It was quiet in the sleeping garden and Effie sat alone in the grass. She turned towards the sound of footsteps and was surprised to see a stranger coming across the mossy ground. As he got closer she realised his strangely jointed body glowed in the moonlight.

“Has nobody told you it’s dangerous to sit in midnight gardens?”

“It could be worse than my life now?”

The stranger lifted her calloused and burned hands and looked at the evidence of servitude.

“Perhaps not. Will you come then?”

“I will.”

They found her body at sunrise, laying peaceful in the grass…

©️jj 2019

Julia Lucia Maxilla stood up to her full four feet and eleven inches and stared at her co-investigator. She saw a tall, handsome man with black hair, pale skin and a square jawline. He glared down at her, and she was surprised by the blueness of his eyes. Her dogs came to lean against her, and this would have alerted her to the idea the man wasn’t precisely pleased to see her if her own intuition hadn’t already made that clear.
“Llewellyn, is it?” She kept her voice cool.
Behind him she could see another man trying to blend into the wall.
“Yes, domina.”
“If we are going to work together, I think we can dispense with such formality. The name is Julia.”
“Julia,” he hesitated fractionally, “I’m Dai Llewellyn. This is Decanus Bryn Cartivel, and is it permitted to ask what those dogs are?”
Julia decided to let the hesitation pass. She summoned a smile. “Canis and Lupo are wolfhounds,” she turned and indicated the huge Saxon who stood at her shoulder. “The dogs and Edbert guard me. In case you missed it, I’m not very big so if I need to intimidate somebody they help with that too.”
For a moment the Briton actually grinned, then he must have remembered whatever grievance was wearing at him and he started looking sulky again. Julia sighed inwardly. He was going to be difficult and that was a shame because he was really, really pretty. Before she got chance to snap his handsome nose off for him, he surprised her by holding out a hand to Edbert.
“Greetings.”
Edbert actually grasped his wrist and the two tall men stood eye to eye for a moment.
“You play nicely with my lady. I don’t want to have to hurt you.”
Her bodyguard spoke rarely and when he did his uncomfortably deep voice always reminded Julia of a thunderstorm in some far valley. She winced inwardly, rather wishing he hadn’t chosen to speak now and was surprised to hear a thread of amusement in the Briton’s response.
“You can be sure I’ll bear that in mind.”
“If you two have finished bonding, I have a visit to make.” Julia turned a carefully blank face to Dai. Dai. “You had better come with me. Edbert and your decanus can take a break.”
He frowned. “Does it pertain to the investigation?”
“No. And yes. It’s a duty visit to the Tribune. The Prefect is just a time server and she’s a complete waste of time as far as I can see. The Tribune is a different matter. Aside from policy, he and I have known each other since we were children.”
“Since you were children?” Llewellyn frowned. “But wasn’t the Tribune born in the Suburra? And raised in the insulae at the foot of the Capitoline Hills before he was adopted by a patrician?”
“He was. And so was I. Any questions?”
Dai shut his mouth with a snap. Julia could all but hear him thinking, and she took pity on him. It would make little sense to a Briton, who was no doubt raised on TV crime dramas which featured the poverty and criminality of the poorest slum area in Rome, that someone from that place could be in any position of influence or power.
“My father was a soldier, but my mother was a lupa, I think you use the term ‘whore’. My father was killed when he was twenty, in a border skirmish with the Mongol Empire, my mother died soon after of an occupational disease – she succumbed to morbus insu, an STD. I was raised by my father’s family who took me in because I was his only child and I think they wanted something to remember him by.”
“Oh. But how did -?”
“How did I get to be an inquisitor? A long story. And mostly painful, so can we leave it?”
She essayed a smile and her new colleague managed a half grin in response. Julia looked at him more closely.
“Your tunic,” she said severely, “is pretty grubby. That fish sauce must be days old. Do you have another?”
He nodded, wearing the expression of a schoolboy caught cheating in a class test.
“Good. Decimus is a fussy blighter. We’ll swing past yours on the way.”

From Dying to be Roman the first Dai and Julia Mystery from Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook.

When all you have to hold on to is pride, people may think you cold and unyielding but you can’t allow yourself to care.

The day Owen rode away to war, Melandreth put her emotions in a box and hid the key.

Had she known he would be away for five years maybe she would have been more careful to remember the hiding place.

The day he rode back into the farmyard she should have felt joy, but she couldn’t. The key was lost.

She cried, and as he held her she found the key – in his strong, brown hands.

©️jj 2019

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an ageing rockstar in possession of an eight-figure fortune, must be in want of a nubile young woman to supplant his no longer appetising wife…

Eric Scoggins, the lead singer of The Wobbly Pebbles lay naked on the enormous bed in his Miami hotel and regarded his skinny, wrinkled body with sour amusement.
“I dunno about you,” he remarked to his sleeping penis, “but I reckon the only reason anybody wants us now is the fame and the money.”
For a moment he smiled as he remembered back when he started out in the business. Things felt different then, and groupies had seemed like an amusing way to chart the band’s rise to fame and fortune: the richer they got, the prettier the girls became. And, if pushed, he would have to admit to sampling a few along the way. But now he was almost seventy he would honestly prefer a cup of tea and an early night.
He sighed, and his thoughts grew sombre. The business of a farewell tour was exhausting enough without the necessity to run from the rapacious claws of the young and greedy. He wasn’t remotely interested, but these girls were unrelenting and he was beginning to feel like the quarry in a very bloody hunt.
To cap it off he was lonely, and only one person could help. He speed dialled a number in England and spoke to the person who had been the centre of his life for some forty years.
“I miss you. Please come.”
“Okay.”

Three nights later, as the band played its final encore ever, a particularly persistent blonde bribed a hotel desk clerk for a room key. 
Blondie let herself into Eric’s palatial suite, and slipped out of her clothes before disposing herself decoratively across the wide whiteness of the bed. This, she thought with a smirk, would be almost too easy.

It was more than an hour later when she heard the door to the suite open. Carefully tousling her blonde curls she sat up in the bed and plastered on a seductive smile. Almost at once her smile became a frown as she heard voices. What was going on? She had been watching and the old fool never brought anybody upstairs with him. But there was somebody with him now. Somebody who could wreck all her plans. Her smooth pink hands curled into claws.
The first words she could make out were spoken in the distinctive gravelly tones of a voice that had broken a million hearts.
“I’m going out on the balcony for a smoke. You coming?”
“Yeah. I will. But I need the bathroom first.”
The sound of what could only be a kiss pushed Blondie’s patience almost beyond its limits, but she managed to wait until she heard the balcony door slide and the sound of heels crossing to the bathroom. Quick as a flash she streaked across the corridor to where an ordinary looking, and far from young, woman was sitting on the john.
“Clear off,” Blondie snarled, “it cost me five thousand dollars to get in here and I’m not having some used up old tart ruin my chances.”
The woman looked at her incuriously. Then she laughed.
“I have a better idea. You clear off.”
Blondie led with her nails, going for the older woman’s face. But she was caught from behind and her wrists were held in an iron grip. She wriggled and kicked but all to no avail. The woman got up off the pan and disappeared for a second, coming back with a bundle of clothes. 
“You have two minutes to dress and leave. If you aren’t gone in that time I’m calling security.”
Blondie looked from Eric’s determined face to the bland expression of the woman who stood at his side.
“I don’t understand,” she said fretfully, “why don’t you want me? Everybody knows you are ripe for a wife upgrade.”
Eric shook his head.
“Just get out.”

It is a truth less universally acknowledged that some ageing rockstars might even love their wives…

©️jj 2019

If your mother is the queen of a nation of warrior women, and you are a small, male ‘mistake’, you better keep your nose clean and be diligent in your studies. Pieter did both these things.

He understood he must have a father, as must his muscular sisters, but only Mother mattered. 

When he was seven, a hulking man in fishscale armour came to the palace demanding ‘his’ son. 

Mother said no, and the enraged knight was holding a broadsword to her breast when Pieter was brought to the throne.

He killed the knight with his tiny dagger.

Mother smiled…

©️jj 2019

From 'Wondrous Strange' a Fortune's Fools origins short story about Durban Chola.

Something was amiss with the resonance here. Not just this Work, but through all the Symmetry. A memory bubbled within [^], recalling the content of the last harmonization one had shared with [=].

>>we are becoming infected by Entropy, my bond{0ne}<< insisted [=], with a welded mix of sadness and anger. >>as an Explorer I see it more than you Weavers. I experience the tiers and return to Symmetry and each return confirms again my perception. the greed of the 0nes to encompass and draw in ever more of energy into the Symmetry is having the opposite effect. each new fissure in the tiers, supposed to bring in more energy, is opening us to parasitic reflux. I have perceived it, I have recorded it, but the Influencers will not receive my concepts<<

Swirls of antipathy and frustration curled between them. In empathy, [^] harmonized and soothed, but one’s own equilibrium was not easy to maintain. If what [=] perceived was as it seemed, then all 0nes stood in danger of ultimate dispersal – of becoming eventual victims of Entropy.

>>why don’t they consider your findings? I can’t understand what they think they gain by ignoring them<<

>>they don’t ignore them [^]. they observe the entirety of infinity as if it were the Symmetry and hold that therefore, where we dwell, the equilibration of any energy excess will harmonize back into that Symmetry. they forget Infinity is symmetrical only through the process of equilibrium. so when excess causes instability, balance is restored through that process. but our Influencers do not face up to that. they prefer to give the mark of truth to those who hold we can obtain sufficient energy to replace the losses<<

Aghast.

>>how can we draw sufficient for stability from other entropic tiers? surely all we do by opening ever further Nexūs, is to allow more Entropy to inveigle us<<

>>wisdom from you my bond{0ne}, but not from other 0nes and certainly not from the Influencers<<

They shared a concurrence of harmony and [^] experienced the perceptions that had caused [=] such concern. It was not even slightly reassuring.

>>the very best we can do is avoid opening any more points of entropic access. those we have wrought might be resealed by using what energy we have gleaned from the tiers through the ways exploited by 0nes from The First Budding. if we do so, we are inevitably diminished, our Symmetry less glorious and far-reaching, but at least we are spared from Entropy<<

From 'Wondrous Strange' by E.M. Swift-Hook a Fortunes Fools story from the Scifi Roundtable's The Quantum Soul anthology.

Castel Steep was masterless, with the death of Lord Jago five winters since leaving only a ten-year-old daughter to inherit. 

The gorsedd-appointed castellan was an ambitious man of some forty summers who quickly determined the castle was his by right. Accordingly, on the eve of her fifteenth nameday, he called the Lady Melangel to his study, where she stood with folded hands and downcast eyes.

“Tomorrow we announce our betrothal.”

“If it is my lord’s will.”

As her nameday dawned, Melangel offered blood. 

The stones took her offering, while a hungry sending ripped out the castellan’s throat.

©️jj 2019

What is Guardians of Our Future’s Past by  Ross Corrigan about? Sly reptiles, revolting humans and the worst dad jokes in literary history.  I know, I know, what’s not to like?  Okay, I admit to an element of tongue resting against if not entirely in cheek. Seriously, the cover blurb goes something like this:
A little over forty-two light years from the brightest star in the Auriga constellation lies a graveyard of sorts. It is an area of space bereft of life yet strewn with the debris of a once vibrant planet. Earth.
Finally, two hundred years after Earth’s destruction, the surviving colonists discover why … and who. More, they unearth a terrible truth: they are next…

With exaggerated effort, Merl freed himself from the couch’s embrace and headed towards the only clean place in the apartment: the stainless-steel shrine to all that is edible. The refrigerator. On it was a single fridge magnet and Merl’s favourite pun: RIP boiling water. You will be mist.
The light flickered before settling. In what looked like the cold, deserted hold of the Mary Celeste, the last of the dry-cured bacon hid in a lonely corner. With some effort, Merl prised the remaining three rashers from the child and idiot-proof container, ignored the “best before” recommendation and submitted the offering to the height of rigorous scientific examination: the sniff test.
Despite curling at the edges like Aladdin’s old slippers, the liberated slices smelt okay, and Merl deemed the bacon breakfast-worthy. Left-handed, Merl draped the limp end of the offending rashers on the baking tray and pressed the start button. Thankfully, the hub-controlled grill did the rest.
Within a minute, the enticing aroma informed Merl that breakfast was ready to be served. But on what? A quick recce of the bread bin revealed two questionable choices: an aged oven-bottom muffin, which had stiffened to the point of rigor mortis, and half a pack of week-old sliced bread. Discarding the top two slices—the greenish tinge not being particularly appetising—the culinary delight was almost complete. “Now, where’s the sauce?”
Performing a forlorn peek-a-boo search for the elusive HP, Merl yanked each and every cupboard door open, one after the other. Mid peek, or boo, Merl glanced down to discover that one of his lucky socks had a hole in it and his big toe was “doing” a Steve McQueen: leading the great escape.
Luck. According to the latest datasphere propaganda, the most likely time for good fortune to unveil itself was when there was a chance meeting between opportunity and hard work. The message was unambiguous, if missing one vital ingredient: work, at least the paid variety, was increasingly hard to come by.
 All about Ross

A Bite of... Ross Corrigan

Q1: How much of you is in your hero/villain?

Well, I consider myself to be dashing, charming and, above all, delusional. Yep, I suppose there’s a bit of that in the protagonist.

 Q2: Why do you write?

Doubloons …. lots of doubloons. Seriously, I just like to paint pictures with words. I might not be any good at it—judging by the reaction of certain UK literary agents—but I couldn’t imagine a day without exploring and giving flight to my imagination.

 Q3: How much of what you write could be classed as therapy?

Well, it’s either that or the pub. Come to think of it …

Ross Corrigan is a (mostly) retired insurance guy, a former international banker and inveterate science fiction and fantasy reader. And, apparently, a writer now. Did not see that coming.

You can find him on Facebook or his own website.

The dog was laying in a patch of sunlight, twitching slightly as he dreamed. If there was ever going to be a time to climb into the orchard and fill his pockets that time was now. He shinned up the nearest fence post and dropped lightly to the ground. The enchanter’s orchard was filled with the music of bees and birdsong, but the thief heard nothing except the prompting of his own greed.

Thief suddenly became aware of a deep rumbling growl.

But the dog was still asleep in the sun. Who was behind him?

He was never to know…

©️jj 2019

The Companion Quill is here to help you wherever you are in your writing journey.

As a Writing Companion…

The thing about writing is it is a lonely road. You often don’t realise you have wandered off the track until you tumble down a plot hole.
But it doesn’t have to be like that.
Not if you have a Writing Companion.
Someone who is as invested in your story and your characters as you are, who will be there to discuss the ideas or offer suggestions as the story shapes up…but you keep full creative control.
Someone who will share the highs and lows of character and plot development – bounce ideas around with you and edit over your work between writing sessions so you are good to go the next time.
Someone who will have plot holes unearthed before your world sinks into one.
Someone who will critique and improve – help you recognise those ‘darlings’ you may have to slay, but of course it is in your hands if you do or not.
Imagine if instead of waiting to complete your manuscript before it is appraised, edited or published, there was someone who could work with you throughout the process. An editor steps in when the task is finished and consolidates the whole to their own way of working. As your Writing Companion, I can be there through the journey and work with you to give your voice its full strength.

As an Author Mentor…

If you are near the start of your writing journey and are looking to develop your style and learn how to improve ‘on the job’ rather than having to step away and take classes, why not consider having your own Author Mentor?
As your mentor, I would be with you every step of the way, from the first stirrings of a plot idea, through world building and character development. I can offer ongoing advice as you write, help to hone your prose and enhance your writing voice.
Learn how to develop characters as you write them, how to world build as you build your world, and how to use and choose language as you do so.
With the aid of a personal Author Mentor, you can become a more competent and readable writer as you explore your own writing style and tell your own story.

As an Assistant Author…

Maybe you have a story you to tell, your life story for your grandchildren or a wonderful fictional story that has been in your head for years but you have no idea of how to put it onto the printed page.
As an Assistant Author, I will help you take your story and turn it into a book. Working closely with you, I can find the words you need to bring your story into the world, ready to be edited and published.
Whether you feel you need the whole story written for you or would like to write it yourself with assistance is entirely up to you and the intensity of the support offered is yours to decide.

The Companion Quill

For most writers, the first time anyone else becomes involved in their writing project is once it’s complete. Then it is read by someone else, often an editor or a beta reader, at which point any input can feel more like a deconstruction process than any sort of progression. There are many advantages to inviting someone in to share in the writing process much earlier with any book or story. Wherever find yourself in your writing journey, The Companion Quill can offer you the lift you are looking for.

E.M. Swift-Hook