History Keepers: Nightship to China Page 3

  ‘Into the sea? Hell’s bells and Bathsheba . . .!’ Charlie sat up, trying to get comfortable. ‘So, anything else I’ve missed?’

  ‘Tomorrow my parents are going back to London, for a month,’ Jake told him.

  ‘I’d forgotten. Modern London?’

  ‘Yes, where I’m from – where you and I met for the first time,’ Jake remembered with a smile. ‘Their two oldest friends, Martin and Rosie, are turning fifty. Also, they feel they should sort out the bathroom shop – don’t ask me why: no one’s ever going to find them in the nineteenth century. They wanted me to go with them, of course, and then we had an argument too. As usual, they threatened to take me back for good. I don’t know who they’re fooling – they love it here just as much as I do. Anyway, in the end I managed to get out of it. Emotional blackmail. Today is, you know . . .’ He didn’t finish the sentence.

  Charlie frowned, trying to remember what day it could be; then it came to him. ‘The twenty-first of June?’

  Jake nodded. ‘My brother’s birthday. He would have been nineteen.’

  Charlie squeezed his hand. ‘He is nineteen; let’s think of it that way.’

  Jake changed the subject. ‘I promised to go and tell the others when you woke up. I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t go anywhere,’ he joked as he left the room.

  With the news that Charlie had woken up, the sick bay quickly filled with people. Nathan arrived first with his father, Truman, both talking loudly and knocking things over. Topaz followed behind with Alan and Miriam. Jake’s mum had made chocolate brownies and she offered them round, oblivious to the expression of horror on people’s faces. (Miriam’s brownies were infamously as hard as granite and usually tasted of petrol.) Jupitus followed, and then Signor Gondolfino – the head of costumiery. Then Dr Chatterju dropped in, along with his ninety-year-old mother, who had stayed on after the non-wedding. Rose brought up the rear and, excited at finding such a jovial party, started to entertain them all – and annoy Jupitus – with stories from her ‘crazy days’ as a young agent in Constantinople. One rather risqué tale made Gondolfino feign deafness.

  It was when old Mrs Chatterju snapped a tooth on one of Miriam’s biscuits, creating a terrible scene, that Lydia Wunderbar insisted that enough was enough. She allowed Jake to stay, but booted everyone else out.

  After all the excitement, Jake sat back down and promptly fell asleep across the end of Charlie’s bed.

  ‘Jake?’ Lydia whispered.

  He sat up with a jolt, disorientated. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘It’s almost ten o’clock. Lights out.’

  Jake saw that it was almost dark outside. He stretched and turned to see Charlie sitting up, ensconced in a book, Mr Drake nestled next to him.

  ‘This is absolutely fascinating,’ Charlie said, holding up the tome. ‘Miss Yuting lent me this book about China, and something incredible has just occurred to me. I don’t know why I never thought of it before . . .’ He raised his eyebrows and dropped his bombshell: ‘The Han dynasty and the Roman empire existed at the same time.’

  Jake gave Miss Wunderbar a sideways glance; he didn’t have a clue what his friend was talking about.

  ‘I mean, think about it,’ the invalid continued, ‘it’s the first century BC and you have two of the biggest civilizations the world has ever known. In the west: Rome, Julius Caesar, vast empires, huge armies, all sorts of inventions. And four thousand miles away, you have the Han empire of China, just as grand, massive and all-conquering. And yet’ – he held up his finger to emphasize his point – ‘they knew next to nothing about each other. Well, all right, there was some silk and silver going back and forth, but basically, no cultural exchange whatsoever.’

  ‘Charlie, are you sure you’re not hallucinating?’ Jake asked.

  He shook his head and looked them both in the eye. ‘What I’m trying to say is this: east and west, they were once utterly divided. We take that for granted. And we shouldn’t.’ His gaze was unsettling.

  ‘Enough now,’ Lydia Wunderbar tutted, taking the book away. ‘I know I’m a librarian, but I wonder sometimes, Charlie, if you should take an interest in more mindless things – like Nathan Wylder does. Anyway, bedtime, both of you.’

  ‘Why don’t we talk about it tomorrow?’ Jake said, pulling Charlie’s blankets up and giving Mr Drake a stroke. His friend nodded and they said their goodbyes.

  At the door, Jake whispered to Lydia, ‘He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?’

  ‘Thanks to you, he’s going to be fine.’ Lydia would never let it be known that she had a favourite, but she was particularly fond of Jake. She gave him a peck on the forehead as he left.

  Jake strolled back to his room. Usually he loved the castle at night, when its corridors were deserted. He could appreciate the history of the building; imagine the young agents of yesteryear setting off on missions, their stomachs in a knot of excitement. But tonight he felt different. He had tried to avoid thinking about his brother, but now that he was alone, a black cloud crept over him. Midsummer’s Day – 21 June, the longest day of the year – used to be one of his favourites; a day of laughter and madcap family expeditions. Now he dreaded it.

  He is nineteen, Charlie had said. It didn’t ring true any more. A year had passed since Jake had last heard anything about Philip. The traitorous Caspar Isaksen, before he died on the rooftop of Agata’s palace in Rome, had confessed: Yes, I’ve seen him. I’ve even tortured him. But I expect he’s dead now. The last phrase Caspar uttered was the worst of all: He thought you’d forgotten all about him.

  The notion of Philip locked up in a dark dungeon in a distant corner of history tormented Jake. How could his brother ever think he’d been forgotten? Never. Not until my dying day will I ever forget him.

  Galliana had been so intrigued by the discovery of even a tenuous link to Philip, she’d managed to persuade Fredrik Isaksen, Caspar’s father, to let her come and look through his dead son’s possessions in the Isaksen family mansion, situated in northern Sweden of the 1790s. For reasons of security, one of the most solemn rules of the History Keepers was that the Isaksen laboratory – where atomium, the substance they needed to take when travelling through time, was laboriously manufactured – was out of bounds to anyone but the Isaksens; even to the commander herself. However, the disappearance of Philip Djones had been so momentous, so keenly felt by everyone, that the Isaksens had waived the rules – though Galliana had had to submit to being blindfolded for the journey.

  She had found nothing. She and Fredrik had spent an entire week going through every drawer and cupboard in the castle, scanning every piece of paper. There had been no mention of Philip anywhere. That had been many months ago now.

  As Jake closed his bedroom door, Felson came to greet him, tail wagging. He gave Jake a quick lick of the hand before retreating to his basket.

  Jake opened the window and breathed in the balmy night air. Across the bay he could see twinkling lights on the mainland and hear the distant sounds of a party – a band playing, accompanied by cheers of delight. Despite the hour, the sky was still streaked with crimson and pink.

  He got into his pyjamas, but found that he was no longer tired. He didn’t want to start thinking about Philip again, so he jumped onto his fourposter bed and – remembering Charlie’s ideas about the Han dynasty – picked up the book that Yoyo had given him. (She was very patriotic and had circulated books about China to everyone; though she had annoyed Topaz by giving her one called Chinese Manners and Morals.)

  Jake’s volume was all about the adventures of Marco Polo, a young Venetian who had voyaged to China in 1272 and ended up staying for twenty-four years; the first European ever to reach that mysterious country. He’d met the grand emperor Kublai Khan, staying in his summer palace and even spending time as his ambassador.

  Jake was two pages into a chapter about brilliant Chinese inventions when he heard a thump on the roof above him. His room was at the top of a turreted tower – the highest bedro
om in the castle apart from Nathan’s. He froze, checking that his sword was leaning against his bed (it was now a habit to sleep with a weapon at hand). Felson lifted his head. When another thump came, the dog growled softly as Jake carefully reached for the hilt of his blade. Someone, or something, was creeping along to a point just above his window. Jake tiptoed across the room, sword at the ready, and threw open the casement.

  ‘Who goes there?’ he demanded in the deepest tone he could muster.

  He gasped as a figure in a balaclava abseiled down from above. ‘Who goes there?’ said a voice. ‘A little old fashioned, isn’t it?’ And with that, Yoyo ripped off her disguise. ‘May I come in?’

  Jake stood back and she jumped down into the room, cheeks rosy with excitement. She looked different, dressed in the French style of the 1820s, in a floaty, high-waisted gown and her hair up in a loose bun. Felson gave a welcoming wuff and went to say hello.

  ‘Nice to see you too, Felson, old chap,’ said Yoyo, putting on an English accent, ruffling his head, which made him bark again.

  ‘All right, back to bed,’ Jake told him, and he curled up in his basket again.

  Jake felt a little self-conscious in his pyjamas. ‘Wh-wh-what are you doing here?’ he asked Yoyo. ‘Not that it’s not nice to see you . . .’

  Yoyo went around examining his room, looking at the portraits of explorers and inventors on the walls. ‘Ah, you’re reading the book I recommended!’ she exclaimed, seeing it lying open on the bed.

  ‘Yes. It’s amazing. I can’t believe how clever the Chinese are. I never knew they invented the compass.’

  ‘The first great maritime nation in history,’ she said proudly. ‘But that was only the start of it. How about steel? Paper? Mirrors? Fingerprints? Sunglasses? And how about a little thing called gunpowder?’

  ‘Yes, gunpowder certainly changed a thing or two.’ This was an understatement: in the last seven hundred years, Jake had learned, it had been the basic ingredient of every war that had taken place on earth.

  There was an awkward silence. ‘I’ve never seen you dressed like that,’ Jake commented. ‘Are you going somewhere?’

  ‘We are,’ she corrected him. ‘We’re going to the party over there.’ She pointed in the direction of the mainland, a big smile on her face.

  ‘Really? Er . . .’ Jake mumbled. ‘Isn’t it late?’ Immediately he gave himself a mental note to start sounding more daring.

  ‘It’s Midsummer Eve, the most magical night of the year . . . and they’re dancing the waltz. Have you ever heard of the waltz? It’s from Vienna, but in France it’s considered indecent.’ She sounded scandalized. To Jake, the waltz was the most old-fashioned thing in the world, but he reminded himself that he came from a different place in history from Yoyo: he was from twenty-first-century London, while she was from imperial China.

  ‘So? Shall we go?’ Yoyo persisted. ‘I have a boat moored at the pier. We could be there within the hour.’

  Jake glanced out of the window at the midsummer sky, now a deep ultramarine. It still wasn’t quite dark. Yoyo’s plan was certainly tempting: it would chase his sorrows away. And he had only been to the village twice, on errands with his parents, and never at night. During the day it seemed quite ordinary, but he had the feeling that it would somehow be magical this evening. Even so, he was undecided. ‘I’m not really sure, Miss Yuting . . . Yoyo. For a start, my mum and dad would definitely not appreciate—’

  ‘Jake, I’m disappointed. I heard that you were a daredevil. Chariot racing in the Circus Maximus, someone told me! And as far as your parents are concerned . . . don’t tell them. That’s the easiest course. I don’t tell my mother anything. Parents say that they want you to be honest with them, but when you are, they get upset.’ Yoyo shrugged, then added: ‘I have a feeling your mother doesn’t really like me.’

  ‘What? No, of course she likes you,’ Jake replied hurriedly, his cheeks flushing at the lie.

  ‘I don’t mind, Jake,’ she said softly, before putting on her English accent again. ‘As you say in jolly old England, I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. Anyway, let’s find you something to wear.’ She had just gone to his chest of drawers and started riffling through it, when there was a knock at the door.

  Jake froze and Felson pricked up his ears.

  ‘Are you awake, darling?’ his mother called.

  Panic engulfed Jake; he looked round at Yoyo. ‘Not really,’ he called back.

  ‘We’d love to have a word . . .’ Miriam cooed.

  We? Jake thought. His dad was there . . . even worse. He turned to Yoyo. She was hiding under his bedcovers. ‘Not there,’ he hissed.

  But it was too late.

  ‘What was that, darling?’ Miriam answered, coming into the room with Jake’s father. Felson bounded over as Jake sat down on the bed, leaning back to mask the lump under the blankets. His dog started barking excitedly, jumped up, and rammed his nose into the bulge where Yoyo was.

  ‘Back to bed,’ Jake commanded, rather more harshly than usual, making Felson’s ears droop as he sidled back to his basket.

  ‘We won’t be long, darling,’ said Miriam, pulling up a chair and sitting down. ‘We just wanted to check you were all right.’

  ‘Today is not a happy day for any of us,’ Alan added, putting his hand on his son’s shoulder.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Jake replied hastily. ‘I’m sad, obviously. But, you know . . . I’m used to it.’

  His parents exchanged a look, mistaking the source of his anxiety.

  ‘You know we’re leaving tomorrow?’ Miriam continued.

  ‘Of course – you’ve been talking about it nonstop for weeks.’ Again Jake realized he sounded sullen. Where did it come from? He tried to soften things by adding, ‘I’ll miss you.’

  ‘Well, before we go, there was something else we wanted to talk about . . .’

  ‘It’s a matter of some gravity,’ added Alan in the voice he only used on very serious occasions. He had an ancient-looking book under his arm, which he put down on the chair. Jake noticed a picture of the Egyptian pyramids on the cover.

  ‘Do you remember that on your way back from Rome,’ Alan began, ‘Rose told you a secret . . . that you had travelled to history before, as an infant?’

  ‘Of course I remember,’ Jake replied. How could he forget? He had spent a year trying in vain to find out more.

  ‘You see, the thing is,’ Miriam carried on carefully, ‘we’ve kept another secret from you, and we think it’s time now that you were told.’

  ‘Told? Told what?’ Jake replied. He felt Yoyo shift under the covers, obviously cocking an ear to hear whatever secret was coming.

  His parents looked at each other.

  ‘Well, that wasn’t the first time you went back in history.’ Alan sat down on the bed and a muffled cry went up: fifteen stone had landed on Yoyo’s foot.

  Miriam peeled back the covers to reveal . . .

  4 THE LAST WALTZ

  ‘EVENING, MR AND Mrs Djones,’ Yoyo mumbled with a timid smile. She got up and straightened her clothes. ‘Jake and I were just . . . It’s Midsummer Eve!’ she added for no particular reason.

  Miriam bristled with anger. ‘I think you had better go back to your room, Miss Yuting. Immediately.’

  ‘Mum, don’t be so embarrassing.’

  ‘Embarrassing? You’re fourteen, Jake.’

  ‘Fifteen. I’m fifteen. I have been for three months.’

  ‘Well, you’re just a boy,’ she snapped. ‘You’re far too young for . . . for . . .’ Unable to produce the word, she waved her hand at Yoyo.

  This only threw Jake into a fury. ‘We were talking!’ he fumed, raising his voice. ‘Is that against the law?’

  ‘I wouldn’t speak to your mum like that,’ Alan chipped in. ‘Not a good idea.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry if I’m so embarrassing,’ Miriam continued, ‘but I have a duty of care to Miss Yuting’s mother.’

  ‘And that’s your only concern?’ Jake mutte
red. ‘Your own reputation?’ He had no idea why he felt so angry.

  ‘It’s all right, Jake. She’s quite right,’ said Yoyo, trying to calm things down. ‘It’s very late.’ She picked up her things, turned to Alan and Miriam and bowed. ‘I’m so sorry to have upset you.’ She turned towards the door, but Jake jumped up and intercepted her.

  ‘Well, I don’t want her to leave,’ he declared defiantly. ‘We were talking. Please sit down again, Miss Yuting,’ he added self-consciously, pointing to a chair.

  Now Miriam lost patience. ‘I have no idea what’s got into you lately. No idea at all. But I think it’s best if you two see less of each other. Now, Miss Yuting, would you please return to your rooms. This instant.’

  Yoyo nodded, squeezed Jake’s arm, headed for the door. She stopped and looked back one last time. ‘Mr and Mrs Djones, can I just say, for your own piece of mind, that your son was entirely innocent. I came to pay him a visit, that’s all. I panicked when I heard you and hid under the bedclothes. I was to blame – but the crime was no more than this. I wish you both a good night.’ And with that, she vanished.

  Jake went after her.

  ‘Jake, you stay here,’ his mother commanded.

  ‘Is it all right if I say goodnight?’ he asked tersely. Without waiting for the answer, he left the room and collared Yoyo just outside. ‘I’ll see you on the pier in fifteen minutes,’ he whispered.

  ‘Maybe not tonight,’ she replied quietly.

  ‘It has to be tonight. It’s midsummer,’ he insisted.

  Yoyo looked up at him; there was fire in his eyes, and suddenly she was excited again. ‘We have a deal.’ She rushed off down the passage as Jake returned to his bedroom.

  Miriam was already looking sheepish, the flush of anger gone. ‘I’m sorry. But you have to learn that you can’t always do what you want.’ Jake shrugged and got back into bed. ‘We’ll see you before we leave. All right?’ She kissed him on the forehead.