‘A normal human being?’ he said. ‘Look, it’s one thing to look like a scruffy git, because you want to. It’s something else to feel like a complete fool in a bad fancy dress costume, because you have to. Sorry,’ he added, ‘I know we have more important things to worry about. I guess I just can’t get rid of the feeling that people are going to stare. Or that I’ll be arrested by the fashion police.’
‘Oh, all right,’ said Tamar, exasperated. ‘Wait there.’ And she disappeared out into the street alone.
Denny had a feeling that he should not have let her do this. They had decided to remain inside the temple until it was dark – this was principally so that their appearance would not be noticed, of course, which was no longer a problem, at least in Tamar’s case, since a couple of worshippers had provided a gold plated opportunity for robbery, which Denny was against in principle but in practice … Well, in practice, he had hit the man on the head with a heavy stone with barely a qualm. It is all very well to stick to your principles when it does not cost you anything, but under the, rather desperate, circumstances … Denny shrugged. What was done was done, but what was she up to now?
He was feeling far less distressed than Tamar about the vanishing of his powers; he had always had a feeling that this day would come, that his powers were on temporary loan from the universe and that someday they would be repossessed. But it did not prevent the old feelings of hopeless inadequacy from resurfacing. The daft looking toga was not helping. Tamar was right though – under normal circumstances it would not have bothered him as much.
Clearly Tamar understood how he was feeling better than he could have explained it because she returned after about half an hour carrying a long cloak, which she told him to put on. He felt better immediately; he did not ask where she had got it from.
‘Okay.’ She surveyed him critically. ‘The hair’s all wrong, it needs to be shorter. Men in this time kept their hair neat and tidy. Your haystack-in-a-windstorm look will draw too much attention. You’ll need to shave too. And the trainers will have to go too. But no one will think too much of bare feet around here.’
The man’s sandals had been far too small for Denny, but they fitted Tamar beautifully, which was lucky for her since the larger footed woman had been barefoot anyway.
‘Cut my hair?’ said Denny, horrified. ‘Shave? I’ll look like a twelve year old.’
This was not far from the truth; Denny had a decidedly juvenile looking face, and without his stubble and long scruffy hair, he would indeed look like a schoolboy.
‘People will think you’re my mother.’ He tried appealing to her vanity.
But Tamar was not having any of it. ‘Fifteen,’ she pronounced. ‘Maybe sixteen or even seventeen. You’re too tall to be twelve.’
So they hacked off Denny’s hair with the Athame – a pair of handy scissors not being in their current arsenal – and Tamar made a surprisingly good job of it. But when it came to her shaving him with the lethal blade, Denny drew the line. ‘I’m not having that thing near my neck,’ he told her obstinately.
‘What if I could get a proper razor?’ she said.
‘More stealing?’ he said. ‘Well okay, but I’m doing it myself.’
‘Ever used a cutthroat?’ she asked. ‘I have. I’m an expert. I bet I could even do it with the Athame if you’d just let me.’
‘How are you an expert?’ said Denny doubtfully.
‘Five thousand years as a slave,’ she said. ‘It was a regular duty. I’ve shaved masters with knives, daggers … you name it, even a sharpened axe head once.’
Denny sagged. ‘Okay, I surrender. Just don’t cut my head off by accident.’
‘What do I look like now?’ he asked eventually.
Tamar had been staring at him in wonder for five long minutes without saying a word, and it was making him twitchy.
‘Really… pretty,’ she said. ‘I like it,’ she added as he frowned – no glowered at her.
‘Pretty?’ he snorted. ‘Oh God, my father was right.’
‘No, no, I don’t mean like a girl or anything, it’s just … well I can see your face properly now. You look like Iffie – sort of, but boyish. Man-pretty, that’s what they call it, isn’t it?’
Denny did not believe a word of it. ‘Bollocks!’ he said dismissively and signalled that, as far as he was concerned, this conversation was over. ‘How are we going to get to Rome?’ he asked, effectively bringing them back down to practicalities with a bump.
‘We walk,’ she said, ‘unless we can hitch a ride from someone.’
‘Walk?’ said Denny aghast. ‘To Rome? You’ve got to be kidding.’
‘Sorry,’ she said curtly. ‘I forgot my broomstick. Look these are the times. Travellers go on foot or horseback or by boat – which we can’t afford. Cheer up. It’s only six hundred and fifty miles.’
‘Straight across,’ said Denny. ‘By boat, in other words. How far is it overland?’
‘That is how far it is overland,’ she said. ‘We could go to the coast and try to steal a boat I suppose. Do you know how to sail?’
‘No, but you know everything, don’t you?’
‘I never had to,’ she admitted. ‘I never needed to do things the mortal way before.’
‘Maybe we could stow away somehow,’ he suggested. ‘How far is it to the coast?’
‘About ten minutes,’ she said. ‘Same as in our time. But I’m telling you, we won’t get a boat to Italy from here. We’d be better off going to the port at Igoumenitsa and catching a boat to Brindisi. Or whatever they call it here – I mean now.’
‘And then at least we’d be in Italy,’ said Denny. ‘Okay, why don’t we do that then?’
‘You know, you were right,’ she said. ‘It’s 350 miles to the west coast. We should get a cart and horse or something.’
‘Oh God, and we’re going to have to eat too. What the hell are we going to do?’
‘There’s food on the altar, it looks pretty fresh. There might be some valuables up there too. Maybe we could trade some stuff. They don’t go much on cash around here anyway.’
‘You think we should rob the temple?’ said Denny shocked despite himself.
‘Denny,’ she said as kindly as possible. ‘We came here to kill the gods. It’s a bit late to be worrying about blasphemy don’t you think?’
‘Oh, yeah I suppose when you put it like that. And I am starving.’
‘It’s only going to get worse,’ said Tamar gloomily.
* * *
They managed to hitch a ride to the port. Tamar had never had to do this before and had, therefore, been unaware of the usefulness of a pretty face in the successful prosecution of this activity. Although whether it was her pretty face or Denny’s that clinched the deal remained unclear.
Three boring, slow going days on the back of a smelly cart, listening to the driver’s boring tales about pigs (Denny was lucky here – he did not understand a word of it) and she was beginning to wish they had walked it after all.
But the carter was kind and friendly. He shared his food with them, their temple pickings having amounted to very little, and he left them at the dock with some helpful advice on how to stowaway on a boat, it apparently being a favourite pastime of his in his youth. Yes, he had been as far as Crete, he said, and Tamar tried to look suitably impressed.
By asking around, and it really was amazing how a language that she had not used for over a thousand years came back to her so fluently, Tamar discovered that there was a ferry leaving for an Italian port in the early morning. It was a few hours before dusk at the moment, and they were hungry and weary.
Fortunately some traditions have lasted for many thousands of years. There was a temple dedicated to Hestia, a pretty small affair compared to the temple of Athena that they had sheltered in previously, but at least it was a roof and the offerings to Hestia, if Tamar remembered rightly, tended towards the edible. Denny, who was starving and who did not have any better ideas anyway, was in no position t
o argue. But there was something inexpressibly disrespectful, he felt, about their sheltering in the various temples dedicated to the gods they had come here to destroy.
It was a period of peace in Greece at the moment. That is to say, there were no actual wars going on – well, not major wars anyway, but banditry and other nefarious occupations were rife. The temple was occupied when they reached it. Several rough looking characters, who did not feel inclined to share, were lounging at the altar having apparently had the same idea as Tamar and Denny.
Had they still got their powers, of course, these vagabonds would not have represented a particularly formidable proposition, in the present case, however, it was as simple as five against two. Or rather five against one, as Denny had no intention of letting Tamar fight under the circumstances. Of course, he might as well have tried to hold back the tides.
The leader, a louche looking character rose languidly from his position at the foot of the altar and gave a signal to the others to attack. Denny tensed.
Time to see how much he remembered. Before receiving the Athame, he had trained himself to fight in the old fashioned way and had actually become fairly proficient in several forms of both armed and unarmed combat. He was wishing now that he had not let it slide for so long – he had kept up his training program for several years after he no longer really needed it, but after a while, he had become complacent about his powers and this foolishness was now being brought home to him sharply.
Like riding a bike, apparently. As the first one came at him, Denny reacted instinctively and with a smooth, well-practised move, which the man evidently never saw coming, Denny dodged and caught his sword arm, and completely ignoring the blade as irrelevant, twisted and then brought the full weight of his body into the back of the man’s outstretched and thus weakened arm and broke it. It made a horrible snapping noise. The sword clanged on the floor, and Denny picked it up and, without hesitating, brought it down on the man’s head. Then he lowered the sword, as Tamar, who had never trained herself to do anything, was caught by two men and held fast with a dagger to her throat.
Denny weighed his options. Tamar knew how to fight. He had good reason to know this, in the beginning, she had taught him. But she was now frozen rigid with fear.
‘Πτώση αυτό,’ said the leader.
‘He said “drop it”,’ translated Tamar. ‘But don’t,’ she added. ‘He’ll just kill me anyway.’
‘I know,’ said Denny. It was a stalemate for the time being; he had to find a way to break it to his own advantage.
‘Πτώση αυτό,’ repeated the leader. ‘ή θα την σκοτώσω.’
Denny gathered that this was some kind of threat. Oh well, he appeared to be out of options. He dropped the sword and the two men holding Tamar relaxed slightly. This was a mistake. Denny had dropped the sword onto his foot, and he now kicked it upwards, caught it and threw it with remarkable accuracy at the leader, who was forced to dodge out of the way and fell on his face, Denny was on him in a second, the Athame out. Meanwhile, Tamar had taken full advantage of her captors’ momentary inattention as Denny had hoped. Powers or not, they had fought together so often that they no longer needed to read each other’s minds. It was all instinctive. She escaped easily simply by dropping to the floor and rolling away, but she no longer had the strength to follow up her advantage as she once could. Once upon a time, they would have been mere smears on the wall. However, with their leader down and Denny rising from his body brandishing a bloody dagger with such a look on his face as would put the fear of God into a Berserker, they both decided that this fight was not for them, and they ran.
The fight had done Denny good. In fact, he felt on top of the world. The feelings of inadequacy that had assailed him since the loss of his powers had receded into nothing.
Tamar was a little shaky however.
Denny knelt down to her. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
‘Fine,’ she said with a brightness that was a little forced. ‘You did well,’ she added. ‘Not bad for a man with no magical assist.’
‘You know, I was a bit worried about that,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve been feeling pretty useless since we lost our powers,’ he grinned suddenly. ‘But you know what?’ he said. ‘I am good.’
‘Your nose is bleeding,’ she told him.
Denny wiped it with the back of his hand in a rather uncouth fashion and looked at the blood on his hand curiously. He had not seen his own blood for many years. ‘Would you look at that,’ he said. ‘I am bleeding. It feels weird after all this time.’
‘Weird good or weird bad?’ asked Tamar.
‘Kind of good actually,’ he said. ‘I won that fight on my own – no Athame I mean, no special help. I feel … hungry actually. Did those scags leave any food?’
‘If they didn’t we could always eat him,’ said Tamar indicting the fallen leader. Denny chose to take this as a joke.
He helped her up and went to investigate the offering plates. There was a surprising amount of food there. He helped himself and took a plate to Tamar who merely picked at it. The sight of Denny’s bleeding nose had shaken her more than she wanted to admit. They were mortal now; they could be hurt – perhaps badly, perhaps even killed. She decided that this was not the time to point this out, though. Apart from the fact that he knew it as well as she did (he was not a fool, after all) he seemed to be on a high at the moment, and she did not want to bring him down. The elevation of his mood was confirmed to her when he began to sing in a loud and hearty voice. Even she had to smile, though, at his choice of song. He was singing, with ironic appositeness, David Bowie’s “Golden Years”.
~ Chapter Three ~
They were now on the second leg of their journey, and Denny’s mood had taken a sharp dip due to the return of his seasickness. A mortal failing that he had forgotten he ever suffered from. Getting on board the ferry had been easy – they had simply paid passage using the money that they had found on the dead leader of the bandits or whatever they were. He had had quite a large bag of coins on him, and Tamar estimated that they would have enough to see them to Rome assuming the currency was good in Italy.
Tamar herself was feeling pretty good. She liked the sea, and the wind on her face was refreshing and calming to her strung out nerves and best of all, they were on their way now. Denny was throwing up over the side, but even in this condition he did not fail to notice the anxious demeanour of the crew.
‘They’re worried about something,’ he said to Tamar during a lull in his ongoing nausea.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s Poseidon they’re worried about.
‘All sailors are superstitious, said Denny dismissively.
‘Poseidon isn’t a superstition around here,’ Tamar pointed out. ‘He’s a very real threat.’
‘Well,’ yes,’ agreed Denny. ‘You don’t seem too worried,’ he added.
‘What will be will be,’ said Tamar. ‘Besides, didn’t Clive say that the gods hadn’t been seen much around this time period?’
‘You aren’t taking his word for it, are you?’
‘Good point,’ she said. ‘But I still … Of course, I could be wrong,’ she said, her face suddenly white as a sheet.
Denny turned sharply; he had been leaning against the rail with his back to the sea facing Tamar, who had been looking out to sea.
‘Do you think it’s us he’s after?’ he asked in a deceptively calm voice.
‘I don’t see how it can be,’ she said. ‘They can’t know, can they?’
‘So it’s just a horrible coincidence then?’ said Denny sceptically.
And Tamar looked at the expression on Poseidon’s face. ‘Maybe not,’ she conceded, and then she smiled to herself.
The crew were panicking as the sea began to boil and churn and the boat was tossed on twenty foot waves.
‘We’re going to capsize,’ said Tamar serenely.
‘Oh great!’ snapped Denny. ‘Do you have to sound so bloody happy about it?’
/>
‘The fool,’ was all she said, and she even smiled. ‘We’d better get below,’ she added.
‘I think you’re forgetting something,’ said Denny sharply, trying to bring her back to reality from whatever happy cloud she was currently resting on. ‘We can drown now. Do you even know how to swim?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘And I don’t have to.’
‘What the hell are you talking about, have you completely … lost … mind …?’ His voice was lost in the great tumult of crashing waves as the boat was lifted high in the air and then dropped sharply, with a thunderous noise, back on to the surface of the ocean.
Tamar climbed up onto the side of the boat and balanced precariously there, her hair streaming behind her, a look of pure defiance on her face as she caught Poseidon’s gaze and held it for a second. Even in the midst of his terror, Denny stopped panicking for a moment to appreciate her. Even with no powers at all, she really was magnificent. She looked like some wild goddess of the sea herself.
‘You’ll have to do better than that,’ she told the wrathful sea god. ‘You can’t stop us so easily.’ And she leapt down lightly on to the deck as Poseidon sent a huge wave crashing over the boat which sent it rocking and rolling headlong. They had finally taken on too much water and were about to capsize any second.
‘You had to say it, didn’t you?’ shrieked Denny as they slipped and skidded across the deck towards the hold.
‘Stop bitching,’ said Tamar. ‘I know what I’m doing.’
And the boat capsized just as she pulled the door of the hold shut behind them.
They were sinking slowly to the bottom of the sea in an upside down boat. But, on the bright side, at least Denny was not seasick any more.
The hold was surprisingly watertight, very little water was coming in, but, on the other hand, they were running out of air.
‘Okay,’ said Denny, forcing himself to remain calm. ‘How are we going to get out of this one?’
‘You mean you haven’t worked it out yet?’ said Tamar.
Pantheon (The Tamar Black Saga) Page 3