The Dai and Julia Mysteries have a Saturnalia surprise for you this year and we are counting down to it by offering a free novella every day from now until Saturnalia begins on 17 December. Saturnalia Optima!

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…

December MDCCLXXVII

It was the longest night and the fires in the sacred grove turned the oiled muscles of the naked young men to liquid fire. The old men watched from under their wrinkled eyelids as the goddess made flesh walked among them. She was beautiful and in the firelight something more than mere beauty with her red-gold hair cloaking her nakedness and the stag horns that seemed to grow from her forehead. She touched each young man with a delicate forefinger and whenever one pleased her they lay down in the loam together as the goddess and the god. The young men not deemed fit to serve watched in envy, save for the one who filmed covertly smiling to himself as he did so…

I

In another place, not far away geographically, but a million miles from the rites of the Druids in terms of intent, Julia Llewellyn was also naked in the the firelight. She was lying in her husband’s arms, noticing how her own mediterranean olive complexion looked golden in the warming glow and tracing the pink patterns the flames made on her man’s white Celtic skin.
“How does anybody even get to be so pale? You look like one of the marble statues in the forum. Just stick a helmet on your head and you’d be a dead ringer for any of the minor gods or messengers.”
Dai moved swiftly, pinning his giggling wife under him and tickling her ribs.
“Minor god, is it?”
“Is,” she said firmly, “the likes of Jupiter and Vulcan are always depicted as old men with big beards.”
He laughed down at her and she wriggled out from under him pushing against his broad chest with one small hand. He rolled on his back and she straddled him, grinning cheekily. 
“You look a bit happier now. So? Are you going to tell me what chapped your arse today?”
“How come you always know?”
“I have eyes, lovely boy. Now spill.”
Dai sat up, so that his wife straddled his lap and rested his chin on the top of her head.  Julia, being Julia, couldn’t resist a naughty wriggle. He pulled her closer and sighed.
“Smooshing my nose Llewelyn. And I really do need to know what upset you.” 
“It’s that moecha Cariad. It’s been playing on my mind all day. I think she’s up to something.”
“And that’s surprising because?”
He snuffled out a reluctant half-laugh.
“It’s not. What is surprising though is that I find I mind on behalf of Caudinus. He’s actually a decent man. Not just decent for a Roman Magistratus, just plain decent. And he obviously loves her, blindly and absolutely. But she is equally obviously bored and discontented.” He gave Julia a brief, twisted smile. “When we were there for dinner and gift giving the other day, she was walking a thin line. First there were those pointed comments over dinner, then we had the Game of Truth. Everyone else was being light and flippant, but it was as if she was trying to dig out the most excruciatingly inappropriate incidents she could think of. Asking you where – and when – you lost your virginity. Making me confess the embarrassing donation I made in the name of science during my academy days, though she knows how much I hate being reminded of that. Dragging out the personal humiliation of poor Caudinus when he was falsely accused of sleeping with his boss’s wife. And then lying in her teeth about her own dalliances. Manufacturing a blush.” His voice shifted to mimic Cariad’s sultry tone. “‘One before my dear husband…’”
Julia quirked an eyebrow.
“I know of at least a dozen” Dai said wryly.” She was and possibly still is, as randy as a mare on heat. But that isn’t my worry. I’m afraid she’s getting fed up with him. She was so mean to him about his Saturnalia gift to her and he tries so hard. I keep seeing the hurt in his eyes.”
Julia took his face between her palms.
“Dai bach, from where I was standing it was obvious that she was fed up with him on the day of their nuptials.”
He gaped at her and she couldn’t help loving him for his naïveté along with his more potent charms.
“So why did she marry him?”
“I’m guessing the lure of being queen of Viriconium was too strong to be resisted.”
Julia felt the sigh her husband heaved and put her arms around him, kissing his chest as that was the nearest bit of him.
“Promise you won’t ever get fed up with me, Julia fach.”
“I think you are pretty safe there, lovely boy. Aren’t you the other half of my soul?”
She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him rather seriously.

Later, as they lay in bed under the goose down comforter, Dai pulled Julia so she lay across his chest.
“What do I have to wear at this gods-forsaken function tomorrow? I’m dreading it, the annual temple turn out for the birthday of the Divine Diocletian I mean. Outside? December? Toga?”
Julia smiled down at him. 
“No. Tunic and trews and a good warm cloak. You have new trews and tunic in fine cashmere wool. You’ll be fine. You should rather have pity on me, as women are not allowed to wear trousers in the temple precinct. But I do have some thick woollen stockings that make my legs look really fat.”
He laughed and they drifted off to sleep in happy intimacy.

The next morning they had to be up well before dawn. Julia had just got in the bath and Dai was shaving when there came an urgent trill from Dai’s wristphone which he had left beside the bed. Dai wrapped a towel around his waist and went to see what was afoot, carefully closing the bathroom door behind him. Julia had a bad feeling about someone calling before it was properly light so she jumped out of the warm water and towelled herself briskly. Before she had finished dressing Dai was back. With his work face on.
“Sorry love, looks like I get to miss the ceremonials. Message from the landlord of the Dragon and Leek on the Ynys Mon road. A bit garbled, because the place is deep in a valley in the woods and the comms are merda, but something about a fine lady gone missing and two dead Roman outriders. I’ve roused Bryn and the posse.”

You can keep reading Dying as a Druid by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago for free if you download it today 8 December.

Glossary
Academy – university
Bacn/Fach – (m/f.) literally small/little, term of endearment, dearie may be closest
Magistratus – senior official with legal jurisdiction over an area
Moecha – literally ‘adulteress’ metaphorically: ‘slut’ or ‘tart’
Saturnalia – a Roman festival lasting from 19-23 December
Toga – male formal wear
Viriconium – we would call it Wroxeter
Ynys Mon –  or the Isle of Anglesey

A wise matron’s advice and guidance on how to survive the five day season of Saturnalia with domestic joy and harmony…

The Death’s Head at the Feast

Your beloved will come equipped with at least one female relative whose sole function in life is disapproval. She will form an unholy alliance with your own Great Aunt Lubricia (she of the mouth so small and pursed that you have always wondered how she manages to eat quite so much festive fare) and they will sit in the warmest corner staring and mouthing proverbs.

There is only one thing to be done. Send your youngest brother over with a jug of ‘fruit cup’ liberally laced with whatever clear spirit you have to hand. After a pint each they will fall asleep in an untidy heap of bones and hair pieces leaving the rest of you to enjoy Saturnalia as you wish

The Dai and Julia Mysteries have a Saturnalia surprise for you this year and we are counting down to it by offering a free novella every day from now until Saturnalia begins on 17 December. Saturnalia Optima!

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…

September MDCCLXXVII
Britannia is sweltering under an unseasonable sun.
I
The column of slow and ugly army supply lorries, left Londinium early in the morning, heading north-west on the main road to Viriconium. It was carrying a recently appointed Submagistratus of Demetae and Cornovii, his brand-new force of vigiles, their families and possessions and a vexillation of grim-faced praetorians.
Julia Lucia Maxilla wondered idly why they didn’t use hover vehicles. She mentioned this to her husband of just seven days – who happened to be the Submagistratus – and he laughed.
“Range my lovely, they would need to recharge and there aren’t any charging stations where we are going.”
“Right. Fine. It’s just that I haven’t seen a wheeled vehicle, leave alone been in one, since my brief time as a border guard on the eastern fringes of the Empire.”
Dai looked down into her face.
“By the sound of your voice that wasn’t the most pleasant of secondments.”
“It had its moments. But I met Edbert and found Canis and Lupo so it wasn’t a complete waste of time.”
She could see he was dying to ask more and felt a surge of affection towards him for the care he always took with her. In the end, though, it seemed he couldn’t resist just one question.
“What was an Inquisitor in the service of the Praetor doing on the Eastern Border?”
She turned in his arms and squinted up at his face. “I wasn’t an Inquisitor. I was a customs officer. Undercover. But those days are gone now. I’m a very proper Roman wife now.”
He laughed and put his hands around her waist. “Not too proper I hope…”
She made a rude noise and crossed her eyes at him. Bending his handsome head, he kissed her into submission.
She giggled, pointing to the man-mountain that was Edbert, her personal bodyguard, who was pretending to be asleep in the opposite corner of the passenger cabin. Dai smiled, then glanced down and his face creased with laughter.
“Will you look at them?”
Julia followed his gaze and saw identical expressions of aristocratic disgust on the faces of Canis and Lupo, her shaggy grey wolfhounds.
When she stopped laughing, she prodded Dai’s chest with a determined forefinger. “Instead of behaving in that extremely un-Roman fashion, why don’t you explain your family to me? Since we are going to be living just outside Viriconium and less than a spit from where they are, I’d like to know a bit more about them.”
“I wondered when you would ask.”
She was instantly contrite.
“I’m sorry love. Should I have asked before?”
“No. I’m sort of glad you haven’t. Let’s me know you married me for myself not my prospects.”
“Oh. Do you have prospects?”
“Actually, no. But most people seem to think I have.”
“Me neither, so we’re quits there.”

You can keep reading Dying for a Poppy by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago for free if you download it today 7 December.

A wise matron’s advice and guidance on how to survive the five day season of Saturnalia with domestic joy and harmony…

Saturnalia Guests

Have a reliable member of the household count your guests in. And count them out.

You really do want them to have all gone home. 

If one or two seem to be missing, have the servants hunt the house from top to bottom. Evicting whatever they may find.

The one thing you really don’t want is to wake up in the early hours of the morning three days hence to find an elderly gent in a disordered toga staring down at you from bloodshot eyes 

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…

“Captain’s Log update. Further to the recent encounter with the last human colony in the Calamarti Sector, The Golden Strand is currently moving into uncharted space. We are following up on reports of the existence of a mythical and demonic alien race. The Kyruku.”
Captain Gervain’s elegant and poised outline could be seen silhouetted in profile against the receding planet as she finished recording her log.
“Do you believe the colonists, Captain?”
The youthful-looking science officer lacked expression in both her voice and her face. Despite the question, she displayed zero curiosity. It was as if the captain’s response, whatever it might be, was of no more than academic interest to her.
“I don’t know,” Gervain admitted after a moment of reflection. “Sub-Commander Stude seems to think the colonists have some genuine grounds to believe they do exist. He says the landing team he led met too many who had stories to tell about them for it to be a complete myth. But all I really heard from him was wild stories of the curse they are supposed to carry.”
“It is completely irrational to believe such accounts,” Science Officer Chay agreed, her tone clipped. “To accord any credence to the entire concept of a curse requires an irrational and superstitious mindset.”
The captain lifted one eyebrow and leaned closer to her colleague, lowering her voice so the rest of the crew wouldn’t hear. “Between you and me, I think you have Arlan Stude pinned, Xexe. You don’t get much more irrational and superstitious than he is.” She smiled knowingly at her science officer, who blinked and tilted her head.
“I am not sure I can agree with you, Captain. In my experience, Sub-Commander Stude makes highly rational decisions.”
The captain drew a sharp breath, but whatever she had been going to say next was silenced on her tongue. The lights on the flight deck suddenly flickered and a siren began blaring the “High Alert” warning. Both women turned and looked towards the huge viewing screen, just as a brick-shaped vessel shimmered into view against the backdrop of stars. It looked ugly, with the rusted colour of its hull and the alien technology appearing to human eyes like protruding pincers, needles and claw shapes.
“Will you look at that?”
The expression on Captain Gervain’s face was a well-crafted blend of wonder and horror. Beside her, the deadpan of the science officer was a brilliant counterpoint. High emotion set against pure mentation.
“I see it, Captain. It is there. The Kyruku. Do. Exist.”
Two such different female faces, one shot. Perfect.

Joah Meer glanced from the monitor view back to the studio where the two women stood in an empty room staring, rapt, at a blank wall. They really were very good. She had them hold their pose for a few seconds longer than was strictly needed, stopped the recording and smiled.
“Nice work. Take five and then we’ll be setting up to get the fight scene recorded.”
Heila, whose role as captain of The Golden Strand had lasted three seasons so far, stretched slowly as if she had been cramped, and glared at Joah.
“I’m not doing that hurling myself around on the floor thing again, so don’t ask.”
“Never, darling,” Joah said, soothingly. “You might get another bruise, and you have a full-exposure publicity shoot tomorrow.”
Beside her, no longer stone-faced, Zarshay snorted and broke into a grin. Heila scowled at her.
“So funny?”
“Full exposure? Oh my, the life of a leading lady.”
Which was enough to send Heila stalking out in high dudgeon. Zarshay was still grinning as she navigated through the two tech-droids and their human keeper, Wilf, to reach Joah’s console. Joah opened her arms and hugged her tight, lifting her off her feet as they kissed.
“Seriously? You have booked Heila for a skin shoot?”
Joah shook her head.
“Of course not, it’s just a usual media thing, but she has been getting so precious recently, I’ve been tempted. It’s like she thinks we should change Starways Pathfinders to The Heila Camarthy Show.”
Zarshay made a rude noise and laughed.
But something of the tension was still there when they were adding the space-battle scenes.

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 0010.

Forgiveness is hard in winter
When the world is frigid and hard
When your world has splintered
On the turning of a card
When your life is built on lies
When each night sleep evades you
And your heart inside you cries
As if they took a blade to you
But in the spring the world it thaws
And warmth enters your heart
The world grows green at nature’s law
And offers a fresh start

©️Jane Jago 2020

Out today a selection of stories Winter Warmers: Festivals and Festivities Reimagined from Jane Jago.

From What Happened at Moose Crossing

Moose Crossing was the kind of a place that aspires to be a one-horse town without much hope of success. It had a packed-dirt street lined with chinked log buildings, a livery stable with smallish corral for visiting livestock, and a tented settlement of prospectors whose population was as fluid as the freezing stream off the mountains that provided the town with drinking water.

It was September, and there was enough bite in the wind to keep the mosquitoes at home, although the sky was still a faded denim blue and the trails were hard and relatively easy to travel. 

A big Conestoga wagon breasted the rise just at the edge of town and drew to a halt to give the team a breather. The eight horses steamed in the bright cool air, and the female driver jumped down with a leather water bucket – giving each animal a drink and a word of thanks. 

This being the obvious place to shake-down newcomers, there were already covetous glances being cast on the wagon and its team of big, strongly-built horses. 

The the owner of one pair of greedy eyes decided that now would be a good time to stake his claim to the wagon, its contents, the woman and the horses.

He swaggered over, with a hand hovering above the fancy pearl-handled Colt that hung low on his right leg.

“Well, little lady,” he sneered, “there’s a toll to be paid if’n you wants to get this hyar wagon into town unmolested.”

The woman hawked and spat, and gobbet of something landed on the ground between the would-be hard man’s feet. He was fool enough to lose his temper. Grabbing for the gun on his hip he snarled a vile insult. Even as his hand closed on the Colt he realised he wasn’t fast enough – as he found himself looking down the wide barrels of a shotgun which were pointing somewhere around his midriff.

“Put ‘em up, mister less’n you wants a square of turf on Boot Hill.”

He raised his hands, managing to keep a poker face as two of his confederates crept towards the wagon. The first would-be robber slipped into the back of the wagon, while the second made for the horses. 

Both men started screaming at about the same time. The one by the horses was down on the ground with a set of long yellow teeth snapping at his throat, while the other was forcibly ejected from the wagon by the boot of a man who looked like he wrestled grizzlies for a hobby. 

Get your copy now and enjoy a warm festive and reimagined Christmas.

In come I, December, with hale and hearty cheer,
With mulled wine and with wassails
With claret, port and beer.
With winter winds and woollen scarves
My breath in air a-misting
I’ve chocolate treats and holly wreaths
And presents all a-gifting
I’ve hot mince pies and sweet plum pud
And bulbs on wires a-hanging
See my pine trees in tinsel gowns
And children on drums a-banging
My carollers sing the ancient songs
That frame this time of cheer,
I bring you joy and laughter in
And leave with the new year.

E.M. Swift-Hook

The Dai and Julia Mysteries have a Saturnalia surprise for you this year and we are counting down to it by offering a free novella every day from now until Saturnalia begins on 17 December. Saturnalia Optima!

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 boot would have caught him in the head. Dai rolled away as it swung in and he took it on the shoulder instead. But the rest of the pack were about to catch up and after the last experience of that, he knew he had two choices, surrender at once or hold on, count the moments and pray. The decision was taken from him as the whistle blew across the field.  Which was just as well because he could not have taken much more punishment.
A hand reached down, attached to a brawny arm.
“Well done, you’re not bad at this are you?”
The mud smothered ball was clutched close into his body and Dai, still winded and bruised from the last assault, took the hand, grateful for anything that might help him back on his feet. A moment later he was reeling back on the ground, shoulder probably half-dislocated as his erstwhile helper was holding the ball aloft and making an earsplitting hooting noise.
Dai lay still, closed his eyes and let the world revolve around him for a few moments. The jubilant cheers and back-thumping slowly faded. It was not the first humiliation he had endured since he had started his career in the Vigiles and he was willing to bet it would not be the last. But at least it would be the last he had to endure on this training course.
This ‘team building’ event was meant to be a treat for the final day. A reward for all the hard brainwork they had been required to put in to qualify for the rank of Investigator. Random draw assigned the teams and they had spent the morning training. Dai had contemplated feigning gut cramps to escape the afternoon match and now he wished he had.
He became aware it was starting to rain. Britannia in the early spring tended to wet and the ground they had been playing on was already part mudslide. The drops were heavy and he decided he was not hurting quite so much any more and probably ought to get up.
“Spado!” He recognised the voice of his team captain and opened his eyes, pushing himself to his feet one knee at a time. A far cry from the players you saw on the sports channels. They would take all kinds of a kicking and just roll to their feet and jog off.
“You must be the most stupid cunnus I ever played in a team with. Giving the ball away to the other side – and that after the whistle.”
“The game was over and I thought -”
“You thought you’d fall for the oldest trick in the book? The rules are merda, Llewellyn – just like what you keep inside your skull. This is harpastum. The Game. They had the ball when the ref got his first view of it after the whistle.”
The anger and disgust on the other man’s face was so intense Dai found himself sinking into a defensive stance. He had no idea how to play harpastum, the messy brawls for glory had never appealed to him, he’d avoided it like the plague during his school years opting for other sports, running and swimming being the ones he favoured most, but he knew how to fight when he had to, that had always been on the sports syllabus in his life. The other man seemed not to notice, he had already turned away and was jogging back towards the building.
Wiping at a splotch of mud which was sliding over his eye, Dai realised he was only spreading more mud as his hand was coated too. In fact, there was not much of him that was not. He squelched back across the pitch, the rain picking up as he did so, and by the time he stepped into the changing rooms, the mud was cascading in rivulets on the floor behind him. He pushed open the door and the conversation dropped as the entire nineteen man team glowered at him.
Dai shook his head and walked past them, heading for the welcome warmth of the shower room. He might have lost the game, but of the five points they had made, two had been his and owed more to his running skill than anything else. The other three had been scored by their team captain, but then that was a man who had been in the under 20s finals at Augusta Treverorum six years ago as he had proudly boasted when putting himself forward for the role. They also seemed to have overlooked the fact that Dai had been the one clutching the ball and defending it with his body when the whistle went. Which, he had been told, was the way to ensure victory in this game. No one had bothered mentioning anything about after the whistle.

You can keep reading Dying to be Friends by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago for free if you download it today 4 December.

A wise matron’s advice and guidance on how to survive the five day season of Saturnalia with domestic joy and harmony…

Unsuitable Gifts

To prevent your beloved from buying you something so ugly as to render you speechless with rage it is always simplest to write him a list of your requirements – with shop, price, size, colour, type etc.

If he bridles a little, dangle the season ticket for the arena you are going to procure for him to sweeten the pill. (As for the ticket. Your Pater can provide that. After all it was his idea that you married this particular gem of masculinity.)

As to the rest of his and your assorted relatives. Markus and Spensarium are very good about issuing refunds or credit notes in the days following Saturnalia…

If his mother has been so crass as to shop somewhere else you have little option but to burn the offending item as soon as Pontius returns to his place of employment