Action replay.
Same arena.
Twenty-four hours later.
This time, though, there were two bodies.

One was another British contestant, Tam Docca ‘Fly Boy’, from the Valentia Game team, but it was the second corpse lying as if awaiting funeral rites that had Dai’s fullest attention. Quintillas Publius Luca – son of a Roman Senator and a proper one at that, from proper Rome – not one of those who sat in Augusta Treverorum, giving themselves airs.
Trev, as Dai and most Britons thought of it, was the capital of Prefecture Galliae, home to the man who ruled Britannia and much of the Northern and Western parts of the continent as well. It was one of the four original Prefectures, each governed by its own Caesar, established by the Divine Diocletian under his sole rule as God-Emperor of a new Roman Empire.
According to the information Dai was getting, Luca was not supposed to even be in the province. There were media images which showed him in some small provincial town, identified as Lutetia in Gallia Lugdunensis, sipping cocktails on a terrace overlooking a river, with his gorgeous patrician bride of a year, one Marcella Tullia Junius. The same article claimed Luca was away from Rome on a long-term project to regenerate and oversee the family’s estates in Gallia.
“You would think,” Bryn observed dryly, “that after last night they would have kept a watch. Security cameras all down still and I bet no one saw a thing, just like before. That’ll put a sour look on the face of that jobsworth Flavia.”
Dai shot his decanus a look.
“Shut up, Bryn, you spado. I’m thinking.”
The decanus chuckled.
“It ain’t often I can get the Bard to swear,” he remarked happily. “Let’s see if I can shake a few more curses out of those pure Celtic lips. You know they’ll sic a Roman on us? This is too big for us local yokels.”
“Yeah. Just as long as it isn’t Titillicus…”
“Oh, course you won’t have heard. Titillicus is no longer a factor. He got in a ruck with the Tribune, who sent him home to his mammy.”
“In disgrace?”
“Nah. In a body bag. Seems he pulled a knife.”
“Moron. But what was the row about?”
“As if you couldn’t guess.”
“He didn’t?”
“Yep. The Tribune’s wife under the very eyes of the family lares.”
Dai grinned viciously. He had never liked working with Titillicus, the kind of Roman who assumed he ruled the Province and owned every provincial he encountered. Surely whoever they sent from Trev HQ would have to be better than that?

From Dying to be Roman by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

The biggers were at it again: something about a trip to the Muffdives being cancelled.
Mother Bigger was throwing one: something about her tan. The teenagers, of course, were completely over the top.
Big Bigger started shouting, and the gnomes all ducked as something flew through a window that wasn’t open.
Everyone fell facedown as a flatscreen tv wound up in the pond, where it made a peculiar hissing noise and sunk without trace.
Big Bertha ambled over for a look.
“Best none of us was here.”
The gnomes faded as Big Bigger emerged to see what he had wrought.

©️jj 2021

Caer sat on his pony looking at the dead body on the ground and wondering if he should send more scouts back towards the road, almost a day’s trek behind the caravan. This man had been alone, half-mad and no threat to the caravan, but others might even now be following the same path that they had taken from the road and for the same reason they had taken it: others who were scouts for brigands, bandits or bigger caravans than his own.
He spat in the dirt and narrowed his eyes as he looked past the file of wagons, ponies and people. It was late afternoon and his breath misted slightly in the air. The long cold winter was over, but in the barren Wastelands, spring was always slow to come. The air still carried a biting chill, even in the heat of the day and the distant peaks kept their mantle of snow and ice, tinged with crimson by the light of the huge red sun. Spring was having to claw its way free of winter’s greedy clutches so that Temsevar could bask in an all too brief season of warmth and growth.
The Wastelands were vast and magnificent. Here and there, standing proud and alone in the plain, like the lost sentinels of a forgotten age, were towering flat-topped mountains of rock, some so massive they were too big to cross in a day on foot. It was as though at some point in the distant past the ground had simply dropped away, leaving the high plateaux stranded above, like giant stepping stones, creating a two-tier terrain. If in the winter, these high grounds were the coldest and most exposed, in the spring they seemed always flushed with new vegetation before any managed to creep out of the more parched stones below.
Caer made his decision. With the work to be done, the four men he already had out scouting their back trail were all he could spare for the moment. He called to one of the mounted men who was riding with the caravan.
“Shevek, we are camping here.”
The man he spoke to wheeled his pony away and rode at a brisk pace towards the front of the train of wagons and animals, issuing sharp orders to make the night’s camp around the rocky debris beneath the steep cliff face of one of the high monoliths. Caer felt a familiar sense of satisfaction as those orders turned the straggling ranks of moving people, ponies and wagons into a brief flurry of chaos, before brightly coloured awnings, tents and pavilions sprung up from the chaos, like strange blossoms. Caer and his men rode through the quickly forming encampment, shouting instructions, solving problems, helping secure ropes and encouraging any who were slow to respond with the whips they carried curled in their belts.
In a remarkably short time, the caravan resembled a miniature town with streets and open spaces, stables, and pens. Fires were being kindled, children tending the animals as women kneaded dough and cut the vegetables for the evening meal. Toddlers screamed and got underfoot or rolled like puppies amongst the big, sharp-toothed dogs, which ignored them and begged for scraps with soulful eyes and then turned on each other snapping and snarling when an unsavoury morsel was cast their way.
Once the familiar routine was well established, Caer’s men guided their mounts towards the middle of the camp. The ponies’ short stubby ears, thick coats, wall-eyed glares and powerful necks, made them far from beautiful to look upon, but their split hooves could splay to grip surefooted even on snow and ice or could run fast on firmer ground. It was their broad backs which carried the burden of human traffic in both trade and war with a sturdy strength and agility which, for Caer, had a beauty all of its own.
The men who rode were as tough as their ponies. The older ones amongst them wore their hair long, stained red and tied back into a heavy braid, the greater length of the braid telling of ever greater age and experience. The youngest men had their hair shaved so close to the scalp as to seem bald. They were not even allowed to begin to grow a braid until they had served a year of apprenticeship with the caravans. All the men wore coats made from a brightly coloured heavy-felt cloth, over shirts with billowing sleeves, patterned skirted jerkins made from fleeced hides and plain felt britches which gathered loosely into calf-high boots. All were armed: every man wore a bandolier of wooden cartridge boxes over one shoulder and carried a crude pistol; one or two had a long-barrelled musket or rifled carbine, on their backs and each wore a long-bladed knife with an ornately carved hilt and whips hung looped at their belts.
These men were of the Zoukai, a brotherhood of warrior guardians, hiring themselves to protect the caravans which carried the trade of Temsevar. Named after the swift and ruthless, red-plumed predatory birds which hunted from the skies in these very wastes, they were bound by a strict code of honour which placed loyalty to their captain and their caravan above all else.

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

Advice on growing old disgracefully from an elderly delinquent with many years of expertise in the art – plus free optional snark…

If you’re old then I say this to you
There are certain things that you can’t do
You can’t make your lunch
Alcoholic punch
or have a Slow Comfortable Screw!

E.M. Swift-Hook

The Silk Thief, by Claire Buss, is the second full length novel in the Roshaven series.

It was Griff’s funeral. Ned Spinks, Roshaven’s Chief Thief-Catcher, watched from his elevated vantage point on the upper part of the shore as the crowd congregated by the water. He scanned the throng for any suspicious behaviour. A cool sea breeze carried some freshness his way, combating the aroma caused when you get lots of individuals gathering in one place. It gave him small comfort to see such a large turnout, his own grief was too raw.
‘Yor not on the clock now, Boss,’ Jenni the sprite remarked as she nodded a greeting at the Gingerbread folk. Wary of the water, they stood as far from the damaging liquid as they could without removing themselves from the ceremony.
‘Yeah, well, you know, people,’ muttered Ned.
‘Fourteen’s over there.’
Jenni pointed and they both stared at the elegant Imperial gazebo erected upon the Dead Pier. This was the other reason such a great crowd had assembled, and why the air hummed with animated chatter and gossip. The Emperor of Roshaven had recently revealed she was a woman, and this was her first formal event since that announcement. Unfortunate that it was a state funeral.
‘Mhm.’ Ned’s reply was as nonchalant as he could make it. He hadn’t seen Fourteen since they returned from their quest to save love and defeat the Rose Thief. After their triumphant return to the city, Fourteen had been immediately swept up by her administrators, the High Left and High Right. Every time Ned tried to get in to see her, the Highs cited important imperial duties that couldn’t be disturbed. After several tries, Ned had resolved to leave it for a while. He wasn’t certain if it were the Highs or Fourteen that were keeping him away.
‘Sparkly dress,’ commented Jenni.
Ned knew she was trying to get a response from him and his gaze flicked over again to where Fourteen stood, slightly apart from her retinue. Her short black hair framed her face and her silver gown was shining in the sun.
It relieved him when the opportunity came to change the subject as Momma K, Queen of the Fae, glided past bestowing regal smiles upon individual members of the crowd. Ned noticed he didn’t receive one and Jenni had ignored hers.
‘Things not going smoothly at home?’ Ned inquired. Jenni was the eldest of Momma K’s children, but she stayed with him in the city more often than not.
‘S’complicated.’ She was looking over at people on the pier again. ‘Who’s that talking to Norris?’
Ned decided not to push it, families were complicated, and his was no exception. Despite himself, he glanced over again at the dignitaries assembled on the pier. Fourteen was busy greeting some bureaucrat or other. There were representatives from all of Roshaven’s trade partners and a few cities they had not yet connected with. He could make out Fat Norris, otherwise known as the Lower Circle, whose responsibility it was to maintain existing trade agreements and keep them running smoothly while working on establishing new ones. He was talking to a familiar looking man, dressed in blue. Ned squinted and then stiffened.
‘It’s Theo.’

The Silk Thief will be released on 4 June but is available for pre–order right now!

A Bite of… Claire Buss

Q1. What do you love most about writing the Roshaven books?
I enjoy letting my imagination go wild but really, it’s the characters in my head telling me what to write. Every time I sit down, I have no idea what’s going to happen next or what kink they’re going to throw into the storyline. It’s why I don’t do a great deal of pre-planning. I am most definitely a discovery writer. The characters are such fun, one day I will have time to write down all the great backstories.

Q2. Have you considered doing any spin-off stories for one of the side characters and if you ever did which one would you most like to do?
You may remember that The Interspecies Poker Tournament is Roshaven Case File 27 which means there will be a further 26 novellas… potentially. I expect to have at least one per member of the thief-catcher team, an origin story if you like. And, of course, Fred. Who wouldn’t want to write a spin-off story about Fred, bless him. Ma Bowl might have a few juicy secrets too. Ooooh the possibilities!

Q3. If you were invited to tea with the Empress, what would you take as a present and why?
Cake. Rose likes cake only she rarely gets to indulge as it’s always sliced up for visitors and she’s usually so busy, she never gets chance to sit down with a nice cup of tea and a slice of cake. She needs more cake in her life.

Claire Buss is an award-winning multi-genre author and poet. She wanted to be Lois Lane when she grew up but work experience at her local paper was eye-opening. Instead, Claire went on to work in a variety of marketing and administrative roles for over a decade but never felt quite at home. An avid reader, baker and expert procrastinator Claire won second place in the Barking and Dagenham Pen to Print writing competition in 2015 with her debut novel, The Gaia Effect, setting her writing career in motion. You can follow her on Twitter, Facebook and her own website.

No one really understood why Rowena was so fond of the rose garden, but every day she would walk from her sheltered-home apartment across the busy main road to the park and sit there for a time. Even in winter when the gardeners had pruned the bushes to bare stumps with thorns.

People walking by were sometimes surprised to hear her talking to herself and even laughing.

One morning the gardeners arrived early and saw a young couple sitting on the bench chatting, laughing – then fading away.

Somehow they were not surprised to learn Rowena had died in the night.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Because life can be interesting when you are a character in a video game…

“Hail One Eye Rye!” the Visitor declaimed. “Pray show me your wares, merchant.”
“Oh-Em-Gee, Pew. Don’t tell me you bought the fragging lizard DLC?”
A short dwarven Visitor had pushed his way into the shop, his armour glinting by its own light. The hilt of his sword was a huge fist gripping a gigantic gem.
The ryeshor Visitor shrugged in a most un-ryeshor way. “Yeah. What of it? I want to be the first to unlock the achievements for them.”
“Ha! Like ugliest toon on the server maybe?” The dwarf hawked and spat, then laughed as if that was the most hilarious thing ever. “You see that Pew? These new toon actions are killer.” He hawked and spat a couple more times.
Milla could see One Eye was getting angsty so she grabbed Pewpowerpwnsyou by the arm and pulled him quickly from the shop. He seemed a bit surprised but didn’t resist and to Milla’s immense relief the dwarf followed them out still hawking and spitting. Then he stopped and jumped up and down on the spot a few times.
“They still don’t have one for teabagging though.”
“You’re gross, String.” Pew’s snout wrinkled.
“At your service,” the dwarven Visitor agreed. “But what the frag are you doing here anyway? The new expac is waiting it’s got five new l33t dungeons and this place is just a borefest of old lore backstory. Not even any new quests.”
“There is if you’re a lizard. A whole new quest chain with epic quality rewards.”
The dwarf pulled a face. “Didn’t see anything about that on the forums.”
“Check the discord, numbnuts.”
Milla knew it was rude to interrupt, but she was not hearing anything that seemed important enough to delay the search for Ruffkin. She stepped between the two Visitors.
“Excuse me, but…”
“Figures. They’d be looking to scrape money out of people they just stung for fifty bucks on the expac. What better way to do it? The ratstabs.”
Milla raised her voice.
“I said, excuse me, but my dog is in danger. I’m sure your discussion can wait until after he is safe again.”
Pewpowerpwnsyou stepped back and bowed from the waist.
“Forgive me, fair Milla. My staff is yours to command.”
The dwarf hawked and spat. “What she saying?”
“Oh, you lamer. You don’t even have ryeshor language skills? What a n00b. Peedle off and go play on newbie island, String, it’s about your skill level.”
“I got a better idea,” the dwarf said. “I’m going to alt a ryeshor.”
“What? No. String…”
But the dwarven Visitor had already gone leaving a faint shimmer in the air where he had been standing.
“Oh frag it.” Pew’s crest had fallen so its ridges drooped in pure misery.
“Is that… Is that something bad?” Milla asked. “I mean, it sounds bad: ‘alt a ryeshor’. Maybe we should warn the others.”
Pew’s crest was still down but now he was staring at her with wide eyes.
“How did you..? You can’t…” He broke off and shook his head “No. it’s nothing to worry about. Just String being String. He’s just a PITA.”
“Then please, can we just go find Ruffkin? He must be terrified wherever he is.”
“Sure. I mean…” He cleared his throat and returned to his affected style of speech. ”Forsooth Lady Milla. We will go forth and redeem your noble hound from his cthonic captivity.”
Milla sighed.
“Well, you’re the one with the location spell, so you’ll have to lead the way. Now, please stop talking to me like that and let’s get going.”
“If it is your will fair lady, we will depart post haste and…”
Milla screwed up her snout, spun on her heel and strode away towards the pyramid.

Pew caught up with her by the path to the outer gate. It was open, but guarded by two drakkonettes. They both wore gleaming black breastplates decorated with crossed keys and each was armed with a bladed polearms, decorated with inlays of the same cross-key design. They held their polearms so the shafts extended to block the space where the gate should be, barring passage just as effectively.
As far as Milla had ever heard drakkonettes never came further south than the Wailing Hollows, so seeing two standing guard on this pyramid made no sense. Drakkonettes were not completely unlike ryeshor – apart from having huge leathery wings, no tail, massive jaws, tusks and being almost half as tall again as a fully grown ryeshor. They were also known to be ferocious and these two were not looking friendly. Still, if Ruffkin was on the other side of that gate…
Pew caught her arm and pulled her back.
“You know the aggro range on those?”
Milla blinked. “The..what?”
Pew puffed out his cheeks and shook his head.
“Nevermind. This is really weird. Look, those mobs are a linked encounter. I could burn one of them easy, but two, without heals…”
Milla was beginning to think that the Visitor was something of a coward. If she hadn’t needed his location spell she would have been very tempted to leave him there and go on herself. After all, who said only Visitors could go on ventures? She was on one now, for sure.
“I could talk to them,” she suggested. “They look a bit bored, maybe they’d let us through if we find some entertainment for them?”
“You mean like this is some kind of weird sub-quest? We’re not supposed to fight them?” Pew lifted his hands as if trying to push the world away. “Oh frack, I wish I’d got in on the beta of this or someone had at least put up a walkthrough on the wiki.”

We will return to Wrathburnt Sands by E.M. Swift-Hook next Sunday.

Wrathburnt Sands was first published in Rise and Rescue: A GameLit Anthology.

I’ve been on a diet,
But now I am through
Tiramisu, banoffee
I’m coming home to you

I’ve been eating celery
Dining on air stew
Strawberry cheesecake, apple pie
I’m coming home to you

I’ve been counting calories
As I have to do
Sticky toffee caramel
I’m coming home to you

I’m putting the scales away
Cos they make me blue
Tiramisu, banoffee
I’m coming home to you.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Ginny sat back and read over the list one more time.

The Menopause

Disadvantages 
hot flushes
depression
weight gain
dry skin
dry hair
hair loss in the places that should have hair
hair gain in the places that shouldn’t
vaginal dryness
men don’t notice you in the same way anymore
you can’t have children

Advantages
no more periods (!!)
no more PMS (!!!)
warm in winter
hair less greasy
skin less greasy
fuller figure
female bonding
men don’t notice you in the same way anymore
you can’t have children
becoming a vampire

She smiled and deleted the last line. Yes, it was an advantage, if not the advantage but she couldn’t put that in this piece. 
The title was buoyantly cheerful:

Virginia Creeper is Back! 

It felt good to see that.
Her maiden name was Cropper but from almost as soon as her pithy articles on good living had become popular in the mid-1990s, ‘Virginia Creeper’ was how she had been known. 
Her phone broke the peace of the morning with a tinny rendition of ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’ and she picked it up with reluctance from the white desk and sat back in her chair with a sigh as she answered it. Beyond the rectangle of her laptop’s screen, she could see through the window of her small cottage into the garden where two brownish birds were perched on the bird table, pecking at the wild bird seed she’d put out for them.
“Hello Lucinda, how are you?”
“Wonderful, wonderful. More to the point how are you? Burying yourself away in darkest rural England. It can’t be good for you.”
Ginny watched as a larger, black coloured, bird descended on the bird table and the other two flew off. She wondered idly what sort of birds they all were. Sparrows? Starlings? What colour were sparrows supposed to be anyway?
“I think it’s the best thing I’ve done in the last five years,” she answered honestly. 
“Are you sure it’s not just another phase of your menopausal depression? I worry about you all alone in the middle of nowhere with all that mud and muck and only yokels and bumpkins for company. You could still come back to London, you know. Keep that place as a holiday let or whatever.”
Ginny groaned.
“I’m not coming back, Lucinda. I love it here.”
“Just think what you’re missing, though.”
Ginny thought.
She had worked her way up the greasy pole from local reporter to tabloid features writer. Then when the internet became truly a ‘thing’ she had been one of the first to migrate online and her blog became essential reading for those looking for lifestyle advice – if the lifestyle was one that was both fashionable and organic.
Then it had all fallen apart.
Small things.
Complaining about the heat when others were cuddling up in warm coats.
Losing her temper once too often. Getting over-merry at a social event where there were too many who mattered. Her boyfriend and partner of the last fifteen years walking out after a pointless row.
Then her appearance started to change.
Her hair started thinning, leaving a noticeable bald patch. Her skin became dry and flaky, so each time she undressed a small snowstorm ensued. She found herself staring at her face in the mirror and thinking a stranger was staring back. It had taken waking each morning with a nameless feeling of dread to make her run to her GP, terrified she was in the grip of some awful illness. 
Her GP had been patronising and sanctimonious. It was all perfectly natural, he explained, nothing for her to worry about. She was, the GP revealed, going through the menopause. The GP talked about HRT and Ginny shook her head. There were too many scare stories, she’d even written some of them herself, and in the vulnerable place she was in, taking it seemed too big a step to take.
So she had suffered in silence.
Quite literally.
Everything in her life had ground to a standstill.
Even her cat had moved out and taken up with the man next door.
It had been worse than going through puberty backwards.
She had fled London to avoid everyone she knew. Using almost all her savings to purchase this little cottage and living on the little that remained. One of the reasons she was once more setting finger to keyboard was that steady evaporation of her funds.
“You still there, Ginny? Not done one of you silent withdrawal things again?”
“No. Not even slightly. I was just thinking what I was missing, as you suggested. The endless round of artificial smiles, the false promises, the free samples delivered with cloying fake goodwill and the backstabs and even death threats when I didn’t endorse them. And that’s not to mention the noise, the polluted air, the crushes on the tube and the dreadful traffic. Oh yes, I miss it all so much.”
“Don’t be overdramatic. You know it’s not all like that. There’s the culture, theatre, concerts, first-nights, hobnobbing with all those celebrities – you can’t tell me you don’t miss that?”
“I don’t miss it, Lucinda, not at all. But, FYI, I have decided to revive Virginia Creeper and I have a lot of interest from the broadsheets about me doing a regular feature.”
“Oh?” 
Was that a spike of acid, Ginny heard in the single syllable? If anyone had benefited from Ginny’s premature departure it had been Lucinda. Her lacklustre lifestyle pieces had become more popular in the void left when Ginny herself vanished from the scene.
“I thought you’d be pleased,” Ginny said, able to do false sincerity with the best of them.
“What is your returning piece going to focus on?”
“Oh this and that. I thought I might tell the story of how I got involved with the local Ladies’ Association.”
“Really? That would be so utterly charming.”
The relief in Lucinda’s tone was almost tangible. Ginny had to smile. That was another thing she didn’t miss about her old life, these cold false friendships required by what they all called ‘networking’.
“Oh yes, I think it will be and maybe a piece on the menopause and how it affected me.”
“I’m sure that will go down well with the Millennials,” Lucinda’s voice had taken on a slightly bored lull. Ginny knew what that meant and started counting down from twenty silently in her head.
“I am so pleased to hear you’re getting back into writing though, it will be good to see your name again in the bylines.”
Fifteen…fourteen…
“And of course if ever you do decide to return to civilization you must come and stay with me and Malcolm…”
Eight…seven…
“And of course keep in touch. I dread to think it, but  if I didn’t make these efforts to call you you’d have gone native in that place.”
“Little Botheringham,” Ginny provided helpfully.
Three…two…
“Oh yes. That was it.”
“One…
“Well it’s been nice chatting but I have to go. Some of us have busy lives still. Bye for now.”
The line went dead before Ginny could add her own farewell and she put the phone down on her desk. It wasn’t a bad idea actually, telling the story of how she had come to join the Little Botheringham Ladies’ Association…

From ‘Much Dithering in Little Botheringham’ an everyday tale of village life and vampires, from Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook.

I have a cold inside my head
Serious it’s not
But it makes me lay in bed
Drowning in my snot
My mouth is sore
My nose is crusty
My throat on fire
My voice all rusty
I have a cold
That’s really true
Stay back unless I
Pass to you

©jj 2020