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

Silver bars had been used in London – and indeed, throughout the world – for a millennium, but not since the height of the Spanish Empire had any place in the world been so rich in or so reliant on silver’s power. Silver lining the canals made the water fresher and cleaner than any river like the Thames had a right to be. Silver in the gutters disguised the stink of rain, sludge, and sewage with the scent of invisible roses. Silver in the clock towers made the bells chime for miles and miles further than they should have, until the notes clashed discordantly against each other throughout the city and over the countryside.

Silver was in the seats of the two-wheeled Hansom cabs Professor Lovell hailed when they had cleared customs – one for the three of them, and a second for their trunks. As they settled in, tightly nestled against each other in the tiny carriage, Professor Lovell reached over his knees and pointed out a silver bar embedded in the floor of the carriage.

‘Can you read what that says?’ he asked.

Robin bent over, squinting. ‘Speed. And . . . spes?’

‘Spēs,’ said Professor Lovell. ‘It’s Latin. It’s the root word of the English speed, and it means a nexus of things involving hope, fortune, success, and reaching one’s goal. Makes the carriages run a bit more safely and quickly.’

Robin frowned, running his finger along the bar. It seemed so small, too innocuous to produce such a profound effect. ‘But how?’ And a second, more urgent question. ‘Will I—’

‘In time.’ Professor Lovell patted him on the shoulder. ‘But yes, Robin Swift. You’ll be one of the few scholars in the world that knows the secrets of silver-working. That’s what I’ve brought you here to do.’

Two hours in the cab brought them to a village called Hampstead several miles north of London proper, where Professor Lovell owned a four-storey house made of pale red brick and white stucco, surrounded by a generous swath of neat green shrubbery.

‘Your room is at the top,’ Professor Lovell told Robin as he unlocked the door. ‘Up the stairs and to the right.’

The house was very dark and chilly inside. Mrs Piper went about pulling open the curtains, while Robin dragged his trunk up the spiralling staircase and down the hall as instructed. His room consisted of only a little furniture – a writing desk, a bed, and a sitting chair – and was bare of any decorations or possessions except for the corner bookshelf, which was packed with so many titles that his treasured collection felt paltry in comparison.

Curious, Robin approached. Had those books been prepared especially for him? That felt unlikely, though many of the titles looked like things he would enjoy – the top shelf alone had a number of Swifts and Defoes, novels by his favourite authors he hadn’t known existed. Ah, there was Gulliver’s Travels. He pulled the book off the shelf. It seemed well-worn, some pages creased and dog-eared and others stained by tea or coffee.

He replaced the book, confused. Someone else must have lived in this room before him. Some other boy, perhaps – someone his age, who loved Jonathan Swift just as much, who had read this copy of Gulliver’s Travels so many times that the ink at the top right where one’s finger turned the page was starting to fade.

But who could that have been? He’d assumed Professor Lovell had no children.

‘Robin!’ Mrs Piper bellowed from downstairs. ‘You’re wanted outside.’

Robin hurried back down the stairs. Professor Lovell waited by the door, looking impatiently at his pocket-watch.

‘Will your room do?’ he asked. ‘Has everything you need?’

Robin nodded effusively. ‘Oh, yes.’

‘Good.’ Professor Lovell nodded to the waiting cab. ‘Get in, we’ve got to make you an Englishman.’

He meant this literally. For the rest of the afternoon, Professor Lovell took Robin on a series of errands in the service of assimilating him into British civil society. They saw a physician who weighed him, examined him, and reluctantly declared him fit for life on the island: ‘No tropical diseases nor fleas, thank heavens. He’s a bit small for his age, but raise him on mutton and mash and he’ll be fine. Now let’s have a smallpox jab – roll that sleeve up, please, thank you. It won’t hurt. Count to three.’ They saw a barber, who clipped Robin’s unruly, chin-length curls into a short, neat crop above his ears. They saw a hatter, a bootmaker, and finally a tailor, who measured every inch of Robin’s body and showed him several bolts of cloth among which Robin, overwhelmed, chose at random.

As the afternoon wound down, they went to the courthouse for an appointment with a solicitor who drafted a set of papers which, Robin was told, would make him a legal citizen of the United Kingdom and a ward under the guardianship of Professor Richard Linton Lovell.

Professor Lovell signed his name with a flourish. Then Robin went up to the solicitor’s desk. The surface was too high for him, so a clerk dragged over a bench on which he could stand.