Since Ben and Joss Beckett took over The Fair Maid and Falcon, they have had to deal with ghosts, gangsters and well dodgy goings-on. Despite that they have their own family of twin daughters and dogs, and a fabulous ‘found family’ of friends. Life seems to be going well when…

It was all Ben’s fault. If he hadn’t suggested we buy two overgrown paddocks, and a small orchard that backs onto the pub garden, none of this would have happened. But he did, and it did. And at least it’ll make a good story for our grandchildren – if he lives long enough to tell it.
But to begin at the beginning.
Ben returned from a meeting of the Parish Council wearing his thoughtful face.
“You got a minute chooch?”
I nodded and he more or less dragged me out of the office and across the garden to our private patio. He sat down on our favourite bench and I cuddled in beside him.
“What’s got you so excited?”
“It’s about the orchard. The one that Jed is dying to get his hands on.”
Jed being the young giant who runs our thriving market garden for us, I nodded encouragingly.
“I’ve just found out that it’s up for sale. The only downside is it comes with the two paddocks on the other side of the lane.”
“I take it the paddocks are of no interest.”
“Not any use for growing stuff, Jed says. But he’d rather like to keep a couple of goats.”
“And we know this because?”
He blushed and shuffled his feet a bit. “I might have been to see him and asked what he thought.”
I couldn’t help laughing at six feet of handsome hunk squirming under my gaze. Sensing that he was off the hook, Ben laughed too.
“Yeah. I know. I was thinking we might get the twins a pony.”
“No. We will not.” I snapped my teeth together. “Nobody has the first idea how to look after a pony, or the time to do it.”
His grin was entirely unapologetic. “I know that now. Jed called me a bliddy fule and Finoula went so far as to bet me a tenner you’d veto the idea straight off.”
I shook my head helplessly. “You owe her a tenner, and you should be feeling grateful that I don’t have the energy to box your ears.”
“What has eaten up your energy, love?”
“We had a mega-madam in at lunchtime. She was rude to just about everyone who dealt with her. Then, after eating all her meal, she decided it wasn’t what she ordered and announced that she wasn’t going to pay for it. She elected to storm off in well-rehearsed indignation. Morgan was managing food service, so she went after her, and the bitch managed to ‘slip’ on a nonexistent damp patch on the floor and whilst ‘saving herself’ backhanded Morg across the face. Hard. I happened to be passing through and I caught that. The ‘lady’ in question found herself in the car park so fast her feet didn’t touch ground. There were a couple of off-duty cops in for tapas and they came out to see the fun. Stupid woman almost got herself arrested for trying to slap one of them, but at least she fecked off. Even so, we’re out the price of her lunch.”
“Oh dear. But we’ve had worse.”
“We have, and we have a video of her getting in my face and swearing, if she chooses to go on social media with her version of events. But she gave me a headache. And poor little Morgan has a nasty cut on her face from madam’s cheap jewellery.”
Morgan is my young assistant and the stepdaughter of our long-term family friend Mark Brown, the managing director of Brown Brothers Security (a very profitable concern that walks a thin line between legitimate security and less legal enforcement). Ben and I love her like she is one of our own tribe and he immediately understood my disquiet. He pulled me into his lap and we cuddled for a minute or two.
“It’s Morgan’s face that upset you isn’t it?”
“Course it is. Far more than it upset her.”
“Where’s Morgan now?”
“She insisted on finishing her shift, but when she was finished, I gave Stella an hour off to take her to see her mum. Stella’s back in the kitchen, baking bread, and she said Debs will bring Morgan home in the morning and that I was specifically ordered not to worry.”
“Maybe try not to worry then.”
“I’m better now I’ve told you.”
“I wonder if I could think of something to make you even more better.” He leered theatrically. “If I remember rightly the gruesome twosome are off to a birthday bash straight from school.”
“I keep telling you not to refer to our charming daughters as gruesome.” I poked him in the ribs, but couldn’t help giggling at the most doting daddy in the land pretending not to be besotted by his daughters. “However. They are indeed out enjoying the fleshpots. We have to pick them up from Maccy D’s at seven o’clock.”
He stood up with me in his arms.
“Plenty of time then.”
A good while later, smoothed and with my headache quite gone, I leaned my elbows on Ben’s chest.
“Tell me about this land.”
“You know about the orchard, and the two scruffy paddocks. Plus there’s a bit of a field that Jed is itching to incorporate into the market garden. It’s about six acres in all.”
“I’m assuming it’s covenanted.”
“Yes. As it falls within the purlieu of the forest it’s not building land, so pasture or market garden.”
“How much are we going to be needing to pay? If it’s full value for agricultural land that might even be ten grand an acre. Which I’m not sure we can justify.”
“That was what I thought. But the present owner wants rid of it as simply and quickly as possible. Offered it to the Parish Council for 25k. The council has no use for the land and no money to buy it. That’s how come it’s been offered to us at the same price.”
“And what do your council chums get in return?”
His grin nearly split his face. “Jack Ellis said we’d not get that past you. I absolutely agreed, but the rest of the dinosaurs were convinced they could outsmart a mere woman. The buggers are after someone to cut the grass in the churchyard. They’re willing to pay, just not what the local contractors want.”
Jack and Brenda Ellis farm the land that borders on the pub, and they have become good friends in the time we have been here, even if Jack is a bit of a rogue. I was pretty sure he’d have been right with Ben, so I drew a bolt at venture.
“What did Jed say about grass cutting? I’m darned sure you and Jack asked him.”
“Said it’s fine by him. So long as it’s cash in hand. Which, I think, was only to discomfit the dinosaurs. Jack went off laughing. Wished me luck.”
I sniggered and polished my fingernails against the front of a shirt I wasn’t wearing before I spoke.
“Twenty-five thousand is eminently find-able.” I thought a bit more. “Even though I don’t see how we can charge anything to the Fair Maid, I’m pretty sure the orchard and the small field can be set against the market garden. And as they will both count as arable land there should be a substantial write-off.”
Ben shook his head admiringly. “Your business brain never fails to amaze me. Now I even begin to see why you insisted on keeping the two businesses separate.”
“That’s only part of the reason. There’s people’s homes at stake too. The way things stand, Jed and Finoula are secure even if the Fair Maid goes tits up. Not that there’s any chance of that while I have breath in my body.”
“Speaking of bodies…”

There will be more from Joss, Ben and their friends, courtesy of Jane Jago, next week, or you can catch up with their earlier adventures in Who Put Her In and Who Pulled Her Out.

Because life can be interesting when you are a non-player character in an online video game…

Milla felt as if she had become suddenly invisible as the two talked in an indecipherable code.
“Is there anything I can do?” she asked as a translucent ring of shields appeared around Pigsy.
Pew shook his head. “Unless… Is your pendant recharged?”
She glanced down and saw it was once again glowing with brilliant light.
“It seems to be.”
He gripped her arm briefly. “When I ask for manapower, do what you did before.”
Then Pigsy was bounding at the figure on the throne and for the next few moments Milla was blinded by dazzling spell effects. In the midst of it all she heard String shout “Out!” and she had to step back against the wall as the two Visitors nearly crushed her.
“It’s self healing,” Pew said, a real hint of desperation in his tone, “and I’ll be out of manapower soon.”
Beneath the throne Ruffkin was scrabbling at the back of his cage and as she watched him, her heart aching, Milla realised that there was a simple sliding bolt holding it shut. The two men had moved in again and Milla made up her mind. Even if they couldn’t defeat this lich lord, maybe she could rescue Ruffkin whilst it was distracted by having to defend itself. She reached out her hand and sent the manapower from her pendant to Pew, then slipped around the walls, careful to avoid the combat zone. The Visitors and their foe were so focused on the fight none of them noticed her as she left the safety of the wall and ran quickly in and up the steps to the throne from behind.
Ruffkin saw her and redoubled his efforts to escape, scabbling desperately. She reached the cage just as String shouted “Out!” again. But she ignored him. The boney bolt slipped as she tried to grip it, and then jammed solid. She drew the knife Pew had given her, hoping she could prize the bolt open with the point of it. Instead, the cage burst apart as soon as the tip of the blade touched it. Ruffkin shot out and pausing only to lick at her face, scurried to the back wall where Milla could now see there was a small hole in the shadows.
From the doorway she heard a shout.
“No! Pew!”
She looked back in time to see a bolt of black lightning piece through Pew’s chest, lifting him off the ground before he collapsed unmoving.
“Nooo!” Her own anguished shout echoed back String’s words and without thinking of the danger she leapt onto the rear of the throne and stabbed down with the dagger into the back of the lich lord. The force of the explosion threw her against the wall and the world dissolved into sparks and shards.
When things came back into focus she opened her eyes to see Pew crouched beside her, his snout wrinkled with worry.
“Pew? I saw you…”
“String rezzed me. But you, you dispelled the lich lord. String was on his last hit point. You saved us from wiping.” He sounded almost in awe.
“I was just rescuing Ruffkin,” she murmured and slipped back into unconsciousness.

Some days later Milla was sitting on the beach with Ruffkin and Pew, enjoying a picnic of fruit tea and flyberry cookies from One Eye’s shop. She was thinking that maybe ventures weren’t quite what she had believed them to be and that perhaps she preferred her life beachcombing after all.
“String is still convinced it was a glitch in the game and reported it,” Pew was saying. “He claimed that as I wasn’t given the quest reward it needed fixing. He just didn’t get that I’d refused to accept your pendant. Anyway, the devs said they never even put the quest he’s complaining about into the game. They said it doesn’t exist. So he rage quit.”
“Rage quit?”
“Deleted all his characters and left the game.”
“That sounds a bit drastic.” Milla shivered even though the day was as hot as it always was in Wrathburnt Sands. Something about the word ‘deleting’ seemed so terribly final.
Pew picked up a stick and threw it for Ruffkin who bounded happily after it.
“It is. But I know String. He’ll come back sooner or later. And meanwhile, I don’t care if you’re a glitch or not. To me you are just my amazing Milla.”
His hand found hers and held it tight.

Log on to Wrathburnt Sands by E.M. Swift-Hook for the 11th Quest next week.

‘Wrathburnt Sands’ and ‘Return to Wrathburnt Sands’ were first published in Rise and Rescue: A GameLit Anthology and in Rise and Rescue Volume 2: Protect and Recover.

Though the biggers never see it, there is much going on in their own backyard where the ‘nomes make their home…

It was a sad fact that being called Graham didn’t go with being a nome. And neither did a penchant for long words, a leaning towards political leftism, and a plant based diet.

All of which meant Graham took an awful lot of bullying, thinly disguised as ‘banter’ from a section of the garden community. Until one night, under a gibbous moon, his patience snapped.

Next morning, the croquet lawn resembled a war zone, with disembodied bits of nome broadcast like discarded toys.

Bertha smiled grimly. “If they gets reassembled, maybe them buggers’ll learn when a joke stops being funny.”

Jane Jago

A dictionary for the bemused by Jane Jago…

anythign (adjective) – of or pertaining to thighs

bluche (verb) – to walk as if constipated

celebreate (noun) – a celibate who has weekends off

dup of tes (noun geographic) – a group of islands in the south seas notable for bad dentistry and useless morality tales

effiencent (adjective) – of beer, bubbly but clouded and very yeasty

eriting (verb) – the peculiar practice of placing a peanut up one nostril and whistling Dixie

graet (verb) of authors to proclaim one’s own small talent a lot louder than it deserves

nekkis (adjective) – wearing oddly mismatched clothing at least two sizes too small

nlog (noun) – particularly hard fecal matter of an unfeasibly large circumference

overwhenling (adverb) – of locomotion unbearably slow and accompanied by rusty creaks

pricry (verb) – to sob uncontrollably when you can not afford something

siempunk (noun ) – tramp with good hair

usignt eh (noun) – a genus of small mammals famous for their short memories and large ears

wetaher (noun) – lachrymose woman

wodner (noun) one who is perpetually half sexually aroused. Hence the phrase ‘to walk like a wodner’

Disclaimer: all these words are genuine typos defined by Jane Jago. The source of each is withheld to protect the guilty.

Because life happens…

Exploring the mysteries of life through the versatile medium of limerick poetry.

You know you are old when you say
Things were never like that in my day
And you no longer care
To spend hours on your hair
Cos you’d much rather go out and play

E.M. Swift-Hook

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV takes time from his immensely important life to proffer profound advice to those who still struggle on the aspirational slopes of authorhood…

Mes Chers Readers Who Write,

I am sure I do not need to remind you of who I am at this point in our relationship, but I will acknowledge there may be a handful of benighted individuals who have yet to make my acquaintance. So for their benefit, I will again mention that my name is Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV and I am the renowned author of both the speculative fiction classic ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’ and of this ‘The Thinking Quill’ which offers insight into the mysteries of the authorial craft.

Indeed it was only yesterday Mummy observed: ‘You spend too much time in that coal cellar. You should get out more.” But I assured her the reason I was committing so much of my life to my literary sanctum, was both to progress my own literary offerings and to selflessly share of my copious pearls of wisdom with you, oh Reader Who Writes.

So, without further hesitation or procrastination on either side, let us undress the goddess of literature and peer beneath the skirts of her most intimate places. In brief, dear RWW, let us consider the very building-blocks of her DNA – the tools with which one has wrought such wonders – words.

The Write Words

It is a truth universally acknowledged that paucity of vocabulary is the fence at which a multiplicity of putative novelists fail. Gird up your loins my children and do battle with the twin dragons of over-simplification and ugly language. Let that duo of decrepitude be downtrodden under the heels of linguistic loveliness. Let your Muse speak to you in honeyed prose. Let the thesaurus be your Bible and let not the commonplace leave your fingertips. Never say that your grass is green, rather enchant your readers with the verdant viridian verbiage. Let them inhale the aroma of the recumbent emerald as it is crushed beneath the bare toes of powerful simile.

Let your doting following bask in the sunlight of your fertile poesy. Let your words be as sunlight to the face of the damask rose. Let your adjectival imagery lift your children from the commonplace to the heights of quasi-sexual ecstasy. Let your voice be as the zephyr of a southern breeze carrying the redolence of olive groves and lemon trees and the salt tang of mare nostrum.

Lead your interlocutors along primrose paths of erudition and titillation, and do not cease in your endeavours until your mind’s ear can hear their sighs of replete completion. Only then have you begun to understand the manifest prognostications of your craft.

To encapsulate this vital educational epistle:

1. Never use a simple word where a periphrastic locution can be set.
2.  Never use a sole descriptor – a lonely adjective should be a contumely maxim! Instead, allow the perihelion swirl of elucidatory and expressive ornament to embrace each noun and verb.
3. Seek always the etymological road least travelled and endow your audience with rare gems mined from deep archaisms and seek the perfect bon mots from languages few speak. Thus you will both educate and impress.

Consider my words with care.

Until next mes enfants, adieu and may Erato and Calliope attend your dreams.

Bon Ecrit!

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound advice in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

What hands did make imposing doors
And carve the stones that circle round
Was this an act of faith, assured
Of spirits for a time earthbound
What minds and eyes did this create
As praise or reparation
A work of art that elevates
Man, from his human station

©️ jj 2024

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…

It was pleasant bowling through the winter countryside with the thin sunshine turning the dead bracken orange. and a pale blue sky overhead. Julia revelled in a moment to just sit.
“You don’t get a lot of down time do you, domina?” Bryn observed.
“No. And I sometimes wonder if it was wise of me to take this job alongside motherhood and the rest of it. But I have good people around me. And I think I might go mad if domesticity was the whole of my life.”
“That’s what Gwen says about you. Reckons your mind is too busy to be satisfied by just running a house. She’s much the same, but she has her healing and the Druid stuff.”
“I know Gwen understands. But Dai’s mam can’t. I think that’s why she pokes and prods about how I’m bringing up Aelwen and Rhodri.”
“That’s also what Gwen says. She’s been tempted to interfere, she and Olwen being good friends, but she thinks you have it in hand.”
“ I do. I just ignore it. But it hurts Dai. Though it may be going to stop because Gallus has promised to have a word.”
“I reckon that’ll turn the trick. Olwen is not an easy woman in a lot of ways, but he manages to love her and live with her.”
Julia laughed. “Yes, well, what she refers to in her son as ‘Llewellyn angst’ could just as easily have come from her.” Bryn grunted. “Very probably. But, domina. We seem to have acquired a tail.”
Julia looked in the rear-view mirror. There was a shiny muscle truck barrelling along behind them, and,  judging by the black smoke from its exhaust, it was being driven as fast as it would go. She showed her teeth.
“So we do. That was quick.”
“It was. Maybe too quick for it to be a decision from on high. I mean, all a car chase is going to do is bring whoever into even clearer focus. And that’s stupid.”
“Yes. As you say. Stupid and knee jerk.”
Bryn made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. “If I had time, I’d go back and bounce my pacifier off his thick head.”
Julia laughed. “I reckon it’s an inept attempt at intimidation. They mean to put the frighteners on us. Run us into a ditch and clear off. No real harm done. Just frighten the little woman so she backs off.”
“Yeah. Somebody doesn’t know you very well, do they? What do you want to do? I’ve no great fancy to be chasing up and down the Mawddach with some idiot trying to run me off the road.”
“Me neither. Are you game for a bit of rule bending?”
“Always.”
Julia slid a hand under her armpit and brought out her trusty pistol.
“Submagistratus Llewellyn, you aren’t carrying a concealed weapon are you?”
“I am and as I’m both a citizen and technically a Vigiles, it’s fully legal. It’s what I propose to do with it that’s a bit irregular.”
“Tell me more.”
“Even chummy’s favourite muscle truck is going nowhere on shredded tyres.”
Bryn’s grin was every bit as appreciative as she had hoped it would be. “What’s the drill?”
“Next longish straight bit of track you speed up. Then slow right back. We see how our tail reacts. If we think he really is following us, I shoot out a couple of his tyres.”
Bryn chuckled. “On it, domina.”
As he spoke the track widened, flattened, and became arrow-straight following the line of one of the roads built by Julia’s ancestors. Bryn increased speed and Julia turned in her seat.
“The stupid irrumator is only trying to catch us.”
She knelt up. “Slow down now Bryn, but reduce speed gently.”
As Bryn eased up on the speed their pursuer kept on coming. Julia raised her pistol and put two rounds in his left front tyre. The vehicle lurched violently to the left, and as the driver fought his bucking bronco of a vehicle she gave the right front a similar treatment. That rather put paid to any further pursuit.

From the The Dai and Julia Mysteries, Dying for a Present, a novella by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

Because life can be interesting when you are a non-player character in an online video game…

As String dressed himself in a new and even shinier set of chain-mail with glowing runes around it, Pew looked at the open doors. Of course, one led out but the other three all led away into the dark and seemed to be ramps going down.
“Which way do we go?” Milla asked.
Pew shook his head and then held up his staff, casting the same spell she had seen when they first met, but the spray of sparkles seemed a bit less intense. He nodded towards the door to the left of the entrance.
“That way. Your little dog is down there. Somewhere.”
As if on cue there came a bark from somewhere below them. Milla’s heart moved in her chest and before she was even aware of what she was doing she had started running down the dark passage Pew had said was the one they needed to take, calling Ruffkin’s name.
“Milla wait!”
She heard Pew’s urgency and stopped her headlong dash just before the ramp doubled back on itself and turned into stairs. Which was just as well. An armoured ryeshor skeleton was walking down the steps towards the door below, where two more stood guard and Milla had nearly barrelled right into it. She still had Pew’s dagger in her hand and instinctively held it up. The runes on it were glowing dark red.
“That’s got awesome bonus stats against undead,” Pew said as he send a blast of flame down the stairs and the skeleton crumbled.
The boar pushed between the two of them and bounded down the steps to attack the two skeletons by the door. Milla noticed the armour plates on his harness were no longer black but now glittered with a silvery glow.
“See that?” String said, cleaving his sword into the skeletons as he spoke. “That last boss dropped an upgrade spell for my pet too.”
“Neat,” Pew said, as his staff send a string of fireballs into one skeleton blasting it apart. The other collapsed moments later in a heap of bones under the combined assault of Pigsy’s tusks and String’s sword.
There was a sudden deafening silence as the bones vanished, then an urgent bark from somewhere behind the door the skeletons had been guarding. Milla would have been down the last of the stairs and through it instantly but Pew caught her arm.
“We don’t know what’s in there. If you go charging in you could be killed.” The sobering words and the intense look he gave her were enough to make her pause. Something in his gaze distracted her and with a slight shock she realised he was concerned for her, he actually cared about what might happen to her. She blinked and nodded, her frill-spines spreading. Pew gave her quick grin then headed down the steps in the wake of String and Pigsy.
The chamber behind the door had a high domed ceiling. The walls were lined with white tiles and decorated with gorgeous images of local plants, birds and animals in shades of green, turquoise and blue. In the middle of the room was a circular, stepped dias. Placed on it, was a huge throne formed from blackened bones and adorned with bleached skulls on the back posts and arm rests. Beneath the throne, in a cage of bone, Milla could see a shivering Ruffkin. Sitting on the throne and dominating the room, was a hooded robed figure, twice the height of any ryeshor. It wore a crown of flickering lights that looked like a skeletal hand grasping a nebulous ball of magical power. Beneath the enveloping hood no face could be seen, just two glowing red eyes.
“Oh frag – it’s a lich lord.” Pew sounded worried.
“Then it’ll have a magic mitigation shield, an AOE frontal with massive damage and a fear effect.”
“HOW DARE YOU ENTER MY DOMAIN! YOU PUNY BEINGS ARE NOT WELCOME HERE. I WILL CRUSH YOU LIKE INSECTS.” The thing on the throne seemed to exude the words rather than speak them and Milla’s whole being shivered with an icy chill.
“So you put your armour buff on Pigsy,” String went on his tone as unurgent as if he was discussing the weather. “Pets are immune to the fear. But we’ll have to watch for the frontal.”
“You got your parser running?”
“Course. I’ll use it to spot when the ratstab is due to cast. Just be ready to joust.”
“MY MINIONS MAY NOT HAVE STOPPED YOU PENETRATING MY LAIR OF DARKNESS AND DESPAIR BUT I SHALL DEAL WITH YOU MYSELF.”
“Think there might be adds during the fight?”
“Likely. If we get any you keep focused on the boss – it’ll be leashed to the throne anyway – I’ll handle them with Pigsy.”
“OK.” Pew made a gesture with his staff towards Pigsy and the boar glowed briefly with swirling runes. “There you go. Ready when you are.”
“Pre-warding and sending in the pig!”

Log on to Wrathburnt Sands by E.M. Swift-Hook for the 10th Quest next week.

‘Wrathburnt Sands’ and ‘Return to Wrathburnt Sands’ were first published in Rise and Rescue: A GameLit Anthology and in Rise and Rescue Volume 2: Protect and Recover.

With a lifetime of hard earned experience behind her, Granny generously shares the wisdom she has gleaned over eight decades. So pin back your ears and bloody well listen!

This is more in the nature of an ill-tempered moan than an actual hint. What is the matter with the media – and seemingly anybody under the age of sixty?

Yes, there is one extra day in this year.

What the f*** is the big deal? Every four years we get a leap year. It’s like the Olympics and the World Cup. Get over it…

It doesn’t matter. 

You don’t get an extra day tacked on to your life in a leap year (and, if you are paid monthly, you don’t even get any extra pay).

I am even seeing happy leap year cards advertised. Do. Not. Buy. Them. The only people who need a card are the ones born on February 29 – and they have no need if they have seen more than ten actual birthdays.

So. Today’s hint is absolutely simple. February 29 is just another day. Anybody that tells you different is an asshole and probably wants your bank details so they can deposit the million pounds you won in the national lottery of some obscure banana republic. Take Granny’s word for it… it’s NBFD.

And finally, to every sad spinster out there who thinks it will be a good idea to propose to the asshole who has been conning bed and board out of her since just after the last leap year:

For. The. Love. Of. Little. Fairies. Don’t.

One: If he hasn’t mentioned the M word after more than three years, there’s a reason.

Two: The bas***d will very probably run a mile.

Three: Your proposal will be trending on social media within ten minutes so when he refuses your humiliation will go viral.

Just don’t.

If you are lonely buy a dog and have him neutered.

There it is my precious little snowflakes. Pull up your frilly panties and bloody well get on with it or Granny is going to fetch you such a clip across the lughole