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…

The door slammed shut behind him and the solid sound of bolts shooting home followed, reinforcing the sense of finality. The room was a depressing dull grey from ceiling to floor. It was square with two beds, bunks, running the full length of one sidewall and essential facilities in the far corner. Zero privacy from either his cellmate or, through the door hatch, from the custodius. Above the door a vent the size of his fist was vibrating with an annoying humming-whine as it reluctantly circulated fresh air.
“Llewellyn? What did they drag you in here for? Sticking your nose too deep in someone else’s business?”
The voice was vaguely familiar, though Dai was slow to place it as the shaven head of the man sprawled on the lower bunk was not. His puzzlement must have shown because the man swung his legs over the side of the bunk and sat up.
“I don’t suppose you remember me. It was some months ago and I’m sure you’ve been a busy Submagistratus since then.”
“I’m sorry, but I really don’t…”
The other man laughed, which turned into a cough part way before he was able to speak again. “Gods! Politeness. Not heard a word of that since they locked me in here.” He pushed himself to his feet and straightened the green tunic, before offering a formal greeting. “Tertius Cloelius Rufus. It is an honour to share my captivity with you. A pleasure. You may recall we met in Viriconium before these unfortunate events.”
Dai found himself shaking the outheld hand as if they were at a social event or meeting, as his memory searched desperately for the name and face. When it came, he snatched his hand away and stepped back involuntarily.
“You were the cunnus of a medicus involved with a group holding vicious sex parties that led to the death of young streetgirls.”
“No need to use titles here,” the older man said brightly and then smiled at his own joke. “You can call me Rufus. It’ll make a change from seven-eight-one-one-two-six. It’s those little things you get to miss the most in this place. By the way, I hope you’re not hungry, you missed the evening meal. Nothing til tomorrow now.”
Dai felt a curl of cold revulsion in his guts.
“You disgust me.“
“Really?” Cloelius sounded unconcerned. “At least I’m not a traitor like you. That tends to evoke more outrage in our society at every level than any sexual adventures a man might embark on.”
“The difference is,” Dai snarled, unable to keep the contempt from his voice. “I am not guilty of the faked-up charges against me, but I know for a fact you are guilty as charged. I caught you red-handed, literally. And the blood of a good Vigiles was shed that night too.”
Cloelius sighed and sat back on his bunk. “Appearances can be very deceptive Llewellyn, and like it or not your guilt or innocence will be decided in a court of law not by whatever you might choose to say or believe.” He lay back as if reclining on a lectus. “You might discover that I am in fact the innocent one and you turn out to be guilty. Now that would be an interesting outcome, don’t you think?”
The chilling realisation that the corrupt medicus spoke the truth staggered Dai. The words leeched all strength from his muscles and he sank down to sit with his back against the cold grey wall.
“Why are you still here?” he demanded, when the moment of weakness had passed.
“What a strange question. It’s not as if I can just stroll along to the atrium or visit the baths, is it?”
Dai lifted a hand in protest. “You know what I mean. You must have been here for months. Yours was an open and shut case. I signed off all the evidence myself back in Martius. It only needed a hearing before an independent Magistratus to…”
“Sentence me to death?” Cloelius gave a rasping laugh. “You show yourself the true Briton, Llewellyn. There are people I’ve met who have been held here for the last ten years.”
Dia bridled at that.
“But it’s against the law. No Citizen can be deprived of his or her freedom. They are tried and if found guilty, sentenced either to death or whatever fine is due.”
“Ah, British logic,” Cloelius said, his tone shifting to that of a teacher explaining simple facts to a schoolboy. “Those I speak of are Citizens who stand accused of capital offenses and are awaiting their day in court. They all have powerful friends in Rome using every legal wrangle there is to keep them from coming to trial. Some of the crimes have to be prosecuted within a certain time limit, so if they can delay that day long enough they can walk free. Others are commuted by prolonged negotiation from death to a fine. Everyday is a barter day. But you worked here in Londinium as a Vigiles so you really should know that.”
It was true that he had heard the rumours so it was not really a surprise. But his day-to-day clientele at that time had been almost exclusively non-Citizen criminals.
“You have powerful friends?”
Cloelius hunched one shoulder in an exaggerated shrug. “Perhaps I do. Or powerful enough to keep me from trial so far. Don’t you? I am assuming you must do to have secured both Citizenship and a plum administrative appointment.” He leaned forward as if offering a confidence. “At the very least they might be able to have your Citizenship rescinded which would give you the chance of commuting your sentence to hard labour instead of the arena.”
That was something that had not occurred to Dai as a possibility before. It was true that committing any serious crime could lead to an application for the revocation of an awarded Citizenship – something given could be taken away. An option not open to those born with Citizenship status. But the kind of hard labour criminals were condemned to was brutalising.
“I don’t see that would be much better,” he said, hearing the bitterness in his own tone. “Just a slower way to die.”
“Perhaps. But at least, my British friend, you have options. Who knows? We may even grow old together in this cell.”

From Dying to be Innocent the 9th Dai and Julia Mystery by Jane Jago and 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…

I am old I have noticed this fact 
There’s no need to approach it with tact
I don’t bother that you
Will have noticed it too
But stop smirking or you will get smacked

© jane jago

His tractor is green and he drives it too fast
For he knows the summer is not gonna last
There’s crops to be brung in from fields that are steep
And he’s hardly a moment to shit or to sleep

Come winter, come summer, come autumn or spring
The roads are so narrow and the tractor is king

A tractor of yellow drags machinery wide
No room to pass him he touches the sides
And he’ll never pull in and he’ll never give way
Because he’s on his phone and there’s plenty to say

Come winter, come summer, come autumn or spring
The roads are so narrow and the tractor is king

This little blue tractor is lacking a cab
Because it’s being driven by a twelve-year-old lad
He’s bouncing about and he ain’t thrilled to bits
To be towing a trailer that’s piled high with shit

Come winter, come summer, come autumn or spring
The roads are so narrow and the tractor is king

We’re behind a red tractor and he’s going so slow
Coz his wipers have failed and it’s pissing with snow
But we’re not going to curse him no never, not we
For he’s ploughing a path so we get home for tea

Come winter, come summer, come autumn or spring
The roads are so narrow and the tractor is king

But whatever the day from the spring to December
There’s one tractor driver we always remember
A beast of a man built of anger and bones
Who lived in his tractor was never at home

Come winter, come summer, the children all know
That they’d better be careful of old Tractor Joe

Sometimes when the moon is as fat as a sow
You can still hear his tractor coming over the brow
The engine is racing as downhill it goes
And into the river to drown Tractor Joe

Come winter, come summer, one thing you can betcha
If you lose concentration your tractor will getcha

Come winter, come summer, wherever you go
When it’s moonlight at midnight you’ll hear Tractor Joe

Jane Jago

A sci-fi story of love, betrayal and Space Pirates!

Dekker walked in, bouncing on the balls of his feet and grinning. Beside him was a heavyset woman, her long hair braided and a younger woman, looking barely out of her teens with a face like the business end of an energy snub, blunt and hard. Dekker waved a hand towards her. “Daiyu, Goldie, this is Panvia, our new engineer. And I’m going to guess Tols has been a bit of a naughty lad and not told her quite the truth.” An edge of menace had slipped into his tone as he finished, banishing the banter. Pan’s brain seized with cold terror, leaving her unable to move or make a sound.
Tolin had taken a step towards the three when they first came in, placing himself beside Pan as he did so. Now he moved to stand between her and the others.
“I already told you, she didn’t need to know. She didn’t…”
“But now she does,” Dekker said quietly.
“I don’t think it’s quite the big deal you two seem to think it,” the heavyset woman, Daiyu, put in. “Why don’t we ask Panvia herself what she thinks instead of you two making like grets in rut at each other. It might come as a real surprise to you both, but she’s got a voice and a mind of her own.”
They were all looking at Pan now and something in Daiyu’s words released her from internal lockdown. The fear seemed to take a step back and she was able to draw breath again.
“It’s just all a bit much to take on board,” she said, hearing how thin and weak that sounded. Tolin put his arms around her and drew her to him. She didn’t resist and turned her head so her cheek was pressed against his shoulder.
“I know,” he said. “And I’m sorry. I meant to tell you. Dek isn’t a regular kind of pirate. He’s been a good friend to me. To others too. And after I lost my ship, it was Dek who set me up with the new one. Without him, I’d have had nothing.”
Pan’s brain was working again – running in overdrive. The odd conversations she’d noticed in the past between Tolin and other freetraders, taking an excessive interest in where they were going and what they were carrying. Sometimes to the point of rudeness. Even asking her to talk to some of the more reticent freetraders to find out for him. It was always explained away as part of sussing out trade opportunities, but now…. Tolin was a pirate’s runner and she had never even realised. She had been working for pirates all that time too, even if she had never known it.
And piracy was a capital offense under Coalition law.
Her mind reached back and reframed all that had happened from the moment they met in the stark and ugly light of that revelation. Even the way they met, like something out of a romantic drama, he must have set that up too. The blood ran cold in her veins freezing her emotions into grotesque ice-sculptures in her psyche. They glared at her with hideous leers – guilt, betrayal, hurt, rage, terror, despair. One day there would be a reckoning needed with each one of them. But none could touch her at this time. With the calm clarity that bestowed, she knew that whatever she said next was going to determine her prospects of survival in the short term and the course of the rest of her life.
Gently disentangling herself from her betrayers arms, she stepped back and gave a nod of acknowledgement to Daiyu before addressing her words to Dekker.
“If Tolin says you helped him out when he was in a bad place, that means we both owe you, big time. I’m not sure what you want of me. But if it’s a just a decent engineer, I can do that.” This time she knew her voice sounded steady and strong.
Dekker’s old-too-young eyes bored into her and she met them unflinching. Then he grinned. Sudden and hard. His fist thumped into her arm, painfully. “Welcome to the crew, Pan.”
Tolin pulled her into a new hug and Daiyu was smiling.
“And yes,” Dekker went on, “what we really need is a decent engineer to keep this place running, fix up the ships we bring home and tweak our best girl so she’s at the top of her game. Randja had an accident on our last run. Didn’t make it home. So we’re sorely in need of your skills here.”
The other woman, the one Dekker had called Goldie, stood slightly apart, her face expressionless.

Roguing Thieves is a Fortune’s Fools story by E.M. Swift-Hook. There will be more Roguing Thieves next week…

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 pink-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.

Nanny was having a quiet think (okay she was occupied in the closet) when there came a ferocious banging on the door. She adjusted her clothing and made her way to where some person was assaulting her paintwork.
“Whatever is the matter?”
Gladys the Griffin clutched an eggshell to her breast.
“He killed my baby.”
Nanny sighed.
“Who killed your baby?”
“Scoggins the Sadist.”
Nanny removed the shell from Gladys’ front claw.
“Right miss. Why do think this here egg is yourn?”
Gladys shuffled her rear feet and the lion claws dug into the lawn. Nanny winced but pressed on.
“I’m waiting Gladys.”
“It was the gore crow brung it to me and tells me Scoggins has my baby running down his chin.”
“Right Gladys, listen. You doesn’t lay eggs. You got a lion bumhole not an eagle one. And if you did, this here’s a ostrich eggshell.”
Which might even have worked had not the vicar his own self appeared at the corner with egg decorating his chin.
Gladys lunged and he barely got off the ground in time.
He was much too fat to fly well and Nanny idly wondered what would happen when Gladys caught him, but she was too busy tending the scrapes in her lawn to really care.

©janejago

The God-Emperor was playing knuckle bones with his friends in the peaceful fountain garden when the conquistadors burst into the palace. There were many of them, armed and armoured in steel, and they systematically swept every chamber, leaving nothing living in their wake. When the last room was cleared a group made its way along the paved walkways to the place by the largest fountain of all where the children continued to pay their game.

The soldiers brought with them the smell of blood, and their booted feet left reddish splotches on the white stone paving. The last soldier pulled a skinny old woman, in the dress of slave behind him. He held her by her bound wrists, dragging her cruelly, careless of whether or not she remained on her feet. The God-Emperor wrinkled his nose but said nothing.

The only adult in the garden was a young priest, and one of the soldiers grasped him by his braided scalplock.
“Where is your accursed God-Emperor?”
The young priest was braver than he looked.
“He is not here. He and his tutor fled the palace at first light.”
The old woman who they dragged along in their wake shook her head. “He lies,” she spat, “nobody has left the palace all this moon.” The priest gave her a look of such loathing that anybody less in fear of their life would have been abashed, but the old crone met his eyes contemptuously. Then she spat on his feet.

The troop commander, one Don Hermano Gonthalez, marched into the cool of the garden. He carried his helmet under one arm and his floridly handsome face was flushed with bloodlust.
“Well,” he said coldly. “We now know it’s one of the brats. Which one is it?”
“Nobody is telling.”
“Kill the lot then.”

The God-Emperor stood up and faced the tall European.
“There is no need to kill any more. I am he who you seek.”
The soldier looked down at the unimpressive little figure and laughed harshly.
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because you know I speak the truth.”
“Then you will know your life is forfeit.”
“Kill the God, Kill the faith?”
Hermano nodded brusquely then looked into the lightless depths of the child’s eyes, for a moment he knew the true meaning of love and compassion, but he shrugged his shoulders, pushing those feelings to one side. He took a pace forwards and grasped the black topknot in one large fist. The gaze of the God-Emperor did not waver from his face, even when a sword of the finest Toledo steel severed the thin neck and the conquistador was left with a disembodied head hanging from his hand.
“And what of your God-Emperor now?” Don Hermano demanded harshly.
The young priest shrugged. “I know not.” Then he laughed a laugh of genuine amusement, before deliberately impaling himself on the long dagger of the soldier who held him by his hair.

“What is so funny?” The soldier who held the old crone’s wrists shook her brutally.
“I know not.” She said in a voice of resignation. “How should a slave know the thought of the great ones?”
One of the other children lifted frightened eyes from the ground. It was a girl of some ten or so summers, who was as fair as the garden in which she sat. She looked at the conquistador.
“He meant that once the God-Emperor’s soul left his body it will have found another host. Once you killed our brother he lost his divinity. What you hold in your hand now is only the head of an ordinary child.”
Don Hermano dropped the severed head and grasped the shrinking girl.
“Who?” He demanded. “Who? Who?”
She lifted her great dark eyes to his face. “We do not know. Nobody knows. Yet.”
Understanding dawned, and the conquistador gave a great cry of rage as he dragged the girl’s face closer. His blade moved almost of it’s own volition, all but cutting her in half.

Jane Jago

The Dog Days are the high days of summer and a perfect time to celebrate our canine companions in verse and prose.

Paddy Dog was never disobedient, on the contrary, he was the epitome of good behaviour. He would come when called, sit on command, lie down and wait patiently outside the local shop for his owner.

And he hated water.

So when Paddy Dog jumped in the river, his owner was surprised, especially when Paddy Dog was pulling at something in the water and wouldn’t leave it even when called.

His owner, disgruntled, eventually went to see and found Paddy Dog trying to rescue a kitten which had fallen in the reeds.

Paddy Dog now has a friend called Tabby Cat.

Eleanor Swift-Hook

In a modern-day Britain where the Roman Empire never left, Dai and Julia solve murder mysteries, whilst still having to manage family, friendship and domestic crises…

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

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

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

You are old, let me just make it clear
That even your knitting is queer
You should knit baby clothes
To warm tiny toes
Not merkins in purple cashmere

© jane jago

See how the light falls
Stripes on the ground
Beneath us the mosses
Muffle all sound
And we run like children
Forgetting our days
As silence and sunshine
Tempts us to play
On the bosom of summer
When tender leaves cling
When grasses grow verdant
And small brown birds sing
See how the light falls
Kind as a kiss
And we thank whoever
For moments like this

Jane Jago