The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth (Book of Dust, Volume 2) (31 page)

“And you
are
a witch, en you?” said Dafydd.

“Yes. I’m traveling like this because I have to. I wouldn’t go like this from choice.”

“Yes, we could see that,” said Gwyn. “You wouldn’t choose to go into a pit of fools like that bloody saloon unless you had to.”

She suddenly realized something. “Are you miners?” she said.

“How’d you know that?” said Dafydd.

“I worked it out. Where are you going?”

“Back to Sala,” said Gwyn. “Sweden, that is. Silver mines.”

“That’s where we met a witch before,” said Dafydd. “She come down that way to buy some silver, and got landlocked. Her, you know, the tree—the pine branch—”

“Cloud-pine.”

“Thass it. Someone stole it. We got that back and all.”

“She helped us first,” said Gwyn. “We owed her one. We helped her, like. Learnt a lot about their life and that.”

“Where are you traveling to, Tatiana?” said Dafydd.

“I’m going a long way east. I’m looking for a plant that only grows in Central Asia.”

“Is that for, like, a spell or something?”

“It’s to make medicine. My queen is ill. Unless I bring back some of that plant, she’ll die.”

“And why are you going like this, by sea? It’s dangerous for you, traveling over the surface of the earth, like.”

“Misfortune,” she said. “My cloud-pine was lost in a fire.”

They nodded.

“Better, if you can, travel by first class,” said Gwyn.

“Why?”

“Not so many questions. Not so much curiosity. Rich folk en like us. Them people back in the saloon, that fool of a fat man, there’s plenty of arseholes like that—excuse me—wherever you go. And that thief too. If you travel first class and keep yourself kind of apart, you know, what’s the word—”

“Aloof,” said Dafydd.

“Summing like that. Proud, haughty. People are wary of you then, and they don’t dare question you or interfere, you know.”

“D’you think?”

“Yes. Take it from me.”

“Central Asia,” said Gwyn. “That’s a long way.”

“I’ll get there. Tell me, why do Welsh miners work in Sweden?”

“Because we’re the best in the world,” said Dafydd. “Coleg Mwyngloddiaeth, both of us.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s the School of Mining in Blaenau Ffestiniog.”

“And you mine for silver?”

“In Sala, yes,” said Gwyn. “Precious metals is what we know best.”

“That thing we got back for you,” said Dafydd. “What is it, if you don’t mind me asking? It felt heavy, like gold.”

“It is gold,” she said. “Would you like to see it?”

“Oh, very much,” said Gwyn.

Lyra opened her rucksack. Was she mad? Why in the world should she trust these two strangers? Because they’d helped her, that was why.

They moved closer to look as she opened the black velvet bag and let the alethiometer fall heavily into her palm. It caught every photon that fell on it from the bulkhead light, and gave it back improved.

“Duw,”
said Dafydd. “What’s that, then?”

“It’s an alethiometer. It was made, I don’t know, three hundred years ago, maybe. Can you tell where the gold is from?”

“I’d have to touch it,” said Gwyn. “Looking at it now, I can say something straightaway, but I’ll have to feel it to be sure.”

“What can you see straightaway?”

“It’s not twenty-four karat, but then I wouldn’t expect it to be. That’s too soft for a working instrument. So you have to make an alloy with another metal. I can’t see what that is, not in this light. But it’s strange. It’s almost pure gold, but not quite. I never saw anything like this before.”

“Sometimes you can taste it,” said Dafydd.

“Can I touch it?” asked Gwyn.

Lyra held it out. He took it from her hand and ran his thumb along the gold rim.

“That’s not copper nor silver,” he said. “That’s something else.”

He lifted it to his face and held it delicately against the skin over his cheekbone.

“What are you doing?”

“Feeling it. Different nerves in different parts of the skin, see. Sensitive to different stimulations. This is very strange. I can’t believe it’s…”

“Let me try,” said Dafydd.

He took it and brought it to his mouth and touched the tip of his tongue to the gold case.

“That’s almost all gold. The rest…No, I don’t believe it.”

“It is,” said his canary dæmon from his wrist. “I can tell now. It’s titanium.”

“Aye. I thought so too. But that’s impossible,” Gwyn said. “They never discovered titanium till about two hundred years ago, and I never heard of a gold alloy of it.”

“It’s very hard to work,” said Dafydd. “But that’s what it feels like….What are these hands made of?”

The three hands that Lyra could move with the wheels were made of some black metal. The needle that moved by itself was a lighter color, a sort of stormy gray. She and Will had noticed its resemblance to the color of the blade of the subtle knife, but they had found out nothing about that; even Iorek Byrnison, who reforged the blade when it shattered, had to admit that he had no idea what it was.

Lyra couldn’t begin to tell them that without spending a long time explaining it, so she said simply, “I don’t think anyone knows.”

Dafydd handed the alethiometer back, and she put it away.

“You know,” Gwyn told her, “there’s a piece of metal in the museum at the Coleg Mwyngloddiaeth that looks like part of a blade, a knife blade, something like that. No one’s ever discovered what metal it’s made of.”

“It’s kind of a secret, see,” said Dafydd.

“But it looks exactly like that needle. Where does that thing come from, then?”

“Bohemia.”

“Well, they had good metalworkers there,” said Gwyn. “If the case is an alloy of gold and titanium…that’s not easy to make. Before modern times I’d say it was impossible. But with that thing, there’s no doubt about it. That’s what it is. Is that a witch thing, then?”

“No. I’m the only witch who ever touched one of these. There are only six of them in the world that we know about.”

“What do you do with it?”

“You ask questions, and read the answers. The trouble is that you need all the old books, with the keys to the symbols, to understand what it says. It takes a long time to learn. All my books are in Novy Kievsk. I can’t read it without them.”

“Why are you carrying it with you, then? Wouldn’t it be safer to leave it at home?”

“It was stolen from me, and I had to go a long way to get it back. It…” She hesitated.

“What?” said Dafydd.

“It seems to attract thieves. Like just now. It’s been stolen many times. When it was given to me, I thought that was the end of the stealing, but obviously it wasn’t. I’ll be extra careful. I owe you a great deal.”

“Just paying back, like,” said Gwyn. “That witch we told you about—she helped us when we fell sick. There was an epidemic. It spread from the mines further north than Sala, sort of a lung disease. We were both a bit poorly. The witch found some herbs that made us better, and then some local idiots stole her cloud-pine. So we got that back for her.”

His dæmon, a small badger, was prowling restlessly along the deck, when suddenly she stopped still and gazed towards the stern. Gwyn said something softly in Welsh, and she replied in the same language.

“There’s men coming,” said Dafydd, translating.

Lyra couldn’t see anyone, but it was darker down that way and the wind was whipping her hair across her eyes. She put the rucksack carefully under the bench and felt for her stick. She could see the other two getting ready to jump up and fight, and they looked as if they’d enjoy it; but before it came to that, the two men coming stepped into the pool of light beside a doorway.

They wore uniforms of a kind Lyra didn’t recognize: black, smartly tailored, with caps bearing a symbol she couldn’t make out. They certainly didn’t look maritime: they looked military.

One said, “Show us your travel documents.”

Gwyn and Dafydd reached into jacket pockets. The dæmons of the uniformed men were both large wolflike dogs, and they both glared at Lyra with fierce concentration.

The man who seemed to be in charge held out his gauntleted hand for Gwyn’s ticket, but Gwyn didn’t move.

“First of all,” he said, “you’re not employees of North Dutch Ferries. I don’t know those uniforms. Tell me who you are, and I’ll decide if I want to show you my ticket.”

The uniformed man’s dæmon growled. Gwyn put a hand down to his own badger dæmon’s neck.

“Take a good look,” said the uniformed man, and took off his cap to show the badge. Lyra saw that it depicted a golden lamp whose flame shot rays of red all around it. “You’ll see this more and more, and soon you won’t have to ask. This is the badge of the Office of Right Duty. We’re constables of that office, and we have the responsibility to check the travel documents of anyone entering continental Europe. Among other things.”

Then something entered Lyra’s memory, something Malcolm had told her….She said, “The League of St. Alexander. Well done. You can put your cap back on now.”

The man opened his mouth to say something, but shut it again, and then opened it only to say, “Beg your pardon, miss?”

“I just want to stop you making a mistake,” Lyra went on. “Your organization is new, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes,” he said. “But the—”

She held up a hand. “It’s all right,” she said. “I understand. You won’t have had time to absorb all the new regulations yet. If I show you this, perhaps you’ll know what to do next time.”

And she produced the handkerchief that still held the knot Dick Orchard had tied in it. She held it out and let them look for a moment, no more, before putting it away again.

“What’s that supp—”

“It’s the badge of my agency. It means that my companions and I are on Magisterium business. You should know that. When you see that knot, the best advice I can give you is to look away and forget all about the person who showed it to you. In this case, it means forget my companions as well.”

The men looked baffled. One of them spread his hands. “But we weren’t told…Which agency did you say?” he said.

“I didn’t, but I’ll tell you, and then we’ll say no more about it.
La Maison Juste.
”

They’d heard of it, and they knew enough to nod and look serious. Lyra put her finger to her lips. “As if you’d never seen us,” she said.

One of them nodded. The other touched his cap in a salute. Their dæmons quiet and subdued, they walked away.

“Duw annwyl,”
said Gwyn after a moment. “That was good.”

“Practice,” she said. “But I haven’t had to do anything like that for a long time. I’m glad it still works.”

“Will they forget about it, then?” said Dafydd. He sounded as impressed as Gwyn.

“Probably not. But they’ll be nervous about mentioning it for a while, in case it’s something they
should
have known about. We’ll be all right till we’re ashore, anyway.”

“Well, I’m damned.”

“What was that you said?” said Gwyn. “The French words?”

“
La Maison Juste.
It’s a branch of the Magisterium. That’s all I know. I had to distract them before they asked about my dæmon.”

“I didn’t like to ask before, in case it’s impolite, but…where is he?”

“Flying home to tell them how far I’ve got. A thousand miles away or more.”

“I can’t imagine what it must be like not to have your dæmon nearby,” said Dafydd.

“No, it’s never easy. But some things are as they have to be.” Lyra pulled her coat collar up and tugged the hood of her parka forward.

“God, it’s cold,” said Gwyn. “You want to try and go inside again? We’d stay with you.”

“We could go in the other saloon,” said Dafydd. “It’s quieter there. Be a bit warmer, like.”

“All right,” she said. “Thank you.”

She rose to follow them, and they made their way along the deck to the aft saloon, which seemed to be occupied mainly by older people who were sleeping. It was darker than the forward saloon, the bar was closed, and only a few people were awake; one small group was playing cards, and the rest were reading.

A clock over the bar showed the time to be one-thirty. The ferry would dock at eight.

“We can sit here,” said Gwyn, stopping by a seat against the wall where there was room for three of them. “You can go to sleep,” he said to Lyra. “Don’t worry. We’ll keep an eye on everything.”

“It’s very kind of you,” she said. She sat and clasped the rucksack firmly on her lap. “I’ll remember this.”

“Aye,” said Gwyn. “We’ll wake you when it’s time to get off.”

She closed her eyes, and exhaustion overcame her at once. As she fell asleep, she heard Gwyn and Dafydd on her left talking softly together in Welsh, as their dæmons did the same under their feet.

At the Gasthaus Eisenbahn in Munich, Olivier Bonneville went straight to his ill-lit little room after a dinner of pork and dumplings, and tried to find Lyra. There was something he’d noticed about the new method….It wasn’t easy to put into words….He couldn’t find any sign of her with it, that was the point, whereas earlier he’d seen her with little difficulty. Something must have happened. Had she found a way of hiding? She’d better not. He was damned if he’d give up.

And there’d been something…almost a nudge, as if the alethiometer was giving him a hint….He hadn’t thought it dealt in hints. But there was something….

And because the light from the single overhead bulb was so poor, and the print in his stolen books so small, and because he knew the pictures on the dial so well, he didn’t try the classical method. He sat in the overstuffed armchair and focused his mind on the girl yet again. He tried to conjure up her face: no success. A blank-faced girl with blond hair, or blondish. Maybe not blond. Light brown? He couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t even see her dæmon.

What was her dæmon, anyway? Some kind of weasel or ferret? Something like that. He’d only had a glimpse, but he remembered a broad head, red-brown, a patch of lighter color on the throat—

There was a rustle among twigs and leaves.

Bonneville sat up. He closed his eyes and concentrated. It was dark, of course it was, because it was night, but there was a sort of luminescence from somewhere—undergrowth, leafless brambles, water….Bonneville rubbed his eyes, which made no difference. He made himself relax and tried to subdue the nausea, which was not helped at all by those dumplings. Next time eat less, he thought.