When your father fights on the losing side in a war, the only thing that is certain is uncertainty. Your home will probably be sequestered, your family assets seized, and your person may be open to abuse. Any young woman so beleaguered should be grateful if the man to whom the victorious leader gifts her family lands decides to marry her to further legitimise his claim. 
Mary Ashleigh reminded herself of this fact, while her reluctant feet trod the worn flagstones to where a fussy little priest with a streaming cold waited to marry her to a man she had never met. 
As she reached the altar rail where her bridegroom waited, she risked a glance before dropping her eyes in proper modesty. She got an impression of great height and very wide shoulders, but little more than that. As the priest stumbled his way through the short service Mary made her responses in her customarily placid manner, while the man spoke equally calmly, if in a voice as deep and unknowable as a thunderstorm in a far valley.
It seemed to take no time at all until the parson was proclaiming them man and wife. To her surprise, her new husband tucked her hand under his arm as he walked her from the building. This emboldened her to such an extent that she looked up.
The face that she beheld was square of jaw and sandy of hair and a little forbidding in its very strength, but withal he seemed to her to be a very proper man and to be looking at her with at least the semblance of friendliness. She smiled up at him and he patted the hand that lay in the crook of his arm.
“I am sorry that we could not meet before this day,” he said.
Mary’s surprise must have shown because he laughed, a deep and somehow comforting sound which emboldened her to speak. 
“It was more kindness than I expected when you chose to wed me.”
His voice when he replied was solemn. “You should not feel like that, although I can understand why you might. Do you know someone who has been misused?”
Mary looked at her feet for a moment before responding. “I do, sir. My cousin Catherine. She has a big belly now, but no husband.”
“Who did such a thing?”
“She don’t know sir. They shared her.”
He made a sound of disgust deep in his throat. “And where is the lady now?”
“She is at the manor. Hoping to become your pensioner as she was my father’s.” Greatly daring she turned and faced her husband. “Catherine,” she said in a tiny voice, “is very beautiful.”
“And you are not?”
“No sir. I am a plain little dab of a thing. My father was at great pains to be sure I understood that.”
He looked down into her earnest features and she could have sworn that the expression that crossed his face was pity. Putting his hand under her chin he held her face still while he looked deeply into her eyes.
“Not so plain,” he said consideringly, “not so plain at all. You have skin like the petals of a rose and your eyes are as clear and clean as a moorland stream. I think we will walk well together if you will it so.”
Mary felt the greatest part of her worries slipping away. “I do so will it sir.”
He patted her hand. “Listen, my wife. When we are in company I must always be the cold, hard master of the house. But when we are alone you may look to see the kinder side of me.”
Mary dimpled. “Will it be wise if I am the colourless, obedient wife in company?”
“It will. And my name is William. It would please me to hear you use it.”
“Yes William. It is a fine name, I think.”
“You, I believe are Mary. A favourite name of mine.”
He smiled benignly down at her and actually caressed the hand that lay in the crook of his arm, before straightening and assuming an expression of cold superiority as they neared the open door of the manor house. 
Mary dropped her eyes to the floor and schooled her own features. They entered the flagstoned hallway to find every member of the small household neatly turned out and awaiting their new master. Mary introduced them, and her husband spoke to each in calm clipped tones. He left no doubt of who was master, and Mary had to admire his composure. Last to be introduced was Catherine. Beautiful raven-haired Catherine whose eyes were as green as grass and whose figure was lissom and graceful even with the slight bulge of her pregnant belly. Mary couldn’t help a little frisson of fear as she saw her husband’s eyes turn to the pretty member of the Ashleigh family. 
Catherine swept a magnificent curtesy, almost seeming to invite William’s attention to focus on the creamy slopes of her bosom. As she rose from her curtesy, with a matchless grace as yet undiminished by her pregnancy, she lifted her eyelids and looked him straight in the eye before dropping her long, white eyelids and wetting her lips with the tip of her pointed, pink tongue. 
William, however, had already stopped looking and was leading his wife into the parlour. Catherine made as if to follow them but the door was shut firmly in her face. She hissed.  
Inside the sunny room, Mary showed her husband a visage of stark misery before managing to pull herself together. He took her sad face in both hands.
“Why so sorrowful?”
Being unused to the arts of coquetry she answered him with the plain truth.
“I was thinking that now you have seen Catherine you must be regretting your marriage to me. She is an Ashleigh too, and so much more what you deserve.”
William laughed. “If I did not understand your way of thinking, my wife, I would be insulted.”
“Insulted? But she is a beauty, and so clever and bright. I can do naught but keep house and stitch…” 
He put a gentle hand over her lips.
“My dear wife. I have seen the like of your cousin before. She is what they would call a light skirt. But you have no idea what that means do you?”
Mary shook her head.
“It means that your cousin encourages men to take liberties with her person.”
“Oh.” Then Mary thought about what William was saying and many things made sense. “Oh, that is why she is so different with men than with women. Do you think her culpable in her situation?”
“I do not know, my wife. But I would not be surprised.”
There came a tap on the door.
“Enter.” William spoke in a cold severe voice.
The door opened to admit Catherine with her eyes carefully downcast. “Cousin, forgive my interruption, I believe I left my needlework in this room.” 
With that, she put a delicate hand to her forehead and crumpled gracefully into a heap of silken skirts. Somehow as she fell her cap came loose and a wealth of night black hair tumbled about her slender form. William looked down at her and smiled tautly. He bent and picked up the still form, throwing her over one great shoulder as if she was naught but a sack of grain. As he left the room, Catherine opened her eyes and shot Mary a look of barbed hatred mixed with scathing triumph. Mary sat down and awaited developments. She had not long to wait. 
William strode back into the room and shut the door behind him with what was suspiciously close to a slam. He came over to where Mary sat and dropped to his knees beside her chair.
“Mary,” he said with a tread of humour in his deep voice, “your cousin is little better than a wharfside whore.”
Having no idea what he meant, Mary kept her counsel, simply looking into his strong, somewhat harsh, features as calmly as she could. He gave a queer groan and pulled her into his arms, bending his mouth to hers. He kissed her lips, gently at first but then she could feel his mouth growing more urgent against hers. He used his tongue to part her lips and the feel of it invading her mouth sent queer little tingles through her body. He abandoned her mouth, and lifted her into his arms.
“I should wait for this,” he murmured, “but I am not made of stone.” 
  It was some goodly while later and Mary, having very little notion how she got from her parlour to the bedchamber, lay against her husband’s chest idly running her hands through the auburn hair that dusted its surface. She sighed.
“Why the sigh, my wife?”
She dared to lift herself onto her elbows and look down into his face. She thought he looked younger now, and somehow less formidable, but even so she arranged her thoughts carefully before she spoke.
“I am thinking that it was a happy sigh. But I am also worrying that I should not have enjoyed that which passed between us quite so much.”
His laugh was a sound of pure joy and he tumbled her from his chest, rolling to pin her between his hard body and the soft feather mattress. He bent his head and kissed her until she lay boneless in his embrace. Then he smiled. “I am only grateful that you are open to the pleasures of the flesh. It is a gift to us.” 
It was with no little regret that the newlyweds dressed themselves and left the sanctuary of their bed, but there was business to be seen to and neither was of that careless nature that can laugh at tasks undone. 

Jane Jago

Fear crept under her eyelids and into her dreams. She awoke sweating, crying and aware of a presence where there should be none. Groping for the light switch she felt an alien body. There was something in her bed.

She froze. Unable to speak or move, she simply lay where she was with the slow tears running down her face.

Whatever it was beside her made a sound that was very close to a laugh then a hand, or claw, or paw, touched her tear-wet cheek.

“Soft.”

Then that hand moved to her throat and she knew no more…

©️jj 2018

Twinkle, twinkle on the telly
Someone who lost all their belly
A girl whose life’s no longer sweet
Even if she can now see her feet
Twinkle, twinkle drown your sorrow
You’ll be fat again tomorrow

© jane jago 2017

In Who Put Her In? by JaneJago, Joss and Ben take over running The Fair Maid and Falcon only to find out it may have other residents...

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

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

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

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

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

 Who Put Her In? by JaneJago now has a brilliant new cover from Bristow Design

Nobody was riding to the rescue this time. Maybe mother had made good her threat to have the princeling suffer his own consequences. He didn’t know, and anyway it didn’t matter. He was going to die.

The wilja checked the tightness of the rope that bound him, then showed him her saw-edged bronze knife.

A pair of gauntleted hands snatched him from the obsidian cave, dropping him in the midst of his mother’s militia.

He stood up with an attempt at jauntiness. But it’s hard to appear insouciant when you have voided your bowels in your imperial purple hose…

©️jj 2018 

An extract from Jackdaw Court by Jane Jago.

Friday morning came rather too soon for me. Charlie went to work whistling his tuneless whistle, and I rather hoped for a quiet day. I went into work for an hour then sloped off home. Feeling a bit bruised and blue, I called Mum, who was only too easily persuaded into a girlie lunch and a spot of therapeutic shopping. Spending far too much money had its usual calming effect, and by the time we got back to my place, Mum was so flustered that I couldn’t help giggling.
“Look Mum” I said in my most reasonable tones. “I’ve made so much in bonuses in the last year that I would be never be able to spend it if you didn’t help.”
She looked at me searchingly, then shrugged and grinned like a schoolgirl.
“If you are sure. But. Three hundred pounds for a pair of boots.”
“They are very nice boots” I said “and they could have been made to go with the coat Dad bought you for Christmas.”
“They could” she grinned. “And that body warmer will stop Tomasz from looking like a vagrant in the cold weather.”
I laughed. “Nothing can stop Dad from looking like a vagrant. It’s one of his biggest talents.”
She aimed a playful blow at me, and I noticed my answering machine blinking away at me. I idly pushed the button. It was a message from Uncle Sid. It was several messages from Uncle Sid. I looked at Mum.
“I guess I better call him.”
“You had. He sounds a bit desperate.”
I called the number and Sid picked up immediately.
“Alysson. Thank goodness. Have you looked in your mail box today?”
“No.”
“Do me a favour. Don’t. We think you have a letter bomb.”
“Oh. Smegg. What should I do?”
“Nothing. I’m on my way. With some people who know about these things. We will be with you in under an hour.”
“Okay. Will you have eaten?”
“No.”
“Right. How many of you?”
“Four. See you soon.”
And he cut the connection.

I turned to Mum, to find her sitting at the kitchen table white-faced and shaking.
“Letter bomb?”
I went and put my arms around her.
“It’s okay Mum. I have guardian angels.”
She put her hands around my face and I smiled at her.
“Oh Aly. What have you gotten yourself into?”
“I dunno. Mum. I’ve done nowt. I just seem to have arrived on some people’s radar. Charlie says it’s my face.”
She laughed. “Will you promise me that you’ll be careful?”
“Oh. I will. Now do you want to help me cater for a crowd of huge men?”
“Only if me and your dad are welcome too.”
I knew that was coming and although I would have preferred to send her as far away from danger as possible I knew I couldn’t do that. I nodded my agreement.
“Okay then. What you got?”
“There’s a chicken in the fridge, and some packs of breast in the freezer. I’m thinking of a massive curry.”
“Yeah. That’d do it.”

We worked side by side for an hour and when two enormous casserole dishes were in the oven, we grinned at each other in a satisfied manner. Mum went upstairs to call Dad and I was just having a large glass of water when my doorbell buzzed. I looked at the screen to see Sid, two other huge thugs, and a skinny little man with a tool box. I went downstairs. Sid gave me a brief hug and introduced Joe, Billy and Mack.
“Where is your letter box” the little guy called Mack asked.
“It’s over there.”
I pointed to the rank of boxes on the other side of the courtyard.
“Good. Gimme the key.”
“There isn’t a key. It’s a number. 4970.”
“Okay. Now you go back indoors and leave us to deal.”
I turned to leave, but spotted Georgios Christopoulos and a couple of his henchmen approaching purposefully. Sid gave me a little shove.
“Go inside. I’ll deal with your Greek friend.”

Nothing loath I buggered off as fast as I could go. I found Mum standing in the big window of the family room, watching with worried eyes. I went and stood beside her as Sid spoke briefly to Mr C before Mack went and opened my letter box. He took out a small pile of mail and examined each item with some care. He gave all but two bits to Sid, who stood back respectfully. The leathery little man took some sort of a scope out of his toolbox and ran it over the letters. He frowned and shrugged. Then he took out an old fashioned stethoscope. He handed yet one more piece of mail to Sid. Then he carefully carried the last envelope over to the corner of the courtyard where two big buttressed walls surrounded a gnarled crab apple tree. He put the packet down on the floor and went to the undistinguished van in which they had arrived. He put on a thickly padded vest and a businesslike visored helmet before picking up a pair of long-handled tools. He used the tools to carefully open the package. For a moment I thought it was all a storm in a teacup. But it wasn’t. The explosion, when it came, sounded shockingly loud in the quiet afternoon air.

Mum squeaked and jumped.
“Oh” she said. “Oh Aly. Oh why would anybody want to do a thing like that to you?”
“You hush now” I replied firmly. “We don’t know nothing yet. But Uncle Sid will tell us. Just so long as you don’t go flapping.”
She thought about that one for a minute, then nodded.
“You’re right. I have to stiffen my spine.”
“Okay. You stay here and practice. I’m going down to see precisely WTS.”
She opened her mouth then thought better of whatever she had been going to say.

Jane Jago

When the council allocated plot 1B to a young family from the nearby high rise, there was some scuttlebutt about giving an allotment to such lowlifes. But the old gardeners watched through rheumy eyes, withholding judgment.

The strangers proved good gardeners, with quiet children. So the old men relaxed. If the new lot grew some funny stuff, that was their business.

Summer was dropping into autumn, when Reg fell from his ladder. Nobody would have known what to do for him, but the sari-clad woman from 1B knelt at his side in the mud. 

“I’m a doctor,” she smiled.

©️jj 2018

.... or 'How To Speak Typo' by Jane Jago

asi in (noun) – karate dildo

autghor (noun) – writer of vomit inducing horror fiction

balaclave (noun) – hat made from sheet music

bow job (noun) – revenge macrame made from the pubic hair of an unfaithful lover

chorkle – (noun) the sound that emanates from the throat of a cat who is about to vomit 

dsire – (verb) to almost want something

happilt (adverb) – of running to clap ones heels together joyously

interrofate (verb) – to question closely whilst tickling the feet with a jelly mould

mucbn (noun) – Scottish bread found wrapped around burger

noof (adjective) – with the demeanour of a slightly silly female newsreader

oss (noun) – bony and indigestible piece of useless info

predicatbel (noun) – a device hung around the neck of a cat to warn its owners when it is going to stop purring and latch sixteen claws in their unprotected flesh

smae (noun) – a small fish subsisting on the loose skin shed by elephants when bathing

thnaks (noun) – cod liver oil flavoured crisps

wodnering (verb) – creeping under people’s eyelids to look at their fantasies (and maybe get a laugh)

Disclaimer: all these words are genuine typos defined by Jane Jago. The source of each is withheld to protect the guilty. 

It was to be the battle to end all battles and the enemy seemed to fill the horizon. The soldier took a photograph from the breast pocket of his battledress jacket. He looked at it for a second before tenderly kissing that beloved face.

Half a world away, his young wife felt that kiss as she laboured to bring his son into the world. She was comforted.

Three hours later as she held her newborn babe to her breast, she felt those lips again. This time, though, she heard a longed for voice.

“Sorry, love,” it said.

And she knew. 

©️jj 2018

“You can confirm your registered name is Charity Sweetling?”
Charis nodded, expecting to see the usual smile when she gave her full name, but this official just raised an eyebrow.
“I need you to answer me, please. You are in no way disabled so a full verbal answer is required.”
“Oh. Sure. Sorry. Yes. That is my registered name. But could I ask what this is about?”
The official glanced up, looking back to his screen, as if he had not heard her question.
“You were born on a non-Coalition planet and arrived in Central when you were assessed as being an estimated four years old, a certain Vor Franet declared you as a seeker of asylum on the grounds that were you to be returned to your home you would face certain abuse through enslavement.”
Charity nodded again, then realised and said quickly: “Yes.”
The official went on in the same uninflected voice as if he were reading a shopping list rather than dissecting her life.
“You were accepted into the Coalition Protected Children Program and placed with a family who ensured you received an appropriately supervised upbringing and education. On achieving full majority and adult status you undertook the required military service of the Program and completed it successfully.”
The official stopped again and looked across at her.
“I think it’s a bit unfair to describe my upbringing as just ‘appropriately supervised’. My parents gave me the very best they could. They gave me an awesome upbringing, a loving upbringing, a fun and caring upbringing – ”
“Var Sweetling,” the man cut across her, “are you wanting to challenge your upbringing as not being appropriately supervised? Or report the Coalition Program has been at fault in some way?”
Charis shook her head. Then, under the expectant glare of the man sitting opposite her, said: “No, I do not want to challenge anything about my upbringing.”
“And you will confirm the other details I stated are correct? Or do you need me to repeat them for you?”
Charity began to feel uneasy. This appointment, at almost zero notice, had been pushed on her out of the blue in a severely worded linkmail, which made it clear failure to comply would lead to any number of unpleasant consequences. It meant she needed to take half a day off work and fly back overnight from her scheduled stop-over to make it, forcing poor Ebon to jig some very creative adjustments to the roster. But since it came with the badge of the Central Immigration Taskforce, she was obliged to attend. Charis linked her mother as soon as the appointment arrived, but even she had no idea what it could be about.
“Probably just some un-dotted I or uncrossed T in their internal files,” her mother said. “But if it turns out there is a problem, just let me know and we’ll get it sorted out. Do you want me to come down there with you as your legal representative?”
Sometimes having a lawyer for a mother could be very reassuring. But Charis, not wanting to force her into the three-day planet hop it would have meant, told her not to bother and promised to let her know how it went.
“Var Sweetling? This is very important. Can you please confirm -”
“Uh – yes. Yes, you have the facts right.”
The official went on: “You have been employed as a pilot for the last eight years, working for the Rota Corporation in a role which complied with the reserved occupations list.”
“If by that you mean shunting big freighters around the galaxy, then yes.”
The official nodded as if pleased she grasped the idea of the interview at last.
“And you recently moved your occupation to work for – ” He paused as if in doubt about the words on the screen he read from. “The Wild Ride Superb Bus.”
There was an awkward silence.
“It is a tourist shuttle a good friend of mine, Ebon Wild, set up – it’s not really a job, more of a sabbatical. Just a chance to do something a bit different before I go back to cargo shunting.”
“I only require you to confirm the veracity of the details I have here, please, Var Sweetling.”
“Oh for -” she bit back the words and tried to calm down. “I mean, yes. Yes, I can confirm it. But what is all this about?”
“Your present occupation is not on the reserved list, Var Sweetling.”
Charity struggled to see that as an explanation and shook her head.
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything. It is a temporary contract and when it expires I’m back to the big ships again. Rota even told me they would take me back right away no need to go through the application and trials again. Like I said before, it is more of a sabbatical to help a friend get their start-up off the ground. Literally.”
The official seemed to be listening and waited, wearing a polite expression of indifference until she finished.
“Your present occupation,” he repeated, in the same toneless voice as before, “is not on the reserved list.”
Charis felt the confusion returning. It made no sense.
“I really do not understand what this is about.”
“Let me put it in plain words, Var Sweetling -”
“Oh please do, plainer the better – this is just sounding bizarre.”
“The Security of Place and Persons Committee has decided the term of your asylum is now over. The original conditions of it being in place – you being an unescorted minor in need of safety – no longer apply and the sole mitigation you held through working in reserved employment, is no longer valid. As a result, Var Sweetling I need to inform you that you are no longer a citizen of Central nor – since you were born outside it – of the Coalition.”

Concludes next week…

Part One of a glimpse into Fortune's Fools  Haruspex:Trust A Few by E.M. Swift-Hook.