I dreamed that I could see the earth
Could fly above the patchwork land
Could oversee both death and birth
Could hold the future in my hand
I dreamed of wonder unalloyed
A world where we could mend what broke
A place we might cry tears of joy
But, come the morning I awoke

©️jane jago 2024

Since Ben and Joss Beckett took over The Fair Maid and Falcon, they have had to deal with ghosts, gangsters and well dodgy goings-on. Despite that they have their own family of twin daughters and dogs, and a fabulous ‘found family’ of friends.

It wasn’t at all surprising to find Roz and Allie packed into my big chair in front of the wood burner. As we trooped into the family room they leapt into action, but instead of hurling themselves on me and bombarding me with questions, they were quiet, gently patting and petting. When I crouched down to their level they wrapped their arms around me, singing their favourite lullaby in soft voices. I hugged and kissed them.
“I’m all right my loves.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes I am.”
“And Cherry’s husband? Is he really waiting to die?”
“He is. But he’s calm and peaceful now.”
They thought about that for a small while before nodding.
“We think we’d like to go to bed now.”
Ben lifted them into his arms. “Come along then. Mummy and I will come and tuck you in.”
By the time we had done kisses and cuddles, and had a brief cuddle ourselves in the quiet corridor outside the twins’ room, the crowd in the family room had thinned dramatically. Six people sat round the table, although Simeon looked a bit uncomfortable. I put my hand on his shoulder and he looked at me.
“I should go,” he said. “This is a family gathering.”
“And you aren’t family?” I punched him gently. “Morgan is family and you and she are together. That makes you family in my book.”
“Mine too,” Ben said quietly.
Morgan leaned against his arm. “I told you how it would be. Joss and Ben aren’t about excluding people. Me and my mum found that out.”
He grinned at her. “I just don’t want to mess anything up for you.”
“So long as you do as you’re told you’ll be just fine.”
The crows feet that leapt into life around his eyes as he tried not to laugh did my heart good, and turned Morgan into mush. Which she tried to hide by scowling horribly at him.
Stella looked at them and smiled softly, before turning a gimlet eye on me and Ben.
“What have you been at now, Joss? You look like something the cat dragged in and didn’t want.”
Before I could frame a reply, Neil chimed in.
“It went down a bit like this…”
Between Neil, Simeon and Ben there was nothing left for me to explain. For which small mercy I was truly grateful.
Morgan nodded just once, then blew out an explosive breath. “Dad said we shouldn’t be surprised if you were unable to explain tonight.”
“I don’t think I was able,” I could hear the weariness curling through my voice like woodsmoke.
Ellen and Sian were holding hands a thing I hadn’t seen them do since they were little girls.
Ellen spoke up. “Maybe we should all go home and let you rest.”
“No. Please stay a while. Let’s have big drinks and maybe Ben can tell us a filthy joke.”
He smiled and gathered together booze and nibbles. While he was doing that I went around the table hugging everyone. It felt good to touch warm flesh and strong bones after an evening of ghosts and men at death’s door.
Ben finished distributing brimming glasses and dishes of beer nuts. He sat in his big carver chair and pulled me into his lap. I sort of burrowed and he stroked my back.
“I thought someone might find it in their heart to entertain my wife,” he said plaintively.
“Your job, buster.” Neil snorted.
“I think I may be about to be an epic failure because I can’t think of a single filthy anecdote right now.”
Sian rose to the occasion by telling the story of Roz and Allie and the dog leads. Which Ellen capped with a gangster dressed in a dog bed and a pair of slurry pit boots following me across a rain-soaked car park like a pet lamb. Stella opined that at least living at the Fair Maid wasn’t ever boring, and we worked our way back to our version of normal with silliness to camouflage our genuine family feeling.
It wasn’t long before we felt steady enough to say goodnight, but that half hour of repartee helped me back to firm enough ground to feel sleepy and human, instead of halfway between this world and the next and far from those I love.
I slept like a dead thing and only woke when two small blondes scrambled onto my bed and patted my face.
“Time to wake up Mummy Beckett. Sian says you has fifteen minutes to jump through the shower and come to breakfast. She wouldn’t let Daddy come and wake you, because she said he’d interfere with you and your breakfast would be ruined. And you wouldn’t want that because it’s frittata.”
I kissed their rosy faces. “Let me up then.”
They scrambled down and ran off, adjuring me to not be long because they were starving.
I may not have precisely run through the shower but I made it to the table just as Sian was serving up frittata and crispy bacon.
“Bless you, Sian. Though I’m not sure we are paying you enough to look after me as well as my offspring.”
She blew a loud raspberry. “Probably not. So we’ll chalk this up as family shall we.”
Ben hugged her and she grinned at him. “It’s quite nice having two dads,” she opined, “though Ellen foresees trouble when boyfriends start looming large.”
“Not until you are at least forty.”
Roz narrowed her eyes. “What about Morgan and Simeon?”
Allie chimed in. “Yes. Morgan has two daddies and a nice big boyfriend.”
Ben started to look a bit overwhelmed so I stepped in.
“Roz and Allie need to eat their breakfast, and everyone needs to stop pulling Ben’s tail.”
Sian grinned and the twins fell into their breakfasts.
Once we had eaten, Sian shooed us off to work.
“You leave me to sort the gruesome twosome and be off to earn a crust.”
So it was that we started the day laughing, and finished it without any more than the normal small bumps in the road of a business that deals with Joe and Jolene Public on a daily basis.
For the first time in months I felt like we might be out of the woods and I said as much to Ben as we climbed into bed.
He smiled, and I thought how the edges of weariness had dropped off his smile.
“Me too, though I’ll be happier once Cherry is safely buried.”
“That’s certainly a factor, and for two pins I’d get out of bed at dawn to bear witness.”
Esme made her presence known and spoke aloud for both of us to hear.
“You can’t watch Cherry being laid to rest. Only the clairvoyants and Big Jed may do that. But we will be at the crossing to welcome them.”
“If you will help them to the light.”
“We will.”
She kissed my cheek and was gone.
Ben lifted a shoulder. “I was going to suggest a very early morning walk to the Memorial Garden. Seems to have been vetoed.”
“It does. But maybe we can help the girls plant their cherry tree.”
This time it was Grandmother who spoke. “That would be seemly.”

Tuesday rolled around and just as the sun peeped over the horizon I had a dream. I was shown a grassy pathway to a simple stone bridge and allowed to watch as a slender young woman carried her baby across the bridge to where a group of women awaited her. When the dream faded I found myself sitting up in bed with tears rolling down my face. Ben was also awake and as tearstained as me.
“You saw too?” I asked.
“I did. And I’m glad I did. But it wasn’t an easy watch.”
“It surely wasn’t. And I don’t want to go back to sleep in case I see it in my dreams. But what should we do now we are both wide awake at this early hour?”
The sorrow faded from his eyes and by the time he had run through his repertoire of Joss distracting moves I felt smoothed out, very well loved, and ready for breakfast.
I was in the kitchen making a batch of batter for blueberry pancakes when there was a quiet tap on the door. It was Jed.
“When do you want to plant that tree?”
I was about to say who knew what when two voices spoke in unison from the big settee in the sitting room.
“Now.”
Roz and Allie were fully dressed and fully awake.
“Okay. But we have to wait for daddy.”
Ben came in on soft feet. “I’m ready.”
Leaving the dogs on guard duty we walked quietly to the Memorial Garden, where Finoula waited. True to his word, Jed had dug a hole for the sturdy sapling and filled a watering can from the well.
“I’ll hold ‘un steady while you spread the roots.”
The twins nodded and Ben and I stood back as they climbed into the hole and did whatever they felt was necessary, singing quietly all the way as they did so. When they climbed out they held the trunk in their small, muddy hands while Jed filled the hole from a wheelbarrow of sweet-smelling soil. When it was tamped down to the trio’s satisfaction they rolled out strips of verdant turf covering the evidence that anything had happened there. As a final touch, Jed brought out a tray of small plants which the twins gently eased into pockets in the new turf. Job done they stood back and surveyed their work.
Roz pulled on Jed’s sleeve and he crouched down to a level where they could give him hugs and kisses.
“Thank you.”
“You’m entirely welcome.”
I stepped forward and prayed a silent prayer for Cherry, her child, and the husband who would be following her soon. Once I was finished I spread my hands.
“Anybody interested in breakfast?”
Everyone was and we ate in a mood of happy contentment.
Lunchtime saw the arrival of Seanmóir and his associates. They came in with no fanfare, filled up on mountains of tapas and generally behaved like ordinary customers. If you looked closely it was possible to discern a certain sadness underlying the perfect manners, but I decided that was none of my nevermind and went to work on the VAT books. It was a good while later when Ben found me. He slipped into the office and shut the office door quietly.
“Can I get a hug?”
I obliged and he held on tightly, rubbing his face in my hair.
“What’s up, love?”
“Them lot out there. Ordered a round of John Jameson. And the oldest man said something very quietly before they all downed their drinks. I think they were toasting Cherry.”
“Very likely. Are they gone now?”
“They are. Paid their shot. Left a ginormous tip and bowed to me as they went out to their cars. With drivers who all got fish and chips.” He scratched his head. “ I think it was the civility and impeccable manners that got to me.”
I nodded. “Yup that’s fucking unsettling. Shall we go and have a drink to finished business?”
He all but dragged me to the bar where we both had a reviving glass of wine.

There will be more from Joss, Ben and their friends, courtesy of Jane Jago, next week, or you can catch up with their earlier adventures in Who Put Her In and Who Pulled Her Out.

Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook is a whodunit set in an alternative modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules.

Dai flicked on the flashlight in his wristphone and led the way down the ramp into the tunnel. After a short time, he stopped and gestured Julia to keep still. From somewhere ahead of them he could hear a sound very like sobbing. Julia gripped his arm and pulled back shaking her head. Behind them four of Decimus praetorians in full combat gear emerged from the shadows and Julia pointed them along the tunnel.
Dai’s jaw tightened. He didn’t like being pushed aside – in this case both literally as well as figuratively. Yet another reminder that this was not his case. The feeling eased a moment later when Julia again pressed her nerve whip into his hand, drew her gun and followed in the wake of the praetorians. It felt odd to be holding a weapon, especially one that had such a powerful emotive pull on him and all non-Citizens. The last time he had not really had the chance to think about it as combat had been instant. But this time the smooth grip of the weapon meant something. Last time Julia had needed him to be armed for her protection, this time she was choosing to arm him so he could participate fully.
There was, of course, nothing to do once they got to the end of the tunnel. The praetorians had the room completely under control and one actually saluted Julia. Feeling suddenly self-conscious, Dai offered her the nerve whip as soon as the praetorian had turned away. She palmed it and winked at him. He realised then she could get in serious trouble for arming a non-Citizen, it was, in theory at least, a criminal offence.
The room reeked of stale urine, excrement and blood. Hanging on the walls, there were what Dai first assumed to be tools, but then he realised and felt ill. The result of their use could be seen in the state of the corpses, cloth still gagging their mouths so they could not scream out the agony they must have been put through.
There were two dead men in the room and Dai’s identipad revealed one was a Briton and one a Roman.
The Briton was Docca Vindiorix from Aqua Sulis in Britannia Prima. He was a young man and the brief details available on him said he had just been taken on with the Prima team for the Game, but had yet to make any kind of a name for himself. And now, Dai reflected soberly, he never would.
The Roman came up with some interesting caveats flagging his name and a number of messages that Dai’s ‘enquiry’ would be reported. Urbanus Hostilius Rufus was what Bryn would call ‘a bad boy’ and from the look of his contorted body he had come to a very bad end. Unable to access the full available information on him, Dai had to ask Julia to check for him.
She was helping the one survivor of whatever had been going on. A woman who, despite the terror and trauma of her position, was collected enough to explain she was Tegwen Drust, wife of the chief lion keeper. She knew her husband was dead, Dai had the impression she had been made to watch him die before he was fed to his own lions. But whoever had done the deed had been masked so she could not help identify them.
Julia arranged for Tegwen to be moved to security at the barracks then looked at what Dai wanted and managed to access the information on the dead Roman. 
“Well, it looks like there will be few tears and maybe even some cheers going up when news of Rufus being dead gets round.” She showed him the information stream the gist of which revealed he was well known for being involved in illegal gambling cartels and running under-age prostitution rackets. “Can’t see anyone weeping over this one.”
“Well someone might,” Dai said and pointed to one of the details. “He had a wife.”
Julia’s eyes widened.
“He had a wife who is from a Patrician family. How did a dirt-bag like Rufus manage that? She is Octavia Tullia Scaevia, and according to my information she lives here in Londinium. I think you should go and break the news to her right away, Dai.”
Dai balked for a moment then saw the expression on Julia’s face and nodded slowly.
“All right, I’ll go and tell her she is now a grieving widow.” He looked at the address and then back to Julia with a frown. “Coincidence?”
It was the block next door to the one they had been visiting that afternoon, where they had found the dead body belonging to Annia Belonia Flavia.
“I would be very surprised if it is. Do you want backup?”
Dai shook his head.
“I’ll take my decanus, that will look most natural.”
Julia nodded.
“I’ll go back with the praetorians and see if I can get the lion keeper’s wife to remember any more. I’ll see you when you get back.”

Part XI will be here next week. If you can’t wait to find what happens next you can snag the full novella here.

Though the biggers never see it, there is much going on in their own backyard where the ‘nomes make their home…

Very little the biggers got up to passed without notice. The gnomes knew what the alpha male did to the female that used the writing machine, and what games Mother played in the dark shed.
They saw it as their place to say nothing.
But.
When the fat bigger with the hairy chest cornered a frightened young female, their neutrality deserted them.
They erupted from every bush and tree, biting and scratching and emitting eerie eldritch sounds. The fat bigger ran away as fast as he could with his garment around his knees.
The female kissed Big Eric, who blushed….

Jane Jago

A dictionary for the bemused by Jane Jago…

belive (imprecation) – the opposite to be dead

cocnern (noun) – unreliable dildo

defrentiate (verb) – to unfriend in a history group 

egnlish (noun) – language of ladies who lunch

extatic (adjective) – applies only to men watching porn – exceptionally happy

gate hred (noun) – man who sits in the road by the gatehouse exposing himself to passing women

hiar (verb) – of upper-class twits to rent a posh car

improtent (adjective) – of high value but sexually incapable 

jealsoy (noun) – thick salty sauce

legmue (noun) – knee that appears to be pulling a face 

lubmer (noun) – person who thinks he’d like to be a sailor but is sick when he puts too much water in the bath 

nuremous (adjective) – of families, possessing many rodentine offspring

obnexyus (adjective) – having a very long neck

raibb (noun) – a weapon that shoots death rays and pieces of potato

seeance (noun) – three old ladies with a ouija board and a bottle of port

tuaght (adverb) – of speech, clipped and mildly threatening

tuseday (noun) – day on which it is legal to kill annoying people

vergin (noun) – pure young woman who doesn’t eat meat 

vigenar (noun) – lady bits

yur (noun) – the way year is pronounced by any royal correspondent on television 

zologoist (noun) – supernatural creature that manifests itself during seances by farting

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

Telling an entire story in just one hundred words…

His angelic glory lit the small room as he spoke.

“Be not afraid. You have been chosen to bear a divine child,” Gabriel hoped he didn’t sound too weary. 

“Afraid? You’re kidding, right?” She stood arms akimbo by the laundry bucket. “No. I’m not having anyone’s baby. Go away!”

Gabriel left. Her words, “Creepy weirdo!” following him out. The fourth sulky teen he’d asked and so far no joy. Literally.

“Be not afraid, Hannah…”

“Go away!”

“Be not afraid, Rachael…”

“Stuff off!”

Gabriel checked the list. The next one was engaged already. This was so not going to go well…

E.M. Swift-Hook

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV takes time from his immensely important life to proffer profound advice to those who still struggle on the aspirational slopes of authorhood…

Hi de hi, and happy days.

Your teacher, Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV, famed for the immortal ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’, is here with a bag of sweeties for good children, a rap on the knuckles with a ruler for bad children, and a smile of beatific contentment. One is ready to be kindly teacher aujourd’hui.

But. As I sit at my desk and pen this lesson the siren call of other ways and other enticements draws mine eye from the pristine page. Oh to be free of the shackles of teacherly duty! Oh to merely wander barefoot the grassy tracks of…

No, wait. Compose thyself pedagogue… Duty demands. Of us all. Pay attention mes enfants.

Adverbs

Let us for a moment consider the adverb, close cousin to the adjective, for the less well educated among my pumpkins this is the descriptor of action as opposed to the descriptor of object.

One can, of course enrich one’s literary efforts with adverbs in much the same fashion as one should with the humbler adjective.

Consider if you will the verb to walk. One can have one’s protagonist simply walking, but how dull, how lifeless, how detrimentally uninteresting! Why not express sorrow by having him walk listlessly, painfully, unheedingly? Equally, a happy camper may walk springily, cheerfully, expeditiously. A sick person walks stumblingly, haltingly, agonisingly. A poor man shamblingly. A rich man arrogantly. A lover voluptuously and with the sun dappling golden skin with flecks of purest amber, or sensuously with high arched feet bruising the sward to release the fragrance of grasses and crushed herbs, or silently unheard until a beloved hand brushes one’s cheek or cups the globes of one’s… No. Desist ye from this primrose path lector. We have no room here for reminiscence. There is work to be done, lessons to be learned, students to be brought to a higher place of understanding.

Back to our muttons. Consider if you will the difference between two sentences essentially providing the reader with the same set of informations.

Firstly: Ariadne walked into the temple clearing.

Secondly: Ariadne walked tremulously, with her tiny feet barely bruising the grass, she breathed shyly in shallow gasps as fear and enrapturement in equal measure brought her creeping silently into the dappled shade of the goddess’ own glade.

Add your add-jectives and add-verbs. Add them or there will be no sweeties for you and no ice cream. Decorate your prose, so that it becomes as luscious as the fur on some great golden cat that rests throughout the day draped in the branches of a banyan tree.

Learn well, and if I feel your understanding I may yet decide to divulge unto you the dearest secrets of my own heart and soul. Do I hear you beg of me one tiny clue? Very well. Just one…

Before. Mumsie entered the room where one was attempting to work at her usual shambling and graceless half-canter accompanied by those other drunken minions of misfortune whose methods of perambulation were as varied as they were unpleasing to the eye. Some limped, some ambled, some were upheld by others as their liberal potations had rendered their lower limbs unreliable and somewhat of the texture of rubber bands…. One watched in increasing dismay as they filled the family abode with hawking, spitting, sweating, malodorous flesh. And then… And then. One came – into that turbid pile of human excrescence. One came. Gold and graceful as a great jungle cat. One came….

Pauses to rearrange one’s mind.

Great feline
Walking softly
Eyes meet eyes
Dampness of palms
Heat in the depths
Great feline
Notice one, please
Lest one fade
To nothing
Under the unregard
Of your amber gaze

So, my children, you have your clue.  Study with assiduity the adverb in all its forms.

Next time. The denouement…

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound advice in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

Season of mists and mellow
The return of the school master’s bellow
And the post-summer holidays ‘Hello!’
As now life resumes again.

Time to start wearing a sweater
Time to feel cooler and wetter
September’s climate is better
Than summer’s hard blazing heat.

Apples on trees ripen brightly
Brambles grow blackberries rightly
Beech nuts and cobnuts fall nightly
September’s own proffered feast.

The sense of well-being is assuring
With this month the year is maturing
And winter we’re not yet enduring
Indian summer may come.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Since Ben and Joss Beckett took over The Fair Maid and Falcon, they have had to deal with ghosts, gangsters and well dodgy goings-on. Despite that they have their own family of twin daughters and dogs, and a fabulous ‘found family’ of friends.

As I was wondering what to say next a big black cloud sailed across the moon and I heard Mark shout.
“Somebody douse that fucking light.”
Ben kicked it over and stamped on it just as the situation turned ugly. Whoever was left in the beat-up minibus by the garden gateway decided it was about time they weren’t here. The engine roared into life and the exhaust belched out black smoke as the Merc shot forwards. I don’t think it hit anybody because I didn’t hear any screaming – except for the screams of tortured metal as the van ploughed into the dry stone wall at the end of the lane. The desperate sound of crashing gears bore witness to a desperate attempt to escape the clutches of the blocks of flinty stone.
“In a minute they’re either going to get out or figure out they can’t,” Mark spoke quietly. “Either way you need to be not standing where they think you are.”
Ben just picked me up and ran. We joined Danilo, Finoula, Jed and the dogs just inside the Memorial Garden. A couple of seconds later Neil arrived.
The sound of running feet, sporadic swearing, and the occasional flat bark of a hand gun, bore witness to a running battle around us.
Neil leaned close and murmured.“Much as it pains me to admit it. Out there’s not a place for amateurs.”
Ben nodded. “It isn’t. But I’d not recommend relaxing our vigilance. At some time this is going to occur to someone as a way out, so baseball bats at the ready boys.”
Neil swung his arm suggestively and I got the strong suspicion he’d quite like to belt somebody. He must have caught the edges of my thought because he grinned tautly.
“Yes I am feeling a tad belligerent. The fate of that girl and her baby have awoken the caveman in me.”
Clancy growled softly and pointed his nose at a patch of deep shadow between the wall and a stand of evergreen shrubs. Jed patted his rough head.
“Fetch,” he said softly.
Stan and Ollie pressed themselves against my legs while watching their friend intently. Clancy skirted the patch of thick darkness and disappeared from human view under the hedge. Ollie wagged his tail as the sound of a slight scuffle alerted the watching family that whoever had been hiding was found. A figure I recognised as being the original driver of the minibus stood up and put his hands in the air.
“Walk this way and keep your hands where I can see them.” Danilo barked.
The man did as he was told, probably because Clancy was about a centimetre behind him growling like an enraged bear.
It was difficult not to laugh, because, although he sounded dangerous, Clancy was obviously delighted with himself. His head was held high and his tail was lashing with pleasure.
Once our visitor reached a patch of shadowless grass Danilo made him sit down with his hands on his head, and Jed tied his shoelaces together. Clancy sat beside him, giving him the death glare if he breathed too deeply.
I hid my face in Ben’s chest so I could laugh without spoiling Clancy’s enjoyment.
Finoula returned from wherever she had been and groped for my hand.
“Thank you,” she said gravely.
“For what?”
“You saved me from a nasty injury at the least. Please let me thank you.”
I made a very rude noise. “Finoula, you and Jed are family. And nobody touches my family.”
“If you put it like that. Who am I to argue.”
“Now that’s straightened up you can tell me where Hector is.”
“He’s guarding the cottage. Jed asked him to. He won’t bite but he has a formidable bark.”
“He does. And the guys on the gate won’t be gentle with anyone making him bark.”
As if on cue we heard Hector’s deep-chested voice followed by a voice I recognised as being Simeon.
“Stand still you stupid bugger, or will I let the dog have you?”
Finoula giggled. “I wonder how he’d feel about being licked to death.”
“Terrified I imagine.”
It seemed that the person caught at Jed and Finoula’s cottage was the last miscreant as the night became quiet and the moon sailed out of the scudding clouds into a clear, cold sky.
The remaining Mercedes switched on his headlights and we could see a dozen figures sitting in a line on the dirt road. They were being watched by two of Mark’s lads who were negligently swinging baseball bats.
Neil ambled over to the gate. “We’ve got one in here.”
“Bring him out then.”
Jed picked him up like he weighed no more than a child and tucked him under one arm.
Ben moved to congratulate Clancy and I felt an inimical presence at my back. I instantly knew it was the guy who I had shot in the wrist and right then I wished I’d shot him in the head instead.
“Keep still, bitch, or your dog gets it.”
I looked to my left to see the gleam of a knife at Stan’s ear.
The hand that held the knife was shaking and I realised there was a real danger of my dog getting badly hurt.
“Keep back folks.” I said. “If you come near this bastard is going to stab Stan.”
“Sensible woman,” his voice dripped with something ugly, something I didn’t want to understand. “Me and bitch face and the doggies are going to walk away now. And if you want to see any of them alive you’re gonna let us pass. Move bitch.”
He grasped my shoulder with the hand not holding the knife and I could smell blood on him. He shoved me to right.
My hand was in my pocket and I took a good grip of the pistol that was probably going to be our only chance. As I tried to work out how I could deal with the situation, I took a small step to my right. My captor laughed harshly and urged me to keep moving.
Three steps were all the dogs needed. Stan dropped flat and out of reach of the knife while Ollie launched himself at the man’s legs. The real surprise, though, was Clancy who had managed to creep up behind us and landed on the man’s shoulders like a ninety pound all-in wrestler. They bore Blondie to the ground, and the sound of Ben’s foot landing on his knife hand spoke of broken bones.
Ben rolled him onto his back. “If you want to live, don’t move.”
“What the actual fuck?” Neil spoke for us all. “How did those dogs coordinate that?”
Laughter in my head and the scent of California Poppies clued me in.
“I think they had some help from those who watch over us from the other side.”
Danilo had unashamed tears running down his face and I went to stand with him.
“Grandmother wasn’t about to let anyone disrespect an honorary Lovell.”
He laughed shakily and rubbed a hand down his face. “She certainly wouldn’t allow that. But..”
“But what?”
“But I have never heard her voice from the other side. And today she kissed my cheek and blessed me. I loved her, you know.”
“I know. And she knew too. It’s your wife who isn’t sure.”
He looked into my face and I saw a flicker of something cross his face.
“I do love her. I may not have wanted to marry her but she’s my life now. I need to make her sure of that, don’t I?”
I nodded solemnly before turning my attention to the damaged clairvoyant under Ben’s foot.
“What I’d like to know is who dressed the wound on that one’s wrist.”
Mark, who had appeared on quiet feet, looked down. “That’s an interesting question.”
He poked blondie with his foot.
“Care to comment?”
“I have nothing to say and you can’t make me speak.”
I don’t know what Mark or Ben might have done to him if Finoula hadn’t spoken out.
“We don’t need the words of a piece of shit like him. There’s a girl who is part of the baro’s nursing team. This creature has been sleeping with her.”
Mark gestured with his thumb and Simeon slipped away like a wraith, returning quite quickly with a plain, dumpy girl in a white coat. She looked at blondie and burst into tears.
“What did he do now?”
“Nothing much. Just threatened to kill me and my dogs.”
She crumpled and I decided I’d had enough. I put my hand on Mark’s arm.
“Do you need us any more?”
He smiled his nice smile. “No. I’m sure you can leave the mopping up to us.”
I was just congratulating my dogs and getting my family together when the bulky figure of the male nurse came quietly to my side.
“Would you be kind enough to speak a few words with my boss? He is so tired but he won’t rest unless he apologises to you.”
Ben looked as if he was about to object but I put my finger to my lips.
“I don’t think we can grudge a few moments to a dying man.”
He lifted his shoulders. “We?”
“Yes. We should see him together.”
We entered the van, and I was shocked to see how frail and worn the man on the bed was. Going purely on instinct I knelt at his side and took his hand in mine. He opened his eyes and I smiled at him.
“Don’t try to talk.”
He squeezed my hand and I was given a message from the other side. I looked at his bulky male nurse.
“Can you easily carry your boss?”
“I can, but why?”
“Because I am being told that if he goes to the place where Cherry and her child were hidden, it will bring him peace.”
The nurse nodded. “It might at that. How far?”
“Theres a gate at the bottom of the lane. In the orchard it’s about fifty metres to the tree where she was found.”
“It’s doable then.”
Ben spoke up. “If you carry your man, I’ll bring the oxygen cylinder and the pump.”
I looked down at the man who still held my hand. “Shall we?”
He nodded and the nurse issued a couple of orders to the driver who started the engine. Before he could engage reverse Simeon jumped into the passenger seat beside him.
“I’ll just pop along with you in case we didn’t get all the naughty boys.”
Even in reverse, the ‘ambulance’ was as smooth as silk. We stopped at the gate and the bulky nurse wrapped his boss in a soft blanket. He handed me a lantern and gave Ben the oxygen tank and pump, before lifting the blanket-wrapped man with the tenderness of a mother. I lit the way, with three men close on my heels. At the foot of the old apple tree I stood aside. The nurse simply knelt down and laid his burden in the damp grass where Roz and Allie had planted sweet-smelling flowers.
We all heard the music, although only one of us recognised the tune, but when a voice took up the melody we knew it was Cherry. She sung the simple song and spoke soft words of love that needed no translation. I knew the moment her lips touched his cheek and I understood her promise to be waiting for him. A hand brushed my face and a voice whispered ‘thank you’ before her presence receded. The nurse picked up his boss and turned a face filled with wonder to me.
“His blanket is dry.”
I didn’t know what to say, but luckily Grandmother did and for a moment her voice was as clear as if she was standing at my side.
“We protected him while Cherry made her peace with the one she loves so dearly.”
The nurse was a strong, phlegmatic sort of a man so his stride didn’t falter, but I know he was affected deeply.
Back in the ambulance I bent to kiss the cheek of the dying man who lay at peace in his frail body.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
As we turned to leave the nurse shook Ben’s hand and bowed over mine with an old-fashioned courtliness.
“Thank you bhean mhór (great lady). My old friend can now go in peace.”
“Whenever the sand leaves his hourglass, Cherry will be there waiting to take his hand.”
We stepped out into the bright moonlight and Simeon joined us to watch the van slip quietly away into the night. Neil, Stan, Ollie and the boys from the pub walked quietly down the lane towards us.
“Shall we go home?” Ben suggested.
I was so emotionally drained all I could do was nod.

There will be more from Joss, Ben and their friends, courtesy of Jane Jago, next week, or you can catch up with their earlier adventures in Who Put Her In and Who Pulled Her Out.

Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook is a whodunit set in an alternative modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules.

They were greeted by a whey-faced curator who seemed to be expecting them.
“That was fast, but I’m glad you are here so quickly – I’ve tried to stop anyone going near the area, of course, but I didn’t want to start a panic by letting people know what had happened.”
Dai opened his mouth but Julia beat him too it.
“Of course. I understand. Perhaps you could take us to see. No need to cause any alarm.”
The curator led the way and Dai shot Julia a puzzled look. She shook her head and winked then took a few quick paces so she was walking beside the curator.
“What can you tell me?”
“Well, the under-keeper found him, said the lions have been very unsettled recently and he had been trying to see what the problem was.”
“The under-keeper was trying to see what the problem was?”
“No. The head keeper. Drust. Ninian Drust. He was a marvel with the lions, he knew them all from cubs. It is terrible, terrible.”
“Terrible,” Julia agreed. “So what happened?”
“He must have been checking the enclosure, looking for anything that might have been upsetting the lions. Would have to have been early morning, before opening. The under-keeper found him when he came on duty just after lunch. Well, found what was left of him.”
They had reached the lions’ enclosure and the curator was wringing his hands over and over.
“Terrible. It’s just terrible.”
Dai caught the slight nod Julia gave him and left her saying soothing words to the curator and hopefully getting more details of events from him. Dai went into the keeper’s room and the stench of exposed entrails hit him full in the face. The keeper’s face was still strangely preserved, eyes wide with a last image of horror, and jaw locked into a teeth-exposing grimace of agony. Most of the damage was to his torso and limbs, the trailing remains of his guts hung down from the table and his body looked oddly deflated with the internal organs and soft flesh mostly gone.
It was obvious he had been attacked and killed by the lions he had loved. Didn’t need a detective to tell that. Dai was anything but a superstitious man and right that moment he was not going to buy into this being any kind of coincidence. His test kit was about as basic as it came but the blood sample told him one important thing: there had been high concentrations of alcohol in Ninian Drust’s bloodstream when he died.
One of the advantages of having a Roman investigator with him was that Dai needed only to ask for his requests to be fulfilled. Instead of being told nothing was going to happen unless and until he provided officially confirmed documentation, a single glimpse of Julia’s ID and the curator was almost offering to shoot the lions himself. The praetorian marksmen who undertook the task after being equipped with appropriated tranquilliser weaponry, were probably more efficient.
The subsequent search of the large enclosure seemed fruitless at first and Dai was on the point of admitting his idea might have been wrong and that Drust had in fact just been drinking and wandered into the lions’ enclosure after all, when he saw it. He had seen it when he first walked into the enclosure, they all had. You couldn’t miss it, but no one had really seen it.
“Hiding in plain sight,” he told Julia, pointing to the decorative carousel-shaped centrepiece in the middle of the enclosure. It’s top, a strange confection of oriental shapes, would just be visible to visitors to the menagerie from the edge of the enclosure. The only people who would ever know it was there would be the lion-keepers themselves – and someone who had access to the complete plans for the entire Augusta Arena complex, of course. It looked for all the world, close to, like some intricate cage-effect sculpture, set around a large rough-hewn rock.
The bars were not even locked and lifted easily when Dai applied his strength to do so. So easily that it was clear they were well maintained despite the appearance of age. Even Julia could have opened them without too much trouble.
“The under-keeper told me that Drust was convinced something was going on with the lions at night,” she told him as the bars slid up, revealing a steep tunnel dropping away into darkness. “Apparently, they would come in the morning sometimes to find the lions all lethargic and grumpy. But the beasts passed every health check he ran them through. It had become a bit of an obsession for the man,; he had put in more security surveillance around the perimeter, but that had shown him nothing. So, according to the under-keeper, he had been camping out in the menagerie for the last two nights, determined to see what was happening.”

Part X will be here next week. If you can’t wait to find what happens next you can snag the full novella here.