Tempus Fugitive (11 page)

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 ~

T
he king was not exactly what Tamar had expected.  Tall and thin, he was bent with age and very lined. 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.

 At that very moment, Denny was being whipped to within an inch of his life – as the saying goes – in this man’s name.  And Tamar, with that subtle connection that she had with him, could feel every stroke.  So she moved with sinuous grace to the throbbing beat that filled the room, every beat seemed to stab the old man to the heart, in time to the lash of the whipfall on Denny’s back. 

The courtiers were sweating; the old king was going purple in the face, fighting for breath and still she danced.  ‘It’s nothing but what my darling is suffering at this very moment,’ she thought, ‘and he is a better man than you could ever be if you lived a thousand years.’

The room seemed to grow dim and through her own pain, the old king’s face swam through a mist, growing larger and larger and with an almost imploring look.  Although, whether imploring her to stop or not to stop, was more than she could tell. 

Abruptly the pain ceased, and Tamar faltered in her dance, the impetus suddenly withdrawn.  And the music followed her to a halting close. 

In the ensuing silence, the courtiers drew a deep breath of relief and the king fell forward with his head on his knees.   Tamar was horrified.  All the hate that had welled up inside her had drained away as suddenly as it had come. 
What had she done?
  She turned and ran from the room.  She was stopped by two guards outside the door who, at a signal from a courtier, took hold of her by the elbows and courteously, but firmly, escorted her back to the harem.  She was too distraught to feel the humiliation of her position or to take advantage of it either.  They were stopped by a tall personage whom Tamar quite failed to recognize, at first, as the prince.  He was on his way to the king it appeared.  A war with a neighbouring fiefdom was likely to escalate, it seemed.  And to make matters worse, two prisoners had escaped from the dungeons.  At this Tamar raised her head (which had been bowed in shame) to listen.  The prisoners had evidently had outside assistance.  The guards and all the other prisoners had apparently been drugged, and the escapees were nowhere to be found, surely an impossibility unless somebody was hiding them.  Tamar caught a strange look on the prince’s face as these facts were related to him.  A slight smile was playing about his lips, and he was watching Tamar’s face closely, as if to gauge her reaction.  He nodded, as if he was satisfied about something.  Then he turned to the guards and gave some rapid orders about the search for the prisoners and the gathering of troops for the impending skirmish. Then he turned on his heel abruptly and left.

* * *

The oddest thing about the man who was sheltering them, Denny decided, was that he was apparently not at all afraid of the consequences, which, Denny assumed, would be dire if he was caught.  He had heard their story with equanimity and without surprise.  Denny had not seen any harm in telling him.  What could he do, after all? 

Now that Denny had the Athame back in his possession, he felt invulnerable.  (Which he was not of course – only comparatively so.  Compared to you, for example – or me.  Compared to Tamar, he may as well have been wearing a sign reading “Beat me, bite me, whip me, kill me”.  Compared to Tamar he was as vulnerable as a snail out of its shell.  Everything is relative.) 

In any case, the man seemed trustworthy enough, and it was a convenient place to hide until he came up with a plan to find Tamar.  Much better than using magic in front of Mark, who had probably had as much as he could take anyway.

They had almost run straight into this man as soon as they had left the prison.  He had looked at them curiously for a second and then, just as Denny was about to reach for the Athame, had put his finger on his lip to indicate silence and beckoned them to follow him.  It was all the more unlikely, when one considered that they were obvious westerners; even covered in grime, their skin was far lighter than his.  Why would he risk so much for the sake of two grubby foreigners?  It made no sense, and Denny was initially suspicious.  This feeling was much relieved by the food and wine and soft beds and the fact that the man spoke good English.  Much better, in fact, than Denny’s own.  He heard their story, as I have said, without comment, and then he left them abruptly saying he would be back soon and cautioning them not to stir outside on pain of death.  For in the daytime, there would be guards looking for them, he said, and at night there would be bandits. 

Nevertheless, Denny followed him.

* * *

Tamar had been dumped, unceremoniously back in the harem, and the guards had scurried away in a great hurry. 

Shortly after this, the harem were informed that they were to be moved.  War was imminent, and their lord intended to ride out, therefore his wives and concubines must join him.  Tamar had never heard anything so ridiculous.  Everything about it was ludicrous.  That a man with one and a half feet in his grave should ride out to war, when he had a young son who was perfectly capable. That this old man should expose his women to danger for no good reason.  The man did not have the strength to lift a paper knife, let alone raise a sword – or anything else. 

* * *

On the third day, the women had been living in a tent behind enemy lines, the prince called on his mother.  He had come from the battlefield he said, and he looked it. He strode in resplendent in scarlet, his cloak flying out behind him.  No longer did he seem even remotely civilised, he had thrown off the veneer of a western education and looked like what he was, a savage, a tiger among men, a King. He reminded Tamar of his father.

He stayed only a short time, talking urgently with his mother, and then he left, casting a dark look at Tamar as he passed her. 

A few minutes later the king’s first wife and Tamar’s only friend in the harem (for the other women were not past jealousy) sauntered casually over to her.  There was nothing unusual in this, for she often came to talk to Tamar, being the only one who did.  The other women did not even raise their eyes, and Tamar assumed that she wanted to talk proudly of her son, as she often did.  She was, therefore, surprised, when the woman whispered to her.  ‘I have a message for you, from my son.’ 

Tamar raised her eyebrows. 

‘You are to meet him tonight, at midnight. I will show you where.’  She would say no more, and shuffled quickly away.  Tamar was not altogether surprised at this assignation; she believed she understood.  Well, she would go.  She would just have to quickly disabuse him of any notions that he had formed in regard to her.  But it might just turn out to be just what she had been waiting for.  An opportunity.

* * *

The king’s wife led her to the appointed spot and left her there, under the shade of a tree, the name of which, not being a botanist, Tamar did not know. It was hot, not the faintest breath of a wind disturbed the branches above her, yet she felt a chill, she thought she was observed.  And then she saw him.  He was sat on horseback just about twenty yards away, looking straight at her.  He was bathed in moonlight, and she could see him clearly, but she realised that he could not see her, as she was in shadow.

She took the opportunity to study him. He was dressed in a long scarlet robe, and she could just make out from here, the hawk like curve of his nose.  He sat the horse with such stillness that she wondered for a moment if he were a statue. The animal was clearly under his complete control. 

 There was a power in him that she could sense from here.  It was not arrogance though, nor just simple physical strength.   It was something else, something less definable –something that had nothing to do with his rank.  He was a man that men would always follow, that rarest of things, a born leader. 

Suddenly he seemed to make up his mind.  He kicked the horse and turned it toward her and began to gallop straight for her. He had seen her after all.  It was such a magnificent sight, that Tamar felt her heart give a treacherous flutter as he bore down on her, robes flying out behind him.  Such a flutter as her heart had never given before for anybody but … Denny?  As he swerved the horse around slowing to scoop her up behind him, she looked into his face. Surely those were Denny’s eyes, looking out of that dark, handsome face.

* * *

They had planned it between them, Denny explained.  Although the Prince, could not have known just how complete Denny’s disguise would be.  Denny laughed when he thought of it. He told her most of what had happened, glossing over his ordeal in the prison hastily, and neglecting to mention that his wounds from the beating, that she seemed, to his surprise, to be aware of, had not yet healed.  He had become himself again, before they went to pick up the waiting Mark. And Tamar was glad of it. It had been unnerving to hear Denny’s voice coming from the unfamiliar face of the prince. 

‘He had already seen you,’ Denny told her, sat around a campfire after some hours riding.   ‘And when he heard our story, he knew who you must be.  I have to admit, we probably couldn’t have done it without him.  We only had the vaguest idea of where you might be, but
he
knew.  He got us into the army, and it was funny to think of all those guards looking for us, when we were right under their noses.  And you know the rest.’ 

‘How much does he know?’  She indicated the sleeping Mark.  He was an awkward rider, being new to it, and their progress had been slow, and he had found it tiring, as most new riders did. He would ache in the morning.

‘Only as much as is good for him,’ Denny assured her.