‘We’re alone,’ she said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
They looked at each other ‘How?’ Denny asked.
‘Catch hands,’ she instructed him. ‘Now, “close file”,’ she said, and the world disappeared.
They landed back in the file room in the same inelegant manner that they had left. Denny looked resignedly at the rows and rows of little file doors stretching on into infinity. ‘How do you think it works?’ he asked. ‘I mean is there a file for every day or is it every hour or what? And we ended up in France, but what about the rest of the world at that particular time or day or whatever?’
‘I don’t know, do I?’ Tamar hated making this admission at any time, and the more so now, because she knew he had a point. The possibilities were indeed quite literally, endless. And, without any sort of system or key, how in the hell were they going to find Askphrit in the vast annals of the past?
‘We were in that last one for several days,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps these are sort of main files with sub files in each if you only know how to access them. ‘I mean, once in the file, you can cross distances as well as continuing to move through time. These files aren’t infinite, not really. Perhaps each file could be viewed as just an access point. I mean its history right? So it all joins up in the end it’s really just one massive, big file when you think about it.’
Denny laughed.
‘What’s so funny about that?’
‘Oh, it’s just you, that’s all. You don’t know, any more than I do, how it all works. But you still managed to make the nothing that you know, up into an explanation.’
‘Well, it’s a theory isn’t it? We’d know better if we had the proper codes.’
‘Well, we don’t, we’re just data in the machine, not the operators.’
‘Nicely put, that’s exactly how it is.’
‘So, what makes you think we have
any
chance here? We’re lost.’
‘We knew that already. We just have to hope. Besides, I get the feeling we’re not as alone in this as we seem to be.’
‘An operator?’
‘Could be.’ She nodded uncertainly. ‘Any way, don’t forget we literally have all the time in the world, we
will
run him to earth in the end. Now pick a file it’s your turn.’
* * *
‘Well, it would help if we knew the file he came from,’ said Stiles. ‘Assuming he really did … hey where did he go?’
Hecate raised an eyebrow. ‘Interesting,’ she said. ‘He has returned to whence he came.’
‘Apparently,’ said Stiles slightly sceptically. It couldn’t be that easy, surely?
Hecate dusted her hands together. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘that appears to have solved that little problem for us anyway. A strange anomaly no doubt.’
‘Yeah?’ said Stiles. ‘Then who’s that then?’
~ Chapter Four ~
‘
I
n Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen
,’ intoned the priest. They had crashed a wedding. And once again, they had been spotted.
‘Don’t get any ideas,’ said Denny.
‘Like what?’ said Tamar, “innocent face” replacing the dreamy eyed expression that she had been wearing.
‘I saw that look.’
Tamar gave him a look that was anything but dreamy.
‘Okay, so, where are we now? You’re the expert, aren’t you?’ said Denny.
‘In a lot of trouble,’ she said, as the church was stormed by soldiers.
‘Not again?’ groaned Denny.
But the soldiers were not interested in them; they seized the priest and the happy couple and arrested them, in the name of Queen Elizabeth, for idolatry (which Tamar explained as meaning because they were Catholic) and treason. They were in the sixteenth century. They took the opportunity, while everyone’s attention was distracted, to match their clothes to the period.
‘What’ll happen to them?’ hissed Denny.
‘They’ll be hanged,’ she told him, ‘and we can’t interfere, as much as we might want to.’
There was worse to come. The soldiers barred the doors of the church, trapping the few people who had braved the wedding, inside, and set fire to it.
‘Okay,’ said Tamar, ‘that does it! To hell with the rules, let’s get them out of here.’
‘You won’t get any argument from me,’ said Denny.
It was an old building even for the time; the door was solid oak and the only windows were tiny slits through which a child could not have passed. The door was blocked by a crush of people trying to knock it down. The few children in the church were sensibly leaning as far through the windows as they could, trying to breathe as much fresh air as they could.
Denny cleared the door as best he could, as a burning beam fell from the ceiling. Tamar leaped and caught it one handed, to gasps of wonder, interspersed with coughing fits. She pole vaulted with the beam, which was still smouldering, and aimed a flying kick at the door, which crashed off its hinges.
More than one person had lost consciousness by this time, so Tamar and Denny ended up carrying them out.
Tamar found herself the subject of much pointing and whispering.
‘Such strength, in a woman, it’s not natural.’
‘And she wasn’t afraid of the fire at all.’
‘Did you see? She
flew
on that beam.’
‘She’s a witch.’
‘Where did she come from? She’s not one of us.’
‘But – she saved us.’
‘With her supernatural powers, she’s in league with Lucifer.’
‘And who is he? Her familiar, in his human form.’
And the inevitable – ‘Get them.’
The townspeople were advancing on them; there were suddenly a lot more of them, and their faces were lit up with cruelty – born of fear, but also a desire for entertainment.
‘Witch – witch – witch.’
‘Put her to the test, fetch the pricker, he’ll find the mark.’
‘Aye, the mark of Satan, she’ll have it, mark my words.’
‘Well, that’s gratitude for you,’ said Denny. ‘What do we do now?’
‘Give ‘em what they want,’ said Tamar grimly. ‘It won’t be my first ducking. You get out of here.’ To his horror, she turned him into a cat; his clothes, along with the Athame, fell in a heap on the ground; he crawled out from among them and scampered away as the roar of the crowd escalated. ‘Witch – witch – witch – witch!’
A man in a tall black hat, with an air of authority, obviously the witch pricker, appeared. Tamar was surrounded and dragged away.
Denny crept forward to his discarded clothes and found the Athame among them; he tried to use it to turn himself back, but it would not work; apparently, only Tamar could turn him back. He watched in horror as she was stripped; the mob was searching, so he gathered for a mark on her body. The Witch Pricker would then stick a pin in it, if it did not bleed, that meant she was a witch. The mark was not found, but the pricker said that this was inconclusive; the evidence against her was such that she would have to face the ducking test. Hadn’t they all witnessed her familiar turn from a human to a cat? And she had been seen to fly on a piece of burning wood.
The ducking test apparently meant that she would be weighted down and thrown into the river. A witch would float, protected by her lord, Lucifer, an innocent woman would drown. If a woman should survive the ducking, thus proving that she was a witch, she would be hanged. Heads I win, tails you lose.
Tamar was bound hand and foot, and weighted down with a bag of stones around her neck, and she was thrown into the river – she sank immediately.
Denny shot forward with a cry, well, it came out as more of a yowl. He felt the indignity of his position as a burly man grabbed him by the scruff of his neck.
‘It’s the witches familiar,’ shouted a woman.
‘Drown it,’ called another.
Denny squirmed and twisted frantically, scratching up the face of the man as best he could.
‘Look at it,’ said someone. ‘Such venom, that’s no ordinary cat. Throw it in after the witch.’
Denny was stuffed into a sack, which was also weighted down with stones. Without the Athame, he was completely helpless. He suddenly felt weary and stopped struggling; he was thrown into the water. He felt a strange sense of calm; he even saw the funny side. Here he was – a cat in a sack, sinking to the bottom of a lake. Of all the ways to go …
* * *
‘Who’s that then?’ said Stiles pointing at a tall robed man with an ascetic look about him ‘A Christian priest,’ Hecaté told him.
The priest gazed calmly at them and then spoke. ‘The Lord be praised, for Heaven is more wondrous and beautiful than ever I could have dreamed.’
Hecaté and Stiles looked at each other in disbelief. It was clear the man believed himself dead for some reason, but … Heaven? Here?
‘The mind is a powerful deceiver,’ said Hecaté. ‘His faith has led him to see angels in the faces of the clouds.’
‘What?’ said Stiles uncomprehendingly.
‘He is seeing what he expected to see when he died, rather that what is really here,’ she translated.
‘But he isn’t dead,’ said Stiles. ‘Is he?’ he looked worried. It was bad enough that he was here at all without him being a ghost too.
‘He believes he is,’ said Hecaté.
‘From the fire and sword wielding hands of the infidel, I was delivered unto the sanctuary of the kingdom of Heaven,’ confirmed the priest in lugubrious tones.
‘Great!’ said Stiles. ‘So, what are we supposed to do with him then?’
‘And his dog,’ he added, suddenly noticing a Great Dane sniffing around the back of the chair.
‘I doubt it is his own dog,’ said Hecaté, as if this was relevant.
‘Who cares? How do we get rid of them?’
‘I imagine they will go on their own like the other,’ she said.
Stiles laughed. ‘Oh boy is he in for a shock,’ he said. ‘World’s first “near death experience”. He won’t be too happy to find out he’s not in Heaven after all will he?’
Hecaté frowned. ‘That is true,’ she said. ‘It could cause problems.’
‘Changing history and all that?’ asked Stiles.
‘Precisely,’ Hecaté affirmed.
‘Well, there’s not really a lot we can do about it is there?’ he asked. ‘It’s not as if we can keep him here… no … no, no, no!’
* * *
Tamar floated along the riverbed, waiting for the townspeople to disperse; it was calm down here, cool and refreshing. She had, of course, given herself a handy set of gills. She could vaguely hear shouting, but, through the water, could not make out the words. ‘Celebrating no doubt,’ she thought, scornfully. ‘No wonder I never liked mortals much – until Denny. I hope he’s all right.’
After a while she got bored, the scenery under water palls quickly, fish and weeds, and more fish, with some more weeds. Deadly dull, so, she decided to swim upstream and climb out, somewhere away from public view. She dragged herself, inelegantly on to the shore – just in case anyone was around, and lay gasping on the bank. Just in time, she remembered to get rid of the gills.
She sat up and looked around. She could not see anyone, so she manifested herself some clothes, and dried her hair. Ah – magic – so much more efficient than a hairdryer.
Now, blonde or redhead? She had to go back and find Denny, but turning up, back in the town, looking like herself was definitely a bad idea. Blonde, she decided, the more contrast with her usual appearance, the better – and blue eyes, for that Nordic look.
She made her way back to the town. Now that she was no longer either in a burning church, or being harassed by a bloodthirsty mob, she had leisure to look around a bit; she thought she might be in Plymouth. Any minute now, the Spanish Armada might be sighted. ‘Oh, well,’ she thought. ‘I’ve already seen it.’
There was no sign of Denny, not a black cat in sight, in fact. ‘Why did I
do
that? What a stupid thing to do.’ But she did find his clothes; the Athame, however, was gone.
* * *
From inside the bag, slightly muffled, Denny heard an authoritative and cultured voice demanding loudly to know just what these people thought they were up to. The bag was swung through the air, and daylight appeared as the bag was opened. Denny saw a pale faced man looking curiously at him.
‘You people were about to drown this cat.’ It was not a question.
‘My lord, it is no ordinary cat, it is a witches familiar, sir.’
‘What nonsense,’ said the man contemptuously. He sighed. ‘When will you peasants learn to do without all this ridiculous superstition?’
‘We saw it change from a man into a cat, sir. The witch did it.’
‘And where is this witch?’
There was a silence.
‘I asked you a question,’ snapped the man. ‘Where is this supposed witch?’
A small boy came forward. ‘At the bottom of the river sir,’ he said, before he was hustled away by what was presumably his mother. Denny had a first class view of their discomfiture, from his rescuer’s arms.
‘I see,’ said the man coldly. ‘There will be no more of this, do you understand? I forbid it.’
The men in the crowd touched their caps; the women curtseyed clumsily, as they all said. ‘Yes sir.’
The man stalked away, holding Denny in his arms; abruptly he stopped and turned round. ‘If I understand your superstitions correctly,’ he said, ‘If the alleged witch has drowned, then, even according your stupid beliefs, she was not a witch, isn’t that correct? So, why would you drown what is clearly, even by your standards a perfectly ordinary cat? You might want to think about that.’
The man talked to Denny as he walked, although, of course, really he thought he was just talking to himself. ‘Fools!’ he was saying, ‘when will they learn? Poor kitty, you had a narrow escape, there. What a pity I did not arrive earlier, and save that poor woman’s life. Your owner, I suppose. Well you can come home with me, you’ll be safe there. I hope you’re a good mouser. Witches indeed! What nonsense! Well, they will not do it again; they would not dare to disobey me.’
He took Denny, now renamed Tinker by the cook, to the kitchens of his vast home. The cook went into transports of delight, at the “pretty kitty” that she seemed to assume was female. Denny, naturally, took umbrage at this, and went into a corner to sulk, there being no escape possible at the moment. Denny had never owned a cat, or any pet, not after he killed the class hamster, by accidentally vacuuming it up, so he was not certain, but he thought he might be let out at night. People did that he was sure. Unless those noises outside at three a.m. really were children screaming. And even in Denny’s old neighbourhood, he doubted it – not
every
night.