Today we welcome Jim Webster and Tallis Steelyard.

Preparing the ground
The Ropewalk market is busy on market day. There are always too many stallholders, and the narrow passages between them swarm with people. It has been suggested that you need not worry about pickpockets; the crowds are too tightly packed for them to escape.
At one end of the market the entertainers congregated, the apprentice mages with their fire tricks, the coin and cup men, the tumblers and mime artists. There are no musicians or singers; it would be impossible to hear them over the hubbub.
Yet on Piccardil-cutters day, a sum of money had been left to pay a poet to declaim an ode celebrating the excellence of the market traders. When the poet stands to begin his delivery a bell rings, and the market traders all turn and bow in the poet’s direction. The poet bows back and as silence descends, the poet begins.
I was honoured to be asked to perform, and given that the fee would keep my lady wife and I for a week or more, as news of the occasion spread, sundry of my creditors took every chance to remember themselves to me.
Yet I confess to being a little worried. You see, for various reasons, all of them good, or seemed to be at the time, I found myself on the wrong side of Master Silvernant. Somebody told me he had decided to hire bullies to disrupt my reading. Given his miserly nature, I dismissed this as nonsense. But several people, all moderately sober and more or less reliable, repeated the tale. So I decided I had to take steps to deal with the problem before it arose.
I did the obvious thing, I took council with Mutt. Mutt is probably about ten, a street urchin who works for Shena, my lady wife, and whose own extensive business interests mean that if you don’t hire him early, he tends only to appear at meal times, eat heartily and disappear again.
Mutt listened to my concerns. “Cost you five vintenars.”
I merely raised an eyebrow. That was a day’s wages. Mutt merely shrugged. “You’re earning ten times that for the job.”
The child had a point.
“What do I get for that money; I wasn’t expecting to hire Condottieri?”
“You get the best.”
When negotiating with Mutt, sometimes it’s cheaper to give in at the start, before he becomes really inventive. I placed five silver vintenars in his grubby palm. He smiled sweetly at me and disappeared.
It was the following day, just after noon, that I stepped out onto the improvised stage. It was merely a dray with some of the barrels removed. The market reeve rang the bell, and all round the market the clamour slowly died as all the traders turned towards me and bowed. I bowed back, and as I straightened up I noted three burly louts standing within effortless rotten-vegetable throw of me. As I cleared my throat, one drew back his arm to hurl something in my direction. As he did so, I saw somebody strike him firmly in the paunch with a broom handle, and as he doubled up a small figure tipped a full chamber pot over the scoundrel’s head. With a shout the other two bullies tried to pounce on the assailant, only to discover their bootlaces had been tied together. Frantically they tried to untangle themselves as they were assailed by a hail of rotten vegetables. Finally, almost incandescent with rage they got to their feet and charged after their tormentors.
After the laughter died down, I cleared by throat once more and launched into my ode.
Half an hour later I was walking back through the market, the money jingling in my pocket. I noticed the three rogues sitting disconsolately drinking beer at one of the stalls. All were barefoot, proving it’s unwise to loosen even your bootlaces in the Ropewalk market.

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Anyone desirous of learning more about Tallis could read one of the two collections of his tales

Tallis Steelyard, shower me with gold and other stories.

Tallis Steelyard, a harsh winter and other stories.

He has a blog at https://tallissteelyard.wordpress.com/

Other books by Jim Webster are available at
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jim-Webster/e/B009UT450I/

And from other good book and ebook sellers

At the edge of the carefully cultivated parkland which surrounded the summer palace of the rulers of Harkera, just outside the white-walled city of Cressida, lay a huge expanse of woodland in which nature was given great freedom of expression in return for allowing the monarchs of Harkera and their chosen guests, the privilege of hunting there. Not that the privilege was granted freely – it had to be earned. It was a playground for those whose reactions were fast and whose sinews were strong – those who wished to be tested against the wild.

Karlynne knew that it was not a proper wild forest because there were men who took care of it – vergers and warders, gamekeepers and huntsmen, employed to make sure that the main paths were always kept clear and that there were always plenty of wild game to be hunted by the monarch’s noble visitors. But it was almost a proper forest, such as the ones she had read about in her books where winged ponies and talking animals lived. She had been told never to go there because it was home to dangerous animals, tizarts, therloons and seminarls and dangerous men – land-pirates Turla called them – men who would come to steal the animals and who would be just as happy to steal young girls who were foolish enough to wander into the hunting park alone.

But today the forest did not look at all menacing or dangerous and it would not be the first time Karlynne had ridden there alone with no one any the wiser. It beckoned to her, mysterious and inviting beneath the early summer sky and Turla was sitting in her room resting her aching bones having told Karlynne she should do as she pleased for the afternoon.

With a brief and ephemeral flash of guilt, she reminded herself that was not strictly true. Turla had told her to take one of the grooms if she went riding, but when she had got to the stables to find her favourite pony, Mischief, all the grooms had been busy. Being far too considerate to interrupt their work for her own pleasure, she had sent one of the boys for Mischief’s tack and had saddled him herself, riding out unnoticed.

It was a glorious feeling to canter across the park alone, she who was never allowed anywhere unescorted, and the simple joy of freedom made her laugh aloud. In truth, she had not really intended to go into the forest at all that day, but once she had reached the edge of the open parkland, the fringe of trees with its inviting paths had beckoned her in. Now, she rode beneath the canopy of leaves, thrilling at her own daring and filled with a delicious excitement. Her books and Turla’s tales from nursery days onwards, had always been full of enchanted forests, with magicians, talking animals and handsome young men who always turned out to be the long-lost son of some noble who invariably needed rescue from a dire enchantment, by the hands of a beautiful princess. After which they would fall in love and live happily ever after.

Karlynne decided that she was the perfect heroine for such a romance. Turla had often told her that she looked just like her mother, who everyone said was beautiful, so she must be beautiful too and at nearly twelve years old she was certainly young. Every credential met, she was bound to find adventure, romance and true love sooner or later – and where better to look than in the forest? Not that she expected talking animals and magicians here, of course, they were only in stories – but you never knew and the forest certainly seemed a place for adventure.

Transgressor Trilogy   E.M. Swift-Hook

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“It is entirely in your own hands archbishop,” the slender red-haired woman in the huge gilded chair spoke coldly and deliberately, “but you and your confederates have ensured that the majority of the populace believes in one virgin birth so I fail to see your problem.”

The ancient, and cadaverously thin, prelate stared at her for a long moment while the muscles in his jaw worked. He obviously wanted to say something but in the end he lacked the courage and subsided into fulminating silence.

“And you Master Cecil. Do you have nothing to say?”
The richly clad figure of Her Majesty’s spymaster in chief bowed floridly.
“This, your Majesty, is either a master stroke or the biggest mistake a reigning monarch ever made. With the greatest respect, we will not know which it is for many months yet.”
“Agreed, there is an element of risk but I would know whether you are with us in our great endeavour.”
Cecil dropped his world-weary pose and bowed his head.
“To death and beyond, Majesty. To death and beyond.”
“You can serve us best by remaining alive,” the Queen spoke with some asperity although her narrow dark eyes warmed a little as they rested on Cecil’s beaky face.

The third man came forward and bent the knee before his sovereign.
“Parliament will uphold whatever your majesty chooses to do.”
“My lord Essex was ever the gentleman,” the Queen laughed although it was a mirthless sound. “The lords temporal range themselves alongside us, as does Master Cecil’s organisation, which just leaves the lords spiritual to declare.”
Essex looked at the cleric with something akin to loathing.
“You are either with us, my lord archbishop, or you are against us. We have no time for you to mull over your decision.”
The stubborn old man in the cope and mitre stared at his queen.
“Do you even begin to know what you are asking?”
She regarded him for a long moment.
“We are perfectly well aware. But what would you have us do? Marry England to some foreign prince? Elevate one of our noble families above the others?”
The archbishop looked at her marble pale features with dawning respect.
“No, Majesty, I would have you do neither of those.”
“Then give me an alternative.”
The old man bowed his head.
“There is none. I stand corrected. The church ranges itself beside you.”
“Good.You may all leave us now.”

The three men bowed themselves out of the room and as soon as they had closed the door behind them the figure in the huge chair allowed her shoulders to sag just a little. A large sandy-haired man, dressed plainly in leather and homespun, stepped out from behind the rich hangings and came to kneel at her feet. She smiled down at him.
“It appears,” she said carefully, “that our plan has the support it needs. Now it is for you to do your part.”
He lifted one small foot in his large, calloused hand and brought it to his lips.

In due time Gloriana, the virgin queen, gave birth to a strapping red-haired son. She called him Henry after her great father, and he ruled wisely and well as did his own son and the son of his son, and the son of the son of his son….

© jane jago 2017