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…

The Villa Papaverus was a typical provincial dwelling for those Citizens of rank and status serving far from Rome and wanting to keep their civilized comforts. A large U-shaped building on two floors, set in the midst of its own estate, with a walled garden to the rear and outbuildings dotted around. It had become home to Dai Llewellyn and his new bride when he took on the role of Submagistratus in Demetae and Cornovii little less than a month previously. The villa went with the job as its official residence.
When the two men rolled up there in the late afternoon, Dai’s diminutive Roman wife, Julia, who had a shrewd handle on her husband and his friend, was waiting with a spicy dish of mutton and beans. She had asked their cook to heat and serve it when her husband told her he and Bryn were coming, and kept it hot over a spirit lamp.
“That smells a bit exotic,” Bryn was cautious, though clearly tempted.
“Worried me at first,” Dai admitted, “but my lady wife persuaded me and it goes down very well.”
While they ate, Julia sat quietly, assessing the mood as one of generalised frustration. When Bryn finally put his spoon down and barely suppressed a satisfied belch she eyed the pair with some asperity.
“You may as well tell me, you know. I will find out anyway.”
Prior to her marriage, Julia had been an Inquisitor in the Vigiles herself, reporting directly to the Praetor in Rome, so this was no idle boast. Bryn grinned appreciatively, as Dai launched into an explanation of their morning. By the end, Julia was feeling truly grim, and it must have shown in her face as Dai was frowning with concern.
“What is it love?”
“You aren’t going to like this, but … ”
“What am I not going to like now?” He sounded weary, but also wary and angry.
Bryn put a hand on his forearm. “Remember, Bard. Didn’t we agree that whatever we have to deal with, it being Roman doesn’t make it Domina Julia’s fault?”
For a long moment nobody spoke, then Dai shook his head.
“We did. Sorry. I was just about to get bang out of line. Again.”
Julia, being too used to the pain of Dai’s anti-Roman outbursts, was surprised to find how much Bryn’s championship affected her. She smiled at him and stiffened her spine.
“You still might … We are going to have to tread very softly indeed. This is a temple sacred to the cult of the Divine Diocletian. That is one of the key foundations of the current Emperor’s right to rule. It has real power. And if we are not careful we could wind up getting told to turn a blind eye. It’s happened before.”
The men looked at her in glum silence. It was Bryn who found his voice first.
“What would happen,” he asked, “if we were ordered to keep our noses out?”
Julia favoured him with a sudden street urchin grin. “We’d have to investigate quietly.”
Dai just looked at her for a moment before leaning over the table to kiss her on both cheeks.
“Then maybe we shouldn’t be investigating too noisily now.”
“Stealth might be better. We need to hack into the computers at that temple. And we need to do so pretty bloody quickly.”
“That sounds like something you could do.”
“Probably. Very probably. Unless, of course, some irrumator has already erased the relevant files.”
Bryn wrinkled his brow. “I didn’t think you could ever really erase stuff from computers.”
“You can’t. Not if an investigator is in the same room with the computer. But you can certainly bury it deep enough to stop it being found remotely.” Julia sighed. “All of which means I should get right on it. You two go and look into some sheep stealing or something and keep out of my hair.”

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 .

Glossary
Please note these are not always accurate translations, they are how these terms are used in Dai and Julia’s world.
Demetae and Cornovii – Wales and several English Midland counties including Shropshire.
Domin-a/us – Ma’am/Sir. Used to superiors both in rank and social status.
Diocletian – the reforming emperor who established the foundations of a new Roman Empire and the point at which this history divided from our own.
Irrumator – cock sucker.
Praetor – an extremely high-ranking official
Submagistratus – a more junior official with legal jurisdiction over an area, under the authority of a Magistratus.
Vigiles – Police. In Dai and Julia’s world the police are a sub-branch of the military.
Villa Papaverus – Poppy House. Dai and Julia’s ‘goes with the job’ residence.

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 that prompts me to ask
How certain events came to pass
How you got a gold fang
And a piercing that hangs
And a dragon tattooed on your ass

© jane jago

It’s morning and
blue is the sky
And all the birds are
singing on high
It’s morning and
I sure know why
Summer is bloomin’
cos we’re in July.
July,
would you stay with me?
Whisper your promises
of lazy days.
July,
would you show to me
The beauty of summer
and its hazy ways?

It’s evening and
twilight is nigh
But the warmth lingers
as night comes by
It’s sunset and
the moon’s in the sky
Summer nights promise
as with you I lie
July,
would you stay with me?
Whisper your promises
of lazy days.
July,
would you show to me
The beauty of summer
and its hazy ways?

Eleanor Swift-Hook

Join Piglock Homes and his sidekick Doctor Bearson as they investigate the strange affair of the Dartymuir Dog…

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”.

And that is the end of The Affair of the Dartymuir Dog…

Jane Jago

The picnic basket and cooler were on board, Pa looked around.

“Everybody ready?”

The boys yelled but Ma groaned.

“What’s up hun?”

“I reckon this baby is comin’ right now.”

Pa floored it and the truck bounced along the rutted track, finally drawing up outside Grandma’s house. By now, Ma was white and sweating. Grandma come out and smiled.

“You leave Franny here and take the boys to the picnic.”

It was evening when they got back to Grandma’s. Ma sat in bed with a pink-wrapped bundle in her arms.

“Boys,” she said, “come and meet your sister Liberty.”

©️jj 2019

Dermot and his brothers had been diggers all their lives. They earned their living digging, but they also dug for fun. Thus it was that the summer solstice saw them underground on The Plain setting to rights some tunnelling that was in more than the usual disrepair. 
They were making good time so they stopped for a supper of doorstep sandwiches and ochre coloured tea with condensed milk from Erkie’s thermos. When they finished, Dermot, who was a being of few words, belched and cocked a thumb at the workings. 
It was a goodish while later when their pickaxes hit rock. Or, to be more accurate, they hit one rock that stood smack in their way. It was a big one and seemed to have been driven right through the workings. Erkie give it an experimental shove and it rocked slightly.
“It’s as loose as a rotten tooth,” he grunted. “Do us take ‘n out?”
They looked to Dermot who licked the rock and sniffed carefully around the soil at its base. For a minute he frowned, as if trying to call something to mind, then he shrugged his meaty shoulders and gave Erkie and the lads an upward pointing thumb.
They set to work, scrabbling and scrooging in the dirt. To the uninitiated their approach would have looked shambolic, but there must have been some science involved, as the stone slowly began to list to one side. 
“Aisy do it boys,” Erkie recommended, “us don’t want ‘n down here in the tunnel with we.”
The wisdom of this was generally acknowledged and the work slowed to a snail’s pace.
Above ground in the predawn darkness the men in white robes danced around the stones. The Henge had been there since before the ancestors of their ancestors, but the Druids still came there on certain nights to enact their rituals and pray for the souls of those who had already gone to the God. As the sun began to rise the dancers felt movement beneath their feet. This was not something they had ever known before and one by one they grew still and a little afraid. As the light reached the standing stones they watched, with a sense of horror that reached deep into their souls as the giant that was the king stone rocked on his foundations and began to tilt drunkenly. The High Druid would have rushed forward but his acolytes held him back by main force.
It was as well they did, because there came a sort of a sucking sound from the bowels of the earth and the stone that had stood proud for millennia fell to one side with an earth-shattering crash. As it hit one of the sarsen stones it cracked along its mighty length and dropped to the greensward in two sharp-edged pieces.
In the absolute silence that followed this disaster a brown face poked its way out of the earth beside where the stone had stood and a pair of bright, brown eyes blinked in the dawn light.
Dermot took in the scene of devastation, the broken stone, the weeping druids, and the rising sun that no longer lit the king stone in glory. He was so moved that he used up two days’ worth of words in one go.
“Oh bugger,” he said, before disappearing into the tunnel and signalling his crew to get back to work.

Jane Jago

The Dog Days are the high days of summer and a perfect time to celebrate our canine companions in verse and prose.

MacAlistair’s a messy dog, with always muddy paws
For he’s a mucky puppy dog who trails the mud indoors
He’s the scourge of us his owners, and we often do despair
For when we see those pawprints, MacAlistair’s right there.

“MacAlistair! MacAlistair!” we call his name, “MacAlistair!”
He’s running through the flowerbeds and getting muddy paws
We have to yell his name so loud as he runs in the park
But the bold MacAlistair just thinks it’s all a lark.

MacAlistair’s a brindle dog, he’s very tall and lean
You’d know him if you see him as his paws are never clean
His eyes they are so dark and his legs so very long
By the time you see his pawprints, you’ll find that he’s long gone.

MacAlistair, MacAlistair, there’s no dog like MacAlistair,
He’s a wolf who stalks the sitting room and leaves mud on the chairs
Then when you try to send him out, he thunders up the stairs
And all you see is trailing muddy pawprints everywhere!

He’s outwardly a cutie pie who children love to pet
Unless, of course, you need to get him out to see the vet
Then he becomes a racehorse and runs right down the street
And when you get to find him he’ll have smelly muddied feet.

Even when those pawprints are marking your new furniture
You just get out the Vax again and follow round their curvature.
MacAlistair, MacAlistair, there’s no dog like MacAlistair,
He always looks so innocent you can’t keep up the glares.

Eleanor Swift-Hook

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…

The boot would have caught him in the head. Dai rolled away as it swung in and he took it on the shoulder instead. But the rest of the pack were about to catch up and after the last experience of that, he knew he had two choices, surrender at once or hold on, count the moments and pray. The decision was taken from him as the whistle blew across the field.  Which was just as well because he could not have taken much more punishment.
A hand reached down, attached to a brawny arm.
“Well done, you’re not bad at this are you?”
The mud smothered ball was clutched close into his body and Dai, still winded and bruised from the last assault, took the hand, grateful for anything that might help him back on his feet. A moment later he was reeling back on the ground, shoulder probably half-dislocated as his erstwhile helper was holding the ball aloft and making an earsplitting hooting noise.
Dai lay still, closed his eyes and let the world revolve around him for a few moments. The jubilant cheers and back-thumping slowly faded. It was not the first humiliation he had endured since he had started his career in the Vigiles and he was willing to bet it would not be the last. But at least it would be the last he had to endure on this training course.
This ‘team building’ event was meant to be a treat for the final day. A reward for all the hard brainwork they had been required to put in to qualify for the rank of Investigator. Random draw assigned the teams and they had spent the morning training. Dai had contemplated feigning gut cramps to escape the afternoon match and now he wished he had.
He became aware it was starting to rain. Britannia in the early spring tended to wet and the ground they had been playing on was already part mudslide. The drops were heavy and he decided he was not hurting quite so much any more and probably ought to get up.
“Spado!” He recognised the voice of his team captain and opened his eyes, pushing himself to his feet one knee at a time. A far cry from the players you saw on the sports channels. They would take all kinds of a kicking and just roll to their feet and jog off.
“You must be the most stupid cunnus I ever played in a team with. Giving the ball away to the other side – and that after the whistle.”
“The game was over and I thought -”
“You thought you’d fall for the oldest trick in the book? The rules are merda, Llewellyn – just like what you keep inside your skull. This is harpastum. The Game. They had the ball when the ref got his first view of it after the whistle.”
The anger and disgust on the other man’s face was so intense Dai found himself sinking into a defensive stance. He had no idea how to play harpastum, the messy brawls for glory had never appealed to him, he’d avoided it like the plague during his school years opting for other sports, running and swimming being the ones he favoured most, but he knew how to fight when he had to, that had always been on the sports syllabus in his life. The other man seemed not to notice, he had already turned away and was jogging back towards the building.
Wiping at a splotch of mud which was sliding over his eye, Dai realised he was only spreading more mud as his hand was coated too. In fact, there was not much of him that was not. He squelched back across the pitch, the rain picking up as he did so, and by the time he stepped into the changing rooms, the mud was cascading in rivulets on the floor behind him. He pushed open the door and the conversation dropped as the entire nineteen man team glowered at him.
Dai shook his head and walked past them, heading for the welcome warmth of the shower room. He might have lost the game, but of the five points they had made, two had been his and owed more to his running skill than anything else. The other three had been scored by their team captain, but then that was a man who had been in the under 20s finals at Augusta Treverorum six years ago as he had proudly boasted when putting himself forward for the role. They also seemed to have overlooked the fact that Dai had been the one clutching the ball and defending it with his body when the whistle went. Which, he had been told, was the way to ensure victory in this game. No one had bothered mentioning anything about after the whistle.
They were all gone when he emerged from the shower room, much to Dai’s relief. He had already seen the first purple marks revealed as the mud was washed away and he had a feeling that the following day he was going to be stiff and sore. Fortunately, the following day he would be heading home to attend his half-brother’s wedding and have a week in the fond bosom of his family before starting work as a junior Vigiles investigator for the submagistratus in his hometown of Viriconium.
He was towelling his hair dry and was wondering if he could afford a massage in the baths next door, when the door was flung open by one of the women who had been leading the training course.
“Llew –” She choked off halfway through his name, her mouth open and her eyes wide. Then a light flush of colour brushed her cheeks.
Dai dropped the towel from his shoulders to wrap it around his waist. Well what did she expect bursting into the men’s changing rooms? Romans who did not respect the privacy of non-citizens could expect to get an eyeful of six-pack and extras.
“Apologies, domina,” he said, reaching for his tunic.
“Eh – yes. Well, you were not answering your wristphone so I had to come and find you in person.”
“We were told to keep them turned off or silent.”
“Yes. So you were. So here I am.” She gave a little smile.
Under the cover of his tunic, he undid the towel and finished dressing, aware of her eyes on him and more than a little resentful of the fact she felt free to stare all she wanted. He realised then that he would be glad to be home, away from the coldly Roman Londinium and back in a place where the majority of people he met treated him like a human being.
“What was it you wanted, domina?” he asked, trying to keep the bite from his tone.
“The Prefect wishes to see you immediately.”
The Prefect? He was the man in charge of operations for the Vigiles. A fair few steps down from the Caesar of Gallia maybe, but about as close to that as Dai had ever got. He opened his mouth to ask why and she made a dismissive gesture “That means now, Llewellyn – and after, how would you like to be my guest at this evening’s graduation dinner? We can skip the boring speeches and head back to my place.” She smiled again as she finished speaking and Dai decided she was not at all bad looking for a Roman and very well preserved for her age, which had to be at least ten years over his own twenty-four years. For a moment he was tempted, very tempted. “It’s a sub-aquila apartment,” she said, no doubt hoping to sway him with the promise of the Citizen only levels of luxury which that implied. Instead, it had the opposite effect and Dai found himself shaking his head and tasting a bitter flavour in his mouth.
“You honour me too much, domina,” he said, coldly. It was very obvious she was not used to being refused because her anger was instant.
“The Prefect’s office – now, Llewellyn.”
Then she went, slamming the door behind her.

From Dying to be Friends which is also found in The First Dai and Julia Omnibus by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

Ponies and Progeny or the graceless art of equine management as envisaged by the pen of Jane Jago and inspired by the genius of Norman Thelwell (1923-2004)

Today we consider the importance of modesty…

***** ***** *****

Sing a song of summer
Braising in the sun
Barbecues and double gins
Having lots of fun
When it is the weekend
Heading for the sea
Playing beachy volleyball
And having chips for tea

Mother’s in the shopping centre
Spending lots of money
Daddy’s had a load of booze
And thinks he’s really funny
The kids are in the paddling pool
Dabbling their toes
And nanny’s in the garden
Sniffing something up her nose

Jane Jago