Because life happens…

The secret of living not glum
Is to live by this one rule of thumb:
If you can’t eat it or fuck it
Then pass by that bucket
And go find a bottle of rum!

E.M. Swift-Hook

Times of Change is free to download until 23 February.

Jaelya Roussal, Regent of Harkera, woke up to almost total blackness and silence, her heart hammering hard and a shimmer of perspiration coating her body beneath the light coverlet. She woke as one awakes from a bad dream, with the vague and yet urgent sense of danger that the rational mind, still blurred from sleep, takes time to dispel. There was no possible danger, she told herself, two men stood guard outside her door and the grounds of the Summer Palace were well patrolled by night and day. No one would harm her in her own bed-chamber.
During the civil war she had woken like this many times and occasionally with good cause, when there were sounds of fighting brought to her on the night air. But the fighting was over, Mandervik himself was dead and the war, which had only finished in the spring, seemed now to belong to another lifetime and a different Jaelya.
Waking to the dark left her with a feeling of unreality – as if the universe itself had disappeared and she was all that existed, alone, floating on an island suspended in a void. Then beyond the invisible door to the solar, she heard the sound of booted feet and a muted exchange of words as the guard was challenged formally. The footsteps receded, leaving the stillness of the night to descend again like an unbroken veil.
She was fully awake now and she cast her mind back, wondering what had disturbed her sleep. It had not been a dream – more a jolt of surprise, of the kind that set the pulse racing.
Then she knew.
Alize had been there. She did not question how,with the door bolted and guarded and the windows shuttered against the night air. She just knew that Alize had been in the room and touched her as she slept and had spoken the words which had woken her:
“My poor child – you thought the war was over, but it has only just now begun.”
“Alize?” she spoke the name hesitantly and in little more than a whisper. But there was no reply and the room was empty. Alize had somehow come and was now gone, leaving no trace of her presence.
Sighing, Jaelya turned on to her side and drew her knees up close to her body, hugging the coverlet around her as she had done when a child. She refused to dwell on the words or their meaning or even why tonight, of all possible times, Alize should come to her after so many years of silence. Such thoughts were best left for the clear light of day when the ghosts of the past walked more warily and her mind could be better focused on the demands of the present.
But, like a shy creature of the wild, sleep eluded her. Her thoughts drifted, against her will, until those time worn ghosts that hovered about her, led her gently along the paths of unwilling memory to the beginning of everything.
It was, of course, Alize who had been there then.
Her first awareness of life had been of holding Alize’s hand on that day – as if she had been flung into the world fully-formed at the age of three. Even now she could still see clearly the high beamed roof, with its painted and vaulted ceiling, arching over the huge black and white slabs of stone which paved the floor. She had stood in the doorway, as if looking into the universe from outside, one hand holding onto a small bundle of clothes and the other gripping Alize’s hand tightly – as if her life depended upon it.
She conjured the scene easily, untarnished by the passage of years. The long table, taller than herself then, the chairs which had seemed made for giants, the fireplace which looked large enough to roast a good-sized ox and the faint, musty, smell of cold ashes and old books. Seated at the table, a heavy bound book open before him and a remote screen set up to one side, sat a boy with a mop of curly hair who had looked up as they entered. To the Jaelya in the memory, he had seemed so grown up himself – but he cannot have been much more than five summers her senior.
Feeling confused, she had looked up at the figure of Alize towering beside her and the face that had looked down at her contained blue eyes that seemed to embrace the world and all the stars beyond. Jaelya had felt as though she might be swallowed up in their depths, but somehow the thought made her feel safe rather than frightened. Then Alize’s gaze had moved from herself to the boy, who had got to his feet and was standing quietly behind the table, his square face framed by unruly golden curls.
“Child, this is your sister. Her name is Jaelya and I want you to take care of her.”
The boy had been staring at her with open curiosity as if wondering what manner of creature she might be, but at Alize’s words a miracle happened and his face broke into the most gentle and wonderful smile.
“My sister,” he had breathed the words as a triumphal declaration rather than as any kind of question and then the boy had come across to her, his hands held out in welcome, his honey-coloured eyes lit up by the brilliant smile that was for her alone. “Hello Jae. I am your brother and I’m always going to keep you safe.”
And in that moment Jaelya had loved him with a fierce devotion, a devotion which all the years between and all the tests and burdens of those years had done nothing to diminish. So why was it, as she lay now in the dreamless darkness, that the thought of his returning to Harkera filled her heart with nothing but apprehension?

From Transgressor Trilogy: Times of Change by E.M. Swift-Hook, a Fortune’s Fools book which is free to download until 23 February.

The cover is designed by Ian Bristow, you can find his work at Bristow Design.

Strictly speaking Thimbletoes wasn’t a nome, she was a fairy whose glass wings refracted the sunlight into a million rainbows. But she was a sort of honorary nome, whose most particular friend was a shy girl nome with a garland of primroses around her broad forehead. Poor Primrose had the misfortune to attract the notice of Ferdy Fishernome. When she refused his attentions, he beat her with his knobby fists. Thimbletoes was enraged, and when Big Brenda arrived Ferdy was engaged in beating his own self with many cries of pain.

Brenda walked away. “I ain’t interfering with fairy justice.”

©jj 2022

Roguing Thieves is a previously unpublished Fortune’s Fools story by E.M. Swift-Hook.

Home hadn’t changed even after five years away.
The twins were so much taller than she expected, for all they had kept in touch through links. They had been eight when she left, real children, and now they were teens. Back then it had sometimes been hard to spot the difference, despite their being different genders. But now they looked nothing like each other. Halkoms’s voice had broken and he had shot skywards in height whereas Magenta was beginning to get a very feminine shape. Pan’s other sister, Kiona, two years older than the twins, was having mid-teen angst and mood-swings. It was like coming home to well-loved strangers who she would have to get to know all over again.
Of course, Jennay was still the same. A strong, capable, woman, only a few years older than Pan herself, who had taken in and adopted her stepsister’s orphans without a word of protest, setting her own life on hold to make theirs flourish. Although Jennay was a fully trained paramedic, it was not the sort of work that easily fitted in around childcare, so money had always been tight.
“I told you that you would fly if you took up that scholarship,” she said, hugging Pan once the first rush of excited greetings from all three siblings had been navigated. She picked up one of Pan’s travel bags. “Come on, let’s get you settled in. I’m afraid you’ll have to share a room with me. Mabs moved in with Ki and Grim is in the cabin room the twins used to share. We left the top bunk and built a desk under it for him.”
“Grim?”
Jennay laughed. “I know, right? Everyone calls Halkom that nowadays, it’s that stonefaced look of his. Now, here we are. You can have the bed by the window. There’s storage under it as well.” Then she was left alone to unpack and settle.
It was good to be home.
Sitting on the bed and looking out of the window, Pan wondered if she should uproot them all. Trade this house with a garden where they could grow fresh food, clean air and the views of the magnificent countryside, for an apartment in a city, thirty floors up with synth-meals and virtual scenery through ambianced windows.
She didn’t have to.
She could settle here on Mulligan’s Reach, get a job in the spaceport doing whatever they would pay her for. She wouldn’t have to uproot the family and the best bit was that there were a fair few freetraders based here. She was sure Tolin could find a bay in the spaceport. She wanted to ask him, but he wasn’t available on link. Not surprising as he would be spending a lot of time in FTL space, planet and systems hopping, where link technology had yet to find a way to connect.
The decision was taken from her the next day anyway.
She was up early to help hustle the others out to school and was just finishing up clearing away from breakfast when Jennay made her sit down at the old kitchen table. Her face looked as stony as Grim’s.
“Look, I didn’t want to spoil your homecoming yesterday, and I’ve been keeping it from the kids, but you need to see this.”
‘This’ was a mail from the landholding wing of the city administration. Their landlord. It gave them notice that the land was being sold for redevelopment and they would need to move out within the next three cycles.
Pan met Jennay’s troubled gaze, saw the haunting fear and felt the weight of responsibility settle more heavily on her own shoulders. It struck her that Jennay must have been about her own age when taking on four children. Well, now it was her turn to step up and put family ahead of her personal life. Pushing away her dreams of setting up home with Tolin, she mustered a smile and reached over the table to squeeze Jennay’s hand.
“Well, the good news is it doesn’t matter. I’ve got a position with Rota doing mech tech repair and upgrading work on their merchant fleet. We’re moving to Central.”

So with a brave smile held in place on her face like a mask and a heavy heart, Pan signed over her life to Rota for the foreseeable future. She didn’t even have the compensation of an interesting job. The work she was being paid at Central rates to do was well below her level of qualification. It was also made clear to her that the chances of progression were limited. Rota just liked to have an overqualified staff to impress their clients. With so many people such as herself, desperate to gain access to Central, they could pick and choose from the brightest and best in the rest of the Coalition. Worse still, as a new citizen of Central, she was expected to work through her first year without taking any vacation unless on compassionate grounds. Unfortunately, that didn’t include maintaining a long-distance romance.
The link chats with Tolin trailed off as the year went on. He kept saying he’d try to come and visit, but they both knew that was never going to happen. Getting a visa for Central was beyond the means of a struggling freetrader just starting up. Then one day he just didn’t reply to her link and that was that.
If her own happiness had been stymied by the move, at least she had the compensation of seeing the others bloom. Kiona and the twins took to life in Central as if born to it and were thriving. They were storming their grades in education and making new friends. Even Jennay was blossoming after her time-out raising them all. She had gone back to work as a paramedic and begun dating a colleague. There was even serious talk of marriage.
It made it hard for Pan to share her own unhappiness with anyone. She lost her brave smile somewhere along the way and began to settle into the idea of life as it was. After all, she could hardly complain. She had a well-paid job and a home in Central. Most of the galaxy would look at her with unadulterated envy.

There will be more Roguing Thieves next Sunday…

She’d take it back if she could
The words were out
Then she saw his face.
The cut so deep that blood shed.
But it was done.
Spoken.
Said.

Nothing could be changed
The words were out
Their wounding complete.
No tears can wash out that pain
The hurt ricochets
Inflicting
Silence.

The one most on her side
Then words come out
Tearing them apart
The one she trusts, knows her best
Knows just where to strike
To hurt.
Snarls.

Now, as intimate strangers
The words come out
Weaponised by choice
Lovers become enemies
Each no longer hears
Pain filled
Cries.

E.M. Swift-Hook

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.