Kalends October MDCCLXXVII Anno Diocletiani

In the space before the small temple – so small it had been considered a mere shrine just a few years before – the crowds had gathered as usual for the chance to be chosen. They sat in their wheelchairs, or stood, faces drawn with pain and fatigue. All had given up just about everything,  to make the journey here on the off chance that they might be deemed worthy to be healed by the grace of the Divine Diocletian.
It was not easy to get through the new barriers that surrounded the site. Security guards patrolled the perimeter and manned the gates. Dai Llewellyn and Bryn Cartivel had left their vehicle in the small car park behind one of the new cuponae that had sprung up to provide accommodation for those waiting their chance to visit the temple and approached the gates on foot, beside the queue that wound back to the road. Dai felt it would give them a chance to get a better idea of the atmosphere of the place. Which was also why he had not bothered to tell anyone at the temple that he was coming to visit.
“You do have to wonder why this place is so popular,” Bryn observed, scratching at his greying hair as they walked past the queue. “Over on Ynys Mon there is a state of the art medical research facility in the Asclepieion there, always seems to be offering people the chance to sign up for clinical trials. Can’t see as how this is going to be better than that. And there they pay you to take part and you get full on comfort and care – here you have to pay just for the chance to be summoned and get to stay in a miserable pilgrims’ dormitory.”
“I read the brochure too, it makes it very clear no money is charged for the healing. But those who want may offer small donations,” Dai observed.
“Ah, right. That would be why the cuponae here do such a roaring trade and the temple just built a whole new wing for the Pontifex of the place. Small donations.”
The two guards at the gate wore the haloed head of the Divine Diocletian on tabards over their paramilitary outfits. They were also armed with nerve whips which meant they would be Roman Citizens.
“Oy! You can’t just push in where you want,” one of the two called out as Dai and Bryn reached the gate.
“We have business here, we’re not here to participate in the rites,” Dai explained politely.
“Can’t you read, spado? Sign back there says ‘Closed during divine service’.”
“Yes. So I saw. But my business means I would need to observe the proceedings. Respectfully of course.”
The gate guard gave a short laugh.
“Listen, you stupid British irrumator, only those invited to attend are allowed in. now, whatever your ‘business’ might be, I suggest you take it elsewhere before I call the local vigiles and have you arrested for creating a disturbance.”
Beside Dai, Bryn gave a forced cough and cleared his throat.
“Senior Investigator Cartivel here, can I help you?” He held up his ID and pressed it against the fence so the gate guards could see it clearly. “And this is Submagistratus Llewellyn, who is my boss.”
Dai mirrored Bryn’s gesture and produced his own identification, holding it up so that the ring of Citizenship on his index finger was obvious too.
“If it’s no trouble, perhaps you could let us in now?” he said mildly. “We are here on a murder investigation.”

The body had been found washed up on a beach near Segontium and would normally have attracted little, if any, attention as no one had been reported missing. But this corpse had been found to have a ring of Citizenship still attached to a finger, but lodged in the corpse’s throat. To Dai’s impotent fury, Rome reserved the full benefits and privileges of justice for her own children – and it seemed this might be one such case.
Despite the body being partially decomposed, dental records had enabled them to trace its identity. Zirri Yedder had been a freelance journalist with a history of producing cutting investigative pieces that highlighted local issues – local to Mauretania Tingitana that is, the province, where he had lived in the capital, Tingist. Although the pathologist report that Dai read was not entirely sure of the cause of death, it was also very clear that the body had been tortured beforehand.
But the finger was not the finger of Zirri Yedder and he had never been a Roman Citizen. He had, however, been registered at a cupona in the village of Canovium and the landlady there said he had been there awaiting an invitation to the temple. She had last seen him as he set off to answer his eventual summons and no one had seen him alive since then.
Which was why Dai and Bryn now stood on the edge of the crowd watching as the service began. A security guard hovered nervously near by, trying not to make it too obvious that he was watching them as they observed proceedings.
“Who’d have thought a man who died nearly two thousand years ago having self-labelled as a deity, would still be honoured as a worker of miracles in the modern age?” Bryn’s voice was pitched so it was lost in the chanting from the crowd. Even so Dai looked at him sharply.
“You should be careful saying those kinds of things, SI Cartvel. Especially here.”
Bryn lifted his wrist and tapped the screen on his wristphone.
“Not me, Bard, I’m just reading what our friend Yedder put up on his social media. It was meant as a teaser for his next piece.”
“And I missed that, how?”
“You are a busy man, Submagistratus and these little details…”
“I checked his social media feed, right back for the last three years.”
“Ah, that would explain it then.” Bryn was looking almost smug. “It only posted today – less than an hour ago in fact. It must have been one he scheduled before he died.”
“Spado!” Dai said, but without real rancour. “Was there more?”
The other man shook his head. “No. That was it. Just says: ‘My current investigation is going to make a lot of people sit up and think’, then what I told you. Seems to be his style. Putting up a teaser a couple of days before the main article comes out. This time though, I think he hit the wrong kind of deadline first.”

From Dying to be Cured a Dai and Julia Mystery by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook one of the stories in the SciFi Roundtable’s anthology Gods of Clay .

Glossary
Please note these are not always accurate translations, they are how these terms are used in Dai and Julia’s world.
Asclepieion – healing spa/medical centre. Once sacred to the god Asclepius.
Canovium – would be where modern-day Caerhun now stands.
Cupona/ae – inn/s or hotel/s.
Anno Diocletiani – Year of Diocletian. The calendar dates from the birth of Diocletian.
Diocletian – the reforming emperor who established the foundations of a new Roman Empire and the point at which this history divided from our own.
Irrumator – cock sucker.
Kalends – first day of the month.
Mauretania Tingitana – we would call it Morocco.
Pontifex – High priest.
Segontium – more or less modern day Caernarfon.
Spado – literally ‘eunuch’, metaphorically ‘stupid fool’.
Submagistratus – a more junior official with legal jurisdiction over an area, under the authority of a Magistratus.
Tingist – we would call it Tangier.
Vigiles – Police. In Dai and Julia’s world the police are a sub-branch of the military.
Ynys Mon – we would call it the Isle of Anglesey.

The cold canal is not quite ice
And the sky is china blue
Yesterday’s mud grows crisp and pale
And weeds shine whitely too
The skeletal trees all naked stand
With boughs outspread and stark
Enchantment stalks our every pace
Now winter’s made her mark
The cold canal a mirror sits
Beneath a glittering sky
And shows us in her kindly depths
Things too bright for our eyes

©️jj 2022

Prunella teaches you how to cook like a toff!

The nemesis of all right-thinking women. But sadly unavoidable. You can dig your heels in all you like, you can even have a lovely plebeian tantrum, but in the end you are going to have to buckle down.
The Hon. Rodney, or your own equivalent thereto, is almost bound to have a whole slew of exceedingly wealthy clients who choose his services above others because he’s a posh boy.
There’s no way to avoid it. Being the daughter of an impoverished Scottish Earl carries with it a certain cachet, and every so often one’s indecently wealthy (but infinitely less well-connected) spouse is going to want to take advantage of a lineage that stretches back to Macbeth and Duncan. In this house we have a bargain. Twice a year I will dust off his mater’s exceedingly ugly diamonds, and remember to smile while explaining that the Hon. Rodney won’t become a Lord until his pater (currently residing in a kindly home for the terminally bewildered, where he has a lovely time shouting at the television and only addressing his carers in Latin) shuffles off this mortal coil.
However. To the meat of this dissertation. What to feed the philistine hordes.
Keep it simple, hearty and wholesome. The men will scoff it and their thin, overproduced, wives will be able to feel superior.

To begin. Soup. Potato and leek (or tinned tomato) with grated sharp cheddar on top and bread rolls. NB. Do make sure the butter is at room temperature – there is little as annoying as trying to spread an iceberg of yellow dairy product.

Main course. Something that cooks very slowly and can be prepared a long time in advance. My own go to is beef in booze. Which is prepared the evening before the shindig.

You need.
(Serves 8)
3lb-ish beef skirt cut in about half-inch cubes (By weight about 12oz per person.)
6 large mild onions peeled and finely sliced
6 trimmed leeks also sliced finely
250ml passatta
2lb peeled chopped tomatoes (or the equivalent of canned)
2lb button mushrooms
4 large red bell peppers sliced
2 cooking apples peeled and chopped
4 large potatoes peeled and cut into small cubes
6 large juicy cloves of garlic
2 litres cheap red wine
1 can stout
1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp Dijon mustard

You will also need a large casserole dish with a very tight fitting lid. Grandmother’s for preference or something French, cast iron, and eye-wateringly expensive.

Brown the beef and bung in the bottom of the casserole, fry the onion until darkly caramelised and put atop beef. Throw the leeks, mushrooms, peppers, apples, potatoes, passatta and chopped tomatoes in on top. Mix crushed garlic, stout, oregano, soy, and mustard and pour over beef etc. Finish with wine. Clamp lid on tight and shove in the slow oven of the Aga. Leave severely alone until lunchtime next day. Remove from oven. Check seasoning. Add more wine if gravy level looks low. Shove back in oven until it’s time to serve. (If necessary, gravy can be thickened with cornflour mixed to a paste with cooking brandy.)
Serve with mashed potatoes and peas.

Alternative main course – slow cooked lamb shanks from your nearest German supermarket, which you shove in your own casserole dish with extra wine and give another couple of hours cook. Same accompaniments.

Pudding: either Eton Mess or some sort of steamed sticky with custard. Or it can be glossed over altogether by providing a humongous cheese board and some of the Hon. Rodney’s aged port (or, better still, cheapo port in a pretty decanter or three).

Look out for more tips on how to cook like a toff next week!

Primrose was feeling sad. Her paint was faded and her garland of flowers looked like pallid overcooked Brussels sprouts. It seemed as if nobody could help her. Not even the garden fairy, and all her nome friends feared she was going into a decline. 

At midnight, under a fat, full moon, Brenda dragged Primrose into the centre of a ring of tiny mushrooms.

“What’s supposed to happen now?”

“I don’t know. Just you set still and wait.”

In the morning, Primrose looked just the same. But her smile was back.

“That’s moon magic. You never knows what it might do.”

©jj 2022

Somewhere in a Wild West that never was…

He smiled and she felt a traitorous warmth in her chest.
That ride through the darkness was so like how it had been when she first met Cuchilo that Mir was hard put to know whether to embrace the joy of being with him or cry out loud for the pain of not being with him. Of course, she did neither. Instead she set her mind to the job in hand, crushing emotion under the weight of the necessary work.
“How much did they tell you?” she asked softly.
“About the job? Nothing except I was to meet an operative and help where I could. Not a dangerous job, they said. Usual rates. I was bored so I came along.”
Mir sighed. “That is about typical. They offer me a fortune for one last job. But they treat you like your life don’t matter.” She frowned. “First off. It is dangerous. So if you want out.”
She saw his teeth gleam briefly. “No. I’m in. Partner.”
“Thanks, Cuchilo. I’m not sure I can do this on my own. There’s girls going missing. Young ones. Some from the streets, more from poor families. They are supposed to be mail order brides. But. Something stinks.” She arranged her thoughts. “The only thing the girls have in common is they are all very young and all are effectively illiterate. Which means nobody is too surprised when they don’t hear from them. Apparently there has been a certain amount of disquiet in some places, but nobody with sufficient money or clout to start looking.” She fell silent.
“So what has changed?” his deep voice broke into her thoughts.
“A girl turned up in the flesh markets of New Amsterdam. A girl of Deutsch antecedents. Something about her seemed off-kilter enough to catch the interest of one of Redhill’s operatives, and he bought her. She was hugely traumatised and had been pretty badly treated. But once she recovered enough to talk it became plain that she was a girl from a poor family, whose ma and pa had let her go, believing she was off west to a better life as the wife of a dirt farmer called Joseph. So how the heck was she about to be sold to a knocking shop in NA?”
“How indeed?”
“Best guess seemed to be that the girls were being brought back east from Trail End. But how and by whom? The Church Army sent a girl. But she ain’t been heard of since. Then they sent an agent. He turned up dead. So they raised a bit of money and went to see Redhill. He took the case on. Lost Emma Bright. She got on the train two months since. And poof. Gone.”
“Emma? Gone? But next to you she’s the best female agent Redhill has.”
“Yeah. Well she was the best he had at the time. I resigned a while ago. Allen Redhill pissed me off so I told him to stick his job. He wasn’t best pleased.”
Mir felt, rather than saw, Cuchilo’s grin. “I’ll just bet he wasn’t. So why’d you take this on?”
“Two reasons. First of all, me and Emma used to be friends of sorts. Thought the least she deserved was somebody finding out what happened to her. And I went to see the rescued girl, just to make sure Redhill wasn’t razzing me. He wasn’t, but there seemed to me to be something they’d all missed. Why did none of the girls realise they were going east not west?”
“Why indeed? And why had nobody thought about that?”
“I think that all the men who went to see Gretel – that’s the Deutsch girl who got rescued – just assumed she was stupid. Because she is as placid as a milk cow, and because she has never been taught to read nor write, they wrote her off and nobody really talked to her. I did and I came to some interesting conclusions.”
“You did?” the smile in his voice was encouraging rather than the belittling smirk Allen Redhill had greeted her idea with.
“I did. Look. I’ll summarise what she had to say. See if it makes you think the same.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Gretel said they spent the first night in a big tent hard by the station, and they boarded wagons after breakfast next day. She said she’d some concerns about the direction they were taking, but the wagon master rode along the train explaining they had to make a detour so they could cut into the wagon trail west. Says she bought it because she had no reason not to. She described the place they camped in some detail and I am hoping it’s where we’re headed. After that, her recollection of the journey gets muddled. She says that sometimes at the end of the day she was convinced they were heading away from the sunset not into it, but she couldn’t bring herself to care too much.”
“So the girls were drugged?”
“That’s what I’m thinking. But neither Redhill nor none of his deputies could even see why that might be. They just fixated on the girls being as stupid as sheep.”
“They would, though, wouldn’t they?” Cuchilo was scathing. “Because if they admitted you were probably right, they’d have to accept that women can think. All women – not just rich ones, or educated ones. Even illiterate girls from the ghettos.”
“Precisely. And only by accusing Redhill himself of facilitating rape could I get any help at all out here.” She looked at Cuchilo’s profile before she carried on speaking. “I’m glad for whoever thought it would be funny to pair us up again. Beside you I have half a chance of success.”
He said nothing, but as they rode knee to knee Mir knew he had her back.

From The Redhead, the Rogue and the Railroad by Jane Jago which is available all through February for 0.99.

Because life happens…

Life is a glorious dance
Where your partner is much down to chance.
You might find your true mate
On a casual date
Or from friendship develop romance.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Cheezer and Chigger had an argument one night, which culminated in Chigger having to be rescued from the bog garden. He was sullenly angry, and the nome community thought him bent on vengeance. They were right. At midnight the twang of a sprung nome trap was followed by horrendous bellowing.

First there was Granny, followed by Brenda and Bernard. They looked up into the suspended face – of Chigger .

“I thought you laid a trap for Cheezer,” Brenda remarked.

He swore loudly. Brenda shrugged.

“If you makes a nome trap,” she said, “it’s as well to remember where you set it.”

©jj 2022

I had been told the sand has no smell – but it does: a brittle and flaking scent which assaults the nostrils at the same time as the over-bright shimmer dazzles the eyes. My ship-of-the-desert was making me feel sea-sick and watching the ease with which Kerry was taking to it, chatting so casually to Drew, one of the better-looking of our companions, and the main reason I had been persuaded out here in the first place, only made me feel worse. Then there was the grainy residue which seemed to invade even the most intimate places, plus my hair felt like straw and I was sure it looked like it too. But worst of all was the heat – the relentless, oven-baked sensation which made me fantasise incessantly about the swimming pools and cool shower I had left back at the hotel.

Perhaps if I had been day-dreaming a bit less I would have caught the scarf, worked loose by my continual brushing away of sand, before it lifted off my head, startling my noble steed. One moment I was flying through the air and the next I made an interesting discovery: sand is not as soft as it looks when you land in it from camel-height. I lay there in an undignified heap, feeling bruised in the ego and painfully aware everyone was laughing at me. The head of my camel loomed large, looking down with an expression that was clearly condescending, as it reluctantly knelt itself in the sand beside me.

When our guide’s strong arms almost literally lifted me to my feet, I was so startled I didn’t even stutter thanks. The dark eyes that held my gaze were not laughing, if anything they were angry – probably at me for falling off so stupidly! His secure hands boosted me onto the deep saddle with a surprising gentleness and then urged my camel back to its feet. My misery was now complete.

I was only two hours into my ‘Genuine Saharan Overnight Adventure’, the supposed highlight of this Tunisian package tour, and already I wanted out.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Imagine waking up one day unable to recall who you are or where you came from – only to find you are serving a sentence as a convict conscript for crimes you have no memory of ever committing…

Avilon woke up as his training taught him – moving from sleep to full consciousness in less time than it took to draw a breath.
In the past this was followed by instant physical movement: to rouse, rise and be ready for anything within moments. His life depending upon it. But today he lay still, eyes open on a blank ceiling, noticing the fine lines where the printed construction panels joined, noticing the slight unevenness which hid the recessed lighting and noticing the absence of the data stream downloading information from the Lattice.
The strangeness of it still left him with a vague uneasiness. All his conscious life he had been accompanied by its intrusive companionship. All his conscious life he had been trained to equate its absence with the inevitability of death, with the knowledge if he stayed out of range of live-linkage for more than a brief period of time the wiring in his brain would burn out and kill him. He was adjusting to the lack, although sometimes he forgot and then there would be a stab of panic until he remembered.
He missed it.
The Lattice.
It troubled him when he could not call up the data he needed on something he had not encountered before or when he needed information about his environment. He knew there were public link networks he could access, but they were not tailored to his needs – they needed him to use them. Shut off from the Lattice he felt isolated and alone. It had been his guide and companion for as long as he could remember and without it he often had to stifle an illogical sense of abandonment and loss.
The Lattice would have given him an ID on every individual he encountered, marked them as friend or foe so he would know how to deal with them. Even without access to tactical data, the subdural sensors that were standard equipment for all Special Legion troops, would have given him readings revealing the emotional state of those around him: heart-rate, muscle tension, changes in blood flow – the small signs warning of attack long before it came.
It sometimes felt like going deaf or blind. Or both.
He lay still, realising for the first time ever in his conscious life, he had no reason to rise that day – unless he made the active choice to do so.
 A totally new experience. 
In its own way a little overwhelming too, pushing onto his shoulders the responsibility for making the decision about what to do with his time. Every other day of his life as a Special he had been assigned tasks. That carried on as part of the Legion’s discharge process and then through the CRD who had arranged his relocation and given him a new identity, culminating in the last ten days of work at the reclamation plant.
At least the work taxed neither his physical nor his mental resources, although it seemed to do so for some of those he worked with. They complained a lot about the stench, the weight of the skips they were required to manhandle when the robotics failed, the inadequacy of the maintenance team, the dangers of the hazardous materials they sometimes needed to deal with and the incompetence of the management. Avilon obeyed the instructions, mastered the tasks his manager expected him to perform and avoided, as far as possible, involving himself in conversations or any other social interactions with his co-workers. He knew he could have no real grasp of their motivation and values. To engage with them on any other than the most superficial level was bound to result in their hostility. And. sure enough. it had done so on the previous day.
“What did you do?”
He had been eating the food provided from the meal-synth in the plant’s cafeteria during his mid-shift meal break when one of his co-workers sat down at the same table, a man Avilon already identified as one of the informal leaders amongst the workers. His hair was cropped close to his head and a large animated tattoo of a winged female covered over half his face. He sat down purposefully, easing off the works issue jacket which would restrict movement and displaying muscles testifying to a good many leisure hours spent working out.
“Do?” Avilon asked, not wanting to antagonise his unwanted table companion by ignoring him.
“Shit. This stuff is worse than the crap we get out of the toxic waste cans. Yes, friend, do. You are here from CRD, right? So what did you do?”
“You mean what crime did I commit?”
The tattooed man nodded.
“That’s the one. You’re a bright bastard, catch on right quick, don’t you?”
At this point Avilon heard the odd snort of muffled laughter from those sitting at the other tables nearby. A large, well muscled, woman made a gesture towards him with one arm and there was more laughter. He had seen new grunts in the Specials go through much the same social farce. He also knew the trajectory it always took and the end result. But here, unlike the Specials, he must make sure not to let anyone end up dead or maimed. He took the time to remind himself, consciously, because he knew when it kicked off he might otherwise just react. With that thought very clear in his mind he looked back at the tattooed man.
“I killed people.”
The tattoo lifted up and moved back and the animation revealed more of the female form, as the other man grinned, baring his teeth.
“Bit of a hard man then?”
 “No. Not really. No more than anyone else.”
 The other man frowned, then gave a short laugh.
“You think you could take me?”
Avilon realised he could predict with precision the course of this conversation. He wondered if, no matter how he responded, he could avoid the inevitable. He tried.
“I don’t want to fight you. I don’t want to fight anyone. I am eating. Then I have work to do.”
“You sound like a coward to me.”
Avilon had not needed any sub-dural sensors to warn him. This man broadcast his intentions a long time before the tray left the table aimed at his face. Avilon deflected it, caught the punch that followed, then drove his hand under the skirts of the winged woman tattoo to strike at the nerve cluster at the base of the neck, deliberately taking care to use much less than lethal force. The man doubled over on his seat, making odd noises.
It happened fast enough that Avilon got to his feet and moved clear of the table, ready to deal with any further trouble, before the tattooed man stopped gasping. But none of the other workers in the cafeteria had even moved. They sat in a frozen tableau of shocked faces, some with food part-way to their mouths, others caught mouth opened, half-masticated food visible within. The only sound and movement came from the tattooed man as he struggled to breathe.
At that moment Avilon realised precisely what he was in this civilian world.
So he stared down the other workers, his gaze steady until all eyes looked away from him. Then he walked out and went back to work. At the next break, the shift manager sent for him and told him he would receive his first pay and, as he earned a rest day, he should be sure and take it the following day – oh and he could go home early if he wanted. He had stayed to finish the shift.
So now he lay in bed with an entire day of unallocated time and a seemingly infinite range of possible things he could do with it. But only one thing that mattered. Jaz had promised him if he came to Starcity he would find Avilon. So far, having been here over ten days he had not been found. Most likely Jaz did not know of his discharge here. But maybe Jaz knew and had deliberately decided not to approach him or had forgotten what they had agreed. He did not want to think like that – but he accepted both as a possibility. For now, though he would assume Jaz simply did not know about his discharge. After all he had to live under a new name here – Vitos Ketzel. There was no reason Jaz would know to look for him under that name, so perhaps he should be the one going to look for Jaz. The thought gave his day its plan and purpose, he got up and dressed and headed out.

FFrom Trust A Few – book one in Haruspex, the second Fortune’s Fools trilogy by E.M. Swift-Hook – which is only 0.99 to buy for a limited period.

Because life happens…

The secret of living, I know,
Is all about having a go.
You don’t have to be fast
If you’re having a blast
A comfortable screw can be slow!

E.M. Swift-Hook