Rex had been through several homes so he had no great expectations when he was chosen at the pound that this one would be any different. The woman who had stared at him in his run with an intense piercing look had not seemed that pleased to take him. She wore hard heels that tapped along the floor and didn’t say anything as she put him into the car and drove home.

The man who sat alone in the garden looked very sad until he saw Rex. Then he smiled.

“Charlie? My Charlie!”

Rex decided he liked his new name.

E.M. Swift-Hook

“It is entirely in your own hands archbishop,” the slender red-haired woman in the huge gilded chair spoke coldly and deliberately, “but you and your confederates have ensured that the majority of the populace believes in one virgin birth so I fail to see your problem.”
The ancient, and cadaverously thin, prelate stared at her for a long moment while the muscles in his jaw worked. He obviously wanted to say something but in the end he lacked the courage and subsided into fulminating silence.
“And you Master Cecil. Do you have nothing to say?”
The richly clad figure of Her Majesty’s spymaster in chief bowed floridly.
“This, your Majesty, is either a master stroke or the biggest mistake a reigning monarch ever made. With the greatest respect, we will not know which it is for many months yet.”
“Agreed, there is an element of risk but I would know whether you are with us in our great endeavour.”
Cecil dropped his world-weary pose and bowed his head.
“To death and beyond, Majesty. To death and beyond.”
“You can serve us best by remaining alive,” the Queen spoke with some asperity although her narrow dark eyes warmed a little as they rested on Cecil’s beaky face.
The third man came forward and bent the knee before his sovereign.
“Parliament will uphold whatever your majesty chooses to do.”
“My lord Essex was ever the gentleman,” the Queen laughed although it was a mirthless sound. “The lords temporal range themselves alongside us, as does Master Cecil’s organisation, which just leaves the lords spiritual to declare.”
Essex looked at the cleric with something akin to loathing.
“You are either with us, my lord archbishop, or you are against us. We have no time for you to mull over your decision.”
The stubborn old man in the cope and mitre stared at his queen.
“Do you even begin to know what you are asking?”
She regarded him for a long moment.
“We are perfectly well aware. But what would you have us do? Marry England to some foreign prince? Elevate one of our noble families above the others?”
The archbishop looked at her marble pale features with dawning respect.
“No, Majesty, I would have you do neither of those.”
“Then give me an alternative.”
The old man bowed his head.
“There is none. I stand corrected. The church ranges itself beside you.”
“Good.You may all leave us now.”
The three men bowed themselves out of the room and as soon as they had closed the door behind them the figure in the huge chair allowed her shoulders to sag just a little. A large sandy-haired man, dressed plainly in leather and homespun, stepped out from behind the rich hangings and came to kneel at her feet. She smiled down at him.
“It appears,” she said carefully, “that our plan has the support it needs. Now it is for you to do your part.”
He lifted one small foot in his large, calloused hand and brought it to his lips.

In due time Gloriana, the virgin queen, gave birth to a strapping red-haired son. She called him Henry after her great father, and he ruled wisely and well as did his own son and the son of his son, and the son of the son of his son….

© jane jago

The life of an elderly delinquent in limericks – with free optional snark…

I am old, and I couldn’t care less
About how you believe I should dress
I may step out in leather
Or a fan made of feathers
Or my underwear’s silky caress

© jane jago

‘Dying to be Believed’ is one of the exclusive bonus short stories The Third Dai and Julia Omnibus by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook which is now available for pre-order.

Prandium was a pleasant meal, with Aelwen dispensing smiles and cuddles and the adults chatting lightly. By the time everyone had progressed to spiced milk and tiny cakes, Aelwen’s head was drooping like a poppy on its stalk so Julia buzzed Luned who came and bore the little one away for her afternoon nap.
Once they were gone, Julia looked shrewdly at her guests. “There is a fire in my sitting room, and a decanter of Llewelyn brandy. We can be comfortable and undisturbed, and you can tell me what the problem is.”
Lavinia took Marcella’s arm. “I told you Julia would see there was something wrong.”
“You did, Mater, and you were right. The question is more whether or not she believes me.”
“When we are all sitting by the fire you can try me.” Julia ushered them into her sitting room and closed the door. 
Lavinia settled her daughter on a deeply cushioned settee and sat beside her. Vulpes came to stand beside his mistress with his big head on her lap. She smoothed his ears and turned her sightless eyes on Julia.
“I heard somebody being killed last night.” When Julia didn’t react she carried on speaking. “Because I’m first violin, and because I’m blind and need a dog, Vulpes and I merit a dressing room to ourselves.  Anyway, after the performance last night somebody from the hotel where we are staying was supposed to come and collect me. But they must have forgotten. It wouldn’t be the first time. And somebody always remembers in the end.” She patted her mother’s arm. “It’s okay, fach, as long as I have Vulpes with me I’m fine.  But I digress. There is a big sofa in my dressing room, so Vulpes and me cuddled up. I must have nodded off, because I woke up feeling a bit disoriented. Vulpes was growling softly, but I shushed him and pulled a blanket over us both. He remained alert and I became aware of voices. Quiet voices, three or maybe four, arguing viciously. They seemed to me to be talking about some sort of a scam or con trick. One of them wanted out, but the others weren’t having any. Said he was in too deep to quit. He suddenly seemed to snap, and shouted. ‘I’m out and you can’t stop me.’ One of the others laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. Then I heard a sort of a muffled pop. And the sound of something heavy falling to the floor. I didn’t dare move or make a sound, and even Vulpes kept silent although all the hairs on his spine stood on end. We heard something being dragged along the corridor outside. Then whoever came back. Laughing. Said something like ‘nobody will find him there’. Then they went away. I was just wondering what I should do when I heard a familiar footstep. It was Claudius, my umm… sort-of boyfriend, come to find me. For some reason I didn’t want to rock the boat, even with him, so I kept my mouth shut and just pretended to be asleep…”
Marcella wound down and, by the look of her, she was on the verge of tears, but Julia’s investigative instincts hadn’t been blunted by her time out of official law enforcement.
“That isn’t all, though, is it?”
Marcella stopped stroking Vulpes and her hands writhed together miserably in her lap.
“No,” she whispered. “I think somebody suspects I heard. And I don’t think they are the sort to leave living witnesses behind.”

The Third Dai and Julia Omnibus ebook is available for pre-order now – or if you can’t wait, the paperback edition is already available.

It was one of those moments when he knew whatever decision he made could affect the entirety of the rest of his life. 

This was it.

There was no way to avoid making a choice and no way to prevent the cascading consequences reaching down through the years ahead. He could be losing a chance at a lifetime of happiness or maybe committing to the first step of something that was doomed to fail.

For a moment that awareness paralysed him completely. Even his thoughts. Then he looked at the screen in front of him and carefully swiped the picture.

E.M. Swift-Hook

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.

The life of an elderly delinquent in limericks – with free optional snark…

I am old, and that is my excuse
For subjecting my liver to abuse
I’ve an appetite for gin
A digestion of tin
And a belly that likes to hang loose

© jane jago

An extract from Symphony Of Destruction by Ken Goudsward

Hannah has finally adjusted to life on board the Ventas-341, when a series of strangely catastrophic hull breaches and a devastating viral outbreak decimates the crew. Now she finds herself stranded in the shadows of the asteroid belt. Together with the only other surviving crew-members, Colin, and the robotic Brother Anderson, she must somehow overcome their chaotic relationships if they are to have any chance of escaping the doomed ship.

Hannah stared at a small dark spot on the grey wall. Perhaps dark was not really the right word though. It was a bit dark-ish. But certainly not dark. Not dark like the dead space through which she sailed. Not dark like the blackness eating a hole in her soul. Hardly dark at all, really.

Hannah barely noticed anymore. She barely noticed the constant whine that pummeled her eardrums. She barely noticed the glaring red emergency lighting. She barely noticed the dozens of corpses surrounding her, coated in clear spray epoxy. More accurately, it should be said that she barely noticed the clear epoxy, body-shaped shells, nearly empty now, save for what appeared to be a few handfuls of dirt, and, judging by the slight bulges of the shells, some pressurized gases whose identity she could only speculate at, having never had any inkling to study the sciences. Probably carbon dioxide though, she surmised. Wasn’t that the fate of all things? Being gradually overtaken by carbon dioxide? But what did she know?

The passage of time was one thing though that had gone far beyond barely noticing. Hannah was acutely aware that she had, in fact, ceased to be capable of sensing time in any way. This was natural I suppose, given that days and years had been abandoned along with earth, and given that the computer systems were mostly non-functioning and her access had been denied long long ago, and given that anyone who ever gave a shit about what time it was was also long gone. There was, of course, the shit itself. And the piss. These had become the most reliable markers for time. But that was a very dubious level indeed. And besides, what did it matter anymore. Time was a meaningless vestige of the past. How ironic. A past with people and lives, and planets, and suns. A past with mothers singing sweet little homemade lullabies to their young daughters. “Little babe, blessed babe, there’s nothing to fear, so sleep my dear.” But there were, she knew now, many things to fear.

A Bite of… Ken Goudsward

Question 1: Facing your demons? How much of what you write could be classed as therapy?

Yes. Life is therapy. Life is also trauma. Hopefully, the life that comes after trauma can be informed by that trauma, and both can become healing. For me, poetry has been important in slowly learning how to allow myself to BE. Switching over to fiction in the last couple of years has allowed me more space to explore some of these same concepts, in a less explicit way, which I feel has been very important. Somehow, there is a certain power that can be accessed only indirectly. You can’t attack it head-on. It refuses to be grasped intellectually. In story and in character we have additional degrees of freedom to move within these conceptual frameworks. To explore without the demands of understanding. We don’t expect our characters to be perfect. Perhaps some of us expect ourselves to attain, or at least strive for, some unreal level of some perceived perfection. We are ridiculous. We have to teach ourselves to unlearn. By becoming our own characters, we may fragment our own internal conflicts into more pure representations of our own self parts. This can be healthy in that it allows one to face these parts realistically and respectfully, setting aside judgement of the non-perfection. Plus, it’s sci-fi, so we get to blow some shit up!

Question 2: Is it important to include all shades of belief and sexual orientation in a book?

It’s important to love each other and respect each person’s right to make their own choices and follow whatever cultural norms they choose to embrace. It’s important to learn to overcome our own assumptions and limitations. It’s important to learn to write from a wide variety of character perspectives. But is it actually possible to include literally all shades of belief and orientation, whether that be sexual, philosophical, political, religious, or whatever, into any book? Is it a good idea to try? It seems to me that would take a nearly infinite number of characters, causing the story to be unreadably convoluted. Aside from that, it would take an essentially omniscient author to understand and write from every possible perspective. As authors, we like to pretend we have an omniscient perspective, but no human ever has. Perhaps it is more important to concede that whatever we think we know is really a very limited and incomplete model of reality.

Question 3: What is worse, ignorance or stupidity?

We are all stupid in some regard. Nothing wrong with that. Well, maybe it’s annoying. We are also incredibly ignorant. We have to ignore so much just to survive. But we can also grow, by shrinking our own ignorance. The thing that is the worst, is the rut that people fall into of refusal to grow, refusal to reject ignorance. I guess that is true stupidity.

Ken is an author, poet, musician, programmer, ontographer and game designer. He loves windy days and rainy nights, and dreams of vast deserts, ruined spaceships, and bubbles with lines in between them. You can find him on Twitter.

It never seemed fair to Tammy. Why was it when autumn came that all the trees kept their green except the River Tree? 

She sat in her wheelchair and wondered if he was sad when his glorious green mantle turned to red and gold, then lifted away when the winds blew, leaving him standing gaunt on the riverbank.

He alone must die whilst those trees around him stayed green and strong.

Tammy watched the sunset, golden behind the River Tree. At least he would come alive again in the spring. She hoped she would still be there to see him…

E.M. Swift-Hook

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