Dai pulled the man out of the computer chair. Njord might be big-boned but he clearly was not one to keep himself much in shape.
“The domina is asking you a polite question, Torkel. I am not quite so polite. I want to know how a virus that affects your security surveillance on two separate occasions could have got onto your system without you knowing about it.”
The blond man’s face had turned red as Dai’s grip tightened.
“I don’t know,” he gasped. “I told you. I didn’t even know it was a virus the first time. Even your people didn’t find that. I only found it after the second outage.”
Dai decided that as he was getting some degree of cooperation he could be generous and let go. Njord dropped back onto his chair again.
“So how could it happen?”
The blond man started pulling up information in streams that meant very little to Dai, but he could see Julia scanning it rapidly, her expression focused.
“Here,” Njord said and pushed a finger at a line of random numerals.
Dai tried to look as though he had some idea what it meant, but it was Julia who asked:
“So where is that? Have you a plan of the arena—a schematic to show where that is geographically?”
Dai saw the refusal form on the blond man’s lips.
“Torkel,” he cautioned, “I don’t need to remind you to be polite to the domina, do I?”
The blue eyes glared at him with hatred, but Njord pulled up a 3D schemata for the complex and stabbed his finger at a small flashing pixel on the lowest below-ground level. 
“It’s there,” he said.
“What’s there?”
“Absolutely nothing. It’s a blank wall.”
“So someone uploaded this whilst standing in that corridor.” Dai pointed to two clearly marked cameras even he could identify as such. “If we have the recordings from these for that time we—”
“You misunderstand,” Njord said. “If I am right and this is the signal that did it, then it was not uploaded from somewhere beside the wall—it was uploaded from somewhere inside the wall.”

The tunnel was an old one, dating back to the days they had fed people to the lions in the arena for denying the godhood of the divine Diocletian. When that had ceased to be a crime during the Enlightenment, the menagerie had become a place for keeping all the exotic animals a lanista might desire to put on interesting displays. But the animal fights had finally been outlawed throughout the Empire, along with slavery and discrimination on grounds of race or gender, a few years before Dai had been born. At which point the menagerie became a place to take your children to see the animals. The only deliberate deaths you could expect to witness in the arena nowadays were the public executions of traitors and murderers.
There was a popular joke that made much of the fact it was easier to get yourself accused of treason than murder. Even if you killed someone in front of witnesses you could get away with your life. But the slightest hint you might be involved in any anti-Roman activities and you would be arrested, tried and executed within the week. That was the usual job of the men Decimus had allocated to work with Julia and Dai, uncovering and arresting potential anti-Roman agitators, and Dai found it gave him an uncomfortable feeling between his shoulder blades every time he turned his back on them.
But it was their technology and their brawn which first found and then broke into the tunnel behind the wall and tracked along it in one direction to a manhole cover on the edge of the arena’s playing field and in the other to the menagerie.
At the menagerie end, it finished in a solid metal door. Whilst the Praetorians sent out for the appropriate equipment to break through. Dai and Julia left them to it and headed to the menagerie overground.

From Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook a whodunit set in a modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules. You can listen to this on YouTube.

Paddy Dog was never disobedient, on the contrary he was the epitome of good behaviour. He would come when called, sit on command, lie down and wait patiently outside the local shop for his owner.

And he hated water.

So when Paddy Dog jumped in the river, his owner was surprised, especially when Paddy Dog was pulling at something in the water and wouldn’t leave it even when called.

His owner, disgruntled, eventually went to see and found Paddy Dog trying to rescue a kitten which had fallen in the reeds.

Paddy Dog now has a friend called Tabby Cat.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Paris, 29 November 1642 (Gregorian Calendar)

In a splendid chamber of the Palais du Cardinal, which was one of the most splendid mansions in all of Paris, a man sat lost in deep reverie, his head resting on his hands as he leaned over a gilt and inlaid table, covered with documents. Behind him, a vast fireplace was alive with leaping flames. Thick logs blazed and crackled on brass-ended firedogs, their flickering brilliance combined with that of the wax lights set in the twin grand candelabra which illuminated the room.It occurred to him that if anyone had been there to see, and he thanked God they were not, they might have mistaken his cloak with its rich colour and golden thread for a gorgeous red simar, robes of office due to a cardinal. They might have thought that against all possible hope and expectation the owner of the Palais had risen to sit at this table and work.
But he had no time for such fancies. He creased his brow in anxious reflection as he bent over the list of names, grateful for the solitude of the suite of rooms he was in, relieved by the continued silence from the chamber beyond and aware, painfully aware, of the measured tread of the guards outside on the landing. They were there to ensure the safety of the master of the house. That thought made him shake his head. They could not any longer ensure the safety of a man who barely lingered now on the threshold of death, reluctant to release the agony of life for the promise of eternal bliss because he felt his work was not yet done.
And neither was his own work, the man in the red cloak knew. He had come to this room to find the document he needed, breaking into the private cabinet of L’Éminence Rouge, and now he had found it, a list of names. So it was merely a matter of choosing a name—choosing the right name. It was not a long list but from it he had to choose the name of a man with few connections in Paris, a man who had no friends in powerful places who might step in to defend him. He needed it to be one of the men on the list in his hand, because they were the only ones who could have had the right access—apart from himself, of course.
All the names were French and one or two he recognised, men he would very much enjoy seeing accused, humiliated, convicted, broken by torture and removed from life on the gallows. But he also knew they would have friends, family and possible patronage. It was not a risk he could afford to take.
Then he saw that there was one name on the list which did not belong to a Frenchman. A name he knew belonged to someone of no significance—someone who no one would stand up for, and no one would miss.
Smiling to himself, he replaced the list exactly where he had found it and left the room quickly before his presence there was noticed.

From The Physician’s Remedy, Book Four of The ‘Lord’s Legacy’ Sextet by E.M. Swift-Hook

Items of feminine apparel were going missing from washing lines. The summer sun and breeze was encouraging the washing of bed linens, winter clothing – and underwear.
But the underwear couldn’t always be found when the washing was picked in to be ironed.
Somebody somewhere was in possession of many pairs of linen bloomers, but nobody knew who.
The village constable investigated to no avail so he did what everyone did when something was above their pay grade – he went to see Nanny. The two of them sat in her fragrant garden, she was puffing on her pipe and he had a leather tankard of ale in one large pink hand.
“Us’v laid in wait, but when us does the he never comes. Un seems to know…”
“Then I suspect they does know.”
The constable scratched his head. “I don’t get it, missis.”
She patted his meaty arm. “Never mind. You just leave it with me.”
He finished his beer, belched quietly and left.
At sundown Nanny had a conversation with a friendly magpie before making her way into the forest.
She sat on a fallen tree.
“I’m waiting.”
Nothing happened for a while, but then a procession of strange little people came into sight.
Fauns wearing linen coifs and with white linen bloomers covering their hairily goatish lower limbs.
Nanny sighed. It was going to be a long night.

©janejago

Pigglety Pigglety Poo by Julie Kusma illustrated by Jane Jago

Pigglety Pigglety Poo is a cumulative tale with a formula-predictive pattern featuring a menagerie of silly animals. First, a purple pig in a petunia patch. Next, a few monkeys mucking about, maybe a frolicking frog or two, and the next thing you’ll know is you’re in the middle of the wackiest, wildest animal caper ever. Each line builds into an increasingly deeply-nested nonsense verse full of alliteration and repetition. It’s a fun Read-Aloud story beautifully illustrated by none other than the talented Jane Jago herself and edited by the gifted Jill Yoder.

This non-rhyming cumulative tale is for ages 3 to 6. It is comparable to other cumulative stories like “The Lot at The End of My Block” and “And the Robot Went.” As well as classics like “The House That Jack Built,” “There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly,” and “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

A bite of the creators of this sweet little book…

Julie Kusma first:

Why a children’s book? It’s not precisely your usual stamping ground so what inspired it?

Great question, and yes, a children’s book does seem out of my wheelhouse. However, I wrote this story roughly five years ago during ENG550: Graduate Studies in the English Language. My final paper, The Power of Seussisms, discussed the significant role phonology and morphology played in creating neologism nonsense words in Geisel’s books. In fact, his mastery of linguistic elements generated the whimsical tone and the anapestic tetrameter that we all know as the voice and style of Dr. Seuss. I was temporarily overtaken and wrote this and three other children’s books that I plan to publish.

If you could meet one person (alive or dead) who would you choose? And what would you talk about?

Always a tricky question for me. My mother, I suppose. She died when I was nine, so it would be lovely to chat with her as adults. Of course, asking what the afterlife is really like would be at the top of my questions-for-her list.

Can you recall the first book that grabbed you by the gonads and shook your world?

So many books have influenced me, but the one that shook my world? Chariots of the Gods by Erich von Däniken. I was thirteen when my brother-in-law handed me his paperback copy. I read this book with fervor. My mind opened to the possibility that the world we think we know as true might very well be a story that others populated for their own purposes. Question everything, putting the writer’s “what-if” at the top of your list.

Now Jane Jago :

What was the best part of doing illustrations for a children’s book?

I think I enjoyed the idea of making animals accessible to children – by making them friendly and whimsical without being cartoons.

And what was the biggest challenge?

The zebra. All those stripes. Do you have any idea how complicated a zebra’s stripes are? They are neither straight nor uniform. But getting them nailed was a real head rush. And he sure is cute

I know you are not allowed favourites, but which did you most enjoy creating?

It’s just not possible to have one favourite from so many, but if I was pushed I might admit a fondness for the little bee.

You can find Julie Kusma on Instagram and Twitter and Jane Jago right here, or on Twitter and Facebook.

Autographed copies of the book will be available by June 1 from Julie Kusma’s Website.

It was a pretty thing with fairies, rainbows and unicorns. It had hung in the second-hand shop for as long as Merielle could remember. She loved it, but you can’t buy cot-toys when you’re a young woman living the life, can you?

When she fell pregnant, the mobile was still in the shop window, sparkling in the sun. Merielle got it cheaply, the shopkeeper said he was glad to see it go.

When baby Amelia was born Merielle hung the pretty mobile above her cot. Until one morning Amelia was gone – and all the fairies were gone from the cot-toy.

E.M. Swift-Hook

The adventures of Piglock Homes and his sidekick Doctor Bearson.

The creak of harness heralded the arrival of the strangest conveyance Bearson had seen in a long time. It was a large four-wheeled cart or covered wagon, with high curtained walls behind which there could be discerned the outline of stout bars. There was about it the rich smell of some carnivore and occasionally the barred sides shook. The equipage was pulled by a team of four heavy horses, whose driver was a short massively muscled man with a multiplicity of tattoos. When the walls behind him shook, he spoke comfortingly in a dialect beyond the understanding of even Homes.
The newcomer drew his strange vehicle to a halt at a careful distance from the hobbled donkey, which, even so, flared its nostrils and would have brayed loudly had not Yore leaped from his seat and grabbed it by the muzzle.
“Can you back off a bit, or I’m liable to lose this beast and the cart into yonder bog.”
The tattooed gent carefully backed his vehicle away and Homes left the donkey cart in to converse with the newcomer in a low voice.
“What do you reckon our skinny friend is up to?” Yore breathed.
“Honestly? I have no more idea than you. You know what he is like. Cards clutched to his scrawny chest until the last second.”
Yore grunted. “Well I’m keeping my hand on my revolver just in case.”
Bearson said nothing, merely displaying the grip of his own revolver for Yore to see.
The sun was just lifting over the eastern horizon when Bearson felt, rather than heard, a sound similar to the one Homes had made the previous night. Almost at once the tattooed gentleman’s cart began to rock alarmingly and whatever was inside it started making eerie ululating noises that ripped apart the quiet of the morning air.
Homes showed his teeth. “Yore, Bearson. Hold your fire unless you are in mortal danger.”
“Aye, aye, cap’n.” Yore spoke sarcastically, but Bearson understood that he would obey Homes.
The noises from the covered cart were becoming louder and louder and the rocking seemed almost fierce enough to overturn the equipage. Before the carriage was altogether overset there came a sound as if the paws of some great dog were slapping on the ground and all eyes turned towards the sound.
“What is it, man?” Yore was heard to ejaculate.
“You’ll soon see.”
The creature that broke out of the high bracken was enormous, and tawny striped with black. It was only visible for a very few seconds before the tattooed gentleman opened a door in his wagon and the creature disappeared.
“But. But. But…” Yore spluttered. “That’s not a dog.”
“No. It’s a tiger. An orange, bouncing tiger.”
Yore ground his teeth. “Orange, bouncing ‘dog’ to the old man. I see. But how did it get here?”
“You are about to find out, I think.”
The woman who followed the tiger out of the high bracken was tall and carried a curled stock whip in her right hand.
At first, Bearson thought it was the woman who had driven them across the muir the previous night, but then he realised this woman was older, and harder looking although there was an obvious resemblance.
She glared at the two carriages.
“I’m looking for my pet.” This woman’s voice was harsh and her accent was transatlantic.
Homes bowed. “Your pet, madam?”
“Yes. The pesky critter has a habit of escaping.”
“And frightening people close to death?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do…”
She laughed, but it was a sound that tore at the throats of those who heard it. “Doesn’t a man who abandons his wife and child deserve a little fright?”
Yore cleared his throat. “The game’s up. Old Sleepytown died last night. So the charge is murder.”
The woman laughed and dropped her whip. Instead of turning back the way she came she ran into the jaws of the bog.
Yore made to go after her, but Bearson restrained him. “Leave her. That’s a mire out there. You don’t want to end your life sinking in stinking mud.”
“But she’s getting away.”
“She won’t get far,” Homes said sadly. “The waymarker poles have been moved so the safe path through the mire no longer exists.”
He stood at the edge of the unnatural greenness as the sun rose and burned away the mists from the muirland.
Yore looked at the tiny figure of the great detective and shook his great head.
“Churches la fem,” he said sadly, “churches la fem”.

Piglock Homes and his sidekick Doctor Bearson may return with a new investigation later in the year…

Jane Jago

The month of May, the month of May
Time to see the lambs at play
Time to see the the buds bursting
As nature launches into spring

The month of May, the month of May
Time to go outside and stay
Time to watch the birds take wing
As nests they build new life to bring

The month of May, the month of May
Time to welcome each new day
Time the windows wide to fling
So the freshness can flood in.

The month of May, the month of May
Time to set aside the grey
Time to smile, dance and sing
For summer is icummen in.

E.M. Swift-Hook

It took eight more days of gentle riding to reach Durmouth, stopping each night at a wayside inn or staying with a friendly farmer. But still each evening Hepsy was feeling as if she had been run over back and forth by her hill-pony rather than sitting atop of it the whole way. But she didn’t complain, just took a good soak in a tub by the fire when there was one and rubbed ointments into her muscles and joints, charged with a little easing magic. Poll seemed not to notice the ride so much. He seemed happier than she had seen him for a long time.
“You are enjoying this,” she chided as they passed through the open gates of the city, cheek by jowl with wagons of goods and produce going in and nightsoil going out.
“And why not?” Poll asked and grinned at her, in that moment looking for all the world as he had the day they first met. “It’s still an adventure.”
Hepsy shook her head and said nothing to that. She was marrow-deep sure he couldn’t have forgotten what adventure had led them into the last time.
The Red Dragon Tavern was not the finest in Durmouth, but it was not in the dockside area where the very poorest scrabbled to make a living either. It was set on a decent street that led to the main city market square and offered refreshment to people of a middling kind – the farmers bringing produce to sell or the smaller merchants come to trade salt, pottery or good solid cloth.
It was not hard to spot the cheerful tavern keeper as she had the look of her brother. She wore sensible shoes, smart clothes and a harassed smile as Hepsi asked her about Stref.
“Ye’ll his friends from before? Well good luck to ye, ye’ll be needing it if ye want to get him to talk to ye. He’ll be in his room at the back.” She gestured to the door which was opening and closing with a flow of staff carrying laden trays. “Help ye’selves though.”
They did.
A lad carrying a stack of used soup bowls nodded them towards the right door, but there was no reply to the brisk knock Poll rapped on it. Or the next three.
“You think maybe he’s asleep?” Hepsie asked. “He was always a deep sleeper.”
“Likely so. I remember the time he was supposed to be on watch and fell asleep. We were just lucky Galthin always had one eye open or those land pirates would’ve slit our throats before we woke up.”
“He was good like that, saved us more’n once.” It was always hard for her to think of Galthin and not get just a little maudlin.
Poll tried the door and it opened easily. The smell from within rolled out, stale ale, stale sweat and undertones of urine and vomit. There was also a steady snore. Hepsie couldn’t see in and when she moved to do so, hand over her nose, Poll held her back.
“You’ll not want to see this, love. Go find us a table and I’ll be with you in a bit.”
His face left no room for argument so she bit back her questions and retreated to the bustle of the common room, finding a table being cleared which she could claim. It had a window view of the courtyard and barely had she sat down than she saw a door open and her Poll manhandling an obese, half-naked man to the water trough and douse his head into it over and again.
It was only when poll finally let his victim up, choking and protesting that Hepsie realised this was Stref. For a moment she couldn’t reconcile the bejowled and angry face, balding hair and lumpen body with the care-free, slender and agile man she had known. Then she did and she had to look quickly away, feeling embarrassed and hoping he hadn’t noticed her through the small window. She busied herself ordering food and it was being served just as Poll pushed through the press to join her, Stref trailing behind, decently dressed, and looking sheepish.
“You look as beautiful as ever,” he greeted her and kissed her hand in his old way, but with less of the grace. Then he sat looked wistfully at the food she had ordered for herself and Poll. That was so much the Stref she remembered that she pushed the plate of bread and cheese over to him.
“I’ve told the tale of it,” Poll said. “Stref will come with us.”
The quick look Stref shot her man told Hepsie that had not been the first answer he’d given.
“So do you know where we might find any of the others?”
His mouth half-full of bread and cheese, Stref spoke through it. “Linis left the Kingdom years ago. Last rumour had it she turned merchant and married. Could be anywhere now. I still have her ring so we could pay a spell caster to tell us where she is, if you want. Galythin, I heard went back to his forest people so unless you want to take ship to to Farward, you’ll not find him.”
“What about Raya and Coldon?”
Stref shook his head, swallowing down the mouthful before he replied.
“Coldon took ill soon after you left. Wasted away before our eyes until he was gone. Raya, well she took it bad. She upped and took vows to be a priestess of Shal. She’s living in a nunnery just west of the city. I used to go see her now and then, but she told me I just made her think of Col. That was over ten years ago, but far as I know she’s still there.”
It was hard hearing Col was gone. He had been the strongest of them all, lifting boulders as if they were pebbles and saving them all by anchoring the rope bridge with his own powerful muscles, when they would have fallen into the bottomless chasm.
“We’ll go see,” Hepsie decided.
“I won’t,” Stref said. “I promised her not to.”
Which brought a frown to Poll’s face. “That’s as it goes, then. You can gather supplies and talk to that spellcaster about Linis. You never know she might not be so far. We’ll fetch Raya – if she’s willing.”
“And if not? If Raya won’t come and we can’t find Linis?” Stref was asking but Hepsie wondered that too.
“If not, then there’s the three of us and that’ll have to do.”
“But…”
Poll pushed back his stool and got to his feet in a single movement. You’d not have known his knee was bad. “But we’re not lighting that fire yet,” he said firmly. “Just be ready for when we’re back. We’ll be leaving for High Top tomorrow either way.”
“Thank Shal it’s summer then.” Stref pulled the remains of their meal towards him, then glanced up and caught the looks. “What of it? My sister has me on a diet, I’m half-starved.”
Hepsie failed to smother a laugh and turned it into a cough, but she could tell Poll was not seeing it as funny.
“Just be ready,” he said, voice cold.
This wasn’t going so well so far.

From a fantasy tale by E.M. Swift-Hook

Summer is icumen in, let’s go down the pub
In the garden we can sit, and sup a little jug
We’ll watch the maypole dancers, then
Throw peanuts at the Morris men
Who quite forget to stamp and whirl
While checking out the young clog girls
Then, when the evening cools the sky
The folk singers they will pop by
And underneath the Mayday moon
They’ll play the old familiar tunes
On comb and paper and bassoon
Until the singing starts, too soon
When some old geyser with a beard
Will stick his finger in his ear
And sing an old traditional lay
That someone else wrote yesterday
He’ll lose the tune forget the words
But never feel a bit absurd
Because he’s here to serenade
On rather too much ‘lemonade’
And when the landlord shuts the bar
We’ll amble home, it isn’t far
As into bed we fall you’ll say
There went a bloody fine May Day

©jj 2021