were the coldest and most exposed, in the spring they seemed always flushed with new vegetation before any managed to creep out of the more parched stones below.
Caer made his decision. With the work to be done, the four men he already had out scouting their back trail were all he could spare for the moment. He called to one of the mounted men who was riding with the caravan.
“Shevek, we are camping here.”
The man he spoke to wheeled his pony away and rode at a brisk pace towards the front of the train of wagons and animals, issuing sharp orders to make the night’s camp around the rocky debris beneath the steep cliff face of one of the high monoliths. Caer felt a familiar sense of satisfaction as those orders turned the straggling ranks of moving people, ponies and wagons into a brief flurry of chaos, before brightly coloured awnings, tents and pavilions sprung up from the chaos, like strange blossoms. Caer and his men rode through the quickly forming encampment, shouting instructions, solving problems, helping secure ropes and encouraging any who were slow to respond with the whips they carried curled in their belts.
In a remarkably short time, the caravan resembled a miniature town with streets and open spaces, stables, and pens. Fires were being kindled, children tending the animals as women kneaded dough and cut the vegetables for the evening meal. Toddlers screamed and got underfoot or rolled like puppies amongst the big, sharp-toothed dogs, which ignored them and begged for scraps with soulful eyes and then turned on each other snapping and snarling when an unsavoury morsel was cast their way.
Once the familiar routine was well established, Caer’s men guided their mounts towards the middle of the camp. The ponies’ short stubby ears, thick coats, wall-eyed glares and powerful necks, made them far from beautiful to look upon, but their split hooves could splay to grip surefooted even on snow and ice or could run fast on firmer ground. It was their broad backs which carried the burden of human traffic in both trade and war with a sturdy strength and agility which, for Caer, had a beauty all of its own.
The men who rode were as tough as their ponies. The older ones amongst them wore their hair long, stained red and tied back into a heavy braid, the greater length of the braid telling of ever greater age and experience. The youngest men had their hair shaved so close to the scalp as to seem bald. They were not even allowed to begin to grow a braid until they had served a year of apprenticeship with the caravans. All the men wore coats made from a brightly coloured heavy-felt cloth, over shirts with billowing sleeves, patterned skirted jerkins made from fleeced hides and plain felt britches which gathered loosely into calf-high boots. All were armed: every man wore a bandolier of wooden cartridge boxes over one shoulder and carried a crude pistol; one or two had a long-barrelled musket or rifled carbine, on their backs and each wore a long-bladed knife with an ornately carved hilt and whips hung looped at their belts.
These men were of the Zoukai, a brotherhood of warrior guardians, hiring themselves to protect the caravans which carried the trade of Temsevar. Named after the swift and ruthless, red-plumed predatory birds which hunted from the skies in these very wastes, they were bound by a strict code of honour which placed loyalty to their captain and their caravan above all else.

From The Fated Sky the first part of Transgressor Trilogy, and the first book in Fortunes Fools by E.M. Swift-Hook.