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 felt strange to Dai to be walking the paths he had run along as a child. His last visit had been for the Saturnalia holiday of the previous year and the weather then had been more about staying in than trekking the muddy fields and vineyards. So he let Hywel talk excitedly about proximal sensors and infrared thermography, the latest developments in soil monitoring devices and his experiments in using a portable field fluorometer to check both the chlorophyll density in the leaves of his vines and the polyphenols in their grapes.
They crested the low hill from where the old farm buildings could be seen, modern extensions reaching out like embracing arms towards them. Dai wondered why it was he didn’t feel any sense of belonging anymore. Maybe because he really did not belong and had not since the day Hywel had disinherited him for choosing life as a Vigiles rather than staying home and working in the family business. Hywel had mellowed and they had made up last year, but only once there were three lives between Dai and any chance of inheritance. He somehow thought the naming of their fourth son was Hywel and Enya’s way of apologising for it all.
“So, once we have the new plant set up we should be able to convert several thousand litres a year of the waste must from the column stills and then -” Hywel broke off. “You’re not listening are you?”
Dai shook his head, still gazing out over the neat rows of vines.
“Not really, but the biofuel idea is a good one. People round here could use it, though I doubt you’d find much market for it elsewhere in the Empire. Solar is the way most are going.”
Hywel laughed and clapped Dai on the shoulder. “So you were listening.”
“I always did,” Dai said, simply. “Except when my heart disagreed.”
Hywel’s hand remained, suddenly heavier.
“Your mother…”
“My mother?”
Hywel’s hand lifted.
“I’m sorry. She’s been mother to me and my sisters as much as you. Has been from the day she arrived and you know I couldn’t love her more. But, what I was trying to say, she and I had hoped you’d like the Fionn girl, Megan. She would have brought you a nice little farm of your own as well.”
Dai snorted. “You mean that teenager you had me take out for a meal when I was here at Saturnalia? She was pretty much half my age and we didn’t have anything in common. She just sat there and made moon eyes at me then demanded we took selfies to share with her friends.”
“I just wanted…”
“You just wanted to be a family again. I know. Your heart was in the right place.”
“And what about yours? Your heart is with Rome now? You are a citizen, you’ve married a Roman, you’ve…”
“I’ve married the woman I love who happens to be a Roman, and I got to be a citizen saving her life. None of that was planned and this,” he held up his index finger with it’s silver band of privilege then pulled the ring off and threw it as far as he could, glinting with a flash of silver in sky then dropping to earth to be lost amongst the vines, “is what I think of Rome.”
Hywel tried to catch Dai’s hand as he threw, but he was nowhere near fast enough.
“You could get into trouble for that kind of thing,” he snapped and shook his head. “Always the hothead. You ever wonder why I didn’t like that you joined the Vigiles?”
“Because I missed your wedding?” Hywel laughed. “That didn’t help at the time. But it was because of the way you are. You joined up fired for justice and I knew that one way or another you’d hit your head on the ceiling Rome shoves over our British heads. I didn’t like to think how that would twist you.”
Dai felt an odd sensation inside his chest.
“You were not wrong, but I was lucky,” he said. “The first prefect I worked under was a man who saw justice wore a blindfold when it came to Briton or Roman and I found myself with a decanus who could strip paint with his cynicism.” He grinned at the thought. “Between them they taught me a lot. But I still see red sometimes and Bryn’s had to pull me out of it more than once.”
“I’m glad. I was scared you’d go spinning off into one of those extremist groups like this Dynion o Brydain that Enya’s Da is getting tangled up in. He wanted me for it too. But little as I like Rome, I’m not going to start killing people for their nationality – would make me no better than the very worst of them.”

From Dying for a Poppy by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook

An everyday tale of village life and vampires…

Back home after the unbelievable events that had just transformed her life completely, Ginny made herself a soothing cup of rosehip and chamomile tea and wondered why she didn’t feel the usual mix of dread and panic that anything so stressful had always induced in her in recent years.
If anything, she decided after a little self-reflection, she felt calm, confident and even invigorated. Part of that she was sure came from whatever physiological changes being undead provided (undead—she quickly pushed the uncomfortable word away), being a vampire provided, but there was also the simple sense of belonging. Ginny had never ‘belonged’ before, and now she suddenly did. She had a Nest, sisters and a village. That thought left a warm glow deep within.
But part of belonging meant commitment, a giving as well as a taking and right now that meant she had to do her bit to protect both her new communities from the grasping hands of Ronald Dump and his enabler-stroke amanuensis Dom Schilling. She glanced at, then put to one side, the pile of booklets Anges had given her:
Vampires and Other Supernaturals—a spotter’s guide.
Sucking for Amateurs—a new vampire’s guide to blood
Community Manners or How Not To Get Your Face Eaten Off—social regulation in the supernatural community
These things Can Kill You—what to avoid for a long and happy unlife
It was not that she wasn’t interested or didn’t need to know, but right now other things had to take priority. If what she had been told was correct she would have decades or even centuries to get around to reading them.
Ginny also ignored a missed call from Lucinda Lorinski, one of her superficial and supercilious London set—no doubt calling up to either gloat and patronise, or to whine and vent as she seemed incapable of any other variety of social interaction—and instead started rummaging in some of the unpacked boxes looking for her ‘important papers’ locked file. She was pretty sure it still contained some of the research she had done on Schilling when their paths had crossed before.
When she finally unearthed it she had then to spend another half hour looking for the key before she could sit down with a fresh cup of tea and walk through a little of her own history.
There were copies of certificates and awards, letters from celebrities—actual letters not printed out emails—insurance for places and things that no longer existed, or at least not in her life, an entire book of long-forgotten passwords and another of addresses and phone numbers belonging to people who also might no longer exist and had not touched her life for many years.
Ginny was close to giving up as she reached the last thin section of documents. Perhaps she had thrown them away in one of her less lucid moments, when expunging the past had seemed the only way to make the present bearable. Or perhaps she had put them somewhere else, deeming them no longer so important as to take up space in her secure file. Or perhaps…
The folder was manila brown and sat between two large card backed envelopes which contained—respectively—her degree awards and her marriage and divorce certificates. It had one word written on the front in block capitals—BASTARDS!
Sitting back she held it unopened for a while, collecting the reserves she needed to face the painful past. Then she slipped it open and started scanning the documents. She was not entirely sure what she thought she would find there, maybe nothing of real use to the present, maybe just a reminder of how much winning this mattered to her personally as much as to the village.
An hour later, feeling more determined, she put the papers away and locked the file, knuckled away tears that were surely of anger over what had been done than grief at her personal loss, surely, and then gathered the corners of her courage and determination and picked up the phone.
“Major Harmsley-Gunn? This is Virginia Cropper, I just wanted to apologise for being a bit distracted when you called on me before and to say that I would be delighted to take up the vacant seat on the Parish Council. You’re so right, I certainly want to bring along some much needed common sense about progress in the village.”

Part Twenty-Four of Much Dithering in Little Botheringham by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook, will be here next week.

Sai obtained a year’s residency at the university, complete with a house on campus. The job was a dream, but he and Aysha were not welcome in the street of tidy houses.

When Aysha disappeared, the curtain twitching reached tsunami level and seeing their neighbour lifting patio stones and burying something brought almost visceral joy. 

The police caught up with him at the home of a friend, where he and Aysha had taken refuge. 

The constable was embarrassed, even more so when he got a message to say the skeleton was plastic and had been obtained from Walmart for 9.99.

Jane Jago 

Blood on White Mountain by Eleanor Swift-Hook, a story of prophecy, battle and betrayal, is just one of 11 stories inspired by great works of art in Masterworks from the Historical Writers Forum.

Why did you choose to write ‘Blood on White Mountain’?

I wrote Blood on White Mountain as the origin story of one of the characters who features strongly in my Lord’s Legacy series of books. But the picture that inspired me is one that has haunted me since I first came upon it. Young Soldier by Frans Hals Junior. The poignancy of the image of a young man, still in his teens head bowed as he holds a carbine and looks at the soldier’s equipment he must soon don. It was the fate of millions of young men in Europe in the 17th century as the continent was ripped apart by the religious division that had come from the Reformation, complicated by political and dynastic ruptures. Half a million of them would die in the battles of the Thirty Years War. To me, it was important to try and humanise that impossible-to-imagine number.

The heroine of the story is Kate, she is not a historical figure, so who is she?

Kate is Lady Catherine de Bouqulement. Only child of an Anglo-Irish earl and an English mother, she was orphaned young and made a ward for the English lands she had inherited from her mother, her father’s lands and title going to a very distant cousin. King James granted her wardship to Lord and Lady Harington who were the guardians of his daughter, Princess Elizabeth. Raising the princess was a very costly business and as James had little money, Kate’s wardship and the income from her lands were meant to help offset that great expense. Unlike many wards whose lands and persons were much abused, the Haringtons stewarded her lands well, benefitting from their income, whilst providing Kate herself with a good home.
Kate became a favourite of Princess Elizabeth. So when the Haringtons travelled to Heidelberg after Elizabeth’s marriage to Frederick, Elector Palatine in 1613, she insisted Kate went with them. Kate stayed in the household of the Electress Palatine and went with her as one of her ladies when Frederick accepted the Crown of Bohemia (Czechia) in 1619.
We meet her in Prague in the autumn of 1620 when she is fifteen years old…

Blood on White Mountain

In 17th-Century Bohemia (modern Czechia), it was a given that the elected King of Bohemia would always be the Habsburg ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. But the emperor being a Catholic and most Bohemians being Protestants, the Bohemian parliament rejected the emperor’s rule. Instead, in 1619, they invited the leading Protestant prince of the empire, Elector Frederick V of the Palatinate and his wife Electress Elizabeth, who was the daughter of King James of Great Britain, to become the King and Queen of Bohemia.
A year later an army was marching towards Prague, seeking to reclaim Bohemia for the emperor…

Had she been foolish to come here?
Paní Zdislava Jelenková was tall, almost as tall as Kate, who was often teased about her height. Her hair concealed beneath a wimple, Paní Jelenková wore a deep blue velvet gown with pendulous sleeves over a dove grey silk kirtle, a fashion from centuries past. To Kate’s eyes she had stepped out of a stained-glass window in St. Vitus cathedral.
The scent of a strange incense with dark undertones grew stronger as they climbed one narrow flight of stairs, then another. At the top of that was a doorway, over which hung a heavy curtain. Paní Jelenková seized it in one hand, turning so the black fabric was drawn across her body, and glared at Kate.
“When we enter this room, you will be silent,” she said, her German heavily accented. “You will not speak unless I ask you to. This is for your own protection. The forces at work here are easily disturbed. Do you understand?”
The intensity of her tone held Kate silent. She gave a small nod.
Her dark gaze raking over Kate once more, Zdislava Jelenková turned away and through the door. One step and she released the curtain.
Kate blinked as the incense rolled out, stinging her eyes. The room she had glimpsed beyond the heavy fabric was in complete darkness even though it was not far from the middle of the day. A prickle of apprehension shivered down her spine. Annoyed at herself, Kate pulled the curtain aside and stepped into the dark.
Once within, it was not completely lightless. A candle burned on a round table in the centre of the room. Instead of four walls this room had six, all hung with the same dark velvet as curtained the door, embroidered with strange symbols. Some Kate knew, those of the planets and the twelve houses of the Zodiac, but many she didn’t recognise.
Draped in her antiquated gown, Zdislava Jelenková seemed to have grown in stature where she stood on the far side of the room, her skirts fading into shadow, her face glowing in the candlelight.
The hair on Kate’s forearms pricked and tiny paws of cold crept across the flesh between her shoulder blades.
It had been more than foolish to come here.

Masterworks is available now.

You can find out more about Eleanor and her Lord’s Legacy series of books on her website.

Granny has something important to say about Halloween, so pin back your lug holes, sit down, shut up and listen!

Now I have your attention, let’s think about Halloween.
This is the night when, according to superstition, the veil between here and wherever is at its thinnest. So what do people do? They dress little Testosterone and Menopause in ‘supernatural’ costumes and they send them out to knock on the front doors of total strangers crying ‘twick or tweet’.
In what alternative universe is that a good idea?
Has nobody read Hansel and Gretel?
The opportunity for deeply disturbing adult behaviour is there for all to see. But no. What does the great British public do? It opens its fricking door and dispenses sweeties willy-nilly.
Then, just as you are fifty quid lighter for the night, and at last even the most persistent of winkie has been put to bed, the door knocking becomes rougher in character and the local teenage males come out to do a bit of extortion – with menaces.
These bastards don’t bother to even pretend they are in costume, and they really won’t be satisfied with a mini Mars bar. Mostly they want ciggies or beer, although one or two will expect a fiver in their greasy palms in order that they won’t throw eggs and flour at your front door, or accidentally key your car, or tie a firework to your cat’s tail.
From the depths of my armchair this seems too close to blackmail to be acceptable, and I determined to put an end to such behaviour once and for all.
I am in the fortunate position of: one – being wholly nerveless; two – having more hefty grandsons and nephews than you could shake a shitty stick at,
Conceive of the scene, my friends, local thugs beat a tattoo on elderly lady’s front door. It opens with an eerie creak and a huge figure with a gimp mask stands in a sulphurously lit hallway.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” it says in a voice like a winter hailstorm. “Do come in…”
Exit thugs stage left. Pursued by creatures whose faces gleam green in the streetlights.
We don’t see trick-or-treaters after dark these days…

Take this exclusive opportunity to consult the wisdom of the mysteriously enigmatic Madam Pendulica…

Aries
This sign needs a short sharp name to ram home when you have to shout at them to get their attention. Which you will – a lot. Anne, John, Kim or Gilles might be good choices.

Taurus
Bullish folk need names that are going to bear repetition – a lot of repetiton. So something that sounds nice to say like Alexander, Yolanda, Beatrice or Grayson.

Gemini
Twin names are always a good call for Gemini, even if you only have the one, it will always feel like there is another lurking about. Good choices might be Romulus and/or Remus, Chloe and/or Zoe.

Cancer
Crabs definitely do better in life when they have names that have a seaside feel to them. Marina, Piers, Sandy, or Ocean would be good options to consider.

Leo
The lion self-regards as the monarch of the zodiac so needs a very noble name. Try for something that sounds pompous and you are bound to succeed. Marmaduke, Regina, Balthazar and Hermione spring to mind.

Virgo
Be sure you name them after someone chaste and intelligent. Saints or might offer good inspiration. Ignatius, Benedict, Hildegard and Brigid, for example.

Libra
A well balanced name is a must for any Libran. It need not repeat but it does need to rhyme within if not. You could try Zsazsa, Lily, Brenden or Chester.

Scorpio
Names of famous murderers will really fit a Scorpio – and help give them a role model to aspire to, perhaps. Lucretia, Caligula, Dexter or Lizzie might be good choices.

Sagittarius
Of course you need to try for an equine link for your Sagittarian. Good choices might be Philip, Horsa, Epona or Rosalind.

Capricorn
The goat of the zodiac needs a nice woolly name. You can try Barbara, Aran, Jason, or Agnes.

Aquarius
Naming an Aquarian is always a challenge. You simply can’t choose something weird enough for them! Perhaps you might consider Zadok, Melpomene, Ramesses or Xiomara.

Pisces
There needs to be water in a Piscean name, just a splash will do, but they can become very dry without it. Victoria, Angel, Niagara and Iguazu could all be good choices.

Madame Pendulica predicts she will return…

It’s a trick of the forest light
They do it with mirrors and stuff
Or it could be the beer I had tonight
I knew it was horrible rough
It‘s only a man in a long blue coat
He’ll leave if I wait long enough
But fear of the magic caught my throat
And I crumbled like dandelion fluff

JJ 2023

As a (more or less) retired whore with an address book full of the names (carefully coded) and preferences of powerful men from all across the globe, I suppose it was only a matter of time before I was offered money – a truly obscene amount of money – to write my memoirs.

Being a sensible sort, with her declining years to provide, for I accepted the advance and started writing. But, you know what, I may be an exceptional shag, but as a writer I suck.
*giggles rudely*
No matter how hard I tried, my sordidly erotic life just sounded like a fucking shopping list. I offered the men in suits their money back. But they refused.
“That’s okay,” they said, “we’ll get you a ghost writer”.

And that was another joke. The first one they sent me looked about eighteen and wore a fluffy angora jumper. Having established that she had never even heard of most of the things I did on a regular basis, I sent her away with a few quid for her trouble. The second try was even worse, some sleazy slag who writes porno for a living and who was getting her rocks off just looking at me. I didn’t even let that one in the door.

There was silence for a couple weeks, then I was asked if I minded working with a guy. Which made me laugh. For a moment the suit making the proposition looked at me like I was stupid or something. Then he got the joke. He laughed so hard I thought he was going to do himself a mischief. When he had calmed down he kissed my hand and left, promising to send ‘George’ the very next morning.

Promptly at eight-thirty, before I had even had coffee, the door buzzed. A tall, dark guy with a briefcase and horn-rimmed spectacles stood on the step.
“George?” I hazarded a guess.
He nodded and I buzzed him in.
“Breakfast?” I offered waving a hand at the bacon and things.
“No thanks.” His voice was deep and melodious.

He sat at the table and watched my culinary muddle for about three minutes before removing the frying pan from my grasp and motioning me to be seated. He put a mug of perfectly made coffee in front of me, followed in short order by a full English breakfast.
“You,” he said, “need a housekeeper.”
“If I ever get this effing book finished, I might even be able to afford one.”
He showed me a lot of very white, very even teeth.
“You American?” I asked.
“I am, but how did you know? I don’t think I have an accent.”
“You don’t, it’s the dentistry. In my business you tend to look at teeth carefully.”
It took a moment for the implications of that to sink in, but when they did I was rewarded with his pleasingly masculine laughter. “And that”, he remarked with a broad grin, “is the first line of your book…”

We soon settled into a rhythm. George arrived promptly at eight-thirty every morning. He cooked my breakfast and we worked until three when he bowed his head, clicked his heels and left.

Inside a month, we had volume one of my memoirs nailed. It was racy, funny, human, and silly, and not a bit how anybody envisaged a whore’s memoirs. It was also an instant bestseller.

I tried to thank George, but he waved away my words.
“Just doing my job.”
We got stuck into volume two.

By the time we were halfway through writing volume three, I was twenty years old in my memoirs, and forty-seven and wealthy in real life.

Somehow, I never got around to employing a housekeeper, and George still cooked my breakfast and tidied the kitchen before we started work.

I did, however, have a cleaner and it became apparent that I also needed a secretary. My publisher found me Miss Jackson, who was newly retired, and bored and willing to work three afternoons a week. She looked like the worst sort of dried-up spinster, and I was perfectly prepared to hate her. Only appearances can be deceptive. She had about the filthiest sense of humour I have ever encountered and we got along fine.

She and George, on the other hand, eyed each other like tomcats on the back fence. I said little to either, merely determining to keep them apart. As Miss Jackson started her day as George finished his, they really only met on the doorstep. Even so, they managed to build up a head of real dislike, although neither ever said a word to me. I broached the subject with a George once, but he snapped his teeth together hard and I desisted.

I think the situation may have gone on indefinitely had I not discovered the date of Miss Jackson’s birthday and decided to take the old girl out for a treat. When we finished our work that evening I presented her with a birthday card, and a Waterstones voucher, and I suggested pie and mash at my local. We had a blast, and she obviously drunk a deal more than she was used to. As I poured her into a taxi she put a hand on my arm.
“That George,” she said more than a little indistinctly. “You need to find out just what he is. If he’s human I will…” Then she shut her mouth firmly.
I paid the cabby and walked home. Deep in thought.

I was just at the door when I felt cool breath on my neck. I turned, but there was nobody to be seen. I guess I should have been afraid, but I wasn’t, even before I caught the faintest whiff of mouthwash and aftershave.
“George. Stop pissing about.”
Then he was in front of me. Looking sheepish.
“You had better come in.”
He followed me in silence, and I was of no mind to say anything quite yet.

Inside the apartment I was in no mood to let him off the hook so I pointed to a chair.
“Sit.”
He was the picture of misery as he folded his long frame into an upright chair.
“Okay buster,” I said severely, “you don’t eat, you don’t drink, you never have a day off sick, and you frighten Miss J shitless. Just what are you?”
He stared at me. “If you noticed all of that why have you never said anything before?”
I crossed my arms in front of my impressive breasts.
“I asked first.”
He looked into my eyes for a moment then squared his shoulders.
“I’m a ghost…” his voice was barely more than a whisper.
That was too much for me and I felt the giggles starting deep in my belly.

Only I could have wound up with a ghost writer who really was a fucking ghost.

When I got myself together, George was looking at me as if he couldn’t quite believe his eyes.
“I take it that means you are not about to run screaming from the room.”
“It does, mate. I’m only worried that you will disappear now I know.”
He thought for a moment, then smiled broadly. “I don’t have to, not if you still want me. I could even move in…”
“Okay. But no sneaking up on Miss J. I don’t want the poor old biddy having a conniption fit in my gaff.”
He grinned, a bit nastily, but hastened to give me his promise.

That being a Friday. I didn’t see hide nor hair of my secretary until Monday. She crept in looking more than a bit sheepish and I couldn’t help laughing at the mortified expression on her face.
“Sit down you silly old bat,” I said affectionately. “Sit down and tell me why you don’t trust George.”
She sat, picking at the sleeve of her muddy brown cardigan with nervous fingers. I watched her for a moment then felt so sorry for her manifest discomfort that I caved in.
“Okay. Never mind. Let’s just get to work. I don’t need to know.”
Her eyes raised to meet mine and she actually chuckled.
“You are right, you don’t need to know. But as you have shown me all the kindness I have ever known in nearly seventy human years I do need to tell you. I knew it wasn’t a human man in the same way it should have known I’m not a human woman, but it was too busy watching you to pay any heed to me.”
She sat back in her chair, obviously awaiting some sort of reaction. I wasn’t about to give anybody that much satisfaction, so I kept my voice level and cool.
“Does being whatever you are preclude you functioning as my secretary?”
She shook her head, with its neat grey bun.
“And are you any danger to me?”
“Oh no. I might have been, once, but you befriended me.”
“Shall we get on with our work then?”
Her smile was broad and admiring, and I caught sight of the gnarled old tree spirit that inhabited her wrinkled skin before she whipped out her laptop and began summarising the weekend’s emails.

I curled my feet up under me on the settee and allowed myself an inward smirk. Just as long as George and Mrs Jackson were occupied staring each other out neither one of them was going to spend any time wondering about me. I let my fangs drop for a moment and caressed their razor sharp edges with my tongue, before recalling myself to a sense of duty and listening to the outpourings of human love and lust that my secretary was recounting in a drily amused voice.

Jane Jago

An everyday tale of village life and vampires…

“Okay. So we need a plan.”
Em was thinking at her usual pace, and when Agnes opened her mouth she silenced her with an upraised hand.
“Very well. This is what we do…”
Ginny looked as if she might have been about to argue, but Agnes elbowed her sharply and hissed.
“When the Queen tells us what to do we at least listen before we argue.”
“Ginny. You accept the parish council gig, and if you could remember to appear wispy and ineffectual it would be helpful. Agnes. You set your family mafia on planning applications. Once we find out what they are after we can spike their guns. In the meantime I’m about to sink my principles and make friends with the television bloke who left me his card after the vicar went batshit about the bats. Any questions?”
“Hundreds,” Agnes said cheerfully, “but until we find out what the heck is toward nobody can answer any of them. Ginny, you better come home with me now, and I’ll give you some reading material. Normally you’d be living in my house for a month or so while you learn. But I don’t think we want old Harmless-Peashooter to know you are one of us just yet.”
Em frowned. “Agnes. Less of the Harmless-Peashooter if you please. With money behind him the gormless bastard could be dangerous.”
Agnes sighed. “I know. It just helps to think of him by his nickname. Otherwise he’s….”
She stopped in the middle of what she was saying and stared into the middle distance.
Em looked at Ginny and mouthed ‘thinking’.
Agnes showed her teeth in a feral grimace. “Now perhaps we can begin to understand why the housing association is bullying its tenants.”
“Explain yourself Agnes.”
“Well. If you think back twenty years. When Harmsley-Gunn sold the building land to the council we all thought he rather shot himself in the foot.”
“Of course we did. And now he needs to sort it. Yes. I cede you that point Agnes.”
Ginny made a noise like a confused sheep. “Can someone please explain.”
“Yes. Sorry. Harmsley-Gunn owns a rather large tract of land running from the middle of the village down to the river. It’s no use agriculturally, and there is supposed to be some sort of a covenant preventing it from being built on.”
Agnes took over. “And even if the rotten little chiseller thinks he has found a way around the covenant there’s no practicable access. Except through the little housing estate.”
Ginny narrowed her eyes and Em thought how un-sheeplike she was when aroused to anger.
“We’re saying, then, that the housing association is trying to get rid of its tenants and make a killing selling its land?”
“Looks mighty like. Either that or they are being pressured to do so by an irresistible force and an offer they literally can’t refuse.”
“And I assume we are not going to let them get away with it?”
“No. Not if we can stop it and we can try very hard to do that. I will have a high-powered solicitor here tomorrow. The tenants association just gots itself a fighting fund.”
“Tenants association? Since when has there been one of them?”
“Since about a couple of hour’s time, when Jamelia rounds up a couple of the residents to form one.”
Agnes snorted. “I do wonder if HG realises he has a tiger by the tail.”
Em shrugged. “I doubt he will notice until I bite his face off.” She noticed Ginny’s horrified expression. “Metaphorically, sister.”

Part Twenty-Three of Much Dithering in Little Botheringham by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook, will be here next week.

The telegram came on a sultry August day. Rowan read its brief message then went to milk the house cow. She never spoke about it.

As summer drifted into autumn she felt herself fading with the year and her once sturdy body grew thin enough for the wind to almost blow through her.

It was October when Rowan saw the eagle. He rode a thermal and his feathers were burnished by the autumn sun. For a moment she was blinded by tears, then a beloved voice spoke in her soul. 

“Live Rowan, that I may not have died in vain.”

Jane Jago