But, even as they were steadying, her thoughts were scrambled again by the sudden rattling of a door handle. Half way along the narrow corridor, just where Michael was trying to press his ear, a door opened a few inches, and a narrow slit of very dim light streamed across the floor. Oh no! she thought—there was nowhere to run. They’d both surely be caught.
Michael pulled his ear back from the door the moment he knew it would open. He reached inside his robe for a knife that wasn’t there. As he looked back at Jennifer, the door steadied, and he heard low voices speaking English. There was no point hoping that Jennifer would get down on the floor and press herself against the wall. She stood twelve feet along the corridor, waiting to come into full view of anyone who looked out to the right. There was nothing else for it. He jumped noiselessly forward to the far side of the door and coughed politely as it eventually swung open.
“Who are you?” an old man called out in English. He peered into the gloom at Michael, his back to Jennifer. Michael bowed, so that he hoped his face was in the shadow of his turban. “Oh—isn’t that you, Ibrahim?” the man continued in Arabic. He laughed. “Well, you may be exactly what I need. Come in, my boy of manifold beauty, and peace be upon you.”
“And peace be upon you, My Lord,” Michael answered. This wasn’t what he’d wanted, but was pretty much what he should have expected. He bowed again and followed the old man into the room. Except for a table and more chairs than were needed, it was bare of furniture. Its only light came from a candle that had been placed on the table, and was already burned half down.
Count Robert gave Michael a single look, and, with a slight jingling of chain mail, was on his feet. “And what, in the name of God, is this?” he growled. “I thought I was brought here to deal with Englishmen, not Saracen unbelievers.” He threw the tube he’d been smoking onto the boards and crushed it under foot.
“Peace, peace,” the old man said in Latin. He spoke in English to Jessup, who interpreted that everyone was a friend in this room, and that much benefit would be had from keeping it that way. Robert had his sword half out of its sheath. He let it fall back in with a loud rasp. He looked suspiciously at Michael, who got himself against the far wall from the door and folded his arms in a gesture of passive respect. He laughed and put a tube into his mouth. He lit this from the candle, and now puffed happily on it. Concentrating on his own tube, Radleigh sat beside the old man at the small table. Both looked across at Robert, and all three sat at right angles to Michael. When he thought everyone had gone back to drinking wine from cups big enough to serve as flower pots, he turned up his eyes and found himself looking at Jessup. Beardless and turbaned, he had hoped that Jessup also wouldn’t pay attention. He’d been wrong. From the other side of the candle, face immobile, Jessup stared back. Michael darted his eyes quickly about the room. The other three men were hard at work with their wine cups. Ready to jump into whatever action he might achieve before Robert could get his sword out again, Michael gave a single wink. Jessup’s face tightened for a moment. Then, he closed his eyes and turned away. Michael bowed his head lower and waited.
“I must thank you, My Lord Robert, Count of Crèvecœur, for having come at once on such very short notice,” Jessup interpreted for the old man once the wine cups had been put down. Robert? Michael kept himself from leaning forward for a closer look. It explained the girl’s loss of nerve—though, considering what she’d learned about her father’s business, she shouldn’t have been that surprised. Not moving his head, he looked at the Norman. Big, powerful, a glutton for wine—except he’d acquired the English taste for smoking, he was standard to his kind. He must also be in his late thirties. More of a second father than anything else, he thought.
Jessup was speaking again. Without waiting for any response, he followed with a question of his own. He seemed deliberately not to be looking at Michael. The old man pursed his lips and thought. Then he nodded. “Since this is our first meeting, all three of us together,” Jessup interpreted, “I think it would be useful if we were all to be clear about where we stand. Though the British Government continues, for the moment, to insist on no contact with the outer world, I represent an interest in this country that does not share this determination.” The old man stopped and frowned, as if wondering what to say next, or how to say it. He spoke rapidly with Jessup, who nodded.
“You will be aware that, since our sudden appearance among you,” Jessup said to Robert, now speaking largely in his own right, “England has been in continual difficulties. These can only be settled by connecting ourselves with the outside world. We need access to certain mineral and other supplies. In due course, we shall need markets for the textiles and other goods that we are learning to make again. Before then, however, we must have access to those supplies. One of the most vital is a dark liquid that has many uses. We know that this can be found, in unlimited quantity, and of the highest quality, beneath the sands of the Arabian Desert. We have maps to show us where it can be extracted nearest to the surface or nearest to the sea. We need at most two years of heroic effort. Apart from that, we need the consent—and perhaps the assistance—of those who rule the territories where the liquid must be extracted, or over which it must be transported.”
Robert flicked ash into a ceramic bowl. “Is that why you have called an embassy of the Greeks to England?” he asked sharply. “Duke William was inclined to have them killed in a tavern brawl. Sadly, one of the bishops threatened him with an interdict.”
“The Greek Empire is of no active importance,” the old man explained through Jessup. “You may see it as the oldest and greatest power in the world. It can do nothing to us. The deal we have offered the Caliph is that, in exchange for giving us all that we want in and about Arabia, we shall give him the means to take Constantinople and every non-European territory of the Empire. We made this agreement six months ago. Your task in the plan is to assist us in overthrowing the current British Government. Your reward cannot, of course, be rule over England. But you are to be given the means to conquer Germany and Italy.”
The answer was a contemptuous grunt. Well it might be, Michael told himself. Anyone who made a bargain with the Normans quickly found himself on the losing side of it. For all their knowledge and weaponry, the English were fools if they thought it would be different for them. Sure enough, Robert thought little of them. “We’ve had twenty thousand men in arms for a month now,” he sneered—“every one of them with a hundred rounds of ammunition. All we needed was the signal for us to get them into their boats. We waited and we waited. We saw men withdrawn for a day from your coast. They were back the following morning. Do I now hear right that the distraction you’d planned did go ahead?” He laughed. “If you want another go at using us as mercenaries, you’ll need to give us some of those flying machines as well. Don’t try telling me there’s any element left of surprise.”
Radleigh cleared his throat. “This was due to a most unfortunate break in the line of communications,” he said smoothly through Jessup. He explained how the London demonstration had gone according to plan, and that an army larger than—and almost as well-armed as—anything the British authorities could assemble might easily have landed. Robert muttered angrily in his own language, and looked about to get up and walk from the room.
But the old man was leaning forward with more wine. “My Lord Robert,” he said through Jessup, “we had no idea until it was too late that our link man had gone missing. Even then, we did everything possible to turn a feeble demonstration into a riot bordering on civil war. We did then try to get an emergency message across the channel.” He smiled sadly. “I sent more than a dozen of my best men into action. All of them sworn to die at my command, every one of them suffered martyrdom with willing heart. There is no point in asking how our message never reached you. We must simply conclude that a plan that had been months in preparation ended in failure.”