History Keepers 1: The Storm Begins (6 page)

‘I don’t know,’ said Jake, half smiling.

Charlie leaned in close and took off his spectacles in order to make his
point
more dramatically. ‘It contains
history
. The history of everything.’

Again, a tingling went down Jake’s spine. More questions came immediately into his head. ‘And the horizon point?’ he asked. ‘What’s that?’

‘There are
many
horizon points all around the world. Each one is a focus of intense magnetic activity … You know, of course, that the Earth has a magnetic field – the horizon points provide the
power
for the atomium to do its job. We invariably use horizon points that are far out to sea; the landlocked ones are fraught with complications.’

Again, Jake thought hard about this strange science. ‘Rose said only a “select few” can travel into history. But we all have atoms – why can’t everyone do it?’

Charlie smiled and took a deep breath. ‘
That
is the unanswerable question,’ he said, relishing the mystery. ‘No one knows where we get our valour from. But the fact is, if you do not have a shape in your eye, you will not be travelling to the past.’

‘And what about the ship? The rigging? The cups and plates? How do they travel to the past?’

‘Not to mention the clothes we’re wearing. None of us would enjoy arriving in nothing but our birthday suits!’ Charlie giggled to himself. ‘As a
group
, we
extend our focus
. Telepathically, so to speak’ – he swept his hand grandly around the ship – ‘we carry all this with us: the
Escape
, everything in it and some of the water too. The most talented keepers, usually the diamonds – I myself am honoured to be one,’ he added proudly, ‘carry the most. Not just the inanimate objects, but the
other keepers
too, the less qualified ones.’

‘That’s why Jupitus Cole asked you to stick with me?’

Charlie whispered, ‘With you also being a diamond – so I’ve been told – you should be a natural, but it’s best to take precautions on the first voyage.’ He looked round and dropped his voice further. ‘When I said the diamonds “carry” the other agents, I meant more the oblongs and the misshapes. It’s very hard to take any journey of note without at least one diamond on board.’

Although all these ideas were still abstract to Jake, he couldn’t help feeling a certain sense of pride in his status. ‘And if we are able to travel in time,’ he asked, ‘are we able to visit ourselves – you know, at a younger age?’

Charlie looked at Jake as if he were mad. ‘You’ve been reading too much science fiction. Our lives are
like
everyone else’s. They start at the beginning and finish at the end. We can only be in one place, in the present … wherever that present happens to be. Look …’ Charlie held up his wrist and showed Jake his watch (which, like his spectacles, was battered and fixed with tape). ‘The number there’ – he pointed to a little window of numerals in the middle of the clock face – ‘is my age. Fourteen years, seven months and two days. Wherever I am in history, it doesn’t matter, this watch adds up the days. On my birthday it plays me a little tune – Beethoven’s Fifth.’

He patted the watch fondly and whistled his birthday tune. He stopped when he saw that Jake’s attention had been caught by something. Topaz St Honoré had appeared on deck. Jake’s eyes flickered and again his throat dried as he watched her glide towards the prow of the ship.

‘Oh dear.’ Charlie rolled his eyes. ‘Another heart stolen by
le sphinx français
.’

Jake blushed with embarrassment.

‘Topaz has that effect on most boys,’ Charlie went on.

‘No, not at all, I …’ Jake floundered. ‘She just seems quite … mysterious …Does she live in
Normandy
?’ he asked, attempting to deflect attention from himself.

‘Since she was adopted by Nathan’s family, yes. Mostly she lives at Point Zero with them. Of course, she and Nathan fight like lunatics, just like any brother and sister.’

‘Nathan?’ asked Jake.

‘Nathan Wylder. You’ll meet him when we arrive. Actually, you’ll
hear
him first. He has the loudest voice this side of Constantinople. American. A civil-war child.’ Then Charlie added with more admiration than envy, ‘He’s the undisputed star of the service. A bona fide hero.’

Jake was still thinking about Topaz. ‘Adopted? What happened to her own family?’

Charlie leaned in closer and whispered in Jake’s ear, ‘That is a long and sad story, and no one ever talks about it.’ His eyes narrowed as he scrutinized Jake. ‘Are you feeling the atomium now?’

Jake nodded. It had come upon him quite suddenly. His head had started to throb and he seemed to be floating in the air without actually leaving the ground. Within seconds the nauseous sensations had become ten times worse. He lurched
forward
; Charlie caught him and helped him over to a bench.

‘Sit down, the worst will pass soon.’

Jake gazed out at the sea. He knew it was the sea, but at the same time he didn’t recognize it. He didn’t feel cold any more, and all the sounds around him seemed to come from far away.

One by one, the other passengers came up on deck to prepare themselves. Oceane Noire looked out at the sea as if she owned it. She took a deep breath and clutched Jupitus’s shoulder, but he ignored her.

‘Five minutes to go!’ Captain Macintyre announced. Jake turned and saw the other Constantor next to the great wooden steering wheel; similar to the instrument in the cabin below, but larger, and forged from stronger metal. The three glinting axes had almost converged.

‘Four minutes!’ announced the captain.

Jake’s headache and nausea had now passed and he felt only the sharp thrill of excitement. Topaz turned to him, smiled – and suddenly Jake could see things, extraordinary things: armies, kingdoms, great half-built cathedrals, shimmering palaces, moonlight, candlelight, mountain passes, heroic
adventurers
. Something had been unlocked inside him and he was overcome with a sense of the glory of the world.

‘One minute …’ the captain told them.

Silence fell. Charlie moved closer to Jake, while on his other side Rose clutched his hand firmly. All eyes were fixed on a moonlit point ahead of them. They waited.

‘Ten, nine, eight, seven …’ continued Macintyre almost inaudibly.

Jake’s eyes opened wider. He held his breath. A whirlwind sprang up out of nowhere; a savage cyclone encircled each individual. Colours flashed. Rose and Charlie drew as close to Jake as they could. Then there was the sound of a slow-motion detonation – and suddenly he saw an explosion of diamond shapes shooting out in all directions, blasting from an epicentre within him. He seemed to be taking off like a rocket, above the ship, above the ocean. Jake had heard the term ‘out-of-body experience’, but, like most people, had never actually had one. He knew that he was actually still standing on the deck, but it was as if he were high above it and could see himself far down below. The diamond shapes flew to the far edges of Jake’s vision,
the
colours flashed insanely – and finally there came the sound of a sonic boom.

And suddenly everything returned to normal. Jake was once again on the deck, with Aunt Rose at his side. A victorious cheer went up and everyone started congratulating each other.

Charlie turned to Jake and shook him by the hand. ‘I hope you had a good trip. Welcome to 1820.’

6 H
ISTORY
A
LIVE

ALTHOUGH JAKE WAS
exhausted beyond imagining after the events of the last twenty-four hours, he was determined to stay awake until he had seen some sign that he was indeed breathing the air of a different century. He clung to the ship’s rail, staring out to sea as his eyelids became heavier and heavier.

Everyone except the captain had gone below decks to get some rest. Rose had waited up with her nephew for a long while, but when she had started yawning uncontrollably Jake had kindly suggested that she lie down on one of the comfortable sofas by the fire. Rose had fetched a woolly blanket for him, kissed him on the forehead, then disappeared saying she ‘probably wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway’. A minute later, Jake had heard her loud snores from the cabin below.

With the blanket wrapped around him, he now looked out at the rolling sea and the faint light on the horizon, and thought again of his parents. A strange mixture of feelings churned around in his head. Of course, he was worried sick, but he was also haunted by a sense of betrayal. They had
lied
to him, pretending that they were going to a bathroom trade fair in Birmingham, when they had actually been heading not just across Europe, but across the centuries.

Jake shook his head to clear his mind. ‘There’s probably an explanation for everything,’ he said out loud, and returned to scanning the ocean. Since the disappearance of his brother, Jake had learned, through painful trial and error, the trick of blocking out any dark thoughts that threatened him.

Slowly, the wind, which had been bracing and cool, started to die down. Within minutes it was replaced by a warm breeze from the tropics. Now an inescapable drowsiness took hold of Jake. First he knelt down on the wooden deck; a few moments later he lay on his side with his school bag under his head as a pillow, still staring out at the sea; then he fell fast asleep.

At the same moment, early that morning in 1820, near the Normandy village of Verre, a masked figure was making his way cautiously around the topiary hedges towards an imposing chateau set in grand, formal gardens. He stopped in the shadows and surveyed the building.

A guard with a lantern patrolled the grounds. The masked figure waited for him to disappear round the side of the chateau, before stealthily gliding across the lawn and scaling the wisteria until he was level with a first-floor window.

Inside the room, a girl was pacing anxiously to and fro. The intruder threw open the window, leaped inside and ripped off his mask.

‘Nathan! Thank God! I thought you’d never make it,’ the young girl exclaimed as she showered him in kisses. Nathan didn’t react: he was used to young ladies throwing themselves at him. He was sixteen, athletic, strikingly good-looking, with a delightfully self-assured glint in his eye. He was also dressed in the height of fashion. He looked around the opulent bedroom; it was decorated with a ton of gilt and great festoons of lilac silk.

‘Whoops – style overload,’ he commented in his light American drawl. ‘Isabella, your
husband
-to-be has clearly confused money with taste.’

‘He will never be my husband! He said if I did not walk up the aisle tomorrow, he would force me. At gunpoint. And this is the horrible dress he wants me to wear.’ She nodded disgustedly at an elaborate wedding gown hanging on a mannequin.

Nathan was appalled. ‘The man is a monster! Isn’t he aware that the Empire chemisette went out with the Ark? We need to get you out of here.’

He silently descended the wisteria, holding the breathless Isabella in his arms as if she were as light as air.

‘I want to marry a man like you, Nathan, strong and heroic,’ she sighed.

‘Isabella, my darling, haven’t we been through this? I’d be a terrible husband. I may be irresistible, but I’m unreliable, immature, infuriating. You’d be throwing yourself away on me.’ Nathan set her down on the ground. ‘Now, quickly – this place is swarming with guards.’

Minutes later, they were hurrying across a paddock towards Nathan’s horse, which was waiting at the edge of the forest. Suddenly a voice came from beneath the canopy of trees.

‘I had a premonition of your disobedience,’ it growled in a low French accent. Isabella trembled as a sour-looking aristocrat, obese and ruddy-cheeked, stepped out of the shadows; at his side was a brutish-looking guard, holding the reins of his master’s horse. ‘So I took precautions.’

‘Ah, Chevalier Boucicault …’ Nathan beamed, unfazed. ‘We’re glad we caught you. Premonition justified: Signorina Montefiore is having second thoughts about the wedding. She has issues with your manners – not to mention your trouser size.’

The chevalier held out his hand, and the guard deposited a pistol in his palm. ‘
Très amusant
,’ he sneered as he checked it was loaded.

‘And on that subject, as much as I admire your brave sartorial efforts,’ Nathan continued, indicating the chevalier’s waistcoat, ‘I have to point out that stripes are doing you no favours. They’re merciless with a frame such as yours.’

Isabella’s eyes went wide as the chevalier cocked his pistol and levelled it at Nathan. The boy’s reaction was so quick it was almost invisible: suddenly his rapier was drawn, there was a flash of steel – then the pistol was whipped out of the chevalier’s grasp; it
flew
up into the air and landed firmly in Nathan’s hand.

‘Let’s go!’ he shouted as he leaped onto his handsome black mare. He grabbed Isabella’s hand and pulled her up behind him.

‘
Arrêtez! Voleur
!’ the chevalier bellowed as they tore off across the field. Within seconds he’d scrambled onto his own beast and was charging in pursuit.

‘Hold on tight!’ Nathan shouted back to his companion as he galloped along the narrow path that cut through the dense conifer wood.

A huge branch emerged out of the dawn mist right in front of them. ‘Nathan, watch out!’ Isabella yelled.

Nathan fired the pistol, and the offending branch was obliterated. They rode on at full speed. Nathan tossed away the gun, its cartridge spent.

The red-cheeked chevalier whipped his horse savagely until he was edging abreast of his prey. Nathan drew his sword again and checked his perfect white teeth in the glinting blade before turning to the chevalier. As both horses hurtled onwards, the two riders clashed swords, their blades flashing like lightning in the early morning sun. Isabella
gasped
, shielding herself from the whipping branches of the passing trees.

‘I should warn you,’ Nathan teased his adversary, ‘I haven’t lost a fencing bout since I was eight. And that was to the Chevalier d’Éon, considered by many to be the greatest swordsman in history. The odds are not on your side, my friend.’