Babel : Or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution (9780063021440)

The offerings at dinner were global – a vegetable curry, a platter of boiled potatoes, a fried fish dish that tasted startlingly similar to a kind Robin had once eaten in Canton, and a flat, chewy bread that paired well with everything else. The eight of them sat around a very fine ornamented table that looked incongruous against the plain wooden panels. There weren’t enough chairs for all of them, so Anthony and Ilse had dragged over benches and sitting stools from around the library. None of the tableware matched, nor the silverware. Flames burned merrily from a fireplace in the corner, heating the room unevenly so that Robin’s left side dripped sweat while his right side felt chilly. The whole scene was quintessentially collegial.

‘Is it just you lot?’ Robin asked.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Vimal.

‘Well, you’re . . .’ Robin gestured around the table. ‘You’re all very young.’

‘Necessarily,’ said Anthony. ‘It’s dangerous business.’

‘But aren’t there – I don’t know—’

‘Proper adults? Reinforcements?’ Anthony nodded. ‘Some, yes. They’re scattered across the globe. I don’t know who they all are – not one of us knows exhaustively who they all are, and that’s intentional. There are probably even Hermes associates at Babel I’m still not aware of, though whoever they are, I hope they start making a bit more of an effort.’

‘That, and attrition’s a problem,’ said Ilse. ‘Take Burma.’

‘What happened in Burma?’ asked Robin.

‘Sterling Jones happened,’ Anthony said tightly, but did not elaborate.

This seemed a sensitive topic. For a moment, everyone stared at their food.

Robin thought of the two thieves he’d met his first night at Oxford, the young woman and the blond-haired man, neither of whom he’d ever seen again. He did not venture to ask. He knew the answer: attrition.

‘But how do you get anything done?’ asked Ramy. ‘That is, if you don’t even know who your allies are?’

‘Well, it’s not so different from Oxford bureaucracy,’ Anthony said. ‘The university, the colleges, and the faculties never seem to agree on who’s in charge of what, but they get things done, don’t they?’

‘Langue de bœuf sauce Madère,’ Cathy announced, setting a heavy pot in the centre of the table. ‘Beef tongue in Madeira sauce.’

‘Cathy loves to serve tongue,’ Vimal informed them. ‘She thinks it’s funny.’

‘She’s creating a dictionary of tongues,’ said Anthony. ‘Boiled tongue, pickled tongue, dried tongue, smoked—’

‘Shush.’ Cathy slid onto the bench in between them. ‘Tongue’s my favourite cut.’

‘It’s the cheapest cut,’ said Ilse.

‘It’s disgusting,’ said Anthony.

Cathy flung a potato at him. ‘Fill up on these, then.’

‘Ah, pommes de terre à l’anglaise.’ Anthony speared a potato with his fork. ‘You know why the French called boiled potatoes à l’anglaise? Because they think boiling things is boring, Cathy, just like all of English cooking is deathly boring—’

‘Then don’t eat them, Anthony.’

‘Roast them,’ Anthony persisted. ‘Braise them with butter, or bake them with a cheese – just don’t be so English.’

Watching them, Robin felt a sharp prickle at the base of his nose. He felt the same as he had the night of the commemoration ball, dancing on the tables under the fairy lights. How magical, he thought; how impossible, that a place like this could exist, a distillation of all that Babel promised. He felt he’d been looking for a place like this all his life, and still he’d betrayed it.

To his horror, he began to cry.

‘Oh, there, there.’ Cathy patted him on the shoulder. ‘You’re safe, Robin. You’re with friends.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said miserably.

‘It’s all right.’ Cathy did not ask him what he was apologizing for. ‘You’re here now. That’s what matters.’

Three sudden, violent raps sounded at the door. Robin flinched, dropping his fork, but none of the postgraduates looked alarmed.

‘That’ll be Griffin,’ Anthony said cheerfully. ‘He forgets the passcodes whenever we change them, so he beats out a rhythm instead.’

‘He’s come too late for dinner,’ Cathy said, annoyed.

‘Well, make him up a plate.’

‘Please.’

‘Please, Cathy.’ Anthony stood up. ‘The rest of you, into the Reading Room.’

Robin’s heart hammered as he filed out of the dining room with the others. He suddenly felt very nervous. He didn’t want to see his brother. The world had turned upside down since they’d last spoken, and he was terrified of what Griffin had to say about it.

Griffin strode through the door looking lean, haggard, and as travel-weary as ever. Robin scrutinized his brother as he shrugged off his ratty black coat. He seemed like an utter stranger, now that Robin knew what he had done. Each of his features told a new story; those lean, capable hands; those sharp, darting eyes – were those the traits of a murderer? How had he felt when he threw a silver bar at Evie Brooke, knowing full well it would rip her chest apart? Had he laughed when she died, the way he did upon seeing Robin now?