Day of Deliverance Page 17

  “But we know better,” the Rector said as he stood up and pointed to an electronic map on the wall. “We have already dispatched a salvage crew to the English Channel to determine if anything was left of the helicopter wreck at the bottom of the sea, even though four hundred years have passed since it sank. If we can identify bones or teeth in the wreck, it will prove that Pendelshape and whoever else was in that blasted contraption are gone for good – and with them, hopefully the entire Revisionist cause.”

  By the time Jack and Angus climbed wearily into Carole Christie’s battered old VW Golf, it was nearly midnight.

  “I rang your parents, Angus, to say you would be late and would sleep over with us tonight,” Carole said.

  “Thanks, Carole.” Angus slapped his forehead. “Hey! I nearly forgot.”

  “What?” Jack said.

  “It’s the rugby final tomorrow.”

  Jack grinned. “You’re going to walk it after what we’ve been through.”

  It was a beautiful spring day. Jack cycled his mountain bike up the old driveway at Cairnfield and then onto the main road that led up the long hill into Soonhope High Street. It was a busy Saturday lunchtime and the world and his wife seemed to be out. Angus was waiting outside Gino’s with a big grin on his face. He saw Jack and waved something in the air. It was the rugby trophy.

  “We won!”

  “Good stuff – did you score?”

  “Just one try.” Angus jerked his head towards the café. “Come on – chip butties to celebrate – then I’ve got to head home.”

  Gino was delighted to see them. In fact he was so delighted, that he immediately closed the shop and turfed everyone else out, making some excuse about a gas leak.

  “You’ve had a big adventure, eh?” he winked at them conspiratorially. “You are both big VIGIL heroes. What can I get you? It’s on the house.” He grinned. “Don’t tell me: double Gino-chino, extra shot, full fat, with caramel and extra cream…” Then Angus and Gino announced in unison, “And don’t forget the cherry.” Gino thought this was absolutely hilarious and his belly wobbled as he laughed uproariously.

  “Chip butties too please, Gino.”

  *

  Jack and Angus settled into one of the booths and straight away Angus started fiddling with the large plastic tomato-shaped ketchup holder. He squeezed it so the sauce just oozed out of the top, before releasing his grip so that it was sucked back in again with a satisfying squelch.

  “That’s disgusting,” Jack said after Angus had squidged the bottle for the third time.

  “Sorry,” Angus replied. “Hey, have you still got it? You know, the ring or whatever it was old queenie gave you?

  Jack smiled and reached into his pocket. He placed the ring on the table. It glinted up at them.

  Angus looked agog. “It’s a whopper. What’s that green thing?”

  “Emerald – stupid. That’s the stone. The ring is gold.”

  “What do you think it’s worth?”

  Jack shrugged. “Thousands, maybe tens of thousands…”

  “Awesome. You going to keep it?”

  “Of course. It’s mine. Queen Elizabeth I of England gave it to me – the Faerie Queene. I saved her life, her kingdom and the human race… though, granted, you did help,” Jack said, smiling.

  Angus just laughed.

  “Hey, I brought something else to show you,” Jack said.

  “Really weird this… I mean almost as weird as some of the stuff we saw.”

  Jack pulled from his bag the large history book that Miss Beattie had loaned him.

  “Remember Beattie gave this to me before we went back? It’s got all sorts of pictures and stuff about Queen Elizabeth and the sixteenth century…” Jack thumbed through the pages. “Check that out.”

  Jack pointed at the small colour frame at the bottom of one of the pages. It was one he had noticed when he’d first leafed through the book, entitled ‘Elizabethan Troupe’. It was a simple colour plate of a group of actors in various costumes. There was one dressed as a court jester and next to him, in stark contrast, another dressed as a monk. There was a third who looked slightly more important – like a country gentleman with a fine cloak and a neat, pointed beard.

  “No way!” Angus nearly slid off his seat. “It’s the Marlowe players at Corpus Christi and that’s got to be Fanshawe, Trinculo and Monk…”

  “And?” Jack said knowingly.

  Eyeing the picture more closely, Angus spotted two further figures off to one side. One was tall and broad with longish black hair. The other was shorter, more slender, and had a shock of blond hair. For a moment Angus could not place them – then he realised – it was the two of them: Angus and Jack.

  “Didn’t really notice it before. But that’s not all. There’s a picture of the battle of Gravelines – you know, showing the ‘fiery god’.”

  Angus was not impressed, “Doesn’t look much like a helicopter to me. Certainly not a WAH-64 Apache armed with a chain gun and CRV7 rockets.”

  “Well, as Joplin said, that’s the problem with eyewitness accounts.”

  “And historians – they’re clearly all rubbish.”

  The shop was quiet for a moment. Gino broke the silence, humming behind the counter as he prepared the chip butties.

  “I nearly forgot!” Jack said, pulling out his mobile. “Got a message…”

  “Oh yeah? Who’s it from?”

  “Dad.” Jack scrolled down the emails and waved the device in Angus’s face. “Look.”

  Angus squinted at the text and read aloud:

  “Let us go in together;

  And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.

  The time is out of joint; O cursed spite,

  That ever I was born to set it right!”

  “It’s that weird quote again – about the world being broken and someone having to sort it out. Wasn’t that what you said?”

  Jack smiled. “Sort of – the verse from Hamlet.”

  Angus read on.

  Jack,

  Sources tell me that you have had quite an adventure. You and Angus are very brave, young men. I have heard about Pendelshape’s attempt to change history – it was poorly planned and badly executed. It is not how I would have done it, were I still in charge. Most importantly, you must know that I would never have put you in such danger.

  I see now that you are finding your own way in life, and I understand that it may not be the way that I have chosen. You have to make your own choices, Jack. Despite this, I still hope that we might meet one day, talk as friends and perhaps even find a way to make peace with VIGIL. But what I really wanted to say is this: I am proud of you.

  Dad

  Angus looked up. “Wow. What do you think he will do next?”

  Jack shrugged. “No idea. He’s in a pretty desperate situation… a fugitive. Must be tough – on the run from VIGIL.”

  Jack quickly pocketed the mobile as Gino brought over the Gino-chinos and the chip butties, taking his own place next to them at the booth, with a small espresso in front of him.

  “You did very well, lads. The whole team is proud.”

  Francesca, Gino’s daughter, emerged from the back of the café. She was burdened with large bags of shopping. Gino winced, and whispered to Jack and Angus, “Watch it boys – she’s in a bad mood.”

  Sure enough Francesca marched up the aisle between the booths and dumped the shopping at Gino’s feet.

  “Why am I the only one who does any work around here?” she demanded.

  “Hi Francesca,” Angus said breezily. Francesca returned his greeting with a withering stare.

  “I’m sick of this pokey little shop and I’m sick of this pokey little town…”

  Gino looked hurt, “My dear…”

  But the girl had clearly had enough. “There’s nothing to do here… nothing ever happens…”

  Gino’s moody daughter could not have been more wrong. Around the booth next to them, there was a disturbance in the air,
then a blinding flash of white light. In front of them appeared a tall man with a rich tan and chiselled features. He wore a fine black cloak. Next to him were two shorter, powerfully built men. One had a badly disfigured eye and a scar that stretched from his forehead, across the side of his eye and down his cheek. The last time Jack and Angus had seen Delgado, Hegel and Plato was in a torture chamber underneath a house on the outskirts of Elizabethan London. It was just before Jack had tricked them with the time phone and zapped them into hyperspace. Little did he know that they would be transported to Gino Turinelli’s Italian café in the middle of Soonhope High Street.

  Although they looked dazed and confused, it did not take long for Delgado to gather his wits. He had no idea where he was, but he recognised Jack and Angus and he drew his sword. Francesca screamed. Gino was the first to react. He leaped from the booth and dived over the counter of the café. For a portly man he moved surprisingly quickly. In an instant Plato was after him, sword in hand. He jumped up onto the counter and swung his sword around his head, dislodging great lumps of plaster from the ceiling and sending plates, glasses, bottles and jars flying around the café. Gino slowly got to his feet and raised his hands from behind the counter in a gesture of surrender. Plato stopped waving his sword around and from his position on the counter, lowered it menacingly so it touched the base of Gino’s throat. He looked back over his shoulder to Delgado and awaited his orders. Hegel grabbed Francesca from behind and held a dagger to her cheek. Francesca whimpered. Delgado approached Jack and Angus with his sword outstretched and they cowered back in the booth.

  Jack glanced over at Gino who was trembling and had his eyes closed. But Jack noticed that in one of his outstretched hands he was grasping something… a mobile phone.

  Delgado hissed at Jack, “Where are we – what kind of witchcraft is this?” He no longer spoke in the calm and collected way he had done in the cellar. He was confused and scared. This made him dangerous and unpredictable – he might do anything.

  “You speak, my friend,” he glanced over at Hegel, who pressed the flat side of his knife to Francesca’s cheek, “or the girl dies.”

  Suddenly, in the distance, they could hear the sound of a police siren. Jack’s heart leaped – somehow Gino had made the emergency call.

  Delgado heard the noise too and he became more agitated. “What is this noise?”

  He left Jack and Angus unguarded for a moment, crept gingerly forward to the plate-glass window at the front of the café and peered into the street beyond. The good people of Soonhope, oblivious to the strange events taking place inside the town’s favourite Italian café, were going about their business – as on any other Saturday lunchtime. Jack could see the look on Delgado’s face as he gazed from one end of the High Street to the other. It was the same expression of stupid shock that Jack must have shown when he regained consciousness on top of the tower at Fotheringhay Castle. In a way, what Delgado saw was normal. There were people out there, walking, talking and going about their business. The large building at one end of the street looked oddly familiar – a church built not long after. But the people were dressed in an extraordinary way. There were no horses or carts. And why was the street strewn with large, coloured boxes… on wheels?

  Delgado was still standing paralysed in front of the window when three distinctive metal boxes drew up outside – ones with flashing lights on the top. The people of Soonhope had no time to register that the most exciting event in their High Street’s history was happening right before their eyes. The plate-glass window of Gino’s café shattered and before Delgado could react, the two dart-electrodes from the taser gun hit him square in the chest. He screamed as the electric charge coursed through his body. Behind him, Hegel and Plato experienced the same fate, as police stormed in from the back of the café. Incapacitated, the three men were quickly bundled into the back of a police van and driven off at speed. Naturally, VIGIL’s reach also extended to the local police force. The café was quickly cordoned off.

  Soon afterwards, Tony arrived; his shoulder was still heavily strapped from his injury. He looked around the café. Glass from the smashed front window had sprayed across the floor and broken crockery was strewn everywhere. Policemen were inspecting the debris. In one corner, Gino tried to comfort Francesca, who sobbed in his arms. Jack and Angus had not budged from their position in the booth.

  “I don’t know what it is with you two,” Tony said, “but you always make such a lot of mess.”

  Jack knew what he had to do. Clutching his chest to stem the bleeding, he staggered across to where his uncle sat cowering behind the long banqueting table. The food and drink was still laid out, untouched. Jack mounted the table and fixed his eyes menacingly on his uncle, who sank back into his chair, shaking. There was to be no mercy and Jack did not hesitate – he thrust the sword into his uncle’s heart.

  The first performance of Hamlet at Soonhope High was over. The audience of parents and local worthies gave the tired but happy cast a well-deserved standing ovation. As rehearsed, Jack held out his hand to the wings and Miss Beattie came onto the stage, blushing slightly. She gave a little bow and received a bunch of flowers from one of the cast. There were calls of “Bravo!” from the audience. After a few more bows, the curtains closed.

  Jack and Angus joined the backstage party to celebrate the success of the opening night.

  “We’ll make an actor of you yet, Angus,” Jack said.

  “Think it was watching the Henslowe Players for all those hours.”

  “Nice of Beattie to give you a chance…” Jack looked round the room. “Here she is now – looks pleased.”

  “And here come the Rector and Inchquin…”

  “They’re out in force tonight.”

  “And your mum.”

  In a minute Jack and Angus were surrounded by the Rector, Inchquin and Beattie.

  “Congratulations!” The Rector put out his hand. “A fine performance… you’ve done the school proud.”

  “We’ve had a bit of a crash course over the last week,” Jack replied.

  Inchquin smiled, “So I hear, Jack, so I hear.” He lowered his voice, to ensure that they were not overheard, “Which brings me onto another matter. You should know. Our salvage team finally found the wreck of Pendelshape’s helicopter in the English Channel.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Apparently it was all silted up and badly corroded. It’s been lying there for four hundred years, after all.”

  “What about the bodies – any, er, remains of the people inside… Pendelshape?” Jack asked.

  There was a flash of concern on the Rector’s face. “No, Jack. We found nobody – nobody at all.”

  The Taurus and its energy source always stay in one place. In order to move through time and space, the traveller needs to have physical contact with a time phone, which is controlled and tracked through a set of codes connected with the Taurus. Time travel is only possible, however, when the Taurus has enough energy and when there is a strong carrier signal. As Jack and Angus have discovered, the signal can be as unpredictable as the weather. The time signals are also highly variable – periods of time open up and then close, like shifting sands, so that no location is constantly accessible. Deep time is a specific constraint, which means that the traveller cannot visit a time period less than thirty years in the past. Anything more recent is a no-go zone. Finally, there is the ‘Armageddon Scenario’, which suggests that, if you revisit the same point of space–time more than once, you dramatically increase the risk of a continuum meltdown. Imagine space-time as a piece of tissue paper – each visit makes a hole in that tissue paper, as if you had pushed through the tissue with your finger. The tissue would hold together for a while, but with too many holes, it would disintegrate. It is dangerous, therefore, to repeat trips to the same point. The precise parameters of this constraint are not known and have not, of course, been tested.

  BACKGROUND INFORMATION

  In Day of Deliverance, Jack and
Angus travel back in time to one of the most extraordinary periods of history – Elizabethan England. This was a time when Spain was England’s greatest rival, when a glamorous queen called Elizabeth ruled the nation, and when colourful characters such as Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh and Mary, Queen of Scots made their mark on history. The notes below give a little more information on the places that Jack and Angus go and the people they encounter on their adventure.

  *

  Who was Elizabeth I?

  Elizabeth I was born in 1533 and died in 1603, ruling as the Queen of England and Ireland from 1558 until her death. Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, and was the last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. Elizabeth became queen in turbulent times – when England was racked by religious turmoil, and threatened by civil war and invasion. Despite this, Elizabeth had a clear agenda, and one of her first campaigns as queen was to establish an English Protestant church, which has evolved into what we know today as the Church of England.

  Although she was a queen with many admirers and courtiers, Elizabeth never married, despite pressure from advisers. She was headstrong and proud, and would not let her heart rule her head. In government, Elizabeth was more moderate than her father, and was not always vocal in foreign affairs. The defeat of the Spanish Armada, however, connected her with one of the greatest victories in world military history.