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…

I

Anno Diocletiani MDCCLXXVII Maius

“Notebook entry. Confirm date, Post Ides, Maius. Time, night watch, at two twenty three, and location Augusta Arena, Londinium, Britannia Maxima. Looks like the report of a murder was not wrong. He seems pretty deceased to me.”
Under the brilliant lights of the pitch, which turned night into day, the body would have looked gruesome anyway. It had no face. But laid out as it was on a white sheet, the injuries seemed to stand out more. There was no blood but…
Dai wished he had not put quite so much garum on the chips he had been eating less than an hour ago. Even after more than eight years in the job he still found he had little stomach for the messier end of it. At least the hands seemed to still be intact, which made part of the process a lot easier. He pressed the touchscreen of his identipad against one finger and then entered the other necessary details. DNA and fingerprint checks both came up. Which was unusual as most murder victims were unregistered on either database. But when he saw the image he knew why this one was different.
This had once been Treno Bellicus ‘Big Belly’: one of the leading lights of the Caledonian Game team here in Londinium for the Games. That had to be more than ironic.
Dai, like every schoolkid in Britannia, knew that an arena had stood here since before the Divine Diocletian had rebuilt the Empire under his heavy hand, spreading his brand of Romanisation as far as his arms would reach and at the same time snatching back the privilege of being a full citizen from all born outside Italia. Back then, the arena had staged the kind of barbaric and bloody spectacles ex-patriot Romans expected. And now? In all honesty, Dai could not say it was too much different. It might include a ball as a sop to those who wanted to call it sport, but the brutality remained the same. The Games in all their unrelenting savagery. Those who couldn’t be there in person to taste the dust and smell the blood could freely watch the spectacle on the screens on every street corner and in every public building. Bread and Circuses.

The prize that lured the finest athletes of the provinces to risk life and limb was otherwise unattainable Roman Citizenship, and this poor bastard had been a star player. A broad-featured face looked out of the screen on Dai’s wristphone, wearing a manufactured snarl; behind him was a virtual backdrop with sports drink logos and other product placements. Well, those sponsors had just lost one of their money-spinning assets.
Reluctantly, he returned his attention to the body and bent over it to peer at the visible injuries as he made his initial informal observations. It was as much talking himself through coping with the gruesome scene as anything of real value.
“Victim ID biometrics confirmed. Body is supine. Been dead the last four hours. He looks like he has been laid out all ready for anointing and Charon’s obol. But placed on a white cloth that I’m willing to bet half my next salary is going to be a bed sheet. Body was bled out, through the throat – ugly gash there – and cleaned up before being put here. The other half of my pay is going on the certainty there will be nothing on the body we can use to ID the killer. Other injuries I can see -”
One of the disadvantages of being a plainclothes investigator was it seemed to lead to less respect from civilians, especially from Roman civilians.
“Llewellyn?” the voice was coolly condescending.
Even though he had told his decanus to keep everyone away, Dai was grateful for the excuse to straighten up and stop looking at the corpse.
The woman who stood there was in her thirties, with classic Roman features; she wore her fashionably short stola over close-fitting leggings and boots. For someone who must have been dragged out of bed in the small hours, she looked very well turned out and made Dai wish he could cover the small stain on his tunic where he had dropped a chip when the call to attend this crime came through. Her name badge declared her to be ‘Annia Belonia Flavia’ and said she was Curatrix Prima. No doubt in charge of this arena. She was frowning at him and he realised he must be staring.
“That is indeed who I am, domina.”
Behind her back he could see Bryn, his decanus, looking guilty. So he should, but Dai had the feeling this woman was not the kind to be easily put off.
“Do you you know how this happened?” she demanded, as if it was Dai’s fault the body had been left in the middle of her pitch.
“Investigations are already underway,” he told her smoothly. “We have identified the victim and my people are questioning everyone who might have seen anything here.”
He had tried to put himself between her and the body, but she sidestepped and looked. Her hands went up to her face and the skin behind them looked almost as pale as the corpse, leaching into a light hint of green. To her credit, she recovered without vomiting, but she stepped back and took a breath before restoring the gravitas expected of a Roman matron.

You can keep reading Dying to be Roman by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago for free if you download it from Smashwords.

If you would like to listen to this extract as you read, or instead of reading, you can – on YouTube.

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

Decorating the Atrium for Saturnalia 

First of all remove everything of value – be it sentimental or monetary. 

Roll up the carpet and hide it someplace. Cover the furniture with cheap and cheerful fabric – for preference printed with witty Saturnalia cartoons. If you have glass doors be sure to spray them with artificial snow or some such rubbish or your husband’s cousin from the boondocks will walk into them in a state of drunken stupor.

And finally. Under no circumstances allow the introduction of mistletoe into the room. It is a Druidic symbol which is the reason you can give for banning it – the real reason is that the families can be licentious enough without a ‘kissing bough’.

A story with a seasonal message about generosity written in rhyme and perfect for reading out loud to children of all ages over the festive season.

From A Christmas Tail, a collaborative effort between two authors – E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago – and a brilliant illustrator, Ian Bristow.

Even the beauty of the garden nourished their growing disenchantment. 

He yearned for enlightenment and watched the night sky, but even as he grew more contemplative it seemed she got sillier and shallower. 

Eventually, she drifted to that place they had been told not to go, and her eyes glued themselves to the tree they must not touch and the beauty of the serpent as he coiled and uncoiled his iridescent self.

He saw her there, and his tongue tasted her loneliness, although he spoke not. Instead, he waited.

When he judged her insane with curiosity he spoke mildly.

“Hello.” 

©️jj 2020

Midwinter Miracle by E.M. Swift-Hook is a Fortune’s Fools short story.

I.

It was Midwinter.

Tegwyth reminded herself of that. A time for celebrating that the longest season had finally turned on its pivot and the warmth of summer, though short-lived, would come again. A time for gifts to be given and feasts to be eaten. In past years she had been given gifts by the owner of the caravan – her owner – trinkets to wear, bangles for her wrists and ankles, a fine scarf to protect her hair and pull over her face, keeping the dust from her nose and mouth, as it was thrown up by the caravan on the road. She had been pampered and cosseted, well treated and cared for. She had even believed she was loved.

Then last Midwinter she had become a gift.

She had seen it coming from the moment his true-born child had started speaking venom – one who would take no competition for her father’s affections. And he, in his turn, adored her and indulged her. Then the boy-child Tegwyth carried was born to live no more than a few gasping breaths, like all his sons before. She had failed him.
So at Midwinter she had been given away. A gift to seal a trading pledge with a merchant from across the ocean – a merchant from this city, from Keran. The merchant had taken her into his house and then taken almost all she cared about from her – even her hope. But when he threatened to take and sell the most precious thing in her life, she had risked everything and run away. It had been her Midwinter gift to herself.
So yes, Midwinter was about gifts and feasting, but sometimes, maybe, you had to take the gifts and help yourself to the food.

It sat on the table beside a smeared empty bowl with a lingering savoury smell of soup. Someone had bought it, eaten their fill and left half the loaf. Whoever it was did not want the bread and it had already been paid for, so it could not really be considered theft.
She had first seen it through the small window, as she stood, shivering, in the frozen white outside. Somebody had wiped away the condensation of the warmth within so they could look out, which had granted her a half-glimpse inside the tavern. That had been enough. Following a group of wealthy men and their whores through the briefly open door, then shrinking into the shadows to disguise the quality of her dress and the thin felt cloak that had been worn through in patches.
The loaf still sat unguarded. The boy clearing the tables did not seem to have noticed it yet. He was at the far side of the room, dodging between the patrons with their fine and fancy faces, plump from good eating. He ducked, avoiding a cuff aimed at his ear, as he picked up a jug someone had not yet deemed empty.
The loaf looked bigger than it had through the window. Tegwyth’s stomach called out to it and she was grateful for the sounds of raucous cheer. Without them, the man standing with his back to her, close by the fire, might have heard. He was tall and even from behind she could see the wider whiskers of his beard as they spread from his chin.
She knew who he was, of course, all of Keran had heard of him. They called him Drum. He was someone special here and his arrival the previous day had been talked of everywhere as she hunted for food. Not many sons of Temsevar, as she knew well, made their way to other worlds and even fewer of those who did ever came back as he did. Even here in Keran, where the twin domes of the spaceport humped high with snow dominated the city, it still seemed strange beyond imagining for Tegwyth. She struggled to believe that anyone could come from worlds beyond the stars.
Her eyes moved back to the loaf which seemed so far away – as if, it too, sat on another world. Beside it, cast aside onto the stool and partly pooling its fabric over the table, was an odd, sleeved garment that might be some kind of coat. It was the colour of freshly shed blood but had a sheen in its fabric which the flickering firelight caught and played with. She had seen the bearded man wearing it out in the snow on his way here. It must be warm to wear as he had needed no cloak. Even above the gripe of her stomach for food, she felt a sudden desire for the coat and the warmth it could give.

A Midwinter Miracle is available on Audible,  as an ebook and paperback and can be purchased from Amazon, Kobo, iTunes and Googleplay. This special edition has typographic art and cover design by Zora Marie.

They called it the green cloud, and it was the biggest fear of the dirt farmers and market gardeners who lived around the margins of the lake.

They posted sentries high in the branches of the shade trees, and the cry of ‘green cloud’ sent terror into every heart.

On the day of the sandstorm a shout of ‘green cloud’ ripped through the air at the same time as laboured aircraft engine noise.

A hijacked aeroplane barrelled into the cloud of insects and smashed into the ground before bursting into flames.

The suicide bomber took ten million locusts with him…

©️jj 2020

This is the sort of book that wraps you in a warm hug and tickles your ribs until you scream with laughter.

Maljie is the kind of a woman you don’t know if you’d be frightened spitless of or want to go for a beer with. Whatever, she is a creation of true comic genius.

The circumnavigation of ‘authority’ is written in such a way as to pull you into the conspiracy – always on the side of Maljie and her band of colourful underdogs.

I can’t recommend Jim Webster’s Port Nain books highly enough.

Five resounding stars. But. Don’t read the book with a drink in hand…

Jane Jago

Cheering Reading

I’m not sure what it is, but there is something irresistibly uplifting about the Maljie stories – well, to be honest about all but the very darkest tales by Jim Webster about Tallis Steelyard and his strange friends and acquaintances of Port Naain.

Maljie has to be the uncrowned queen of Port Naain, although I would not be surprised if one day we find she became queen too, it would be a completely Maljie thing to do, but she is a woman who needs no other authority than her own intense personality.

This is a book to cheer and warm, but it is packed with social commentry as well and no small amount of wisdom too:

“The law is like a monster which will gobble up everything in its path. But because it’s an elderly monster, lame and blind in one eye, it depends on people to help it. If the people are grown-up then sometimes you get justice and sometimes you get mercy, and sometimes you might get both.”

So with wisdom, with cleverness, with cunning, with a smile on her face and always with enough – usually very subtle but sometimes laugh out loud – humour to make you chuckle, Maljie dances her way through the pages of this third selection of her memoirs.

E.M. Swift-Hook

The first Hazy knew, was when her followers started posting. They believed she, a make-up and fashion influencer, would save the world from people who were really alien, cannibal, rats. People like the other influencers with whom she held a friendly rivalry.

Hazy denied it. Her followers said they understood and knew she had to. She decried them as idiots! They thanked her for trying to protect them.

Staring at the screen in despair, Hazy began deleting. Trying to escape the madness. The messages went on:

Someone’s deleting her accounts.

I know her address. I’ll be there in five minutes.

E.M. Swift-Hook

‘Much Dithering in Little Botheringham’ is an everyday tale of village life and vampires, from Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook.

To say The Crown and Sceptre was crowded was to understate the case. Em found herself wedged firmly between Agnes and Ishmael listening to Ginny with, she was very much afraid, her mouth half open.
“So. I was digging through my files on DumpCorp and I came across some allegations about the behaviour of company employees when they were in Scotland ‘negotiating’. Nothing, it seemed, could be proved, but I knew in my gut that DumpCorp was as guilty as hell. I sat and read them through again and I promised myself that this time I wouldn’t be silenced.”
Agnes pushed a glass in Ginny’s hand.
“You sup up and explain properly missy.”
Ginny grinned. “Okay. In addition to the suggestion that at least one croft was torched, there were some complaints from the families of barely of age girls. And they concerned Dump and Schilling. Sadly it was the usual case of somebody’s word against somebody else’s. And it got swept under the carpet. Then there was the case I was involved in personally.”
She stopped speaking and Em thought tears were very close to the surface. But Ginny, as the sisterhood was beginning to learn, was made of stern stuff under the fluffy exterior and she pressed on.
“Okay. We had all the evidence and everything should have been on our side. But then Schilling took my ex-husband out to lunch and suddenly the bottom fell out of our case. It ended my marriage. And it took me five years to find out why the weak fool folded. I had always thought that Schilling paid him off. But he didn’t. Turns out my ex had another ‘wife’ and a child and he was simply told that the kid would disappear if he didn’t do as he was told. The rest, as they say, is history. But I did promise myself that I’d have my day with them two.”
Jamelia got up from her end of the table and managed to insert herself on the bench next to Ginny. She took Ginny’s hand in hers and Ginny’s smile grew stronger.
“Today seemed to me to be my only chance to face them so I made my plans.”
She was still wearing the ugly hat and put up her hand in a gesture that mirrored what she had done earlier in the day. When she opened her hand there was about six inches of needle sharp steel in the palm. It was an ornate Victorian hatpin.
“Old trick from when I was regularly attending protests. Wear a hat, then you have an excuse for a sharp weapon…”
Em leaned forward and picked the thing up. “That’s some weapon. Are you telling me you stabbed Dump with it?”
“Yup. Right in the fat bit under his thumb. I never thought I would be able to do that to another human being…”
She looked so shocked that Agnes laughed her most comfortable laugh. “I reckon you’re off the hook there, sister, whatever that thing may be biologically it isn’t a human being anywhere that counts.”
“That’s sophistry, and it shouldn’t make me feel any better. Although it does…”
Em put out a hand and touched Ginny’s shoulder. “You, my sister, have nothing to reproach yourself with. Your intervention may just have turned the day and stopped that madman blasting around him with his popgun.”
Ginny’s smile was so bright that it was all but blinding to look on. “Are we safe then? Have we really won?”
It was Jamelia who answered. “Oh yes. We’ve won right enough. And there is no wriggle room. The housing estate is safe.”
“And Dump?”
“Oh. Him? They hailed him away in a police van. Kicking and screaming. They were talking mental instability and asking for a doctor to be in attendance.”
Em took over. “His goose is cooked. Plus, of course, this is going viral online.”
She passed Ginny her phone and watched her sister’s face break into a delighted grin as she saw a grainy image of herself facing up to the two men and the close up of Schilling spitting in her face.
Jamelia put a finger on the screen. “And that, my brave friend, has just about put a huge nail in the coffin of DumpCorp’s plans for world domination.”
There didn’t seem to be much left to say when a huge pair of hands placed a tray of drinks on the centre of the table.
“Drink up ladies. I reckon you are owed a few drinks.”
Em looked into the eyes of one of the Saturday night fighters and he dropped her a huge wink.
“Wasn’t just us, you know.”
“Yeah. But you lot were like the bloke that stands in front of an orchestra waving a stick. We can all play our instruments, but we needed somebody to herd us together.”
Em supposed he had a point although she hadn’t a clue what to say to him, but it was okay – Agnes had her back.
“Just so long as everyone is safe,” she said. Then she chuckled fatly. “You and the Jocks made up your differences?”
The young giant gestured with his thumb and Em turned for a look. Almost all of the pub garden seemed to have been taken over for some sort of a congratulatory party involving the Saturday night boys, the older majorettes, the marching band, and the Scottish pipers. Someone had dragged in an electric piano from who knew where and the dancing was energetic if less than ballroom.
Em felt her grin grow wider as one of the majorettes came into the room and dragged a pair of rather rusty swords off the wall.
“It’s a challenge,” her speech was slurred and her eyes were bloodshot, but she was game for all that. “Them bliddy jocks has challenged us to have a bash as sword dancing.”
Agnes elbowed Em in the ribs.
“Get out there will you. The honour of the village is at stake.”
Em got up and toed off her shoes.
“Let the dog see the rabbit,” she said firmly.
As she formed the antlers with her fingers the Scottish pianist struck up Ghillie Callum. Em’s feet flew and the place fell silent around her save for one very pissed Caledonian.
“Well booger me backwards with a haggis. The old sassenach bird can bludy sword dance.”

Much Dithering in Little Botheringham by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook, will return to The Working Title Blog in 2021.

Now comes the day of fire and a knight of courage rare
Who bears the blade of Dragon’s Bane and braves the dragon’s lair
Who fights upon the bones of all who’ve been devoured there
Who fights the ancient dragon, where none before would dare. 

The clouds above are sundered, shedding endless, saltless, tears
As lightning cleaves the sky across and strikes our very fears
And mighty roars the thunder, as the echo fills our ears
The dragon’s doom has come after a thousand tortured years.

The ocean deeps are riven as the chasms break apart
And lift the land that’s living forth from the seas that part
As massive waves are driven on far shores no one can chart
For Dragon’s Bane has sunk into the dragon’s very heart.

The earth itself bears witness to the moment of the deed
The gems and precious metals, plundered by draconic greed
Reclaimed by chthonic forces that had been made to cede
As on the stony ground, the dragon now doth bleed.

And in the mists of evening, when once the blood is shed,
People come a dancing, who would have been dragon’s bread
Had Dragon’s Bane not pierced scale or severed dragon’s head
And now there is rejoicing for the dragon’s surely dead.

E.M. Swift-Hook