Meanwhile Nathan and Yoyo had come across a collection of dazzling jewellery.
‘Look at that ring,’ Nathan commented, pointing to an ornate gold band with an enormous diamond mounted in it.
‘That’s quite a piece of carbon,’ Yoyo whistled, leaning closer. ‘It looks like an engagement ring, Tang dynasty. Someone certainly didn’t want to take no for an answer.’
‘If I gave you a ring like that, maybe you would marry me . . .?’ Nathan said, half in jest but sounding like he meant it. Jake peered round and Topaz shot him a glance.
‘That’s funny!’ Yoyo snorted, moving along the display.
Nathan looked hurt. ‘Funny?’
Yoyo giggled. ‘I’m a little young to throw myself away, aren’t I?’
Nathan shrugged. ‘You’re the same age as me. I don’t know why it’s so funny. I could list a hundred young ladies – from all parts of history, some of them of royal birth – who would jump at the chance of throwing themselves away on me.’
Yoyo turned and gave him a quizzical smile. ‘You don’t actually mean it, do you?’
There was a pause as they eyeballed each other. ‘All right, not marriage as such, but perhaps – perhaps it wouldn’t hurt if you paid me some attention . . . maybe laughed at my jokes . . . complimented me on my . . .?’ Nathan trailed off, his face flushing.
Topaz turned to Jake and shook her head in bewilderment as Yoyo started laughing, and Nathan’s face fell.
‘Why is it so funny?’
‘Because . . .’ Yoyo fought to get her breathing under control. ‘I don’t know. Because you’re a bit of a buffoon, aren’t you?’ Nathan’s eyes went wide and his shoulders slumped. Jake had never seen him look so crestfallen, and Yoyo sensed she had overstepped the mark. ‘Sorry, that wasn’t the right word . . .’
‘Comment oses-tu? How dare you, Yoyo!’ Topaz stepped forward, her eyes suddenly blazing. ‘How dare you talk to my brother like that? He’s worth ten of you.’
‘I’m sorry, it’s just my opinion. I’m entitled to my opinion, aren’t I? I like Nathan – he’s comical – but—’
‘Comical?’ Nathan gasped, his whole world crashing down around him.
‘But all the clothes and the cologne and the fiddling with his hair. He’s not to be taken seriously, is he?’ Yoyo evidently thought she was making things better.
Topaz squared up to her. ‘You will take that back. Tout de suite!’
‘It’s nothing to do with you,’ Yoyo purred, pushing her out of the way.
The other girl stood her ground. ‘Tu es impossible – j’en ai marre!’
‘You’ve had enough, have you?’ Yoyo sneered back, her nose almost touching her rival’s. ‘Well, I’ve had enough too – of your snooty French attitude. Not to mention your so-called leadership skills which, at best, are amateurish and uninspired.’
‘Amateurish? Uninspired?!’ Topaz turned to the others, enraged. ‘Am I hearing this right?’
‘Come on, you two – it’s the heat. It’s – it’s putting us under a lot of pressure.’ Jake hadn’t realized it until now, but it was true. He tried to get between the girls, but they paid no attention.
‘Comical?’ Nathan shook his head. ‘How can I be boiled down to just comical?’
‘What about you, Yoyo?’ Topaz huffed. ‘You’re a liability – uncontrollable, selfish and plain dangerous.’
‘Is that a fact?’
‘Bona fide. Actually you’re worse than that. You’re a troublemaker, and a narcissist.’
‘Ooh, big words, Miss St Honoré,’ Yoyo said. ‘You’re scaring me now.’
‘Arguing won’t get us anywhere,’ Jake tried again. ‘Let’s go up to the next floor.’ As before, they ignored him.
‘You want everyone to fall in love with you,’ Topaz carried on, ‘but no one ever will. Never, ever, ever. Because, despite all your so-called qualities, you add up to nothing.’
Yoyo’s expression was hard. ‘Jake, would you like to take my side here?’
Topaz laughed. ‘He’s not going to take your side.’
‘Really? Jake, would you like to tell them, or shall I?’
Nathan’s eyes narrowed. ‘Tell us what?’
Yoyo’s announcement coincided with another loud peal of thunder outside as the storm approached. ‘Jake is my boyfriend.’
Jake blushed as Topaz glared at him. ‘We were going to say something . . .’ he mumbled. ‘W-we were just waiting for the right moment.’ He stood awkwardly beside Yoyo, as if posing for their wedding photo. Then he looked sternly at Topaz. ‘And I think it’s best that you don’t talk to Yoyo in that way.’
It was Topaz’s turn to look crestfallen. ‘Mon Dieu . . .’ she said, shaking her head, then pulled herself together and forced a smile. ‘I hope you are very happy together.’
Jake was upset. ‘It would be nice, Topaz – as my friend – if you actually meant that, but you don’t.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ she muttered. ‘Dance for joy?’
‘You’re so ready to criticize,’ Jake carried on, ‘but you never stop and think how much you hurt people.’ He summoned the courage to say it. ‘How you hurt me.’
Topaz looked mortified. Even Nathan was surprised, suddenly seeing his friend in a new light.
Jake’s words came out in a jumble – everything that had been locked inside for over a year. ‘Twice I came to save you – first in Germany, then in ancient Rome – coming this close to death. All right, I didn’t do much good in the end, but I think I made it pretty clear how I felt . . . how I felt about you. That I was in . . . That I—’ He couldn’t bring himself to say the word. ‘In any case, you weren’t interested. That’s fine – I’m not a he-man like Lucius was – but I was hurt and you never even noticed. And that hurt me more.’
Topaz cast her eyes to the floor. Now Jake held Yoyo’s hand and squeezed it tight. ‘So why shouldn’t I have a girlfriend if I want?’
At that moment, they heard a soft thump above them, then the sound of something rolling across the floorboards. The History Keepers froze, and silently drew their weapons as Topaz led the way up the creaking staircase.
‘Nothing here,’ she called when she emerged into the room.
To their surprise, it was almost completely bare. There was no treasure – just a single high-backed armchair facing the open window. A number of tall candlesticks encircled it, all unlit. All were fitted with a single fat candle – except one. The candle had fallen onto the floor and rolled away. That’s what had produced the sound.
‘Look!’ Jake exclaimed, suddenly noticing a pale, wrinkled hand clinging to the armrest – and then wisps of white hair sticking above the top of the chair.
‘Pei-Pei?’ Yoyo said under her breath, advancing towards the seated figure, sword drawn. ‘Shen Pei-Pei?’ As she reached it, her face fell and her sword went clanking to the floor. She gabbled something in Chinese.
Jake, Topaz and Nathan rushed over. It was a man – a dead man; long dead. The body was completely mummified, the crinkled skin yellow and waxy and the eyes gazing out of the window as lifeless as marbles. He was fully clothed in robes that had once been fine but were now tatty, with bugs crawling over them. Jake thought it must have been one of these that had knocked the candle over.
‘I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all . . .’ Nathan said, quivering with fear.
Behind them, they heard someone coming up the stairs. Yoyo quickly retrieved her sword, while the others swung round, blades raised. They were puzzled to see that it was the odd man they had met before, the eel-keeper. He carried a broomstick and started sweeping the floor, mumbling to himself as he did so. Noticing them at last, he nodded, saying something that even Yoyo couldn’t understand, and they all looked at each other, spooked.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ Topaz whispered, skirting round and heading for the stairs.
As he crept past, Jake looked round and noticed something odd under the man’s hat: a strange growth o
n his cheek, with something shining in the centre of it. It looked like an eye staring back at him. His blood ran cold. Three eyes! Xi Xiang had three eyes!
Just then the man let out a cry and brought his broom down on Jake, disarming him, before jabbing the butt into his windpipe. Jake went tumbling to the floor. The man moved swiftly on to Topaz, giving her a crack on the skull, then whipping the sword from her hand and sending it spinning across the room. Nathan and Yoyo advanced together, but the man had produced a jade bottle, and sprayed them with dark green liquid. They cried out in agony, clutching their faces.
The man threw off his hat, revealing his face for the first time, and let out a high-pitched giggle. He was skinny, with an impish face and crazy, spiked black hair. His lips were smudged with red lipstick and his cheeks with rouge. Suddenly five burly guards emerged at the top of the stairs, each holding a razor-sharp curved Dao sabre, and surrounded the astonished youngsters.
Xi Xiang – for there was no doubt that it was he – clapped his hands in joy. ‘Do you think I’m a fool?’ he sniggered. His voice was raspy and high-pitched at the same time. ‘I saw you arrive! Dear me, the illustrious History Keepers’ Secret Service.’ He shook his head and pursed his lips. ‘What imbeciles they produce nowadays.’
He inspected Nathan and Yoyo’s faces. The skin where the liquid had struck looked raw; Nathan’s eyes were streaming with tears. ‘How do you like my squid venom? It has quite a bite, doesn’t it?’
He turned and skipped across the room to the cadaver in the chair. ‘And did you enjoy meeting my friend Pei-Pei? He loves the view from the window. Of course, the old man is not as chatty as he used to be’ – Xi lifted the corpse’s withered hand, waved it and let it drop again – ‘but he would insist on drinking hemlock – after kindly bequeathing me his little palace.’ Again Xi shrieked with laughter.
There were more footsteps, and Madame Fang appeared, coolly taking in the scene.
‘Nanny, there you are. Have you seen what a clever boy I’ve been?’ Xi Xiang said, gesturing to his captives. On seeing Jake, his smile dissolved and his lip quivered. ‘And this is the Djones brother?’ he asked quietly, glancing over his shoulder. Madame Fang nodded.
Xi turned up his nose in contempt. ‘Yes, I can see it now. The same proud look in his eye.’ He prodded Jake’s cheek.
Jake had never seen anyone like Xi Xiang: he was in his forties, slightly stooped, but wiry and athletic. Under the badly applied make-up his face was mottled with acne and his eyes were chilling: two were beady and sharp, the third half formed and staring off at an odd angle.
‘Where is he?’ Jake croaked, his throat still sore from the blow with the broom. ‘Where is Philip?’ he repeated, eyes boring into his nemesis.
Xi stared back. ‘Where is he?’ He gave another cackle. ‘Lost at sea! Like so many of my friends.’
Then he pushed past the guards and danced down the staircase. ‘Tie them up. Bring them to the pool,’ he ordered. ‘I need to say goodbye to our guests.’
Madame Fang nodded at the men: they took sets of manacles from their belts and, one by one, cuffed the four History Keepers, the metal biting into their wrists.
16 THE TIGHTROPE
‘THE HOSPITALITY’S SHOCKING here,’ Nathan deadpanned over his pain as the sentries forced them down the stairs. ‘I shall be writing a stern letter of complaint.’
As they descended floor by floor, Jake tried to steady his breathing. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked Yoyo and Nathan. Their faces were still red, their eyes bloodshot.
‘I think squid poison might be the least of our problems,’ Yoyo replied grimly as they were marched out of the pagoda, over the bridge and round the quadrangle.
At last they went through a pair of iron gates fashioned in the shape of jellyfish, and into yet another courtyard. There was a pond here, bigger than the others and empty of vegetation – presumably the pool Xi had referred to.
Bordering it was a succession of striking statues: Chinese stone warriors, helmeted and breast-plated, frozen in time, all staring fixedly out as if protecting the pool. Each had a different weapon: a spear, a double-edged Jian sword; sickle, dagger, axe, javelin, crossbow, and many more.
Jake looked down into the water. The pool was deep and, like the others, contained eels – he could see them twisting in the murk beneath the surface; however, these were as thick as a human neck and over six feet long. They moved slowly, endlessly circling their stone prison. They had tiny eyes on their flattened heads, brown backs, yellow stomachs and a pair of tiny fins – defunct features from their primordial origins. Jake saw some lighter shapes at the bottom of the pool, and it took a moment for him to realize with horror that they were bones.
With a gleeful clap of his hands, Xi Xiang emerged through the gateway, Madame Fang at his side. Behind them, two soldiers carried a wooden throne, another a small table, some caskets and other paraphernalia. At the rear, more guards accompanied a fifth prisoner – the young man in the blue tunic whom they had followed from the paper factory. The cocky air was gone: he’d been roughed up, given a black eye, and his clothes were spattered with blood.
Xi had thrown a long cape over his peasant disguise. It was encrusted with jewels and trailed along the ground behind him. He wore a matching crown, set at a jaunty angle like some lunatic king. ‘Electrophorus electricus,’ he squealed, flicking a limp wrist towards the pool. ‘Electric eels. Have any of you met one of these ingenious creatures before? What a punch they can pack, with their six hundred volts. They can incapacitate an alligator.’ He turned to Jake with a mock grimace. ‘Imagine what they can do to a child . . .’
Jake glared at him, but Xi simply clicked his fingers at two of the guards. They set to work, opening a large box, unpacking a coil of thick wire, casting it across the pool and tightening it on either side like a tennis net.
‘After a hard day’s work planning the destruction of humanity,’ Xi sighed, ‘there is nothing I like more than to relax with a little light entertainment – and tightrope walking is such fun!’ He clapped his hands, and the chair and table were put in position, with the caskets on the table. Xi pursed his lips, swished his cape to one side and sat down. ‘He can go first,’ he said, pointing at the youth in the blue tunic. ‘Teach him to be more careful next time – if there is a next time for him, of course, for my little pets are . . . hungry!’
He sucked his thumb, watching eagerly as the guards seized the youth and pushed him towards the tightrope. Madame Fang held up her blade to make sure he stayed there. The young man turned round, pleading for mercy.
Xi removed his thumb from his mouth to announce, ‘If he reaches the other side, he can walk free.’
The young man trembled as he looked down at the eels gathering below. The water lit up with pulses of electricity as the creatures bumped into each other, reacting in fear to the people around them. He put his foot onto the wire and tested its strength.
‘Wait!’ Xi jumped to his feet. The youth turned, hoping for a reprieve. ‘It’s too easy. Use this as a blindfold.’ He whipped off his scarf and passed it to Madame Fang, who tied it around the man’s head. ‘Tight as you can; we don’t want him peeking.’
When Xi sat down again, Jake studied the pendant hanging from a leather thong around his neck. It was a cylinder of blue crystal, the length of an index finger, engraved with complicated inscriptions. With a jolt, Jake realized what it was. ‘The Lazuli Serpent,’ he whispered in Topaz’s ear.
She turned and squinted over at it, and her eyes widened.
The terrified youth teetered onto the tightrope and set off across the pool.
‘Tolerable . . . tolerable,’ Xi commented, chewing on his thumb in anticipation. The young man decided that speed might save him, and suddenly accelerated, but then he lost his balance and plunged down, slapping onto the water. He cried out as six eels converged on him, delivering a succession of electric shocks, making the pool crackle and his limbs jolt in every direction. But he was still con
scious when the fish opened their powerful jaws, pulling off chunks of flesh. His blindfold slipped and Jake saw the terror in his eye; then it glazed over as his heart stilled. The eels continued to feed, and pulses of light shot through the water, which had turned red with blood.
Xi Xiang stood up again, his two good eyes gleaming; even the third, deformed slit shone with delight.
Finally the water was still again. Xi clapped his hands together and, looking round, asked, ‘So who’s next?’
Jake stepped forward, his face rigid. ‘If you tell me what happened to Philip, I will go.’
For a while Xi did not move. Then he tilted his head back, brought up a ball of phlegm and spat it on the ground.
‘I gave that boy everything he desired,’ he proclaimed. ‘Treated him like my own son. But all the time, he was double crossing me, repaying me with betrayal. Betrayal!’ he repeated shrilly, so that the word echoed around the walls.
Despite everything, Jake stood tall. This surely confirmed that Philip had been working not for Xi, but against him; that he had not been a traitor to the service.
Xi ran his finger around the edge of his third eye. ‘He was sent, by your people, on that absurd mission to Vienna – when was it: 1689? The Habsburg–Ottoman War; a glorious opportunity for Zeldt to meddle in world affairs.’ He sniggered. ‘And for myself, naturally – it’s amazing how sometimes we all wash up in the same dirty corners of history.’ His smile hardened. ‘But imagine sending a fifteen-year-old boy off alone? To assassinate Zeldt?’ He let out a strangled laugh. ‘Fifteen years old? He was still a child! And they call me barbaric!’ Xi paused for a moment before continuing. ‘So he failed – obviously; and that witch Mina Schlitz shot him in the neck with a blunderbuss, left him for dead on the banks of the Danube, swilling around with all the muck from the sewers, prey for the Ottoman forces.’
History Keepers: Nightship to China Page 15
