Caer made a gesture of dismissal to the Zoukai and slid from his mount. He ignored the undisguised envious glances he got from the men as they drifted off to whatever duties or pleasures awaited them in the camp. They could not know that every meeting he had with the Caravansi was more of an ordeal than a delight. Steeling himself inwardly, Caer crossed over to the pavilion and went inside. As the flap fell closed behind him, he felt as if he had entered a different world.
It was not as rich as many pavilions Caer had seen during his years on the road, but everything within it was exquisite and of the finest taste, culled from the choicest wares of every market on the Western continent and even some from beyond. Soft fleeces and felt rugs had been laid over the ground, some embroidered with intricate and exotic designs. Woven hangings looped from the canvas roof, filtering the thin sunlight to a jewel-rich glow. Suspended from the ridge poles were two delicately carved incense burners, which perfumed the air with the sultry sweetness of precious quindria resin.
Then he saw her and his breath caught in his throat. She was reclining upon a couch of furs, her long limbs at ease and a glimpse of their smooth skin visible where the fabric of her expensive robe was arranged to allow it. A young girl was serving her with wine and once she had taken a goblet for herself, she sent the girl to serve one to Caer as he rose from his kneeling bow.
“Sit,” she told him, gesturing to the place at her feet. “We have something important to discuss, Captain.”
“Your will, Honoured One.”
Caer settled himself uneasily on the rugs before the couch. The wine he declined. It was difficult enough for him to concentrate on business simply from being under the influence of the intoxicating beauty of the woman who employed him. This close to her, his usual confidence seemed to fail and left him suddenly uncertain of what he should do or say. He tried to tell himself this was because he had been in her employ for just nine days and during that time had not spoken with her beyond the most basic formalities needed to organise the caravan. But somehow he suspected he would still feel the same way after ninety days or nine hundred.
It did not help that as Alexa sipped at her wine, she was watching him with an intensity of focus that left Caer with the uneasy impression she could read his thoughts.

From The Fated Sky the first part of Transgressor Trilogy, and the first book in Fortunes Fools by E.M. Swift-Hook.

Things are not quite how you might remember them in the 100 Acre Wood for Christopher Robin, Pooh Bear and their friends…

***** ***** *****

After summer’s glory and October’s golden leaves
In comes bleak November and gaunt, skeletal trees
The winds blow hard, like steel is hard
With neither stint nor quarter
The cold comes in, winter begins
Jack Frost starts his slaughter.

There’s never, in November owt of soft or mellow
It’s not cheery December, coming with a hearty bellow
The mist in swathes, makes people wraiths
And bites with chilling ease
The dark days come, no warmth, no sun
No care that it should please.

Some take the time for fireworks, some for thanksgiving,
Most feel the creep of cold and dark with woeful misgiving
For like a dirge, November’s purge
Sweeps out the summer’s gains
And in its place, no trace of grace
Sets hail and freezing rains.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Why did you want to see me?’
‘Ghosts.’
She reached over quite steadily and took her cup of tea from my outstretched hand, but her face lost quite a bit of its usual high colour.
‘Oh. That lot. What do you want to know?’
‘Everything.’
‘That could take a while…’
‘Précis then.’
She stared into her tea for a long minute then started to talk, I switched on the voice recorder on my phone, and sat back to listen.
‘My granny was born and raised in this pub, though it was called The Bell in them days. She always said there was a ghost. Sad but not dangerous. Was supposed to be a fine lady whose husband came back from the wars to find her pregnant. Legend has it that he kept the child but killed the woman after she had given birth. Her bones are supposed to be in the walls somewhere. Anyway. After great grandpa sold up the place ticked along quite normal. Until the middle of the nineteen sixties when there was a fire. Insurance job was what the local rumour mill said. Whatever. About half the pub was burned to the ground. They rebuilt, and when they was doing it they found a picture, in the roof someplace. The fair maid and falcon. Like the pub sign. The picture was sold to the New Forest Museum, but they had it copied for the pub sign and changed the name. The museum got some clever people in to look at the painting, and they reckoned the woman in the picture was somebody called Rosalind Acres, who is recorded as having died in childbirth, along with her child, in the nineteenth century. Her husband is supposed to have mourned her till the day he died, and buried her in the garden with her baby, because the church refused to allow an unbaptised child to be buried in consecrated ground. Whatever is the truth of it, after they rebuilt there was said to be a second, gentle ghost. Maybe the fair maid herself. And that’s all I really know…’
‘But’ I prompted gently.
‘But there seems to be at more than them. I think at least two more. One something followed Philip wherever he went, it was black and bad. There was an atmosphere of hatred. It frightened me. And when he killed himself I could feel its anger. Then there was a quieter something singing in my head when Philip died, it seemed to feel some sort of justice had been done. Then it all went quiet. But I don’t think anything has gone.’
‘Me neither.’ I said. ‘Me neither. But thank you for being frank with me. Did you ever hear a name for the first ghost?’
‘My granny said she was called Aline.’
‘Thanks. Now drink your tea and have a chocolate biscuit before Ben comes back and snaffles the lot.’
She relaxed in her chair and accepted a milk chocolate digestive. ‘I’m dying of curiosity’ she said.
‘Well. I’m sorry, but I can’t help now. Maybe later.’
She grinned.

After a few minutes’ chat, she got up and went back to her work. I decided to run some internet searches. Rosalind Acres was fairly well documented and I printed off some fifty sheets of information. Aline seemed to be a relatively common name in the Middle Ages, but inputting the rest of Mrs A’s story brought up two references in learned tomes. I printed both of them. It was a start, I thought.

I began reading the story of Rosalind Acres’ life. She was the beloved only child of a very rich American, who had married (for love the reports said) a thirty-year-old Englishman called Christopher Acres, when she was just seventeen. Her husband was a country gentleman and their home was Midwinter Manor, which seemed, by the old map I had printed out, to have been more or less precisely where the Fair Maid was now located. Her death, at the age of twenty-one, was well documented, and there was more than one mention of a rumour that the lady and her child had been interred in the gardens of the manor. So far, Mrs A’s story seemed to concur with the known facts. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, or not.

Rosalind caught my imagination, but the pub sign purporting to be her was rather ineptly painted, and I found I wanted a look at the original from which it was copied, so I hit the museum’s web site. The picture was exquisite, and according to the museum catalogue, the portrait (found in the roof of a local pub during rebuilding), was the young Rosalind Acres nee Barclay, and it was attributed the pre-raphaelite John Everett Millais. Rosalind had, if the portrait didn’t lie, been as lovely as she was young. I printed out a colour copy to show Ben.

I shivered, then pulled myself together, and put ghostly business to one side in favour of pub business.

From Who Put Her In? a thriller with supernatural overtones by JaneJago.

Right let’s get this one buried shall we? The twee images posted on whichever antisocial media you frequent are not real.

Yes, you can pick blackberries and make jelly – not jam for feck’s sake the seeds will germinate in your rectum. Yes, you can pick sloes and construct sloe gin.

But. Neither of these activities is accomplished wearing a floaty frock and ballet flats. You need wellies and a stout stick to hook the required and beat back the stinging nettles.

And, running barefoot through the fields? 

Good luck with that. If the thistles don’t get you the cowshit will…

You can now have a collection of Granny’s inimitable insights of your very own in Granny Knows Best.

Join Piglock Homes and his sidekick Doctor Bearson as they investigate the strange affair of the Dartymuir Dog…

The creak of harness heralded the arrival of the strangest conveyance Bearson had seen in a long time. It was a large four-wheeled cart or covered wagon, with high curtained walls behind which there could be discerned the outline of stout bars. There was about it the rich smell of some carnivore and occasionally the barred sides shook. The equipage was pulled by a team of four heavy horses, whose driver was a short massively muscled man with a multiplicity of tattoos. When the walls behind him shook, he spoke comfortingly in a dialect beyond the understanding of even Homes.
The newcomer drew his strange vehicle to a halt at a careful distance from the hobbled donkey, which, even so, flared its nostrils and would have brayed loudly had not Yore leaped from his seat and grabbed it by the muzzle.
“Can you back off a bit, or I’m liable to lose this beast and the cart into yonder bog.”
The tattooed gent carefully backed his vehicle away and Homes left the donkey cart in to converse with the newcomer in a low voice.
“What do you reckon our skinny friend is up to?” Yore breathed.
“Honestly? I have no more idea than you. You know what he is like. Cards clutched to his scrawny chest until the last second.”
Yore grunted. “Well I’m keeping my hand on my revolver just in case.”
Bearson said nothing, merely displaying the grip of his own revolver for Yore to see.
The sun was just lifting over the eastern horizon when Bearson felt, rather than heard, a sound similar to the one Homes had made the previous night. Almost at once the tattooed gentleman’s cart began to rock alarmingly and whatever was inside it started making eerie ululating noises that ripped apart the quiet of the morning air.
Homes showed his teeth. “Yore, Bearson. Hold your fire unless you are in mortal danger.”
“Aye, aye, cap’n.” Yore spoke sarcastically, but Bearson understood that he would obey Homes.
The noises from the covered cart were becoming louder and louder and the rocking seemed almost fierce enough to overturn the equipage. Before the carriage was altogether overset there came a sound as if the paws of some great dog were slapping on the ground and all eyes turned towards the sound.
“What is it, man?” Yore was heard to ejaculate.
“You’ll soon see.”
The creature that broke out of the high bracken was enormous, and tawny striped with black. It was only visible for a very few seconds before the tattooed gentleman opened a door in his wagon and the creature disappeared.
“But. But. But…” Yore spluttered. “That’s not a dog.”
“No. It’s a tiger. An orange, bouncing tiger.”
Yore ground his teeth. “Orange, bouncing ‘dog’ to the old man. I see. But how did it get here?”
“You are about to find out, I think.”
The woman who followed the tiger out of the high bracken was tall and carried a curled stock whip in her right hand.
At first, Bearson thought it was the woman who had driven them across the muir the previous night, but then he realised this woman was older, and harder looking although there was an obvious resemblance.
She glared at the two carriages.
“I’m looking for my pet.” This woman’s voice was harsh and her accent was transatlantic.
Homes bowed. “Your pet, madam?”
“Yes. The pesky critter has a habit of escaping.”
“And frightening people close to death?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do…”
She laughed, but it was a sound that tore at the throats of those who heard it. “Doesn’t a man who abandons his wife and child deserve a little fright?”
Yore cleared his throat. “The game’s up. Old Sleepytown died last night. So the charge is murder.”
The woman laughed and dropped her whip. Instead of turning back the way she came she ran into the jaws of the bog.
Yore made to go after her, but Bearson restrained him. “Leave her. That’s a mire out there. You don’t want to end your life sinking in stinking mud.”
“But she’s getting away.”
“She won’t get far,” Homes said sadly. “The waymarker poles have been moved so the safe path through the mire no longer exists.”
He stood at the edge of the unnatural greenness as the sun rose and burned away the mists from the muirland.
Yore looked at the tiny figure of the great detective and shook his great head.
“Churches la fem,” he said sadly, “churches la fem”.

And that is the end of The Affair of the Dartymuir Dog…

Jane Jago

An extract from  How To Start Writing A Book brought to you courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

To whoever is deluded enough to read this crap.

This is Jacintha Farquhar, woman of a certain age, and distaff parent of the delusional and currently incapacitated Moons. I never thought I’d feel sorry for the poor self-centred little twat. But I do. I actually hurt for him. He’s so bruised and battered that I have sent him away to lick his wounds in the fleshpots of Mykonos. I packed him off with a bag of clothes, a few smutty novels, and an introduction to a couple of gay friends who run a very popular bar there. As to what precisely happened to the sad little bugger, that’s his business. I’m not about to discuss it with a bunch of prurient wannabes. If he wants to tell you when he gets back into the saddle that’s his affair. But for now, mind your own…
If it was up to me, I’d stop this crap too. However, it means a lot to my battered son, so I have promised to keep it going until he returns from his sabbatical.
I have decided to write about life lessons, because if you lot really want to write anything decent you’ve got to live it first.

Life Lessons for Writers – One: Alcohol.

In almost every piece of adult literature you will find booze, and as a general rule boozing falls into one of half a dozen categories:

Polite drinking.
Social drinking.
Party drinking.
Getting pissed drinking.
Drowning the sorrows drinking.
Alcoholism.

So then, where are you on the scale? A sherry on the third Thursday of every month? Prosecco hangovers on Sunday mornings? A bottle of vodka in every cupboard in the house?

Whatever your own consumption, consider that as the strongest use of alcohol you should ever write about. Of course, many of you will be timid shits like my poor little bastard of a son, and will consider a glass of Fernet Branca on a sunny afternoon to be the height of decadence. But on the other side of your shiny little threepenny bit you will be wanting to write about drinking and roistering. Well. You bloody can’t….
If you want to write about a drunken orgy, bloody well find one (effing Google it) and go and get completely off your face.
In the same vein, if you really want to write about the miseries of a hangover, or the utter awfulness of drinking so much you vomit what feels like your toenails into the gutter, then at least have the frigging courage to try it out and see what it really feels like. My recipe for the first: a bottle of good red wine with your dinner, followed by at least a dozen cocktails, and four large brandies. To achieve the second, take recipe one and add a kebab and half a bottle of Bucky at the end.
When you’ve done that. And taken a week to recover. Then you can write something that will be at least recognisable as real.

Now piss off and get on with it, because, to be brutally honest, you lot are getting on my tits right now and I’ve a hot date with a half-bottle of calvados.

Next week: Hair pulling and brawls.

Jacintha Farquar, unfortunate mother of Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

There were around thirty men in all, talking in loud boisterous voices, their breath misting in the cold air, laughing together at crude jokes, whilst passing wine-skins from hand to hand. They had gathered in front of the central pavilion, where a clearing gave some measure of status and privacy to the impressive tent of their employer the caravansi – the owner of the caravan, its wagons, its slaves and much of its cargo. When Caer finally rode into the clearing, his check of the camp completed, one of the Zoukai called out:
“Here, Captain.”
Catching the wineskin, Caer let the warm liquid cut the dust of the day from his throat, swilling out his mouth and spitting, only then swallowing a single mouthful before replacing the stopper and passing it on. Then he nudged his pony forwards and moved amongst his men, sending four more out to join the scouts and a handful of others to support the pickets who were already guarding the outskirts of the camp. He wanted to be extra careful today. Then he moved on, talking briefly to each of the others as he passed: a word of praise here, a question there, advice and the occasional sharp reprimand, all delivered with an easy authority.
A sudden stillness, as sharp on the senses as any loud sound, made Caer turn towards the pavilion, already knowing what to expect. The flap was being held up by a slave girl and a woman had just stepped out of the shady, incensed interior. It was her appearance that had silenced the horsemen and Caer understood why. Alexa the Fair they called her on the roads and the title was well deserved. Caer had lived twenty-five years and had never seen a woman he thought more beautiful. Her mere presence was enough to draw every male eye and deprive a man of his next breath.
She was tall, very tall for a woman and slender with it – long necked, long limbed and lithe, almost boyish with narrow hips and small breasts that barely lifted the sheer satiny substance of the emerald robe she wore. Beneath the magnificence of her dark auburn hair, her face with its clear skin and high cheek bones lent her an ageless beauty. Her violet-blue eyes swept imperiously over the Zoukai and when they came to rest on Caer, he felt the impact as if she had reached out and physically touched his skin.
“I will speak with you now, Captain,” she said. Her voice was quiet, but her tone commanding. Without waiting for either reply or acknowledgement, she turned and went back into the pavilion leaving behind a subtle breath of incense.

From The Fated Sky the first part of Transgressor Trilogy, and the first book in Fortunes Fools by E.M. Swift-Hook.

Things are not quite how you might remember them in the 100 Acre Wood for Christopher Robin, Pooh Bear and their friends…

***** ***** *****

Jane Jago

They cannot understand us
As we watch them through the glass
Their cold eyes reprimand us
As they busily swish past
Yet those who stop to study me
Whose eyes don’t slide away
Are dangerous to what they see
Regarding us as prey
But still I watch and still we stand
And still the shutter clatters
Whilst all our hearts beat neath my hand
And fate so cruelly mutters
Yet hour by hour the work we make
Will lead us to our goal
For every frame the shutter takes
Steals something of their soul

Jane Jago

Image © Paul Biddle