She had large silver-blue eyes and long steely grey hair swept back from her proud face. Jake guessed that she must be at least fifty, but she still retained the fine features of her youth. A dark navy cloak hung from her proud shoulders. Standing perfectly still next to her was a greyhound with sleek grey fur and bright eyes.
A soft smile played across the lady’s thoughtful face as, one by one, she took in the occupants of the ship. When those eyes rested briefly on Jake, he felt an uncertain thrill.
‘That’s a very old friend of mine,’ said Rose, joining Jake and Topaz on deck. ‘Galliana Goethe. She’s in charge here, the commander of the History Keepers.’
The ship was moored at the pier, a gangplank was lowered and the passengers began to disembark.
‘Would you mind?’ asked Oceane, pushing through to the front. ‘I have a fitting in the costumiery. I need to get out of these dreadful modern clothes.’ She tossed her fox fur over her shoulder as she swept down the gangplank.
As Topaz followed her, the man in the red velvet coat boomed, ‘There she is! There’s our girl!’ immediately jangling his wife’s nerves.
‘Truman, please don’t shout!’ she admonished him.
Topaz approached them, smiling warmly.
‘They’re the Wylders: Truman and Betty,’ Rose informed Jake. ‘Nathan’s parents, and Topaz’s guardians. Truman is just as much a vain peacock as his son, but she’s charming. Of course, they’re both from completely different centuries.’
Jake watched Topaz greet them with a hug.
‘How are you, darling?’ Betty gasped fondly as she clasped her arms around her. ‘Good journey?’
Topaz nodded.
‘Let’s have a look at her,’ Truman bellowed as he held her by the shoulders. ‘You’ve grown. Hasn’t she grown, Betty? So tall for fourteen.’
‘Fifteen.’
‘Fifteen? You’re not!’
‘I am.’
‘How did that happen? You were just six a few years ago.’
Topaz and Betty shared a fond look.
‘It’s just occurred to me how quiet it is here,’ Topaz said, looking around at the rest of the welcoming party. ‘Is His Loudmouth indisposed?’
‘Nathan has disappeared on some mission to rescue his latest amour fou,’ sighed Betty, with a shake of the head. ‘No doubt she’s fallen head over heels, blissfully unaware that she will be tossed aside like all the others.’
Jake followed his aunt down the gangplank. Galliana’s face lit up as they approached. ‘It has been an age,’ she said, embracing Rose.
Jake could now see that Galliana’s cloak was embroidered with an array of motifs: suns, moons, clocks and phoenixes.
‘It might have been an age,’ Rose replied, ‘but you look as ravishing as always.’
‘Are you sure you don’t mean ravaged?’ Galliana replied. ‘I’ve hardly slept in three days. There are bags under my eyes.’
‘But those cheekbones will never let you down.’
Galliana laughed, her face creasing around her twinkling blue eyes.
‘Don’t tell me that’s still Juno …’ Rose looked down at the bright-eyed greyhound.
‘This is Juno’s granddaughter, Olive,’ Galliana replied, running her hand over the hound’s silken coat. ‘Every generation they get a little cleverer.’ She turned to Rose’s companion. ‘And this, of course, is Jake.’
Although Jake felt unaccountably shy of this tall, stately woman, he smiled bravely, held out his hand and spoke in the most manly tones he could muster. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
‘So well-mannered.’ Galliana enclosed Jake’s hand in her own. ‘I expect there has been an awful lot to take in. But don’t worry – we are going to find your parents.’ Suddenly her expression changed as she spied something approaching across the water. ‘What on earth …?’
There was a murmur of consternation as everyone caught sight of the swimmer churning his way towards the quay. Topaz knew who it was immediately; she shook her head and rolled her eyes.
‘Ahoy there!’ Nathan announced as he pulled himself out of the water with a beaming smile. He had swum fully clothed along the coast for over an hour, but looked as if it were the easiest and most natural thing in the world. He shook out his long hair and briefly checked his appearance in a vanity mirror produced from his back pocket.
Jake’s eyes widened as Nathan swaggered along the pier. He was intrigued. The boy could be no more than a year older than him, but he oozed confidence. Certainly there was an arrogance about him, but somehow he made the day seem brighter.
‘I’m sorry I missed the arrival,’ Nathan told them in a deep voice. ‘I simply had to save a young damsel from a fate worse than death.’
Galliana was as unimpressed as Topaz. ‘May I remind you, Agent Wylder, that this organization has no time for personal heroics. Risk is only acceptable in the line of duty, however glittering the prize may seem. Do you understand me?’
‘Clear as crystal,’ Nathan drawled, ‘but I can assure you, this was for no personal gain. The lady was somewhat … over-enthusiastic. Like so many,’ he added with a shrug.
‘Mon Dieu!’ Topaz winced. ‘My brother’s humility knows no bounds.’
Nathan’s gaze alighted on her. ‘Back in one piece then?’ he asked casually.
‘Looks like it,’ Topaz replied with similar nonchalance.
‘Your hair … different?’
‘It’s down.’
‘Nice. Softer.’
That was the sum of the siblings’ greeting.
Galliana announced to the whole company, ‘I know everyone must be tired, but time is of the essence. I am calling a meeting in the stateroom at ten a.m. precisely. Everyone is to attend.’
The party started to disband.
‘Agents Wylder and St Honoré …?’ Galliana called over to Nathan and Topaz. ‘Would you give Jake a tour of the castle and tell him something of what we do here?’
‘Jake?’ Nathan shouted. ‘Jake Djones!’ he repeated, clapping him warmly on the shoulder. ‘Why didn’t anyone tell me you were here? Nathan Wylder. You’ve probably heard all about me. And most of it is actually true!’ Then he continued in a serious tone, ‘We’re going to find your parents if it’s the last thing we do.’
‘Commander,’ Topaz interrupted, ‘perhaps I should take Jake on my own. If we go together, I’m bound to cramp Nathan’s style.’
‘Please,’ Nathan replied, ‘you couldn’t cramp my style if you locked it up and threw away the key.’
‘That’s enough!’ interceded Galliana wearily. ‘Both of you go. I want him to get a rounded view. And, Jake – come to the stateroom with the others at ten o’clock. I would like you to be there, so you can understand what is going on.’
Jake nodded. In truth, he wanted to ask Galliana all sorts of questions right now; but he realized he would have to wait. Topaz had already taken him by the arm and was leading him towards the castle entrance.
At the base of the Mount stood a pair of giant doors studded with iron rivets. On the front of them, an ancient plaque was engraved with a now-familiar emblem: the hourglass with two planets orbiting around it. This version of the symbol was much more ornate, and Jake realized that the two satellites orbiting the hourglass were both the planet Earth. To give an added, magical dimension to this particular design, the mound of sand in the bottom of the hourglass was shaped just like the Mont St Michel.
‘Are you ready?’ Topaz asked.
Jake nodded. He was feeling exhilarated.
Topaz turned the handle. The door was not locked; it opened with a hollow creak and the three of them stepped inside.
8 POINT ZERO
THEY ASCENDED A wide staircase into the heart of the medieval castle. On either side was a succession of life-sized portraits from all ages of history, the faces staring down from the walls.
‘Those are all the past commanders of the service,’ Topaz explained as Jake examined their stern, important-looking faces.
‘The man there’ – she pointed to a mysterious figure in a turban in front of a dark, tropical landscape – ‘is Sejanus Poppoloe, the founder of the Secret Service. He was a scientist and explorer from Bruges in Belgium, a real visionary. It was he who first discovered atomium and the time flux and drew the original map of Europe’s one hundred and seven horizon points. He died in the English court of Elizabeth the First, two hundred years before he was born. He travelled back to that time by ship.’
Sejanus Poppoloe’s searing eyes seemed to follow Jake as he passed.
At the top of the stairs they turned right, through an arch and then onto a balcony overlooking an inner harbour, a vast natural cave that was open to the sea on one side.
‘This is where we keep the majority of the History Keepers’ fleet. Regard’ – she indicated each ship in turn – ‘the Campana, Genoese merchant galley; the Conqueror, Byzantine dhow; the Lantern, Chinese junk, Yuan dynasty, built to endure the typhoons of the South China seas – worst in the world,’ she added knowingly, her voice echoing around the cavern. ‘The Barco Dorado, Spanish warship, one of the few survivors of the Armada fleet. And the Stratagème, a very early submarine. A Dutch ship and an Atlantic clipper are being repaired at the port of Brest. Shall we continue?’
As Topaz swept back through the arch, Nathan caught up with Jake and whispered loudly in his ear, ‘In case you weren’t sure, she loves the sound of her own voice.’
They crossed the landing and passed through a door into a large vaulted room.
‘The armoury,’ Nathan announced with relish, assuming the role of tour guide.
In the centre of the room stood two raised platforms like boxing rings, where agents in helmets and armour were practising combat. Every inch of the surrounding wall was covered in gleaming weaponry.
‘Greek, Roman, Celtic, Byzantine’ – Nathan indicated the various sections – ‘Crusader, early medieval, Renaissance, Age of Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution, and so on. Catapults, slings, crossbows, longbows. Swords, sabres, long swords, broadswords. Axes, spears, lances, maces, daggers, glaives—’
‘I think he probably gets the gist of it,’ interrupted Topaz wearily. ‘There’s a lot of metal.’
‘But you will notice a lack of firearms and explosive material,’ added Nathan with an arch of his brow.
Jake hadn’t noticed at all, but he nodded knowingly.
‘You see, explosives cannot be transported in the time flux,’ Topaz continued. ‘If they somehow found their way onto a ship, the unstable elements could get mixed up with our atoms and …’
‘… it would be goodbye tomorrow!’ Nathan imitated an explosion. ‘Any good with a longbow?’ he asked Jake, taking one down from a rack.
‘He wants to show off his somewhat limited skill,’ explained Topaz.
‘No, I – I don’t think I ever …’ Jake stammered.
Nathan primed his bow with an arrow and aimed for a target in the far corner of the room. They all squinted to see where it had hit. The arrow had found the bull’s-eye, but not quite the very centre.
Topaz sighed, took a longbow herself, nocked the arrow and let it go. Her arrow hit the exact centre of the bull’s-eye. But she did not stop there. She fired another arrow, then another and another and another. Nathan squinted at the target. With her perfect shots, Topaz had written the letter T.
Nathan scrutinized it, then turned to Jake. ‘She’s jealous, you see, as I am currently regarded as the Secret Service’s most valuable agent.’
‘So how many agents are there exactly?’ Jake asked, trying to diffuse the tension.
‘At any given moment,’ Topaz replied, ‘there are usually about forty actual agents working for the organization, although there are dozens more auxiliaries – like the crew on the ship, et cetera, et cetera. About a third of the agents are based in the Peking bureau in Ming Dynasty China. They report to the commander, naturally, but they’re in charge of the eastern hemisphere.’
‘And the agents here, from the western hemisphere,’ Jake asked, ‘they all live on the Mount?’
‘Ça depend.’ Topaz shrugged. ‘Depends how much dangerous activity there is. In quiet times, most of them return to their own eras. Except Nathan and me, of course.’
‘We’re stuck with each other.’ Nathan gave a wink. ‘You should tell Jake that out of all those agents you’ve mentioned, only ten or so are real hot shots like us.’
Topaz explained. ‘A small number, invariably us younger agents, have the greatest valour – hence our name: Valiants. It means we can travel further in history and with greater ease. As agents age, their abilities usually weaken – the diamonds much less so, of course, but even their valour coalesces and hardens over time. These older agents—’
‘The has-beens,’ Nathan teased.
‘– are called Advancers. They’re largely involved in the day-to-day running of things. But the strong ones, the diamonds – like your parents – can continue on active duty if required.’
‘Interesting fact,’ Nathan butted in. ‘Jupitus Cole, who’s neither young nor a diamond, never lost his valour. He could still flip back to ancient Mesopotamia and not feel a damn thing.’
‘Anyway, it’s the Advancers,’ Topaz resumed, ‘who choose, by secret ballot, who is to be the commander of the History Keepers. Commander Goethe has held the post for three years.’
‘Having narrowly pipped Jupitus Cole to the post,’ Nathan confided. ‘He was none too happy about it.’
The three of them left the armoury and climbed the stairs to the next floor.
‘Communications,’ announced Topaz, leading them through a door into another room. Along one wall, four people, two men and two women, all in nineteenth-century clothes, were working at antique desks. They nodded briefly at the youngsters. In front of each stood an instrument similar to the odd typewriter that Charlie Chieverley had been using in the London bureau, including the trademark crystalline rod that buzzed with miniature lightning flashes. Using quills and ink, they were noting down information on parchment.
‘They’re de-coding,’ Topaz explained. ‘Those devices are called Meslith machines, after Vladimir Meslith, the inventor. They’re used to send and receive messages through time. Any important message, sent directly to the commander, arrives in the “Meslith nucleus”, there.’
She indicated a thick glass cabinet in the centre of the room that contained yet another distinctive machine. This one was much larger and more intricate than the others, its crystalline rod sturdier. Emanating from the back of the device was a complex arrangement of miniature cogs and levers that led eventually to two quills, each poised over blank rolls of parchment, ready to print out an incoming message.
‘When a message is received, two copies are transcribed. One is deposited in the box below the machine; the other is sent, by tube, directly to the commander’s quarters underneath us.’
‘By tube?’ asked Jake, trying to keep up.
‘That’s right. Forget all about any modern communications systems,’ Nathan added, inspecting his reflection in the glass cabinet. ‘Null and void in 1820. We’ve fifty plus years before even the advent of electricity.’
‘Though, personally,’ Topaz commented, ‘I find Meslith communication infinitely more magical. Look – there’s a message arriving now.’ She pointed to the machine. Its crystalline aerial was flickering with a light as brilliant as burning phosphorous. This, in turn, set off a chain reaction, which resulted in the two mechanical quills writing a short message on two separate sheets of parchment. One copy was deposited in a slot below the machine; the other was mechanically rolled into a tube and shot into a pipe that led down through the floor.
‘The commander will receive it any second now,’ said Topaz. She turned wearily to Nathan, who was still transfixed by his own image. ‘When you’ve got your bouffant under control, perhaps we can continue …?’
‘It’s that conditioner Father gave me,’ sighed Nathan. ‘I don’t know what all the f
uss is about jojoba.’
As Jake was led out of the room, he caught sight of a clock. There were just twenty minutes to go before the meeting in the stateroom and he felt a jolt of fear as he wondered what new revelations awaited him.
Nathan and Topaz led him down a set of steps and into another unusual space.
‘The Library of Faces,’ Topaz announced.
Jake gazed in awe down the length of the long gallery. On both the right-hand and far walls were shelves of vast leather-bound books. The entire long wall on the left was covered with portraits. Each one was a foot square and looked like an Old Master painting. Jake found the sight of a thousand faces staring out at him impressive enough, but the wall had another secret: after ten seconds a bell rang, there was a great creaking of machinery, and every single portrait turned on its axis to reveal another portrait behind it. After a similar interval the bell rang again, and the portraits turned once more to reveal a third set of faces. On the last revolution the portraits returned to their original setting.
‘The faces on the wall,’ Nathan told Jake, ‘are people from history considered important or dangerous to the History Keepers’ Secret Service at the present time. The books’ – he took one down from its shelf and flicked through its stiff, crinkled pages – ‘contain just about everyone else who’s ever lived.’
‘Ssssh!’ The voice came from the shadows at the far end of the room. In the gloom Jake could make out a figure sitting at a sturdy desk behind a stack of books. She was in her fifties and wore a black dress from the baroque period, with huge puffy sleeves and a lace collar. Her hair was tucked neatly into her bonnet and she was reading with the aid of half-moon glasses.
‘That’s the head librarian, Lydia Wunderbar,’ Nathan explained as quietly as he was able. ‘She may look like a stickler for rules and regulations, but get her on a dance floor and it’s a different story!’
History Keepers 1: The Storm Begins Page 6