The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage

Fourteen Lady with Monkey

The next day, Malcolm found the nuns busy preparing for the Feast of St. Scholastica. It wasn’t actually a feast, as Sister Fenella had explained to a disappointed Malcolm on previous occasions; it was a day of celebration. But that meant long services in the oratory rather than well-filled tables in the refectory.

However, Lyra obviously wasn’t expected to sing and pray with the sisters, and equally obviously couldn’t be left untended while their hymns and psalms and prayers ascended into the infinite, so Sister Fenella was excused the duty of praising the dead saint and detailed to look after the baby while she prepared the evening meal.

Malcolm came into the kitchen just as the old lady was putting a lamb stew to simmer on the range. Pantalaimon, the baby dæmon, set up a brisk chirruping, and Malcolm moved closer so that Asta could perch on the rim of the crib and change into all the birds she knew, one after the other, making Lyra and her dæmon scream with laughter, as if it was the funniest thing in the world.

“We haven’t seen you for a day or two, Malcolm,” said Sister Fenella. “What have you been up to?”

“Lots of things. Sister Fenella, will Sister Benedicta be able to see me after the service?”

“Not for long, dear. This is a busy day. Can I tell her anything for you?”

“Well… I’ve got to warn her, but I can warn you as well, because it’s for all of you.”

“Oh, dear. What are you warning us about?”

She settled on her stool and drew the nearest cabbage towards her on the table. Malcolm watched her hands and the old knife unhurriedly shredding it, setting the outside leaves and the heart aside for stock, and reaching for another.

“You know the river’s been high?” he said. “Well, everyone thinks that it’ll go down, now it’s stopped raining, but the rain’s going to come back and the river’s going to flood more than it’s done for years.”

“Really?”

“Yes. A gyptian man told me. And they know the river, gyptians. They know all the waters in England. I just wanted to make sure Sister Benedicta knew, so she could make everything safe, specially Lyra. ’Cause you’re low-lying here on this bank. I told my dad, and he said you could all come and stay at the Trout, only it probably wouldn’t be holy enough.”

She laughed and clapped her old red hands.

“I’ve told other people,” Malcolm went on, “but no one believes me, I don’t think. I wish you had some boats here. If you could float, you’d be all right in a flood, but…”

“We’d all be carried away,” said Sister Fenella. “But I shouldn’t worry. We had a big flood in… oh, fifty years ago — I was a novice — and all the garden was underwater and it came right in and the ground floor was three or four inches deep. I thought it was marvelously exciting, but the older nuns were distressed, so I didn’t say anything. Of course, I had nothing to be responsible for in those days. And it soon went down again. So I shouldn’t worry too much, Malcolm. Most things have happened before, and we’re all still here, by the grace of God.”

“There was something else I wanted to tell Sister Benedicta,” said Malcolm. “But maybe it’ll wait till tomorrow. Is Mr. Taphouse here today?”

“I haven’t seen him. I heard he wasn’t well.”

“Oh… I was going to say something to him as well. Maybe I could go and see him, but I don’t know where he lives.”

“Neither do I.”

“I’ll have to see Sister Benedicta after all, then. When do they finish worshipping?”

It turned out that the long service finished in twenty minutes’ time, which gave the sisters an hour for recreation and exercise, or for getting on with their work in the garden or with the embroidery needle, before sitting down to eat. Malcolm decided to fill the time by teaching Lyra how to talk.

“Now, Lyra, see, I’m Malcolm. That’s easy to say. Go on, have a go. Mal-colm.”

She stared at him solemnly. Pantalaimon became a mole and buried himself in her blankets, and Asta laughed.

“No, don’t laugh,” said Malcolm. “Try it, Lyra. Mal-colm.”

She frowned and dribbled.

“Well, you’ll get the hang of it eventually,” he said, patting her cheeks dry with a tea towel. “Try Asta. Go on. As-ta.”

She watched him cautiously and said nothing at all.

“Well, she’s very advanced for her age, anyway,” said Malcolm. “It’s really clever for her dæmon to be a mole. How’d they know about moles?”

“That’s a mystery,” said the old nun. “Only the good Lord knows the answer to that, but that’s not surprising, because after all He created everything.”

“I remember being a mole,” said Geraint, her old dæmon, who normally said very little and just watched everything with his head to one side. “When I was frightened, I used to be a mole.”

“But how did you know about moles?” said Malcolm.

“You just feel mole-ish,” said Asta.

“Hmm,” said Malcolm. “Look, he’s coming up again.”

Pan, no longer a mole but now a rabbit, emerged from the blankets, very close to Lyra, for safety, but very curious.

“Tell you what, Lyra,” Malcolm said. “You can teach Pan how to say Malcolm.”

The baby and the dæmon gabbled cautiously together. Then Asta became a monkey and stood on her hands, and they both laughed.

“Well, you can laugh, even if you can’t talk,” said Malcolm. “I ’spect you’ll learn soon. What about Sister Fenella? Can you say that? Sis-ter Fen-el-la?”

The little girl turned her head to Sister Fenella and gave a broad happy smile, and her dæmon became a squirrel like Geraint and chattered with glee.

“She’s really clever,” said Malcolm. He was full of admiration.

At that moment, he heard a stir of talk in the corridor, and the kitchen door opened to let in Sister Benedicta.

“Ah! Malcolm! I wanted to talk to you. Glad you’re here. All well, Sister?”

She meant, All well with Lyra? but she didn’t really listen to the answer. Another nun, Sister Katarina, was coming to keep an eye on the baby while Sister Fenella went to the oratory for a private service of her own, or so Malcolm gathered. Sister Katarina was young and pretty, with large dark eyes, but she was nervous, and she made Lyra nervous too. The baby was really only perfectly happy with Sister Fenella.

“Come along, Malcolm,” said Sister Benedicta. “I want a quick word.”

It didn’t sound as if he was in trouble. It wasn’t that kind of summons.

“I wanted to tell you something too, Sister,” he said as she closed the office door behind them.

“In a minute. You remember that man you told me about? With the three-legged dæmon?”

“I saw him the other night,” said Malcolm. “I was going through the upstairs bedrooms at home looking for something and…”

He described what he’d seen. She listened close, frowning.

“A broken shutter? No, it’s not broken. Someone forgot to close it. Never mind that. You saw what he was doing to his dæmon — clearly the man is mentally ill, Malcolm. What I wanted to tell you was to keep away from him. If you see him anywhere, just go in the opposite direction. Don’t get drawn into conversation. I know how friendly you are with everyone, and that’s a virtue, but you have to use judgment as well, which is another virtue. That man is not capable of reason, poor thing, and his obsessions can damage other people, just as they’ve damaged his dæmon. Now, what did you want to tell me? Was it about him?”

“Partly. But the other part is that there’s going to be a flood. A gyptian man told me.”

“Oh, nonsense! The weather’s changed. It’ll be spring before we know it. Thank the good Lord, all that rain’s over and done with.”

“But he explained—”

“A lot of what the gyptians say is superstition, Malcolm. Listen to it politely, but again — use your judgment. All the forecasts from the Weather Office agree: the heavy rains are over, and there’s no danger of flood.”

“But the gyptians know the rivers and the weather—”

“Thank you for passing on his warning. But I think we’re going to be safe. Was there anything else?”

“Is Mr. Taphouse all right?”

“He’s a little poorly. Now that all the shutters are up, I’ve told him to rest for a few days. Off you go, Malcolm. Remember what I told you about the man.”

She was very hard to argue with. Not that he wanted to argue; all he was trying to do was warn, as Mr. Van Texel had asked him to do.

That night, he had another dream about wild dogs. Or perhaps it was the same dream: a pack of wild dogs, all kinds of dogs, running with furious speed across a bare plain this time, intent on hunting and killing something he couldn’t see. And he was relishing it. It was frightening and exciting at the same time, and he woke sweating and breathing fast, and lay holding tightly to Asta, who, of course, had been dreaming the same dream. He was still thinking about it when they got up much later to go to school.

Having had no success at warning the nuns about the flood, Malcolm tried with his teachers. He had the same response. It was nonsense — it was superstition — the gyptians knew nothing, or they were up to something, or they weren’t to be trusted.

“I dunno,” said Malcolm to Robbie and Eric and Tom in the playground. “Some people just don’t want to be warned.”

“Well, it doesn’t look likely, this flood,” said Robbie.

“River’s still high,” said Tom, who was a faithful follower of whatever Malcolm said. “It wouldn’t take much more rain… ”

“My dad says you can’t believe anything the gyptians say,” announced Eric. “There’s always a hidden gender with them.”

“A what?” said Robbie.

“They got secret plans that no one else knows about.”

“Don’t talk daft,” said Malcolm. “What secret plan could this be?”

“I dunno,” said Eric righteously. “That’s why it’s secret.”

“You stopped wearing your league badge,” said Robbie. “I bet there’s a secret agenda behind that, an’ all.”

In answer Eric slowly reached up to the lapel of his blazer and turned it back with a finger and thumb. Pinned underneath was the little enamel lamp of the League of St. Alexander.

“Why’re you hiding it?” said Malcolm.

“Those of us who have reached the second degree wear it like that,” said Eric. “There’s a few of us in school, but not many.”

“At least if you wear it on the outside, people can see you belong,” said Robbie. “But hiding it’s sneaky.”

“Why?” said Eric, honestly astonished.

“ ’Cause if you see someone’s wearing a badge, you can just not say anything they could report,” said Malcolm. “But if they hide it, you could find yourself in trouble without knowing why.”

“What is this ‘second degree’ anyway?” said Robbie.

“I’m not allowed to tell you.”

“Bet you will, though,” said Malcolm. “Bet you’ll tell us before the end of the week.”

“I won’t,” said Eric.

“Yes, you will,” said Robbie and Tom together.

Eric stalked away, offended.

The influence of the league had stabilized since its first big successes. Mr. Hawkins, the deputy head who had compromised with it at once, was confirmed as successor to the old headmaster, who had disappeared. Eric said Mr. Willis was at a special training camp, but he was believed as much as he usually was, so no one knew for sure. Some of the teachers who had left in protest or by being required to take leave had come back, sullen or chastened; others had vanished and been replaced. The real authority in the school was held by the never-quite-named, never-quite-described, never-quite-admitted-to group of senior pupils forming the first and most influential members of the league. They met with Mr. Hawkins every day, and their decisions or orders were announced in the next day’s assembly. Somehow it was implied that any such proclamation was the direct word of God, so that to disobey or protest was to blaspheme. Many pupils got into trouble before they understood this. Now, though, the understanding had permeated everywhere.

The pupils in this half-secret group were helped and guided by two or three adults, who were rumored to be special governors. They never spoke in assembly, never taught any lessons, hardly ever spoke to a pupil; they patrolled the corridors making notes and were treated with particular obsequiousness by the staff, but no children were told their names or what their functions were. It just became understood.

About half the school had joined the league; of those, a few had fallen away, and of the rest, a few had given in and joined. For the moment nothing more had been seen of the woman who had first come to tell them about it, and absolutely nothing had been said in the newspapers. You could spend quite some time in the school and never hear it mentioned; but all the same, its existence became known to everyone. It was as if it had always been there, as if it would be strange for a school not to be pervaded by this half-enthralling, half-frightening miasma. Lessons went on as normal, though each lesson was now preceded by a prayer. The pictures that had hung in the corridors and classrooms — mostly reproductions of famous paintings, or paintings of historical scenes — had been taken down and replaced with posters bearing quotations from the Bible in rather hectoring color. Few pupils were openly naughty anymore — there were fewer fights in the playground, for instance — but everyone seemed guiltier.

On Saturday, Malcolm took La Belle Sauvage for her first extended trip since Mr. Van Texel had brought her back. It was just as the gyptian had said: the little craft was stiffer, more responsive, and very much slippier through the water than she’d ever felt before. Malcolm was delighted; he thought he’d be able to paddle for miles without tiring, and camp anywhere, more or less invisibly, and altogether own the water in a quite new way.

“When we need a big boat,” he said to the kingfisher-formed Asta as she sat on the gunwale beside him, “we’ll go to that gyptian boatbuilder and he can make it for us.”

“How will we find him? And what would it cost?”

“Dunno. We could ask Mr. Van Texel.”

“How’ll we find where he is?”

“Dunno that either. I wonder if he was a spy,” Malcolm said after a while. “I mean, Oakley Street…”

Asta didn’t reply. She was gazing at a small fish. They were on the canal now, which was high itself, but stiller than the river, of course. Malcolm could feel his dæmon’s eagerness to plunge into the water and catch the fish, and silently urged her on; but she held back.

They tied up the canoe in their usual place, and the chandler promised to keep an eye on her, and soon they were in Cranham Street.

“What’s that?” said Asta as soon as they turned the corner.

A grand gas-powered vehicle was standing right outside Dr. Relf’s house. Malcolm stopped to look at it.

“She’s got a visitor,” said Asta, a jackdaw now.

“Maybe we should wait.”

“Don’t you want to see who it is?”

“Sort of. I don’t want to get in the way, though.”

“It’s them who’s in our way,” said Asta. “She’s expecting us. We always come at this time.”

“No, I got a feeling… ”

It was the grandeur of the vehicle that disturbed him. It didn’t fit with his knowledge of Dr. Relf. Still, Asta was right: they were expected.

“Well, we’ll just have to be polite and keep our eyes open,” he said. “Like proper spies.”

“We are proper spies,” said Asta.

There was a chauffeur with a short pipe in his mouth who was lounging outside the car. He gave them an incurious glance as Malcolm rang the bell.

Dr. Relf, looking a little bothered, opened the door.

“We can come back later if—” Malcolm began, but she shook her head firmly.

“No, Malcolm, come in,” she said, and Jesper murmured, “But be careful,” only just loud enough for them to hear. Then, louder, she said, “My visitor’s just going.”

Malcolm stepped over the sandbags, and Asta became a robin, and then changed back to a jackdaw. Malcolm was completely at one with her uncertainty, but thought, Stay like that, when she was in her dusty black feathers. And he assumed an expression of dim and mild agreeableness, the next best thing to being invisible.

It was as well he did. In the sitting room Dr. Relf said, “Mrs. Coulter, this is my pupil Malcolm. Malcolm, say hello to Mrs. Coulter.”

The woman’s name hit Malcolm like a bullet. This was Lyra’s mother. She was the most beautiful lady he had ever seen: young and golden-haired and sweet-faced, dressed in gray silk, and wearing a scent, just the very faintest hint of a fragrance, that spoke of warmth and sunlight and the south. She smiled at him with such friendliness that he was reminded of that strange moment with Gerard Bonneville. And this was the woman who wanted nothing more to do with her own child! But he wasn’t supposed to know that, and nothing would have made him admit that he knew anything about the baby.

“Hello, Malcolm,” she said, and held out her hand to shake. “And what’s Dr. Relf teaching you?”

“The history of ideas,” said Malcolm stolidly.

“You couldn’t have a better teacher.”

Her dæmon was disconcerting. He was a monkey with long golden fur, and if there was an expression in his black eyes, it was unfathomable. He sat perfectly still on the back of her armchair, and Asta, who out of politeness would normally have flown across to say good day, felt repelled and frightened and stayed on Malcolm’s shoulder.

“Are you a scholar too, Mrs. Coulter?” Malcolm said.

“Only an amateur. How did you find a teacher like Dr. Relf?”

“I found a book she’d lost and brought it back. Now I borrow books from her and we talk about them,” he said in the sort of polite, neutral tone that he used with customers in the Trout whom he didn’t know very well. He was hoping she wouldn’t ask where he lived, in case she knew where Lyra was and made the connection; but hadn’t they said she had no interest in the child? Perhaps she didn’t know and didn’t care.

“And where do you live?” she said.

“Down St. Ebbe’s,” he said, naming a district in the south of the city, and surprising himself by saying it so calmly.

The golden monkey stirred but said nothing.

“And what do you want to do when you grow up?”

Everybody asked that, but somehow he expected something more interesting from her.

“I dunno, really,” he said. “Maybe work on the boats or the railway.”

“I expect the history of ideas will be very useful, then,” she said, smiling sweetly.

That was sarcastic. He didn’t like it, so he thought he’d disconcert her.

“Mrs. Coulter,” he said, “I met someone the other day who was a friend of yours.”

Asta could see Jesper’s eyes widen. Mrs. Coulter smiled again, but differently.

“I wonder who that was,” she said.

“I don’t know his name. He came in our pub. He was talking about you. His dæmon’s a hyena with three legs.”

That was a horrible shock for her. Malcolm could see it, and Asta could see it, and Dr. Relf and Jesper could see it too — but all that happened was that the golden monkey leaned forward and put both paws on Mrs. Coulter’s shoulders, and the faint pink left her cheeks.

“What an extraordinary thing,” she said in the calmest tone in the world. “I’m sure I don’t know anyone like that. And what pub is this?”

“The Scrivener’s Arms,” said Malcolm, certain that there was no pub of that name anywhere in the city.

“And what was he saying?”

“Just that he was a friend of yours and he was going to see you soon. I don’t think many people believed him, actually, because he hadn’t been in before and no one really knew him.”

“And do you spend a lot of time chatting in the bar to strangers?”

The color had come back to her cheeks, but where it had been a delicate flush before, it was now a small fierce spot on each cheekbone.

“No, I just help out in the evenings,” Malcolm said in his most equable tone. “I hear lots of people saying all sorts of things. If he comes back, shall I tell him I’ve seen you and you don’t know him?”

“You’d better not say anything. You’d better not listen to nonsense either. I’m sure Dr. Relf would agree.”

Malcolm looked at Dr. Relf, who was listening wide-eyed. But she blinked and recovered, and said, “Was there anything else I can help you with, Mrs. Coulter?”

“Not for now,” said Mrs. Coulter. The golden monkey had come to sit on her lap and press his face into her hair, as if he was whispering. She stroked his fur automatically, and he turned his head to glare at Malcolm with those unfathomable eyes. Malcolm stared back calmly, though he felt anything but calm: if that monkey had a name, it might be Malice, he thought.

Mrs. Coulter gathered the dæmon into her arms and stood up, whispering something to him. Then she held out her hand to Dr. Relf.

“Very kind of you to put up with me calling without any notice,” she said, and then turned to Malcolm. “Good-bye, Malcolm” was all she said. She didn’t offer to shake his hand.

Dr. Relf showed her to the front door, helped her on with a warm fur coat, and saw her out. Malcolm watched through the window as the chauffeur stood up straight and bustled around being useful.

“Well, what did you say that for?” said Dr. Relf as the great car drew away.

“I didn’t want to tell her where I lived.”

“But the man with the hyena dæmon! Why on earth—”

“I wanted to see what would happen.”

“Malcolm, that was very reckless.”

“Yes. But I don’t trust her. I wanted to shake her a bit, and I thought that would work.”

“It certainly did. But did he say anything about her? Did he say he was a friend?”

Malcolm told her what Alice had said about Bonneville. “I just thought,” he added, “if she was meaning any harm to Lyra, it might frighten her a bit.”

“It frightened me,” said Dr. Relf. “But tell me again: He said what?”

“He said he was Lyra’s father.”

“Thank goodness you didn’t tell her that.”

“I wouldn’t be that silly,” said Malcolm.

“No… I need a cup of tea. Let’s go in the kitchen.”

“What did she come here for?” said Malcolm, sitting on the kitchen stool.

“Well,” she said, “to ask about Lyra.”

“Really? What did you tell her?”

“It was strange. She seemed to think I had some connection with the child. As I do, I suppose, indirectly, through you. It was…” She stopped, holding the kettle in midair, as if struck by a sudden thought. “Yes. It was just as if she’d learned about that from an alethiometer. I wonder! It’s exactly the sort of partial knowledge that you get when you’re in a hurry, or you’re not an expert reader. She was clearly passionately interested in where the child was, and something had told her that I might know.”

“But you didn’t…”

“Of course not. Of course not! She began by asking about the Oxford alethiometer group, about… all sorts of things. But politely, as if she wasn’t really interested. Then she began to ask about the child who was being held somewhere in Oxford, or near Oxford, as if it was something interesting but not important, except that it clearly was. Jesper was watching her dæmon, who was gripping the back of her chair… ”

As she put the kettle on the stove and busied her hands with the tea caddy, she was thinking hard. Malcolm saw, and said nothing.

She didn’t speak till they were sitting down beside the fire. Then she took a deep breath.

“Malcolm,” she said, “I’m going to take a risk now and tell you some things I shouldn’t. You will keep quiet about them? You do understand how important it is?”

“Well, course.”

“Yes, of course you do. I just dread putting you in danger, and I don’t know whether it’s more dangerous for you to know these things or not to.”

“Probably more dangerous not to.”

“Yes, that’s what I think. Well, the fact is, I’ve left the alethiometer group.”

“Why?”

“I was offered a chance to do something else. To work with a different alethiometer, on my own.”

“I thought there wasn’t many of them.”

“This one became free. Unexpectedly.”

“That was lucky.”

“I don’t know. It might be. I think that was one of the things Mrs. Coulter was trying to find out — whether I had it.”

“Is she a spy, then?”

“I think so. For the other side.”

“Did you hide it from her? I mean, hide that you were doing it?”

“I hope so. That dæmon… it’s impossible to tell anything from that face.”

“He was a bit shocked when I said about Gerard Bonneville.”

“Yes, he was. And she was very shocked. I’m still not sure you should have done it.”

“We wouldn’t have known otherwise.”

“Known what?”

“That she knew about him. Oh, you remember I told you about the broken shutter on the priory window, when we saw him hitting his dæmon?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it wasn’t broken. Sister Benedicta told me someone had forgotten to close it.”

“That’s interesting. I wonder if someone left it open on purpose.”

“That’s what we’ve been thinking,” said Malcolm. “But I dunno who would have done that.”

Dr. Relf put her teacup down on the hearth.

“Malcolm, you won’t tell anyone about the alethiometer business, will you?”

“Absolutely not,” he said, surprised she should ask.

“I didn’t think you would. But it is deadly secret.”

“Course I won’t,” he said.

He ate a biscuit. She went to the window.

“But, Dr. Relf,” he said, “can I ask you what you’re doing with the new alethiometer? Is it the same as what you did in the group?”

“No, it’s not. The people who gave it to me want me to ask about Lyra, among other things.”

“What do they want to know about her?”

“She’s important in some way they don’t understand. And they want me to look into some more questions about Dust.”

She had her back to him, and he felt she wasn’t happy answering too many questions, but he had to ask one more.

“And is ‘they’ Oakley Street?”

She turned around. The sky had become dark behind her, and the only light in the room came from the coal fire in the hearth, so he couldn’t see her expression.

“Yes, it is,” she said heavily. “But that’s not for mentioning, remember.”

“No. All right. I won’t ask any more questions.”

She turned back to the window. “It looks as though your gyptian was right, and it’s going to rain again,” she said. “Let’s finish soon or you’ll get soaked. Come and choose a couple of books.”

He could tell she was worried, and not wanting to hang around in case he annoyed her, he quickly picked out a murder story and a book about China and said good-bye.

Once the safe had been installed and the break with the alethiometer group was complete, Hannah asked Professor Papadimitriou about that odd moment at the end of the dinner, when no one could look at her, when the atmosphere changed so suddenly.

Papadimitriou explained it. It seemed that sometimes Oakley Street and other secret services had to use blackmail in order to turn an agent on the other side. There was an agent they were targeting at present, for example, who was reputed to have an unhealthy interest in young boys.

As soon as he said that, she saw the trap she’d fallen into, and cried out in dismay, “No! Not Malcolm!”

“Hannah—”

“I won’t allow it! You want to offer him up — I don’t know — as a temptation—and then what? You’ll burst into the room and catch the man red-handed? Or worse? You’ll have a secret camera installed and take photograms? You want to put Malcolm into a situation like that? How despicable. And Nugent said it wouldn’t put him in danger — and I believed him. God, what a fool!”

“Hannah, he would not be in the slightest danger. It would be so quick, he wouldn’t even be aware of what was happening. We’d make sure of that. He’s too valuable to risk.”

“I won’t let it happen. Never. I’d sooner give this alethiometer back and forget I ever had anything to do with—”

“Well, that would be—”

“And you waited till I was committed before telling me. Well, now I see what sort of thing I’m committed to.”

“Come back when you’ve calmed down” was all he said.

“I won’t calm down. Not about this.”

No, of course she’d do anything to keep Malcolm safe from that. And she saw Lord Nugent in a new light too: under that patrician charm and friendliness, he was ruthless. All she could do was ask the alethiometer about it, and make what sense she could out of the swings and pauses of the silvery needle. As ever, the deeper she went, the more questions she saw.

That evening, the rain started in earnest.