Michael forced his mind into order and tried to make sense of the rapid conversation. At first, the Prime Minister spoke back in an emollient tone that made it possible to suspect he wasn’t the main power in the country. Indeed, this must surely be the woman he’d often seen on the illuminated panel in their lodgings. She always came on in the evening, and spoke with stern authority, surrounded by deferential men in uniform. As their voices rose, however, and they shouted back at each other, continually using the English word for “agreement,” it became clearer that the Prime Minister was the senior party. Was the woman the King’s wife, perhaps? Michael put this out of mind. He’d already seen enough women in positions of authority. His main impression was that she was another minister, and that there was some lack of agreement at the top. Her name seemed to be Abigail. He might have misheard a word in English that meant something else. But its tone and repetition indicated that he was up to determining the names of these people.
The woman rested her hands on the table and leaned close to the Prime Minister, as she repeated the same phrase twice. “Too soon to look outside—not yet,” she said with slow and helpful clarity. They stopped, and a look of understanding flashed suddenly between them. The woman glanced over at Simeon and Michael. The Prime Minister shook his head. They both looked at Tarquin. Together, they shouted a two syllable command that required no skill with languages to understand. He was followed from the room by the blonde woman and the other secretaries.
Once the door was closed, they started arguing again. The woman spoke angrily about something that got increasingly sceptical and even dismissive answers from the Prime Minister. They were soon shouting at each other. The woman finally leaned menacingly over the Prime Minister, and, though speaking slow again, used words he still couldn’t make out. The Prime Minister’s response was an evasive look at one of the pictures on the wall behind her. Then, he leaned back in his chair and laughed at her. He used what must have been the word Constantinople, and then Baghdad. He got half out of his chair and leaned across the table to get at Tarquin’s satchel. Various sheets of paper fell out. Sorting through them, the Prime Minister took one of the sheets and pushed it at the woman. She picked it up and skimmed the opening paragraph. With a disgusted snort, she screwed it into a ball and threw it at the Prime Minister. He watched it land on his desk, and laughed again, flicking the ball back at her. It struck her on the chest and fell inside her jacket. As she reached to pull it out, she looked at her pendant. It was still flashing urgently. She stopped in mid-movement, her face taking on a look of shock and of wonder. No longer interested in the Prime Minister, she held her pendant up, and Michael saw its riot of inner colours shine on her painted face.
The Prime Minister asked a question. She paid no attention, but glanced about the room. Still ignoring the Prime Minister, she walked across to Simeon. With a soft motion of his chair on the carpet, he was up and bowing his respects. She touched him with her pendant and waited. She put a smile onto her face and motioned him to be seated. The woman stood behind Michael. He felt something touch the back of his head, and could smell her perfume and hear breathing that came in astonished gasps. She rapped a question at the Prime Minister, whose answer contained the word Tarquin. Michael might have tried to understand what was said. But, if still deep within him, he could feel waves of nausea that stopped him from doing more than writing the probable name of the Prime Minister in Greek transliteration—James Duffy, it might have been. Forcing himself to dwell on the name, he wondered if that was the pronunciation of the Apostle’s name he’d seen in English. If so, it would be another step to understanding the loose relationship in this language between words and their spelling. There was the same lack of correspondence in Greek, he told himself. Similar facts often have similar causes. If so, English would be an old language, in which the rules of spelling had emerged when the pronunciation was different. This carried him to his earlier speculations, and the continuing but faint nausea went from his mind.
They brought Tarquin back into the room. He sat on the chair they’d readied for him, looking nervously from face to face, as he went into detail about Michael, with much mentioning of Constantinople. He fawned and simpered, before trailing off in a stammer that indicated more was expected of him, but that he couldn’t think what or why. There was no pretence of dignity this time when he was sent again from the room.
Now in calmer tones, the woman and the Prime Minister began another conversation. She looked several times at Michael. She even smiled at him. He got up and bowed politely. But she was talking again with the Prime Minister. No longer arguing at all, they laughed at something, and said something more about the person called American. The Prime Minister nodded eagerly, and used her own name several times. There could be no doubt that her name was Abigail. With every smooth use of it, she answered back in a tone of rising excitement. At last, she gave Michael another thoughtful look, before tucking her pendant out of sight. Then she walked quietly from the room. Another few moments, and Tarquin was back.
He pulled his face into his usual expression as he listened to a low mumble from the Prime Minister. “The King’s chief minister apologises for this interruption,” he said smoothly, “and wishes to reiterate his Majesty’s fullest and most unambiguous welcome to our shores. He also impresses on you that whatever is agreed in this room is the settled will of our government.” Simeon coughed and sipped at his water. Michael looked at his head note, focussing briefly on the date he’d given it. He heard a slow comment from the Prime Minister, and Tarquin went back to the fireplace and played again with his black box.
Simeon wiped sweat from his forehead and steadied his shaking left hand by pressing it onto the dark wood of the table. Michael kept his head down and continued playing with his minute of the lecture. Simeon cleared his throat. “How you know these things is of no present importance,” he began with surprising firmness. “Your assurances about our future are, equally, of interest, but for later discussion. Perhaps we should come to the main business, and ask what material assistance you may feel able and inclined to make to keep the forces of Islam from overwhelming the one bastion that has, for many ages, preserved the whole of Christendom. All else aside, if the Empire falls, the Caliph will surely make his way into France.”
“An argument that has no terrors for us, My Lord Simeon,” Tarquin replied with a cold smile. Bullying an old man was clearly the least he’d have done to restore his own loss of face. He waved at the glowing map and sat down beside the Prime Minister. “The Lord Minister whom I serve has only to sign one sheet of paper,” he gloated, “and Baghdad itself will, within a few hours, be made a heap of smoking ruins. I believe you have seen a little of our naval power. I know you have seen how easily we can disperse riotous assemblies with our flying machines. You will believe me if I say that we have other machines able to fly at an unimaginable speed to any point on the Earth and pour fire and destruction as they will. The Caliph does not frighten us.”