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

Griffin was silent for a long time. He stared out of the window, brows furrowed in concentration as if he were pondering something. He didn’t seem to be listening to Robin at all. Then he cocked his head, opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. ‘You know, that’s not a surprise. The way Babel treats its students, particularly those they recruit from abroad. You’re an asset to them, but that’s all you are. A translation machine. And once you fail them, you’re out.’

‘But he didn’t fail, he died.’

‘Same thing.’ Griffin stood up and grabbed his coat. ‘Anyhow. I want those texts within the week; I’ll leave you instructions on where to drop them.’

‘We’re done?’ Robin asked, startled. He felt a fresh wave of disappointment. He didn’t know what he wanted from Griffin, or indeed if Griffin was capable of giving it, but still he’d hoped for more than this.

‘I’ve places to be,’ Griffin said without turning round. He was already on his way out. ‘Watch your window.’

It was, by every measure, a very bad year.

Something had poisoned Oxford, had sucked out everything about the university that gave Robin joy. The nights felt colder, the rains heavier. The tower no longer felt like a paradise but a prison. Coursework was torture. He and his friends took no pleasure in their studies; they felt neither the thrilling discovery of their first year nor the satisfaction of actually working with silver that might one day come with their fourth.

The older cohorts assured them that this always happened, that the third-year slump was normal and inevitable. But that year seemed a markedly bad year in several other respects. For one, the number of assaults on the tower rose alarmingly. Before, Babel could expect two to three attempted break-ins per year, all of which were the subject of great spectacle as the students crowded around the doors to see what cruel effect Playfair’s wards had wrought that time. But by February of that year, the attempted thefts started happening nearly every week, and the students began to grow sick of the sight of policemen dragging maimed perpetrators down the cobblestones.

They weren’t only targeted by thieves. The base of the tower was constantly being defiled, usually with urine, broken bottles, and spilt booze. Twice they discovered graffiti painted overnight in large, crooked scarlet letters. TONGUES OF SATAN read the one on the back wall; DEVIL’S SILVER read the one beneath the first-floor window.

Another morning, Robin and his cohort arrived to find dozens of townsmen assembled on the green, shouting viciously at the scholars going in and out of the front door. They approached cautiously. The crowd was a bit frightening, but not so dense that they couldn’t weave their way through. Perhaps it said something that they were willing to risk a mob rather than miss class, but it really looked like they might get by without harassment until a large man stepped in front of Victoire and began snarling something in a rough and incomprehensible northern accent.

‘I don’t know you,’ Victoire gasped. ‘I don’t know what you’re—’

‘Christ!’ Ramy lurched forward like he’d been shot. Victoire yelped. Robin’s heart stopped. But it was only an egg, he saw; it was aimed at Victoire, and Ramy had lurched because he’d stepped forward to protect her. Victoire flinched back, arms shielding her face; Ramy put an arm around her shoulder and ushered her up the front steps.

‘What is wrong with you?’ Letty screamed.

The man who’d thrown the egg shouted something unintelligible in return. Hastily Robin clenched Letty’s hand and dragged her through the door behind Ramy and Victoire.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

Victoire was trembling so hard she could barely speak. ‘Fine, I’m fine – oh, Ramy, let me, I’ve got a handkerchief . . .’

‘Don’t worry.’ Ramy shrugged off his jacket. ‘It’s a lost cause, I’ll buy a new one.’

Inside the lobby, students and clients alike were clustered at the wall, watching the crowd through the windows. Robin’s first instinct was to wonder if this was the work of Hermes. But it couldn’t be – Griffin’s thefts were so meticulously planned; they belied a far more sophisticated apparatus than this furious mob.

‘Do you know what’s going on?’ Robin asked Cathy O’Nell.

‘They’re mill workers, I think,’ said Cathy. ‘I heard Babel’s just signed a contract with mill owners north of here and that’s put all these people out of work.’

‘All these people?’ Ramy asked. ‘With just some silver bars?’

‘Oh, they’ve laid off several hundred workers,’ said Vimal, who’d overheard. ‘Supposedly it’s a brilliant match-pair, something Professor Playfair came up with, and it’s netted us enough to fund renovations for the entire east wing of the lobby. Which doesn’t surprise me, if it can do the work of all those men combined.’

‘But it’s quite sad, isn’t it?’ mused Cathy. ‘I wonder what they’ll do now.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Robin.

Cathy gestured to the window. ‘Well, how are they going to provide for their families?’