Hey, she got, like, 80% of a sexual encounter out of this.

With a New Yorker, who is therefore cool, and can introduce her to cool jazz musicians.

Sure. That might be true.

They are now destined to run into each other at awkward times from now on, aren't they.

They are destined to run into each other when Anchisa needs to get laid.

Meanwhile--

Mordred is seated next to Mariam Soliman and a white woman he doesn't recognize.

Mordred is unsure how much he doesn't trust that but he sure doesn't trust it.

Well, at least Oswald doesn't have to handle Mariam. He smiles as if he has no reservations about being here.

Mordred eats and makes meaningless small talk for as long as they'll let him do that. He doesn't really expect that to be long but hey worth a shot right.

"Pardon me, I didn't introduce my friend Louise. Louise is the archaeologist in charge of this little expedition. I am sure you have a lot to talk about."

"Saw them at St. Mary's Cathedral today," Louise says. "You're interested in the Book of Aksum?"

"I'm interested in nearly everything I can find," Mordred says truthfully.

"It's absolutely fascinating, isn't it? The history of Axum, its conversion to Christianity... I've been looking up information about the nobleman buried here to see if I can find anything."

"It is. Have you been able to find anything, I haven't found much research on early Christian history in Ethiopia for -- reasons that were probably predictable if I'm being honest but I managed to not predict them."

"Oh, I haven't really been looking, the Obelisk is pre-Christian. But some of the information we know about the early Christian period can inform our studies of the pre-Christian era. What is your area of research, by chance?"

"Linguistics, actually, the reasons I'm here are - well, inter-departmental politics are complicated and horrible and I'm sure you get more than enough of them as it is."

"Quite, quite. My deepest apologies if I seem a little less-- sharp-- than usual, I have recently heard the news that a friend of mine passed."

"My sympathies."

"Poor Samson Trammel. His death is such a tragedy."

"Tragic indeed," Mordred lies.

"Hm." Mariam's face is impassive. "I don't suppose you know him. He's had an interest in archaeology in the past. Sometimes spent his wealth funding expeditions, much like our funder Miss Sirikhan."

"I know of him, but no, I don't know him personally." (He's unsure how much information to take from Mariam speaking of him in the present tense.)

"Knew. It's so hard to make this sort of change..."

"Yes. Didn't know him personally, my apologies."

"A terrible loss to archaeology, of course. Whenever an antiquarian passes our whole world is diminished. His rare book collection was par excellence. I am sure a man of your erudition would have very much enjoyed the chance to look at it."

"I'm sure I would have," he agrees, lyingly.

(He can think of a lot of ways to describe those books but "enjoyable" is not among them.)

"What languages do you study? I'm terribly monolingual myself. I know English of course, and Latin and French and Spanish and Greek and Hebrew and Arabic, and I am learning Thai so Mariam doesn't have to be the only one to speak to our employer, but there is simply never enough time to learn as many languages as one wants to know."

"I study the development of language! There's--" and then he will HAPPILY babble about Proto-Indo-European and auxiliary languages.

Louise is fascinated and asks very intelligent questions. She's curious, quick, and obviously willing to set aside any cult-related issues to have someone new to talk about etymology with.