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

They resumed rooting through Griffin’s belongings. Apart from letters, Griffin had kept an impressive array of weapons – knives, garrotes, a number of silver bars, and at least three pistols. Robin refused to touch them; Victoire surveyed the collection, fingers skimming the barrels, before selecting one and tucking it into her belt.

‘Do you know how to use that?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘Anthony taught me.’

‘Wondrous girl, you. Full of surprises.’

She snorted. ‘Oh, you just weren’t paying attention.’

But there was no list of contacts, no clues to other safe houses or possible allies. Griffin had shrouded everything in code, had created a network so invisible that, upon his death, it could never be reconstructed.

‘What’s that?’ Victoire pointed.

Up on top of the bookshelf, pushed so far back it was nearly hidden, was a lamp.

Robin reached for it, hoping wildly – yes, there it was, the familiar glint of silver embedded in the bottom. The beacon, Anthony had yelled. He thought of the burn on Griffin’s hand, of how Griffin had known, even miles away, that something awful had happened.

He turned it over, squinting. 燎. Liáo.

Griffin had made this. Liáo, in Mandarin, could mean ‘to burn’ or ‘to illuminate’. It could also refer to a signal lamp. There was a second, smaller silver bar inscribed above the first. Bēacen, it read. It looked like Latin, but Robin, raking his memory, couldn’t come up with its precise meaning or origin. Germanic, perhaps?^*

Still, he could guess vaguely at the function of the lamp. This was how Hermes communicated. They sent signals through fire.

‘How do you think it works?’ asked Victoire.

‘Perhaps they’re all linked, somehow.’ He passed it to her. ‘That’s how Griffin knew we were in trouble – he must have been carrying one on his person.’

‘But who else has one of these?’ She turned it over in her hands, ran her fingers over the shrivelled wick. ‘Who do you think is on the other side?’

‘Friends, I hope. What do you think we should tell them?’

She thought for a moment. ‘A call to arms.’

He glanced at her. ‘We’re really doing this?’

‘I don’t see what other choice we have.’

‘You know, there’s a Chinese idiom that goes sǐ zhū bú pà kāi shuǐ tàng.^* Dead pigs don’t fear scalding water.’

She gave him a wan smile. ‘In for a penny, in for a pound.’

‘We’re dead men walking.’

‘But that’s what makes us frightening.’ She set the lamp down between them. ‘We’ve nothing left to lose.’

They rummaged through the desk for pen and paper, then set about composing their message. The remaining oil in the lamp looked dangerously low; the wick was burnt down to a stub. Their message would have to be as succinct and unambiguous as possible. There could be no questioning what they meant. When they’d agreed on what to say, Victoire held the candle to the lamp. There was a tentative flicker, then a sudden whoosh, until flames over a foot tall leapt and danced before their eyes.

They weren’t sure about the mechanics of the beacon. Robin had spoken the Mandarin match-pair out loud, but they could only hope that the second, mysterious match-pair was designed to endure in effect. They’d come up with an exhaustive list of every method they could think to try. They recited the message into the flame. They clapped it in Morse code. They repeated the code, this time by thrusting a metal rod through the flame, so it flickered with every dot and dash. Finally, as the oil began sputtering, they fed the paper into the lamp.

The effect was immediate. The fire tripled in size; long tongues lashed outwards and then back in around the paper, like some demonic creature devouring their words. The paper did not burn or crumple; it simply vanished. A moment later, the oil ran out, the flames sputtered to nothing, and the room dimmed.

‘You think that did it?’ Victoire asked.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone’s even listening.’ Robin set the lamp down. He felt unbearably tired, his limbs like lead. He did not know what they’d just set into motion. Part of him never wanted to find out, wanted to curl up in this cool, dark space and disappear. He had a duty, he knew, to finish the job, and when tomorrow came, he would summon what strength he had left to face it. But for now, he wanted to sleep like the dead. ‘I suppose we’ll see.’

At daybreak they sneaked across town to the Old Library. Dozens of policemen stood stationed around the building – perhaps they were lying in wait, to see if anyone was foolish enough to return. Robin and Victoire crept forth cautiously from the forest behind the yard. This was stupid, yes, but they could not resist the urge to tally the damage. They’d hoped they might have a chance to creep inside and retrieve some supplies, but the police presence was too thick for them to pull it off.

So instead they came to stand witness, for, despite the risks, someone had to remember the sight of the betrayal. Someone had to register the loss.