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…

Pridie Nonas Maia MDCCLXXVIII Anno Diocletiani

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.”

You can keep reading Dying to be Fathers by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago for free if you download it today 10 December

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

The Big Question

At sometime during the ‘festivities’ at least one of his appalling female relatives will drag you into a corner and ask, with very little attempt at subtlety, when his family can expect to hear the pitter patter of tiny feet.

The world at this point is your lobster. You can delicately suggest the he is incapable. Or allude to a depressed sperm count. Or explain that he doesn’t want children yet. Or look offended and stalk away. Or….

There is only one thing You Must Not Say. Don’t admit to being pregnant-even if you are – they will follow you around all day/week/month mouthing old wives tales and monitoring your alcohol intake. You will become homicidal and Saturnalia is such a bad time to be killing relatives – no matter how much they deserve it.

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…

Turning out for a dawn raid was one of the aspects of his old job as a vigiles investigator in Londinium that Dai Llewellyn had imagined would not be featuring in the elevated role he now held as Submagistratus for Demetae and Cornovii based in Viriconium. He would have been quite happy to leave it in the capable hands of his Senior Investigator, Bryn Cartivel and the small group of grim faced Praetorians on temporary secondment, under their decanus, Brutus Gaius Gallus. But orders were orders and these came from Rome.
The Magistratus had been regretful about it.
“I know you don’t want to go careering over the countryside at the moment, but this is something a bit more important than just a theft. It’s part of an Empire wide operation against a major criminal organisation and I need you there as my eyes and ears.”
It didn’t help that the Magistratus, Lucius Ambrosius Caudinus, was also Dai’s brother-in-law, thus making any excuses to get out of the duty pretty much impossible. Normally he would not have minded, but then normally he was not distracted by worry about his wife.
Notwithstanding his reluctance, after a few days of preparation he was sitting in an all-wheel somewhere along a dirt track that led to an isolated villa halfway up a mountain, sipping thermos-tea from a paper cup, whilst out in the dark and the cold his vigiles and the praetorians surrounded the building. Dai knew he was going to miss the extra security that Gallus and his men provided on operations like this. They were well armed, elite troops. His vigiles were non-citizens to a woman and man which meant they were forbidden by law to bear arms and when the praetorian detachment returned to Londinium after its six-month secondment at the end of the month, Dai would be faced with having to request armed support of a much less reliable nature.
The door opened, letting in an icy blast and Bryn stood by the vehicle, greying hair tied back and half-hidden under a knitted hat, breath condensing in the dim light. He held a satphone in one hand.
“Everyone’s in place. Just need your word to go in, Bard.”
Dai reached over and tipped the remains of his tea out of the door, onto the frozen gravel.
“Then let’s go wake Vibius up.”

You can keep reading Dying for a Vacation by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago for free if you download it today 9 December.

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

The Saturnalia Candle 

At least one of hubby’s little chums will think it the height of wit and sophistication to procure for your household a Saturnalia candle in the shape of an erect phallus.

This candle will be anatomically correct in every detail. Save one. It will be at least three times the size of anything you would ever encounter in real life.

To deal…

Clap your hands over your mouth in pretended shock and point to a place of honour on a side table. Where Pontius will place it carefully – so proud of his understanding little wife.

When they have all buggered off to The Game, fetch your electric hair dryer.

A warm breeze strategically aimed will soon induce the thing to curve in such a manner as to suggest erectile disfunction.

Never mention it…

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