It took eight more days of gentle riding to reach Durmouth, stopping each night at a wayside inn or staying with a friendly farmer. But still each evening Hepsy was feeling as if she had been run over back and forth by her hill-pony rather than sitting atop of it the whole way. But she didn’t complain, just took a good soak in a tub by the fire when there was one and rubbed ointments into her muscles and joints, charged with a little easing magic. Poll seemed not to notice the ride so much. He seemed happier than she had seen him for a long time.
“You are enjoying this,” she chided as they passed through the open gates of the city, cheek by jowl with wagons of goods and produce going in and nightsoil going out.
“And why not?” Poll asked and grinned at her, in that moment looking for all the world as he had the day they first met. “It’s still an adventure.”
Hepsy shook her head and said nothing to that. She was marrow-deep sure he couldn’t have forgotten what adventure had led them into the last time.
The Red Dragon Tavern was not the finest in Durmouth, but it was not in the dockside area where the very poorest scrabbled to make a living either. It was set on a decent street that led to the main city market square and offered refreshment to people of a middling kind – the farmers bringing produce to sell or the smaller merchants come to trade salt, pottery or good solid cloth.
It was not hard to spot the cheerful tavern keeper as she had the look of her brother. She wore sensible shoes, smart clothes and a harassed smile as Hepsi asked her about Stref.
“Ye’ll his friends from before? Well good luck to ye, ye’ll be needing it if ye want to get him to talk to ye. He’ll be in his room at the back.” She gestured to the door which was opening and closing with a flow of staff carrying laden trays. “Help ye’selves though.”
They did.
A lad carrying a stack of used soup bowls nodded them towards the right door, but there was no reply to the brisk knock Poll rapped on it. Or the next three.
“You think maybe he’s asleep?” Hepsie asked. “He was always a deep sleeper.”
“Likely so. I remember the time he was supposed to be on watch and fell asleep. We were just lucky Galthin always had one eye open or those land pirates would’ve slit our throats before we woke up.”
“He was good like that, saved us more’n once.” It was always hard for her to think of Galthin and not get just a little maudlin.
Poll tried the door and it opened easily. The smell from within rolled out, stale ale, stale sweat and undertones of urine and vomit. There was also a steady snore. Hepsie couldn’t see in and when she moved to do so, hand over her nose, Poll held her back.
“You’ll not want to see this, love. Go find us a table and I’ll be with you in a bit.”
His face left no room for argument so she bit back her questions and retreated to the bustle of the common room, finding a table being cleared which she could claim. It had a window view of the courtyard and barely had she sat down than she saw a door open and her Poll manhandling an obese, half-naked man to the water trough and douse his head into it over and again.
It was only when poll finally let his victim up, choking and protesting that Hepsie realised this was Stref. For a moment she couldn’t reconcile the bejowled and angry face, balding hair and lumpen body with the care-free, slender and agile man she had known. Then she did and she had to look quickly away, feeling embarrassed and hoping he hadn’t noticed her through the small window. She busied herself ordering food and it was being served just as Poll pushed through the press to join her, Stref trailing behind, decently dressed, and looking sheepish.
“You look as beautiful as ever,” he greeted her and kissed her hand in his old way, but with less of the grace. Then he sat looked wistfully at the food she had ordered for herself and Poll. That was so much the Stref she remembered that she pushed the plate of bread and cheese over to him.
“I’ve told the tale of it,” Poll said. “Stref will come with us.”
The quick look Stref shot her man told Hepsie that had not been the first answer he’d given.
“So do you know where we might find any of the others?”
His mouth half-full of bread and cheese, Stref spoke through it. “Linis left the Kingdom years ago. Last rumour had it she turned merchant and married. Could be anywhere now. I still have her ring so we could pay a spell caster to tell us where she is, if you want. Galythin, I heard went back to his forest people so unless you want to take ship to to Farward, you’ll not find him.”
“What about Raya and Coldon?”
Stref shook his head, swallowing down the mouthful before he replied.
“Coldon took ill soon after you left. Wasted away before our eyes until he was gone. Raya, well she took it bad. She upped and took vows to be a priestess of Shal. She’s living in a nunnery just west of the city. I used to go see her now and then, but she told me I just made her think of Col. That was over ten years ago, but far as I know she’s still there.”
It was hard hearing Col was gone. He had been the strongest of them all, lifting boulders as if they were pebbles and saving them all by anchoring the rope bridge with his own powerful muscles, when they would have fallen into the bottomless chasm.
“We’ll go see,” Hepsie decided.
“I won’t,” Stref said. “I promised her not to.”
Which brought a frown to Poll’s face. “That’s as it goes, then. You can gather supplies and talk to that spellcaster about Linis. You never know she might not be so far. We’ll fetch Raya – if she’s willing.”
“And if not? If Raya won’t come and we can’t find Linis?” Stref was asking but Hepsie wondered that too.
“If not, then there’s the three of us and that’ll have to do.”
“But…”
Poll pushed back his stool and got to his feet in a single movement. You’d not have known his knee was bad. “But we’re not lighting that fire yet,” he said firmly. “Just be ready for when we’re back. We’ll be leaving for High Top tomorrow either way.”
“Thank Shal it’s summer then.” Stref pulled the remains of their meal towards him, then glanced up and caught the looks. “What of it? My sister has me on a diet, I’m half-starved.”
Hepsie failed to smother a laugh and turned it into a cough, but she could tell Poll was not seeing it as funny.
“Just be ready,” he said, voice cold.
This wasn’t going so well so far.

From a fantasy tale by E.M. Swift-Hook

Summer is icumen in, let’s go down the pub
In the garden we can sit, and sup a little jug
We’ll watch the maypole dancers, then
Throw peanuts at the Morris men
Who quite forget to stamp and whirl
While checking out the young clog girls
Then, when the evening cools the sky
The folk singers they will pop by
And underneath the Mayday moon
They’ll play the old familiar tunes
On comb and paper and bassoon
Until the singing starts, too soon
When some old geyser with a beard
Will stick his finger in his ear
And sing an old traditional lay
That someone else wrote yesterday
He’ll lose the tune forget the words
But never feel a bit absurd
Because he’s here to serenade
On rather too much ‘lemonade’
And when the landlord shuts the bar
We’ll amble home, it isn’t far
As into bed we fall you’ll say
There went a bloody fine May Day

©jj 2021

The Working Title crew bring you the opportunity to enjoy wisdom from the mysteriously enigmatic Madam Pendulica…

Aries
This sign needs a short sharp name to ram home when you have to shout at them to get their attention. Which you will – a lot. Anne, John, Kim or Gilles might be good choices.

Taurus
Bullish folk need names that are going to bear repetition – a lot of repetiton. So something that sounds nice to say like Alexander, Yolanda, Beatrice or Grayson.

Gemini
Twin names are always a good call for Gemini, even if you only have the one, it will always feel like there is another lurking about. Good choices might be Romulus and/or Remus, Chloe and/or Zoe.

Cancer
Crabs definitely do better in life when they have names that have a seaside feel to them. Marina, Piers, Sandy, or Ocean would be good options to consider.

Leo
The lion self-regards as the monarch of the zodiac so needs a very noble name. Try for something that sounds pompous and you are bound to succeed. Marmaduke, Regina, Balthazar and Hermione spring to mind.

Virgo
Be sure you name them after someone chaste and intelligent. Saints or might offer good inspiration. Ignatius, Benedict, Hildegard and Brigid, for example.

Libra
A well balanced name is a must for any Libran. It need not repeat but it does need to rhyme within if not. You could try Zsazsa, Lily, Brenden or Chester.

Scorpio
Names of famous murderers will really fit a Scorpio – and help give them a role model to aspire to, perhaps. Lucretia, Caligula, Dexter or Lizzie might be good choices.

Sagittarius
Of course you need to try for an equine link for your Sagittarian. Good choices might be Philip, Horsa, Epona or Rosalind.

Capricorn
The goat of the zodiac needs a nice woolly name. You can try Barbara, Aran, Jason, or Agnes.

Aquarius
Naming an Aquarian is always a challenge. You simply can’t choose something weird enough for them! Perhaps you might consider Zadok, Melpomene, Ramesses or Xiomara.

Pisces
There needs to be water in a Piscean name, just a splash will do, but they can become very dry without it. Victoria, Angel, Niagara and Iguazu could all be good choices.

Madame Pendulica predicts she will return…

Papa having been a narrow-minded martinet, with a very heavy hand, nobody much mourned him when he died of ill-temper three days before his fiftieth birthday.
Grandmother seemed to shrink even further into her black clothes as the household that was once so quiet and regimented filled with noise and laughter.
She payed a famous necromancer to reanimate his portrait, and it mouthed platitudes and moralities daily.
When Buggy discovered this was computing rather than magic, it was the work of but an hour to reprogram the simulacrum so that it called grandmother ‘scrawny tits’ and swore sulphurously.

©️jj 2021

Introducing a new series of fun flash fiction from Jane Jago which will feature twice weekly in the month of May!

They called her Nanny Bee, although as far as anyone knew she had never been a wife or a mother, let alone a grandmother. But she was popularly believed to be a witch – so Nanny it was. She lived in a punk-walled thatched cottage that crouched between the village green and the vicarage. The Reverend Alphonso Scoggins (a person of peculiarly mixed heritage and a fondness for large dinners) joked that between him and Nanny they could see the villagers from birth to burial.
Nanny’s garden was the most verdant and productive little patch you could ever imagine, and she could be found pottering in its walled prettiness from dawn to dusk almost every day. People came to visit and were given advice, or medicine, or other potions in tiny bottles or scraps of paper – but they always had the sneaking suspicion they were getting in the way of the gardening.
But there again, digging is second nature to gnomes.

It was a sunny Sunday morning and Nanny was listening to the church choir while she pricked out some seedlings. She was idly wondering who possessed the piercing soprano that was permanently half a beat behind the rest when a shadow fell over the potting shed. She put down her dibber and went outside. A winged horse hovered over her tiny lawn.
“Ho sister,” it said, “there’s trouble at the castle and you wanted immediately.”
“If His Greediness has got himself indigestion again, I ain’t coming.”
“No. It isn’t that. There’s something happened to the lordling. His wife is in her chamber sobbing and he’s nowhere to be found.”
“Oh right. Hang on. I’ll just get my bag.”
“And maybe change your gardening boots?”
“Oh. Right. Okay. I’ll come out the front door.”
It’s not every day that you get to ride on the back of Fledge his own self, but Bee was a prosaic being and rather resented being pulled away from her petunias.
Fledge dropped neatly to earth in the stable yard and walked quietly to the mounting block. Nanny jumped down and bowed to the horse.
“I thanks you for my safe ride.”
“You are welcome.”
The castle functionary who awaited her sneered down from his great height. Nanny ignored him and stumped off towards the private apartments. To his chagrin, the tall clerk had to run to keep up with her. The door guard saluted her with his pike before winking broadly.
She walked sturdily int the formal presence chamber and chaos. There appeared to be upwards of a dozen people all shouting at the very tops of their voices. The only pool of silence centred around a slender figure cloaked in rose-pink velvet, who stood right in the centre of a patch of sunlight. She turned her perfect face and smirked at Nanny, who chose not to notice her.
“You’ll have to be polite to me when I have the young one’s ring on my finger,” beauty hissed.
“Oh. I doubt it,” Nanny spoke absentmindedly as most of her brain was taken up with assessing the situation around her.
As far as it was possible to make any sense, the Lord and his Heir were nose to nose and both were puce with rage. Her ladyship was alternately screaming like a banshee and having recourse to her Lacy kerchief. The other shouters appeared to be various staff members and functionaries who could safely be discounted.
Nanny ambled over to where father and son were having their ‘discussion’ and knocked politely on the younger man’s knee. He stopped yelling at his father and looked down.
“Ah, Nanny,” he said genially, “can you make this old fool see that I’m firm in my resolve.”
“Your resolve to do what, sir?”
“Why to divorce my unfaithful wife and marry my true love.”
Nanny looked into his fair and foolish face and sighed. She beckoned and when he bent down he was felled by a scientific blow from a knobbly little fist.
As soon as he hit the ground the air wavered about beauty and she began to look less beautiful. She looked at Nanny with loathing before she picked up her skirts and ran.
“When he wakes up he won’t remember any of this. But somebody needs to explain to his wife that she is NOT to withhold his conjugals if she don’t want this to happen again.”
Nanny went back to her petunias, deeply grateful that gnomes only consider sex in an abstract manner, and only as it pertains to other people.

Jane Jago

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

If you’re old then the process is clear
You must give up on romance and beer
It’s no longer fashion
To have a high passion
Stop flirting in bars, do you hear?

E.M. Swift-Hook

You thought you knew what they meant? How wrong you were. Never fear, Jane Jago will set you straight!

AFK – After (I) Finish Knitting or Ah’m From Kentucky
ASAP – As Stupid As Pi**
BRB – Burping Refried Beans
BTW – Bugger The Weather
DM – Disoriented (by) Music
FAQ – Friend Ate (all the) Quality street
FTFY – For Treats Frozen Yogurt
FYI – Feet (with) Yellow Infestation
G2G – Gesticulating to Grandma
IMHO – In Movies Hopeful Orphans
IRL – Indoor Reared Lettuce
LOL – Lizards On Lockdown
MFW – Mowing Flowers Wilfully
OMDB – Oh Mother Dat’s Bad
OMG – Overly Malicious Grandmothers
OTL – Obvious Treacle Latitude
PITA – Place Inside The Ambulance
PITR – Pig In The Road
RT – Reduced Telemetry
TBH – Terrific Blonde Hairdo
TLDR – The Laundry Didn’t Rinse
TTFN – Terribly Tiny Fork (and) kNife
TNTL – Translation Not Terribly Likely
TTYL – The Tradesmen Yodel Loudly

Throughout memory the two-legs had sought to predict the weather, but instead of paying attention to what Mother whispered, they built complicated algorithms and drew highly coloured charts. However, they missed the soughing of the wind and the lie of the hairs on the backs of certain leaves.
So it was that when the great storm came we were tucked away inside the cave system while those few of them with eyes to see floated on the ocean in a tiny boat.
Mother shrugged her shoulders but they prevailed.
Our oldest spoke.
“I wonder if they remembered the dove…”

©️jj 2021

Being a wizard in a world where magic wasn’t supposed to exist wasn’t easy. His studies took all his time and left little for earning the money he needed to support himself. So home for Brandon Grey was a rented bedsit on the second floor of a converted suburban house. He was very tired having been up since dawn to practice a new incantation and then an afternoon stint as an Uber driver had tested his goodwill to humanity to its limit.
“Mr. Grey?”
Brandon hesitated between steps and resisted the impulse to swear. Instead, as he turned, his face was already wallpapered with a polite smile.
“Mrs. Howard!” His tone made of the name an answer to her question.
Mrs. Howard was his landlady. She lived on the ground floor. A big-boned thirty-something divorcee with a pack of rude children and a permanent short temper. From the open door behind her he could hear sounds of youthful discontent.
“It’s mine!”
“Gerroff me!” Then an ear-piercing shriek of protest.
“Mum – Shane’s taken the controller again!”
Despite the title being given three distinct syllables of intonation, ‘Mum’ seemed not to hear.
“You put out your rubbish Mr. Grey? It’s bin day tomorrow.”
Brandon maintained the smile and broadened it.
“I’ll do that as soon as I have got myself in,” he assured her. 
“Great and can you wheel the bin ‘round the front when you’re done?”
His smile still fixed Brandon assented. But his thoughts were traitors to the smile. He was getting fed up of being used as an odd-job man for the Howards. Seemed not a day went by and he was asked to do one job or another. Another yell of protest from behind Mrs. Howard decided him.
“But you know, your Shane is a big lad now. He could do with that kind of responsibility. Why don’t you get him to do it?”
As he spoke he added a small push of willpower. But Mrs. Howard had seen off two husbands and the bailiffs. She stared back nonplussed.
“I don’t think so. It is a heavy job.”
Brandon held her gaze and tried harder. No words were spoken. For a moment the woman looked perplexed, then her expression cleared. She half turned her head towards the open door and called out.
“Shane, you stop playing that video game and go do the rubbish!”
“But mum you said you’d get the poxy old lodger to do it!”
It was a red rag to a bull and Brandon was forgotten as she stormed back into the lower apartment yelling loudly and apparently adding to the chaos rather than resolving it in any measure at all.
Allowing himself a moment of satisfaction, Brandon opened his front door, dropped his jacket on the couch and made a coffee.

E.M. Swift-Hook

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

If you’re old then the rule really is
You have to like cribbage and bridge
Your idea of fun
Should be tea and a bun
Not neat vodka straight out of your fridge

E.M. Swift-Hook