Two Women and Some Books
Advice on growing old disgracefully from an elderly delinquent with many years of expertise in the art – plus free optional snark…
You are old, and you should be depleted
Modern techno should have you defeated
But you bought an iPhone
Never leave it alone
And I’m shocked by the filth that you tweeted
There were two other men in the hot bath, lazily reclined and talking in low voices. They were both, Dai could not fail to notice, wearing heavy Patrician rings so even when naked they were still marked out as superior beings, paunches and all.
“It is incredible who they allow in here nowadays,” one said, his eyes flicking contemptuously over Dai. “Shouldn’t be allowed.”
“I didn’t think natives were allowed in these baths – never seen one before, anyway,” his companion agreed. “I’ll have a word with the curator, we can get it removed.”
Dai was grateful the heat had already made his skin very flushed or his reaction to their words might have been visible, as it was he decided it was not worth creating an issue that might fall back on Julia to deal with as she was the one who had signed him in as her guest. That was the only way any non-Roman would be allowed in a public premises deemed ‘sub aquila’ – where you had to walk under the eagle on the portico to get inside, and it meant she was personally responsible for his behaviour. So, instead, he curtailed his bathing and pulled himself out of the pool on the far side to from where the Romans lounged.
He had to walk past them to leave the pool room and as he did so, one made a crude gesture with one finger, his patrician’s ring glinting gold. Dai froze mid-stride and turned back, fists balling as he did so.
“At least,” he said tightly, “I have a real dick and not just a picture of one on a ring.”
The water beside him erupted and he decided not to wait whilst the two heaved themselves from the water like bull seals onto a rock.
From Dying to be Roman one of the novellas in ‘The First Dai and Julia Omnibus‘ by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook
He hung the naked Adonis in his study, but was displeased to notice that the room began to grow dusty.
“The cleaner won’t go in there. It’s the naked willy.”
“Couldn’t you?”
“No.”
“What about if I cover the painting?”
“We can try it.”
This worked perfectly well, until the regular cleaner went on holiday. The temp was cleaning the study and her screams could be heard above even the roar of the vacuum cleaner.
People ran from every direction to find the woman rigid with shock. You don’t expect a picture to be masturbating because it thinks itself unobserved.
The reunion gathering in the The Red Dragon was subdued.
It didn’t help that a travelling bard was singing of the Nine who saved the Kingdom. The story in the song was a pretty enough confection, Hepsie thought, but most all lies. And it was a reminder that the last time they had set out as companionship of nine and returned as seven and now just four of them sat around the table.
Hepsie had a lot on her mind but she could see that even the usually irrepressible Stref took the news about Raya like a blow to the gut. At least it stopped him from squabbling with Linis for once as they always used to. Or maybe it was deeper than the one event, maybe he had grown up some. Linis certainly had. The poise and calm were the same, but the sophistication, elegance and self-command spoke to something new. When the conversation turned to their next step and the long journey to the mountains she simply lifted a hand to silence everyone.
“I don’t see why we need to make this into a grand trek. There are other ways to get there.”
Poll looked thoughtful. “Aye. There is for sure. We could use the Guild of Fartravellers. But they would ask more than all I own for the price of the spell.”
Which was true. Fartravel was expensive and for a reason. Only the Guild knew the spell and word was that it took so much from the caster they would need days in bed after to recover.
“That might be so, but I have the price of it. How do you think I came to Durmouth so quickly when Raya sent word to me?”
“We couldn’t ask…” Poll began to protest.
“No. This is the same as before. We all bring to this our strengths. That I have the gold is no more to the point than that I have my bow.”
“Before, we all had nothing except our skill, our muscles and our wits.”
“We were young then, Poll,” Linis said gently. “Now we have other resources. A lifetime of them. Just as we used the strengths of our youth before, now – if we are to succeed – we must use all the strengths of our age and experience.”
So it was settled and the next day they gathered in the Travel Court of the Guild. It looked like any other courtyard Hepsie had ever been in, cobbles, and stone walls. Except that there was only one wide gate and the high stone walls were featureless aside for plaques on which were carved sigils. She recognised one or two and wondered what they might have to do with travel at all. Or maybe they were just there to confuse people like her, with some small knowledge of magic, to ensure the real spell remained secret.
Hepsie and Poll were with their hill ponies, Stref with a broad-backed mule he had found somewhere and Linis with her chestnut mare. All the mounts had bedrolls and side packs of supplies. Hopefully, they hadn’t forgotten anything because there were no taverns or towns in the high mountains.
Hepsie found herself whispering a prayer to Shal and then wondered why she did so. It was unsettling as she was never the one to call on any god. But there was no time to give it any thought more because the Guild Spellcaster and her two apprentices, were beginning the spellcasting, sending them to the place Linis was holding in her thoughts. That was the big limit on Fartravel, as everyone knew, you had to have been there first.
The magic tingled on her skin and Hepsie resisted the urge to scratch at it. Hepsie’s barrel-shaped pony snorted and rolled its eyes as she tried to soothe it. Stref was having a fine time keeping his mule in place as it sidestepped and tried to pull away. Even the chestnut mare had her ears flattened. Any moment they would all try and bolt. This was going to be a disaster.
“Everyone alright?” Linis asked
Hepsie blinked. Then shivered. They were high in the mountains. Just like that. She hadn’t even felt a moment of transition, and if there had been anything to see she had missed it, focused as she was on keeping her pony calm. No wonder the Guild spellcasters could charge such high prices.
From a fantasy tale 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…
I am old and my needs are quite small
I will just make a list of them all
A home of my own
An iPad and phone
And a man with a good set of balls
Nothing Left to Lose is the tenth book in the Lost Dogs series by Nils Ödlund and it rounds out the second major story. It’s the end of the series, but not the end of the story…
Alene sold a couple of t-shirts to a middle-aged man, and a book on anfylk baking to a woman not much older than herself. The cash machine worked the way she expected it, and all the items had neat little price tags on them.
No one asked her help to find anything, and no one seemed to recognise her. Someone asked if she’d heard about the fire, and she said wasn’t it terrible and she hoped no one got hurt, and that was that.
For a long time, she stood and stared at the cash box. It held enough money to see her with food and tickets for a week, just there for the taking.
The curse didn’t scare her. She’d never fall in love again. The affliction had seen to that. The beast, and her five-year old self hiding in the dark tunnels. She hadn’t thought about her since yesterday, but now, between customers, and with the music on the speaker sounding like a summer breeze in the mountains, the dream from the other night came back to her.
The dream, and the memories, and she’d better find something to do before the past crushed every single spark of joy she’d ever felt..
A pile of t-shirts that needed folding.
Books that needed putting on shelves.
Surfaces that needed dusting, and a floor that could do with a bit of sweeping. Once she got started, there was no shortage of tasks that perhaps didn’t need doing, but that could do with being done.
The beast kept quiet, Alene lined up a group of toy soldiers advancing on a stuffed rabbit, and the music drifted off to birds and forest sounds.
A little old lady showed up, kept calling her Sallay, and asked if she’d lost weight because there was something different about her that she couldn’t put a finger about, and did she have a suggestion for a birthday present for a four-year old?
Alene didn’t have the heart to tell the woman she wasn’t Sallay, but helped her find a wooden locomotive, put it in a box and wrapped it in sparkly paper. Forgot to check the price and convinced the old lady she’d already paid rather than open up the present and see what the tag said. Little Corinne probably wouldn’t care anyway.
If you knew nobody would ever read a word you wrote, would you continue writing?
No. I don’t think I would. The whole point of writing something down is so that it can be read. The stories in my head don’t demand to be told. If I knew no one would read what I wrote, I’d just keep the stories to myself. Easier that way, and I can change things up on the fly as I want to, without having to worry about words and text.
As a writer, what is your ambition?
I want to provide an enjoyable escapist reading experience. Sometimes, the real world can get a bit much, and I want to help provide a way to escape from that, even if just for a little while. I want to create a world that readers feel like they can step into, and characters that stay with them even after they stop reading. I want to create stories that mean something.
What is your favourite tipple?
I’m quite partial to Jameson lately.
Nils Ödlund is originally Swedish, but lives these days in Cork, Ireland. He’s an avid reader, gamer, and fan of geek-culture. He picked up writing as a hobby, almost by accident, back in 2010, and it quickly grew into something of an obsession. In 2017 he decided to get serious about it, and in early 2018, he published his debut novella Emma’s Story. Since then, he’s been working on the Lost Dogs series.
When not writing, he enjoys hiking through the Irish countryside, reading, or playing games.
Unlike every other author in the history of all authors ever, Ödlund does not have a cat.
You can find him on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and his own website.
She seemed to us to be barely more than a child as she leaned hip-shot against the perimeter fence in the sickly light of a dying lamp. We didn’t think she’d be making eating money that night. But then he came. He was tall, big, and warmly wrapped against the cold.
His hand found the girl child’s throat and he dragged her into the darkness. There was one agonised scream.
The girl sauntered out into the fitful light and the red eyes of a golem looked up at us.
“That’s one-nil to justice, should you be keeping score.”
Art by Ian Bristow.
The adventures of Piglock Homes and his sidekick Doctor Bearson.
Hustle it was as the little cross-country train was already tooting its whistle. Homes, who had the speed of an athlete when he chose to exert himself, shot over the bridge with Bearson and Yore puffing in his wake.
“You would think,” Yore grumbled, “that a serving officer of the law would be able to outpace a normally sedentary pig.”
Bearson didn’t bother to answer – being not built for physical exercise he had no breath left for debating police donkeys.
On the platform the train awaited, and if it were possible for a contrivance of wood and steel to appear impatient one would have said that the little train seemed to be waiting for them with barely concealed annoyance.
Homes had a carriage door open and the two confederates all but fell into the train.
“I say, you two,” Homes was in self-congratulatory mood. “I thought we were supposed to be hustling. It’s a good job one of us isn’t too fat to run.”
He barely evaded the heavy clout Bearson aimed at his porcine snout.
“If you are going to be like that I’m sorry I held the train for you.”
Bearson, who was feeling thoroughly disgruntled, glowered. “Well I don’t suppose you would have bothered of it wasn’t for the fact I have your ticket in my pocket.”
Homes chortled. “Good deduction old chum. But never you fret, I have your interests at heart.” He showed his sharp, yellow teeth in a gin before carrying on. “Yonder is an emporium where one may purchase a cream tea, or, should one be about to embark, a hamper containing scones, country butter, strawberry jam, and clotted cream.”
Bearson’s mouth watered.
“It’s an awful shame we hadn’t enough time to obtain such a thing.”
Yore sat up.
“I could make them hold the train,” he said determinedly.
“No need, old chap.” Homes was expansive. “If I’m not very much mistaken here comes our hamper.”
Indeed, two stout gentlemen in stripy aprons were cantering along the platform, bearing between them a large and obviously heavy wicker hamper.”
“Cream tea for Piglock Homes,” the fattest of the two cried in stentorian tones.
Homes threw the carriage door wide and hung out at a precarious angle.
“Over here,” he cried and the hamper was brought to the door.
After pushing it through the aperture the men held out their large, red hands. Homes put a shilling in each and the men saluted politely.
The guard came along and slammed the door and the train pulled busily out of the station.
Bearson and Yore picked up the hamper and followed Homes’ scuttling little figure. They found an empty compartment and Bearson opened the hamper.
He groaned. “Look at this.”
Yore elbowed him aside and stared at the Lucillan repast.
“I suppose,” he said in an awed voice, “this means we have to forgive Homes for being such an annoying little piggy.”
Bearson didn’t deign to reply, being too busy slathering a sultana scone with strawberry jam and thick yellow cream.
He passed it to Homes, who had settled in one corner of the carriage. Homes sunk his teeth into the sweet treat.
Yore, who had sunk into his Ulster like a grey phantasm of depression, blinked slowly. “I have a premonition of disaster,” he enunciated.
Bearson made a rude noise with his lips and passed the inspector a scone oozing cream.
“Stop premonitionising,” he advised, “it’s injurious to the digestion.”
Piglock Homes and his sidekick Doctor Bearson will continue their investigation into The Affair of the Dartymuir Dog next week…
April wears a bright green dress
Embroidered oe’r with flowers
She never fails to impress
With sunshine and with showers.
And although sunny days do come
Within her weeks’ purview
The cold and blustery showery ones
Are often with her too.
But April carries all the hope
And all the dreams of spring
And as the days through April lope
The thoughts of summer bring.
Then when April passes by
You’ll hear the old folk say
The April rains that made us sigh
Will bring a blooming May.
“So, run this past me again, Drew – you want me to join a unit that does not exist to help babysit a group of the Vanguard’s freaks and failures? I am sure you have held back the bad news until last.”
Drew felt himself wince at the cutting tone. Prudence Armitage was not one to mince her words – it was more usual for her words to mince those she spoke with.
“Purdie, Purdie…”
“Don’t you ‘Purdie’ me, Andrew Gilroy! I have just got back from a reconnaissance mission and my mood is foul.”
He loved the way her slightly upper-class accent lingered over the last word, making it sound almost onomatopoeic. But then he adored almost everything about her and had as long as he knew her. Seeing her sitting in her mahogany and glass office, her back straight and her head slightly tilted up so the chisel sharpness of her profile was accentuated, he was irresistibly reminded of their first meeting in Rome. Then she had coal-black hair framing those amazing grey-blue eyes and a gloriously athletic body. She still had the body, but now her choppily short hair was steel, as if it had finally come to match every other aspect of her. For maybe the thousandth time he wondered why he had never asked her to marry him. Now it was twenty years and a hundred encounters too late.
Sighing slightly, Drew turned away from the piercing iron gaze which made him begin to feel uncomfortable like being under the twin barrels of a shotgun. He picked up something, anything, from her desk and looked at it without seeing.
“Silver medal. European Junior Gymnastics Championships. I was 13 years old and trying not to be seen as an overachiever. Even at Roedean that could lose you street cred. Coming second was my social salvation.”
He put the framed medal down quickly and pulled his attention back to the matter in hand. With Prudence, honesty and straight delivery were always the best policy.
“The thing is Purdie, we really are in a bit of a jam. The whole notion of apprentices and preparation for initiation, filtering out the unsuitable as we go is being made redundant by the present crisis. There has been nothing like it in centuries. Sanctorum was not designed to be a – mainstream operation unit. It was set up to be what its name suggests – an asylum for those we couldn’t risk in the open.”
“More like a semi-secure unit for the crazies who can’t adjust to being able to see demons.”
“That is an exaggeration. It has just managed those with adjustment issues. But the numbers recently…” he broke off. Then working to keep the slight trace of his near desperation from his voice, said: “It is getting very bad. You will have heard they opened a new training facility on the Perthshire Estate – already there is talk of a third being needed. And Sanctorum…”
“Sanctorum is being overrun by maladjusted post-millennials who think they are at Hogwarts?”
“Not quite.”
“But close enough?”
Drew just looked at her. He knew she was being deliberately difficult, but as always he had no idea why. The neat grey outfit gave away nothing of her personality. She wore it like armour.
Sometimes he wondered how she felt when most of her peers – those she had been in training with and who had become her friends – and others much younger than herself, were now in the upper echelons of the Vanguard’s ranks and she was still a lowly commander. It was not that Purdie had ever lacked ability, but as Gita Sharma had read out of from Purdie’s psychological profile at the selection board for this post, she was not suited to take on the responsibility of an independent command. She was, Gita had observed, simply the best lieutenant – fiercely loyal, well able to give orders and run field-missions, so long as the ultimate authority was not herself.
If Purdie was consciously aware of that aspect of her nature and the degree to which it defined her prospects, he had no idea. But she had never shown any sign of resentment even at the promotions of others who had once served under her – or any particular desire to seek a place higher than the one she had held now. Secretly, he suspected she had no wish to leave active service and trade her weapons for a desk and computer terminal.
“Really Drew, you know I have all the maternal instincts of a seahorse. Is a baby-sitting job the best use of my abilities? We are being overrun – what happened in Penrith is just the tip of a very ugly iceberg. We need every capable initiate in the field twenty-four seven. It is not the time for me to be sitting on my bum in a glorified…”
“Sanctorum is a fully operational unit within the Vanguard.” Drew spoke more sharply than he had intended “It has had the highest proportion of mission losses of any active unit in the Vanguard over the last year. They get sent in where anyone more…”
“You mean they are seen as disposable cannon-fodder? Or is their commander a useless wanker?”
“No. I mean it has stood where others would have run. Its CO is a highly competent woman, Janice Roslaird. She has been doing an incredible job with people that no one else can handle. Sanctorum is…”
Purdie lifted a hand to silence him.
“It’s alright Drew, you don’t need to give me the full heart-wringing oration – I have already heard the sound-byte.”
Gods, the woman could be so damn cold! Drew felt his anger rising, then saw the slightly mocking look in Purdie’s expression and bit back his intended retort.
“It’s an assignment, not a volunteer position,” he heard himself say tightly. “I didn’t come here to persuade you – only to inform you. A courtesy between old friends.”
She looked away then, for once perhaps shamed. He could only hope.
“Who put me up for this?” she asked, still avoiding his eyes.
“It’s not like we have many options. Roslaird needs a rottweiler – but she gets you instead.”
“She asked for support?”
“Of course not. She may even resent you – I am sure you would love that.”
Purdie shook her head briefly, but whether in denial or resignation, he could not tell. Then she got up and moved around the desk to stand with him. For the first time he noticed the gouges on her neck and the patch of naked scalp where a row of stitches ran into her hair. Close up he could see etched into her face the marks of exhaustion together with contained physical pain and…
“We lost Nish in the Penrith thing,” she said, as though reporting the loss of a cricket match rather than of her most trusted Sergeant for the last five years. Possibly, rumour had it, something more. “He was torn apart by demons – literally. Bits and pieces. Nothing left.”
Andrew swallowed, unsure now.
I’m s-sorry. I was not informed.”
“It’s alright, you are in good company. His twin sister can never be told and his parents will have no body to bury and be left to wonder forever why he didn’t come home.” She sounded almost offhand, but the storm-sky eyes were unfocused. “Still, you know what they say – the war must go on.”
“Purdie, I…”
She moved her body slightly in easy evasion so his comforting hand reached only into air and he withdrew it quickly.
“So. Who? Who do I have to blame for this? Tell me.”
“I can’t tell you that. You know I can’t.”
“Karl? Christa? Josh?”
Drew shook his head. His silence determined and final. Purdie closed her eyes in resignation, head slightly bowed.
“When?”
“Tomorrow – unless you need medical attention? No? You are sure? Then you’ll get the orders tomorrow to report to Karl at HQ. He’s to brief you formally, after which you will be removed from our active files and transferred to Sanctorum.”
She nodded once, then managed to recapture a brief waspishness which Drew felt was almost entirely for his benefit.
“Does it have to be Karl? He is such an adolescent with attitude, and his cynicism…”
“…matches yours?”
It was always hard to know with Purdie, but it was just possible that the warmth in the smile she gave him then was more than just acknowledgement of his attempt at humour. Whilst he was still trying to decide if that was so, she reached over the desk and swept her grey jacket from the back of her chair.
“Take me for a drink, Drew, and I might even forgive you.”
Following her from the office, he wondered if Karl and Gita really knew what they were doing in pushing for Purdie to be given this assignment and wondered again if he had been wise to let himself be persuaded into supporting the notion…
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