The first instalment of the book had been published in 1776 — making it exactly the same age as the United States — and had been reprinted several times since. He opened it carefully, then read from the old-fashioned text at the first page he saw.
The fabric of a mighty state, which has been reared by the labours of successive ages, could not be overturned by the misfortune of a single day…
He soon realised he didn’t have enough time to get the information he needed from it now. Even Placidia, perhaps the brightest person he’d ever known, had taken months to get through this book. Myles would need more time with it.
So he nudged each of the six volumes off the desk, and caught them with his purple backpack. Stealing library books was bad. Taking them from the Bodleian would cost him his lectureship. But he knew he had no choice. Casually he slung the backpack over his shoulder and moved back towards the fire exit, unplugging the walk-through scanner which detected stolen books before he passed through.
As he came out onto the street, he saw two of his students. Worried that they might make contact, he walked the other way, where a bus was about to pick up passengers. Instinctively, Myles jumped aboard, even though he didn’t know where the bus would take him.
By now he had been in the city for almost an hour, and it was two and a half hours since his unexpected escape from the courtroom. People had already seen him in Oxford — the manhunt would reach him soon. He had to keep moving.
Myles thought through his options: to stay in Oxford would be very dangerous. Even staying in Britain could be risky. But how could he travel abroad? And how could he prove his innocence? Most important of all, how could he stop the plot to bring down America? The problems ticked through his mind without any sort of solution emerging.
The bus had moved out of the centre of Oxford onto one of the main routes feeding the city. It passed through suburbs and grassy areas. Myles decided to get out at the next stop. He rang the bell, and stepped down as the doors opened.
He was alone again. As the bus drove off, he noticed a small café servicing lorry drivers — their vehicles were parked up next to it, having just come off the motorway nearby.
Recognising it could be his last chance to eat before he was properly on the run, Myles decided to go inside and sit at one of the tables. He was wondering where to go next when he saw a bottle of All-American Steak Sauce. He looked on the labeclass="underline" Made in the Teutoburg Forest, Germany.
Teutoburg Forest: where a huge Roman army had been wiped out by barbarians. The imperial army had been tricked then ambushed — the defeat was a complete surprise. It was when Rome was still growing, and ruled by its first emperor, Emperor Augustus. Teutoburg Forest — the forest that defeated the Empire.
Myles remembered how Juma had thrown a bottle of the sauce at him in the taxi in Libya. He remembered Juma’s cocky expression, like it was a private joke — a ‘You’ll find out soon enough’ kind of joke.
He knew where he was going next.
Like most students, Myles’ time as an undergraduate had been about more than just academic study. University had also taught him about the world, and about himself. It was during one of the three — and-a-half-month summer breaks that Myles had decided to explore Europe. Not by train, like most of the other young adults enjoying their time at Oxford — Myles never had the money for one of the ‘Eurorail’ passes which enabled the bearer to travel on almost any rail service on the continental mainland. Instead, Myles had moved around without paying any money at all. He had procured rides from car drivers all over the continent, right from Bergen in Norway to Spain and Gibraltar.
Hitch-hiking, Myles had discovered, required skills similar to those of an old-school maritime navigator: travelling on winds blowing in all sorts of directions, strong and weak, to reach a particular destination. It meant understanding how traffic flowed over long distances. Better to ask a driver for a major town than somewhere none of the drivers would know. Vehicles using more minor routes tended to be less useful that those travelling on motorways. Motorway service stations were the best place to pick up new rides.
Myles memorised the address label on the steak sauce bottle, then stepped outside and walked along the row of lorries parked there. The number plates gave him the information he needed: there was a German vehicle, but the plate started with the letter M, indicating it was from Munich. Slightly better was a Polish vehicle from Warsaw. That was likely to take a more northerly route through Germany, taking him closer to where he needed to go.
Double-checking he was on the eastbound carriageway — he didn’t want to take a lorry the wrong way — Myles bent down to tie his shoelace while he checked no one was watching.
All clear.
Then he quietly hauled his bag on to the Polish lorry and climbed up after it. He took a minute to make room for himself amongst the cargo: boxes of empty beer bottles being taken back for cleaning and refilling. Myles only needed to wait a few minutes more before the driver, who had taken a short toilet break, rejoined his lorry, put it into gear and drove off.
Travelling this way was more uncomfortable than on the bus to Oxford. Myles was also less sure of the route. He thought through what he should do at Dover: should he try to disembark before the truck boarded the ferry? Or should he stay on board and hope no one searched through the cargo? Whatever he did would be risky. Since he wanted to leave the country, he reasoned travelling unnoticed on a Polish cargo lorry was probably one of the best ways to do it. He might as well stay where he was.
Free from the stress of custody and the escape, and despite knowing police and other authorities were searching for him, Myles found himself finally relaxing. Lulled by the movement of the lorry, soon he was asleep. He slept through the last miles of the journey to Dover. He even slept as the vehicle boarded the ferry. He would have been caught if any of the border and immigration officials at the main port scrutinised the vehicles travelling out of Britain as closely as those travelling into it. The modern-day migration crisis was the distraction which let Myles slip away.
Day VI
Thirty-Seven
Myles was jolted awake by the ferry bumping against the dockside in Belgium. He had reached Oostende. Here the port officials were more interested in the various cargoes. Myles heard a conversation close to the vehicle and imagined papers were being verified. When the back of the vehicle was opened up, he prepared himself to run. But the check was only cursory. Soon the lorry was back on the road and travelling east.
Inside, there was just enough light for him to read from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Myles knew this book had explained the end of Rome far more comprehensively than any before it. Even though many other histories of the empire had been written in the almost two-hundred-and-fifty years since, all had been based on it or reacted to it. None had bettered it. There must be something in it. Something important…
He scrolled down the list of contents, and skimmed through the sub-headings.
…Thirst of fame and military glory as a vice…
…Patriotism, and its decay and replacement by honour and religion…
…Latent causes of decay and corruption in the long peace of the Empire…
It was clear that Gibbon, perhaps the greatest ever scholar on Rome, traced the roots of the city-empire’s collapse right back. He was looking for causes in the Empire’s most stable period, the years 96AD to 180AD, three centuries before Rome finally fell.