City of Ships

by Mary Hoffman

‘Come on, Charlie,’ she said, half dragging him out of the cell.

  Soon they were out in the street, which was full of frightened people milling around. Instinctively, Isabel led Charlie away in the direction of the church that looked like St Edward’s. As they ran towards it, the building seemed to shudder and, with a deafening crack, the stonework of the tower split open. They stopped in their tracks.

  That’s it, thought Isabel. Our St Edward’s has an old crack in the tower. I’m watching how it happened in the past.

  ‘What is it, Bel?’ said Charlie. He was like a small child seeking reassurance from an adult.

  ‘It’s an earthquake,’ said Isabel. How are we supposed to fall asleep during an earthquake? she thought. ‘Keep hold of your talisman and maybe we’ll still get out alive.’

  She clutched the little tessera in her pocket. Bricks and tiles were falling all around them, dropping from roofs as the powerful tremor heaved the buildings up as if a subterranean giant were turning over in his sleep and shrugging the ground with his shoulders.

  Suddenly realising what could happen to them, Isabel yelled, ‘Think of Classe!’

  Then the chimney of the house nearest to them collapsed and she was knocked unconscious by a flying brick.

  *

  Nick, Matt and Sky raced round to Isabel’s house straight after school and rescued Georgia, who had watched a stack of DVDs and eaten a whole bar of cooking chocolate she found in the kitchen.

  Luckily neither Evans parent had got home and they remembered that Isabel’s father had been going out of town for a meeting, so might be back late.

  ‘What does her mum do?’ asked Sky.

  ‘She works in the City, that’s all I know,’ said Georgia.

  ‘So she could be anything from a secretary to Governor of the Bank of England?’ said Nick. ‘It doesn’t help us know when she’ll be back.’

  ‘I reckon we’ve got till seven, seven thirty,’ said Matt. ‘After that, our parents are going to expect us back to eat.’

  ‘Do you really think they’ll be back by dinner?’ said Georgia, who was feeling a bit sick.

  ‘The twins or the parents?’ asked Nick.

  He was wandering restlessly round the room, picking up objects and putting them down.

  ‘Sit down, Nick,’ said Georgia. ‘You’re driving me mad. And I meant Bel and Charlie. Parents like ours are always home in time for dinner, even if it’s frozen pizza.’

  ‘Well, we can’t just sit here for the next three hours,’ said Matt.

  ‘I could stravagate,’ said Sky quietly. ‘I’ve got my talisman.’

  ‘To Classe?’ asked Nick.

  Sky nodded. ‘I could find out if Bel ever got back there at least and come straight back,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s think this through,’ said Matt.

  He made them all strong mugs of tea and they pieced together everything Isabel had told Sky and Georgia.

  ‘So there’s a chance the gateway between our worlds has been permanently damaged?’ said Nick.

  No one wanted to accept that this might be true. They all knew what that would mean for the twins, none better than Nick.

  ‘It could be dangerous trying to stravagate while the gateway’s unstable,’ said Georgia.

  ‘But Bel didn’t think twice about it, did she?’ said Sky. ‘She just did what she had to, to get Charlie back.’

  ‘But hang on,’ said Matt. ‘Even if you do stravagate all right, if you just turn up in this Baptistery place she goes to, wearing what you are, you’ll stand out like a sore thumb. Is that safe?’

  ‘Maybe we could find you something less conspicuous here?’ said Georgia.

  They went up to Charlie’s room and Georgia unlocked it. It was uncanny to be rummaging through his cupboards while he lay there on the bed, apparently just asleep.

  ‘I wonder what he’s doing now?’ said Nick.

  ‘What about this?’ said Georgia, pulling out a black velvet cloak from the wardrobe. ‘He must have had this for a Hallowe’en party.’

  ‘I remember,’ said Sky. ‘He came to Chrissie’s as Dracula.’

  ‘If you put it on over your clothes before you stravagate, you won’t attract so much attention,’ said Georgia. ‘I can’t do anything about your trainers, though. Charlie doesn’t have any other kind of shoe.’

  ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ asked Matt when they were back downstairs.

  ‘Quite sure,’ said Sky. ‘Though I don’t know how I’m going to get to sleep.’

  Isabel opened her eyes just long enough to register that she was in the Baptistery and stuff the tessera in her pocket – and then she lost consciousness again. She didn’t even see that her brother had followed her into the bath. Charlie opened his eyes to find the limp and almost lifeless body of his twin.

  In the end he lifted her up and carried her to Flavia’s house, because he couldn’t think of anything else to do. It was such a relief to hand Isabel over to her calm presence and let himself and his twin be fussed over by servants.

  As he sat in Flavia’s parlour, drinking a glass of strong red wine, even though Bel was still unconscious and they were both in Talia, he was shaking with relief at having escaped from Elizabethan England. Being arrested had been horrible and the earthquake terrifying but nothing had been as bad as that feeling of not knowing where he was or how to get back to his own world and time.

  Talia was just as much in the sixteenth century and he was even less in his world here than he had just been. But here there was a vital difference: there were people who knew and cared about his sister and, by extension, him. This handsome middle-aged woman and the man with the scarred face and a whole bunch of other people who could be seen in a set of mirrors that Flavia was constantly looking into – these were the cast of whatever drama Bel had been living in for the past few weeks, he could tell that.

  ‘She is coming round,’ said Flavia, who had been burning feathers under Isabel’s nose. The smell was so horrible that Charlie could see why his sister had sat up spluttering.

  ‘OK, Bel?’ he said. ‘How’s your head?’

  There was a big purple bruise spreading across her forehead and a lump swelling underneath it. Isabel put her hand to her head. ‘Ouch!’ she said.

  ‘It was a brick,’ said Charlie to Flavia. ‘There was an earthquake and a chimney fell on us.’

  ‘Did you get hit too?’ asked Isabel.

  Charlie nodded but in fact nothing hurt and he was pretty sure he had just fainted. Still, he wasn’t going to admit that.

  Flavia bathed and dried Isabel’s forehead and gently smeared an ointment on her bruise.

  ‘You’re going to have quite a shiner to explain to the parents,’ said Charlie.

  ‘It won’t show back home,’ said Isabel, wincing. ‘Matt got beaten up really badly in Talia and there was nothing to be seen in our world. It’s only bad sword wounds and things that travel back with you.’

  Charlie kept quiet; there was so much going on here that he didn’t understand. Who would have beaten Matt Wood up in Talia and why?

  ‘Can we go home?’ he asked, aware that he sounded like a petulant child.

  ‘We can try,’ said Isabel. ‘Flavia, do you think we could have some of your sleeping draught?’

  There was a knock on the door and the footman showed in a tall figure in a long black robe. The newcomer looked round the room hesitantly, smiling to see Isabel, then moving to her side with concern at the sight of her injury.

  ‘It’s all right, Flavia,’ said Isabel. ‘He’s one of us. I think he’s come to rescue me.’

  ‘This is going to be dead awkward if the parents get back before he does,’ said Matt, looking down at the apparently sleeping figure of Sky, wrapped in the velvet cloak, on the Evanses’ sofa in their living room.

  ‘We’ll think of something,’ said Georgia. ‘We keep having to.’

  It was quarter past seven. Sky had been gone for hours.

  They heard the unmista
kable sound of a key in the front door.

  At the same moment Sky yawned, stretched and sat up. Georgia immediately stripped the cloak off him and bundled it under the sofa.

  ‘Parents!’ she hissed. ‘Are the others back?’

  ‘They should be,’ said Sky.

  ‘Damn!’ said Georgia. ‘Did I lock Charlie’s door again?’

  ‘Hello!’ called Sarah Evans. ‘Is anyone going to give me a hand unpacking this shopping?’

  The three Stravaganti went out into the hall.

  ‘Gracious!’ said Isabel’s mother. ‘Is this a homework club or something? Where are the twins?’

  ‘That’s why we stayed,’ said Matt, improvising wildly. He and Sky picked up shopping bags and went into the kitchen, sure that Sarah Evans would follow. Georgia could hear them explaining as she raced up the stairs to the bedrooms.

  ‘They came down sick after our run this morning,’ Matt was saying. ‘They’ve been sleeping it off most of the day.’

  Georgia released Charlie from his room. He looked like a ghost as he followed her into Isabel’s bedroom. She was sitting up in bed, pale and with a massive bruise on her forehead. You said it wouldn’t show here,’ he said. ‘But we’re back! I’ve never been so happy to see these four walls in my life!’

  ‘Oh, how are you feeling, you poor things?’ said their mother, running up the stairs. ‘Your friends told me all about it. Shall I heat you up some soup?’

  ‘I feel absolutely fine now,’ said Charlie, taking his mother by the waist and dancing her round the landing. ‘Never better. Forget the soup – I could eat a horse!’

  Chapter 21

  The Gate of the Year

  ‘I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to look after you,’ said Sarah Evans. ‘I found your note about going running and just assumed you were OK. Why didn’t you ring?’

  ‘There was no need,’ said Isabel. ‘Georgia stayed to look after us.’ Then she remembered she had to get their cover story straight. ‘She wasn’t feeling well herself.’

  ‘Well, she looks fine now. And Charlie is obviously fighting fit. But you’re very pale, Bel. And how on earth did you get that bruise?’

  Isabel put her hand up to her forehead and nearly smacked it in exasperation. Of course! She hadn’t been hit over the head in Talia but in England – even though it had been over four hundred years earlier.

  ‘I think you must have had it worse than anyone,’ her mother continued. ‘Of course Charlie has always been the stronger one.’

  ‘No, Mum!’ said Charlie fiercely. ‘You’re wrong. Bel is much stronger than I am.’

  Sarah Evans looked amazed. But Isabel managed a weak smile. While their mother went down to cook up a feast, Charlie slipped the red pouch into her hand.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘I never want to see it again.’

  Isabel added the little lone tessera to its companions in the bag, then stuffed it under her pillow.

  And that was the last thing she knew for fourteen hours. When she woke up next morning, the house was quiet. Charlie had evidently gone to school but no one had woken Isabel. She stretched luxuriously, all her tiredness gone. She checked that the talisman was still where she’d put it, then ran downstairs to the kitchen and smiled when she saw a note from her mother propped against the kettle.

  We thought it best to let you sleep, it said. Call me if you need me. Charlie much better. Love, Mum xxx

  She was ravenous now – she couldn’t remember when she’d last eaten anything, either at home or in Talia. So she made a pot of coffee and a big pile of scrambled egg with a stack of toast. And then had a huge bowl of cereal and a banana.

  She took her second cup of coffee out into the garden, which was full of spring sunshine. As she sat on the bench, feeling the warmth on her face, Isabel couldn’t believe that she would soon be back in the ‘other Italy’ taking part in a sea battle of the kind that hadn’t happened since the time of Elizabeth I in England. She hoped she’d still have enough strength to do whatever she needed to in Talia.

  In Talia, though it was without phones or computers, a fast system of messages had brought news from the other world. Doctor Dethridge had managed to link one of Rodolfo’s mirrors with the parallel world in the future; it showed the room in Islington that used to be Luciano’s and was now Nick’s.

  Luciano did not often look at it; it could be painful for him. But in the early hours of the morning after Charlie’s stravagation and the disturbance in the gateway, he and Arianna, Rodolfo and Silvia and William Dethridge were all sitting staring at the array of glasses and knobs and were rewarded with the sight of an excited Nick holding up a sheet of paper on which he had written backwards with black marker:

  g

  g

  ‘Whatte is k-nacker-ed?’ asked Dethridge.

  ‘It means exhausted,’ said Luciano, grinning. ‘But she did it.’

  ‘We must let Flavia and the others know,’ said Rodolfo, turning knobs and levers on his mirror array.

  Luciano and Arianna went out into the courtyard of the palazzo.

  ‘So that’s all right then,’ said Arianna. ‘Do you think the gateway will go back to normal?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Luciano. ‘Remember how it leapt a year forward when Falco got “translated”? But I don’t think it will do that this time. I can’t believe Isabel would have been brought to Talia in Classe’s hour of danger if she wasn’t going to be here for the battle.’

  Arianna didn’t answer straight away. They had had only the second row in their relationship when she found out that he was planning to take part in the sea battle. Since then she had been trying to forget about it.

  Rodolfo wasn’t pleased that Luciano was using his Easter break from university to join the Bellezzan navy either.

  ‘Are you leaving with the fleet?’ she said quietly at last.

  ‘Yes,’ said Luciano. ‘I’ll go when the Admiral does.’

  Admiral Gambone was taking his ships down towards Classe in the next few days. Not all at once: just two or three ships at a time, in order not to attract too much attention. The Gate people still thought they would have the advantage of surprise, so he wanted them to continue in that belief.

  ‘And nothing I can say will make you change your mind?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m doing it for Bellezza,’ he said. ‘I’m going to be its Duke after we’re married. You’ll be the ruler still, but I want to do my best to help defend the city. We can’t have this constant threat from the east. We must make sure the Gate people are thoroughly defeated.’

  Arianna could have said that one inexperienced young sailor couldn’t do much to help the battle-hardy Admirals of Bellezza and Classe win against the massed galleys and guns of the Gate people but she didn’t. After all, Luciano was not just a Stravagante but a settler from another world; it hadn’t been his choice to translate to Talia but nevertheless he had defeated death to do it and there was something remarkable about him. He seemed to lead a charmed life. Perhaps his presence would act as good luck mascot for the fleet?

  But in her imagination she saw him brought to shore wrapped in a sail, his body shattered by cannonfire. Or, perhaps worse, she imagined being told that he had drowned at sea in the thick of the battle and saw him sinking through the green waves, his black hair floating around his pale dead face.

  No, it must not be. If she couldn’t stop him, she’d have to think of a different plan.

  With the whole day to while away, Isabel looked up ‘Earthquake +England +1580’ on her computer.

  It was true. An earthquake that would probably have registered nearly 6 on the Richter scale if they’d been able to measure it had shaken Elizabethan England at 6 p.m. on 6th March 1580. It probably had its epicentre in the English Channel but had caused bits of buildings to fall in London and in several places in France. A girl in London had even been killed by falling masonry.

  Isabel shuddered. Her head was really hurting now. On an impulse she went out and w
alked towards school. There was St Edwards, with a just perceptible kink in the straightness of its tower. Feeling foolish, Isabel went and laid her hand on the bricks. There was a big jagged crack that had been filled up with mortar.

  ‘You’re looking at our claim to fame,’ said a friendly voice behind her.

  Isabel jumped.

  ‘Sorry – I didn’t mean to startle you.’

  It was the vicar; she had seen him before. He was one of those modern vicars in jeans and a black polo neck, only in his thirties. Isabel knew he had a wife and four small children. But she and her family were not churchgoers.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘I was just looking at the damage.’

  ‘It happened a long time ago,’ said the vicar.

  Isabel remembered his name: Rhys Daniels.

  ‘1580,’ they said at the same time, and laughed.

  ‘Are you OK?’ asked Rhys, looking at her closely. ‘Are you off sick from school or something? That’s a very nasty bruise.’

  Isabel wondered what he’d say if she told him she got it at the same time as his church tower was damaged!

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I was off sick yesterday and woke up too late to go in today. But it’s the Easter holidays next week.’

  ‘I know,’ said Rhys ruefully. ‘It’s a busy time for vicars.’

  Isabel smiled.

  ‘You know about St Edward’s?’ he asked.

  ‘Not really – only about the earthquake,’ said Isabel. ‘I was thinking about how the church would have been quite new then and here it is hundreds of years later, but still with a sort of scar from that time. I was thinking about how what we study as history was once just, you know, today, for the people living through it.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said the vicar. ‘Most people never think about that though. I suppose I do more than most because I spend my working life thinking and talking about something I believe happened two thousand years ago.’

  Oh no, thought Isabel. He’s going to talk about God.

  But he wasn’t. He was just interested in the past – as she was. Isabel wondered what he’d say if she told him she visited the sixteenth century every night.