Kevin woke from a nice nap to the awareness of danger. It should have been midday, but the sky was purple dark. At first he thought The Wild Hunt rode the winds. Then he wondered if those other horsemen bestrode the sky on their pale steeds.

However it turned out that the disturbance was much closer to home – where the very earth buckled and heaved beneath one of the oldest stones in the graveyard.

Kevin dragged his heavy granite body over and lay across the upheaval.

‘Dig your way through a kobbold,” he thought grimly, then went back to sleep.

©️jj 2019

‘Copter, ‘copter, at low height,
O’er the village every night,
What strange brand of villainy
Brings you out at three thirty?

‘Copter, ‘copter overhead
Whilst I’m sleeping in my bed
Well, I was until you came
Now I can’t get to sleep again!

‘Copter, ‘copter now you’re gone
Just before the break of dawn
An hour left to close my eyes
Before the alarm tells me to rise!

E.M. Swift-Hook

The Working Title Blog would like to apologise to the shade of William Blake.

The SciFi Roundtable's new anthology Gods of Clay is now available.

Kalends October MDCCLXXVII Anno Diocletiani

In the space before the small temple – so small it had been considered a mere shrine just a few years before – the crowds had gathered as usual for the chance to be chosen. They sat in their wheelchairs, or stood, faces drawn with pain and fatigue. All had given up just about everything,  to make the journey here on the off chance that they might be deemed worthy to be healed by the grace of the Divine Diocletian.
It was not easy to get through the new barriers that surrounded the site. Security guards patrolled the perimeter and manned the gates. Dai Llewellyn and Bryn Cartivel had left their vehicle in the small car park behind one of the new cuponae that had sprung up to provide accommodation for those waiting their chance to visit the temple and approached the gates on foot, beside the queue that wound back to the road. Dai felt it would give them a chance to get a better idea of the atmosphere of the place. Which was also why he had not bothered to tell anyone at the temple that he was coming to visit.
“You do have to wonder why this place is so popular,” Bryn observed, scratching at his greying hair as they walked past the queue. “Over on Ynys Mon there is a state of the art medical research facility in the Asclepieion there, always seems to be offering people the chance to sign up for clinical trials. Can’t see as how this is going to be better than that. And there they pay you to take part and you get full on comfort and care – here you have to pay just for the chance to be summoned and get to stay in a miserable pilgrims’ dormitory.”
“I read the brochure too, it makes it very clear no money is charged for the healing. But those who want may offer small donations,” Dai observed.
“Ah, right. That would be why the cuponae here do such a roaring trade and the temple just built a whole new wing for the Pontifex of the place. Small donations.”
The two guards at the gate wore the haloed head of the Divine Diocletian on tabards over their paramilitary outfits. They were also armed with nerve whips which meant they would be Roman Citizens.
“Oy! You can’t just push in where you want,” one of the two called out as Dai and Bryn reached the gate.
“We have business here, we’re not here to participate in the rites,” Dai explained politely.
“Can’t you read, spado? Sign back there says ‘Closed during divine service’.”
“Yes. So I saw. But my business means I would need to observe the proceedings. Respectfully of course.”
The gate guard gave a short laugh.
“Listen, you stupid British irrumator, only those invited to attend are allowed in. now, whatever your ‘business’ might be, I suggest you take it elsewhere before I call the local vigiles and have you arrested for creating a disturbance.”
Beside Dai, Bryn gave a forced cough and cleared his throat.
“Senior Investigator Cartivel here, can I help you?” He held up his ID and pressed it against the fence so the gate guards could see it clearly. “And this is Submagistratus Llewellyn, who is my boss.”
Dai mirrored Bryn’s gesture and produced his own identification, holding it up so that the ring of Citizenship on his index finger was obvious too.
“If it’s no trouble, perhaps you could let us in now?” he said mildly. “We are here on a murder investigation.”

The body had been found washed up on a beach near Segontium and would normally have attracted little, if any, attention as no one had been reported missing. But this corpse had been found to have a ring of Citizenship still attached to a finger, but lodged in the corpse’s throat. To Dai’s impotent fury, Rome reserved the full benefits and privileges of justice for her own children – and it seemed this might be one such case.
Despite the body being partially decomposed, dental records had enabled them to trace its identity. Zirri Yedder had been a freelance journalist with a history of producing cutting investigative pieces that highlighted local issues – local to Mauretania Tingitana that is, the province, where he had lived in the capital, Tingist. Although the pathologist report that Dai read was not entirely sure of the cause of death, it was also very clear that the body had been tortured beforehand.
But the finger was not the finger of Zirri Yedder and he had never been a Roman Citizen. He had, however, been registered at a cupona in the village of Caerhun and the landlady there said he had been there awaiting an invitation to the temple. She had last seen him as he set off to answer his eventual summons and no one had seen him alive since then.
Which was why Dai and Bryn now stood on the edge of the crowd watching as the service began. A security guard hovered nervously near by, trying not to make it too obvious that he was watching them as they observed proceedings.
“Who’d have thought a man who died nearly two thousand years ago having self-labelled as a deity, would still be honoured as a worker of miracles in the modern age?” Bryn’s voice was pitched so it was lost in the chanting from the crowd. Even so Dai looked at him sharply.
“You should be careful saying those kinds of things, SI Cartvel. Especially here.”
Bryn lifted his wrist and tapped the screen on his wristphone.
“Not me, Bard, I’m just reading what our friend Yedder put up on his social media. It was meant as a teaser for his next piece.”
“And I missed that, how?”
“You are a busy man, Submagistratus and these little details…”
“I checked his social media feed, right back for the last three years.”
“Ah, that would explain it then.” Bryn was looking almost smug. “It only posted today – less than an hour ago in fact. It must have been one he scheduled before he died.”
“Spado!” Dai said, but without real rancour. “Was there more?”
The other man shook his head. “No. That was it. Just says: ‘My current investigation is going to make a lot of people sit up and think’, then what I told you. Seems to be his style. Putting up a teaser a couple of days before the main article comes out. This time though, I think he hit the wrong kind of deadline first.”

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 new anthology Gods of Clay .

The garden was full of stone people – reminders of the perils attached to disrespecting the witch.

Charissa learned herbal lore from Mistress Effie. And assiduously avoided looking at the garden ornaments. 

When a spate of rumour arose, traceable to the fat woman who ran the inn and sold patent medicines, Charissa worried.

Effie took to her laptop.

Two nights later a tap on the back door heralded the arrival of a heavy parcel. 

The two women wrestled the stone figure of a fat aproned woman into a prominent place in the garden.

“What? How?”

Effie grinned her crocodile grin. “Amazon…”

©️jj 2019

Dying to be Found - or the Wolfhounds of Lupercalia -is a Dai and Julia Mystery for Valentine's Day.

Lupercalia MDCCLXXVIII Anno Diocletiani

It was Lupercalia, the day when everyone celebrated romance – and it’s close friend fertility. The shops were full of silly cards and chocolate wolves, and the flower sellers all had sudden hikes in their prices. Dai Llewellyn sat opposite his diminutive wife at the breakfast table and inwardly debated whether she had truly forgotten the date, or she was playing a deep game of her own. Whichever way Julia went on this one, he was convinced he had the situation covered and he carefully camouflaged an inner smile.
He finished his porridge and leaned over to kiss Julia’s pink mouth. She responded with her usual flattering ardour and he put up a hand to ruffle her dark curls.
“Work calls. I won’t be back until supper time. Is there anything you want from Viriconium?”
“I don’t think so. See you later.”
He kissed her again and went out to where his personal all-wheel awaited him. To his surprise, Julia’s bodyguard, Edbert, was leaning casually against the vehicle. The great wolfhounds Canis and Lupo stood with him, waiting for their morning walk.
“You haven’t forgotten what day it is, I hope.”
“No. You’re all right. I have it covered.”
The huge northerner mimed mopping his brow and sloped off. Dai got into the driving seat and allowed himself a smug grin.

He pulled up outside Bryn’s square stone-walled house and tooted cheerily. His friend and second-in-command ambled out with a grin from ear to ear, greying hair tied back and a doorstep of bread and honey in one hand. He climbed aboard and favoured Dai with a straight look.
“I hope you have remembered what day it is?”
“Why does everybody think I need reminding of an over-commercialised randomly-chosen date? Surely my wife knows I love her without some sort of overpriced gift?”
Bryn eyed him narrowly.
“I hope for your sake you’re winding me up, Bard.”
“I am. Here. Look.”
Dai took a red velvet pouch out of his tunic pocket and spilled the contents onto the palm of his hand. Bryn barely looked, instead he stuck his head out of the vehicle window and whistled shrilly. His wife opened the front door and trotted out.
“Show it to Gwen. I was told if it was jewellery she needed to make sure you got it right.”
Dai laughed and leaned out to display a silver chain bracelet from which there hung three charms.
“See,” he said, “there’s a golden ball for when I asked her to come and be my love, the disk has the date of our marriage, and there’s a wolf for Lupercalia. I can add more charms as the years go by.”
“That’s perfect,” Gwen stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek before returning to her house.
Dai put the bracelet back in its pouch and the pouch in his pocket before starting the engine and engaging drive.

They were about halfway to Viriconium when both men’s wristphones bleeped simultaneously. Bryn answered.
“SI Cartivel. What’s the panic?”
“Missing child. Cadell Glaw. The kid’s up in the hills somewhere. Parents are sheep farmers and he must have slipped out during the night. He’s three years old and the temperature is well below freezing.”
“You don’t need to ask me, man, get the tracker dogs out!”
“No can do. They are on their way back from Eboracum where there was that big jailbreak. Won’t be here until tomorrow morning. We can’t wait that long.”
“No. We can’t.” Bryn looked at Dai questioningly.
“Alright. Get the address and then call Edbert. Canis and Lupo would appear to be our only chance. Julia will lend them gladly in these circumstances.”

Some two hours later, and it was perishingly cold out on the hill. The farming couple were small dark-haired folk, who quickly understood what Dai had in mind. The man shut his own dogs in the barn and his wife went for a favourite toy to give Canis and Lupo the child’s scent.
“We tried our sheepdogs,” the man said quietly, “but they couldn’t grasp what we wanted.”
“I don’t suppose they could, but these boys are trained to seek.”
Edbert was bundled up, looking for all the world to Dai’s eyes like a multicoloured version of one of the bears that hunted his native forests. Clad in a thick plaid winter coat, with a fur hood pulled close over his head, Edbert seemed oblivious to the cold as he put long leather leashes on the wolfhounds. When they had sniffed the stuffed sheep he snapped his fingers.
“Seek,” he said firmly. “Seek.”
The dogs cast about the farmyard quartering the ground with care, but for a tense few minutes, they could find nothing. Then Lupo’s tail went up and he gave an excited whimper. Seconds later Canis caught the same scent. Then they were off, all but dragging Edbert in their wake. Dai and Bryn got in the all-wheel and followed, leaving the farmer and his wife to wait and hope.

It was an uphill trek, and even Edbert’s formidable fitness was being tried by the rough terrain. After nearly three quarters of an hour of sinew-stretching running and careful driving,  Dai was about to call a rest halt when the dogs lost the scent in the bottom of a rocky valley. Bryn looked stricken, but Dai had more faith in the dogs who cast carefully about the scree-covered valley bottom before drawing a blank. The dogs whined and Edbert encouraged them up to the slope to where they obediently ran around seeking the elusive trail. Dai was beginning to think his faith in the hounds might have been misplaced when Canis lifted his head and gave an excited whine.
“They’ve only found it,” Bryn whispered, “they’ve only gone and found it”.
Before Dai could think of a suitable response the dogs and Edbert had breasted the rise and the hunt was on again.

They seemed to have reached the apex of the hills and the trail led across the tops now where the wind whistled unforgivingly around the stunted trees. Bryn looked increasingly grim, and Dai himself wondered how a small child dressed only in his nightshirt and dressing gown would cope with such cold or indeed, could have travelled so far on his own. Before his imagination could go any further the dogs stopped again, but this time they stood stock still pointing, with their tongues lolling and their eyes sparkling. Edbert beckoned, and Dai stopped the all-wheeler. He and Bryn jumped down.

Once they were out, it was obvious why Edbert wouldn’t take Canis and Lupo any closer. The small sleeping figure was curled up between the woolly bodies of two sheep, with his booted feet sticking out, and a lamb clutched to his chest. Bryn looked at Dai and his eyes were suspiciously bright.
“I really thought we might be looking for a body,” he said.
“Me too,” Edbert admitted in his slow, deep voice.
Dai didn’t waste time talking, he crossed to the sleeping child and put a gentle hand on the head of rough, dark curls.
“Cadell,” he said quietly, “time to go home”.
The little boy sat up and studied Dai through round black eyes.
“Ewythr,” he said and held up his arms.

It was hours later when the medicus had examined Cadell and declared him none the worse for his ordeal, and Edbert and the dogs had made their own way home, that Dai and Bryn climbed back into their transport.
“No point in heading for Viriconium, now,” Dai said genially. “We may as well knock off a bit early and go home to our wives.”
He put his hand into the pocket where his Lupercalia gift for Julia lay, only to find the pocket empty. For a moment the cold of the mountains reached in to touch his soul. He searched with increasing desperation, but it was nowhere to be found.
“Bryn,” he said in a tense thread of a voice. “I’ve lost Julia’s present. It must have fallen out of my pocket somewhere.”
Bryn smiled wryly.
“It did, Bard. Out on the hill. When you bent to pick up young Cadell.”
“What? Did you pick it up?”
“No. I didn’t even see it fall…”
Dai was sure he looked as puzzled and irritated as he felt. “What are you telling me you spado? Is it still up there on the hillside?”
“No.” Bryn put a hand in his own pocket and grinned. “It’s here. Lupo must have seen you drop it and he retrieved. He fetched it to Edbert, who gave it to me because you were busy.”
Dai took the pouch and dusted it off with a trembling hand.
“I owe that dog a great big bone.”

©E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago February 2018

Glossary of Non-English Terms
Please note these are not always accurate translations, they are how these terms are used in Dai and Julia’s world.
Eboracum – we would call it York.
Ewythr – uncle
Lupercalia – once celebrated with raucous rabbles running through the street, by Dai and Julia’s day it is much more like our own Valentine’s Day.
Spado – literally ‘eunuch’, metaphorically ‘stupid fool’.
Viriconium – we would call it Wroxeter.

You can collect the Dai and Julia Mysteries as individual novellas or snag The First Dai and Julia Omnibus and The Second Dai and Julia Omnibus by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

Her unknown admirer sent her flowers every day. Simple garden flowers simply arranged, but as freshly lovely as the dawn.

On Valentines Day she searched through the extravagant bouquets until she found her admirer’s card on a hand tied bunch of anemones. 

They made her smile and she chose them over orchids and forced roses. She carried them to the ball that night, selecting a dress that echoed their subtle colours.

Perhaps he watched as she held his flowers to her peachy cheek. Perhaps she danced with him that night. Perhaps he even stole a kiss.

She would never know.

©️jj 2019

The whole thing rolled on for another cycle, with its own momentum, setting their agenda, pushing them further into places they didn’t want to be and forcing them to fight to hold ground they had never wanted to conquer. But whilst Jaz was aware that he and Blondie could see some purpose in it all, knowing why they were gridlocked into the ‘City, Avilon was just getting restless.
“We got that stake yet?” he asked, as they walked to the doors of one of the upmarket casinos now under the dominion of Durban Chola. “The one we were going to earn so we could leave? Or are we staying here — doing this — until, whenever?”
Jaz mustered a grin of sorts. He could wish Avilon would choose his moments better. This visit to Tolly Hagen was long overdue and they had a few important matters to discuss regarding some missing back payments from his upmarket nightclub. They needed to be focused on that.
“We’re getting there, but right now I need —”
The mini-drone shot burned into Avilon’s shoulder. Even as he went down, Jaz had the thing sited and fired to clip it out of the air.  A classic Special’s technique, the kind where you either learned to do things the low-tech way or you died trying. Then he was moving for the cover Avilon had already rolled into, a small alcove in the decorative collonaded facade around the main doors into the building.
“If they have more of them —” Avilon started.
“Then we’ll have a busy time, brother,” Jaz told him. “How’s the shoulder?”
“Not good.”
Jaz made his decision.
“Let’s get out of here. We’ll sort this bastard another time.”
No one tried to stop them leaving and Jaz linked to the man they had been going to talk to as soon as they were heading back to the mansion and it’s small clinic.
“Jaz, my friend, You were supposed to be here by now. Where are you?”
“Your drone missed, Tolly. But I won’t.”
“Drone? That wasn’t me, Jaz.” The other man was suddenly sounding frightened. “Why would I set you up for something?”
“It was on your doorstep Tolly, don’t pretend you knew nothing about it ’til I just told you. Your security would have seen it and should have shot it out the air long before it got near me.”
“Jaz — you have got to believe me. I didn’t know. Give me a couple of days I’ll find out what happened — please, Jaz. This is not my doing.” He was close to tears from terror.
Jaz thought a moment.
“This time tomorrow Tolly. And that’s the biggest favour anyone ever loaned you.”
“I know. Thank you, my friend, you will not regr —”
Jaz cut the link.
“What is that about?” Avilon asked.
“I don’t know. But I’m not going to play games around it. I’m getting us in some military quality hardware. Armament belts. Weapons. If people want to get in my sandbox they can start paying the price on the door to do so.”

From Haruspex: Edge of Doom by E.M. Swift-Hook a Fortune’s Fool book. 

“We’re in space. There cannot be water dripping.”

“No. What’s that smegging noise then?”

“There is no noise.”

But Zammo knew there was noise. He also knew nobody was gonna do smeg. So he suited up. Getting one of the more reliable drones to man the airlock he went out. He turned his face to the direction from which the noise had come, and his jaw dropped so fast it cracked against the plexiglass of his helmet. His feet were on solid ground, and there was vegetation around him. He took off his helmet and walked away from the ship.

©️jj 2019

“Captain’s Log update. Further to the recent encounter with the last human colony in the Calamarti Sector, The Golden Strand is currently moving into uncharted space. We are following up on reports of the existence of a mythical and demonic alien race. The Kyruku.”
Captain Gervain’s elegant and poised outline could be seen silhouetted in profile against the receding planet as she finished recording her log.
“Do you believe the colonists, Captain?”
The youthful-looking science officer lacked expression in both her voice and her face. Despite the question, she displayed zero curiosity. It was as if the captain’s response, whatever it might be, was of no more than academic interest to her.
“I don’t know,” Gervain admitted after a moment of reflection. “Sub-Commander Stude seems to think the colonists have some genuine grounds to believe they do exist. He says the landing team he led met too many who had stories to tell about them for it to be a complete myth. But all I really heard from him was wild stories of the curse they are supposed to carry.”
“It is completely irrational to believe such accounts,” Science Officer Chay agreed, her tone clipped. “To accord any credence to the entire concept of a curse requires an irrational and superstitious mindset.”
The captain lifted one eyebrow and leaned closer to her colleague, lowering her voice so the rest of the crew wouldn’t hear. “Between you and me, I think you have Arlan Stude pinned, Xexe. You don’t get much more irrational and superstitious than he is.” She smiled knowingly at her science officer, who blinked and tilted her head.
“I am not sure I can agree with you, Captain. In my experience, Sub-Commander Stude makes highly rational decisions.”
The captain drew a sharp breath, but whatever she had been going to say next was silenced on her tongue. The lights on the flight deck suddenly flickered and a siren began blaring the “High Alert” warning. Both women turned and looked towards the huge viewing screen, just as a brick-shaped vessel shimmered into view against the backdrop of stars. It looked ugly, with the rusted colour of its hull and the alien technology appearing to human eyes like protruding pincers, needles and claw shapes.
“Will you look at that?” The expression on Captain Gervain’s face was a well-crafted blend of wonder and horror. Beside her, the deadpan of the science officer was a brilliant counterpoint. High emotion set against pure mentation.
“I see it, Captain. It is there. The Kyruku. Do. Exist.”
Two such different female faces, one shot. Perfect.

Joah Meer glanced from the monitor view back to the studio where the two women stood in an empty room staring, rapt, at a blank wall. They really were very good. She had them hold their pose for a few seconds longer than was strictly needed, stopped the recording and smiled.
“Nice work. Take five and then we’ll be setting up to get the fight scene recorded.”
Heila, whose role as captain of The Golden Strand had lasted three seasons so far, stretched slowly as if she had been cramped, and glared at Joah.
“I’m not doing that hurling myself around on the floor thing again, so don’t ask.”
“Never, darling,” Joah said, soothingly. “You might get another bruise, and you have a full-exposure publicity shoot tomorrow.”
Beside her, no longer stone-faced, Zarshay snorted and broke into a grin. Heila scowled at her.
“So funny?”
“Full exposure? Oh my, the life of a leading lady.”
Which was enough to send Heila stalking out in high dudgeon. Zarshay was still grinning as she navigated through the two tech-droids and their human keeper, Wilf, to reach Joah’s console. Joah opened her arms and hugged her tight, lifting her off her feet as they kissed.
“Seriously? You have booked Heila for a skin shoot?”
Joah shook her head.
“Of course not, it’s just a usual media thing, but she has been getting so precious recently, I’ve been tempted. It’s like she thinks we should change Starways Pathfinders to The Heila Camarthy Show.”
Zarshay made a rude noise and laughed.
But something of the tension was still there when they were adding the space-battle scenes.

From ‘Star Dust’ by E.M.Swift-Hook one of the stories set in The Last City a shared-world science fiction anthology from Dust Publishing

Before the world drove them apart he helped her to plant daffodils on her parents’ grave. 

When the green shoots poked their noses through the grass, the sight of them hurt so much she could barely draw breath. 

But today was Mum’s birthday, so she dragged herself to the cemetery moving like an automaton. The grave was covered with yellow, nodding daffodils and that was beyond bearing. She knelt on the cold ground weeping silently, when a voice she never thought to hear again spoke from behind her.

“I’m home. If you will have me…”

She turned into his embrace.

©️jj 2019