Tempus Fugitive

by Nicola Rhodes

  The problem was geography. ‘We don’t know the lay of the land,’ he said.

  ‘And we probably won’t have time to make plans after we land, before they separate us,’ she said gloomily, referring to some earlier conversations that the men had not troubled to conceal.

  Tamar was suddenly overcome with a strange feeling. She snuggled closer to Denny and laid her head on his shoulder. ‘I have a horrible feeling about this,’ she said. ‘I feel like I’m not going to see you again for a long time.’

  Denny didn’t feel as if he could dissent. He put his arms around her.

  ‘I think I need a nice memory,’ she hinted, ‘something to hang onto you know.’

  Denny did know, and he was nothing loth. And when the man and Mark woke up, it was to find Tamar and Denny asleep in each other’s arms with smiles on their faces.

  Mark sighed to himself; he was not really surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised.

  It was as they had surmised; when they landed they were herded off in different directions. Tamar to a car that appeared to be waiting for them and Denny and Mark to a large open van, which was already heaving with bodies – young men, like themselves. Denny just had time to whisper to Tamar ‘I’ll find you,’ before they were dragged apart.

  * * *

  It was like a slumber party, the most opulent slumber party ever. Tamar enjoyed the luxury but not the feelings of unease that she sensed in the others as well as herself. She was largely ignored by the other “wives” as she supposed they must be called. She decided that she would rather be a concubine than a wife. There was something so permanent about the term “wife” not to mention the dowdy associations that the word conjured up. Not that you could imagine any of these women pushing a hoover. They were glamorous and languid; overdressed in jewels and underdressed in every other way. Tamar despised them. They looked like Houris. Tamar hated Houris. And there was something else about them that she found chillingly familiar. They moved, spoke, behaved, and even looked almost exactly the same as each other. There was a mechanical sameness about their movements, and they looked like so many Dutch dolls. She wondered idly if they were actually robots. “The Stepford Concubines”. She was speculating on this, when a largish older woman approached her, and laid a plump be-ringed hand on her shoulder. She spoke in Arabic, but, of course, Tamar understood her. ‘Poor, poor girl,’ she said, ‘you must not be afraid.’ Without being asked, this oddly motherly type sat down beside Tamar and began to talk to her.

  She was the king’s first wife, and the mother of his heir. She too had been taken from her family when only a young girl, Ah, she had been beautiful then. This was the law in the small kingdom that they lived in, but not in the land that Tamar came from. Her son, who was a fine man, had been educated in the west, and he would be appalled by this transgression. Indeed he deplored what he called these barbaric customs and was planning to reform them when he came to the throne. But would he? wondered Tamar. Men talked like this, but rarely followed through, when it was easier not to.

  A fine man, such a warrior, she was told. As becomes a Kings son, a born leader of men.

  ‘Not like the old king, ah I talk treason, but I am old now, I am past fear, and I no longer feel the need to repeat lies and nonsense and the talk of fools and cravens. I will say what I mean.’

  Tamar found herself warming to this woman.

  ‘Do not worry about meeting the king tonight little one, for he is old now, if you know what I mean. He no longer has the strength to match the will. You will see. He will pet you and make much of you, but he will demand nothing from you.’ She giggled. ‘He is past it,’ she whispered.

  Tamar realised that the woman was trying to comfort her, and she appreciated it. She could only admire this woman who had obviously been forced to marry beneath her, to a man so pathetic that he felt the need to pretend a desire for young wives that he evidently no longer had.

  If this son of hers, that she was so proud of, was indeed the fine man she spoke of, then it was clear to Tamar, at least, whom he took after.

  This cosy discussion was broken up when the eunuchs appeared, to take Tamar away to be “prepared” for the king.

  As they led her away, a young, richly dressed man entered the room. Tamar was surprised – this was no eunuch. He went straight to the old woman. ‘Mother,’ he said.

  The eunuchs hovered nervously, obviously wanting to turn him out, but not daring to. Even if he had not been the prince, his was such a commanding presence that it is debatable whether they would have done anything anyway. He followed his mother’s gaze and caught Tamar’s eye for a moment. As she was hustled away, she saw the fury in his face before he turned his back on her.

  His voice was raised some of his conversation reached Tamar in her bath in the next room. Isolated words and phrases: ‘kidnap’ … ‘westerner’ …‘barbarism’… ‘must be stopped.’ … ‘old bastard.’ … ‘doesn’t he realise?’ … ‘twentieth century.’

  Tamar smiled, but he could not help her, however vehement his emotions. However, it appeared that his mother was right about him; he was all right.

  He was gone by the time Tamar emerged from her bath, then she was dressed and made up. Two guards appeared. It was time to meet the king.

  * * *

  Crack! The whip fell mercilessly on Denny’s shoulders and back. He winced and bit his lip, but he would not cry out, he would not give them that satisfaction.

  Crack! Denny sagged forward, his back was bleeding freely now. The men had taken the Athame from him when they had stripped him, but he was made of sterner stuff than he looked in any case – even without it.

  He was aware that he was being “broken in”. That the purpose of this treatment was to soften him up and break his spirit. This and the rotten food – which was quite literally rotten and crawling with weevils, the only protein that it contained, and the noisome dungeon that they were locked in, menaced by guards with pungent body odour and stagnant breath, who would pick up on the slightest thing as an excuse for a handing out a beating. Which brings us quite neatly back to the whip, whistling though the air and landing on Denny’s tender, bleeding back. The “softening up” might have worked on Denny under other circumstances, but, as it happened, all he could think of was that he must get the Athame back somehow.

  If he had but known it, the guards were a little afraid of him, it was not natural to be so indifferent to such punishments as they could hand out. And the other prisoners were in awe of him. He had not cried out once. The guards were aware of these feelings which only increased their hatred of him. He was clearly dangerous, and it would probably be safer to kill him, in front of the other prisoners, of course. As a lesson.

  Denny, wrapped up in his own thoughts, was unaware of any of this, he did not realise his own danger. Because, of course, without the Athame he could be killed as easily as the next man.

  He was thrown into a corner roughly by the infuriated and frustrated guard who had completely failed to raise so much as a whimper. Hopefully he would die on his own from his suppurating wounds. It had happened before.

  But Denny was far from dying. He and Mark were in a common prison among thieves and murderers as well as other slaves, who had been placed there by the traders to be held by the guards for a sensible gratuity, and softened up until the traders were ready for them. This was illegal, but apparently common practice and the guards were well paid to turn a blind eye. As he fell into a pile of filth in the corner, Denny noticed something that made him sit up.

  Most of the other prisoners were thieves, and one of them, a malignant rat-like man with only one hand left, showing that he had been caught stealing before, evidently had not lost the habit just because he was in prison. Out of the corner of his eye, Denny saw that he had stolen the Athame from the guard. He was sat in a dark corner looking at the hypnotic patterns on the blade – turning it over and over again, unable to tear his gaze away. Denny understood; he had been the same way with it when he
had first acquired it. But all the same, it was a fool thing to do in a place like this; he could be spotted at any moment. Denny knew he had to get it away from the man as soon as he could, before the guards did.

  He inched forward on his knees, and only then did he become aware of the pain in his back and limbs, it was agonizing. Denny winced in a fashion that the guard, had he been watching, would have found highly gratifying. The man who had his Athame was about his own height and build, but Denny was so damaged by the recent assault, that he was not certain that he was a match for him in this condition. His only comfort was that the man did not know what he held in his remaining hand. If he had, it would have been pointless to even try to take it from him. The man would simply use the Athame to kill him. He might do that anyway, after all it was a blade. Denny shrugged; a painful operation in his current state. He had to have it back. And not just because he needed it. Denny might be in a deplorable state, and the thief in comparatively good health – he had not been whipped yet – but he did not despair. Thanks to Tamar and his recent adventures, Denny had been trained for a fight in ways that this man could surely never have conceived of. He did not bother to dupe himself with reassuring drivel about his being on the side of right and how right would win out in the end. This was down to cunning.

  He could not risk a noisy confrontation which might attract the attention of the guards. And he knew also, that, in his weakened state that would be the least of his difficulties. No, there was no way out of it; he would have to kill the man. It was the only way to do this silently. It went against everything that he believed in and yet he continued to edge forward slowly. He was so intent on his goal, that he was almost unaware of the rage that was possessing him. It was his Athame, his own, his precious, if you will. What right did this greasy little man have to steal it from him? He would have it back if he swung for it. All the same, he was cautious. He stopped and glanced around warily and caught the eye of Mark, who was watching him with undisguised astonishment. Damn him, he would give the game away. Denny stopped short and frowned. Mark looked from Denny to the man, saw the knife and winked at him, to show that he could see what he was up to. Then – a miracle!

  Mark, showing more courage than sense, created a distraction by the simple expedient of making a lot of noise.

  Denny took his opportunity; he grabbed the thief from behind, one hand over his mouth, the other making a vice like grip on the thief’s wrist, twisting his arm up his back and forcing him to drop the Athame. Summoning the last of his strength, he kicked the man aside and grasped his prize, and as his fingers closed over the hilt he felt his strength return although his pain did not lessen. He looked around; the distraction had worked; no one had noticed anything. It had happened so fast that the thief had not had time to react, but now he was getting to his feet with such a look of maddened outrage in his eyes that Denny made haste to thump his head and knock him out cold, before his protestations should alert the guards.

  So far so good. He had the Athame back, and his rage had subsided the moment he had hold of it again, so much so that he wondered where it had come from – how much did he rely on this thing, really? However, he did not have time to ponder that right now, for their next problem was looming up fast. Mark was being dragged forward by two burly guards, who were clearly only too pleased to have an excuse to hand out a beating.

  Without missing a beat, Denny used the Athame to slice through the manacles on his legs and stood up, retrieved the sheath from the recumbent thief and put the Athame away, he would not need it to fight, he thought. He used the manacles on his wrists in the same way as he had on the guards of King Richard, that is, he knocked the nearest guard on the head with them. Not even pausing to think ‘this is becoming a habit,’ he swung round and hit the other guard, who went down like a sack of coal. He grabbed the keys from the guard’s belt and threw them to Mark, then he groaned. The pain in his back was burning now. He felt faint with it. Apparently, although the Athame could protect the bearer from injury, it could not heal injuries previously sustained. Denny knew from experience that the Athame had no power to heal or mend, only to destroy. It was the way it had been made. Having it blessed to remove its evil, had not changed its basic nature.

  However, he did not have time to worry about that now. Problem number three was now looming on the horizon. The guards were out of action, and it had been done so swiftly and silently that there was no reason to suppose that anyone would come to investigate, for a while at least. There was, therefore, time to release all the prisoners; the question was, should they? Mark had freed his own bonds and was now looking questioningly at Denny with the keys in his hands, obviously wondering the same thing. Denny considered. On the one hand, many of these guys were innocent slaves, to leave them here would be indefensible surely? On the other hand, what would they do with them if they freed them? Mark was going to be problem enough in all conscience. Then again, most of the prisoners were thieves and murderers, Denny did not want to release them, desperate as they would now be, to ravage the local population. And how would they know which was which anyway? They all looked the same, thin, filthy and ragged. Then again, there was the problem of the hue and cry they would raise if Denny and Mark escaped without helping them. Mind you, that needn’t be a problem. If necessary he could make himself and Mark invisible – Mark would never even realise. What finally decided him was the realisation that this was the past he was in, he should not change it more than he could help – who knew what the repercussions would be?

  Reluctantly, and feeling incredibly guilty, he shook his head at Mark and took the keys from him to unlock his wrists. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s get out of here, while we still can.’

  Mark looked back at the huddled prisoners ‘But …’ he gestured.

  ‘I know,’ said Denny impatiently, ‘but we really can’t. I can’t explain it. We’re not supposed to be here.’

  Mark was baffled by this explanation as you might expect. But he was after all only a boy, and although he believed Denny to be no older than himself, Denny did not act that way and Mark had had a bad time of it recently. So he did not argue, but fell in behind Denny, who turned back, just before they climbed out into the sunshine, to quell the noise of the disappointed prisoners by casting them into charmed sleep. A very easy trick which even an inexperienced witch can perform easily.

  * * *

  ‘A charmed sleep,’ Hecaté, told Stiles, ‘very easy magic, and it will not hurt them until we decide what to do with them.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ said Stiles, but what about the other problem? Those kids must’ve turned up after Denny and Tamar went into another file. Which means that the Priest should have been returned to his file by now. Won’t it leave a sort of a … gap or something?’ Stiles was struggling to express concepts that he really did not understand.

  ‘It does not matter,’ said Hecaté.

  ‘I’m sure it does,’ muttered Stiles mutinously.

  ‘It will be as if they never existed,’ she said, ‘until they are returned to their proper place.

  ‘But they aren’t supposed be here are they?’ he persisted. ‘Aren’t they sort of …

  ‘Nowhere,’ she told him. ‘They are nowhere.’

  They’re here,’ insisted Stiles. ‘I can see them. Look I can see how one takes the place of another. Denny and Tamar are gone, and the priest and the dog filled the space they left. But now we have two more, if this goes on there won’t be any room for them.’

  ‘The universe compensates,’

  ‘Well how come it didn’t compensate when Denny and Tamar entered the first file?’

  ‘It did,’ she told him.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Stiles, remembering, ‘by sending Lord Whatsisface here, fair enough, but how is it “compensating” for this lot?’ His face turned white. ‘Oh Lord,’ he said.

  ~ Chapter Six ~

  The king was not exactly what Tamar had expected. Tall and thin, he was bent with age and very lin
ed. Yet he had a noble looking face that must have once been remarkable for its beauty. Tamar, however, was not ready yet to revise her opinion of him. And yet, perhaps he was just old and proud and not willing to give up a thousand years of tradition in favour of a way of life that he could not be expected to understand. Still, just let him try anything …

  The king made a gesture to her. She shrugged, not comprehending. The king made the gesture again rather impatiently, and a courtier came forward and whispered to her. ‘The king would like to know if you would dance for him?’

  ‘No.’

  The courtier looked worried; as well he might, it being his task to repeat this unwelcome news to the king.

  Tamar relieved him; she addressed the king herself, in perfect Arabic. ‘I do not dance,’ she said. ‘Not for you, not for anybody. You needn’t think you’re anything special. And I’m not doing anything else either, so there!’ In retrospect she thought that the “so there” might be taken for childish defiance, and immediately wished she had not added it. It seemed, she felt, to weaken her position – for when has childish defiance ever been of the slightest effect?

  The king seemed to feel the same way. Instead of becoming angry, as one might have expected (and Tamar certainly did) he gave her an indulgent smile, such as one might give to a favoured child, whose unruly behaviour is constantly overlooked and indulged as a source of amusement to nobody but the doting parent.

  ‘Okay,’ she thought, ‘I’ll dance for the old bastard. I’ll dance him into a heart attack.’

  She was perfectly capable of doing this, and at that moment perfectly without compassion, so furious was she. So, she nodded to the courtier who signalled the musicians, and struck a pose, removing her veil with a flourish as she did so. In a county where this was tantamount to taking off all your clothes, and, in view of the face that she revealed, this was a particularly merciless beginning. The old king actually gasped and clutched his chest. Tamar smiled cruelly, at that moment the beauty of her countenance was only matched by the blackness of her heart.