“These people shouldn’t be here,” Simeon said, coming out of his virtual trance. “Every notice we could find spoke of Britain as a country of western Christians.”
The driver turned round. “Too right, My Lords!” he rasped in a sort of Greek. “The sooner this scum is packed off—every man, woman and child of them—to Ireland, the better it will be for all of us.” It was Greek, and it was a more obviously native Greek than Tarquin spoke. Even this short statement, though, had come out in an almost impenetrable accent, and was more radically degraded than the language of the most common people back home.
“Who are you?” Michael asked. The driver looked quickly out at Tarquin. With a gesture half baffled, half vicious, he’d thrown his burning tube onto the pavement and started on another. He ignored everyone inside the vehicle, and was taken up with shouting into his machine. The driver looked forward out of his window, and spoke in the voice of a man who is trying not to move his lips.
“They let me in on this job because I’ve got an English name,” he said. “This may be the only chance I have to speak with you. Listen—we know who you are and what you want. There’s not much we can do at the moment. But, when the time is right, there are tens of thousands of us who will do everything possible to get help to the Empire. You must persuade these people to help. It’ll take a hundred men with the right weapons to see off the Turks. They’ve got to be nipped in the bud.”
“Where are you from?” Simeon asked, pulling himself together.
The driver laughed softly. “My mother’s people are from Cyprus. The Turks came in and took everything. Now, the Government here is doing its best to let it happen all over again.”
“But there is no Turkish navy,” Simeon blurted out. “They can’t raid Cyprus or any other island. And how have they sent ambassadors here?”
Michael put a warning hand on his uncle’s knee. “What year is this?” he asked.
“It’s 2018 after the birth of Christ,” the driver said after a brief pause. “And the Government will murder anyone who tries to say otherwise. But use the right pressure at your end, and there’s many of us—not just Greeks—who’ll turn things round. If you need help, get yourselves to the Church of All the Saints in Camden. The priest there hasn’t been bought like all the others.”
That was all he managed to say. Tarquin pulled his door open and climbed back into the vehicle. Smelling of the aromatic drug he’d been smoking, he looked round with another of his smooth smiles. “I’ve arranged a change of plan. We’re going off now for a meeting with His Majesty’s chief minister.” In the central mirror of the vehicle that was used for looking behind, Michael saw the driver’s face tighten. But he waited for Tarquin to give an instruction in English before turning on the throbbing machine that moved them about.
“All things are of God,” Simeon whispered uncertainly. He might have continued, but he now sat up and leaned over to Michael. He took the suddenly bloodless and trembling hand in his own. “Again?” he asked with soft concern. Michael was just able to nod when all his muscles went rigid. But, just as he could feel the familiar blackness rising through the lower depths of his mind—rather like the hold of a sinking ship fills with water—it was over. He sat up and managed a scared smile at his uncle. If his last visitation of the sickness hadn’t gone into a seizure, this wasn’t even that. Except for what they both knew had happened with him the previous year, this could have been put down to a dizzy spell—brought on, perhaps, by the shock of being caught in the riot.
Tarquin turned round to speak. But his voice was cut off by a long roar as of thunder. It came from what may have been far off, and was followed by the sort of vibration that, in Constantinople, heralded an earthquake. Tarquin’s response was a long and thoughtful glance at the body shape revealed by Michael’s clothing and a comment about the weather. As the vehicle turned back into one of the crowded main streets, there was more clattering overhead of flying machines. Michael wondered if all of this might be related. He rather thought it was, but leaned back in his seat and looked up at the neat two inch hole punched in the ceiling by one of those death-dealing weapons. How it hadn’t gone through him before making another hole in the floor might count as a miracle if he were in the mood for supernatural explanations.
Chapter Thirteen
“Confused? Alarmed?” Michael answered. “I see no reason for either.” He stared impassively at Tarquin, who had finally commented on his slight pallor. He turned away and looked into one of the big mirrors in the entrance hall of where they were lodging. He put every thought from his mind and focussed on the two correctly-dressed ambassadors looking out from the mirror. This much reassured him. Even Simeon looked happier now they were both out of the orange clothes they’d been wearing since their arrest in Dover. Needless to say, Tarquin had insisted on helping Michael into his own robes. He’d then started what was intended to be a light conversation about what the youth of the Empire wore when they took exercise.
From here to the office of the man who governed England on behalf of its king was a drive of perhaps half a mile along a wide processional avenue. They stopped at a narrow turning secured by a gate. Behind this lay a row of buildings. The guard outside the black entrance to one of these saluted as they got out of the vehicle. Almost at once, the polished door opened from the inside, and the two ambassadors walked into a hall, from where, lined with pictures along its wall, a staircase led up. They were taken along a broad, windowless corridor decorated, as seemed to be the rule in this country, in the style of an ancient palace. They stopped beside a door covered with elaborate carvings also in the ancient style.
Tarquin leaned forward to Michael. “His Majesty’s chief minister speaks with full authority,” he whispered. “But don’t be worried by anything he says. I’ll see to it that everything goes right.” He smirked and turned to knock softly on the door, somehow managing to brush one of his thighs against Michael. The door was opened by a blonde girl, who stood aside for them to enter. Inside the magnificent room—also without windows—a man, dressed smartly in black, sat at the head of a long table. He was dictating to a secretary. Falling silent, he got up and twisted his closed and podgy face into a smile.
“On behalf of His Britannic Majesty,” the Prime Minister said through Tarquin, “please accept my warmest greetings to our country, and every felicitation to the Great Augustus whom you represent.” Simeon presented his stained letter from the Emperor, and nodded graciously as he was led across the office to a seat at right angles to where the Prime Minister sat.
“Please, my dear young boy,” Tarquin said, waving Michael to sit beside his uncle. Michael sat down behind the table and unscrewed the metal cap from the bottle of water that had been placed before him. He filled his uncle’s glass cup with the sparkling contents and then his own. Keeping his face neutral, he looked across at the Prime Minister. It was hard to tell age among these people. But, in spite of the perfect teeth, this man must have been in early middle age. Though dressed in the same manner as his secretaries, he radiated power. He got up and, with his own hands, took the pen that had been given to Michael and showed how, by depressing a button at one end, it could be made to write on the neat block of paper supplied with it. He straightaway spoiled the effect by not bothering to hide his glance at the clock set into the bracelet on his left wrist. Plainly, he assumed that he was receiving a couple of men who were too intimidated by what they’d seen to have understood any of it. He smiled again and spoke softly to Tarquin. What he said was too rapid for Michael to catch any of the individual words. Sooner or later, though, his furtive though relentless study of that English Bible would bring some tangible benefit.