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

Robin lurched forward, tripping on the cobblestones. He righted himself and hurried after Griffin. He’d never had ale before, only weak wines at Mrs Piper’s table, and the hops left his tongue feeling numb. He had a strong urge to vomit. Why had he drunk so much? He felt dazed, twice as slow at putting together his thoughts – but of course that was the point. It was clear Griffin had wanted him off-kilter, unguarded. Robin suspected Griffin liked to keep people unbalanced.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

‘South. Then west. Doesn’t matter; it’s just that the best way to avoid being overheard is to always be on the move.’ Griffin pivoted down Canterbury Road. ‘If you’re standing still, then your tail can hide and catch the whole conversation, but it makes things harder for them when you’re weaving about.’

‘Your tail?’

‘One should always assume.’

‘Can we go to a bakery, then?’

‘A bakery?’

‘I told my friend I’d gone to see Mrs Piper.’ Robin’s head was still spinning, but the memory of his lie stuck out with clarity. ‘I can’t go home empty-handed.’

‘Fine.’ Griffin led them down Winchester Road. ‘Will Taylor’s do? There’s nothing else still open.’

Robin ducked inside the shop and hastily purchased a selection of the plainest pastries he could find – he didn’t want Ramy to grow suspicious the next time they passed Taylor’s glass display. He had a burlap sack in his room; he could discard the shop boxes when he got home and dump the cakes in there.

Griffin’s paranoia had infected him. He felt marked, coated in scarlet paint, certain that someone would call him a thief even as he paid. He couldn’t meet the baker’s eye as he received his change.

‘Anyhow,’ Griffin said when Robin emerged. ‘How would you like to steal for us?’

‘Steal?’ They were strolling at an absurd pace again. ‘You mean from Babel?’

‘Obviously, yes. Keep up.’

‘But why do you need me?’

‘Because you’re a part of the institution and we’re not. Your blood’s in the tower, which means there are doors you can open that we can’t.’

‘But why . . .’ Robin’s tongue kept tripping over a flood of questions. ‘What for? What do you do with what you steal?’

‘Just what I told you. We redistribute it. We’re Robin Hood. Ha, ha. Robin. No? All right. We send bars and silver-working materials all over the world to people who need them – people who don’t have the luxury of being rich and British. People like your mother. See, Babel’s a dazzling place, but it’s only dazzling because it sells its match-pairs to a very limited customer base.’ Griffin glanced over his shoulder. There was no one around them save a washerwoman lugging a basket down the other end of the street, but he quickened his pace regardless. ‘So are you in?’

‘I – I don’t know.’ Robin blinked. ‘I can’t just – I mean, I still have so many questions.’

Griffin shrugged. ‘So ask anything you want. Go on.’

‘I – all right.’ Robin tried to arrange his confusion into sequential order. ‘Who are you?’

‘Griffin Lovell.’

‘No, the collective you—’

‘The Hermes Society,’ Griffin said promptly. ‘Just Hermes, if you like.’

‘The Hermes Society.’ Robin turned that name over in his mouth. ‘Why—’

‘It’s a joke. Silver and mercury, Mercury and Hermes, Hermes and hermeneutics. I don’t know who came up with it.’

‘And you’re a clandestine society? No one knows about you?’

‘Certainly Babel does. We’ve had a – well, it’s been quite back and forth, shall we say? But they don’t know much, and certainly not as much as they’d like to. We’re very good at staying in the shadows.’

Not that good, Robin thought, thinking of curses in the dark, silver scattered across cobblestones. He said instead, ‘How many of you are there?’

‘Can’t tell you.’

‘Do you have a headquarters?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you show me where it is?’

Griffin laughed. ‘Absolutely not.’

‘But – there’s more of you, surely?’ Robin persisted. ‘You could at least introduce me—’

‘Can’t, and won’t,’ said Griffin. ‘We’ve just barely met, brother. For all I know, you could go running to Playfair the moment we part.’

‘But then how—’ Robin threw up his arms in frustration. ‘I mean, you’re giving me nothing, and asking me for everything.’

‘Yes, brother, that’s really how secret societies with any degree of competence work. I don’t know what sort of person you are, and I’d be a fool to tell you more.’

‘You see why this makes things very difficult for me, though?’ Robin thought Griffin was brushing off some rather reasonable concerns. ‘I don’t know a thing about you either. You could be lying, you could be trying to frame me—’

‘If that were true you’d have been sent down by now. So that’s out. What do you think we’re lying about?’

‘Could be you’re not using the silver to help other people at all,’ said Robin. ‘Could be the Hermes Society is a great fraud, could be you’re reselling what you steal to get rich—’

‘Do I look like I’m getting rich?’