‘It’s not.’
The smugglers or pirates or whatever they were, were advancing on them. They had been seen – again.
‘We’re really bad at this covert stuff,’ observed Denny.
* * *
They were hustled aboard a tiny boat and rowed out to sea, where the ship was waiting.
The pirates were uproariously delighted with their capture; laughing and drinking and making sinister remarks about the fate that awaited their captives once they were handed over to the Captain.
‘Can’t you just grab it and we’ll get out of here? We could jump overboard.’
Tamar ignored this, no more risks, he would just have to wait, ‘Who is your Captain?’ she asked them.
‘Aha,’ smirked one, ‘Have you ever heard of the Dread Pirate Hogarth?’
Tamar choked.
Denny looked curiously at her. ‘Dread Pirate Hogarth?’ he said, ‘Sounds like something
you’d
come up with.’
‘You know me too well,’ she managed through gritted teeth.
‘What’s the matter? Do you know this guy? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘In a manner of speaking.’ She was silent for a moment, thoughtful. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘there’s a chance that you’ll recognise this Captain, just promise me something – don’t react.’
‘That
I’ll
recognise him? How’s that? Oh is it – him? Have we found him? Do you know something?’
‘Something,’ she said, cagily. ‘Shhh, now.’ The pirates were giving them funny looks.’
* * *
They were hustled on board and prodded forward with the ends of the pirates’ swords; the other pirates crowded forward to get a look at them, most were drunk, and all were leering and spitting on the deck.
‘Tremble before the Dread Pirate Hogarth!’ They were told as they were forced to their knees. ‘Scourge of the seven seas, terror of the Barbary Coast, on your knees dogs!’
The Dread Pirate Hogarth was indeed an imposing figure, tall and dashing, flamboyantly dressed, and, strangely enough, masked. He stood, hands on hips like a pantomime villain
‘Any minute now,’ thought Denny, ‘he’ll slap his thigh and break into a song about the high seas.’
Naturally, this did not happen. Captain Hogarth looked the prisoners over; he took a long, intense look at Denny, and then said. ‘Take them to my cabin.’ As he spoke, Denny felt a strange quiver, a feeling of familiarity. They were manhandled into the cabin; Tamar was strangely silent and restless. The cabin was lavish, in the way that only magic can create, as Denny realised.
‘Who is this guy?’ he asked. ‘Why should I know him? What …?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘It was a long time ago. I just have this feeling. Now shut up.’
Denny recognised that tone; he shut up, just as the Captain entered the cabin. He held up the Athame. ‘Now, do I take it that this fine dagger belongs to one of you?’
‘It’s mine,’ said Denny, before Tamar could stop him.
‘Yours is it? How peculiar, you are not a Demon. You’re much too sweet.’ He laughed at Denny’s stunned face. ‘Yes I know what
this
is.’ He took Denny’s chin in a silk gloved hand. ‘But who are
you
?’ he said, stroking Denny’s face and hair, almost seductively. ‘You’re pretty! I think I might keep you.’
Not again!
Denny was silent.
‘You think that an impertinent question from a man in a mask?’ He said. ‘Very well, you shall see my face.’ He took the mask off, in a dramatic gesture. Denny’s reaction was all that the Captain could have hoped for; he gasped in amazement. Then he looked at Tamar. ‘You devil,’ he said.
* * *
‘We aren’t keeping him here,’ said Stiles, referring to the preist. ‘Won’t that just make things worse anyway?’
Hecaté shrugged helplessly. ‘What else is there to do?’ she asked. ‘If we can work out how to …’
‘How to what?’
‘How to insert this man back into history without affecting the timeline,’ she said firmly.
Stiles groaned. It’s always something, isn’t it?’
‘How are we supposed to keep him here anyway?’ he added. ‘Won’t he just vanish like the other one?’
‘Ah, of course,’ said Hecaté as a light dawned on her. ‘When Tamar and Denny exit the file’
‘Huh?’
‘This is obviously where he has come from,’ she said. ‘The file our friends are currently searching – he has been moved out of the way to make room for them. Temporal displacement.’
‘Okay, so … how were you planning on keeping him here then?’
‘By the strength of my will of course,’ she said as if this should have been obvious. ‘I
am
a goddess you know.’
Stiles did not like this plan for reasons he could not quite put his finger on. But surely messing about with the files any more than necessary was a bad idea – things were bad enough as they were. However, she was right; she
was
a goddess and ought to know better than he did about these matters.
Hecaté saw his face. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘we also have a job to do here.’
‘And what about him?’
‘He seems happy enough,’ she said. ‘We must not neglect Tamar and Denny because of this interruption.’
‘
Interruption
?’ Stiles sighed. ‘Where are they now?’
‘In trouble,’ said Hecaté shortly.
‘Par for the course,’ said Stiles dryly. ‘Do they need help?’
‘Not yet,’ said Hecaté. ‘In fact, I am not at all sure
what
they are doing, I just know that they have been in this region of history for far too long now if they have not found the monster.’
‘Maybe they have.’
‘No, he is not here, I see no signs’
Stiles sighed. ‘You know this could take months – so to speak.’
‘Years,’ she corrected him.
‘Cripes, have we got enough food?’
Hecaté smiled.
‘You know, there’s something funny about all this,’ said Stiles – the perennially suspicious. ‘I mean, why would Askphrit miss? Miss Denny’s granddad I mean. It’s almost as if …’ he trailed off.
‘As if what?’
‘Nothing, it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing we can do about it now anyway.’
* * *
‘It was during one of my periods of freedom,’ explained Tamar, ‘I was bored; I just wanted to know what it would be like.’
‘So, you took up piracy for a lark?’
‘What are you two talking about?’ asked the “other” Tamar, the one dressed up as Captain Hook.
Tamar (our Tamar) and Denny looked at each other and shrugged. Tamar put on her usual face. The other Tamar gasped. ‘By Allah that’s
my
face! – Take it off at once, you don’t know who you’re dealing with.’
Tamar said. ‘I think I do,’ and the other peered at her, then stepped back in shock. She had seen it.
She sat down, as if she was winded. ‘How is this possible?’ she managed, eventually.
‘You know better than that,’ said Tamar. ‘You know we can’t tell you, you of all people understand, and especially since it deals with your own future.’
Yes, I understand,’ she glanced at Denny. ‘Who’s he?’ she whispered. ‘He’s – well he’s very um –.’
‘He is, isn’t he?’ Tamar smiled. ‘He’s – no I can’t tell you, just try to forget you ever saw him.’
‘I don’t think I can.’
‘Try, it’s important.’
‘You could wish for it.’
‘Good idea.’
There was a loud banging on the cabin door. ‘Go away!’ snapped Captain Tamar, angrily.
‘But Captain …’
‘Oh for god’s sake!’ she rose and wrenched open the door. ‘What is it?’
‘Spaniards Captain.’
‘Oh hell!’ She turned to her guests; at least I know I’ll survive it.’
‘Of course you will,’ said Tamar. ‘You
are
immortal.’
‘Oh yes of course I am. Well here’s your Athame, you’d better get going.’ As she handed it over, she took hold of Denny’s hand and would not let go.
‘Um,’
‘Oh let him go,’ said Tamar. ‘You can’t keep him, not yet.’
Captain Tamar let go of him reluctantly. ‘I suppose so,’ she let her gaze linger on him, longingly. ‘See you soon?’ she asked hopefully.
‘Stop fishing,’ said Tamar. ‘Close file.’
The cabin vanished and they were back in the file room, the last thing they heard was ‘Goodbye.’
‘I just didn’t have the heart to tell her that she’s about to be captured by the Spaniards and end up back in the bottle again,’ said Tamar.
~ Chapter Five ~
I
t was a bright, sunny day, which made a pleasant change. They were quite obviously in a small town or suburb in the mid to late twentieth century. The streets were quiet, and there were few cars about. The street they stood on was mostly taken up by a large comprehensive school. And it was evidently late afternoon, probably midweek.
With few people or vehicles as clues, it was surprising how difficult it was to judge the decade. Houses and streets changed so little in reality. Not at all how science fiction writers once foresaw the march of progress. There was a red telephone box on the corner. This only meant that it could be any time between the fifties and the eighties. Denny narrowed it down further when he spotted a turquoise mini parked in a driveway. It had to be the sixties or later he said. Even the few people they could see afforded little in the way of data. Fashions in the twentieth century changed far less than those same science fiction writers could ever have conceived. As Denny pointed out. ‘Have you ever seen anybody wearing a tinfoil jumpsuit, in real life?’
And Tamar, doyenne of style, agreed that the girl in the miniskirt could be from either the late sixties, early seventies or any time after the early eighties. Or she could just be from the mid-seventies and be behind the fashion; it was impossible to tell. An elderly lady in a headscarf could as easily be from the forties or last week.
If they could only see into the inside of the houses, they might have a better idea, technology being a far better guide than the people themselves.
I do not undertake to explain their fascination with this conundrum, except to say that it is possible that it would strike anyone else in the same way, were they to find themselves in this position. In every other file they had entered they had found it relatively easy to identify the time period within a few years. Only the modern world, it seemed, was so uniform and unchanging. Denny and Tamar felt quite determined to find out when they were before they left. It was strange when you think about it. Here, they had no reason to hang around, nobody had seen them (and it would probably not have mattered much if they had) Tamar could not sense Askphrit, and nothing peculiar was going on, and yet they did not want to leave.
‘I reckon it’s the ’eighties,’ said Denny.
‘’Sixties,’ countered Tamar. ‘It’s so quiet; that’s because, all the men are at work and the women are at home. They didn’t have two car families in the sixties; that’s why most of the driveways are empty.’
‘In the ’eighties the women would be at work too,’ argued Denny. ‘That’s why they aren’t out in the street talking or gardening or whatever.’
‘Could even be the nineties then,’ mused Tamar, ‘by that reckoning.’
‘No,’ said Denny, positively. ‘They didn’t have those red telephone boxes by that time, they’d all gone.’
‘You do notice some funny things,’ observed Tamar. ‘Let’s look at the sign on outside the school, see what year it was built; that might narrow it down a bit.’
They wandered over. The sign read Mill Lane Comprehensive. Built 1968. This then was inconclusive.
‘Well, we can’t ask anyone,’ said Tamar. ‘Not unless we want to be taken for wandering lunatics.’
‘Why do we care so much?’ wondered Denny.
‘Let’s go and find a newspaper stand,’ said Tamar, ignoring this, since she had no answer for it.
‘Where’s the fun in that?’ asked Denny, thereby answering his own question if he had but realised it. ‘If we do that, we might as well ask somebody. I thought we were trying to work it out. It’s a pretty poor show, if we can’t figure it out between us, don’t you think?’
‘Oh, who cares?’ said Tamar suddenly tired of the whole thing. ‘That bastard isn’t here anyway, let’s just go.’
At that moment, the clock across the street struck the half-hour, causing them to automatically look at it.
‘Well, at least we know what time it is,’ observed Denny. ‘And it’s 1985,’ he added.
Tamar thought this was a gambit to draw her back into the guessing game, and she was not to be drawn. She shrugged. ‘If you say so,’ she said, ‘let’s go.’
‘No, it really is. I saw …’ the rest of his words were drowned out by a clamorous ringing which echoed over the street.
‘School’s out,’ said Denny dryly. ‘Who would have thought the bell would sound so loud out here? We’d better go,’ he added, ‘or else we’ll be drowned in a sea of hormones. And I wouldn’t like to answer for the effect you might have on a hormonal sixteen year old boy –specially looking like
that
.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like what.’ snorted Denny. ‘You know very well, like what.’
‘I just look like I always do,’ she protested.
‘That’s what I mean. Look out they’re coming.’
There was indeed a steady stream of scrofulous sweaty humanity headed their way making a noise like a flock of seagulls, and some of them had hairstyles to match.
There was no time to get away. Tamar, referring to age old instincts of blending in with her surroundings, instantly and without stopping to think, manufactured uniforms to match the ones the kids were wearing, just as they were caught up with the tide.
Denny was surprised to suddenly find himself chewing something, and, before he knew what he was doing, he blew a large pink bubble which popped all over his face.
He gave Tamar a baleful look, especially as she was, quite naturally, choking on a laugh that had bubbled to the surface.
‘Whoops,’ she giggled.
Denny was so intent on giving Tamar a dirty look that he ran into a group of large boys, almost knocking one of them over. He apologised, but he knew it was a waste of time, these were rough boys, and Denny looked even less impressive than usual at the moment, what with the bubblegum and the school uniform. Tamar had not even bothered to make it scruffy like it should be.