“You will, My Lords, pardon me,” Tarquin said briskly, “if I do not for the moment interpret. It will be faster if I speak for myself, though with full authority.” Simeon nodded, his face pale and slightly sweaty. Michael took up his pen and clicked it into working order, and made a preliminary note at the head of the top sheet of paper.
“Let me begin,” Tarquin opened in the tone of a man who is used to lecturing, “by saying that we have full knowledge of your Empire’s situation.” He pointed a small box at the fireplace and pressed one of its buttons. There was an immediate and gentle whine, and the fireplace was obscured by a white screen that glowed all over. Simeon blinked with surprise. Michael contented himself by adding a flourish of blue ink at the end of his first sentence. Unlike his uncle, he’d long since decided to show no surprise at anything he saw. Unlike his uncle, he was losing any sense of surprise at the machines these people had at their control.
Tarquin pointed up at one of the lights that had started flickering again and spoke what sounded like an apology. The Prime Minister answered in a reassuring tone, but looked again at his wrist. Tarquin pressed another button, and the screen was covered all over with an image of many colours that could only be a map. It was a map of a kind Michael never seen before, and it might have been of anywhere if he hadn’t already guessed that it was centred on Mediterranean. Without asking permission, he got up and went over to look at the contours and at the small captions. Yes, it was as he’d guessed. He could see a red point that was marked Constantinople in Roman characters. Once he’d made sense of how the land and waters were distinguished, and of the odd distortions that, he had no doubt, showed greater accuracy of drafting than he’d yet seen, it was easy enough to find Rome and Alexandria and Ravenna and all the other places of his own world. It helped that the captions were in Latin rather than English.
Tarquin waited until Michael had gone back to his seat, then continued in his smooth and perfect Greek. “This is a map of the Empire as it was around four hundred years after the birth of Christ. You will see that the Empire contains within itself the whole Mediterranean, and reaches from Gibraltar to the Crimea, from York in this country, all the way to the Euphrates. Observe how the Empire is divided into East and West areas—one ruled from Rome and one from Constantinople. I will not insult your historical knowledge by explaining how the two Emperors were jointly and severally sovereigns over the whole Empire.”
He pressed his button again, and the map was replaced by another in which different lines and colours were superimposed over the same area. “Here is the Empire as it was about a century later. You can see that the Western half has disappeared, to be replaced by various barbarian kingdoms. The Eastern half continues without any loss of territory. I will not show a later map that describes the reconquest of Italy and Africa and parts of Spain that was carried out by the generals of the Great Justinian. We know that this was a temporary revival, and that much of the Eastern Empire itself was, within a generation, conquered by the Persians. Nor will I show this, as the Persians were soon utterly destroyed by your Emperor Heraclius, and the Eastern Empire was restored.” He smiled sadly and pressed his button again. “But here is a map showing the Empire as it was about eight hundred years after the birth of Christ. You will see that the driving out of the Persians was almost immediately followed by the unexpected flood of Arab conquests that stripped you of Egypt and Syria and Africa and various other territories. You will also see how Greece itself and much of Italy were lost to various tribes of barbarians.” Yet again, he pressed his button, now showing the Empire as Michael knew it. “The Arabs, of course, together with the western barbarians, soon fell into a decadence of which your more recent emperors took advantage, and the Empire now includes its core territories of Asia Minor and Greece, together with northern Syria and much of southern Italy. With the conquest of the Bulgarian Kingdom, it has also re-established its northern frontier in Europe at the Danube.”
Tarquin paused for a long moment. “I know it is your intention to tell us that the Empire is wealthy and powerful, and that its friendship is eminently to be sought by any Christian ruler. But our knowledge of your circumstances is greater in many respects than your own. The Turkish victory over the Arabs has raised up a new and aggressive power on your southern and eastern frontiers in Asia. To this must be added the emergence on your Italian frontier of large and powerful states ruled by the Normans.
“Either of these new threats would be a problem for you. Together, they have put you into a strategic vice that is tightening by the year. It doesn’t help that that your internal affairs are falling rapidly into disorder. The victory in Constantinople of an aristocratic faction has led to the scrapping of most of your navy and the virtual abolition of your armies in favour of an unwise reliance on mercenaries.” Though Simeon’s face had remained as grave and still throughout this lecture as that of an ancient statue, Michael could feel the confused tension in the old man’s body. Doubtless, Tarquin knew as much of the Empire’s general situation as of its language. But it was almost as if he had somehow been listening to the anxious discussions and rehearsals that had filled the hours when they were alone in their lodgings. Michael tried to think of a question or comment that would let them recover their poise. But Tarquin was smiling again, ready to continue implacably to an end that was only whispered about in the Imperial Council.
“Within a dozen years at most,” he went on, “we know that the Turks will move properly against you. The diplomatic settlement that we understand the pair of you made in Baghdad will not hold. The Turks will move against you with their undivided weight. Such as they are, your own armies will crumple, and you will lose virtually the whole of Asia Minor, leaving you with a strip of territory ten or twenty miles inland from the coast. The Empire will then comprise this strip of Asia, Constantinople itself, a large part of Greece, and some islands of greater or lesser significance. Your remaining Italian territories you will lose to the Normans. You will then think it a good idea to come west, asking the so far despised barbarians for help. This will be given—but you will find that the Latins are no longer stupid barbarians. Even without taking us into account, the westerners are organised into warlike kingdoms that will help you only so far as it promotes their own interest. You will then find yourself inescapably forced to choose between making the Empire a satellite of Latin states that will protect you so long as you accept their schismatic version of the Christian Faith, and letting the Empire be absorbed by an Islamic Turkish empire that will leave you untouched in the profession of your Orthodox Faith.”
He grinned. “It doesn’t look very good, does it? I suppose, when you heard of us and our miraculous powers, you thought the Almighty had answered your prayers and saved you from the need to make this choice. So your Great Augustus called for his most senior and trusted envoy and sent him straight off to ‘invite’ our assistance.”
Tarquin’s mouth was still open, and his next words were forming, when there was a peremptory knock, and the door flew open.
Chapter Fourteen
Pen still in hand, Michael turned and looked at a woman dressed, according to the British custom, in mannish clothes. She walked confidently into the room and stared at the two envoys. She frowned and asked a question of the Prime Minister, whose answer was a laugh and a shifty look. She snorted and turned back to the envoys. At first, what took Michael’s attention was the oddly shaped pendant that showed briefly within her buttoned jacket when she turned. Deep within its jewelled centre, it was glowing with a pattern of colours he didn’t recall having seen before. With a start, he feared it was bringing back the nausea he’d fought off in the vehicle, and he made himself look at her face. But she’d now given up on her brief and contemptuous inspection, and was looking at the Prime Minister. They began an argument of great bitterness.