Tammas

Tammas  Character Post 47

Tammas is a red cocker spaniel, a courteous gentleman dog; the familiar of Lord Dominic Beckingham, a witch who lectures in art history. Tammas came into Dominic's life as a pup; the leftover of a litter born to the bitch next door. As with any familiar, Tammas had gradually become aware that he was different from his litter-mates and, once weaned, he waited impatiently for his witch to find him. Once Dominic obliged, Tammas stated he was ready for his own witch now, and added pensively that he was hungry.  The match was made.

From a self-possessed pup, Tammas grew into a placid dog. His thought-talking ability is well above average, meaning he can make himself understood by witches other than his own. A few weeks older than Dominic's only son, Tammas considers himself the wiser sibling, and had been pleased to oversee young Fox's development into his teens.

Now eighteen, Tammas is old for a dog, but just middle-aged for a familiar. He enjoys playing the elder statesman role. He has a well-developed sense of humour, and watches with sly enjoyment as his master uses his innate charms to get what he wants. Tammas has no urge to stop him, as he considers Dominic is acting in a perfectly correct fashion.

Now settled in a new suburban environment, Tammas has encountered a wilful young cat named Tash; familiar to Catharina Mahal. There's also Catharina herself, her mother, Cordelia, and various other interesting people. Tammas looks forward to many more years of entertainment and then to a serene old age. Before that time comes, he intends to look out for a likely bitch and sire a litter of pups. He knows he must leave his witch one day, but he hopes and expects one of his descendants will take over as Dominic's familiar. In fact, he knows this will happen. He will make sure of it.

Tammas appears in the Cat Mahal is Magic series beginning with The Peacock's Pearl.

ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. She runs  Prints Charming Books. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist. 2017 is now behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of February 18th 2018 I STILL haven't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books to come, and I'll certainly showcase those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, just for a change. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!