Jennifer swallowed and continued looking. “They’ll have special glasses that can see the heat of our bodies through any amount of foliage. We’d need to get under a solid barrier.” Michael looked about. They might be coming to the top of a hill. Because the road twisted yet again before them, it was impossible to say what might be round the corner. Looking back over the darkening patchwork of the field system, there were buildings that they’d taken care to avoid. But, if going back in the direction of London, the floating machine was moving at a deceptive speed. One slight change of course, and it could be over them in barely any time at all. He looked up the hill again, and told himself to stop worrying. The floating machine was moving steadily out of view. But the panic had brought further thoughts to the front of his mind. Whatever the girl had said about getting help in France, he was running away. There was no doubt she’d do everything to keep him in France. Even if he got away from her and her Norman friends, how could he come back without her as a guide? On the other hand, what was there left for him to try in this country? He looked up again at the floating machine and felt the lump that had come into this throat. His duty was to stay, and, whatever risk might be involved, find some way of averting the tidal wave that was about to sweep over his country. Instead, he was running for the coast. He’d been set on that path by a pack of Latin schismatics. He was being led along it by a silly girl, who was easing every bump in the path with Norman silver. The best word to describe all that was failure. There was worse to life than being a worthless epileptic. Though pitiable, that wasn’t a defect anyone could blame. He thought again of the man who’d got out alive from Thermopylae. Aristodemos he’d been born—Aristodemos the Coward was what he’d been called back in Sparta.
He climbed onto his machine, wincing as the strain in his leg muscles from the pedalling was transferred to his bottom. “Come on, then,” he said wearily. “We can at least see what’s ahead before it gets dark.” He stopped again and reached back for a half-eaten block of chocolate. This was another of those foods that gave a boost to weary muscles. He broke off a couple of squares and gave half to Jennifer. Still not sure about the gears she’d explained more than once, he pushed hard on his pedals and set off in a wavering line that steadied after a few yards of continued effort.
He’d nearly reached the top of the hill, and was waiting for Jennifer to catch up, when he heard the unmistakeable sound of hooves. They came from just over the hill, and he could hear five—maybe six—riders. He looked anxiously back at Jennifer, who seemed more concerned about the floating machine, still visible in the east. Before he could suggest getting off the road, they were both in sight of the riders.
Michael had been wrong. In his own world, wheels on cobblestones could be heard from half a mile. Black padded wheels on English roads were a different matter. The open carriage was pulled by two horses and accompanied by an escort of two riders dressed in black leather. Everyone was looking so intently into the east that no one saw how Michael had to jump off the road with his machine. The passenger snapped an order at Jennifer, who seemed rooted to the middle of the road and had raised both arms to cover her face. He reached forward for a riding crop and looked as if he might set about her. Michael got forward in time to get her and her machine out of the way. Still looking east, the escort riders chatted and laughed as they passed by.
“Well, well!” said Michael. He wanted to listen for anything else he might catch. But Jennifer was still curled into a ball by the side of the road. He hurried over. He could swear the fat man hadn’t touched her with his crop. Gently, he pulled her arms down. “What is it, Jennifer?” he asked. “Did you hear what they were saying?”
She shook her head and stared up at him, her face pale in the fading light. “That was Basil Radleigh,” she was able to gasp. She looked about to cry, but steadied herself. “Were those dark men with him talking Arabic?”
Michael nodded. “Arabic, it was,” he said. “One of them, if I’m not mistaken, was speaking it with a Turkish accent.”
Chapter Thirty Two
“If it’s working, that box up there can see us,” Jennifer explained. She pointed at the wires that, hung on ceramic insulators, topped the high wall. “Those will hurt us if we touch them, and will also give warning of our presence.” She pulled herself back into the shadow of the nearest tree to the cleared and brilliantly-lit zone that surrounded the wall about the house. This much she could easily have expected. But the thrill of hurrying along with Michael in pursuit of Radleigh had kept these obvious facts out of mind until she had no choice but to face them.
Michael didn’t argue. He didn’t ask for explanations. Instead, he sat down and crossed his bare legs. “Since we’ve reached what may be our first moment of free choice,” he opened calmly, “I think we need to talk.” There was something in his voice that Jennifer found disturbing. But, if he felt his choice was free, she sat down beside him and waited for him to speak what was in his mind.
“I don’t like your idea of France,” he said with a firmness that ruled it straight off the agenda. “I don’t like it for any number of reasons, though I accept you’ve been pressing it on me with the best of motives. I also don’t question your motives in getting me away from Tarquin. There’s no doubt he was working for the Prime Minister, and what they both had in mind was to send me home with an offer of military support.” Jennifer wondered if she could change the subject. But, if in darkness, she could feel the look on Michael’s face. “There was too long a delay for us to get down to the River before Hooper’s people went into action.” Jennifer’s heart skipped a beat. If only Michael could have seen her, she’d have tried for a smile.
“This being said,” he went on with quiet force, “I also accept that Hooper is the most energetic mover in the British Government, and that she’d never have let me out of the country. If I could see he wasn’t lying, I also agree that Tarquin was making worthless promises. Your stratagem to get me away was, in the event, a favour when I was in no position to decide for myself. So, if we aren’t going to France, and if I can’t give myself in to the Prime Minister, we don’t have that many choices. I could suggest a return to Constantinople. Even if your people do nothing at all, I may have enough foreknowledge to change my own world’s future. I can certainly make sure we get a more effective Emperor than the one we have. But you want to see what your friend Radleigh had to do with your parents’ death, and my duty is to see what those Turks are doing here.”
He laughed and stretched out his legs. “As for getting into that house, I’m not at all sure. How do we get in? How do we get out again? What do we do while inside? You were lucky with your last spying mission. You managed to overhear something important. For all we know, everyone in here is fast asleep, and we’d have to look through several dozen rooms to find your man. Then, of course, since I’m the best person to ask the questions—and then finish him off—there would be the problem of interpreting.”
Michael put his head up and laughed, now bitterly. “Have we a moment of free choice? Will you put a case for hurrying off to your Count Robert? Or was our last moment of free choice when I decided to go calling on Tarquin? Or was it the night before, when I heard you scream?” No longer bitter, he laughed again.