The Book of Dust, Volume 1

by Philip Pullman

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she said.

  “ ’Cause it all happened so quick.”

  “But you’d been planning it. The stuff you already had in the canoe.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of going away, not yet. I didn’t know the flood would come so soon. And if I had, I’d have prob’ly taken Sister Fenella, ’cause I couldn’t look after a baby and paddle the—”

  “Sister Fenella? What did I call you? A mooncalf? You’re a bloody gormless staring idiot.”

  “Well, someone—”

  “It always had to be me. There en’t anyone else.”

  “Well, why’d you kick me, then?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Or ask me, better.”

  “I only just thought of it in the night, when we were tied up to that tree.”

  She went back to the fire and put the last log on. “So what’s the plan, then?” she said.

  “Keep going downstream. Keep out of Bonneville’s way. Find our way to Lord Asriel.”

  He had to clean the blood out of his eye again. He wiped his hand on his trousers, which were nearly dry now.

  “Sit down and take Lyra,” said Alice. “I’m going to put a bandage on there—I don’t care what you say. You’re going to drive me mad, blinking blood out of your eye all the time.”

  She did it more gently than before. Then she held out the packet of bandages and the tube of antiseptic cream.

  “You can put them in the boat, to start with. And more blankets and some pillows, if they got any. It was bloody freezing last night. And a load of them nappies that you can throw away. And matches. And that saucepan. And all them biscuits…”

  She went on without a pause, listing so many things that the canoe would have sunk under them all. Malcolm nodded earnestly to everything.

  “Well, go on, then,” she said.

  So he began. He gathered the things in the order he thought them important, so pillows and dry blankets came first, and then nappies and baby milk and other things for Lyra. Alice didn’t seem inclined to help, and he dared not ask, so with each armful of cargo he had to lean out the window, pull the canoe close, drop it in, and then climb down and stow it in as shipshape a way as he could. He put a number of blankets in the prow for Alice to sit on, to keep the cold of the water below the hull away from her, and a couple of pillows there for her to lean on.

  “She’s very strange,” Asta whispered when they were outside. “She could have whined and moaned all night, but she said nothing.”

  “I wish she hadn’t kicked me, though.”

  “But she looked after your scratches….”

  “Shh!”

  Malcolm had seen a movement at the end of the street, and then it became clearer: a dinghy, with two men in it, neither of them Bonneville. One was rowing, so the other could look forward, and as soon as he saw Malcolm in the canoe, he said something to the rower, who turned to look.

  “Hey!” one of them shouted. “What you doing?”

  Malcolm didn’t answer. Instead, he called in through the window, “Alice, bring Lyra here.”

  “Why?” she said, but he’d turned away.

  The dinghy was much closer: the man was rowing fast. When they were near enough for Malcolm not to have to shout, he said, “We got a baby to look after. We had to go in here because she was freezing.”

  Alice appeared beside him and saw the men, who were now close enough to reach out and take hold of the canoe.

  “What you want?” she said, holding Lyra in her arms; the child was nearly asleep.

  “Just making sure everything’s all right and no one’s doing what they shouldn’t,” said the man who wasn’t rowing.

  “You got a baby there?” said the rower.

  “It’s my sister,” said Alice. “Our house was going to fall down when the flood come, so we got away in the boat. But we been out all night and she’s ever so cold and we had to stop and find somewhere to feed and change her. If there was someone here, we’d have asked, but the place was empty.”

  “What you putting in the boat?” the other man asked Malcolm.

  “Blankets and pillows. We’re going to try and get home because our parents’ll be worried. But in case we got to stay in the boat another night—”

  “Why don’t you just stay here?”

  “ ’Cause of our parents,” said Alice. “Didn’t you hear? They’ll be worried. We got to try and get back soon as we can.”

  “Where to?”

  “You a policeman or something? What’s it got to do with you?”

  “Sandra, they’re just looking after the place,” said Malcolm. “We live in Wolvercote. Last night we got swept all down Port Meadow. We’re going to try and get back through the city, but in case we get stuck again…”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Richard Parsons. This is my sister Sandra. And the baby’s Ellie.”

  “Where was your mother and father last night?”

  “Our grandmother was took ill yesterday. They went to see her, and while they was out, the flood come.”

  The rower was manipulating his oars to keep the boat still on the water. He said to the other man, “Leave ’em be. They’re all right.”

  “You know it’s theft, what you’re doing?” the other man said. “Looting?”

  “It en’t looting,” said Alice, but Malcolm spoke over her and said, “We’re only taking what we need to stay alive and keep the baby fed. And as soon as the flood goes down, my dad’ll come down here and pay for what we took.”

  “If you make your way into town,” said the rower, “and find the town hall—you know where that is? St. Aldate’s?”

  Malcolm nodded.

  “There’s an emergency station there. It’s full of people been flooded out, and plenty of helpers. You’ll find everything you need up there.”

  “Thanks,” said Malcolm. “We’ll do that. Thank you.”

  The men nodded and began to row away.

  “Sandra,” said Alice with deep contempt. “Couldn’t you think of nothing better than that?”

  “No,” said Malcolm.

  And ten minutes later, they were moving again, Sandra/Alice wrapped up warm in the bow, a clean and dry and fed Lyra/Ellie fast asleep on her chest. La Belle Sauvage was lower in the water than she’d been since Malcolm took Sister Benedicta to the parcel depot, but she moved with all her new eagerness and responded to the paddle like a powerful steed to her master’s touch on the reins. Well, Malcolm thought, it could all have gone far worse. They were still alive, and they were moving south.

  At about the same time, George Papadimitriou was standing at the window of his rooms at the top of Pilgrims’ Tower, the highest set in Jordan College, and looking out at the waste of waters that surrounded the tower and lapped against the windows of the other college buildings. Even in the enclosed quadrangle, the wind was whipping it into spray. The sky was heavy, promising even more rain, and the room was so cold that, in spite of the fire in the hearth, he was wearing his overcoat.

  “When should we expect him, do you think?” he said.

  “In this flood…,” said Lord Nugent, joining him at the window. “Who knows. But he’s resourceful.”

  Nugent had arrived in Oxford the previous evening, an hour or two before the flood struck the city. Oakley Street had heard that Lyra was in danger, and he wanted to make sure of the arrangements for her safety. He would have made his way to the priory already that morning, despite the flood, but for the fact that they were awaiting the arrival of a traveler from the far north, Bud Schlesinger, news of whom had been in Coram van Texel’s coded letter from Uppsala. Schlesinger was a New Dane by birth, and an agent of Oakley Street by training and inclination. He had gone to the north to find out as much as he could about the witches’ knowledge of Lyra, because it seemed that the source of much that was said about her came from them. The witches were a great power in those latitudes, and the alliances they made were costly but valuable. Nugent was e
ager to gain their support, but even more eager to prevent the other side from gaining it.

  “I should think every boat that exists will have been requisitioned by the authorities,” said Papadimitriou. “They would want to maintain civil order above everything else.”

  “Oh, he’ll get here. Until he does, I’m going to— Wait a minute. Isn’t that Hannah Relf down there?”

  Papadimitriou peered down at the flooded quadrangle, where a slight figure clothed in oilskins was wading waist-deep towards the tower. She looked up briefly, pushing back her yellow sou’wester, and the two men recognized her at once. Papadimitriou waved, but she didn’t see him, and she moved on through the water.

  “I’ll go down and meet her,” Papadimitriou said.

  He ran down the steep stairs and found her on the first landing, breathing heavily and unfastening the oilskin coat. Her little dæmon was helping with the buttons.

  “Let me give you a hand,” he said. “Good Lord, what are you wearing?”

  “Salmon-fishing waders,” she said. “Never thought I’d need them here.”

  “Well, this counts as a revelation. I wouldn’t have imagined you with a fishing rod in your hands,” he said, taking the coat from her. The waders came up to her chest and looked substantial.

  “Not mine. They belonged to my brother, who gave up fishing when he was injured. It’s not easy to wear waders with a prosthetic leg. If I sit on the stairs, perhaps you could…”

  He went down a step or two and tugged hard. She was fully clothed underneath, and must have been extremely uncomfortable.

  “Well, good for you,” he said.

  “Are you very busy? I don’t want to interrupt anything, but—”

  “You won’t. Don’t worry.”

  “I thought I should come and tell you something important.”

  “Tom Nugent’s here. Save your breath to climb the stairs and tell us both when you get there.”

  Their dæmons climbed ahead of them, talking quietly. Papadimitriou was concerned about Hannah: she was breathing heavily, and her face was flushed.

  “You didn’t walk all this way?” he said. Then, “Sorry, don’t speak. Take it easy. No hurry.”

  When they reached the top floor, she said, “I begged a lift from a neighbor with an engine-boat. I’m not sure anyone could walk all the way. Have you seen how fast the water’s flowing down St. Giles?”

  Nugent opened the door, hearing their voices, and said, “Dr. Relf, this is valiant. Come in and sit by the fire and let me give you some of George’s brandy.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “I could do with it. I won’t stay any longer than I need to.”

  “You’ll stay till you’re warm and dry,” said Papadimitriou. “It would be good for you to meet Schlesinger, anyway.”

  She took a glass from Lord Nugent and sipped gratefully. “Who’s Schlesinger?”

  “An Oakley Street agent with something to tell us, we hope.”

  “I came because something’s happened at the priory,” she said. “Late last night. I heard from a neighbor, the man who owns the boat, and he took me up to see what was going on and check whether Malcolm was all right. But it’s all such a…To start with, the gatehouse and several other parts of the main building have fallen down. So has the bridge across to the inn. Seven of the nuns are dead—drowned—and two others are missing. And the child…Well, she’s missing too. But here’s the point: Malcolm, the boy, you remember, he’s disappeared as well. But so has his canoe and the girl who was helping out at the priory with the baby. That’s the only thing that’s giving Malcolm’s parents any hope.”

  “They think he might have…what? Rescued the child and floated away?”

  “In a word, yes. He was very fond of the baby, very interested in her and everything to do with her. So…well, that’s what I had to tell you, really.”

  “Who is this girl?”

  “Alice Parslow. Sixteen. She helps out in the inn, and she’d just begun at the priory too. But there’s something else that might have a bearing on—”

  “Wait a minute. They’re sure the child is gone? Not buried under the collapsed building?”

  “Yes, they’re sure, because she was in a wooden crib in the kitchen when the gatehouse fell, in the care of the girl Alice. The crib was still there, but all the blankets had gone. But there’s another thing. There was a man who’d shown up at the Trout a few days ago—Malcolm had told me about him for the first time on the day of Dr. Al-Kaisy’s dinner. I mentioned him then, but you’d given me so many other things to think about that I didn’t ask any further. His name was Gerard Bonneville. He had a hyena dæmon who’d lost a leg, and…”

  Nugent sat forward.

  Papadimitriou said, “How does he fit in? What was he doing?”

  “I don’t know whether he matters or not,” said Hannah, “but Malcolm was afraid of the man because of the way his dæmon behaved. On the day of Dr. Al-Kaisy’s dinner, Malcolm told me that he’d seen Bonneville trying to break into the priory the night before….Oh, and the girl Alice had spoken to him, to Bonneville, and she said he’d claimed to be the father of the baby, of Lyra. But do you know anything about him?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” said Nugent. “We’ve been interested in him for some time. He’s a scientist—an authority on elementary particles. Or used to be. He led a group in Paris researching the Rusakov field, that theory about consciousness that has the Magisterium in such a spin. He wrote a paper arguing that there must be a particle associated with the field, and made the extraordinary claim that Dust could be that particle. The gist of it, as far as I can understand it, was that everything is material and that matter itself is conscious. There’s no need to bring spirit into the discussion. You can see why the Magisterium is keen to shut him up. He was—well, he is—a brilliant mind. And he’s involved with this, with Lyra?”

  “But he was in prison,” said Papadimitriou. “Wasn’t there a court case? Some sexual offense?”

  “Yes, that was his downfall. Or part of it. I think Marisa Coulter was involved in some way—perhaps she testified against him—we’ll look up the details. And he’s claiming to be Lyra’s father?”

  Hannah said, “So I heard from Malcolm, who heard it from the girl Alice. And Mrs. Coulter does know Bonneville.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She came to my house.”

  “What? When?” said Nugent.

  She told them what had happened on that afternoon, and how Malcolm had spoken to Mrs. Coulter and deflected her questions. “She clearly did know this Bonneville, but she wouldn’t admit it. She wanted to know where the child was. She didn’t say it was her own daughter, let alone who the father was. It was a strange conversation altogether….Isn’t that someone outside?”

  As she said that, there came a knock on the door. Papadimitriou opened it and warmly shook the hand of the man who came in.

  “Bud! You made it,” he said. “Well done!”

  Nugent got up to welcome him. Schlesinger was a man of thirty or so, lean, with fair hair cut very short and a vivid alertness in his expression. His dæmon was a small owl. His cold-weather clothing seemed wet through.

  “Hello,” he said, seeing Hannah. “Am I interrupting something?”

  “No, I think I am,” said Hannah. “I’ll go now.”

  “No, Dr. Relf, stay,” said Nugent. “This is important. Bud, Hannah is one of us. She knows what this is all about, and she’s given us some valuable information. Look, you’re soaked. Come near the fire.”

  Schlesinger shook Hannah’s hand and said, “Good to meet you. What are you discussing? Have I missed the best part?”

  As Schlesinger took off his outer clothing and sat down next to the fire, Nugent explained the situation, and Hannah listened with professional admiration. An A-plus for that summary, she thought: everything there and in its right relation with everything else, not a redundant word, clarity throughout.

  As Lord Nugent spoke, Pap
adimitriou made a pot of coffee.

  “So that’s where we are,” said Nugent as he finished. “Now, what do you have for us?”

  Schlesinger sipped his coffee and said, “Plenty. First, the child. Lyra. There’s no doubt she’s the daughter of Coulter and Asriel. No one else involved. We’d heard rumors of some prophecy concerning the child, and we knew that the Magisterium was strongly interested in her, so I went north to find out more. The witches of the Enara region had heard voices in the aurora—that’s how they put it; I gather it’s a metaphor—voices that said that the child was destined to put an end to destiny. That’s all. They didn’t know what that meant, and I sure as hell don’t either. Could be a good thing, could be bad. And the main condition is that she must do this without knowing that she’s doing it. Anyway, the Magisterium heard about this prophecy through their own witch contacts, and immediately set about finding the child. That was when we realized that something important was going on, and when you began to look for somewhere to hide her.”

  “That’s right,” said Nugent. “Go on.”

  “Now the second thing: Gerard Bonneville. I knew him a little in Paris, and I heard he’d come to the north, so I asked around quietly among the university people I knew. He’d been in prison for this sexual crime, whatever it was, and he was newly released. He’d been dismissed from his academic post, cut off from access to laboratory facilities and technical help, to libraries, to everything a scientist needs. No one would employ him. He was always a difficult guy to work with—demanding, obsessive, and that dæmon was just so goddamn unpleasant….Three legs, huh? Well, she had a full set of legs when I saw Bonneville last. I think Coram van Texel might know something about that. I saw Coram in Sweden—I guess he told you.”

  At the mention of Coram van Texel, Hannah glanced at Lord Nugent, who returned her look with bland impassivity.

  “But Bonneville saw a way back into favor,” Schlesinger went on. “He knew about the witches’ prophecy, and he thought if he could get hold of the child, he’d be able to bargain with the Magisterium: give me a laboratory, give me all the help I need, and you can have the child and do what you like with her. So that’s what he’s after, and why. And do we know where he is now? What’s the latest you heard?”