Manzikert? Michael thought. That was near the eastern frontier. It probably meant a two or even three pronged attack—the Turks had sufficient forces for that. Whatever the case, the loss of Asia Minor really did mean the gutting of the Empire. Tarquin hadn’t been lying. It also meant loss of the family estates.
He waited for the girl to go on again. She spoke of the appeal to the West that Tarquin had mentioned, and of the uncountable flood of heavily-armed knights that had poured past Constantinople, to humble the Turks and seize Jerusalem and all the Holy Places—to seize them, that is, for independent Latin kingdoms. He listened with a rising horror, checked only by the continual need to convert the dates she gave from the birth of Christ, as she spoke of a fourth Western assault that, this time, would be on Constantinople itself, and of the burning libraries and smashed or melted down statuary, and the shattering of a civilisation that had continued, wave upon wave, from the first emergence of city states after the death of Homer. He heard how the City would be ruled by Latin barbarians, every remaining province snatched by a Latin strongman, or left to the Turks—how the City would finally be recaptured, and how a much reduced Empire would be re-established, only to fall gradually into dependence on the Turks. And he heard how even the City would in time be captured by the Turks and remain theirs forever after. At the longest, the Empire had another four hundred years of life—though only another century and a half before the City was sacked, and only another six years before the irrecoverable loss of its heartland in Asia Minor.
“But, really, none of this matters,” she said, having brought him into the present with talk about a corrupt parody of Greece, ruled from Athens. Michael thought of the Greek’s he’d met the previous day. Even the doctor had been a stranger in language and manners. “Your uncle’s network of agents must already have changed that particular future.”
Michael put down his coffee cup and smiled “Agents?” he asked—“What do you mean?”
“Well, you told me you were on a mission from the Empire,” she said slowly. “I assumed you’d got separated from your colleagues, who are now waiting for you in the Church of All the Saints.” Her voice trailed off uncertainly.
“I really don’t know where you got that idea,” he said with an attempt at mild surprise. Confusion giving way to fear on the girl’s face, he gave his first consecutive account of what had happened since Dover. “So, you see,” he ended, “I don’t actually know anyone in this country. I want to see what help I can find in the church. That will let me decide what to do next.”
The girl let out a nervous laugh, then burst suddenly into tears. He reached forward and put a hand on her shoulder. “Jennifer—please,” he said. What the “please” referred to he couldn’t quite say, though it sounded comforting. He looked round for something clean, and remembered the roll of paper towels she’d got from a cupboard.
Still crying, she mopped at her eyes. She swallowed and made an effort, “You’re mad!” was all she managed at first. She pushed herself forward across the table and tried to stare into his eyes. “Listen, Michael,” she said, now with intense conviction, “if your people haven’t been organising them already, there is nothing you’ll get from the Greeks who live here. Because they used to be so deep into things like hospitality and finance, most of them sank straight to the bottom after The Break. They wouldn’t know where to begin with getting armed help for the Empire. Besides,” she added quickly, “you don’t need to do anything. The British Government will intervene in your world. It needs oil and other things, and it needs stability. It will prop the Empire up for its own reasons.”
“That may all be so,” Michael allowed—the girl wasn’t stupid. “Even so, The Break may reverse itself before any intervention can be made. Your Government may decide to continue its policy of non-intervention. I didn’t trust your Prime Minister’s offer of a deal. I don’t imagine Abigail Hooper wanted me for my diplomatic skills. I have to do what I can, while I can, to ensure that, when they do move against us, the Turks get a bloody nose.”
“Yes, think about Abigail Hooper!” Jennifer said straight back. “Last night’s massacre was about keeping you from vanishing into the crowd. If she lays hands on you now, the only person you’ll help is her.” She sat back and blew her nose. “Hooper must think by now that you did get lost in the crowd, and that you may be dead. That means that we—I mean, you—can go anywhere if only you can get out of the country. My suggestion is that we sneak across to France. Count Robert there will think of something. All you’ll get from going off to that church is Hooper on your back again.”
Count Robert again! Always Count Robert, he thought with sudden bitterness. For the blind trust she put in him, he might have been her father. He might have been…. Michael felt a twinge of pain in his left shoulder. It brought him back to the matter in hand. All else aside, the man was a Norman—why should he help save an Empire his own people were already doing their best to push out of Italy? “My duty is plain,” he said. “I have to find the means in this country of keeping the Turks from winning at Manzikert.”
“You’ll be throwing your life away,” she pleaded. He watched her dissolve into more tears, and pressed her face against arms that were spread out on the table. There, she sobbed for what might be without end at the madness of his plan, or his lack of plan.
He got up and looked at the weeping girl. “Perhaps I am throwing my life away,” he said gently. “But men have died for less than their country, and thought it fair exchange.” He stopped and tried to think of a reason that might appeal to a woman. He failed. “Did you ever hear that story about the Spartan who survived the attack on Thermopylae? There is worse than death. If I heard you right about him, wouldn’t your father have agreed? Let me take you somewhere from where you can get back to your home town. You can….”
But the girl was no longer crying. “If you won’t come with me,” she said, sitting up to stare at him with swollen eyes, “I’m not leaving you. Hooper said you’d get nowhere by yourself. She was right. You need me.”
He could have laughed into her face. But her voice alone told him that he’d never shake her off. Besides, he did need her. If that weren’t enough, what would she do if he shook her off? She had no family in England, no friends. Her Count Robert friend—assuming he was such a good friend—was at least twenty five miles across a closely-guarded strait. She took up a piece of broken mirror and stared at her tear-ravaged face. “I’ll think about what you’ve said,” he conceded, trying to sound as if he were doing her a favour. She didn’t answer. Michael looked up again at the light.
“Jennifer, can you get out your book of maps? We need to be aware of all the streets about the church. We need to get there without using the main roads, and we need to know where to run if—if things don’t go as one might hope.” She put down her mirror and went over to where she’d hung up their coats to dry. The book had fallen though a hole in the pocket, and was right at the bottom where lining was sewn to the main cloth. He watched as, frowning slightly, she pulled out a mass of wet and swollen paper. She dropped this onto a chair, and reached in again to fish about in the lining. Michael watched as, eventually, she stood back, a small leather bag in the palm of her hand. “One of yours?” he asked, thinking of her French silver. Even as he spoke, he remembered she still had all that about her waist. He sat forward. “Do open it,” he urged.