The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth (Book of Dust, Volume 2) (30 page)

Delamare laughed. He didn’t do that very often. His mother hit the bed with both bony fists, making her dæmon escape to the bedside table.

“So we’re going to see a deathbed wedding, are we?” he said. “Then he can have your money as well as the girl. I’m afraid I shall be too busy to attend.”

He opened one of the windows wide, and the bitter night fell in.

“No, Marcel! Please! Oh, don’t be
vile
to me! I shall die of cold!”

He bent over to kiss her goodbye. She turned her face away.

“Goodbye, Maman,” said Delamare. “Binaud had better not leave it too long.”

Olivier Bonneville hadn’t been telling the full truth, but that was nothing unusual. In fact, he hadn’t found Lyra because for some reason the new method wouldn’t let him. Somehow she’d managed to block his attempts to find her. One more reason for him to feel angry with her, and his anger was growing with his curiosity.

Suspicious by habit as well as inclination, he didn’t keep the alethiometer at his apartment; it would be the easiest thing in the world for a practiced thief, especially one commissioned by
La Maison Juste,
to break into his little two and a half rooms and steal anything he had. So he had taken to keeping the alethiometer in a private deposit box at the Banque Savoyarde, a place so discreet that it was almost invisible. The brass plate outside the door in the Rue de Berne said merely
B. Sav.
and was intentionally never polished.

Early the next morning, Bonneville made his way to the bank and gave his name (false) and a password to the official, who opened the door to the private deposit boxes and left. Bonneville took out the alethiometer and slipped it into a pocket, and then put the fat roll of banknotes into another. The only item he left in the box was an unlabeled key, which would open another deposit box in another bank.

Twenty minutes later he was buying a ticket at the Gare Nationale. Of course he took no notice of Delamare’s prohibition of the new method; of course he used it anyway. It was from his last session in the classic style, with the books, that he’d learnt that Lyra was moving east and was, as far as he could tell, alone. The new method was showing him nothing about her, and besides, like Lyra, he had found the disconcerting dizziness and nausea almost too much to bear; he thought it might be easier if he questioned the alethiometer for shorter times at longer intervals.

But there still remained the old method, after all, which involved no physical cost. As soon as his train reached Munich, he would take a room at a cheap hotel and begin a thorough search for Lyra. If he had all the books, it would be quicker, no doubt, though by no means as quick as the new method; but he did have two of them—a holograph manuscript of Andreas Rentzinger’s
Clavis Symbolorum,
and the single remaining copy of Spiridion Trepka’s
Alethiometrica Explicata,
which had been until recently in the keeping of the Library of the Priory of St. Jerome in Geneva. The latter book was without its handsome leather binding. That binding remained on the library shelf, now encasing the unreadable but identically sized memoirs of one of Napoleon’s generals, which Bonneville had bought at a secondhand bookstall. Eventually, perhaps quite soon, the theft of the books would be discovered, but by then, Bonneville trusted, he would have returned to Geneva in triumph.

Someone was shaking her.

“Lyra! Lyra!”

It was Ma Costa’s voice, and she was leaning over the bunk in the light from the galley through the open door, and there was someone else beside her, and it was Farder Coram, and she heard him too: “Hurry, gal! Wake up!”

“What is it? What’s happening?”

“CCD,” said Ma Costa. “They’ve broken the treaty; they’re coming into the Fens with a dozen boats or more, and—”

“We got to get you away, Lyra,” said Farder Coram. “Hurry up and get dressed. Quick as you can.”

She scrambled out of the bunk, and Ma Costa stepped aside as Farder Coram went back into the galley.

“What—how do they know—”

“Here, gal, put this on quickly, over your nightclothes, doesn’t matter,” the old woman was saying as she thrust a dress into Lyra’s hands. Lyra pulled it over her head and, still half asleep, gathered everything loose and stuffed it into her rucksack.

Ma Costa said, “Coram’s got a man with a fast boat to take you away. He’s called Terry Besnik. You can trust him.”

Lyra cast around her dazedly to see if there was anything she’d forgotten. No: there wasn’t much, and she had it all. Pan? Where was Pan? Her heart faltered as she remembered, and she blinked and shook her head and said, “All my life I’ve done nothing but bring the gyptians trouble.” Her voice was thick with sleep. “I’m so sorry….”

“That’s enough,” said Ma Costa, and hugged her so tight, it was hard to breathe. “Now get on outside and don’t wait another moment.”

Farder Coram in the galley was leaning on two walking sticks and he too looked as if he’d just been woken from sleep. Lyra could hear the quiet rumble of an engine-boat on the water.

“Terry Besnik’s a good man,” said Coram. “He understands the sittyation. He’ll take you to King’s Lynn—he knows all the drains and the by-channels—you can get a ferry from there—but quick as you can, Lyra, quick as you can. You got them things I gave you?”

“Yes—yes—oh, Farder Coram…”

She embraced him tightly, and felt his bones frail under her hands.

“Go
on,
” said Ma Costa. “I can hear gunshots back there.”

“Thank you, thank you,” Lyra said, and scrambled out and over the side of the narrowboat, to where a hand reached up to help her into the cockpit of another kind of vessel, a launch of dark wood that showed no lights.

“Master Besnik?” she said.

“Hold tight” was all he said.

She could see little of his face. He was stocky, and he wore a dark woolen cap and a heavy jacket. He moved the throttle, and the engine growled like a tiger as the boat surged forward.

Pantalaimon left the
Elsa
at Cuxhaven at a time when the crew were distracted. Captain Flint had sold the propeller to a boatyard on the island of Borkum, just as the deckhand had predicted, and then refused to share the money equally with the mate, because, he said, as skipper he was far more at risk. In response, the mate stole the captain’s whisky and took to his hammock to sulk. An hour out of Borkum, a bush around the
Elsa
’s propeller shaft fell apart, letting the sea into the engine room, and they limped into Cuxhaven with two men pumping resentfully while the mate grumbled nearby. Pan watched it all with fascination. It was easy to keep out of sight on a vessel like the
Elsa.

They tied up in the evening at a wharf with a crumbling stone warehouse behind it. The “passengers” currently keeping out of sight in the warehouse wouldn’t be able to come aboard till the prop shaft bush was replaced, because the whole “passenger” transaction depended on discretion and silence. It wasn’t easy to say how long the repair would take either; Flint knew a man who had the necessary spare part, but he was temporarily out of town, or in prison, and his assistant had a long-standing grudge against Flint and was bound to charge a high price. As soon as night fell, Pan darted down the gangway and into the shadows of the main harbor.

Now it was just a matter of finding the river, and setting off upstream till he came to Wittenberg.

At the same time, Lyra was sitting in the forward saloon of a crowded ferry heading for Flushing, on the Dutch coast. She would rather have sat outside, so as to be alone, but it was bitterly cold; so she put up with the oppressive heat and the smells of engine oil, stale food, smokeleaf, beer, dirty clothes, and a persistent hint of vomit. The anbaric strip lights flickered unpleasantly and threw an intrusive pallid glare into every corner. She had to struggle through a crowded doorway and push hard to get to the corner and find a seat.

Her dæmonless state caused less alarm at first than she’d feared. Most of the passengers and staff were preoccupied with their tasks, or busy trying to deal with a crying child, or simply tired and indifferent. The few who did see something strange about her contented themselves with a furtive glance, a muttered word or two, or a gesture for turning away bad luck. She pretended to take no notice, and tried to become inconspicuous.

Among the passengers in the forward saloon were half a dozen men who were obviously traveling together. They were similarly dressed in casual but good-quality cold-weather clothes, they spoke Welsh among themselves, and they had a confident, easy air. Lyra was watching them carefully, because one or two of them had looked at her appraisingly when she pushed her way through the jostling crowd in the doorway and entered the saloon, and said something to each other before looking back at her again. Their companions were ordering drinks, expensive drinks too, and laughing loudly. If Pan had been there, he and Lyra could have played detective, and tried to work out these men’s occupation; but they’d have had to go back to their old relationship first, and that was probably gone forever.

Well, she could still do that, she thought, even if she was on her own. She watched the men while trying to seem half asleep.

They were all friends or colleagues: they were together. They were in their thirties or early forties, at a guess, and they looked like manual workers and not like people who sat in offices all day long, because they were fit and they moved with easy balance in the rocking ship, as if they were athletes or even gymnasts. Were they soldiers? That was possible, but then she thought that their hair was too long, and they were too pale: they didn’t work outside. They were well paid: the clothes and the drinks testified to that. They were all on the small side too, whereas soldiers were usually bigger, she thought….

That was as far as she got before a bulky middle-aged man sat down next to her. She tried to move to give him more room, but there was a large woman sleeping on the bench to her left who didn’t move at all when Lyra gave her a nudge.

“Don’t you worry,” said the man. “Bit of a squash, no one minds that. Traveling a long way?”

“No,” she said indifferently. She didn’t look at him.

His dæmon, a small, lively brown-and-white dog, was sniffing curiously around Lyra’s rucksack on the floor. She picked it up and held it tightly on her lap.

“Where’s your dæmon?” said the man.

Lyra turned and gave him a look of contempt.

“No need to be unfriendly,” he said.

Nine years before, when she traveled to the Arctic with Pan always close at hand, Lyra would have effortlessly come up with a story that would explain why the man should leave her alone: she was carrying an infectious disease, or she was on her way to her mother’s funeral, or her father was a murderer and was coming back any moment to find her—that story had worked very well on one occasion.

But now she just lacked inventiveness, or energy, or chutzpah. She was tired and lonely and frightened, even by this self-satisfied man and his silly little dæmon, who was now yapping and jumping up at his knees.

“What is it, Bessy?” he said, and lifted her up to make a fuss of her, and let her whisper in his ear. Lyra turned away, but she could still see what he was doing: he was looking at her while whispering with his dæmon.

A little half-stifled whimper came from the dæmon, who tried to scrabble away from Lyra and bury herself in the man’s coat. This display of craven attention seeking disgusted Lyra, who closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep. Someone was arguing near the bar—a Welsh voice was raised, there seemed to be a scuffle—but as quickly as it arose, it subsided again.

“There’s something wrong here,” the bulky man said loudly, not addressing Lyra. “There’s something badly wrong.”

Lyra opened her eyes and saw one or two heads turning. All the benches were crammed with travelers sitting and sleeping, or eating and drinking, and the noise of the ferry’s engines was a perpetual rumble underneath, and the sound of the waves and the wind outside formed another layer of sound, while the conversations nearby and the laughter of the drinkers at the bar a little further away were also clear: but over it all the man’s voice insisted again, “I say there’s something wrong here. This young woman—something’s not right.”

His dæmon howled properly, a high quaking shiver of a sound that touched Lyra’s spine with cold. More people were looking now, and the sleeping woman on her left was stirring and working her mouth as she came awake.

Lyra said, “My dæmon is inside my coat. He’s not well. It’s none of your business.”

“No, no, that won’t do. I don’t think you’ve got a dæmon at all. My Bess never makes a mistake over that sort of thing.”

“You’re wrong. My dæmon is not well. I’m not going to disturb him just because you’re superstitious.”

“Don’t speak to me in that tone of voice, young lady. I won’t put up with that. You shouldn’t be in a public place in the state you are. There’s something the matter with you. Something not right.”

“What’s wrong?” said a man on the bench opposite. “What are you shouting about?”

“She hasn’t got a dæmon! I keep telling her, it’s not right to come out in public like that. There’s something badly wrong—”

“Is that true?” asked the other man, whose rook dæmon was shaking her wings on his shoulder and cawing loudly. Lyra realized he was speaking to her.

“Of course it’s not true,” she said as calmly as she could manage. “How could I go anywhere without a dæmon?”

“Well, where is he, then?” the first man demanded.

“It’s got nothing to do with you,” said Lyra, now becoming alarmed by the attention this ridiculous incident was attracting.

“People with that degree of disfigurement ought to keep out of public view,” he said, and his dæmon howled again. “Look at the way you’re frightening people. Not fit to be seen in public. There are places for people like you to stay….”

A child was beginning to cry, and his mother picked him up ostentatiously, holding his coat clear of Lyra’s rucksack, as if it was tainted. The child’s dæmon was changing from a mouse to a bird to a puppy and back to a mouse, and kept falling away from him, making them both shriek even louder, until his mother’s mastiff dæmon picked her up and shook her.

Lyra held on tight to her rucksack and began to stand up, but found her sleeve held by the bulky man.

“Let me go!” she said.

“Oh, no, you can’t just go where you please,” he said, looking all around for the support that was beginning to grow in the faces of the people nearby. He clearly thought he was speaking for all of them. “You can’t go about in that state,” he went on. “You’re frightening children. It’s a public menace. You’re going to come with me, and I’m going to put you in the charge of—”

“It’s all right,” said another voice, a man’s voice with a Welsh accent. Lyra looked up to see two of the men from the group by the bar, easy, confident, a little red-faced, a little drunk, perhaps. “We’ll take care of her. You leave her to us, don’t you worry.”

The man was reluctant to abandon his position at the center of attention, but the two Welshmen were younger and stronger than he was. He let go of Lyra’s sleeve.

“You come with us,” said the first Welshman. He looked as if he had never in his life been refused or disobeyed. Unsure, she didn’t move, and he said “Come on” again.

The other man was looking at her appraisingly. There was no support from anyone nearby. Closed faces, cold and indifferent ones, or faces filled with active hatred were all around; and every dæmon in sight had clambered or flown or crawled to their people’s breasts to be safe from the appalling and uncanny figure who had the gall to come among them with no dæmon. Lyra picked her way between their legs and feet and luggage, following the Welshmen.

She thought: Is it all going to end so soon, then? I won’t let it. Once we’re outside, I’ll attack. The stick Pequeno was in her left sleeve, ready to be drawn by her right hand, and she’d already decided where to aim her first blow: on the side of the second man’s head, as soon as the door closed behind them.

They reached the door of the saloon, with a growling murmur from the seated passengers and approving, complicit nods from the other Welshmen at the bar. Everybody knew what the two were going to do to her, and not one person objected. Lyra worked the handle of the stick a little way into her palm, and then they were outside in the cold wind with the door banging shut behind them.

The deck was streaming with rain and spray, the boat was pitching hard, and the wind slapped Lyra’s face as she pulled out the stick—and then she stopped.

The two men were standing back, hands up, palms forward. Their dæmons, a badger and a canary, stood still and peaceable, one on the deck and the other on a shoulder.

“ ’S all right, miss,” said the taller man. “Just had to get you out of there, that’s all.”

“Why?” she said, thankful that at least her voice was steady.

The other man held something out. It was the alethiometer’s black velvet bag. Lyra lost her balance for a moment, as if she’d been struck.

“What are you doing—how did you—”

“As you come in the saloon, we saw a man put his hand inside your rucksack and take something out. He was very quick. We watched where you went, and we watched him, and before he could clear off, we caught hold of him. He only argued for a second. We got this back off him, and then that fool with the little yapping dæmon started going on at you, so we thought we’ll kill two birds with one stone.”

She took the velvet bag and opened it: the gleam of gold and the familiar weight of it in her hand told her it was safe.

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much.”

The taller man’s canary dæmon spoke from his shoulder. She said,
“Duw mawr, dydi hi ddim yn ddewines, ydi hi?”

The man nodded and said to Lyra, “You’re a witch, en you? Sorry if that’s rude of me, you know, but—”

“How do you know?” said Lyra, and this time she couldn’t prevent her voice from shaking.

“We seen your people before,” said the other.

The bulkhead light shone yellow on their faces, as naked as hers to the wind and the spray. They stood back further.

“Got all the wind on this side,” said the first man. “Bit more shelter round the other way.”

They moved away, and she followed them across the open foredeck, struggling to keep her balance, and down the other side of the vessel. The saloon beside them and a lifeboat on its davit above kept the worst of the wind and rain from this side, and there was a bench that was more or less dry a little further along under a feeble light.

The men sat down. Lyra pushed the stick back inside her sleeve and joined them. They sat at one end, leaving plenty of space for her, and pulled the collars of their jackets up against the wind. One had a woolen hat in his pocket and put it on.

Lyra pushed her hood back and turned her face to the light, so she was fully visible.

“I’m Gwyn,” said the first man, “and this is Dafydd.”

“I’m Tatiana Asrielovna,” said Lyra, making a patronymic of her father’s name.