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…

Conjunction 

1. (noun – pronunciation note: con junction ) A system of road signs set up to lure unwary drivers into the hands of thugs and thieves. Example: the conjunction set up on the back road into town netted the criminals two sports cars a lorry load of cigarettes and an elderly whore with bunions before it was found and closed down. 
2. (noun – pronunciation note: c on junction) Leaves, frost and wetness on railway tracks leading to late trains and commuter chaos. Example: there just had to be a conjunction on the day he was due to defend his PHD dissertation, fortunately the board went ahead without him.

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.

In a modern-day Britain where the Roman Empire never left, Dai and Julia solve murder mysteries, whilst still having to manage family, friendship and domestic crises…

They were having a fine day out on the hills. Felix had mastered the rudiments of riding quickly and today he was managing to control his stubborn little mount so well that Caudinus had abandoned the leading rein. Having eaten the lunch Cookie packed for them, Felix was running around playing at being a legionary soldier whilst his father and Dai shared a half-bottle of local wine and the ponies chomped contentedly at the grass nearby.
The land here was bleak but beautiful, with ridges of rock, mantled in greenery, jutting into the sky and limiting the horizon from roughly rolling hills. A brisk breeze ruffled hair, lifting the heat of an unclouded sun and somewhere above them a bird keened as it traced an invisible circle overhead. Scant sign of human habitation disturbed Dai’s view, aside from the odd isolated dwelling, little more than drystone shacks with crude slating culled from local stone where crofter families lived. Their sheep, made small by distance were puffs of grey, like dandelion seed heads, against the scrub. This was the hinterland of Britannia, never one of the richer or more developed provinces, at its most primal.
“I’m sorry to spoil the day.” Caudinus voice broke into Dai’s thoughts. “But this wasn’t only about taking Felix for a riding lesson.”
Dai was not too surprised. He had caught the note of significance in the older man’s voice when he had called yesterday suggesting he brought his family over to Villa Papaverus and that the three of them should go for a ride.
“So what’s up?”
Caudinus shifted his position on the rough wool blanket they had thrown over the grass and thistles.
“I’m not sure it is anything, but it might be and I didn’t want to worry Cariad or Julia so this seemed the best way we could talk without either of them realising we had been.”
“I can see that,” Dai agreed. The last thing he would want for Julia, so close to her due date now, was anything to worry about. “What’s the problem?”
“I have had a couple of anonymous threats delivered to my admin staff in the last few days. Unpleasant things – one found their cat mutilated and a message attached to it saying they should tell me to back the right people. Then night before last another was jumped by two masked men and told to tell me that I shouldn’t get in the way of progress.” He broke off. “I might even have some idea who might be involved. A man called Aled Blaenau. He came to see me at the end of last month on behalf of some clients of his, he said. He was hinting heavily that he would be willing to bribe me to nod through a substantial transaction on some potentially contaminated land for his backers. He never actually came out and said so, of course, or I’d have nailed him for it and he denied that was what he meant when I threw it back in his face. I sent him away in no doubt that his efforts were more likely to be counter-productive than anything. At the time I thought he was just a lobbyist who had been over enthusiastic, but now…”
“You didn’t report any of this to Bryn?”
Caudinus shook his head. “I wanted to bring it to you rather than do anything official. As I said, I don’t want our families to become alarmed.”
The sunny day seemed to grow darker and Dai felt a cloud pass over his soul.
“Alright I’ll get on it soon as I’m back in work tomorrow. Nothing official until we have something solid to go on.”
Caudinus nodded and got to his feet.
“Thank you, I appreciate that. But now we’d best get these ponies back home.”
A few minutes later they began heading back to the farm. Their easiest way led through a small wood of stunted oaks and ash trees and that was when it happened. Dai vaguely recalled something stinging his neck and as he lifted a hand to swat it away, the world had turned upside down and slid out of sight into a dark tunnel.

An extract from Dying to be Fathers a Dai and Julia Mystery by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook

Advice on growing old disgracefully from an elderly delinquent with many years of expertise in the art – plus free optional snark…

You are old, and you should be depleted
Modern techno should have you defeated
But you bought an iPhone
Never leave it alone
And I’m shocked by the filth that you tweeted

© jane jago

Can you smell the rain?
Lifting the dust from the street
Damping the parched pavements
And bouncing over your feet
Can you hear the rain?
Dancing a tango on the roof
Drops so fat they bounce and split
Tapping like tap-dancing hoofs
Can you feel the rain?
Blessing the thirsty earth
Flowers lift their wan little faces
Drinking their own rebirth
Can you smell the rain?
Thick and soft and sweet
The autumn rain that washed the land
And polished the shining streets

Jane Jago

A sci-fi story of love, betrayal and Space Pirates!

Bay one-nine-six-two.
She understood spaceports and knew this particular one well. Someone who didn’t would be checking the gates and the marked routes that every augmented display would show as paths. They wouldn’t follow the unmarked spaces between those routes. Spaces mostly blocked by mechs, freight crates, partly full supply tanks and other large, small and awkward objects.
Awkward but not impassable.
Bay one-nine-six-two was in sight when she saw the drones. There was not a lot she could do about it if they saw her, but like a living being, the AIs would be trained to look for movement and they would have vision that saw heat. She ducked down by a waste duct hoping that if any did look her way the shimmering haze of excess energy would distort her image. It was uncomfortably hot and the overdry air caught at her lungs and her acid-burned throat, sore from the vomiting. But to cough would be enough movement to attract a drone and after what she had seen happen to Tolin…
Legs aching from her cramped crouch and lungs burning unbearably, Pan kept her focus on the drones as they hovered and ran up and down the main path to the bays. She had a terrible certainty that they were going to stay there and not move. Then as suddenly as they had appeared, they shot away again, in different directions across the space port.
She couldn’t run, her legs were too stiff, but she managed a hobbling trot the short distance to the bay and was relieved to find the gate open and the main hatch into the ship still locked to its ground clamps. They unlocked as she reached them and the ramp began to lift as she scrambled aboard.
Ducky was standing in the hatchway, arms folded.
“You took your time. Thought I’d have to go without you. We’re cleared to leave in ten.”
Hair, skin and clothing blackened, scraped, damaged and filthy from scrambling through the back alleys of the spaceport, Pan dropped onto the one acceleration couch and pulled the straps home.
“Where are we going?” she asked as Ducky moved past to reach the pilot’s chair.
“Somewhere no one would ever think to look for you. To look for anyone, come to that. It’s a bit backwards, but you’ll be safe there.” Ducky shared a screen with a data page and then took her seat.
Safe.
That sounded good.
Pan closed her eyes for a moment and felt the ship lift in the gravity shield, its engine whining as the fusion core took up the load. Then the tone changed as the vessel moved from atmospheric to space flight and prepared for the leap into FTL. They were free. She opened her eyes and read the page Ducky had shared. The name of the planet stood out in bold letters. It meant nothing to her, but right then one place was as good as any other.
Temsevar.
Her new home.

Roguing Thieves is a Fortune’s Fools story by E.M. Swift-Hook. If you have enjoyed this story in the Fortune’s Fools universe, you can pick up the entire Haruspex Trilogy for FREE for the next few days.

Pearls of wisdom from an octogenarian who’s seen it all…

Every Wednesday night, since time immemorial, it’s keep fit in the village hall. Runs for two solid hours – and they reckon you could fall to your death on the sweat slick that seeps out under the door. 

I went once.

Why have I never been again?

A bossy cow called Noreen dressed in pink spandex.

Half a hundred middle-aged women in leotards (the skinny bitches look worse that the fat buggers)

Laying on the floor next to someone whose pubes are out of control 

The distinctive aroma of the yoga mat

Need I say more?

Don’t do it people…

A darkling drabble offers a shiver of horror in a hundred words…

The whorehouse moved through space, while small drones cleaned up messes and ensured that the male animals ate and rested at suitable intervals. The exquisitely ephemeral females carried out their designated tasks, clad only in clouds of perfume and curtains of exotic silks.

The males smiled fatuously, while their every debauched fantasy was made solid before their eyes.

It wasn’t until the ship docked that the party ended and the painted houris dissolved away. Reality came hard to the meat animals when no-one cared to pacify them any more. Laughing butchers harried the tender flesh into the sausage factory.

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…

Glittering

1. (noun – pronunciation note: glitter ring) Gimcrack jewellery of base metal and glass notable for its initial shininess. Example: The glittering with which they sealed their engagement wasn’t going to last any longer than the relationship. 
2. (verb in the infinitive case – pronunciation note: gilt terring) The application of gold paint in an effort to make cheap furniture look expensively tasteful. Example: Unfair though it seems, as their employer was never caught, the women in the glittering factory all got custodial sentences.

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.

In a modern-day Britain where the Roman Empire never left, Dai and Julia solve murder mysteries, whilst still having to manage family, friendship and domestic crises…

It was an unseasonably cold, wet August morning, and Julia was in her sitting room watching the sun try to break through a veil of black cloud, with her two wolfhounds Canis and Lupo asleep in a twitching heap by a small simmering fire. Their usual keeper, her personal bodyguard Edbert, was busy about some other business, so the dogs stayed close to her. Julia was breaking her fast in the British manner, seated on a chair with both feet on the floor. As she had a sneaking preference for that manner of dining, she wasn’t making an issue of it. Instead, she smiled sunnily at her beloved who sat opposite her eating bread and honey.
“You,” she remarked with mock severity “have honey on your chin.”
“Do I?” he asked. “It’s probably because I was looking as well as eating.” His startling blue eyes met hers. “Isn’t the love of my life sitting opposite me dressed in silk and looking good enough to eat?”
She felt the blush running up from her throat to her face and he leaned across the table and placed a chaste kiss on one burning cheek, then he chuckled.
To her intense irritation, the sitting room door banged open and the burly, hook-nosed figure of Decimus Lucius Didero, Tribune in charge of the praetorian guard in Britain, stomped into the room.
“Do come in, Decimus,” Julia said coolly.
“I appear to be in,” the big man spoke mildly. “And now I am, I will have some of that bread and honey and some words with your man.”
Julia gave up the attempt to bring her foster brother to a sense of his own impropriety and spread honey on a hunk of crusty bread. She handed Decimus the bread and grinned at him.
“What do you want with my betrothed?”
Decimus masticated carefully before answering her.
“I’m in the nature of a supplicant. Being as how your man is now, thanks to his deeds of extraordinary valour, a Roman Citizen and a submagistratus-in-waiting to boot, the civilian authorities in general, and that stupid cunnus of a prefect in particular, can’t just order him to look into something. They have to ask. And it goes against the grain. They’d sooner lick my arse than his. So I get to ask.”
“Ask what?” Julia didn’t like the sound of this at all. “Today and tomorrow are public holidays and Dai and I had plans on how we wanted to spend them.”
Dai patted her hand.
“Hush, love. Let the man explain.”
She snarled at him, but subsided.
“Dai, do you remember Lugh Tasgo’s designs?”
Julia looked into Dai’s eyes and saw a slow flare of anger in their depths.
“Oh yes. I remember. I remember a dead Briton and a fat Roman bastard. And an investigation called off because nobody cared that a woman died.”
Decimus met his eyes.
“So you wouldn’t mind another look at the case?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
Dai got up and went around the table to where Julia sat. He lifted her out of her chair and sat down with her in his lap. She could feel the tension in his lean body and turned her face into his neck. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged tightly.
“Grainne Cathan died trying to protect those designs for her employer and he called the investigation off. So it depends,” he said harshly, “on me being permitted to actually investigate no matter what the outcome.”

From Dying to Alter History a Dai and Julia mystery by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook, one of the fourteen alternate history short stories in Tales From Alternate Earths III from Inklings Press.

Advice on growing old disgracefully from an elderly delinquent with many years of expertise in the art – plus free optional snark…

I am old and my needs are quite small
I will just make a list of them all
A home of my own
An iPad and phone
And a man with a good set of balls

© jane jago