Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook is a whodunit set in a modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules. If you missed previous episodes you can start reading from the beginning.

“A copper penny for your thoughts, Domina Julia.”
“None of your never mind, Llewelyn,” she tried to sound severe but even to her own ears her voice sounded thin and strained.
“Relax, my lady, I’m not about to jump your bones. It would be a little difficult to explain to the Tribune. Not to mention a pair of hairy praetorians in the atrium.”
She snorted.
“That’s not my worry. I’m more concerned about what might happen if I jumped your bones.”
He looked at her for a moment, his eyes searching her face as if he was unsure whether she was teasing him or not, then laughed deep in his chest.
“If we were somewhere less public, I might just call you on that,” his voice was deep and lazy and Julia felt it reverberate through her body like half-remembered music. She must have blushed, because he put one finger under her chin and gave her the grin she was becoming so familiar with.
“When I first saw you, I thought you were a little boy. How wrong can a man be?” He dropped his hand, but his gaze remained heated and Julia found it difficult to regain her breath.
“Are you flirting with me, Llewelyn?” she heard herself actually purring.
“Oh no. This is far more dangerous than mere flirting.”
“Really? You think it’s not dangerous to flirt with me?”
She turned her face to him in mute invitation, wondering if he had the courage to back up his words with a deed. He did not disappoint. Dai grazed her lips with his own and she sighed. He leaned away from her but kept his eyes on her face. Julia looked away first and he touched her cheek before grunting in a dissatisfied manner.
“Not here. Not now. Not like this. Please talk to me before I get us both arrested. Or more likely just me.”
Julia mentally acknowledged the truth behind his comment. It seemed wrong to her to even consider their respective positions in society, but they needed to be thought about. Even though he was a man with a legitimate family lineage and she was a product of the slums whose mother was a whore, she was still a Roman Citizen and he wasn’t. 

She sighed.
“What would you like to talk about?”
He thought for a moment.
“The Tribune and Boudicca. Do you think they are…”
“Almost certainly, but I haven’t actually asked.”
Julia leaned forward and dipped another ladle of water onto the hot stones. When she leaned back, Dai’s face was a picture of pity.
“What?” she asked a tad testily.
“What happened to your back?”
“Oh. That. That’s what happens when a party of Mongol slavers has you and you don’t prove yourself biddable enough.”
He lifted her hand to his cheek.
“So much courage in such a small body.”
She snorted.
“Courage or stupidity. Call it what you will. I’d have been better off capitulating. They might have raped me less brutally.”
He turned her hand and kissed the pink palm.
“And yet you don’t hate men.”
“No. I did for a while, but you can’t stay bitter forever.”
“Many would. And the Tribune was right.”
“What did the old fool say?”
“Only that you have the sort of courage and integrity that shames most men.”
Julia mentally beat her foster brother about the head and face before turning a smiling face to Dai.
“So that means he told you the sorry story, does it?”
“Just the outline. He wanted me to understand how it had been for you. I don’t, of course, but I do at least know you are not a spoilt patrician.”
“Indeed I’m not.”

“May I ask you one thing?”
She lifted a shoulder.
“Ask away.”
“How did the slavers get you? In Rome?”
“I wasn’t in Rome. A group of orphan children of vigiles parents who had died in service, were sent north to the mountains to avoid the summer heat. Only the charitable patricians who organised the trip actually sold us to the Mongols and put it out that we had been abducted. The had pulled the same scam with other groups of orphans but, fortunately for me, unlike the others the Vigiles were not going to accept nothing could be done or abandon their own without a fight. It should have been a huge scandal, but money changed hands and it was all hushed up.” She paused as she realised something for the first time. “I think that is why justice is so important to me.”
Dai swore for quite some time, and, for reasons she wasn’t prepared to analyse, this gave Julia a warm fuzzy feeling in her stomach. When he calmed down, their talk became general and light-hearted, as if they both realised there were things they needed to say to each other, just not quite yet.
After steam and massage, they were forced to separate as the actual baths were segregated. Julia found herself alone in the female caldarium, and allowed herself to float in the hot water enjoying the looseness it promoted in her limbs. She let her mind drift back to Dai Llewellyn in all his almost edible masculinity and a small smile spread across her gamine features.
She was so lost in her daydream that she didn’t even feel the blow that rendered her unconscious.

Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook

When it’s still the dread November
Summer gone and winter embers
When the cold makes you remember
That there’s worse to come. December
Lift your face an watch the moon
Only seven months till June

© jane jago

From ‘Sam Nero and the Case of the Dutiful Daughter’ one of the stories in Sam Nero PI by Jane Jago which is out today!

The moment she walked into my office, I knew she was trouble. Any private eye worth his salt knows that a dame like that in a dive like this spells trouble for somebody.
She was classy, and way out of my orbit. Even the sound of silk on silk as she crossed her legs spoke of money beyond my imagination. She uncrossed those legs, leaned forward, and pulled a pack of Lucky Strikes out of her handbag. I took my cue, lighting the end of her cigarette with my brass Zippo.
Leaning back in the tatty office chair, my visitor smiled a feline smile. She smoked in silence for a moment, and it crossed my mind that she looked as out of place as an orchid in a ditch.
When she spoke, her voice was almost as wealthy as her appearance. It was smoky, and sexy, and carefully modulated.
“If a person wanted to have somebody rubbed out, where would that person go?”
“The eraser factory?”
She leaned back and blew a smoke ring. “Very funny, Mister Nero. But I asked you a serious question.”
“I’m a private investigator, not a facilitator.”
My visitor laughed, low and husky. “Very good. And I’m not asking you to facilitate a murder. I’m asking you to investigate one.”
I leaned my elbows on the desk. “Aren’t the police investigating?”
“No. Or I wouldn’t be slumming it.”
“Two questions. Who died? And why not some up-level investigator with a shiny office and an even shinier reputation?”
She stared at me before leaning forward and stubbing out her cigarette with vicious little stabs. I couldn’t help noticing the perfection of her manicure and mentally pricing the job at more than what I earned in a month.
“Not so stupid, then.” Her voice lost some of its melody and grated a little on the ear. “I came to you because I heard you were honest, and maybe not afraid of getting your hands dirty. And who died? Lefty Galento. My father.”
It was my turn to stare. Then I spoke in carefully neutral tones. “Lefty died of natural causes.”
“Oh sure,” she said harshly, “if you call being smothered with his own pillow natural.”
“What do you mean, smothered? The newsfeed said he died peacefully in his bed. And Meditech agreed.”
“You have clearance for Meditech?”
I wriggled my fingers, and the ghost of a smile passed across her features. “If you had to hack in, why did you bother?” She sounded curious.
“Because Lefty and me went back a way. And I wondered which of his family got greedy.”
“That’s what I wonder too. And what I want to know before they start dividing up the assets.” She regarded me somberly for a minute, then appeared to come to a decision. “As far as the family is concerned, I am one of Daddy’s assets. I just want to make sure that whoever they want me to marry didn’t pay his nurse to hold a pillow over his face.”
She got up from her seat and reached into her bag once more, pulling out a fat brown envelope. “There should be enough cash there to engage your services. I’ll be back in three days.”
She left my office with a swing of her hips.
All she left behind her was an image burned into my retinas and the suggestion of her perfume. Oh, and an envelope of cash.
I put the envelope in the drawer of my desk and waited.
It wasn’t long before the office door was flung open with a crash. I only just had time to wonder how a holographic door could make a noise, when a pair of huge hands with black hairs crawling across the backs of them grabbed me by the shirt front. The goon grunted as he attempted to drag me out of my seat, but I’m a big boy and I don’t drag easily. I heard the material of my shirt tear, and that annoyed me. I don’t have enough shirts to destroy them without a backward glance. I put my hands around the goon’s wrists and squeezed, gently at first, then with progressively more force. The goon left hold of my shirt and started to whimper.
I waited until he dropped to his knees, then let go. He was dumb enough to go for whatever was in the holster under his left armpit. I coughed gently and he looked up right into the barrel of a blaster disguised as a vintage Colt .45. And those barrels look mighty big when they are right up close to your eyes.
“Down, boy.” The voice that spoke from my doorway was educated, with mild undertones of thug, and the goon was obviously in fear of the owner of that voice, because he scrambled to his feet and hung his head.
“Sorry, boss,” he mumbled.
“Just go. Wait for me outside and make sure we are not disturbed.”
The goon went, and I eyeballed my second visitor with some interest. He was slim and dark and good-looking, and he exuded dangerous with every breath.
He sat where the dame had been only minutes before, and I found myself thinking they had to be related.
“I understand you just had a visit from my cousin.”
“Classy broad, about so high, wearing a red suit?”
He nodded.
“Then I did.”
“What did she want?”
“Hadn’t you better ask her?”
“I’m asking you.”
I looked at him for a few seconds, noticing that the whites of his eyes showed all the way around the dark brown irises, before replying in carefully colourless tones. “She wanted me to find out who disposed of Lefty Galento.”
“And what did you say, my large friend?”
Thanking all the gods and all the techs for my excellent poker face, I looked at him blandly. “As far as I am aware, Lefty died of natural causes.”
He narrowed his eyes and stared unblinkingly at me. When I neither fidgeted nor paled under his malign regard, he essayed a smile. “Very good, Mister Nero. Keep it that way and nobody will get hurt.”
I forbore to remind him that so far the only one hurt was his muscle, contenting myself with a thin smile. He got up from his chair, brushed off the seat of his pearl grey pants, and left. Calling his dog to heel as he went.

To keep reading, pick up your copy of Sam Nero PI by Jane Jago with a cover from Ian Bristow.

The King now old and paper thin
With marching wrinkles in his skin
Who on his deathbed silent lies
With failing breath and fading eyes
His son, the prince, is pink and smug
And quite as charming as a slug
Inside he smiles, but hides his eyes
While outwardly he cries and sighs
The tall princess in silence stands
And carefully regards her hands
The doctor looks and shakes his head
Then baldly states ‘the King is dead’
The prince looks up with gladsome face
At last he gets to rule the place
His sister pours him golden wine
He savours it and takes his time
‘This truly is a wine of note’
But then he coughs and grabs his throat
The princess laughs and makes no bones
‘That’s how you play the game of thrones’

© jane jago

Welcome to the Hotseat of Truth, a device in which your protagonist is trapped. The only way to escape is to answer five searching questions completely honestly or the Hotseat will consume them to ashes!

Today’s victim is Madelyn Lawrence who you can find in Contact (Instinct Theory #1) by Ian C Bristow.

Why did you become an anthropologist?

There is something about culture, the way it defines a bigger picture of human existence and exemplifies our need for a social connection, that just fascinates me. Always has. Or at least for all my adult life and most of my teens. So, basically, I became a cultural anthropologist because I wanted to better understand how differing cultures affect the human experience and share that with others so they might better appreciate the beautiful diversity of humanity.

If you didn’t have your fiance Jonathan’s support would you still have gone on the mission?

If I didn’t have the support of Jonathan and we were together, I would have stayed. He means more to me than my work, though it has taken this great uprooting of my daily norms to show me just how true that is. But if I didn’t have his support because he wasn’t a part of my life, I’d have been all over this mission without a second thought. Well, barring a bout with the typical fear anyone might experience facing the unknown.

Is there anything in the world you would consider killing to defend?

The helpless. The weak. The preyed upon. Anyone who couldn’t defend themselves. It’s easy to say, of course, but when it came to pulling a trigger or thrusting a blade, I’m sure there would be a far more complex battle taking place in my head. But that is how I feel about it when I can just say how I think I’d act.

In a few words can you give us your philosophy for life?

Wow, in a few words? Let’s see… Be kind and just to the best of my ability, and let others live as they please with the hope they will let me live in as I please just the same. Clearly, life is far more complicated than that, but it’s a good place to start.

What is your favourite musical genre?

Well, I really enjoy the different tribal music I’ve been exposed to, both in Africa and South America, but as for more mainstream stuff, I really like ambient beats. Like lofi or ambient jazz. It helps me think and creates a nice space for my head.

You can read more about Madelyn in Contact (Instinct Theory #1) by Ian C Bristow.

Dying might not be so bad. It was living that had broken him. Taken from his family at eight years old, vowed to celibacy before he understood what the word meant, and sold to the highest bidder time after time. His sword had eaten the blood of so many enemies that he felt today was no more than reparation. As the hooded figure came to his side he looked into its compassionate eyes.
“Am I dead?”
“Nearly. Say farewell to your loved ones.”
The Knight spoke the saddest three words under all the stars.
“I have nobody.”
Then he died.

A Drabble by Jane Jago inspired by original artwork from Ian Bristow.

Despite living in Wilmington, Delaware for over a decade, Moira had never understood the point of Thanksgiving. She was a proud Scot by birth and she came from a long line of proud Scots. Not that she was unfriendly or anti-social, her knitting circle and reading group were always well attended and her role as librarian was highly respected.
She had moved to the US from Linwood in Renfrewshire when her husband died. Her only daughter being, at that time, herself a widowed single-mother in Wilmington.
For a few years, Moira had spent Thanksgivings with her daughter and grandchildren, always a bit bemused at having another major family festival so near to the one she saw as more traditional – a secular Christmas. But, when in Rome, she told herself.

Then three years previously her daughter had remarried to another man in the armed forces and was off to live where he was based in California. Moira looked at the climate charts and decided that she was most decidedly not going to move to anywhere like that. She liked the climate in Wilmington, it made her think of her childhood home.
So for the last two years Moira had not celebrated Thanksgiving and had been happy to stay at home for the holiday, Skype with the grandchildren and catch up with her reading. This year, however, it was not proving so simple. Anna, who attended both Moira’s knitting circle and her reading group, started asking about what she would be doing for Thanksgiving.
“Oh, it’s not my festival is it?” Moira said, and gave a short laugh. “It’s for you who had ancestors here in sixteen hundred and frozen to death. The ones who had a big party with some local inhabitants who saved your ancestors, helped them survive and then came to celebrate. Or something like that. Nothing to do with me, really. I’m Scottish.’
Anna had put down her knitting, a sharply orange and cream acrylic and wool mix which she was turning into a bolero, and stared in disbelief.
“Now where do you get that from? My ancestors didn’t move to the United States until early last century. In fact, if only the descendants of those who were at the original Thanksgiving ever celebrated it then I would think it had died out as a custom long since.”
Moira’s lips twitched into a tight line.
“You have been brought up with it, Anna. You were born American.”
The other woman stared a little.
“Part of Thanksgiving is celebrating a welcome to those from other cultures. Even Scots,” she added the last tartly.
“It is a classic family festival,” Moira said, “and my family is in California not Delaware.”
Anna looked as though she was going to argue but instead gave a small sigh and returned to her knitting.

Thanksgiving came and Moira had enjoyed a brief Skype with her family and was just wondering what to eat when the doorbell rang. A little irritated as today was not a day she had planned for visitors and so her usually immaculate bun was replaced by a cascade of unruly wavy hair, Moira answered the door.
Outside stood Anna, her husband their children and the grandparents. All of them burdened by savoury smelling boxes or bags. Moira opened her mouth to speak and Anna gently grasped her arm and led her back inside her house. As Anna’s family unpacked the well-cooked, Thanksgiving meal with all the trimmings, Anna hugged Moira.
“The local inhabitants have come to save you and celebrate,” she said, “and we are not taking no for an answer.”
It was the best kind of Thanksgiving for all of them – but for Moira the first of many more.

E.M. Swift-Hook

We was doing all right until Pa was took away, then things got hard. Ma set her jaw and got on with it, but we never seen her smile.

Thanksgiving come, and me and Joe shot us a couple of turkeys what ‘escaped’ from Ole Man Matthews’ farm.

Ma clipped us round the ears, but she cooked ‘em all the same.

We was just sitting down to eat, when the back door opens quiet like and Pa slips in, bone thin and with his prison haircut.

Ma never said nothin’ just set a plate of turkey in front of him.

©jj 2019

A new collection of the Sam Nero Stories by Jane Jago, Sam Nero PI, is now available on preorder. This is an excerpt from the notebooks of Anastasia Throbb, ace reporter, and presenter of the prime-time magazine show The Throbbing City.

Sam Nero didn’t want to meet with me. It took six months of poking and prodding, and outright bribery before I found a man who was both willing and able to lean on this most archetypal of private investigators and make him talk to me. In the end, a friend of a friend introduced me to a man who goes by the name of O’Halleran, who promised me an hour of Sam’s time. Rather to my surprise, it even seemed as if he was going to deliver.

He sent two huge mutes to my office and they escorted me to a back-street diner where a sullen-faced waitress stuck me in a booth and stopped chewing gum for long enough to mouth “sit”. I sat and waited, concealing my growing impatience as best as possible. I was just about to make as dignified an exit as I could when a shadow fell across the table.
“Miss Throbb, I presume.” The voice was lazily amused.
I turned and got my first look at Sam Nero in the flesh. He was about six three, maybe six four, wide at the shoulder and narrow at the hip, and his face looked as if it had been designed to meet the expectations of every pre-pubescent female in the city. It was hard, and sculpted, and sported what I could only assume was a permanent five o’clock shadow. I turned my attention to his companion, a lush-bodied bottle blonde who looked at me as if she could discern my innermost secrets. I think I hated her on sight.

They slipped into the booth opposite me, and something about the pair of them set the hairs on the back of my neck prickling. For a moment I was floundering, then I realised what had spooked me. There were two of them, but only one shadow. While my flesh was still crawling, the waitress appeared with a pot of coffee and two tall mugs. She put a mug in front of Nero and one in front of me before favouring me with a sneer and sloping off.
“Doesn’t your lady friend get coffee?”
The voice that responded was feminine and breathy and sounded to me as if it had been honed over a lot of years of practice.
“I never touch the stuff. Ruins the complexion.”
Then Nero laughed. It was a deep sound that sent little shivers running around all sorts of inappropriate parts of my anatomy.
“Be nice.”
“I was being nice, Sam. You should know that.”
She laid a red-nailed and possessive paw on his forearm and he smiled.
“Sure you were being nice, Sugar. I’d just like to keep it that way.”
“Sugar?” I think my voice went up an octave, I mean what sort of a prehistoric monster calls his woman sugar?
“It’s my name. Sugar Kane. That’s Miss Kane to you.”
Mentally cursing my luck I turned my most winsome smile on Mister Nero.
“Sam,” I said. “May I call you Sam?”
He raised a lazy eyebrow and looked me up and down for a moment before laughing that damnably sexy laugh again.
“I guess so. It’s what Ma Nero named her little boy.”
“Is it really? I mean I can find no record of a family called Nero, let alone a male child called. Samuel?”
“Nah. Just Sam. And where I was born nobody keeps records.”
“And Miss Kane. Where and when was your sidekick born?”
“That ain’t the sort of question a gentleman asks a lady. Not if he wants to keep wearing his face. You can ask if you are that stupid.”
I looked into his companion’s icy eyes and quickly framed another question.
“The first record I can find of a Sam Nero is about four decades ago when a licence to operate as a private detective was granted. Would that be you?”
“Maybe.”
“The age of the applicant is stated as being forty-two.”
“Sounds a responsible sort of age to me. What say you Sugar?”
They exchanged a look of such naked trust that for a second even I felt de trop. But I pressed on.
“But that can’t be you, Mister Nero. If it was you would be in your eighties by now. And you don’t look like an eighty-year-old man to me.”
“Neither he does.” The blonde seemed to be laughing at me, and I didn’t like the sensation one little bit.
I made my voice hard and assertive.

“In my book, Mister Nero, that makes you an impostor. I’m sure the authorities would love to look at my findings and throw you into jail for a good long time.” I leaned forward and slapped the palms of my hands on the table hard enough to sting.
Nero laughed.
“Think again, sweetheart. The authorities as you so sweetly call them know precisely who I am. Next question.”
He took a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes out of his pocket and lit up.
I coughed.
“I do not care for tobacco smoke,” I said icily.
Nero sneered at me.
“Door’s over there. Make sure it doesn’t hit your ass on the way out.”
I was incensed, but some vestige of intelligence stopped me leaving. This was my only chance to persuade an icon of old-school cops and robbers violence onto my show so I swallowed my bile and tried for a forgiving smile. The obnoxious Sugar shrugged her shoulders and her rather overblown assets jiggled.
“I think the lady has decided to forgive you.”
He grinned lazily, and twitched a mobile eyebrow, sending my hormone count soaring yet again. This man was hot, hot and dangerous. I needed him to boost my flagging ratings, and maybe for the odd other job or two.

I set myself to charm him, sipping my coffee and running my tongue along my lower lip. He watched with what I can only describe as detached amusement, and I felt my anger begin to rise up once more.

“What’s with you Nero?” I snapped. “You come here sneering, and looking down your nose at me…”
He leaned back and crossed his long long legs.
“Wasn’t me asked for this meet. Suck it up.”
I drew in a breath and tried for calm.
“Fair point Mister Nero. I asked to meet you.”
The blonde bombshell laughed huskily.
“I think the lady is after your body, Sam.”
“Why’d that be Sugar?”
“As if you didn’t know, big boy.”
“And as if you didn’t know old Sam’s heart is yours alone.”

It seemed to me as if they had completely forgotten my existence and I rapped my nails against the crazed china of my mug.
“I’m still here,” I grated.
“Why so you are.” Nero looked me up and down a bit more, and the silent insult in his stare had the blood rushing to my face and I blushed for possibly the first time in two decades.
“Why are you being like this? You have been chauvinistic, unpleasant and downright rude. Why? What have I ever done to you?”
He got up from his seat and looked down at me with a most peculiar expression on his face.
“It’s not always about you. I am what I am. How I was made…”
Then he was gone, and the woman went with him. Two entities with one shadow…

You can also find Sam Nero in The Last City – a science fiction anthology from Dust Publishing

They will tell you Fae can’t cry….
In a way that’s true, but we can be hurt, although we are forever denied the healing benison of tears.
I knelt on the forest floor, and I replayed the moment the orcs sawed down my tree over and over in my head.
My tree was dead. I did not understand why I was not dead too. They meant me to die. They mean all the forest spirits to die…
But I am still alive and in a moment I must stand and fight them.
For now I just wish I could cry.

A Drabble by Jane Jago inspired by original artwork from Ian Bristow.