Two Women and Some Books
At Christmas, Dad played a trick on the cat. He fed her a chocolate with mustard in the middle. She was very sick. Mom was cross. “Never piss off a cat,” she said.
Dad laughed.
August, and we were packing for a family trip to Florida. Dad was in a good mood, fooling around with my baby sister and kissing Mom on the mouth. Then he tripped over the cat. Broke his hip and his knee. We left him in hospital and got on the plane.
Mom looked at me and winked.
“Never piss off a cat. They don’t forget.”
He opened his eyes to get his bearings and realised that it was day. For a time he just lay still, trying to take stock of his situation and condition. He seemed to be in some kind of covered wagon which was being rattled and jolted across rough ground and the old woman whom he last recalled trying to drug him, sat near the end of the wagon, looking at him nervously. The physical pain in his head had been reduced to a persistent dull throb, but the emotional pain left him clouded, even though as far as he could judge the drug effects had worn off. Physically he felt better than before and he knew that his body would respond, even if sluggishly, at need. Perhaps the enforced sleep technique these people had applied was a more effective cure than he would have considered.
Raising a hand to inspect the wound on his head, something pulled cold, hard and unresisting around his wrist. Glancing down he saw a length of sturdy chain linking loops of metal around each wrist, allowing him no more than the width of his body in arm movement.
Annoyed, he tried to sit up and found a similar solid resistance holding his ankles in place. He spent a short time testing the extent of his captivity and found that beyond being able to shift the position in which he lay, he was effectively immobilised. A prisoner. The old woman seemed concerned by his movements and jabbered something at him in her alien tongue. But when he showed no signs of responding, she sank back into silence, watching him as if he were a poisonous reptile she expected to bite.
It took a while before he accepted that there was nothing he could do to free himself for the time being. The manacles on his wrists were too tight to permit him to slip his hands through, even when lubricated by the blood which flowed from one wrist as a result of his attempts to try. The sight of his blood prompted the woman to another outburst of angry chatter, but she made no move to approach him.
At last he gave up, lay back and closed his eyes. If he could not free himself, he must conserve his strength until a suitable opportunity presented itself. The lurching motion of the wagon was uncomfortable, but he withdrew his awareness from the external, focusing his consciousness into a meditative trance. The familiarity of the discipline brought its own kind of peace. From within it he could now face and disperse the powerful emotions with which he had awoken, yet remain essentially unhampered by them, slowly releasing the tensions of self-accusation, guilt, anger and grief.
From The Fated Sky part one of Fortune’s Fools Transgressor Trilogy by E.M. Swift-Hook
She knew it made good sense. Great-aunt Tiffany had given an understanding smile and patted her hands, folded like pinioned birds in her lap.
“It will keep the money in the family and it’s not like Cousin Richard is a monster or anything.”
Not a monster.
No.
Kind, but thirty years older than her and smelling of foot powder and stale pipe tobacco.
At the altar, he took her hand.
“You alright, m’dear? We can call it all off. Even now. I’m an old bear but not a grumpy one.”
For a moment she hesitated.
“My old bear,” she said.
What if the Ripper had kept killing, Hitchcock had directed Titanic, or an alien attack forced two adversaries into an unlikely alliance? Visit worlds where wartime experiments unlocked genetic potential, where magic and magical creatures flourish, and where two detectives solve crimes in a world where Rome still rules.
The third Tales From Alternate Earths arrives with more fourteen stories and includes award-wining authors. Discover these worlds if you dare!
“Blueprints for a plough?” Bryn Cartival, decanus to Dai Llewellyn, vigiles investigator, sounded incredulous. “Let me get this straight, Bard, you’re saying we are being assigned to find some old sketches of a horse-drawn plough?”
Dai nodded.
“Ox drawn. Except you’re missing the point. These are not designs of any old plough – these were the original designs of Lugh Tasgo.”
There was a silence and Dai realised the puzzled look on Bryn’s face was not lifting.
“Who’s he when he’s at home?” Bryn sounded as if he thought Dai was playing some joke on him.
Dai gaped and shook his head. “Didn’t you learn anything when you were at school?”
Bryn shrugged. “Enough to get by. I was the kid sitting at the back of the room playing games on me wristphone or listening to music on my IXI.”
That produced an odd snort from the decanus whose greying hair betrayed his middle-age in a way his tough body still did not.”So who was he? Someone famous? Sounds British…”
Dai shook his head in mock despair.”He was British. He was an agricultural engineer back in the time of the Divine Diocletian. He invented the heavy wheeled plaumoratum and was hailed as a hero. He saved the Empire.”
Bryn laughed.”Now I know you’re joshing me. How could a ploughmaker save the Empire? Besides, Romans don’t make farmers into heros. Not even clever farmers. And never if he were a Briton.”
“The Divine Diocletian had a passion for gardening. Even a spado like you must have learned that. And Tasgo’s plough is what saved the Empire. Because of it, places like Britannia and Gallia could grow enough to feed the people living in our towns and cities. Without it, they would have starved and civilization broken down, taking the Empire with it over a thousand years ago.”
Miming a yawn, Bryn cut to the chase.“So, ancient history aside, who would want the designs of his plough nowadays? We have hydroponics and automated combine harvesters today. So not like it’s exactly cutting edge technology.”
“No. But they are unique historical documents. Extremely valuable historical documents. In fact, priceless historical documents. They were on loan from a private collection somewhere to the Bibliotheca Britannica. Theft was reported by the courier about twenty minutes before she died from the stab wounds she received in the robbery. No info on her attacker – not even gender as he or she was wearing an obscuring helmet and a hoverbike outfit.”
“We’re investigating a murder then?”
“You’d think.” Dai made no attempt to keep the wry note from his voice. “But we got the budget for this from Antiquities. Our masters value the stolen document as ‘an artefact of Roman significance’ more than the life of the courier – but then she was only a Briton.”
From Dying to Alter History 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.
Q1 – What do you most enjoy about co-authoring the Dai and Julia stories?
EMSH – Writing can be a pretty lonely business and there is nothing better than having another person just as invested in what you are writing as you are. Someone to share ideas with, discuss possible plots and characters and work with to bring about a really great story.
JJ – Having someone make me concentrate on one thing at a time. Also my co-author is rather clever and makes me keep my nose clean. But. Enjoy? Mild squabbles and loud giggles I think.
Q2 – What is it about alternate history that attracts you to write in the genre?
EMSH – I love history, indeed my latest project is pure hisorical fiction. So with alternate history you can think about how things might have been if something slightly different had happened, if someone who dies had lived or if a battle won had been a battle lost or if an invetion was made much sooner that it was – or was never made at all. Then you take that notion and think how that might have turned out. It is playing with history.
JJ – It feels a bit like being a pagan goddess. One can say ‘I’m okay with history up to this point, but then I want x to happen’. And it happens and you then have a whole bucketload of consequences to play with. It’s a lot of fun.
Q3 – Will there be more Dai and Julia in the future?
EMSH – The answer to that is a solid ‘maybe’. It is something you will just have to wait and see.
JJ – I have no idea. If the captain so decrees it will happen
The writing team of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago has produced a
number of books following the characters of Dai and Julia in a world where the Roman empire never faded.
E.M. Swift-Hook has had a number of different careers, before settling in the North-East of England with family, three dogs, cats and a small flock of rescued chickens.
The term genre-hopper could have been coined to describe Jane Jago and her books, modern-day thrillers sitting side by side with sword and sorcery, wicked dragons, and short stories and verse. You can find then both right here, on this blog every day!
The salesman sneered at their humble clothes and work roughened hands.
“Help you?”
His contempt was clear in his voice.
The old man studied his feet, but his wife looked into the man’s eyes.
“We want a car.”
“Secondhand stock is round back. I’ll call one of the juniors.”
He all but ran from the old couple to where a much painted blonde teetered in on skyscraper heels.
The junior was young and freckle faced and friendly.
He sold the lottery winners their first Lamborghini, while the blonde cost the salesman a very expensive dinner and a course of antibiotics.
Because life can be interesting when you are a character in a video game…
A few minutes later they were stepping off the boat onto a stone dock which fronted onto a settlement that looked a lot more substantial than Wrathburnt Sands. There were people everywhere, all races, Locals and Visitors. Locals, noticeable by the slightly bored, long suffering expressions and rather plain outfits that most wore. Visitors, marked out like brilliantly coloured butterflies, clad in glamorous outfits with swirling runes and sparkles. Most boasting weaponry which seemed so powerful that their wielders might slice and dice the very air with them.
Milla felt overwhelmed and held back, gripping onto Pew’s hand like a lifeline as Glory vanished into the throng. Pew frowned at her reluctance.
“Are you alright? You look a bit ill.”
“I… I…” She struggled for words to explain how she felt both crushed in by so many people and buildings, and at the same time vulnerable and exposed as if too far out in the open.
“It’s not some odd after effect of you zoning is it?”
She shook her head.
“I just need to sit down a minute.”
A short time later she was sitting in a dockside tavern with a solicitous Pew and feeling a bit better.
“I never thought there would be so many people in one place.”
“Yeah? Well Liberation is a game hub and a starter city so it tends to get a bit busy.”
A bit?
Milla just nodded and wondered if she should have listened to One Eye and stayed at home after all.
“Look. We won’t be here long. Glory is finding out the fastest way to get to Lustrous Lake and soon as she gets back we’ll be on our way. You think you can manage?”
She nodded again. She’d have to manage. This was a venture. So she drank the odd tasting ale and tried to give Pew a reassuring smile.
Glory dropped into an empty seat opposite them and picked up a tankard of ale, swilling most of it down before setting it back on the table. “Good news. They seem to have extended the airship run out over Seersucker Swamp to the griblins quest camp. That’s just a short run to Lustrous Lake. We can be there pretty quick. But you’ve still not told me what we’re doing when we get there.”
“Air ship?” Milla tried to put the two words together in her head in any way that made sense – and failed.
Glory gave her an odd look.
“It’s only been in the game since the first update in vanilla, flies across all the original lands – you know like a dirigible thing? Very steampunk.”
“OMG. Do you remember the flame-fest when they did it?” Pew laughed at the memory. “Half the player base complained it was pressing the ‘easy mode’ button on transport and half were up in arms because it was a fracking air ship and that wasn’t purist fantasy enough for them.”
“And the other half hated on it for being too slow still, even though it more than halved the time it used to take.”
“Oh yeah and another half thought it was too much to have to do an access quest to use it, so they ditched that with the first expansion…”
“…which meant half the players were back to complaining about lowering the amount of significant content or some such BS.”
Milla decided it wasn’t going to help matters if she pointed out that five halves didn’t make a whole, and as that was the only aspect of the entire conversation she felt qualified to comment on, she said nothing.
“So are we ready to go then?” Pew asked.
“Well that depends. Will this take long? I need to log over to my main to do the dailies and then I’ve got to raid later.”
Pew was frowning and Milla wondered what Glory meant.
“I don’t know if it’ll take long or not. But it’s a bit more important than doing dailies.”
The elf looked doubtful and sucked in her cheeks.
“I’m not so sure. But I can always use a catch-up on them.”
“So we’re ready?”
Glory shrugged and then nodded. “I guess.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
We will return to Wrathburnt Sands by E.M. Swift-Hook next Sunday.
Return to Wrathburnt Sands was first published in Rise and Rescue Volume 2: Protect and Recover.
Can we hide from history?
Close our eyes as all around
the world reshapes itself
And leaves us,
marooned,
Helpless to help.
Can we change the way things are?
Reach out and grip the desperate hands
begging for our aid
And feel that
maybe,
There is a chance.
We style ourselves as free people
And yet our freedom is too slight
to make much difference
We can not
alter
The way things are.
None can hide from history
It laps our shores from distant lands
their tragedy is ours
We must keep
trying
To make a change.
Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook is a whodunit set in a modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules. You can listen to this on YouTube too.
“Who is it?”
“Treno Bellicus. You may have heard -”
“Of course I have.” She cut across him rudely as if wanting to reassert herself after the moment of weakness he had witnessed. “He is one of the contestants. He was reported missing days ago and now he is dead but you useless vigiles have done nothing about it.”
Dai took a breath and met her accusing glare with his own brand of gravitas.
“Well, you can be certain we are giving the matter our full attention now,” he assured her.
She snorted and stalked off.
“It strikes me that after two thousand years of unbroken Roman rule and all the incredible technological advances that has brought to the world, they would have figured simple things like that,” Bryn said, watching her retreating figure.
Dai glanced at his decanus, saw his expression and decided to bite.
“Things like what?”
“How to run a decent criminal investigation service. I mean clearly these vigiles she speaks of are cack. That poor woman, having to deal with such incompetents. It must be very trying for her.”
“I’ve met a few who really are,” Dai agreed, grinning, “but Roman Citizens just have to man up and make do with the inefficiencies and restrictions of Imperial rule out here in the provinces. She should just be glad we have the most essential basics like hovercars and the internet.”
“Yeah. I don’t know how the poor dears manage here in this primitive and barbarous land, so far from Rome where everything is always perfect.”
“If I didn’t know you better I might think you were abandoning Stoicism to become a Cynic, Bryn.”
“What? You have met my half-Roman wife? My mother’s half-Roman too. With those women folk I’m a Stoic, man, through and through. I have to be.”
Dai laughed and shook his head, then they both turned their attention back to the very unfunny reality of the corpse at their feet.
Action replay.
Same arena.
Twenty four hours later.
This time, though, there were two bodies.
One was another British contestant, Tam Docca ‘Fly Boy’, from the Valentia Game team, but it was the second corpse lying as if awaiting funeral rites that had Dai’s fullest attention. Quintillas Publius Luca – son of a Roman Senator and a proper one at that, from proper Rome – not one of those who sat in Augusta Treverorum, giving themselves airs.
Trev, as Dai and most Britons thought of it, was the capital of Prefecture Galliae, home to the man who ruled Britannia and much of the Northern and Western parts of the continent as well. It was one of the four original Prefectures, each governed by its own Caesar, established by the Divine Diocletian under his sole rule as God-Emperor of a new Roman Empire.
According to the information Dai was getting, Luca was not supposed to even be in the province. There were media images which showed him in some small provincial town, identified as Lutetia in Gallia Lugdunensis, sipping cocktails on a terrace overlooking a river, with his gorgeous patrician bride of a year, one Marcella Tullia Junius. The same article claimed Luca was away from Rome on a long-term project to regenerate and oversee the family’s estates in Gallia.
“You would think,” Bryn observed dryly, “that after last night they would have kept a watch. Security cameras all down still and I bet no one saw a thing, just like before. That’ll put a sour look on the face of that jobsworth Flavia.”
Dai shot his decanus a look.
“Shut up, Bryn, you spado. I’m thinking.”
The decanus chuckled.
“It ain’t often I can get the Bard to swear,” he remarked happily. “Let’s see if I can shake a few more curses out of those pure Celtic lips. You know they’ll sic a Roman on us? This is too big for us local yokels.”
“Yeah. Just as long as it isn’t Titillicus…”
“Oh, course you won’t have heard. Titillicus is no longer a factor. He got in a ruck with the Tribune, who sent him home to his mammy.”
“In disgrace?”
“Nah. In a body bag. Seems he pulled a knife.”
“Moron. But what was the row about?”
“As if you couldn’t guess.”
“He didn’t?”
“Yep. The Tribune’s wife under the very eyes of the family lares.”
Dai grinned viciously. He had never liked working with Titillicus, the kind of Roman who assumed he ruled the Province and owned every provincial he encountered. Surely whoever they sent from Trev HQ would have to be better than that?
Two days later, he found out.
He stood outside the Prefect’s office feeling as if he had been grilled like a flatbread on a griddle. The Prefect seemed to feel it was all Dai’s fault too, on top of which she was seething they had not sent one of her extended family’s clients from Trev. They had sent someone direct from Rome.
“This is a client of the Praetor himself so if you mess this up, Llewellyn, you make one mistake, or upset her at all, you will be stuck in the Pit monitoring security footage until you reach your dotage.”
“Domina.”
The Pit was a room under the main HQ where failed vigiles would be sent to serve out their term going over the endless amount of security footage the AI decided needed a human decision. The chances of making the wrong call were high, and too many of those, would get you a missio ignominiosa – meaning you’d be thrown out of the vigiles with nothing and little chance of getting any decent employment anywhere, ever. The idea of a future life as a nightclub bouncer in one of the shadier suburbs did not fill Dai with a warm fuzzy feeling.
That and the fact this was his turf, his case and he was going to have to solve it somehow, whilst keeping some place-holding sycophantic client of Praetor Marius Aurelius Naribus distracted enough not to get in the way.
In the lift back to the main office he had time to contemplate the implications. Bryn must have seen his mood, because the decanus wisely said nothing when Dai gestured to him to follow. The two of them made their way to the plush reception room where important people from Rome could be properly accommodated and entertained. Dai ignored all protocols and strode in, then stopped so fast Bryn pushed into him and he heard the decanus swear under his breath. But Dai barely noticed because he had just realised that this was going to be worse than he could ever have imagined. This wasn’t a woman, it was a little boy in leather trews and bristling with weapons.
When did it get to be September?
Where did the summer go?
The wind’s slid out of the gentle south
As autumn begins to blow
The earliest trees are painting their leaves
In hues of russet and gold
While busy squirrels fill their cheeks
And watch the nights unfold
The air round our ears is sharp and clear
Though the sky is still duck-egg pale
It feels like the days at this end of the year
Hear the whisper of winter’s cold tale
When did it get to be September?
How are the nights so cold?
Whose is that wrinkled face in the mirror?
When did we grow old?
Dear Reader Who Writes,
You will recall from our previous acquaintance that I am Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV author of the One Million Bestseller (one million in Amazon Rankings) epic of science fiction and fantasy excellence, ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’. One’s chums tell one that they find the old moniker a bit of a mouthful and for some inexplicable reason few seem able to pronounce it without adding a silent smirk in the middle. Hence, one is usually bespoken of by one’s legions of admirers as ‘Ivy’.
However one is proud of one’s unique and outstanding name. I owe it to my darling Mummie having been a flower-child in her youth and Pater being a frightfully successful stockbroker. Tragically, Pater is no longer with us. He is in a better place, as he assures the world frequently in those Facebook pictures of his suntanned self and the skinny tart he took with him to Barbados.
But enough of my history, you are not here to have your heart bleed for my broken home, you are here to learn from my vast stores of wisdom and humility. I will keep you in anticipation no longer.
A delicate pun-ette never goes amiss, gentle Reader Who Writes and brevity in insignificancies is a virtue I profess frequently, so you shall be acronymed into my RWW from now on in this piece.
The importance of beauty cannot be overemphasised. One is a follower of the maxims of the sainted William Morris and will have nothing in one’s bijou writing cave that one does not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
It takes so little effort my beloved RWW to ensure that one writes only on the most perfect sheets of paper, with the most gloriously coloured inks, using pens made from the flight feathers of the Phoenix of one’s imagination.
Oh, would that were true, would that it were.
Instead, we are driven by the exigencies of life in a century that prizes immediacy above the endeavours of gentlemanly artistry. So I have a convenient technological contrivance to enable me to articulate my erudition across the world. From my fingers to your eyes. Miraculous to realise that these words I am typing in my underground retreat shall soon be read by you dear, dear RWW whether you are in Utah or Uzbekistan, Brisbane or Brighton, La Belle France or Lesotho.
So yes, the equipment you most need as a writer is some form of a computer connected to the interwebs. Be sure to have one set up in your chosen writing area before I next grace you with my presence.
And until then, dearly beloved RWW – bon ecrit!
Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV
You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.
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