Kalends October MDCCLXXVII Anno Diocletiani

In the space before the small temple – so small it had been considered a mere shrine just a few years before – the crowds had gathered as usual for the chance to be chosen. They sat in their wheelchairs, or stood, faces drawn with pain and fatigue. All had given up just about everything,  to make the journey here on the off chance that they might be deemed worthy to be healed by the grace of the Divine Diocletian.
It was not easy to get through the new barriers that surrounded the site. Security guards patrolled the perimeter and manned the gates. Dai Llewellyn and Bryn Cartivel had left their vehicle in the small car park behind one of the new cuponae that had sprung up to provide accommodation for those waiting their chance to visit the temple and approached the gates on foot, beside the queue that wound back to the road. Dai felt it would give them a chance to get a better idea of the atmosphere of the place. Which was also why he had not bothered to tell anyone at the temple that he was coming to visit.
“You do have to wonder why this place is so popular,” Bryn observed, scratching at his greying hair as they walked past the queue. “Over on Ynys Mon there is a state of the art medical research facility in the Asclepieion there, always seems to be offering people the chance to sign up for clinical trials. Can’t see as how this is going to be better than that. And there they pay you to take part and you get full on comfort and care – here you have to pay just for the chance to be summoned and get to stay in a miserable pilgrims’ dormitory.”
“I read the brochure too, it makes it very clear no money is charged for the healing. But those who want may offer small donations,” Dai observed.
“Ah, right. That would be why the cuponae here do such a roaring trade and the temple just built a whole new wing for the Pontifex of the place. Small donations.”
The two guards at the gate wore the haloed head of the Divine Diocletian on tabards over their paramilitary outfits. They were also armed with nerve whips which meant they would be Roman Citizens.
“Oy! You can’t just push in where you want,” one of the two called out as Dai and Bryn reached the gate.
“We have business here, we’re not here to participate in the rites,” Dai explained politely.
“Can’t you read, spado? Sign back there says ‘Closed during divine service’.”
“Yes. So I saw. But my business means I would need to observe the proceedings. Respectfully of course.”
The gate guard gave a short laugh.
“Listen, you stupid British irrumator, only those invited to attend are allowed in. now, whatever your ‘business’ might be, I suggest you take it elsewhere before I call the local vigiles and have you arrested for creating a disturbance.”
Beside Dai, Bryn gave a forced cough and cleared his throat.
“Senior Investigator Cartivel here, can I help you?” He held up his ID and pressed it against the fence so the gate guards could see it clearly. “And this is Submagistratus Llewellyn, who is my boss.”
Dai mirrored Bryn’s gesture and produced his own identification, holding it up so that the ring of Citizenship on his index finger was obvious too.
“If it’s no trouble, perhaps you could let us in now?” he said mildly. “We are here on a murder investigation.”

The body had been found washed up on a beach near Segontium and would normally have attracted little, if any, attention as no one had been reported missing. But this corpse had been found to have a ring of Citizenship still attached to a finger, but lodged in the corpse’s throat. To Dai’s impotent fury, Rome reserved the full benefits and privileges of justice for her own children – and it seemed this might be one such case.
Despite the body being partially decomposed, dental records had enabled them to trace its identity. Zirri Yedder had been a freelance journalist with a history of producing cutting investigative pieces that highlighted local issues – local to Mauretania Tingitana that is, the province, where he had lived in the capital, Tingist. Although the pathologist report that Dai read was not entirely sure of the cause of death, it was also very clear that the body had been tortured beforehand.
But the finger was not the finger of Zirri Yedder and he had never been a Roman Citizen. He had, however, been registered at a cupona in the village of Caerhun and the landlady there said he had been there awaiting an invitation to the temple. She had last seen him as he set off to answer his eventual summons and no one had seen him alive since then.
Which was why Dai and Bryn now stood on the edge of the crowd watching as the service began. A security guard hovered nervously near by, trying not to make it too obvious that he was watching them as they observed proceedings.
“Who’d have thought a man who died nearly two thousand years ago having self-labelled as a deity, would still be honoured as a worker of miracles in the modern age?” Bryn’s voice was pitched so it was lost in the chanting from the crowd. Even so Dai looked at him sharply.
“You should be careful saying those kinds of things, SI Cartvel. Especially here.”
Bryn lifted his wrist and tapped the screen on his wristphone.
“Not me, Bard, I’m just reading what our friend Yedder put up on his social media. It was meant as a teaser for his next piece.”
“And I missed that, how?”
“You are a busy man, Submagistratus and these little details…”
“I checked his social media feed, right back for the last three years.”
“Ah, that would explain it then.” Bryn was looking almost smug. “It only posted today – less than an hour ago in fact. It must have been one he scheduled before he died.”
“Spado!” Dai said, but without real rancour. “Was there more?”
The other man shook his head. “No. That was it. Just says: ‘My current investigation is going to make a lot of people sit up and think’, then what I told you. Seems to be his style. Putting up a teaser a couple of days before the main article comes out. This time though, I think he hit the wrong kind of deadline first.”

From Dying to be Cured a Dai and Julia Mystery by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook one of the stories in the SciFi Roundtable’s anthology Gods of Clay .

An everyday tale of village life and vampires…

It was Angela Pendle-Burton the owner of the village shop who enlightened Ginny as to what had been going on at the church the previous day.
“Bats,” she said, elbows on the counter clearly enjoying her role as passer-on-of-news. “You’ll see a piece on the telly about it today I expect. They’ve found some rare bats in the belfry of the church. So we had conservationists in, ringing.”
Ginny thought about that a moment. It sounded rather unlikely.
“Why would they be ringing the bells with the bats there? Wouldn’t that scare them away? And, besides, why not get in campanologists? I’m sure they’d do it better.”
She was just wondering if there was some special way of ringing bells to affect the bats when she realised Angela was struggling not to laugh.
“Ringing the bats,” she said, “not the bells.”
“Ringing the bats? But how…?” Then Ginny realised what she meant and felt the colour rush into her face. “Oh. Yes. Of course.” For a moment she wished the floor would open beneath her or she could just vanish into thin air. But neither option was available and Angela was looking at her with amusement, but backed with kindness not the secret malice the likes of Lucinda would have displayed.
Angela also suggested she might like to have a cleaner in once a week, something that hadn’t occurred to Ginny. In her London apartment the cost of hiring a professional through an agency was prohibitive.
“Oh everyone does it around here,” Angela said airily, making it sound as if Ginny would somehow be odd or letting the side down if she didn’t. “It’s only people from the village so you help boost the local economy too.”
So it was letting the side down if she didn’t. Not quite sure she really wanted to, but very sure she would lose social points if she refused, Ginny agreed to ‘interview’ someone Angela knew who would be perfect to work for her, that afternoon..
On the short walk home, Ginny passed the church and took the time to walk up to the door. To her surprise it was not locked and she let herself in to the cool and quiet of a very pretty typical English church.
Having looked around and admired the architecture, she tried the door to the belfry and found it was locked after all. Which was a shame as she would like to have seen the bats. One of the reasons she had moved into the countryside was so she might get a chance to see more wildlife. So that badgers and hedgehogs and – well, all those other animals, would stop being pictures in articles and start being real in her world.
She picked up a copy of the parish magazine which was for sale with a trust-tin at the back of the church, added a donation to the box for the restoration fund and let herself out, closing the heavy wooden door behind her. It was then she noticed a path that led from the church into the small wood that backed onto her own house.
Sure enough the path turned out to be a shortcut. She decided there and then that when it got on to the end of the afternoon she would take a thermos and a blanket and sit in the edge of the churchyard where she could observe the belfry and maybe catch the flight of the bats as they set out on their nightly hunt for – for whatever it was bats ate. 
She had just finished clearing away from lunch and was making herself a cup of tea, wondering idly if her vague plans to write the Great British Novel which would explore and explain the intricate weave of heritage and modernity, the rich palette of race, creed, sexual orientation, gender and ethnicity, yet embrace the undercurrents of alternative eco-aware counter-culture, needed to be amended to something a bit more prosaic.
The tap on the door distracted her, for which she felt oddly grateful.
“‘Ello, you Missus Cropper?”
It took Ginny a moment more than she liked to remember where she had previously seen this scrawny girl in leggings and a long T-shirt emblazoned with some cultural symbols of the USA. It was Chloe from the Ladies Association meeting, the one who had spoken of the evictions happening on her estate.
“Er, yes,” she admitted. “Can I help you?”
“Missus Pendlyburt  from the shop said you was looking for a cleaner.”
Ginny managed a smile.
“Come in, I’m just making tea.”
“Thanks. White no sugar please. I’m Chloe. You wus at the meetin’ last night too.”
Ginny was glad that since the initiation she had received at the hands of the removers she had taken to keeping the makings of what most people in Little Botheringham seemed to think was meant by tea.
“I was and I’m Ginny,” she responded automatically as she found the needed teabags. 
“Yes, Missus Cropper,” Chloe said brightly. “You just moved in?”
“A couple of weeks ago now.”
“You from London? You must miss it bad. Nothing here like that. Just fields.” She sounded almost wistful. Chloe looked to be in her early twenties. Few people of that age were going to see the benefits of living in a village.
“I love it here,” Ginny told her presenting the mug of tea. “It’s so peaceful. Makes me feel bucolic.”
Chloe had started to slurp at her tea but put it down quickly and stared at Ginny in horror.
“You need to see the doc about it then. My gran used to have to take tablets for that.”
Ginny smiled weakly and agreed she really should register with the local GP.
Chloe left a little later saying she would ‘do’ Ginny every Tuesday afternoon but she had to leave at half-two sharp to pick up Kanye from the primary school where he was in the reception class.
A gnawing certainty that she was being trained into the ways and expectations of the village by the other residents, Ginny felt almost rebellious when she grabbed a blanket, topped up her travel cup with a fresh brew of ginger root and lemon, then with ear-buds playing Vivaldi she set out to go bat-watching.

Part 11 of Much Dithering in Little Botheringham by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook, will be here next week.

Normally, Lawyer Ducco really enjoyed dragonback riding. The speed and manoeuvrability was exhilarating, and it usually beat any other means of transport talons down. But today he felt as if his body had been beaten with sticks and his head was ringing as if his long-dead mother had boxed his ears.

He walked into the Hall of Judgement with his robes and wig askew and his hands shaking. His clerk looked in amazement.

“Sir. What happened to you? Are you all right?”

Ducco wagged his head.

“Take my advice, lad. Never hitch a lift on a dragon with PMT.”

Jane Jago

In an effort to educate the nominally literate and inform those with sufficient humility to understand their own lack of comprehension, Esme offers the correct definition of misunderstood words…

Antagonise

1. (noun – pronunciation note: aunt agonies) Female relative whose whole life is spent bewailing the discomfort caused by an unspecified (and unrecognised by the medical profession) complaint.
Example: inviting Aunt Mabel to any family gathering was a calculated risk, given that she could be relied on to bring a large gift but her being an antagonise could cast a pall of gloom over the jolliest of occasions.

2. (verb – pronunciation note: anti gonnies) The action of displaying misandry by kicking men in the gonads whilst wearing hobnailed boots.
Example: Sarah had nothing but contempt for Cousin Edgar, though the rest of us winced as she antagonised him with both feet.

If you have any words whose meaning escapes you, Esme Crockford is always happy to share her lexicographical knowledge and penetrating insight into the English language.

“That’s where it happened,” Lissiane pointed to the smooth moonlit waters. Karvon was seven and always asking about his father. Lissiane knew how much his father’s absence hurt him so she’d brought him here.

“I was swimming in the lake one summer evening when your father found me. He was the most handsome man I’d ever met. We fell in love but we couldn’t stay together. There were too many difficulties. So we vowed our love and parted. You were born the following spring.”

As they walked away Lissiane thought she saw the glint of moonlight on a merman’s tail.

E.M. Swift-Hook

In an effort to educate the nominally literate and inform those with sufficient humility to understand their own lack of comprehension, Esme offers the correct definition of misunderstood words…

Polygamy

1. (noun – pronunciation note: poly gamey) A parrot with chronic halitosis, perspiration rash and nuclear flatulence.
   Example: They couldn’t tolerate it in the house so the polygamy had to be in the garden shed.
2. (noun – pronunciation similar) a parrot who spends the children’s inheritance online gambling.
   Example: Thanks to the polygamy they had to sell the house.

If you have any words whose meaning escapes you, Esme Crockford is always happy to share her lexicographical knowledge and penetrating insight into the English language.

A bird is she inside his mind
Who only thinks their souls entwined
Imagines love a cold obsession
His little bird a soft possession
And should he hurt her in his rage
With broken wing flies to her cage
And in her sorrow cares no more
Instead lies broke on the gritted floor

jane jago 2023

“Who the fuck do you think I am?” Cista Tyran found she no longer cared if her boss heard her anger, assuming that he was still her boss. “You set me up. You fed Dugsdall to the wolves. You gave me your word you’d let me hold his safety line. You’ve gone back on that. So now you want me out altogether?”
Perhaps if he hadn’t been lying in bed pinned by the weight of her body as she lay half over him and with the flush of exertion still on his skin, she might have responded differently. But she doubted it. She was done playing nice with the man she worked for who had become her lover. And yes, she was pretty confident that he did love her. He had shown it, putting himself out to protect her from events that could have ended her career. On her side, if not love there was real affection. It hadn’t started out that way, but no matter who else she had been seeing, he had been a constant. It wasn’t easy, but they were both highly capable of the kind of subterfuge it involved, finding ways and means to be together.
After all, he was Garn Jecks, head of the Coalition Security Force and she was one of his top project managers.
Outwardly, he seemed unmoved by her words, just shaking his head and remaining stone-faced. But that meant little.
“Right,” he said. “I’m sorry Cista.”
She stifled her usual annoyance that eight years into their secret affair he still insisted on using her given name and refused to call her Ty.
“You’re sorry but…?”
He lifted a hand defensively. Ty realised she had seldom seen him so incredibly distressed. Anyone else would have been screaming in her face, Garn Jecks just lifted a hand. “Right. I am. Truly. Things have changed and we have to change with them.”
“You mean the mad old bitch poked her crystal ball until it burped and you caved in to her crazy?”
He said nothing to that. But what could he say? They both knew it was true. Ty had no idea the nature of the hold Kahina Sarava had over Garn except it was powerful and had something to do with Future Data—the algorithmic crystal ball that seemed to be commanding everything. Sometimes she got the impression Garn was its victim, controlled by it. Which didn’t sit well with her image of him and she knew it must cut deeply into his own sense of self.
Feeling suddenly sorry for her outburst, Ty lowered her head to kiss him, but he moved impatiently and swung his legs over the side of the bed to sit up.
“You don’t understand quite how bad this is,” he said, his back to her. “And it’s not just Sarava. There is some…thing else.”
The slight hesitation made her wonder if he had been going to say ‘someone’. But it was hard to think of anyone with the ability to bring down Garn Jecks. After all, he was the man who was paid to ensure the security of every member of the Central corporate-political establishment. He knew where all the bodies were buried.
“This could destroy me,” he went on. “It will destroy you. Unless you let me get you out. Do you understand?”
A chill in the air made her skin prickle. He did love her, that was really sweet. So why was he being such a bastard about this?
“You think I could just walk away?”
She could feel the tension in his entire body and when he didn’t answer her right away, moved her hands to massage his upper back.
“I don’t want you to walk away,” he said at last. “I want you to run. Resign. Today.”
Something in his tone impacted deep in Ty’s guts. It punched into her anger and knocked the wind out of it. He was afraid. For her. She stopped moving her hands, resting them on his shoulders and leaning in to press her cheek against his, her hair swinging forward in a silver-blonde bell, loving how that was a stark contrast to his dark-complexioned skin.
“Maybe you should take a moment to explain what’s happened, what’s changed things, instead of just telling me you want me to resign from the service.”
“Right. I wish I could. I can’t.” There was an uncharacteristic note of hopelessness in his voice. This the man who was always in control. Always one step ahead in his planning. He turned to draw her into his embrace and buried his face in her hair for a moment. “Knowing would place you in even more danger. I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to you because of me.”
“I am all grown up, you know,” she said, squashing the surge of annoyance. “I work for the CSF. You may have heard of them? The S is for ‘security’.”
He sighed.
“You didn’t follow orders.”
That brought her up short and she pulled away. Distancing herself. Then started hunting out her clothes.
“It’s what you pay me for,” she reminded him as she dressed. “If I did everything by the book I’d be as much use to the service as a fractured fusion core.’
“Right. No. This was not that.”
“Then what?”
“I told you when I transferred you from the team hunting Dugsdall that you shouldn’t contact him to tell him so.”
Ty frowned, her teeth digging into her lower lip. How could he know…? Of course, Future Data would have thrown it up as a high probability. But she was also certain Future Data had no way of knowing if it had actually happened. No one could know that. She’d used a one-burn link and an anonymised message drop which would self-delete as soon as Grim picked it up.
“Yes,” she agreed. “You did. You said it was important. You didn’t say why though.”
His gaze met and held hers.
“But you did it anyway.”
“No. Not yet.” The lie came easily. But then lying was her day job and she was very good at it. “I was going to, but I’ve been too sick at the thought of how he’d react knowing you’ve cut the line.”
She let how she felt about what he’d done to Grim creep into her voice. This wasn’t the first time Garn had angered her with a work decision, but she had a policy of never allowing work into their relationship. The fact he had dragged it in now was breaking all their rules. It was that which scared her more than anything else he was saying.
He looked away, lips tightening and then stood up to get dressed.
“I’m not sure it makes any difference anyway. If you haven’t, then good. But it changes nothing. You have to resign.”
She finished dressing and then sat and watched as he did the same.
“I don’t see why.”
“Right. You wouldn’t. But you must. Today. It has to be a clean break.”
A clean break? Ty shook her head. Surely he couldn’t mean…?
“You don’t want to see me again?” It was harder to say than she would have imagined it might be. Somewhere along the line this man had crept further under her skin than she’d intended.
He pulled on his shoes and avoided her eyes.
“It is not anything I want. It is, if anything, the exact opposite of what I want. But it’s not anything I have any choice about.”
“And I don’t either?”
“Right. There is more going on than you know—than you can know. It’s not just what you think it is. There are other factors in play here that weren’t before.”
“Can’t you tell me—?”
He cut across her. “I’ve told you all I can. More than I should. Don’t ask me for more.”
And that was that.
She knew there was no point protesting, his entire body language shut her out, until he finished dressing and drew her to him, briefly.
“Put in your resignation—but don’t let what I’ve said today stop you doing what you always planned to do.” He palmed something into her hand and brushed her ear with his lips. “Keep in touch. Please.”
Then he was gone.

From Iconoclast: A Necessary End by E.M Swift-Hook, the final book of Fortune’s Fools.

An everyday tale of village life and vampires…

A couple of hours later, Em put out her best crystal glasses, a platter of cheese and fruit and a bottle of exceedingly nice sherry. Then she sat down to wait. It wasn’t many minutes before a perfunctory tap on the door heralded her visitor. The bishop’s secretary/supernatural liaison officer came in, walking very softly. Em reconsidered the sherry, opting for her best brandy instead. She poured two goodish snifters but said nothing.
“We have a problem Emmeline.”
“Aside from the bats thing?”
He took a fortifying swig of brandy before replying. “Yes. That would be easily dealt with. But.”
“But Doug Turner isn’t quite what he seems to be?”
“Indeed he isn’t. Only…”
“Only what?”
“What indeed? I was hoping you could help me there.”
“If you are sniffing around whether or not he’s one of mine. I can set your mind at ease there. He isn’t.”
“Oh. I rather thought that would explain why he wants rid of the bats.”
“Why would….” Em waved her hands distractedly. “Never mind. You think he’s a supe. I think he’s a supe. My friends think there is something not right about him. That leaves two questions. What is he? And why the heck isn’t he registered?”
“In a nutshell. That’s about the size of it. And it is disturbing.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “We will find out what is happening. Bishop Enoch is not about to have an unregistered supernatural being on his turf, so this will be resolved quite quickly. However. In the meantime…”
“Will I and mine keep an eye on him?”
“Yes. But. Keep your distance and no heroics. Whatever it is feels insane to me.”
“Yes. I’m not about to get in a fight with an unknown quantity. I’ll just put the Indian sign on him. Now eat some cheese if you are going to pilot that stupid little car of yours after a stiff brandy.”
When he had gone, moving as quietly as a wraith, Em cleared away the remains of his repast before staring fixedly at the phone. It didn’t ring. Instead a car horn tooted merrily outside. Agnes had arrived.
“I was on my way home,” she said accusingly.
“This is important.”
Agnes subsided into a chair and Em put the kettle on. Once they were provided with tea Agnes leaned her elbows on the table.
“Tell me then.”
Em outlined the salient points of the evening. Agnes’ eyes narrowed and her chin seemed more prominent as she took in the implications. 
“Right. I’ll make sure the girls know he’s under suspicion. And you keep your bloody distance until we know what we’re up against. Now shut up while I compose a text.”
She got out her phone and her thumbs flew. Em watched, amazed as always by how fast her oldest friend typed – or texted if that was a verb. When Agnes put her phone down Em grinned at her.
“How do you do that so fast?”
“Practice. Now. Tonight’s meeting. The Crapper woman turned up. She’s a bloody mess. Kind of okay underneath but a jumble of insecurities, worries, and angst. Depressive if I don’t miss my guess. I’m sure she’ll be a worthy regular member but certainly not recruit material. And. She sat next to Lilian who says she smelled Harmsley-Gunn.”
“Yes, well that miserable old bastard was bound to be sniffing around. Anything else of consequence?”
“Yes. There is something not right at the housing association. People are being threatened with eviction.”
“Are they indeed? On what grounds?”
Agnes showed her teeth. “That’s what we need to find out. Fortunately I have a great niece who works in the council offices.” Agnes’ phone bleeped four times. “Right. That’s the reverend under surveillance. Now I’m off home.”
She bent to kiss Em’s cheek before bustling away. Em grinned at her departing back.

Part 10 of Much Dithering in Little Botheringham by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook, will be here next week.

They said it would tell the computer if you were happy, and that wearing it wasn’t compulsory.

Milo laughed hollowly at the glibness of the lies, but he wore the thing home so the algorithm could ‘adjust itself to his biorhythms’. 

The bosses never bothered themselves about the lives of the workers – or they might have known about Milo’s brother Keaton. Who had the wristband stripped down and rechipped inside an hour.

Milo became a much happier employee when the algorithm marked him out for fast track promotion to managerial status – from which position he immediately scrapped the wristband program.

©️Jane Jago