History Keepers: Nightship to China (3 page)

Jake tried a friendly nod of recognition. He might as well have spat at her, for suddenly Josephine launched herself into the air and he felt a rush of air as she leaped off the ship towards him.

Like lightning, Charlie cast his net over her, slowing her slightly, but she still hit Jake with tremendous impact. His sword went flying as she brought him down, forcing the air out of his lungs.

She scrabbled with her gigantic paws, trying to free herself from the net. Jake felt her hot breath on his face as she opened her jaws, and he lashed out, hitting her on the nose. He heard a crack of bone, and as she turned, stunned, Jake tried to kick his way free.

Josephine was just about to lunge for him again when Jake heard a shot ring out, and then another, the second grazing her back. This served only to enrage her further. She sank back onto her haunches and let out a tremendous roar, when Mr Drake dive-bombed her, slashing out with his claws. In the chaos, he got caught in the net, and there was a cacophony of squawking and roaring; Charlie screamed and all the others shouted in alarm.

Suddenly Jake felt the weight lift off him. He rolled over and saw the lioness charging up the steps, trailing the net behind her, with the poor parrot a blur of colour, still tangled up in it.

‘Mr Drake!’ Charlie wailed as she hurtled through the door, smashing it to pieces. He snatched the gun from Nathan and followed swiftly behind.

From the hall, Charlie looked up at the grand staircase where the portraits of old History Keepers stood guard. He couldn’t see anything at first, but he heard squawks echoing around the vaulted space. He hurried on up the stairs; ahead of him, Mr Drake finally broke free of the net and tried to fly towards him – but his broken wing jerked uselessly and he fell to the floor. Josephine turned and snapped at the bird, but he used his last ounce of energy to flap free, before collapsing and plopping down the steps one by one.

Charlie’s face was filled with fury. He pointed his gun at the lioness – but his finger froze on the trigger. Could he kill an animal in cold blood?

His hesitation was fatal. Josephine roared and leaped forward, swiping the gun out of his hand. Charlie’s eyes widened in shock as he toppled backwards; he lost his balance completely and went flying, his shoulder smacking into an oil portrait. Sejanus Poppoloe, the founder of the History Keepers’ Secret Service, was ripped in two, and Josephine, no longer hindered by the net, bore down on Charlie, sinking her teeth into his ankle. Jake heard the bone snap as she flipped him right over, about to start on the rest of him . . .

Jake lunged forward, picked up the gun and took aim. But an ear-splitting shot rang out from behind him; a cloud of acrid smoke rose into the air. Josephine froze in surprise. Then blood started to seep out of a black hole in her chest – just trickling at first; then pouring, as thick as oil, down the steps. She looked around in confusion, then her legs gave way and her body thumped to the floor. As Jake gazed into her eye, it grew cloudy, flickered one last time, and then she was still.

Josephine was dead. On this day of celebration, death had come to the Mont St Michel.

Jake turned to see Oceane Noire coming down the steps. In her hand she held a shotgun – for it was she who had killed Josephine, her own pet. Her face was expressionless as she knelt down and picked up a limp paw. She closed her eyes and then let out a cry of pain, low at first, but building to a crescendo.

Jake went over to Charlie. His face was pale, but he managed to ask: ‘Mr Drake? Is he . . .?’

Jake looked round at the lifeless coloured bundle. Topaz was tending to the fallen parrot. He was moving, but it didn’t look good.

Then he turned to see the wedding party standing in silence at the bottom of the staircase, Rose at the front in her torn wedding gown.

Oceane picked herself up and, like a zombie, made her way down the steps. Jake had never seen her look so dishevelled, an old shawl thrown over her bony shoulders. At the foot of the stairs she reached out her hand to Rose and stroked her cheek, smearing it with vivid blood.

Her lips trembled as she asked bitterly, ‘Happy now?’

ON THE OTHER
side of the world, in a far-off part of history, a ship was sailing through the night in the South China Sea. It was a trading junk – in 1612, one of the largest vessels in the world: two hundred feet long, with five masts supporting a cluster of giant fin-shaped sails. The vessel had set off from Canton two nights previously, bound for the ports of Persia and Arabia.

In a candlelit cabin at the stern of the ship, three distinguished-looking merchants, the owners, sipped tea and pored over maps, charting their route around the world.

Beneath them, in the many compartments of the hold, was an extremely precious cargo: chests of jade, jet and lapis lazuli; porcelain and ebony; rolls of fine silk and crates of tea, ginger, cinnamon and peppercorns. Guards patrolled the narrow corridors between the compartments.

Meanwhile, on deck, bare-footed sailors checked the rigging, their brows beading with sweat against the humid night; others sat cross-legged, playing dice. Watchmen in breastplates and pointed helmets kept a lookout across the dark sea for anything dangerous – pirates in particular.

All was quiet . . . when suddenly there was a huge jolt.

In the merchants’ cabin, candles were overturned and a cup of tea spilled on a chart of the Indian Ocean. Above them, the sailors froze, some halfway up the rigging, and looked round at their shipmates. The watchmen held their lanterns out over the water to see if they had hit anything. But the vessel was now continuing normally, with the wind in its sails.

In the hold, one of the guards went along a corridor to investigate a strange sound – a heavy insistent tap coming from the hull. He bent down, his ear to the floor. All at once there was a surge of noise. The wood shattered and a metal tentacle, sharp-tipped, and as thick as a human leg, punched through the timbers, just missing him. A torrent of water gushed in. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the tentacle retreated, sliding back through the hole.

The three merchants stumbled out of their cabin and looked down into the hold, stunned. They heard a deep rasp from beneath the hull, and suddenly a second steel arm smashed through, cracking open the wall of a compartment; its precious cargo tumbled out. Terrified, the merchants hurried the other way, up the stairs onto the main deck.

The ship was listing: its stern was sinking, while its prow stuck up out of the water. Many of the sailors and watchmen were clustered together on one side, swords drawn, shouting. The merchants stumbled over, and saw another of the sea creature’s limbs rising up. There was a cry as it reached into the sky before curling round towards the deck. The crew tried to fight it off – and it was only when their swords made contact that they realized it was made of metal! The tentacle took hold of the ship’s rail and pulled.

The merchants turned and ran across to the other side, where the rest of the sailors were lowering a small skiff. The ship’s owners scrambled aboard and it thumped down onto the water. Immediately another tentacle shot out, smashing the boat to pieces, tossing them all into the water, before reaching up for the other side of the ship.

The entire vessel, now coming apart at the seams, was drawn down under the water. Two of the masts snapped in two, one tumbling onto the remaining sailors. The ocean churned as the junk quickly disappeared below the surface.

It was lunch time on the Mont St Michel. Jake sat by Charlie’s bed in the castle sick bay. He’d been watching over his friend for three days, often accompanied by Nathan and Topaz, as they waited for him to wake up properly.

Josephine had shattered Charlie’s ankle, along with three bones in his foot. The attack had left him in a state of deep shock. Dr Chatterju had operated on him immediately, and now Lydia Wunderbar was in charge of his recovery. She was the larger-than-life head librarian – as vivacious as she was fearsome – who doubled up as a brilliant nurse (apparently she’d once been a friend of Florence Nightingale).

‘Miss Wunderbar, something’s happening,’ Jake whispered, seeing Charlie’s eyes flicker open properly for the first time.

She approached the bed, and Charlie looked up at them both, blinking in confusion. Then a terrible thought struck him. ‘Mr Drake? Where’s Mr Drake?’

‘He’s a very fortunate parrot,’ Lydia said, smiling. She indicated a basket by the bed, containing a poorly looking bird stretched out on plump velvet cushions, wing bandaged in much the same manner as Charlie’s leg. She and Jake watched, tears in their eyes, as Charlie picked up his beloved pet and held him next to his heart.

‘How are you feeling?’ Jake asked.

Charlie looked down at his leg uncertainly. ‘I don’t know. How
am
I feeling, Miss Wunderbar?’

‘In time, you’ll make a full recovery,’ she said, ‘but there’ll certainly be no assignments for a while.’

Charlie nodded grimly; then he remembered something else. ‘It’s all a blur, but I suppose Josephine . . . did she make it after all?’ Despite everything, he couldn’t help feeling dreadful about what had happened. Jake’s face told him the answer. ‘And Oceane?’

‘She’s been locked in her room for three days – she’s opened her door just once, to receive a delivery of red wine and cigars.’

‘She must be inconsolable,’ Charlie said quietly. ‘What about the wedding? Did Rose and Jupitus tie the knot in the end?’

Jake and Lydia Wunderbar shared a look. The librarian busied herself cleaning up the sick bay as Jake explained: ‘Actually, they’re not on speaking terms. They had a huge row – Jupitus said something about the garish colour of Rose’s wedding dress being like a red rag to a bull, and she flew off the handle. It ended up with her tossing her engagement ring into the sea.’

‘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.’