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

Had Griffin done this all himself? Robin glanced sideways at his brother, and it was like seeing a stranger. Griffin became new in his imagination every time he encountered him, and this version was most frightening, this hard, sharp-edged man who shot and killed and burned without flinching. It was the first time he’d ever connected his brother’s abstract commitments to violence with its material effects. And they were awesome. Robin didn’t know if he feared him, or admired his sheer ability.

Griffin tossed them two plain black cloaks from his satchel – from a distance, they’d look vaguely like the constables’ cloaks – then shepherded them along the side of the castle towards the main street. ‘Move quickly and don’t look behind you,’ he muttered. ‘They’re all distracted – be calm, be fast, we’ll be out of here just fine.’

And for a moment, it did seem like escape really could be that easy. The whole of the castle square looked deserted; all sentries were preoccupied with the flames and the high stone walls cast plenty of shadows in which to hide.

Only one figure stood between them and the gate.

‘Explōdere.’ Sterling Jones lurched towards them. His hair was burned, his princely face scratched and bloody. ‘Clever. Didn’t think you had the Latin to pull it off.’

Griffin put a hand out before Robin and Victoire as if shielding them from a charging beast. ‘Hello, Sterling.’

‘I see you’ve reached new heights of destruction.’ Sterling gestured vaguely at the castle. In the dim lamplight, with blood coating his pale hair and white-grey dust all over his coat, he looked quite deranged. ‘Wasn’t enough for you to kill Evie?’

‘Evie chose her fate,’ Griffin snarled.

‘Bold words from a killer.’

‘I’m the killer? After Burma?’

‘She was unarmed—’

‘She knew what she’d done. So do you.’

There was history here, Robin saw. Something beyond belonging to the same cohort. Griffin and Sterling spoke with the intimacy of old friends caught in some complicated tangle of love and hatred to which he was not privy, something that had brewed over many years. He didn’t know their story, but it was obvious that Griffin and Sterling had been anticipating this confrontation for quite some time.

Sterling raised his gun. ‘I’d put your hands up now.’

‘Three targets,’ said Griffin said. ‘One gun. Who are you aiming at, Sterling?’

Sterling had to realize he was outnumbered. He seemed not to care. ‘Oh, I think you know.’

It was over so quickly Robin hardly registered what was happening. Griffin whipped out his revolver. Sterling pointed his gun at Griffin’s chest. They must have pulled their triggers simultaneously, for the noise that split the night sounded like a single shot. They both collapsed at once.

Victoire screamed. Robin dropped to his knees, pulling at Griffin’s coat, patting frantically at his chest until he found the wet, growing patch of blood over his left shoulder. Shoulder wounds were not fatal, were they? Robin tried to remember what little he’d gleaned from adventure stories – one might bleed to death, but not if they got help in time, not if someone stanched the bleeding long enough to bind the wound, or stitch it, or whatever it was doctors did to fix a bullet through the shoulder—

‘Pocket,’ Griffin gasped. ‘Front pocket—’

Robin rooted through his front pocket and pulled out a thin silver bar.

‘Try that – I wrote it, don’t know if it’ll—’

Robin read the bar, then pressed it against his brother’s shoulder. ‘Xiū,’ he whispered. ‘Heal.’

修. To fix. Not merely to heal, but to repair, to patch over the damage; undo the wound with brute, mechanical reparation. The distortion was subtle, but it was there, it could work. And something was happening – he felt it under his hand, the knitting together of broken flesh, a crackling noise of bone regrowing. But the blood wouldn’t stop; it spilled over his hands, coating the bar, coating the silver. Something was wrong – the flesh was moving but it wouldn’t patch together; the bullet was in the way, and it was too deep for him to prise out. ‘No,’ Robin begged. ‘No, please—’ Not again; not thrice; how many times was he doomed to bend over a dying body, watching a life slip away, helpless to snatch it back?

Griffin writhed beneath him, face contorted with pain. ‘Stop,’ he begged. ‘Stop, just let it—’

‘Someone’s coming,’ said Victoire.

Robin felt paralysed. ‘Griffin—’

‘Go.’ Griffin’s face had turned paper-white, almost green. χλωρός, Robin thought stupidly; it was the only thing his mind could process, a memory of a frivolous debate over the translation of colour. He found himself remembering in detail how Professor Craft had questioned why they kept translating χλωρός as ‘green’, when Homer had also applied it to fresh twigs, to honey, to faces pale with fright. Was the bard merely blind, then? No. Perhaps, proposed Professor Craft, it was simply the colour of fresh nature, of verdant life – but that could not be right, for the sickly green of Griffin’s body was nothing but the onset of death.