History Keepers 1: The Storm Begins (9 page)

‘Good morning, Signor Gondolfino. My jacket fits like a dream,’ Nathan was saying, his American tones ringing out. He was addressing a distinguished, beautifully dressed man who was emerging from amongst the rails of clothes, an eyeglass in his hand. ‘Signor Luigi Gondolfino,’ Nathan confided. ‘Head of the costumiery. He’s a genius.’

Gondolfino’s old face creased into a smile as he
limped
towards them. ‘Miss St Honoré, is that you?’ he asked in a quavering voice. ‘I swear you become more exquisite with every passing month. How was London? How many hearts did you break?’

‘All hearts in London still intact.’

‘Nonsense, nonsense – you break some hearts. It’s your duty.’

‘How are you, Signor Gondolfino?’ Nathan butted in. ‘I just wanted to tell you that my new embroidered redingote jacket is perfection.’

The smile drained from Gondolfino’s face as he turned to Nathan and examined him with his eyeglass. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he remarked. ‘Are you returning something?’ His refined European sensibilities clearly found Nathan’s brashness too much to bear.

‘No, I was merely … paying you a compliment …?’ For once Nathan sounded unsure of himself.

‘This is Jake Djones,’ Topaz interjected. ‘Alan and Miriam’s son. He has just joined us.’

Gondolfino held Jake’s hand firmly in his frail fingers and whispered, ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you. Everything is going to be all right. Your parents are survivors.’

For some reason Gondolfino’s comment made
Jake
picture his parents in their kitchen at home. In his mind’s eye they were no longer lost but waiting nervously for his return, clutching each other’s hands as they stared at the empty garden path. Jake’s trance was broken by Gondolfino’s voice.

‘Modern garments – so dull and charmless,’ he murmured to himself, examining Jake’s school blazer and trousers with his eyeglass. ‘No offence, my boy,’ he added with a smile.

‘None taken,’ said Jake, smiling back. He had always particularly disliked his school trousers; they were hot and itchy, whatever the weather.

‘Later,’ Gondolfino assured him, ‘we’ll find you something suitably elegant. You’ve the face for it.
Bel viso
.’

Suddenly bells started ringing from all around the Mount.

‘Ten o’clock!’ exclaimed Nathan. ‘Time to go.’

The three of them said their goodbyes to Signor Gondolfino. As they left, Jake’s eyes lingered on the rows of magnificent clothes. They retraced their steps, down staircases and along corridors, towards the stateroom. Jake’s mind was now racing with many thoughts. Although he found it amazing that so many people knew his parents, and reassuring
that
they thought so highly of them, every new mention brought a fresh spasm of anxiety about them.

In truth, Jake was also struggling with the idea of the extraordinary organization for which his parents had covertly worked all this time. Certainly he had started to understand the details of how it operated, but one large, overriding question was not being answered.

‘I don’t wish to appear dense,’ he said as they approached a set of double doors at the end of a corridor, ‘but what exactly do you all
do
? I mean, the History Keepers’ Secret Service … what is it
for
?’

Nathan stopped dead; Topaz too. They turned to Jake. Nathan was smiling proudly. ‘That’s a good question,’ he said, nodding. Then he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and announced in a dramatic whisper, ‘We save history. We put our lives out on a limb to save history.’

‘Yes, I think I understand that,’ floundered Jake, none the wiser. ‘But how? In what
way
?’

Topaz came to the rescue. ‘You probably always imagined that history was something that was finished … done … in the past?’

‘Isn’t that the meaning of history?’ asked Jake.

Nathan laughed and shook his head.

‘
Pas du tout
,’ answered Topaz in her softly accented tones. ‘Not at all. History is
always
evolving. It’s not a straight line, you see; it’s a complex, ever-changing structure.’

Jake listened intently.

‘And because history is never finished with,’ she continued, ‘there are some people who are always trying to change it. Change it for the worse. What if Tamerlane had succeeded in enslaving the whole of Asia, or Robespierre had turned Europe into a police state, or Adolf Hitler had won the last great war?’ This was the first time Jake had heard Topaz speaking like this; her voice was solemn, hushed. ‘As you may have learned at school, there have already been too many diabolical catastrophes. What we do is try and keep the rest of history as safe as we can.’

Jake found himself nodding passionately. He looked at Nathan: even
he
now looked sombre. Then his smile returned and he clapped Jake on the shoulder.

‘Let’s go in and see what all the fuss is about!’ He pushed open the double doors and the three of them went inside.

9 C
ODE
P
URPLE

THE STATEROOM WAS
a large, bright room dominated by four gigantic windows that looked out across the sea. In the centre was a long conference table set with chairs. Norland was filling glasses with water and arranging them carefully at every place.

As they waited for the others to assemble, Topaz told Jake that the stateroom had been secretly designed and built in 1670 by the most celebrated French architect of the day, Louis Le Vau (who had also built the royal palace at Versailles), and how Magnesia Hypoteca, the elegant wife of the seventh commander of the Secret Service, once said of its famous windows, ‘They are eyes from which one can see the world entire.’

Jake could see her point: the view was
spectacular
. It felt as if he could see right across to the Atlantic and beyond.

One by one, the History Keepers filed into the room. Most of them had changed into new clothes. Charlie Chieverley was wearing breeches and a tailcoat, with a chequered scarf around his neck. It reminded Jake of the costume he’d once worn in a school production of
Oliver
! (Jake’s trousers had famously caught fire during ‘Consider Yourself’.) Jupitus Cole, a stickler for etiquette, had put on his most formal Victorian morning coat and tails. On his lapel there glinted a tiny golden badge: the History Keepers’ familiar symbol. Truman Wylder had donned a silk smoking jacket, while Oceane Noire had been fitted with panniers so wide (extending nearly three feet on either side) that she had to come through the door sideways. There were another fifteen or so people, nearly all grown-ups, in outfits that spanned the centuries.

‘At Point Zero, as we all live here covertly,’ Topaz explained, ‘people are allowed to wear clothes from their own times.
C’est jolie, n’est-ce pas
?’ she added with a smile.

Jake was entranced as he watched them all soberly take their seats around the table. He was
reminded
once again of the collage of fascinating faces he had assembled on his bedroom wall at home. He had always thought that people who lived by their own quirky rules made the world a richer, more interesting place, and this was as strange and eccentric a group as he had ever seen.

‘There’s a free space here,’ Nathan called up the table to Jake.

He sat down opposite Nathan, between Charlie and a distinguished man in a wide-brimmed hat and long lace cuffs like one of the three musketeers. Still dressed in his school uniform and wearing his school bag over his shoulder, Jake couldn’t help feeling a little self-conscious.

‘Nothing to be nervous about. They’re all just pussycats really,’ Nathan offered across the table in his version of a whisper.

‘Sorry, have I missed anything? I didn’t hear the bell. Was there a bell?’ came a voice from the door. Aunt Rose hurried in, bangles jangling. In her Afghan coat and tie-dye dress, carpetbag over her shoulder, she looked even more out of place than Jake. ‘Dear me, there’s no room,’ she muttered, surveying the table.

‘Wait!’ bellowed Nathan. He gallantly collected a
spare
chair and inserted it between Jupitus and Oceane, much to the latter’s annoyance. She stiffened as Rose sat down and started fishing around in her bag for an old tissue to blow her nose.

A moment later everyone turned as the greyhound, Olive, glided in; she trotted round the table, jumped up onto a raised bed beside the commander’s chair and surveyed the company with her bright eyes. Now Galliana Goethe swept in and stood at the end of the table, holding onto the back of her seat.

‘Good morning, everyone. Firstly, for those who haven’t met, I would like to welcome the latest addition to our service, Jake Djones. Please, everyone, let’s make the boy feel at home. He has a good deal on his plate already.’

There was a general welcoming murmur from the assembled company. Rose smiled at Jake proudly; Jupitus looked at him out of the corner of his eye.

‘I will come straight to the point,’ Galliana continued. ‘As most of you now know, two of our agents are missing. For two weeks we had been following a thread of Meslith chatter. A “catastrophic” event was alluded to; the location
Venice
, Italy, July 1506 was mentioned on a number of occasions.’

‘And this chatter was fully credible?’ asked Jupitus, not looking at anyone in particular.

Galliana paused and took a deep breath. ‘I certainly felt that it was credible enough. I took the decision to send a small team to investigate. Alan and Miriam Djones were dispatched from here four days ago aboard the
Mystère
. It was to be a routine fact-finding mission, nothing more.’

Once again, Jake felt a stab of pain on hearing the details of his parents’ deception. A few others around the table sensed his hurt and looked at him sympathetically.

‘The day after they arrived in the city,’ Galliana continued, ‘we received this Meslith communiqué …’ She put on her spectacles and read from a slip of parchment, ‘
Code Purple
—’

At this, a gasp went up, and startled glances were exchanged. Even the cool Jupitus Cole found himself choking on his water. Jake alone was unaware of the horrific import of the phrase.

Charlie whispered to Jake, ‘Code Purple is the highest state of emergency, after orange and red.’

‘
Code Purple
…’ Galliana repeated before
continuing
with the message. ‘
Find the Summit of Superia. Extreme Danger. Repeat, Code Purple
.’ She took off her glasses and passed the parchment to Jupitus. He scrutinized it without expression.

‘That was received three days ago … We’ve heard nothing from them since.’ Galliana paused, as once again Jake found himself the subject of everyone’s sympathy. ‘As a precaution,’ she summed up, ‘I have closed down the London bureau until we make contact with them.’

‘You mean, in case they were forced to divulge secrets?’ asked Jupitus mischievously.

‘You know exactly what I mean,’ the commander replied curtly. ‘A Code Purple warning historically requires
all
European keepers to convene, and for associated bureaux to be temporarily neutralized. I am observing precedent, that’s all.’

‘Sir – may I?’ asked Topaz, reaching for the communiqué. Jupitus passed it to her. ‘
Find the Summit of Superia
?’ she repeated aloud, trying to decipher the puzzle. ‘What is Superia? Is it a mountain?’

There were blank faces around the table.

‘If it is, we have no idea where,’ said Galliana.

‘I, for one, have never heard of it,’ announced
Jupitus
haughtily, as if to say,
If I haven’t heard of it, no one will have
.

‘Is there anything to link this Code Purple, or the agents’ disappearance, with Zeldt and the Black Army?’ asked Nathan.

Jake happened to be looking at Topaz at that moment. It was almost imperceptible, but at the mention of the word ‘Zeldt’, her eyes flickered and she took a sharp breath.

‘No tangible link, as yet. As you know, Zeldt has not been sighted for three years; that was in Holland in 1689, and he is still presumed dead.’ Galliana carried on in a business-like tone, ‘Having considered our position carefully—’

‘But no doubt,’ Jupitus interrupted her, ‘agents Djones and Djones believed Zeldt was involved … Isn’t that why they volunteered?’

‘They did not volunteer. I offered them the commission’ – Galliana fixed Jupitus with steely eyes – ‘as I did on their previous missions. They remain two of our best agents.’ She returned to her original subject. ‘Having considered our position carefully, I have no option but to send a further team to Venice to investigate. They will be leaving this afternoon.’

Topaz was the first to put her hand up. ‘Commander, I request permission to be part of that team.’

Nathan stood and tossed his mane of auburn hair. ‘I naturally assume that I will be selected …’

‘You will both be assigned, along with Charlie Chieverley,’ Galliana announced. ‘Topaz, you are group leader.’

Topaz felt a thrill of excitement. ‘Thank you, Commander. I will not let you down.’

Nathan’s jaw dropped open. ‘You cannot be serious,’ he drawled under his breath. He put his hand up. ‘Commander, is that role in any way negotiable? I am, after all, more senior than Topaz, both in age—’

‘All of two months,’ Topaz pointed out.

‘– and experience. I hardly need to mention the recent success of my Turkish mission.’

Galliana gave Nathan her most withering look. ‘No, not negotiable.’ She returned her attention to the rest of the table. ‘Are there any questions?’

Although his heart was pounding under his school blazer, Jake found himself putting his hand up. All eyes turned to him.

‘I – I would also like to volunteer for the mission,’
he
said in a voice so quiet and uncertain that everyone struggled to hear.

Since he had been a young child, Jake had always worried about his parents, but in the last three years, since his brother’s disappearance, his desire – his
need
– to help had increased a hundred-fold.

‘Stand up!’ bellowed Truman Wylder, waving his cane. ‘Can’t hear you at the back here.’