As soon as she saw the richly caparisoned camels, she knew their brief respite was over.

Even as she gifted the old men her serene smile, Magdala knew what must happen now. Yusuf knew it too, and he began the well-rehearsed process of packing while the venerable ones pontificated.

The moment the bright cavalcade was out of sight, she tied the babe in his sling at her breast, and turned her blue cloak inside out to show the plain brown of its lining.

They walked out into the frozen night, leaving the unsuitable gifts glittering in the warm straw.

©️jj 2018

It was cozy in the cottage with the curtains pulled tightly against the cold night and the fire burning brightly. With the little ones tucked up in bed, Martha and Joe had leisure to fill three brightly coloured knitted socks with Yuletide bounty. Joe’s big hands were as gentle and careful with the tiny presents as if he held his children newborn again.
“It still amazes me how you managed to cram three babes in there,” he said, and rubbed Martha’s stomach affectionately.
“Me too,” but her smile was rueful and he caught the edges of pain in her eyes.
He put down the presents and the sock and went to kneel beside his wife’s chair.
“Why do you worry heart of my heart?”
“We know there will be no more babies. And… A man needs sons.”
He drew her close and kissed her cheeks and eyelids.
“This man needs his Martha, and his three beautiful daughters.”
She looked into his face for a long moment then rested her forehead against the breadth of his shoulder.
“Have you never thought that another woman could have given you sons?”
“No,” he said gently. “No more than you’ve thought that the man your father chose for you to marry could have afforded to dress you in silk and buy the toy mouseys your babies fell in love with at the Yuletide Fair.”
Martha thought about that then touched one small hand to her husband’s bearded cheek. She shuddered as if at a sad memory.
“You are right. I have never thought like that. Since I was a little girl I knew I would wed you and none other. And I am the happiest of wives. But not everybody is like us, and when I saw the man Da wanted me to marry raise his fist to his poor downtrodden little wife at the Fair I could have cried for the pity of her.”
Joe looked sombre. “Aye it looks very bad. The men talked about it in the forge after the Fair closed. Sadly, we can do nothing about him unless she asks. Which she won’t. Did you think him a violent man when you refused him?”
“I never thought him anything but not my Joe.”
This earned her a tender kiss, before they went back to packing the socks with those gifts they had saved all year to buy. They had finished their joyful task and Joe was busy heating a stoup of spiced ale when there came an almost shy tap on the door. The dogs did no more than open their eyes slightly, which meant they were unconcerned.
Martha went to the door and opened it to find her own father, a man who had not spoken a word to her since the day she married against his will, standing outside in the sifting snow. She raised her brows.
“I had not thought to see you on my doorstep. Is aught amiss?”
Her father reddened and shuffled his feet looking for all the world like a schoolboy caught in a neighbour’s orchard. Martha laughed.
“Since you are here you’d best come in.”
He came into the warmth, carefully wiping his boots on the rag rug. Joe handed him a mug of mulled ale and he sipped it.
“Martha,” he said in a very quiet voice. “I think I’ve come to apologise.”
“You think?”
He folded his lips, and for a moment it looked as if his pride would keep him silent, but then he shook his head.
“No. I know I’ve come to apologise and see if I can set things right between us…”
“It’s been four years Da. Why now?”
“Because four years is too long to nurse my stubbornness. Because there isn’t a day goes by when I don’t miss you. Because you won’t let your Mam help you out with a bit of money now and again. Because I want to know my grandbabies. Because…” He spread his hands in a gesture of defeat before ploughing on. “As your Mam and I walked to the fair I told her I was ready to forgive you if you would only say you were sorry for defying me.”
Martha made a spluttering noise and Joe laid a hand on her shoulder.
“Let the man finish,” he said quietly.
Father spoke on in a voice roughened by some strong emotion. “Your Mam laughed at me. Said you had nothing to be sorry for. Said if I wanted to be your father again it was for me to admit I was wrong. I wasn’t going to do it. Not even when I saw you surrounded by your daughters and it felt as if my heart was being pulled from my chest. No. I wasn’t going to say I was wrong. Then I saw him. I saw the man I wanted to give you to, and I saw his wife. I saw the shadows in her eyes. I saw the bruises on her face. And I saw that it could have been  you.” He looked Martha directly in the face. “I’m sorry, love. I was wrong and you were right. Joe may not have wealth, but I see how he loves you. Can you forgive a stubborn old fool?”
Martha said nothing, but she opened wide her arms and her father embraced her with tenderness and longing, and hope of forgiveness.
It was some while before father and daughter got themselves together enough to speak, and even then there was some little constraint as each remembered the harsh words they had used to  the other. Joe smiled down on them from his great height.
“Will you come and see the little ones after church tomorrow?”
“We would love that. Mother and me would truly love that. But now I must go home, before I disgrace myself with unmanly tears.”
He kissed Martha and wrung Joe’s hand before taking something from his capacious pockets and putting it on the scrubbed wood of the table.
“For my granddaughters.”
Then he ducked his head and all but ran from the warmth of the cottage kitchen out onto the snowy street.
Martha sat at the table, rendered silent by disbelief.
Joe went to her side and she turned her face into the warm flannel of his shirt. He held her gently.
“Let’s just drink our ale and talk about this in the morning.”
Martha nodded gratefully.
They climbed the stairs together. At the top Martha turned to look back into the firelit kitchen, where three little socks hung on the mantel – only each one now had a coveted toy mousey right at the very top.

©️Jane Jago 2018

He took the tiny baby home wrapped in his coat. She was all but drowned and blue with the cold. But he had to try. Fortunately his wife had plenty of milk for two babies, and the sort of nature that mothers everything.

It was months before they traced her family, and the lord who fathered her requested that they keep her a while…

Sixteen years later somebody remembered her and a knight rode in on a tall horse. 

Three days later he rode away.

But he came back. In time to claim her and the child in her belly.

©️jj 2018

The name’s Nero, Sam Nero. Private eye and augmented android. Me and my holographic sidekick, Sugar, operate out of an office on the fifty-fifth level of The Last City. We do okay. But some days are a bit bumpier than others…

If you missed the first instalments you can catch up here.

I heard the staccato snap of high heels crossing the floor and Katie’s hand sneaked into mine.
“If I asked nicely, would you lend me a shooter, Sam?”
“What happened to your little stingy gun, babe?”
“Had to lose it when I shot some kid through the leg.”
I laughed. “Taking liberties was he?”
She nodded. “Now. About that shooter.”
“No. I’m not lending you heat so you can shoot your daddy. No matter how pissed off you are.”
Her laughter was lazy, and throaty, and warm.
“I wasn’t really going to shoot him. Just wanted to scare the cold bastard as much as he scared me.”
“Fair enough. But the answer is still no.”
“Spoilsport.”
She left hold of my hand and I heard her walking back to daddy, only this time her footfalls didn’t sound so all-fired mad.

Myk put a big hand on my shoulder and I turned to see a smile in his eyes. He signed “good work,” and we fist-bumped.

We carried on looking at the trees as they speared their way into the ‘sky’ until the voices behind us finally wound down. I turned to see Katie Scarlett with her arms around her father and her face buried in his shoulder.
“Not crying, I hope. You’ll mess your face up good if you are.”
“Nope. Not cryin’ just settlin’.”

O’Halleran motioned to a big table that looked as if it might have been made of real tree wood, and we all took seats. There was a bottle in the middle of the table, and a tray of crystal glasses the like of which I didn’t think I had ever seen before. Katie Scarlett poured ten-year-old bourbon with a lavish hand.
“And now,” she fixed me with a steely gaze, “I think Mister Nero has some explaining to do.”
Zig signed something to her, but the moves were so quick and so subtle that I didn’t catch any of it. Whatever it was brought red flags of embarrassment to her cheeks, and she cast down her eyes.
“Sorry Sam. Uncalled for.”
I handed around my best good old boy grin.
“No worries, babe. And I do have some explaining.”
I touched my wrist unit and Sugar appeared in the vacant chair at the foot of the table. O’Halleran licked his lips, and that riled me.
“A little respect, now, or we walk.”
He glared at me for a long moment, and opened his mouth to say who knew what, but Katie Scarlett forestalled him.
“Manners Daddy. Sugar may only be a hologram, but she is still entitled to be treated respectfully.”
The big man subsided and I nodded to Sugar.
“We are here,” she spoke briskly and not at all in her usual breathy little girl voice, “to talk about why anybody might find it worth their while to poison Mister O’Halleran’s mind against Sam and Katie Scarlett. I have some information that might clear things up a bit.”
As soon as she stopped speaking a short movie played itself out on the white wall opposite her chair. It was night and two figures walked along an unfamiliar street. The woman was wrapped around the man like a morning glory vine, and they stopped under a convenient street lamp for a bit of canoodling. The man’s hands were all over the woman, and as she lifted her face to be kissed Katie Scarlett’s features were revealed. Then the man turned his head.

For an instant Katie Scarlett stared, then she sprung up from her seat like a vengeful goddess.

She’s fast, but I’m faster and I was on my feet in time to catch the clawing hands and hold her away from me as she kicked and screamed. It took her a goodish while to recognise that she was getting nowhere, and soon as she started running down I transferred both of her wrists to one hand and used the other to lift her chin.
I made my voice hard.
“Katie Scarlett, you need to stop acting like a baby and just listen to me. You’re all over snot and you’re making an exhibition of yourself. Capiche?”
For a long moment her reaction hung in the balance, then I felt the tension leave her body. I handed her my handkerchief and she blew her nose firmly. She made to hand the crumpled square of linen back, with the ghost of her three cornered smile hovering above her lips.
“You keep it babe.”
“Thank you most to death, Sam. But who? That’s not me? Isn’t you either is it?”
“No. It isn’t either one of us.”
“Will somebody please explain,” Mister Aitch sounded both bemused and dangerous.
“It’s simple, if you think instead of reacting,” Sugar’s icy tones acted like a douche of cold water. “Somebody, somewhere spent a lot of money setting Sam and Katie up. You wanna know who?”
“Oh. I want to know all right.” The big man looked at his daughter. “You gonna forgive me?”
She gave him the cold eye for a moment, then smiled a sad smile. “I guess I gotta. I almost believed it was me myself.”
Sugar watched them tolerantly for a while before bringing the meeting back to order.
“At first Sam and I thought the security camera footage was completely faked, but we were wrong. That camera saw what we saw. So how was it done?”
The picture on the wall grew bigger as it zoomed in and focussed on the man’s hands. At first it blurred and shook, before steadying and sharpening.
Katie caught on before her father.
“Why, it’s a droid.”
Mister Aitch stared at the wall.
“So it is. And a pretty darned expensive one.”
Katie shrugged. “It’s good, but they can never get the fingernails quite right.”
I found myself looking at my own hands, then I dragged my gaze away to find Sugar smiling at me. I smiled back and dropped her the ghost of a wink.

Mister Aitch leaned his elbows on the table.
“What else you got to tell me?”
I took over.
“What about who made the droid and who paid him to make it?”
“Now you are talking.”
I signed to Myk, who left the room walking quietly.
Katie quirked an eyebrow at me, and I showed her my blandest face.

To be continued…

©️Jane Jago 2018

You can find the first Sam Nero story in Dust Publishing's anthology The Last City together with other stories about his fellow Citizens...

“She won’t divorce him.”

“Why would she?”

Ella stamped her foot. “Because I want to marry him.”

“So have at least ten other girls.”

“But I’m different.”

Father looked up and snorted. “You had better not be sleeping with him.”

It was Ella’s turn to snort. “What kind of a fool do you think I am?”

Mother’s raised eyebrow was enough to silence the brothers.

It almost goes without saying that he pretty soon found someone who wasn’t so careful of her virtue. If Ella shed a tear nobody saw, but she did send flowers and chocolates to his wife.

©️jj 2018

It was just past midnight, though the sky seemed extra dark
And all the little steam engines were gathered in the park
Then something broke the silence with a rattle and a creak
The oldest engine cleared his tubes, and he began to speak

“There are not many nights”, he said, “when we are gathered near
So I would tell a tale if you might have the will to hear”
The wheezing and the whistling was no louder than a breeze
And yet a tiny engine whispered, “Will you tell us please?”

“It happened very long ago, my father’s father’s story
When Owen Owen rode the rails to fame and shining glory
He was just an engine, and his livery quite worn
He pulled the ore from down the mine and worked from night to morn

But then one day in winter, he was give a big surprise
His driver and an engineer they fitted him with eyes
Clear and shining brass they were and bright to light the way
And driver said they made the mine as bright as any day

What Owen engine thought of them was never very clear
But those bright eyes they lit the miners way throughout the year
For two days every winter the pit was put to bed
And Owen Owen engine was left peaceful in his shed

He quite enjoyed the rest he felt his heavy toil had bought
And closing down his brassy eyes he sat in happy thought
Until one night when all around the fog was thick and yellow
His rest was interrupted by a fat and jolly fellow

‘Owen Owen’, said the man, ‘I’ve come to ask your aid
I’ve toys to take to children but the reindeer are afraid
They cannot see through this thick murk and fear to break their legs
Will you help us out dear chap? Or do I have to beg?’

And Owen Owen smiled a smile as wide as wide could be
‘Open up the shed’ he said, ‘that’s just the job for me’
And so it came about upon that darkling winter’s night
That Owen Owen guided Santa with his eyes so bright.”

And every engine in the park gave a quiet beep
Before they closed their iron minds and tumbled back to sleep.

©️jane jago 2018

The name’s Nero, Sam Nero. Private eye and augmented android. Me and my holographic sidekick, Sugar, operate out of an office on the fifty-fifth level of The Last City. We do okay. But some days are a bit bumpier than others…

If you missed the first instalment you can catch up here.

Once the panel had shut gently behind him I opened the office door. I gave Katie Scarlett just the merest suspicion of a wink before coming out and carefully closing up behind me. I looked at the two big droids.
“Nobody goes in there without my say-so. That’s nobody.”
They looked to Katie for approval and she nodded.
The bigger of the two spoke.
“That means not even Miss O’Halleran?”
She nodded again.
“Sam will have his reasons.”
“I do have. For now you need to speak to all the staff Katie Scarlett, assure them that everything is being taken care of.”
“I can do that. And you will be?”
I waved my fingers and she swallowed.
“Hacking, huh?”
“I prefer to call it exploration.”
She managed a wan little smile, and turned away with a deliberate swing of her hips.
“And Katie,” I spoke to her retreating back and she turned to look over her shoulder. “Don’t speak to any family members.”
She showed me her even, white teeth in a taut grin
“I won’t.”

I waved Myk and Zig after her, then went back into the blood-spattered office. Twenty minutes got me everything I needed to know and I went in search of Katie. I found her sitting at the bar moodily sipping what looked to be a very large martini. I must have raised an eyebrow because she pushed it towards me.
“Virgin, Sam. You can taste it if you don’t believe me.” She didn’t sound too fond of me so I favoured her with my best overgrown schoolboy grin.
“None of my nevermind, Katie Scarlett,” I said pacifically.
“It could be your nevermind if you wanted,” her voice turned into honey being poured over warm rocks and she licked her full lower lip with an adorably pointed pink tongue.
I leaned over and swatted that portion of her excellent backside which wasn’t resting on the barstool.
“Behave, Katie Scarlett. There’s a game on.”
For a second she pouted, but underneath the flouncing and posturing she’s daddy’s daughter through and through, so she sat upright and regarded me flatly.
“There is? Then it’s about time I was told who’s playing.”
“I guess it is about time I filled you in. But not here. And not quite yet.”
Her diamond-bright gaze raked my face as sharply as a set of painted fingernails. Whatever she saw in that face must have satisfied her because she nodded briefly.
“When?”
“In twenty minutes or so, if everything pulls together.”
She crossed a pair of silk clad legs and crooked a finger at the bar droid.
“I’ll have a proper martini, and Mister Nero will have a bourbon on the rocks.”
The droid almost bowed before scuttling off.
“What’s with the barkeep?”
“Oh. They all think Daddy is gone. And that makes me the boss. And they aren’t sure they like the idea.”
I grinned. “And why would that be?”
“Because I have an eye for detail, and I don’t have patience with anyone or anything that doesn’t do its job.”
“I just bet you don’t.”
The bar droid came back with the drinks and she flashed it a dazzling smile.

Katie Scarlett took a sip and inhaled the icy vapour.
“Sam,” she said and her voice was kinda soft and appealing, “am I ugly?”
I looked at her assessingly allowing my eyes to caress her creamy skin, and I was rewarded by a rosy blush that spread up her long throat and mantled her cheeks.
“No,” I said, “and you know you aren’t. But that’s not the question is it?”
She met my eyes bravely. “It isn’t. You know what the question is.”
“I do. But I promised your daddy that I wouldn’t explain.”

We finished our drinks in silence, and I looked at my watch. I was just beginning to think I would have to ask for a few more moments when the cellphone in my pocket bleeped. I pulled it out and the readout was what I was waiting for. I stood up and offered Katie Scarlett my arm.

She looked puzzled for a second then put one red nailed hand on my sleeve.  I signalled Myk and Zig to follow us and we made our way to the private elevator.
“Where to?” I could feel the waves of puzzlement coming from her rigid figure.
“Your daddy’s apartment.”
“Okay, but we won’t be able to get in.”
I lifted one eyebrow and Katie gave a small moue of defeat. She put one slim hand to a palm plate.
“Daddy’s apartment.”
The elevator moved with a silky smoothness that spoke volumes of money and maintenance. The doors hissed open and the four of us stepped out into a white painted foyer with a thickly carpeted floor. Opposite us was a set of double doors, painted to look like wood, but if I’d have been a betting man I’d have put the farm on them being plasteel.

I took the card out of my pocket and applied it to the almost invisible plate beside the doors. Katie Scarlett opened her mouth, but I forestalled her with a finger across those delicious red lips. It almost went without saying that the door which slid open wasn’t even in the same wall as the imposing looking ‘entrance’. I chuckled inwardly as I shepherded Katie and the twins inside, the door closed behind us and we found ourselves in another elevator. It was a quick trip, I guessed one floor only.

This time the door opened into a big room, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a view over the rooftops of Level 39 to where trees and grass grew in the only municipal park in this level.
“That you, Nero?” a voice called from what I guess was the kitchen.
Katie Scarlett swayed like a leaf in the wind and I braced her with my hands around her slender waist.
“Yes it’s me. And I have your daughter with me.”
O’Halleran barrelled out of a door to our left and grasped Katie Scarlett in his brawny arms. I signed to Myk and Zig and the three of us went to enjoy the view. The low-voiced conversation behind us went on for some time, and it seemed to me that Mister Aitch was having some small difficulty pacifying his little girl.

To be continued…

©️Jane Jago 2018

You can find the first Sam Nero story in Dust Publishing's anthology The Last City together with other stories about his fellow Citizens...

“Come for a walk,” Tom said. “Maybe we can sort it out walking.”

But they couldn’t. Ended up silently staring at the ducks in the muddy pond. 

When the old lady slipped into the water Tom sprinted, grasping her wrists in his strong brown hands and hauling her onto the bank.

Much later, Belle found her hand in his as they walked home.

“I learned something today,” he said.

“You did?”

Tom smiled down at her.

“Yup. I learned that I want that with you.”

“What with me?”

“What them two have. Will you marry me?”

“No.”

“Please Belle.”

“Okay…”

©️jj 2018

Why do you want me to get up and go?
I’m really quite comfortable here.
Why won’t you do something relaxing and slow?
Like reading or pouring a beer.
You won’t get me cycling, I can’t ride a bike
And a fall is so dignity stripping
I’m likewise not up for an afternoon hike
Just hate to be sweaty and dripping
I’m not against exercise in the right time
I walked before you were awake
And now I’m enjoying this nice glass of wine
So will you shut up, for ****’s sake

©️jane jago 2018