An hour later, she arrived in the tearoom of the old pub on St. Giles, accompanied by Mrs. MacKenzie instead of the protection officer. She had changed into a new dress—muted green taffeta silk with a velvet collar and black buttons. It occurred to Elias that she had still worn her gray travel attire earlier, so she must have hurried from Blackstone’s house straight to his bedroom to spy on him. With hooded eyes, he ordered her a tea tray, thinking that only an idiot would make an enemy of this woman. Reversely, she could make a formidable ally, just as Nassim had predicted. Nassim, however, had counted on her to be weak-minded, when it was her strength that would make her an asset.
Mrs. MacKenzie was seated at a table right next to theirs, focused on her knitting. Catriona vigorously stirred sugar cubes into her tea.
“I just had a wee chat with Professor Jenkins, one of the dons at St. John’s,” she told him as she caused a maelstrom in her cup. “In the abstract only, of course. As I suspected, the charge of plundering doesn’t apply in your case because Leighton hasn’t taken the artifacts as spoils of war.”
He took one of the thin cucumber sandwiches that had been served with the tea.
“Legal route would be a waste of time and money,” he said. “I studied the precedents.”
She glanced up at him with the teacup at her bottom lip. “Precedents such as?”
“Such as the Parthenon marbles Lord Elgin took. A fellow Scotsman.”
“I’m not certain how that compares.”
“Are you familiar with the case?”
“I’m not an archaeologist, Mr. Khoury. I’m a historical linguist who occasionally uses her language skills outside of the theory.”
“Eighty years ago, Elgin chiseled off half the frieze of the Parthenon in Athens,” he explained. “The Ottomans allowed it because the British had helped them beat back Napoleon. Now, since the moment the Ottomans relinquished control over Athens, the Greek government has been asking London to return the pieces. How many years is that?”
“Fifty years,” she said easily.
“Eh, almost fifty years of asking for their things back. The Greek have a case: no one can produce the original firman that would prove Elgin had special permission to chisel stones off the walls. They argue that the Ottomans hadn’t had the right to give away Greek heritage in any case, license or no license—they say it’s theirs.”
“I can see why they would.”
“Many people said it. The British Parliament wasn’t impressed with Elgin. Your Lord Byron called it an act of ‘poor plunder’ at the time. The Greeks had local advocates here, yet where are the marbles today?”
Catriona gave a grave nod. “Still in London.”
He opened his hands. “See. This case now, is weak in comparison. The bulls are from a coastal city, which is under Ottoman administration. Leighton might have a permit from an official, and the British government obviously recognizes Ottoman rule. Legally, I see no case here. Our options are money, or perhaps, honor.”
A pensive expression passed over Catriona’s face. “The Ottomans have ruled over your region for three hundred years,” she said.
He scoffed softly. “Nominally, yes.”
“I’m just wondering,” she said, her eyes narrowing, “after how many centuries does the occupier become the people of a land?”
He leaned back. “Is that a serious question?”
“I always feel serious about my questions.”
Of course she did. “I understand that Scotland fell under English rule two hundred years ago.”
“Not quite two hundred,” she corrected. “It happened in 1707. Through a treaty, the Treaty of Union.”
“A treaty, very civilized. Tell me, how English do you feel after not quite two hundred years of union?”
Her mouth quirked, conceding a point. “I don’t. Although part of my maternal line was English.”
“Three hundred years,” he said with some impatience. “They always stay on our coast for two or three hundred years, then they leave, or the next conquest drives them out. In the meantime, the locals don’t just vanish.”
“I suppose not. Not entirely anyway.”
“We become entwined, yes; we might take the language, but we give it our dialect; we take a custom or a dish but alter it to suit us. Sometimes, we intermarry. It’s good for survival, good for business. Life goes on, c’est la vie. But when people don’t feel free or at least prosperous, they only bide their time. Governing locals who don’t much like you is costly, and a few centuries don’t erase the old ways. As long as one native is left alive, so is the history.”