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Have a fabulous festive season!

Defeat was always a bitter cup from which to have to swallow, but Kahina Sarava determined from the first that it should not define her.
True, she now had to endure exile in the grand house she liked the least of all she owned. It was a sprawling, over-ornate residence built in the heart of great natural beauty and originally intended as a place where she could entertain and impress the powers of Central. It suited her political enemies to have her there, isolated and cut off from any place of influence. But, it was not entirely without benefit. Freed from the endless need to joust for political advantage, she had considerably more time for some of the other things that mattered. Such as pursuing her lifetime’s work: Future Data.
So she stood, back straight, defying her age as the fussily dressed man climbed from his vehicle and walked the short distance to where she waited in front of the main door to her house. The security people who flanked her on either side, guards set to both protect and contain her, stiffened visibly as her visitor approached.
“Garn, what a delight to see you.” She had been expecting him. Though when the brief message informing her of a visitor had come through earlier that day, his name had not been mentioned. “I think this must be the first time we’ve had a get together since you arrested me. What would bring you all the way from Central to visit me in person? I am sure you could gloat quite adequately over link.”
He was a big man in many uses of the word, and it amused her to make him feel uncomfortable. There was little enough by way of human entertainment for her here and no small responsibility for her incarceration rested on his shoulders.
“Right,” he said, and she could see he was sweating despite the temperature being pleasantly cool. “Maybe we could go in and talk somewhere a little more private.”
“I can offer you anything here, except privacy.” She made an elegant gesture with her hands, unfolding them to indicate the attentive security detail. “I am not permitted that even when I sleep. My link connections are watched and my conversations monitored.”
Garn Jecks seemed unperturbed, but then his mind was not very flexible. If he had arrived with a fixed idea of some objective he wished to achieve, that would be both the full extent and narrow focus of his thinking. Laser like — if a laser were some solid substance and not fluid photons. Such inability to embrace the broadest view whilst still keeping the details in sight irritated Kahina. Her own mind suffered no such limitations, and she tolerated it poorly in others.
“I will make the necessary arrangements,” he told her. Matching actions to words, he turned to issue brief orders to the security detail, then added more by link to the invisible watchers who controlled the remote monitoring of her residence. They all moved quickly to obey, but then he was their supreme commander, the man in charge of the Coalition Security Force.
A short time later, Kahina found herself sitting in her favourite room, ambianced to remind her of her mother’s study with shelves of books and curios, heavy looping curtains at the windows and the antique wooden desk. She had chosen not to occupy the desk, Jecks wasn’t someone who would be in the slightest bit intimidated by her doing so. Instead, she sat in one of the comfortable, deep-cushioned chairs set either side of a beautifully carved and inlaid table. Jecks sat opposite her having just dismissed the last of his entourage. He was visibly discomfited. Kahina played the perfect hostess.
“Can I offer you any refreshments? It’s not the shortest of hops here from Central.”
“Right. It’s not. But thank you, no. I’m a bit pressed for time.”
She couldn’t resist another dig.
“I am fully accessible by link, you know.”
Jecks didn’t trouble to answer that. His preoccupation was blinding him and Kahina wondered if the poor man was even aware how much that showed.
“There has been a — a development.”
“A development?”
He almost squirmed.
“I have just received some information which has brought into question our previous conclusions regarding the Future Data project.”
Kahina considered feigning surprise.
“Oh?”
Jecks looked as if he had swallowed something that settled ill in his stomach. For a moment, he glared at her.
“So you already knew.”
She didn’t trouble to reply, instead allowing her expression to reflect the untroubled confidence she was feeling. Jecks muttered something under his breath then started pulling up a remote screen of what appeared to be some security surveillance. Not the best quality and from a static camera, but when he zoomed the image and froze it, the result was perfectly clear.
“Oh dear,” Kahina said gently. “How very embarrassing for you. I wonder what you plan to do about that?”
Jecks pulled at his neckline as if it were too close about his throat.
“It’s not what you…”
“Oh, but I rather think it is.” The first taste of victory after such a bitter defeat and three years of exile was so sweet. She leaned forward, unable to suppress her delight and not caring that it showed. “I rather think you need me again.”
Jecks physically recoiled from her.
“Kahina, I — “
“Var Sarava,” she corrected him. He looked as though she had slapped him hard across the face and Kahina smiled. “You are of course quite right. I knew already. Or should I be more accurate and say that Future Data informed me of there being a high probability that those two would resurface in this timeframe.”
“Then you know why I came.” Jecks sounded defeated now, resigned to some inevitable and inescapable fate. Which, Kahina supposed, was not too far from the truth of things.
“Of course I don’t know,” she snapped. “I’m not a mind reader. Future Data may inform me what is likely to occur, but it’s not yet capable of attributing motive to the behaviours it predicts. Why did you come?”
“It wasn’t my first choice, but Ilke Dray suggested…” Jecks stopped himself and took a breath instead. Wise man. Kahina could feel the pressure of her fingers closing into tight claws.
“How is dear Ilke these days?” Then she lifted a forbidding hand, forcing the fingers to uncurl, as Jecks opened his mouth to tell her. “No. I really don’t want to know. I’m sure she will be going about her busy little life in her busy little way. And of course you don’t need to tell me why you are here, that much is obvious. What I want to know is what do you have to offer me in exchange for my assistance at this time?”
Jecks wore the look of a man being asked to sell his mother.
“Var Sarava, you can’t seriously intend to turn the security of the Coalition into an auction?”
“Why not? I have what you need, and you can procure it nowhere else. That would seem to me the basis of a price negotiation. I am sure you have authorisation to offer me something or you wouldn’t have come.”
“I can’t reverse the decision of the courts. I can’t turn back the clock and restore your good name. I can’t undo what has happened.” He sounded quite upset about it too.
Kahina got to her feet as gracefully as her age allowed and crossed the room to the antique desk. She loved the smooth feel of the polished wood as she slid her hand beneath it to release a secret catch. It was a wonderfully archaic hiding place. She slipped the data stick into her hand and turned back to Jecks, holding it up for him to see.
“This is everything you need to know to deal with them — if you are willing to pay the price I ask.”
“I’m not authorised to offer you anything.” He sounded in pain.
“Then it’s good that I’m not asking you for any ‘thing’. I have only one demand to make.”
“The head of Ilke Dray?” Jecks suggested, his voice slightly strangled. And, for a moment, Kahina had to wonder if he was being serious. Perhaps he was.
“I have no idea what I might do with such a completely vacuous item,” she told him. “No. I couldn’t care less about Ilke. And the price I’m going to ask isn’t unduly expensive. I merely need to know you will pay it when the time comes.”
“What is it?”
“I want Durban Chola.”
She wasn’t sure if it was relief or appalled amusement that motivated his response. “Chola? What the…? I mean, why?”
“I really rather think that’s my business, don’t you?”
Jecks looked as though he was being forced to swallow a large, irregularly shaped solid object.
“Right. Yes. Of course. I think we can do that.”
It was that easy.
Crossing back to the chairs, she settled herself comfortably again before holding out the data stick to Jecks. He took it as if it were a sacred relic, then busied himself with his links for a few moments as he prepared it to read. She could tell when he had done so. His expression shifted. Hardened.
“This contains nothing. Just two names.”
“That is more than enough for now, I assure you. If you were intelligent enough it would be all you needed, but I am quite aware you will be returning to ask me for further guidance.” It was why she felt so confident that he would pay her price in the end.
Jecks was frowning as if trying to read some deeper meaning into what he had been given.
“One is someone I know quite well and I can see the sense in it, they’ve worked on this before — but who in the name of all sanity is Halkom Dugsdall?”
Kahina, her objective achieved, sat back serenely and smiled.

Mistrust and Treason by E.M. Swift-Hook is free to download today 13 December 2022.

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The door of the staff dining room banged open and the handsome figure of Launcelot Gribble stood in the doorway with his romantically tousled head held high.
    “I think I’ve just broken my geek,” he announced.
    The Bursar sighed and looked up from the column of figures she was conning. “Again? And what makes you think this one is broken?”
    “He’s just sitting staring into the middle distance and making strange sheep-like noises.”
    Matron gave the dramatic figure in the doorway a look of deep dislike before grinding out her evil-smelling cheroot and heaving herself to her feet. She headed for the door, and as she passed Gribble she smacked him solidly across the back of the head with one large red hand.
    “Ouch. That hurt.”
    She didn’t even bother to answer him, just stalked along the dusty corridor like a vengeful leviathan.
    Gribble dropped his pose of romantic ennui and ruefully rubbed his head.
    “Why’d old iron tits decide to smack me around the head?”
    Democratic Runes looked up from the volume of arcane verse he was studying and regarded his colleague in disbelief.
    “Why wouldn’t she? You break geeks and she gets to fix them. How many is it this year?”
    Gribble studied his feet and muttered something unintelligible.
    “Come again?”
    “This one is number thirteen.”
    “Who else is egotistical enough to break geeks at that rate. Thirteen down and it’s only the ninth moon. You are a fucking liability, my friend.”
    Gribble hunched a shoulder and turned his startlingly green gaze on the sturdy figure of the Bursar.
    “I’ll just go choose another geek then, shall I?”
    “No. Indeed you will not. There have been complaints. The University has generated a memo. Allow me to read it to you. ‘It has come to our attention that the Chair of Ancient Scrolls is somewhat careless of the technicians who assist him in his work. This is unsatisfactory. Should any more instances occur, the choice of assistant is to be removed from his remit’.”
    “What are you saying?”
    “I’m saying that you don’t get to choose. You will be assigned a geek. And proper contracts will be signed.”
    Gribble bridled. “I don’t sign contracts. It’s an honour to be chosen to help me.”
    “As of now you do sign contracts. Because if you don’t, you don’t get a geek. And shut your mouth – you look stupid with it half open.” The Bursar got up and jerked a thumb at the gaping professor. “My office. Now.”
    In the skinny, cluttered office, Gribble looked around for a seat. He found no surface that wasn’t covered with paper.
    “Why do you have so much paperwork? Surely most of your accounts and stuff could be done on the computer.”
    “It could, if the University was not averse to The Motherboard knowing all our business. But we aren’t here to discuss my conditions of employment, it’s the conditions under which you employ your geeks that are in dispute.”
    “Dispute?” Gribble pushed out his lip in a show of boyish petulance, before he remembered that the Bursar was not of an ilk to be cajoled or seduced by the likes of him. Instead he hunched a shoulder. “Where do I sign?”
    “I thought you might see sense,” her smile was just on the acceptable side of smug. But only just.
    Scrabbling about in the teetering pile of paper on the windowsill, she dragged out a sizeable parchment and unfolded it.
    “You sign here, here, here and here.”
    Gribble pulled a pen out of his pocket and signed as indicated. The Bursar inserted the signed document in a slot in the wall and after a few seconds a disembodied voice filled the air.
    “Contract duly witnessed.”
    The unwieldy parchment slowly reversed out of the slot to fall unnoticed to the floor.
    Gribble eyed the Bursar.
    “Right. When do I get my geek?”
    “Tomorrow morning.”
    He opened his mouth to argue, then his face caught up with his brain and he snapped his teeth together.
    “Good thinking. Now cut along. I’ve got work to do.” The Bursar waved a wrinkled hand in dismissal.
    Even an ego as colossal as Gribble’s recognised the pointlessness of arguing with a tetchy female colleague who was not only senior to him in the University hierarchy, but who also disliked him quite a lot. He left the dusty confines of the office, shutting the door behind him with exaggerated care before stomping along the disorienting curve of the corridor cursing and kicking random pieces of furniture.
    Behind him, the Bursar listened to muffled swearing and assorted crashes. The smile that spread across her face made her look like a crocodile that smells fresh meat.
    “You, my temperamental young colleague, ain’t seen nothing yet.”
    She returned to her figures, obscurely comforted by the hard lesson Gribble was about to be taught.

You can keep reading Gribble’s Geek by Jane Jago for free if you download it today, 12 December 2022.

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They were having a fine day out on the hills. Felix had mastered the rudiments of riding quickly and today he was managing to control his stubborn little mount so well that Caudinus had abandoned the leading rein. Having eaten the lunch Cookie packed for them, Felix was running around playing at being a legionary soldier whilst his father and Dai shared a half-bottle of local wine and the ponies chomped contentedly at the grass nearby.
The land here was bleak but beautiful, with ridges of rock, mantled in greenery, jutting into the sky and limiting the horizon from roughly rolling hills. A brisk breeze ruffled hair, lifting the heat of an unclouded sun and somewhere above them a bird keened as it traced an invisible circle overhead. Scant sign of human habitation disturbed Dai’s view, aside from the odd isolated dwelling, little more than drystone shacks with crude slating culled from local stone where crofter families lived. Their sheep, made small by distance were puffs of grey, like dandelion seed heads, against the scrub. This was the hinterland of Britannia, never one of the richer or more developed provinces, at its most primal.
“I’m sorry to spoil the day.” Caudinus voice broke into Dai’s thoughts. “But this wasn’t only about taking Felix for a riding lesson.”
Dai was not too surprised. He had caught the note of significance in the older man’s voice when he had called yesterday suggesting he brought his family over to Villa Papaverus and that the three of them should go for a ride.
“So what’s up?”
Caudinus shifted his position on the rough wool blanket they had thrown over the grass and thistles.
“I’m not sure it is anything, but it might be and I didn’t want to worry Cariad or Julia so this seemed the best way we could talk without either of them realising we had been.”
“I can see that,” Dai agreed. The last thing he would want for Julia, so close to her due date now, was anything to worry about. “What’s the problem?”
“I have had a couple of anonymous threats delivered to my admin staff in the last few days. Unpleasant things – one found their cat mutilated and a message attached to it saying they should tell me to back the right people. Then night before last another was jumped by two masked men and told to tell me that I shouldn’t get in the way of progress.” He broke off. “I might even have some idea who might be involved. A man called Aled Blaenau. He came to see me at the end of last month on behalf of some clients of his, he said. He was hinting heavily that he would be willing to bribe me to nod through a substantial transaction on some potentially contaminated land for his backers. He never actually came out and said so, of course, or I’d have nailed him for it and he denied that was what he meant when I threw it back in his face. I sent him away in no doubt that his efforts were more likely to be counter-productive than anything. At the time I thought he was just a lobbyist who had been over enthusiastic, but now…”
“You didn’t report any of this to Bryn?”
Caudinus shook his head. “I wanted to bring it to you rather than do anything official. As I said, I don’t want our families to become alarmed.”
The sunny day seemed to grow darker and Dai felt a cloud pass over his soul.
“Alright I’ll get on it soon as I’m back in work tomorrow. Nothing official until we have something solid to go on.”
Caudinus nodded and got to his feet.
“Thank you, I appreciate that. But now we’d best get these ponies back home.”
A few minutes later they began heading back to the farm. Their easiest way led through a small wood of stunted oaks and ash trees and that was when it happened. Dai vaguely recalled something stinging his neck and as he lifted a hand to swat it away, the world had turned upside down and slid out of sight into a dark tunnel.

An extract from Dying to be Fathers a Dai and Julia Mystery by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook which is free to download today 11 December 2022.

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Carnival, the night when the unrestrained appetites of the barrios would come leaping and prancing up the cobbled alleys into the very heart of to the city. The night when the fountains in even the meanest streets would run blood-red with wine, and masked women in diaphanous dominos would flirt with danger under sulphurous lanterns.
Papa Ouedo always leads the dance, with his huge bare feet slapping out a staccato rhythm on the hot stones and his face painted as white as chalk. Behind him, the boys and girls of the samba schools strut and posture – their semi-naked bodies slick with sweat and other effluvia.
On this one night of the year, when the sky is lit by a million shooting stars, and the city by a thousand hissing gas lamps, the dancers will come right into the Piazza del Innocenti, polluting the atmosphere with their raucous music and the acrid aromas of sweat and sex. Like every year since time immemorial, the balconies around the great square are set to be packed with the wealthy and aristocratic citizenry, who have their own traditions of lechery and gluttony to uphold as they celebrate Carnival in the safety of their marble-walled palaces.
When the music was at its hottest and most demanding, a small figure slipped unnoticed through the servants’ door of the noblest of all the noble houses. She was dressed as Columbine, in clinging cloud-grey draperies of the finest silk, and masked in exquisite feathers of black and white through which her eyes shone like blue diamonds. All she knew was that He would be dressed as Harlequin, and He would know her as she knew Him. Her heart pounded with some little fear, as it was dangerous to be out alone on any night, even here in the pampered streets of the uber-wealthy, but tonight it was pure insanity for a gently-bred virgin to be under the faraway sky. She knew this just as surely as she knew her own name, but it very quickly came not to matter. The music and the danger, and the sounds and scents of Carnival filled her blood like the bubbles in her father’s oldest champagne – and she felt alive.
She accepted the loan of a cup to scoop rough red wine from the nearest fountain and felt its thickness caress her throat. She tossed the cup back to a satyr with very prominent male parts and ran off laughing. For the most part, she ignored the plucking hands and caressing fingers, although it did amuse her to permit a kiss here and there – mostly, it must be said, from the blood-red lips of other Columbines.
If there were a hundred more Columbines out there in the streets, there must have been a thousand Harlequins, many of whom called her and stretched out their hands towards her slender form. But she evaded them easily, slipping in and out of the dancers like a monochrome ghost. There were so many that her head spun. So many multicoloured costumes, so many black masks, so many who would have gladly borne her company, but none called to her soul. For a moment her shoulders drooped, but she was of high courage and she plunged into the narrow twisting alleys that led ever downwards to the darkness and danger of the slums that fringed the city like grubby skirts.
As it grew darker she became aware of a subliminal pull that was leading her eastwards towards one of the towered gates in the city wall. When she got there, the gate stood open and the only guard to be seen was leaning on his pike and peering owlishly at the flood of humanity that ebbed and flowed through the portal. She had never ventured beyond the gates of the city but now she knew her way led over the narrow stone bridge that spanned a mile-deep gorge. Out she went, keeping to the centre of the causeway away from the beckoning edge. She felt more than a little envy for those who pranced along the stone parapet but feared that her own vertigo would cause her to cast herself into the abyss should she venture too close to that tempting drop.
Once back on firm ground, her feet took her, unresisting, in the direction of a huge bonfire on which some sort of an animal seemed to be roasting, sending oily smoke up into the blackness overhead. For a moment she felt completely disoriented and her fear seemed to communicate itself to the crowd around the fire, as they turned their smoke-blackened faces towards her and she could hear the sound of their teeth snapping together. A woman swore harshly at the interloper, but Columbine could hear nothing, all she understood was that the speaker’s mouth moved and a gobbet of greenish phlegm landed on the hem of her cobwebby gown.
The very air around her thickened with danger and she knew not whether to run or stay. A group of young women began to move towards her, with malice brightening their faces, and outstretched grasping fingers, and eyes full of contempt for her white softness. At that, even Columbine’s bright courage failed her, and she felt her heart leap to her throat. She was about to pick up her skirts and run for her life when she saw Him. He was wading through the crowd towards her like a fisherman wades the shallows of the river. He was a huge tatterdemalion figure, whose bright silks barely covered a body muscled as an ox and tattooed with strange symbols. She looked into the black lightlessness of his eyes and thought he would not be gentle with her, although she made no resistance when he bent and lifted her high against his chest.
As it turned out, she maligned him. His treatment of her was almost tender and although there was pain it was no more than that which was inevitable. He returned her to her father’s house just as dawn was lending a sickly yellow light to the eastern sky. As she put her hand on the latch He opened his mouth to speak, but she stopped Him with her small fingers against his lips and went inside.
In the fullness of time, an heir to the great banking house of Grimalka was born and there was rejoicing in the city.
On the night of Carnival, Serena Grimalka sat in a brightly lit window with her son in her arms. There was one more duty for Columbine to accomplish. She scanned the crowd, wondering if he would even come. When the proceedings in the square were at their loudest and most debauched, she saw Him. It was as if the crowds parted and made way for the bulky figure to come and stand by the window. Impelled by who knew what impulse, Serena curtseyed very low before turning the child to face the glass. The baby opened his black eyes and for a long moment he and his father looked at each other. Then the tattered Harlequin turned away. Serena did not ever see Him again, and she settled into a quietly happy marriage with the gentle scholarly cousin her father chose for her.
She never sought to venture out on Carnival night, even though the rhythm of the drums was like a drug in her blood and she knew that half her soul belonged to a tatterdemalion Harlequin with huge dirty hands…

‘Columbine’ from Pulling the Rug iii, a collection of short stories and poems by Jane Jago which is free to download today 10 December 2022.

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We here at the Working Title Blog think that as things have been pretty gloomy and expensive lately we can cheer everyone up with a FREE GIFT every day until Christmas!

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Have a fabulous festive season!

The first time he had seen it, from above, Stin thought the far-spreading sprawl of low rise, square, flat-roofed buildings looked like someone upturned a truckload of children’s play blocks. Or not. The shapes were too uneven. Maybe more like a skip full of builders’ rubble, emptied out in the middle of nowhere.
The buildings were all shades of ochre, the newer ones more brown or orange, the older ones yellowed and greying. Some close pressed along narrow streets. Others, more segregated in their own patch of land with courtyards and walls. The double dome of the tiny spaceport bubbled up, incongruous, in the midst of it all and anywhere else in the galaxy there would be ninety million health and safety regulators screaming that the residential buildings were too close. Here, though, there was no one with sufficient authority to object – even if anyone had actually cared. From the domes, a street ran to the main square and then continued pretty much straight on until it came to the only other building of real substance. Dominating the mud-brick built housing and offering a kind of low-tech counterpart to the spaceport domes, the stone-built citadel stood as a testament to local architecture, with its odd half-cylinder tower and its own microcosm of courtyards and housing gathered around the curtain wall.
This was the city of Keran. The planetary capital of Temsevar which was surely the most grimly benighted world in known space. It stood – or more sort of slumped – in a vast plain which stretched, dizzyingly, as far as his eyes could see in every direction, bleak and empty with nothing taller than knee-high bushes and an odd grey-green grass which grew all over.
Someone told Stin that before the spaceport, the settlement had just been a trading post centred on the citadel. Back then, it had only a scant handful of permanent residents and a high turnover of the weird tattoo covered nomads, whose tribes ranged the plains around, moving all the time to avoid their livestock over-grazing the sparse foliage. In some ways, he reflected, nothing much had changed – only the city had grown and now the nomads came from beyond the sky and were much fewer in number.
During the short summer the locals told him Keran was a dust bowl and throughout the long winter, it was a frozen hell. For Stin, it was all alien. A place of exile. First impressions always count and he had been left here in the winter. Adjectives that sprang to mind when he thought how he would describe it to people when – if – he got home again were: bleak, desolate, barren and bitter – like finding himself stranded in a gigantic cold-storage compartment. The memory of standing in the vacant dock looking at the empty space that had been occupied by the ship he arrived in earlier that same day, was still vivid. And that of the voice behind him full of friendly sympathy.
“She left without you? Well, no worries, it happens here. You’re not the first and I’m sure you won’t be the last. You’ll get off in a year or two, just might have to earn yourself a bit to pay the passage.”
He turned to see the speaker, a short man with a round face and a balding fuzz of dark hair.
“I don’t know why she – “
The round face broke up into a gnomish smile.
“You’d not be standing here if you did, would you? Anyway, I’m Agernilio Tavi, but everyone calls me Gernie. I’m the one-man band who keeps the port here running.”
“Stin. Stinian Sabas. I’m the dumb fool who just got dumped by his girlfriend. Now I guess I’m stranded.”
“You and me both, only I’ve stuck it out here the last two and a half decades. Oh man, your face. Don’t look so worried – I chose to stay.”
Gernie, he discovered, was the unofficial deity of the spaceport. He ran the place as his own private business venture and that made him the most important person in the whole of Keran. He was the gatekeeper. The one who controlled access to the rest of the galaxy, the one who could arrange for cargos to be shipped in or out.
Everything offworld was prized here – as long as it wasn’t high-tech dependent. The most highly sought after offworld items were weaponry and medical supplies. These would be purchased or exchanged for whatever local trade could offer – exotic food and drink, art and artefacts, some semi-precious stones and metals. Most of what was traded out didn’t come from Keran or even from the same continent. Most trade came – and went – on the backs of the local beasts of burden. These ponies were ugly beasts, with short, stubby ears, broad backs and thick coats, but had peculiar looking split-hooved feet which could spread and grip on soft ground or ice. They would carry trade goods in pack trains, along the single broad road which stretched to the seaport of Vinbrith, just out of sight over the horizon.
Stin went to Vinbrith the once. It had a pretty sounding name and looked totally picturesque from a distance, the cute cottage-like dwellings clinging to the cliffs above the harbour, the little ships bobbing on the tide and the huge wooden wheels turning slowly. It was perhaps only when you saw the wheels, used to lift the cargos on wooden platforms up the sheer cliff face, were treadmills with three ranks of six men chained in together, that the illusion began to fall away. That and the stench. Pretty as a picture from afar, but close to Vinbrith was worse than Keran – and that was saying something. But from there, wooden-built sailing ships carried goods of all sorts to and from the other continent of the planet, which, Stin had been told, was ruled by someone they called ‘The Overlord’ and held the vast majority of the planet’s population and most all of its resources.
Gernie found him the work. There were a lot of things that needed doing which the locals lacked the technical skill to achieve. It wasn’t good pay, but at least it would earn him passage offworld – eventually. Stin was roped in to help keep the port functional and to spell Gernie manning the archaic transceiver which was set up with the one solitary comms satellite in orbit above the planet.
The system was so primitive that it couldn’t even access regular link-based FTL transmissions. That meant that the only real contact the planet ever got with the rest of the galaxy came via the few ships that visited Temsevar each year. But those incoming ships had to communicate through the satellite as the spaceport couldn’t talk directly to them, it was too far behind modern link technology to do so.
It was when he learned that particular fact that Stin finally realised this place wasn’t just at the back of beyond like most Periphery worlds, it was actually a good few kiloparsecs behind the back of beyond.

A Walking Shadow by E.M. Swift-Hook is free to download today 9 December 2022.

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We here at the Working Title Blog think that as things have been pretty gloomy and expensive lately we can cheer everyone up with a FREE GIFT every day until Christmas!

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BEING OLD

I have just seen my backside in shorts
And it’s almost as bad as I thought
It’s as broad is a ship
And my bum cheeks have slipped 
Those are hips built for sitting, not sport

FESTIVE ELD

Deck the house with chains of paper
Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah
Clout the kids and cut a caper
Nah, nah etc 
Fill the socks up
Drain the money
Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah
January isn’t funny 
Nah, nah etc

ENLIGHTENMENT 

She sat outside her cave. Her face was as seamed as the striated rocks behind her, and grime was ingrained into every crusty crack.
But still they came.
The rich, the famous, the desperate, all seeking enlightened words. To some she vouchsafed nothing and they crept away, ashamed. To others she gave but one word of hope. The third group bathed in the almost sightless seeming whiteness of her eyes and heard her words of wisdom. 
When the last named supplicant backed away, she plugged her iPhone into its solar charger and offered a silent prayer of thanks for Google.

 Growing Old (Dis)Gracefully by Jane Jago is a slim volume of limericks (many limericks), verse and short fiction whose sole function is to stick two fingers up at growing old and the world around us as we grow old. You can download it for free today 8 December 2022.

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We here at the Working Title Blog think that as things have been pretty gloomy and expensive lately we can cheer everyone up with a FREE GIFT every day until Christmas!

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Have a fabulous festive season!

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 7 December 2022. 8/9 December 2022 (something went wrong so we’ve had to reschedule. Sorry!)

Come back tomorrow to collect your next free gift (and this one)!

We here at the Working Title Blog think that as things have been pretty gloomy and expensive lately we can cheer everyone up with a FREE GIFT every day until Christmas!

So break out the hot chocolate, the mulled wine or the festive spirit of your choice, find a comfortable place to curl up and start reading today’s free gift – then click the link at the bottom to download the entire book for free and keep reading.

Have a fabulous festive season!

Garanwys was beautiful from the day that she was born, a lovely child who grew into a stunning woman, a woman who was only too aware of her power over men. She was Garanwys of the red-gold hair and green-gold eyes, Garanwys whose lissome body and secretive smile turned strong men’s knees to water, Garanwys about whom visiting bards made songs and poems, Garanwys whose own father could deny her nothing.
Even before she reached full womanhood, the calculating beauty looked about her for a suitable husband. Her eye lighted on Owen Smith. He was a handsome man, a man as strong and dependable as an oak tree, and a man of considerable wealth and influence. Oh yes, Owen Smith would be almost deserving of the gift of her beauty.
And that might have been the end of the story, except that Owen Smith did not admire Garanwys in all her rose gold glory. He had an entirely different woman in his eye, and, instead of waiting for Garanwys to reach her fourteenth birthday, he married Llys. Llys, round-faced and capable, and the only daughter of Eudric Clothmerchant.
Garanwys ground her perfect white teeth in anger. How could she have been passed over in favour of a creature as plain as Llys? Llys of the nut-brown hair and mild blue eyes. Llys who employed no arts to attract. Llys who had probably never had a flirtatious thought in her life. Garanwys fumed, and vowed vengeance. She would make Owen Smith desire her, and ruin both his marriage and his life, she vowed.
While Garanwys was biding her time and learning certain things at the knee of her mother, who had begun life in a whorehouse in Flanders, Llys and Owen were settling into a contented life together. Their marriage had begun auspiciously, even when the new husband disclosed precisely what he had paid Eudric for the pleasure of his daughter’s body and mind. To Owen’s delight, Llys lifted a smooth-skinned shoulder and smiled ruefully.
“He’d not have allowed thee to take me from the loom for naught…”
They laughed together and the pleasure of his experienced hands on her skin soon distracted Llys from any thought of her father’s meanness.
This obvious contentment was fuel to the fire of Garanwys’ resentment, but it was not destined to last. When the winter was at its coldest Owen was called to the castle to shoe the castellan’s destrier. What happened that day is still shrouded in mystery, but what is known is that there was some sort of accident.
They brought Owen’s body home to his young wife on a hurdle.
If Llys cried, nobody saw it. She squared her shoulders and faced life. Moving the young blacksmith who had worked under Owen into the house behind the smithy Llys returned to her father’s home, wealthier but alone. Rubbing his hands together at the thought of managing another goodly chunk of wealth, and at regaining the services of his daughter at the loom, Eudric kissed her on both cheeks.
“Thou hast always a home here, my daughter” he said floridly.
As for Garanwys, she turned her resentment from Owen Smith to his widow, and began a series of pinpricks designed to cause Llys discomfort. Tales of Llys’ shortcomings as a wife, and hints about how Owen desired Garanwys began to circulate among the young women of the town. If Llys heard any such stories she gave no sign, even when she was being called barren by the worst gossips.
Her mother looked at her daughter’s serene face and wondered what went on behind those soft blue eyes, but she was powerless to help so she kept her council.
About a year after Owen’s death, Llys’ twin brother, Llyd, returned from his term of service to the king. He had left as a child, but returned a man: a broad-shouldered, open-faced, handsome, guileless giant of a man, who had the prospect of being very wealthy one day. Garanwys cast her gold-green eyes his way, and within a very few weeks she had him hooked. She played him like a great fish, dropping poisoned comments about his sister and mother whenever the opportunity arose, whilst all the while pretending the modesty and virtue she knew would bring him to his knees.
Understanding that Eudric would have other plans for his son, the lovely Garanwys set about charming him as well. She sat in his lap and performed certain acts for his delectation, all the while moistening her perfect lips with the tip of a pointed pink tongue. Eudric weakened, and gave permission for Llyd to press his suit.
The first time he offered for her hand, Garanwys refused him, casting down her eyes and saying his mother and sister hated her.
Llyd went home in a rage. He roared at the womenfolk that they had stolen his chance of happiness, and even went so far as to strike his sister – bruising her smooth brown cheek with his big fist. His mother, Lyonette, faced him with a cold anger he had never seen before. “If the wench thou hast set thy heart on thinks we like her not, it is no more than some girlish fancy on her part.
Thou shouldst be ashamed to so strike thy widowed sister.”
For a moment Llyd glared into his mother’s broad, homely face, then hung his handsome head.
“Why doesn’t Llys defend herself then?” he muttered.
“Why should she? She has done naught.” Lyonette spat on the floor. “Leave us now. I will have no more of thee.” He went, kicking his heels like the overgrown boy he would always be.
“She means to have him, though” Llys said sadly. “Unless something better turns up.”
The two women looked at each other in genuine sorrow.
Two moons later, Garanwys accepted Llyd as her intended husband, and they became formally betrothed. The women of Eudric’s household sighed, and prepared themselves for trouble.
It was not long coming.

From ‘Skin Deep’ a story in Pulling the Rug II by Jane Jago which is free to download today 6 December 2022.

Come back tomorrow to collect your next free gift!

We here at the Working Title Blog think that as things have been pretty gloomy and expensive lately we can cheer everyone up with a FREE GIFT every day until Christmas!

So break out the hot chocolate, the mulled wine or the festive spirit of your choice, find a comfortable place to curl up and start reading today’s free gift – then click the link at the bottom to download the entire book for free and keep reading.

Have a fabulous festive season!

If heading up a criminal syndicate in the ‘City was one of the things most people expected to involve some degree of glamour and excitement, the reality, as Durban Chola soon discovered, was a lot less dramatic.
The operational framework had been fixed in place the first day he took over. Durban had been recuperating from an injury, sustained during the change of administration. Reclining on a chair in the master suite of the luxurious mansion that under ‘City convention he had just inherited from the previous incumbent, Sarnai Altan, he had been in discussion with Jazatar Baldrik, his head of security — ironically also inherited from Sarnai Altan.
It had been less of a discussion and more of an instructive lecture from Jaz on how Durban needed to comport himself. Both in regard to his own security and as a syndicate crime lord — known as a Name — in the ‘City. Durban had listened and nodded in the right places. When he finished, Jaz stood by the window gazing out at the sunset over the panorama of the mansion’s grounds and the ‘City beyond.
“So how do we play this, in your view?” Durban asked. “I mean the whole running-the-syndicate thing.”
Jaz turned as Durban spoke and looked as though he was giving the question serious consideration.
“You do your job. I do mine,” he said after a few moments.
“Parallel paths?”
“We’ve got the same basic aim, Blondie, shouldn’t be a problem.”
“We need a bit more than a broad direction of travel in common if we are going to make things work in the ‘City. You know that.”
Jaz gave an offhand shrug.
“I don’t mind what you want to do with the business side of things, Blondie. I’ll keep the ‘City scared enough of us for it not to matter, long as you can keep the money coming in to pay for it. You need me to lean on anyone, you let me know. It should be pretty straight forward.”
“And what about Avilon?”
“He can carry on with me as he has been. I can’t see as how he would be much use to your side of things.”
“I meant what about the memories?”
Jaz’s expression darkened.
“Well now, that’s an interesting question. I’d not noticed them featuring in too much of your decision making so far.”
The memories were Avilon’s, of his past life — his life before he and Jaz had served as convict military conscripts. Memories Durban knew could be restored, to make Avilon the person he had once been, instead of an individual with no more than six years of conscious life lived. It was through the intention of restoring those memories that he and Jaz had first been drawn together.
“There hasn’t been a lot of opportunity,” Durban said. “So much happening that there’s been no real opening for us to even discuss the matter, let alone take any action on it and you’ve not been exactly approachable the last few cycles.”
“Yeah. It’s all my fault. I can see that.”
Durban smiled in a conciliatory way.
“Don’t be so sensitive, Jaz. I’m not worried about the past — it’s where we are going now that matters.”
Jaz moved away and looked back out over the gardens for a few moments before replying. His tone was flat.
“I don’t know, Blondie.”
“You’re still committed?”
“To Avilon? Of course.”
“Then what don’t you know?”
Jaz let out a breath and shook his head. “You’ve not even told me what it involves — where we need to go, what we’ve got to do, things like that. So how can I know? Right now I can’t see we can go anywhere or do much about it anyway — I’m tied here. The CSF have me pinned here. They’ve made it very clear if I try to leave, I make the top ten bounty chart and we’d get locked out of the ‘City for life. Until we can get that under control, it’s a bit —” he broke off, searching for a suitable word. “It’s just a bit unrealistic to talk about it right now.”

Trust A Few by E.M. Swift-Hook is free to download today 5 December 2022.

Come back tomorrow to collect your next free gift!

We here at the Working Title Blog think that as things have been pretty gloomy and expensive lately we can cheer everyone up with a FREE GIFT every day until Christmas!

So break out the hot chocolate, the mulled wine or the festive spirit of your choice, find a comfortable place to curl up and start reading today’s free gift – then click the link at the bottom to download the entire book for free and keep reading.

Have a fabulous festive season!

Dragonflight

I saw a flight of dragons once
Across the sunset sky
And as they rode the thermals
I wished that I could fly
The dying sun turned skins to gold
And wings to every hue
I thought that I knew beauty
But I learned that wasn’t true
I saw a flight of dragons once
They’re printed on my brain
I think I’d give my sight away
To see that flight again

Dragonheart

In Dragonheart there are no second chances.
The dragon spiralled down out of the sunset, with the orange light setting his skin aflame so that he looked as if he was made of oil and steel. Tia stood and watched, wryly noting the Diamond Throne banner, whilst being careful not to move or speak until the shining one’s feet touched the ground and he furled his wings.
She bowed her head in a formal gesture of welcome.
“Greetings lady,” the voice inside her head was deeper than she expected. This must be a full male, which meant he would be a shifter as well. He would bear watching. Carefully.
“Greetings, bright one.”
The dragon regarded her out of whirling multi-faceted eyes before bowing his head. The silence lengthened, and seemed to Tia that her uninvited guest was trying to make her nervous with his lack of comment. She broke the silence in a deliberately small voice.
“What does my lady mother want of me?”
“Naught. She would merely ascertain that you are well.”
Tia cast down her eyes so he could not see her contempt.
“Perhaps my lord dragon would care to assume his human form and venture inside, to where we can speak in more comfort.”
If it was possible for a dragon to look puzzled, he did so.
“May one ask what makes you think this dragon has a human form?”
For a moment Tia dropped her shield of humility.
“Who am I?” she raised a narrow dark eyebrow.
He thought about that one for a moment before dipping his head.
“One is ashamed.”
Tia was at great pains not to show her contempt for that remark.
“I apologise. It was not my intention to cause you disquiet.”
She felt the dragonish laughter as a vibration that ran right through her skeleton.
“My name is M’a’tsu, and I would be honoured to visit with you.”
Tia curtseyed.
“I will leave you to make the change in privacy.”
She turned and made her way across the flower strewn meadow to the grey stone buildings that clustered at the base of the cliffs and the stone stairway to the temple.
M’a’tsu watched her go, enjoying her long-legged stride and the way her body moved under the simple linen robe she wore. He found himself fantasising about tying her up with the rope of her own black hair, which hung in a braid almost to her knees. Giving himself a sharp inward reminder that he wasn’t there for pleasure, he took the necessary time to compose his mind before making the change.
Once he was in his human form, he stretched for a moment enjoying the different sensations afforded by thinner skin. He looked down at his muscular perfection and briefly considered remaining unclothed but the pleasure of the rapidly cooling air against his human flesh had to be balanced against the possibility of giving offence. Accordingly he shifted himself leather trews and a waistcoat, electing to remain barefoot for the sheer delight of the feel of grass beneath him.

The Dragonheart Stories:Fairytales for Grownps by Jane Jago is free to download today 4 December 2022.

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