The Black Book of Secrets (20 page)

As we made our way down the rocky tunnel it became
narrower and narrower. Joe could no longer stand up
straight and I could not walk beside him. Further down, the
air became heavy and thick as if it had not moved for many
years. The torch dimmed to an amber glow and I feared it
might go out altogether. I felt and heard living things fly past
me, bats perhaps, but I never saw them, just sensed something
brushing against my cheeks and catching at my hair.

‘Don’t worry, Ludlow,’ called Joe over his shoulder.
‘You will come to no harm.’

Now we were descending. The slope was gentle at first,
but quickly became steeper and I had to hold on to the sides
of the tunnel to stay upright. The air pressure was increasing
all the time and there was a dull ache in my ears. Finally,
when I thought I could bear it no longer, the ground levelled
off and the tunnel widened again and the roof lifted
enough for us both to stand erect. Up ahead I could see Joe
framed in an archway, his slim figure silhouetted in the
yellow light. As soon as I reached him he put his hands over
my eyes and guided me the last few feet. I knew when we
stepped out of the tunnel because the atmosphere changed
and was immediately fresher and cooler. The air was
filled with high-pitched moans and wails, and low booms
and rumbles that seemed to come and go. My own heartbeat
filled my ears.

‘Let me see,’ I whispered. ‘Let me see.’

When Joe took his hands from my eyes I thought that I
must be in a dream, that I had stepped from reality into a
world that existed only in the imagination, for how else
could this be? We stood like tiny insects in an endless hall
with an arched roof that was maybe a hundred feet above us.
Huge grooved pillars, thicker than ancient tree trunks,
reached up to hold aloft the copper ceiling. Light came from
shallow dishes of flaming oil that sat upon slender white
marble plinths shot through with silver. The walls were
dark, made not of rock but from some other material, the
nature of which I couldn’t determine; and the floor, surely
a masterpiece of craftsmanship in itself, was decorated with
tiny pieces of coloured stone set into the earth.

I stared and stared. I think my mouth was wide open.
As I looked around the magnificent chamber I felt as if I was
seeing for the first time. I couldn’t take it all in. My eyes
flicked from side to side and with every blink I saw something
else. The pillars, at first glance smooth, were actually
intricately carved. Tiny vines snaked around and upwards,
and from between the leaves pairs of eyes peeped out. They
were so lifelike I almost expected them to blink. The floor,
when examined closely, was actually a myriad of pictures,
each a self-contained scene of rare beauty. Within these I
saw monsters and angels, fairies and small folk, scaled creatures
of the sea and the air, some hideous, some alluring,
all spectacular.

My gaze was drawn in to the area at my feet, just in front
of the entrance to the palatial hall. I stood on the edge of a
pale mosaic and depicted within were three figures: one sat
at a spinning wheel, a second held a measuring rod to the
thread and the third stood over her with a pair of gleaming
shears. Their faces were haggard and they seemed to be in
dispute.

‘Who are these hags?’ I asked, for they were truly ugly,
and my words echoed around the walls. ‘Whoooo . . .’

‘The three sister Fates,’ said Joe. ‘One spins the thread
of life, the other measures it and the third cuts it off with
her shears. They argue constantly as to which sister is the
most important of the three.’

‘The one with the shears?’ I ventured.

Joe smiled. ‘Certainly she is considered the most menacing,
but there is no answer, for without one the other two
could not exist.’

‘The three Fates,’ I murmured. ‘Why should they be
here?’

I stepped a little further into the hall and realized with
a shock that the black walls were not walls at all but the
unmarked spines of books crammed together on shelves
that rose to the ceiling.

‘Take one,’ said Joe.

So I ran over and pulled one, with difficulty, so tightly
was it held by its neighbours, from the shelf. As soon as I
had it in my hands I knew what it was. There were those
same golden words on the cover:

Verba Volant Scripta Manent

‘O, Lord,’ I gasped in complete amazement. ‘Is this a Book
of Secrets?’

Joe nodded. I opened it carefully, for it was ancient and
the leaves were crumbling into dust. I struggled to read the
unfamiliar handwriting. Every page was filled top to
bottom, each recording the precious stories of long-dead
strangers. I closed it and stood back from the shelves. Joe
was watching me closely. Could it be possible . . . ?

‘Are they all books of secrets?’

‘Yes. Every one. From every corner of the globe.’

There must have been thousands. And within each book
maybe fifty, a hundred secrets or more. I couldn’t begin to
understand what this meant. It was a few moments before
I could speak again. ‘Who put them here?’

‘I did,’ said Joe. ‘And others, of course. You are looking
at centuries of confessions, Ludlow. My life’s work and
that of every other Secret Pawnbroker who ever existed.’

‘But I thought . . . you mean you’re not the only one?’

Joe smiled. ‘I hope you are not disappointed,’ he said,
‘but there have been many of us, and there will be many
more. For now the honour goes to me. But I cannot go on
forever. Whatever you may think of me, I am still human.
I too will return to dust one day.’

Suddenly I grew nervous. My voice shook, my knees
trembled, but I had to ask. ‘This is where you came, isn’t
it? When you went away.’

Joe nodded. ‘It is something I have to do. I am responsible
in part for this place. In a way this hall is my only
home.’

‘So why have you brought me here?’

‘Because it could be your home too. Soon you will have
to make a choice and then, if you do as I think you will do,
you need to know all this. Come with me, there is someone
I want you to meet.’

I followed him, all the time turning my head left and
right, up and down, to see more, to take it all in and keep
it there. We walked between the pillars to the far end of the
hall until we came to a large dark wooden desk with thick
ornately carved legs. It was stacked high with uneven piles
of books. As we approached I heard the sound of a chair
being pushed back. A man, hidden when seated, stood up
and came forward with both arms extended. He wore a
long velvet cloak the colour of which changed with every
movement he made. His face was concealed beneath a
hood, but he pushed it back and I looked into a pair of eyes
I had thought never to see again.

‘Mr Jellico!’ I managed to gasp just before he gave me
a hug so tight I feared it would break my bones.

When he finally released me he patted me on the back
and shook my hand over and over. ‘I’m so pleased to see
you again, Ludlow,’ he said and there was a tear in his eye.
‘I had no idea what to think. I went away for a few days and
when I came back you no longer visited. I thought the
worst, of course, that you had met some terrible fate at the
hands of your parents, but thank the heavens I was wrong.
I could not have forgiven myself if anything had happened
to you. You can’t know how relieved I am to see it has all
worked out in the end. Thanks in part, I’m sure, to my good
friend here, Mr Zabbidou.’

I looked from one to the other completely dumbfounded.

‘You do know each other!’ I exclaimed. ‘Joe, why didn’t
you say?’ I couldn’t stop shaking my head in disbelief. ‘But
I thought there was only one Secret Pawnbroker.’

Mr Jellico laughed. ‘I am not a Secret Pawnbroker,
nothing so exalted as that. No, I merely look after this
place, in a fashion. They call me
Custos
, the Keeper, and this
is my realm,
Atrium Arcanorum
, the Hall of Secrets.’

‘But your shop, in the City?’

‘Hmm, yes,’ he mused, stroking his close-shaven chin.
I noticed for once his nails were clean and polished. Even
his skin glowed. ‘It is not easy being in two places at once.
I’m sorry I couldn’t always be there for you but, as you can
see, I have other obligations.’

While I reeled from one revelation after another, Joe
and Mr Jellico stepped aside and wandered away down the
hall, deep in conversation. I stood by the desk, dizzy with
thinking and seeing. I turned in slow circles and tried to
understand. A thousand ‘What ifs’ ran through my head.
What if I had never come to Pagus Parvus? What if I had
chosen another carriage other than Jeremiah Ratchet’s?
What if Ma and Pa . . .

I made myself stop. I had to. I could have gone on forever.

It was all supposed to happen exactly as it did, I decided.
It wasn’t luck, it was meant to be.

Further down the hall I saw Mr Jellico take the Black Book
of Secrets from Joe – the very book in which I had recorded
the confessions of Pagus Parvus – and push it on to a shelf.
When I looked again I could not tell you where it was. Joe
beckoned me over.

‘Well, what do you think?’ he asked.

‘I think this is the most incredible place I have ever seen,’
I whispered. ‘It . . . it almost scares me.’

‘That’s what I thought when I first came here,’ said Mr
Jellico wistfully, ‘but that was a very long time ago.’

‘Lembart does a fine job keeping it in order,’ said Joe.

‘I do my best,’ he said modestly and moved away, leaving
us alone.

Joe turned to face me and now his expression was
sombre. ‘I have something to give you, Ludlow, if you want
it,’ he said.

He reached under his cloak and handed me a black book,
leather bound with a red ribbon to mark the page, as yet
blank inside, but on the cover in the bottom right-hand
corner I saw the gold letters:

LF

‘A Black Book? Of my own?’ I was more than a little dazed.

‘It’s not an easy life,’ said Joe thoughtfully. ‘I think you
know that, but it has its own rewards. If you do not wish to
pursue it, now is the time to say so.’

I couldn’t speak, I could only stare with my mouth agape
and my eyes fixed. What did all this mean?

‘You wouldn’t start right now, of course,’ he continued,
‘but one day in the future, and I will be here to help until
then.’

At last I managed to whisper, ‘Are you asking me to be
a Secret Pawnbroker?’

‘Not just “a” but “the” Secret Pawnbroker,’ he replied.
‘Have I chosen well, Ludlow? Do you think you can do it?’

Now I was finding it difficult to breathe. My tongue
seemed to be stuck to the roof of my mouth. This was the
most important moment in my life and my body was letting
me down. I mustered all my energy and inhaled deeply
and tried to calm the hammering against my ribs. ‘But . . .
but how can I?’ I stammered. ‘I am not ready. What do I
know of all this?’

‘Enough,’ he smiled. ‘As for being ready, well, no one
can tell what the three sisters will spin for us but, when the
time is right, you’ll know.’

The three sisters, I thought, and slowly I began to
understand why their picture was in the mosaic. This room
was not just about secrets, it was about Fate. And Joe, this
tall wild-haired man, was an instrument of Destiny. He was
the key to my future. His voice cut into my thoughts.

‘As long as you believe you are able,’ he said, ‘then there
is no reason for it not to happen.’

‘I believe I am able,’ I said at last with a little more
strength.

Joe patted me on the shoulder. ‘That is all I wanted to
hear,’ he said. ‘Now I will ask just one more thing of you.’

We walked back to the desk and I could sense between
the two of us an invisible connection that wasn’t there
before. It gave me confidence and made me hold my head
high and my back straight. He sat on one chair and I sat on
another. From his satchel he took out the brandy and two
glasses. He poured an equal measure into each and handed
one to me.