“Are you hurt?” she gasped. She moved her own arms and legs. She was all right. She repeated her question.
“I don’t think so,” he answered in a more normal voice. He raised trembling hands and looked at them. He let them fall into his lap. “I had the strongest impression,” he said, now wearily, “that I and this vehicle had merged into a single creature. I’m told cavalrymen have this experience on the field of battle. It also happens now and again with….” He stopped himself and tried for a smile. “But I never thought such speed was possible.” He stopped again and seemed likely to drift off into a reverie of his own. But he sat up straight and looked round. He leaned back and tried to push the dead man back out through the window. He was too heavy. Michael got his door open and went round to pull him from behind. With much shoving from Jennifer, the body finally slid backwards and landed with a kind of splash on the road. He got back into the car and looked at the controls. “I feel very cold,” he said. Shivering, he leaned back and closed his eyes. Jennifer put a hand onto his chest. He was bathed in sweat, and was beginning to shake uncontrollably.
“You’ll catch a cold if we don’t find you some clothes,” she said with a firmness she was beginning—don’t ask how—to feel. He nodded, but did nothing. Jennifer reached for the door handle. The dead man had hit the car at speed, and his impact had bashed the door out of shape. Forcing it open needed all her strength. She got out into the darkness, and had a moment of fear when her legs gave way. It was only a mild shock. She’d stumbled rather than fallen down. She stood upright, and noted how dark it was outside the light still thrown forward from the car. Her idea had been to try stripping the dead man. He’d been dressed in leather. But it seemed that his entire body had turned to jelly inside his clothes, and it was as much as she could make herself do to raise one of his arms. She stood up again and looked round for the other man. His motorbike had bounced back from the car, and its dim shadow could be seen a few yards away. The man himself was gone. If he’d flown over one of the hedges, he might be anywhere. She went and opened the boot. Here, she found a picnic rug. She could get that round Michael. She looked back along the road. No one else was following. They were alone.
She got back into the car. “If we reverse,” she explained, “you can turn the wheel right. If that isn’t enough, you can reverse again. But I don’t know how long we have before this thing runs out of fuel.” She left aside the question of where they’d go. As sure as anything, though, the one possibility she’d had in mind throughout, and that had always been in reserve to comfort her, was dead. She’d not be visiting Count Robert again in his castle.
Chapter Thirty Six
Jennifer got back from the village to find Michael bathing in a pool formed by the cold stream. He sat up to his waist in the clear water, splashing it over his head in time to a strange song in Greek. She put her carrier bag down and watched him from behind a tree. They’d dumped the car a hundred yards away, under cover of some bushes. It would still drive in an emergency, but must have too little fuel in its tank to go more than another few miles. Michael stopped singing, and, with a laugh, slid under the water. He came up almost at once and began rubbing at his hair.
she found herself reciting. Michael stopped rubbing his hair and looked about. “Is that you, Jennifer?” he called. He stood up and reached for his sword. Not caring how wet she got, Jennifer hurried over for his embrace. He kissed her, before standing back and pointing at the dark patches he’d left on her shirt. Smiling, she took her clothes off and climbed into the freezing water beside him.
Afterwards, they ate some of the bread she’d managed to buy without ration coupons, and sat together on the grass for a long time in silence. The sun was rising steadily in the blue sky. Whatever the official clocks might say, this was mid-morning. Over behind a hedge, the farm workers were resting from their first four hours of labour, and were being directed about their next shift by a man with a rough voice. Michael was first to speak. He stretched back and put his arms behind his head. “I’ve changed my mind about France,” he opened. “I’ll confess that I wasn’t keen on meeting your Norman friend. But, since he’s here in England, we can forget that danger. My suggestion is that we get ourselves somehow across the Channel, and make for the people that Simeon and I had to leave behind. We have horses and money and a few guards. If we get a move on, we can retrace our steps to Bari—which is a port on the south eastern coast of Italy. This is still in Imperial hands. From there, it’s an easy matter of taking ship to Constantinople. Whether anyone will believe a word of my report is something we can worry about once we get there.”
“Yes.” If he’d suggested walking to the Scottish Highlands, or setting up home on the Northern Line, she’d not have said otherwise. But there was a punishment beating somewhere beyond the hedge, and a woman’s loud screaming brought Jennifer to her senses. This was an idyll that couldn’t last. “We can’t run away, Michael,” she said flatly.
He sighed and sat up. “But what else is there? Nothing we can do will bring your parents back. I’d like to have met them. But there it is. As for me, those people your father was working with want their mineral oil, and will dangle the Empire as a bribe to the Caliph. The Prime Minister might be able to impose on them his own idea of a protectorate over the Empire. He might then use us as a weapon to control the Arabs. Otherwise, Hooper might go through with her own plan, whatever that is. In any event, there’s nothing the pair of us can reasonably do to change how things work out in this country. Show me what to do, and I’ll take any risk to get it done. But all I can think at present is how to get back to my own world. We can survive there. We might even flourish. I see nothing for us in England but to hide out until we’re finally discovered.” He stood up and reached for his picnic rug. He looked about and shrugged. He looked down at her with a smile of infinite sadness. “In the normal course of things, the Empire would have lost. According to your history lesson, the collapse would have begun six years from now. Perhaps I’d have died at Manzikert. Thanks to The Break, some things will now be different. The essentials will be the same. But come back with me and see the Empire while it lasts.” He reached down for her hand. “It is worth seeing. Every scholar I’ve met here is longing for a sight of unplundered Constantinople.”
Hand in hand, they walked back to the car. Jennifer turned on the radio for the 8am news. It was still mostly about the Oxford Street “tragedy.” It seemed the scale of killing had been too great for the initial cover up, and the Government had been forced to bring out claims of a plot by dissident religious leaders. “It was,” she caught Hooper saying, “an affront to the basic tenets of our society, which are multiculturalism, tolerance and peaceful co-existence.” She went on to explain a new set of Hate Crime laws, these to involve the closure of the last public libraries, and the shutting down of what little Internet remained. She then paused, and went on in softer terms. It had to be accepted, she said, that there were many Outsiders in the country, and that it was no longer possible to regard them all as spies or carriers of infection. This being so, they were not from now on to be killed wherever found, but were to be arrested and turned over to the authorities for peaceful repatriation. She mentioned in particular a young Greek male, who was to be valued for his knowledge of ancient literature. She announced a reward of £7 million in gold for anyone who could hand him over alive.