“No,” came the impatient reply. “And I do think we should let her go home to her parents. She isn’t the one you’re looking for.” The bald man laughed nastily and went into a Greek too rapid and in too unclassical an accent for her to catch more than a few words. But it was obvious she’d got herself into yet another trap. It didn’t help that she’d already guessed that before taking her leave of Michael. The priest argued back in Greek, insisting, she could more or less follow, that the bald man should let her go, and threatening him with the Archbishop if he didn’t keep to his side of whatever bargain had been made. The man paced about, holding up his telephone in search of a stray signal.
Father Athanasios now lost his temper. “Do I take it,” he said, again in English, “that the girl is under suspicion? Have you nothing better to do than torment an already troubled soul?” He brought the flat of his hand onto the table.
“She was under suspicion when she opened the garden gate to this building,” the bald man answered in a slow Greek that she could understand. “She became an accessory to harbouring an Outsider the moment she knocked on the door.” He fell silent as a single green bar showed on the display of his telephone. It vanished before he could make his call. He breathed out in barely suppressed rage. Then, in a very normal voice, he said in Greek: “Who is that man at the window?”
He pointed in silent triumph as, just too late, Jennifer stopped herself from looking round. He crossed the room in a single bound and slapped her face. She fell off the chair, unable even to cry out in the idiocy of what she’d revealed. The man reached down and dragged her to her feet. “Where is our boy from Byzantium?” he snarled. “Tell me now—or, I swear, I’ll carve that pretty face straight off your skull!” Somehow, he’d got a knife out of his pocket. If it was beyond him to open it with one hand, there could be no doubt from his voice of what he was longing to do.
Michael had been stupid to let the girl have her way. He’d known that even as she walked away from him and disappeared behind the hedge of the little front garden. He’d not understood the words of Tarquin’s threat in English. But he’d guessed enough from the tone. “Put the girl down, or I’ll kill you on the spot,” he said from the open doorway. With what he hoped was an easy gesture, he clicked on the glass fire lighting machine he’d found earlier and set it to the candle. He stood back and showed the long kitchen knife he’d picked up after creeping through an unlocked window at the rear of the building.
“Michael, my dear fellow!” Tarquin cried, now in proper Greek. He let go of the girl and spread his arms wide. “I’m so relieved to find you again. We were all beginning to fear the worst. Now, do put that silly knife down and see the logic of your position.” He reached slowly into his pocket and got out his paper box of tubes. He held them up in a gesture of peace. He sat down. “The Prime Minister’s offer stands of help for the Empire. All it needs is for you to come back with me, and we’ll arrange for you to fly directly to Constantinople in the morning.” He smiled and reached forward to put a hand for Jennifer. She rolled away from him and got up to stand beside Michael. He pushed her behind him and raised the knife threateningly.
“And what about the girl?” He waved his knife again and hoped it would give him time to think this one through. Jennifer had said these people were badly in need of things that could only be had within his own world. Reason of state could usually compel governments to overlook any degree of attendant irregularity. Would the British Government assume the Emperor would overlook Simeon’s death? Would it care what the Emperor might think? More to the point, would it risk letting Michael carry back news of this country’s actual weakness? For some reason, his knife was beginning to shake.
“Oh, but you can keep the girl,” Tarquin said with careless charm. “I don’t know who she is, and I don’t think anyone else will care.” He lit his tube. He sucked on it for a while in silence, Then: “Of course, it was being kept in reserve that we should offer help to take Jerusalem from the Turks. It would be a decided feather in your cap to go back with that promise. Just think of our aerial might on the field of battle—and think how grateful Constantine Ducas would be for turning all the tables for him at the last moment.” He set his face into an oily grin and puffed a cloud of smoke at the priest, who muttered something in English and shrank away from him.
Michael stepped back and pushed Jennifer through the door, “You’ll need to take his—his talking machine,” she stammered in Latin. “We’ve got to get out of here,” she said with recovering purpose. “Hooper’s people are already on their way. They’ll be here at any moment.” Tarquin’s eyes narrowed.
“Well, well,” he sneered, also in Latin. “Our little tart’s belly may not be full of some stranger’s trash. But her tongue is skilled in the language of the Romans.” He took another puff on his drug and pointed at the girl. “Who are you?” he demanded “What have you done to ensnare the Emperor’s ambassador?” He laughed and brought out lewd quotation from Martial. His face twisted into a mask of implacable hate, before relaxing into another shifty smile.
“Stand away from that machine,” Michael said quietly. Before he could reach forward and lift it from the table, it lit up with a faint purring.” He and Tarquin watched it move with each of its regular vibrations. Michael grabbed it and tossed it over to Jennifer. She looked at its illuminated panel and pressed a button that made it go silent.
“I think it’s Hooper,” she said. “We must get out of here.”
“You’re a bloody fool, Michael!” Tarquin shouted in Greek. “If you don’t come back with me, it will be Hooper’s people who pick you up. Wherever you try to hide in this city, they’ll pluck you out like a louse from white skin.”
“Shut up!” was all Michael said. He tightened his grip on the knife, and steeled himself to step forward. It should now have been just a moment more of unpleasantness. But, while he looked thoughtfully at the priest—how far could he be trusted?—he felt a slight but warning tingle in his chest. Almost at once, this was joined by an area of utter blackness that, with each beat of his heart, spread farther out from the central point of his vision.
“But Michael, you look so very unwell again,” Tarquin cried, his voice now steady. He flashed a look at Jennifer and bared his teeth. “Now, why don’t we all sit down and discuss the matter.”
Michael heard his knife drop onto the carpet, but was unable to look down to see where it lay. He willed himself to keep control, and realised that the sound he’d thought he alone could hear was his own ragged breathing. Another moment, and his legs would give way. But Jennifer had his arm. “Stay where you are!” she hissed at Tarquin. She jabbed with the knife she’d picked up, and got Michael through the door. His vision blurred in time with the sounds that were undoubtedly only in his head, and he just managed to keep himself from falling down when Jennifer let go of him to lock the door with a key she’d grabbed from inside the room.