“If I might be so bold, My Lady,” he said after a further question, this time in Greek, “the basics that your father taught you are sound in grammar and syntax. But they are enough only to let you read the pure tongue of the ancients, and your pronunciation is systematically vicious. The Lord Michael is insistent that, before we pass into Imperial territory, you should be fluent in the language of the higher classes. Some accent will be inevitable. Nevertheless, his mother and his aunts will judge you primarily on how you speak. So long as they find that acceptable, they can be trusted to welcome you as a suitable bride for the Lord Michael, and to train you in such female graces as you may currently lack.”
Jennifer looked forward at the endless and dusty path they’d been following through the forest. They’d left Flanders far behind, and were travelling through territories that owed a vague loyalty to the German Emperor. This political fact was important, but had no impact on the scenery. The Cardinal had taken leave of them at the edge of the forest. Since then, it had been a mostly silent desert of green. With interruptions for rivers and mountain ranges, so it might continue all the way to the Bering Strait. But the agreed plan was that they’d make for the Danube. They had neither gold enough nor time for the longer route through Hungary. By water, it couldn’t be long before they reached Belgrade or Nicopolis, and continued into the Black Sea. This assumed no danger from the air….
A dozen yards ahead, Michael was chatting happily with one of the guards in a rapid and colloquial form of Greek she couldn’t yet understand. If, every half hour or so, he turned his horse back to whisper endearments, it did nothing to raise her spirits.
A stranger might have looked through her eyes, and seen nothing very different from the visits she had made with her father, or even her lone visit with Count Robert. Then, however, for all she might imagine herself a grand lady of the Outsiders, she’d always felt as if she were swimming underwater. Always, the game would end, and she could go home to the house in Deal. All she could think now was that she’d never see England again, and that she was passing, day by day, towards a world where she had to be seen as a barbarian. The beautiful and charming fugitive, who’d needed her as much as she had him, was now the Lord Michael, treated by all about him with awed respect. He was leading her towards what could only strike her a prison with a mother-in-law for head gaoler. What favour had Lawrence done her with that ceremony? How long would Michael put up with her in Constantinople? And, if it seemed she’d not be allowed to show herself in public, was that so much better than being a laughing stock?
Michael had gone a long way ahead. Now, he stopped and raised his right arm. Without turning, he called out something she couldn’t understand. “We shall stop here for the night,” Alexius explained, pointing at what must have been the outskirts of a settlement. Jennifer looked at her watch. The green covering overhead told her nothing about where the sun might be. But it was pushing 8pm Outsider time—perhaps they were already in a later time zone. At last, she could fall off her horse. That would have pleased her, but for the thought of another stinking, vermin-ridden bag of straw on which she’d pass the night. She smiled and resolved to keep her temper. It was only because of her that Michael was following any path at all. Alone with his men, he’d have been deep inside the forest, sleeping on damp ground.
“Could that be thunder, My Lady?” Alexius asked. Jennifer shook her head. The aeroplane must have been a mile overhead, and going at several hundred miles an hour. It could take dozens of high resolution pictures every second, and these could be enlarged and inspected for any sign of a travelling party. But she was sure the cameras couldn’t see through leaves and branches. It would be another matter, she thought with redoubled misery, once they were on the water.
The man shook his head, and spoke again in colloquial Greek. He noticed the intense look on Jennifer’s face. “I found nothing untoward,” he said, speaking Latin with a northern accent. “No flying ship has ever put in there. They know England only from stories and from the goods that sometimes find their way to market.”
“Surely, we’ve outrun them,” Alexius said. Cross-legged on the ground, Michael said nothing. Jennifer certainly knew better. From the Channel to Cologne on horseback, it seemed they’d been travelling half across the world. In terms of the European motorway network, they were four hours east of the Brussels ring road, which itself was four hours from the coast. Call that forty minutes by aeroplane. On the other hand, they hadn’t heard anything overhead in days. There was no reason for Hooper to suppose they’d got out of England—Lawrence had said his people would report sightings of them all over the Midlands. Even otherwise, how do you look for people in an area as vast as Western Europe? It had been hard enough before The Break, when the authorities could rely on a dense network of security cameras, and a banking system able to flag up card payments within seconds. They might as well be half across the world.
As if he’d read her mind, Michael had the obvious reply. “These people aren’t completely stupid. They’ll turn England upside down to get us. But they can also spare the resources to look outside.” He pointed at the map. “There are just two likely routes we can take. Both involve choke points here and here.” He drew a finger along the route they were taking. “If I were directing a search from London, I’d have men watching every crossing point across the Rhine. I’d focus on Cologne.”
The man interrupted. “My Lord, the old woman I questioned was emphatic—no one from England, she said. Nor anyone new from Normandy or Flanders.”
Michael shrugged. “Don’t ask why they aren’t here. What matters is that they can be here. The next worst thing to being stopped in Cologne is any record of our passing through Cologne. Show them that, and they’ll turn a vague poking about into a dragnet overseen from the air.” He smiled at Jennifer. “As a mutual friend told us in London, we’ll be picked off like lice on white skin.”
“What shall we do, then?” Jennifer asked. Michael stood up and led her from the cover they’d taken beneath some trees to the top of the hill. Together, they looked over mediaeval Cologne. It was a small but a beautiful sight—of high churches and stone buildings within high defensive walls. Beyond it, the bright waters of the Rhine flowed towards the sea. The arched Roman bridge ran from within the city, and continued where the arches had fallen down on planks supported by small boats. Running straight, the road on the other side ran into the unbroken green of the forest. He passed her his binoculars. She could now see workmen on top of the biggest church, and a stream of people crossing the bridge in both directions. Even without the sight she had of the toll booth on the city side of the bridge, she could see the problem. To get in, they’d have to state their business at one of the gates. Once inside, thirty thousand pairs of eyes would be fixed on them. Even so, it would be a glorious thing to go inside those walls. This was like an illuminated manuscript come to life.
Michael still seemed to be reading her thoughts. “We’re told that travel broadens the mind. Even before reaching England, I could see how the West was growing in wealth and numbers. Some of the Italian cities are magnificent with new buildings. Cologne is impressive, though you might find it disappointing if you went inside.” He stopped for a private thought. Jennifer tried to imagine the size of the modern city and what she’d once seen of the greatest mass of industrial capacity in Europe. More telepathy. “You are, I suppose, looking at the birth of your own civilisation,” he said. “It has a thousand years to run before collapsing—not bad for a civilisation.”