The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage

Nineteen The Poacher

Heavy clouds loomed above, but behind the clouds the moon was nearly full and lent a faint radiance to the whole sky.

Lyra lay awake, happy enough to gurgle with the swaying of the boat. Malcolm’s stiff arms and shoulders began to loosen, and the canoe made good speed on the dark water. Alice was looking intently past Malcolm’s head towards the house as it vanished behind them. Even in the dimness, Malcolm could see her face, sharp and anxious and angry, and he saw her bend forward to adjust Lyra’s blankets and stroke her face.

“D’you wanna biscuit?” she said softly.

He thought she was speaking to Lyra. Then she looked up at him.

“What’s the matter? Wake up,” she said.

“Oh. Me. Yes, please, I’d like a biscuit. Actually, I’d like a whole plate of steak and kidney pudding. And some lemonade. And—”

“Shut up,” she said. “Stupid, talking like that. All we got’s biscuits. D’you want one or not?”

“Yes.”

She leaned forward and gave him a handful of fig rolls. He ate them in small mouthfuls, taking as long as he could to chew each bite.

“Can you see him?” Malcolm said after five minutes.

“Can’t even see the house. I reckon we lost him now.”

“But he’s mad. Mad people, they don’t know when to give up.”

“You must be mad, then.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. He paddled on, though the force of the flood was such that all he had to do was steer and keep the boat’s head forward.

“He’s prob’ly dead by now,” Alice said.

“I was thinking that. He was bleeding a lot.”

“I think there’s an artery there, in his leg. And that dæmon…”

“She can’t live, surely. Won’t be able to move, neither of ’em.”

“We better hope they are dead.”

The clouds overhead parted from time to time and let the brilliant moonlight through — so bright that Malcolm almost had to shade his eyes. Alice sat up and peered even more fiercely at the water behind them, and Malcolm scanned ahead left and right, looking for somewhere to land and rest; but only isolated clumps of bare trees rose above the racing water. He felt as if he had passed beyond exhaustion into a state of trance, and that minutes went by in which his sleeping body paddled and watched and steered without any influence from his dreaming mind.

The only sound was the wind over the flood, except for a tiny insect buzz that came and went. The floodwater must be breeding pestilence, Malcolm thought. “Better be careful to keep mosquitoes and that away from Lyra,” he said.

“What mosquitoes? It’s far too cold.”

“I can hear one.”

“That en’t a mosquito,” she said, sounding scornful, and she nodded at something behind him.

He turned. The bulky clouds had shouldered one another aside, and the moon shone down over the whole waste of water; and in all that wide emptiness there was only one thing that moved with purpose, and that was an engine-boat a long way behind them. He could only see it because it had a searchlight on the bow, and it was getting very slightly closer every minute.

“Is that him?” Malcolm said.

“Can’t be. It’s too big. He never had a boat with an engine.”

“They haven’t seen us yet.”

“How d’you know that?”

“ ’Cause they’re moving the searchlight all over the place. And they’d be going a lot faster if they wanted to catch us. We’ll have to hide, though, ’cause they’ll see us if they get any closer.”

He bent his back to paddling harder, even though every bone and muscle in his body ached and he longed to cry with fatigue. He would hate to cry in front of Lyra, because to her he was big and strong, and she would have been frightened to see him frightened, or at least he thought so.

So he gritted his teeth and plunged the paddle into the water with his trembling muscles and tried to ignore the whine of the motor, which was not intermittent anymore, but constant and getting louder.

The flood was taking them into an area of hills and woodlands, hills that crowded closer than before and woodlands that were partly bare and partly evergreen. The clouds drifted over the moon again and darkened everything.

“I can’t see ’em,” said Alice. “They’ve gone behind that wood… No, there they are.”

“How far back are they, d’you think?”

“They’ll catch us in about five minutes.”

“I’ll pull in, then.”

“Why?”

“On the water they could just tip us over. On land we got a chance.”

“Chance to what?”

“Chance to not die, maybe.”

In fact, he was terrified, so much so that he could barely move the canoe forward anymore in case he dropped the paddle. There was a wooded slope to their left — dark trees — and what looked in the gloom like a stone embankment, though it was probably the roof of a big house — anyway, he made for that, and then the moon came out again.

It was no rooftop, simply a flat piece of land in front of the wood. Malcolm drove La Belle Sauvage up onto the soft soil, and Alice seized Lyra and stepped out almost in one movement. Malcolm leapt out and turned to look for the launch.

Alice, holding Lyra, had retreated further up the slope, but the open space was not very large: close-branched holm oaks with spiked leaves crowded in on all sides. She clung to the baby and watched fearfully for the launch, moving her weight unconsciously from one foot to the other, shivering, breathing quickly, making a little moaning noise in her throat.

Malcolm had never found it so difficult to move; every muscle quivered. He looked up at the close-leafed trees, dark evergreens that were darker than the sky. The moon shone down with what felt like merciless force, but it was unable to penetrate the canopy of the leaves. He hauled and hauled La Belle Sauvage up over the stony ground and into the shadow of the trees just as the searchlight appeared from behind a thick wood a couple of hundred yards away and swung towards them.

“Don’t move,” said Malcolm. “Just keep absolutely still.”

“Think I’m stupid?” said Alice, but sotto voce.

Then the light was directly shining at them, dazzling, blinding. Malcolm shut his eyes and stood like a statue. He could hear Alice whispering, desperate for Lyra to stay quiet. Then the light moved away, and the launch moved past.

When it had gone, the fear Malcolm had been holding down since he stabbed Bonneville came back, and he had to lean forward and be sick.

“Don’t worry,” said Alice. “You’ll feel better in a minute.”

“Will I?”

“Yeah. You’ll see.”

He had never heard that tone in her voice before, or ever expected it. Lyra was grizzling. He wiped his mouth and felt in the canoe for the torch. He switched it on and waved it about to distract Lyra. She stopped crying and held out her hands for it.

“No, you can’t have it,” he said. “I’m going to find some wood and make a fire. You’ll like that. When we’re warm, we can…”

He didn’t know how to finish the sentence. He had never felt so frightened. But why? The danger was gone.

“Alice,” he said, “are you scared?”

“Yeah. But not much. If it was just me, I would be. But not so much with us both… ”

He set off up the little slope towards the wood. The trees clustered so close and thick that he could hardly force his way between them, and when he did, the leaves scratched his hands and his head; but this was a relief. Any activity was a relief. And there were dry branches enough on the ground, and dry sticks, and soon he’d gathered an armful.

But when he came out of the trees, he found Alice on her feet, desperate.

“What is it?”

“They’re coming back—”

She pointed. In the direction they’d come from, there was a light on the water — the searchlight — and although it was still some way off, the boat had the air of something official, the police, the CCD; it was searching for something or someone. It was coming, not fast but inexorably, and it would see them very soon.

And at that there was a rustling among the leaves, and the branches parted, and a man stepped out.

“Malcolm,” said the man, “get your boat further in the trees, quick. Bring the baby in here out the way. That’s the CCD down there. Come on!”

“Mr. Boatwright?” said Malcolm, utterly astonished.

“Yes, that’s me. Now hurry up.”

While Alice ran with Lyra up to the shelter of the trees, Malcolm untied La Belle Sauvage and, with George Boatwright’s help, pulled it up the slope and under the low branches before taking Bonneville’s rucksack and turning the canoe upside down in case it rained again.

Meanwhile, the boat with the searchlight was getting closer.

“How d’you know it’s the CCD?” he whispered.

“They been patrolling. Don’t worry. If we keep still and quiet, they won’t stop.”

“The baby—”

“Drop o’ wine’ll keep her quiet,” said Boatwright, handing something to Alice.

Malcolm looked around. There was no one to see but Boatwright and a score of shadows, but then the moon went in again and the shadows dissolved in a deeper darkness. The boat with its searchlight moved closer.

“Where’s Alice?” Malcolm whispered to Asta.

Almost inaudibly his dæmon murmured, “Further in. Giving Lyra a drink.”

The men in the boat had seen something that interested them. The searchlight was turning towards the shore, and then shining straight up into the trees. Malcolm felt as if every inch of him was visible.

“Keep still and they won’t see a thing,” muttered George Boatwright from the darkness.

A voice from the boat said, “Is that footprints?”

“Where?” said another.

“On the grass. Down there — look.”

The searchlight swung down. The voices spoke again more quietly.

“Will they—” Malcolm began to whisper, but Boatwright’s hard smoky-smelling hand shut his mouth.

“Don’t bother with it,” one of the voices said. “Come on.”

Then the light swung away and the engine noise rose, and the boat steadily moved away. A minute later it had vanished on the flood.

Boatwright took his hand away. Malcolm could hardly speak. He was shaking in every limb. He stumbled, and Boatwright caught him.

“When’d you last eat or sleep, eh?” he said.

“Can’t remember.”

“Well, thassit, then. Come along here and have a bit of stew. Eh, your mum’d be proud of a stew like we got in the cave. Want me to carry that?”

The rucksack was heavy, but Malcolm shook his head, and then said, “No,” realizing that subtle gestures were lost in the dark. He struggled to put his arms through the straps, and Boatwright helped him. A few paces further on there was a little clearing, where Alice was sitting on a fallen tree trunk with Lyra, who was fast asleep on her lap. She’d been feeding her with a teaspoon from a bottle of wine.

When Alice saw Malcolm, she got to her feet at once and came to his side, Lyra tight in her arms.

“Here, take Lyra. I got to pee… ”

She thrust the child at him and darted into the undergrowth. Trembling or not, Malcolm held on to the child as firmly as he could and listened to her contented breathing. “We ought to’ve given you wine before,” he said to her. “You’re sleeping like a baby.”

Boatwright said, “Five minutes’ walk, lad. You want to bring anything else from the canoe?”

“Will it be safe?”

“It’s invisible, son. Can’t get safer’n that.”

“Good. Well… there’s things for the baby. Alice knows what they are.”

She came back at that moment, brushing her skirt down, and having heard what they said, she gathered an armful of things: a pillow, blankets, the saucepan, a packet of nappies, a box of milk powder… But she was trembling as much as Malcolm.

“Spread that blanket out on the ground,” said Boatwright, and when she did, he packed everything in the center, gathered in the four corners, and swung the bundle over his shoulder. “Now follow me.”

“You all right carrying her?” Alice whispered.

“For a bit, yeah. She’s fast asleep.”

“We oughter tried wine before… ”

“That’s what I thought.”

“I dunno what effect it’ll have on her insides. Here, let me take her. You got that rucksack. Where’d you get it anyway? Is it his?”

“Yeah,” said Malcolm. “From his boat.”

He was glad to hand the child over, because the rucksack was heavy. He had no idea why he’d taken it, except as something to bargain with. Perhaps they wouldn’t need it now. Maybe Bonneville was a spy, in which case Dr. Relf would be interested in it.

But that made his throat catch. Just the thought of those cozy afternoons in that warm house, talking about books, hearing about the history of ideas! And he might have to be a fugitive for the rest of his life, an outlaw, like Mr. Boatwright. It was all very well in the flood, when everything was upside down, but when the water retreated and normal life emerged… Well, actually, nothing would be normal and safe ever again.

After some minutes’ walking, they came to a larger clearing in front of a rock that rose sheer from the ground. The moon had come out again, and in its silver light they saw the entrance to a cave half hidden behind the undergrowth. The smoke of a fire was drifting through the air, with various good smells of meat and gravy, and the sound of quiet voices.

Mr. Boatwright lifted a heavy sheet of canvas and held it open for Malcolm and Alice. They went in, and all conversation stopped. In the light of a lantern, they saw half a dozen people, men and women and two children, sitting on the floor or on wooden boxes, eating from tin plates. Beside the fire was a large woman whom Malcolm recognized: Mrs. Boatwright.

She saw Alice first and said, “Alice Parslow? That en’t you, is it? I know your mam. And you’re Malcolm Polstead from the Trout — well, God bless me. What’s going on, George?”

George Boatwright said, “Survivors on the flood, they are.”

“You can call me Audrey,” said the woman, getting to her feet. “And who’s this? He? She?”

“She,” said Malcolm. “Lyra.”

“Well, she needs a clean nappy. We got warm water over here. You got food for her? It’ll have to be milk powder — oh, you got some. That’ll do. I’ll put a saucepan on to boil while you change her and clean her. Then you can both have a bite to eat yourselves. You floated all the way from Oxford? You must be worn out. Eat, then sleep.”

“Where are we?” said Malcolm.

“Somewhere in the Chilterns. That’s all I know. Safe for the time being. These other folk, they’re all like us, in the same position kind of thing, but you don’t inquire too close — it en’t polite.”

“All right,” said Alice.

“Thank you,” said Malcolm, and went with Alice to a corner of the cave away from the people who were eating.

Audrey Boatwright brought a lantern and hung it up. In its warm light, Alice set about undoing Lyra’s sopping clothes and handing the stinking bundle to Malcolm.

“Her dress and everything’s all…,” he said.

“I’ll wrap her in the blanket for now and dress her properly when it’s aired out a bit or washed if we can.”

Malcolm took the soggy bundle and carefully separated what was to be thrown away and what was to be washed. He looked around, wondering what they did with rubbish, and found a boy of about his own age looking at him.

“You want to know where to throw it?” the boy said. “Come with me. I’ll show you. What’s your name?”

“Malcolm. What’s yours?”

“Andrew. That your sister?”

“What, Alice? No…”

“I mean the baby.”

“Oh. We’re just looking after her in the flood.”

“Where you from?”

“Oxford. You?”

“Wallingford. Look, you can throw that in the pit there.”

The boy seemed to want to be helpful, but Malcolm wasn’t inclined to talk. All he wanted to do was sleep. Still, on the principle of not making enemies, he let the boy guide him back to the cave and exchanged a question or two.

“Are you here with your parents?” Malcolm asked.

“No. Just my auntie.”

“Did you get flooded out?”

“Yeah. Lots of people in our street got drowned. There’s never been such a flood since Noah’s time, prob’ly.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised. It won’t last long, though, I don’t suppose.”

“Forty days and forty nights.”

“You reckon? Oh — yeah,” said Malcolm, remembering his Bible lessons.

“What’s the baby’s name?”

“Lyra.”

“Lyra… And who’s the big girl? Did you say her name was Alice?”

“She’s just a friend. Thanks for showing me the pit. G’night.”

“Oh, g’night,” said Andrew, sounding a little put out.

Alice was feeding Lyra, sitting under the lantern light, looking exhausted. Audrey Boatwright came over with two tin plates heaped with stew and potatoes, steaming hot.

“Give her to me,” she said. “I’ll finish her off. You need to eat.”

Alice handed the child over without a word, and started to eat, as Malcolm had already done. He had never felt so hungry, never felt his hunger so gratified, not even in his mother’s kitchen.

He finished the stew and almost immediately felt his eyes closing. But he managed to force himself awake enough to take Lyra from Audrey, who was patting her back, and carry her to where Alice was already curling up on the floor.

“Here,” said Mr. Boatwright, handing him a bundle of blankets and canvas bags roughly filled with hay. With the last of his wakefulness, Malcolm pushed them into shape and laid them side by side, and then, putting Lyra between them, lay down next to Alice and fell at once into the deepest sleep of his life.

And it was Lyra who woke them when the gray light of a wet dawn crept into the cave. Asta sleepily nipped Malcolm’s ear, and he came awake like someone struggling to swim to the surface of a lake of laudanum, where the strongest delights were the deepest and there was nothing above but cold and fear and duty.

Lyra was crying, and Asta was trying to comfort Pan, but the little ferret wouldn’t be comforted and burrowed closer around Lyra’s neck, only irritating her further. Malcolm, heavy-eyed, forced himself up and rocked the child gently to and fro. That didn’t help either, so he picked her up.

“You been productive in the night,” he whispered. “I never knew such a fountain of manure. I’ll have to see if I can do the changing of the guard myself. Alice is still asleep, see.”

She was a little happier in his arms, but not much. She whimpered instead of crying fully, and Pan looked out and let Asta lick his nose.

“What you doing?” mumbled Alice, and instantly her dæmon was awake and growling softly.

“ ’S all right,” said Malcolm. “I’m going to change her, that’s all.”

“You can’t,” said Alice, sitting up. “You’ll do it all wrong.”

“Yeah, I prob’ly would,” said Malcolm with some relief.

“What’s the time?”

“About dawn.”

They spoke in the quietest of whispers; neither wanted to wake the other sleepers. Gathering a blanket around her shoulders, Alice crawled to the fire and put another log on the ashy heap, stirring it until she found a few red embers, and put the saucepan on to heat. There was a cask of fresh water nearby; Audrey had said that anyone who used some had to refill it from the spring outside, so she made sure to do that while waiting for the saucepan to heat up.

Meanwhile, Malcolm walked up and down with Lyra. They went to the mouth of the cave and looked out at the rain, heavy, incessant, falling straight down through the sodden air. They looked back into the cave, where sleepers lay on both sides, some alone, some snuggled up together. There were more of them than he’d been aware of the night before; perhaps they’d already been there, fast asleep, or perhaps they’d come in later on. They might have been poaching. If the flood had forced deer and pheasants as well as people high up above their usual dens and nests, there should be plenty of them around to catch.

He whispered all this to Lyra, rocking her from side to side as he walked about. At one point, Asta whispered, “Look at Pan,” and Malcolm noticed that the little dæmon, kitten-shaped, was unwittingly kneading the flesh of Malcolm’s hand with his tiny claws. Malcolm felt astonished, shy, privileged. The great taboo against touching another’s dæmon was not instinctual but learned, then. He felt a wave of love for the child and her dæmon, but that made no difference to them, because Lyra was still grizzling and Pantalaimon soon let go of Malcolm’s hand and became a toad.

And then the fear came back. What they’d done to Bonneville… When the CCD men in their boat found the dæmon with the shattered leg and the man with a wound in his thigh, they’d have one more reason to hunt Malcolm and Alice down. Was the knife still in the wound? Was Bonneville actually dead? He couldn’t remember. Everything had passed with such nightmarish speed.

“Ready,” said Alice very quietly behind him, and he nearly leapt in the air with shock. But she didn’t laugh. She seemed to know just what he was thinking, and to be thinking the same herself. The look they exchanged in the mouth of the cave before going back to the fire was something Malcolm never forgot: it was deep and complex and close, and it touched every part of him, body and dæmon and ghost.

He knelt beside her, and he and Asta occupied Lyra’s attention while Alice washed and dried her.

“You can see her thinking, even though she hasn’t got any words,” he said.

“Not this end,” said Alice shortly.

One or two sleepers were beginning to stir as the light grew stronger. Malcolm took the bundle to be thrown away and tried to move very quietly as he carried it out to the pit the boy had shown him.

“I didn’t see him in the cave,” Asta whispered.

“Perhaps he sleeps somewhere else.”

They found the rubbish pit and hurried back because the rain was drenching. When they got there, Audrey was holding Lyra, who seemed comfortable enough, even if a little doubtful, while Alice prepared the milk.

“Who’s her mother?” Audrey said, settling herself next to the fire.

“We don’t know,” said Malcolm. “She was being looked after by the nuns at Godstow, so she must be someone important.”

“Oh, I know the ones you mean,” said Audrey. “Sister Benedicta.”

“Yes, she’s in charge. But it was Sister Fenella who looked after her mostly.”

“What happened?”

“The priory collapsed in the flood. We just got her out in time. Then we got swept away.”

“So you don’t know who her family is?”

“No,” said Malcolm. He was getting better at lying.

Audrey handed the child over to Alice, who had the bottle ready. A little way off, Mr. Boatwright stood up and stretched and went out of the cave, and others were stirring.

“Who is everyone?” said Malcolm. “Is it all your family?”

“There’s my son, Simon, and his wife and two little kids. The others are… just others.”

“There’s a boy called Andrew. I spoke to him last night.”

“Yes, he’s Doris Whicher’s nephew. That’s Doris over there by the big rock. They come from Wallingford way. My, she’s hungry, en’t she?” she said admiringly, watching Lyra’s lusty guzzling.

Doris Whicher was still asleep. There was no sign of Andrew.

“I don’t suppose we’ll stay long,” said Malcolm. “Just till the rain’s stopped.”

“You stay as long as you need to. You’ll be safe here. No one knows about this place. There’s a few of us got reason to be careful who knows where they are, and we en’t lost anyone yet.”

Mr. Boatwright came out of the rain carrying a dead chicken.

“Know how to pluck a chicken, Malcolm?” he said.

Actually, Malcolm did, because of watching Sister Fenella doing it in the priory kitchen. He’d done it once or twice in his mother’s kitchen too. He took the bird, a scrawny item, and set to work while Mr. Boatwright sat down and stirred the fire up before lighting a pipe.

“What’d they say after I vanished, eh?” he said. “Anyone guess where I’d gone?”

“No,” said Malcolm. “They all said you were the only person that had ever got away from the CCD. And the officers came back the next day and asked a lot of questions, but no one said anything, except one or two said you had evil dark powers, like making yourself invisible, and the CCD had no hope of finding you, ever.”

Mr. Boatwright laughed so much he had to put his pipe down.

“Hear that, Audrey?” he wheezed. “Invisible!”

“I wish you was inaudible sometimes,” she said.

“No,” he went on, “I been preparing for summat like that. You got to have an escape route, no matter where you are. Always have an escape route. And when the time comes, don’t hesitate a single second. Eh, Audrey? We had our escape route and we took it that same night the bastards come to the Trout.”

“Did you come straight here?”

“In a manner of speaking. There’s hidden pathways and hidden refuges, all across the woods, all across Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire and Berkshire and beyond. You could go from Bristol to London by them hidden pathways and no one’d ever know you were doing it.”

“What happened when the flood came?”

“Ah, all we done was go up higher. This spot where we are now is the highest piece of land in Berkshire. We know all the shortcuts and the shallow ways and the deep ways. We can always slip away and they’ll never catch us. And the water’s on our side, not theirs.”

“I don’t understand,” said Malcolm, turning the chicken over.

“The creatures in the water, Malcolm. I don’t mean fish neither, nor water voles; I mean the old gods. Old Father Thames, I seen him a few times, with his crown and his weeds and his trident. He’s on our side. The bloody CCD, they won’t never win against Old Father Thames. And other beings as well. There was a man with us, he saw a mermaid near Henley. The sea was so full she come right up the river, even that far from the coast, and this chap, he swore to me that if he saw that mermaid again, he’d go off with her. Well, two days later he disappeared, and chances are he did just that. I believe it, anyway.”

“If that was Tom Simms,” said Audrey, “I’d say he was probably drunk and his mermaid was a porpoise.”

“She weren’t a porpoise. He spoke to her, didn’t he? And she spoke back. She had a voice sweeter than a chime of bells, he said. Ten to one he’s living with her now, out in the German Ocean.”

“He’ll be bloody cold if he is,” said Audrey. “Here, give me that chicken. I’ll finish it off.”

Malcolm had made a reasonable job of it, he thought, but he was glad to let her take over. His hands were numb with cold and he couldn’t grip the smaller feathers.

“Get yourself some bread from the bin over there,” Audrey told him. “There’s cheese in the bin next to it.”

The bins were galvanized steel dustbins. In the first one, there were three and a half heavy loaves, hard and stale, and a knife to cut them with. Malcolm cut a thick slice for himself and another for Alice, and carved some cheese to go with them as the woman Doris Whicher woke up nearby and looked around blearily.

“Andrew?” she said. “Where’s Andrew?”

“I haven’t seen him this morning,” Malcolm said.

She rolled over and sat up in a thick smell of alcohol. “Where’s he gone?”

“I saw him last night.”

“Who are you, then?”

“Malcolm Polstead,” he told her. There was no point in giving himself a false name, since Mr. Boatwright knew exactly who he was.

Doris Whicher groaned and lay down again, and Malcolm took the bread and cheese over to Alice. Audrey Boatwright was holding Lyra up and patting her back, and Lyra obliged with a fine expression of wind. Malcolm sat down to gnaw at the bread and cheese and found it hard going, but his stomach was glad of the effort his teeth were making.

And then, once he was able to sit and relax, the realization came back: he had killed Bonneville. He and Alice, they were murderers. The dreadful word was stamped on his mind as if by a printing press on a sheet of paper, and the ink was red. Asta became a moth and flew from his shoulder to Alice’s dæmon, and Ben tilted his head as Asta whispered to him. Mrs. Boatwright was walking up and down, showing Lyra to the people who were just waking, and someone else was attending to the chicken, gutting it and jointing it and sprinkling it with flour. If that was going to feed everyone in the cave, Malcolm thought, trying to distract himself, there wouldn’t be much on anyone’s plate.

But Alice had moved closer, and she was leaning in to whisper something.

“Mr. Boatwright… D’you trust him?”

“I… think so. Yes.”

“ ’Cause we didn’t ought to stay here much longer.”

“I think so too. And there’s a boy…”

He told her about Andrew. She frowned.

“And he en’t here now?”

“No. I’m a bit worried.”

At that moment, Andrew’s aunt stumbled up to the fire and sat down heavily. Alice glared at her. Doris Whicher didn’t notice; she was in the throes of a hangover, and the smell of liquor was so strong that Malcolm thought she ought to breathe more carefully near the fire. Her crow dæmon kept falling down and scrabbling up again.

Then she looked at Malcolm and said, “Who was asking me about Andrew? Was it you?”

“Yes. I didn’t know where he was.”

“Why d’you want to know?”

“ ’Cause we were talking last night and he said something interesting and I was going to ask him about it.”

“Is it that bloody league?”

Every nerve in Malcolm’s body sprang awake.

“The League of St. Alexander? Is he a member?”

“Yeah, little bastard. If I says to him once—”

Malcolm got up at once, and Alice, seeing his urgency, followed.

“We got to go,” he said. “Right now.”

Alice ran to Audrey Boatwright, who was talking to another woman near the cave entrance, jogging Lyra comfortably on her bosom. Malcolm looked around and saw George Boatwright bending some sticks together to make a trap.

“Mr. Boatwright — sorry to disturb you — but we’ve got to go right away. Can you show us the path down—”

“Don’t worry about that CCD boat,” said Boatwright confidently. “Chances are, they—”

“No, it’s not them. We got to get Lyra away before—”

But there were loud voices behind him. He turned swiftly to see Alice trying to get between Mrs. Boatwright and a man in a dark uniform, and three other men behind him spread out to prevent anyone leaving the cave. And lurking behind them, half ashamed, half proud, was Andrew.

Malcolm ran to help Alice, who was trying to pull Lyra from Audrey Boatwright’s arms. But then one of the men grabbed Alice by the neck, and he was shouting, and Malcolm was shouting too, and he didn’t know what he was saying. Audrey was trying to shelter Lyra, turning away, trying to move back into the cave, and Mr. Boatwright was trying to help her, and Lyra was screaming in fear. At one moment, Malcolm reached Mrs. Boatwright and had his hands on Lyra and began to lift her away, and the next moment came a shocking blow on his head and he fell sprawling half conscious to the ground; and Alice was biting the arms that held her, and lashing out with both feet, and screaming.

Malcolm dragged himself to his knees, dizzy and weak and almost totally confused. Through the tumult of voices, one voice cried out to him with perfect clarity, that of Lyra, and he called back, “Lyra! Lyra! I’m coming!”

But a heavy weight crashed into him and knocked him flat again. It was Audrey Boatwright, who had lost hold of Lyra and been knocked off her feet by one of the men. Malcolm struggled to get out from under her body, but it was so hard, because she was struggling too, and then he found himself on his knees again, and Alice was lying still on the ground, and so was George Boatwright. Someone was wailing and crying, but it wasn’t Lyra; someone else a long way off was shouting, a woman’s voice, incoherent with rage and helplessness. Audrey Boatwright began to sob as she found her husband unconscious beside her.

But the dark-uniformed men were gone, and Lyra was gone with them.