‘Within the hour,’ said Abel. ‘Sooner, if you can. Would rather not tarry.’
Robin steeled himself a moment before going back upstairs. He didn’t know how to tell them this was the end. His face kept threatening to crumple, to reveal the scared boy hiding behind the ghost of his older brother. He had roped all these people into this last stand; he could not bear the sight of their faces when he told them it was over.
Everyone was on the fourth floor, clustered at the east window. He joined them. Outside, soldiers were marching forth on the lawn, advancing at an oddly hesitant pace.
‘What are they doing?’ wondered Professor Craft. ‘Is this a charge?’
‘You’d think they’d charge with more of them,’ said Victoire.
She had a point. More than a dozen troops had halted on High Street, but only five soldiers proceeded the rest of the way towards the tower. As they watched, the soldiers parted, and a solitary figure stepped through their ranks up to the final remaining barricade.
Victoire drew in a sharp breath.
It was Letty. She waved a white flag.
Chapter Thirty-Two
She sate upon her Dobie,
To watch the Evening Star,
And all the Punkahs as they passed
Cried, ‘My! How fair you are!’
They sent everyone else upstairs before they opened the door. Letty was not here to negotiate with the crowd; they would not have sent an undergraduate to do so. This was personal; Letty was here for a reckoning.
‘Let her through,’ Robin told Abel.
‘Pardon?’
‘She’s here to talk. Tell them to let her through.’
Abel spoke a word to his man, who ran across the green to inform the barricaders. Two men climbed on top of the barricade and bent down. A moment later Letty was lifted over the top, then lowered none-too-gently down onto the other side.
She made her way across the green, shoulders hunched, flag trailing behind her on the pavement. She did not raise her eyes until she met them at the threshold.
‘Hello, Letty,’ said Victoire.
‘Hello,’ Letty murmured. ‘Thank you for seeing me.’
She looked miserable. She had clearly not been sleeping; her clothes were dirty and rumpled, her cheeks hollow, and her eyes red and puffy from crying. The way she hunched her shoulders around her, as if flinching from a blow, made her look very small. And despite himself, despite everything, all Robin wanted then was to give her a hug.
This instinct startled him. As she’d approached the tower he’d entertained, briefly, the thought of killing her – if only her death did not doom them all, if only he could just throw his own life into the bargain. But it was so hard to look at her now and not see a friend. How could you love someone who had hurt you so badly? Up close, staring her in the eyes, he had trouble believing that this Letty, their Letty, had done the things she had. She looked grief-stricken, vulnerable, the wretched heroine of a terrible fairy tale.
But that, he reminded himself, was the advantage of the image Letty occupied. In this country, she had the face and colouring that inspired sympathy. Among them, no matter what happened, Letty alone could walk out of here innocent.
He nodded at her flag. ‘Here to surrender?’
‘Here to negotiate,’ she said. ‘That’s all.’
‘Then come in,’ said Victoire.
Letty, invited, stepped through the door. It slammed shut behind her.
For a moment the three of them only looked at each other. They stood uncertain in the middle of the lobby, an unbalanced triangle. It felt so fundamentally wrong. There had always been four of them; they had always come in pairs, an even set, and all Robin could think of was the acute absence of Ramy among them. They were not themselves without him; without his laughter, his quick, easy wit, his sudden turns of conversation that made them feel like they were spinning plates. They were no longer a cohort. Now they were only a wake.
Victoire asked, in a flat and toneless voice, ‘Why?’
Letty flinched, but only just barely. ‘I had to,’ she said, chin high, unwavering. ‘You know it’s all I could have done.’
‘No,’ said Victoire. ‘I don’t.’
‘I couldn’t betray my country.’
‘You didn’t have to betray us.’
‘You were in the thrall of a violent criminal organization,’ said Letty. The words came out so smoothly Robin could only assume they had been rehearsed. ‘And unless I pretended I agreed with you, unless I played along, I didn’t see how I was going to get out of there alive.’
Did she truly believe that? Robin wondered. Was that how she’d always seen them? He couldn’t believe these words were coming out of her mouth, that this was the same girl who’d once stayed up late with them, laughing so hard their ribs had ached. Only Chinese had a character that encapsulated how much simple words could hurt: 刺, cì, the character for thorns, for stabs, for criticism. Such a flexible character. In a phrase, 刺言, 刺語, it meant ‘barbed, stinging words’. 刺 could mean ‘to goad’. 刺 could also mean ‘to murder’.
‘So what’s this, then?’ Robin asked. ‘Parliament’s had enough?’
‘Oh, Robin.’ Letty gave him a plaintive look. ‘You need to surrender.’
‘I’m afraid that’s not how negotiation works, Letty.’
‘I mean it. I’m trying to warn you. They don’t even want me to be here, but I begged them, I wrote to my father, I pulled every string I had.’
‘Warn us about what?’ Victoire asked.
‘They’re going to storm the tower at dawn. And they’re going to destroy your resistance with guns. No more waiting. It’s over.’
Robin crossed his arms. ‘Good luck with getting their city back, then.’
‘But that’s just it,’ said Letty. ‘They’ve held back because they thought they could starve you out. They don’t want you dead. Believe it or not, they don’t like shooting at scholars. You’re all very useful, you’re right about that. But the country can’t stand it anymore. You’ve pushed them to the edge.’
‘Seems like the logical thing then would be to agree to our demands,’ said Victoire.
‘You know they can’t do that.’
‘They’re going to destroy their own city?’
‘Do you think Parliament cares what you destroy?’ Letty demanded, impatient. ‘Those men aren’t bothered about what you’re doing to Oxford, or to London. They laughed when the lights went dark, and they laughed when the bridge fell down. Those men want the city destroyed. They think it’s grown too big and unwieldy already, that its dark, squalid slums are overriding all its civilized boroughs. And you know it’s the poor who will suffer the most. The rich can ride out to the country and stay on their summer estates where they’ll have clean air and clean water until spring. The poor will die in droves. Listen, you two. The people who run this country care more about the pride of the British Empire than they do mild inconveniences, and they’ll let the city collapse before they bow to the demands of what they see as a handful of – of Babblers.’
‘Say what you mean,’ said Victoire.
‘Of foreigners.’
‘That’s quite a sense of pride,’ said Robin.
‘I know,’ said Letty. ‘It’s what I grew up with. I know how deep it runs. Believe me on this. You have no idea how much they’re willing to bleed for the sake of their pride. These men let Westminster Bridge fall. What else can you threaten them with?’