His Dark Materials Omnibus (12 page)

“Count Belacqua. He was Lord Asriel’s brother.”

The old lady’s dæmon, a scarlet macaw, shifted as if in irritation from one foot to another. The old lady was beginning to frown with curiosity, so Lyra smiled sweetly and moved on.

She was going past a group of men and one young woman near the large sofa when she heard the word Dust. She had seen enough of society now to understand when men and women were flirting, and she watched the process with fascination, though she was more fascinated by the mention of Dust, and she hung back to listen. The men seemed to be Scholars; from the way the young woman was questioning them, Lyra took her to be a student of some kind.

“It was discovered by a Muscovite—stop me if you know this already—” a middle-aged man was saying, as the young woman gazed at him in admiration, “a man called Rusakov, and they’re usually called Rusakov Particles after him. Elementary particles that don’t interact in any way with others—very hard to detect, but the extraordinary thing is that they seem to be attracted to human beings.”

“Really?” said the young woman, wide-eyed.

“And even more extraordinary,” he went on, “some human beings more than others. Adults attract it, but not children. At least, not much, and not until adolescence. In fact, that’s the very reason—” His voice dropped, and he moved closer to the young woman, putting his hand confidentially on her
shoulder. “—that’s the very reason the Oblation Board was set up. As our good hostess here could tell you.”

“Really? Is
she
involved with the Oblation Board?”

“My dear, she
is
the Oblation Board. It’s entirely her own project—”

The man was about to tell her more when he caught sight of Lyra. She stared back at him unblinkingly, and perhaps he had had a little too much to drink, or perhaps he was keen to impress the young woman, for he said:

“This little lady knows all about it, I’ll be bound. You’re safe from the Oblation Board, aren’t you, my dear?”

“Oh, yes,” said Lyra. “I’m safe from everyone here. Where I used to live, in Oxford, there was all kinds of dangerous things. There was gyptians—they take kids and sell ’em to the Turks for slaves. And on Port Meadow at the full moon there’s a werewolf that comes out from the old nunnery at Godstow. I heard him howling once. And there’s the Gobblers.…”

“That’s what I mean,” the man said. “That’s what they call the Oblation Board, don’t they?”

Lyra felt Pantalaimon tremble suddenly, but he was on his best behavior. The dæmons of the two grownups, a cat and a butterfly, didn’t seem to notice.

“Gobblers?” said the young woman. “What a peculiar name! Why do they call them Gobblers?”

Lyra was about to tell her one of the bloodcurdling stories she’d made up to frighten the Oxford kids with, but the man was already speaking.

“From the initials, d’you see? General Oblation Board. Very old idea, as a matter of fact. In the Middle Ages, parents would give their children to the church to be monks or nuns. And the unfortunate brats were known as oblates. Means a sacrifice, an offering, something of that sort. So the same idea was taken up when they were looking into the Dust business.… As our little friend probably knows. Why don’t you go and talk to Lord Boreal?” he added to Lyra directly. “I’m sure he’d like to meet Mrs. Coulter’s protegée.… That’s him, the man with gray hair and the serpent dæmon.”

He wanted to get rid of Lyra so that he could talk more privately with the young woman; Lyra could tell that easily. But the young woman, it seemed, was still interested in Lyra, and slipped away from the man to talk to her.

“Stop a minute.… What’s your name?”

“Lyra.”

“I’m Adèle Starminster. I’m a journalist. Could I have a quiet word?”

Thinking it only natural that people should wish to talk to her, Lyra said simply, “Yes.”

The woman’s butterfly dæmon rose into the air, casting about to left and right, and fluttered down to whisper something, at which Adèle Starminster said, “Come to the window seat.”

This was a favorite spot of Lyra’s; it overlooked the river, and at this time of night, the lights across on the south bank were glittering brilliantly over their reflections in the black water of the high tide. A line of barges hauled by a tug moved upriver. Adèle Starminster sat down and moved along the cushioned seat to make room.

“Did Professor Docker say that you had some connection with Mrs. Coulter?”

“Yes.”

“What is it? You’re not her daughter, by any chance? I suppose I should know—”

“No!” said Lyra. “ ’Course not. I’m her personal assistant.”

“Her personal assistant? You’re a bit young, aren’t you? I thought you were related to her or something. What’s she like?”

“She’s very clever,” said Lyra. Before this evening she would have said much more, but things were changing.

“Yes, but personally,” Adèle Starminster insisted. “I mean, is she friendly or impatient or what? Do you live here with her? What’s she like in private?”

“She’s very nice,” said Lyra stolidly.

“What sort of things do you do? How do you help her?”

“I do calculations and all that. Like for navigation.”

“Ah, I see.… And where do you come from? What was your name again?”

“Lyra. I come from Oxford.”

“Why did Mrs. Coulter pick you to—”

She stopped very suddenly, because Mrs. Coulter herself had appeared close by. From the way Adèle Starminster looked up at her, and the agitated way her dæmon was fluttering around her head, Lyra could tell that the young woman wasn’t supposed to be at the party at all.

“I don’t know your name,” said Mrs. Coulter very quietly, “but I shall find it out within five minutes, and then you will never work as a journalist again. Now get up very quietly, without making a fuss, and leave. I might add that whoever brought you here will also suffer.”

Mrs. Coulter seemed to be charged with some kind of anbaric force. She even smelled different: a hot smell, like heated metal, came off her body. Lyra had felt something of it earlier, but now she was seeing it directed at someone else, and poor Adèle Starminster had no force to resist. Her dæmon fell limp
on her shoulder and flapped his gorgeous wings once or twice before fainting, and the woman herself seemed to be unable to stand fully upright. Moving in a slight awkward crouch, she made her way through the press of loudly talking guests and out of the drawing room door. She had one hand clutched to her shoulder, holding the swooning dæmon in place.

“Well?” said Mrs. Coulter to Lyra.

“I never told her anything important,” Lyra said.

“What was she asking?”

“Just about what I was doing and who I was, and stuff like that.”

As she said that, Lyra noticed that Mrs. Coulter was alone, without her dæmon. How could that be? But a moment later the golden monkey appeared at her side, and, reaching down, she took his hand and swung him up lightly to her shoulder. At once she seemed at ease again.

“If you come across anyone else who obviously hasn’t been invited, dear, do come and find me, won’t you?”

The hot metallic smell was vanishing. Perhaps Lyra had only imagined it. She could smell Mrs. Coulter’s scent again, and the roses, and the cigarillo smoke, and the scent of other women. Mrs. Coulter smiled at Lyra in a way that seemed to say, “You and I understand these things, don’t we?” and moved on to greet some other guests.

Pantalaimon was whispering in Lyra’s ear.

“While she was here, her dæmon was coming out of our bedroom. He’s been spying. He knows about the alethiometer!”

Lyra felt that that was probably true, but there was nothing she could do about it. What had that professor been saying about the Gobblers? She looked around to find him again, but no sooner had she seen him than the commissionaire (in servant’s dress for the evening) and another man tapped the professor on the shoulder and spoke quietly to him, at which he turned pale and followed them out. That took no more than a couple of seconds, and it was so discreetly done that hardly anyone noticed. But it left Lyra feeling anxious and exposed.

She wandered through the two big rooms where the party was taking place, half-listening to the conversations around her, half-interested in the taste of the cocktails she wasn’t allowed to try, and increasingly fretful. She wasn’t aware that anyone was watching her until the commissionaire appeared at her side and bent to say:

“Miss Lyra, the gentleman by the fireplace would like to speak to you. He’s Lord Boreal, if you didn’t know.”

Lyra looked up across the room. The powerful-looking gray-haired man was looking directly at her, and as their eyes met, he nodded and beckoned.

Unwilling, but more interested now, she went across.

“Good evening, child,” he said. His voice was smooth and commanding. His serpent dæmon’s mailed head and emerald eyes glittered in the light from the cut-glass lamp on the wall nearby.

“Good evening,” said Lyra.

“How is my old friend the Master of Jordan?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“I expect they were all sorry to say goodbye to you.”

“Yes, they were.”

“And is Mrs. Coulter keeping you busy? What is she teaching you?”

Because Lyra was feeling rebellious and uneasy, she didn’t answer this patronizing question with the truth, or with one of her usual flights of fancy. Instead she said, “I’m learning about Rusakov Particles, and about the Oblation Board.”

He seemed to become focused at once, in the same way that you could focus the beam of an anbaric lantern. All his attention streamed at her fiercely.

“Suppose you tell me what you know,” he said.

“They’re doing experiments in the North,” Lyra said. She was feeling reckless now. “Like Dr. Grumman.”

“Go on.”

“They’ve got this special kind of photogram where you can see Dust, and when you see a man, there’s like all light coming to him, and there’s none on a child. At least, not so much.”

“Did Mrs. Coulter show you a picture like that?”

Lyra hesitated, for this was not lying but something else, and she wasn’t practiced at it.

“No,” she said after a moment. “I saw that one at Jordan College.”

“Who showed it to you?”

“He wasn’t really showing it to
me,”
Lyra admitted. “I was just passing and I saw it. And then my friend Roger was taken by the Oblation Board. But—”

“Who showed you that picture?”

“My Uncle Asriel.”

“When?”

“When he was in Jordan College last time.”

“I see. And what else have you been learning about? Did I hear you mention the Oblation Board?”

“Yes. But I didn’t hear about that from him, I heard it here.”

Which was exactly true, she thought.

He was looking at her narrowly. She gazed back with all the innocence she had. Finally he nodded.

“Then Mrs. Coulter must have decided you were ready to help her in that work. Interesting. Have you taken part yet?”

“No,” said Lyra. What was he talking about? Pantalaimon was cleverly in his most inexpressive shape, a moth, and couldn’t betray her feelings; and she was sure she could keep her own face innocent.

“And has she told you what happens to the children?”

“No, she hasn’t told me that. I only just know that it’s about Dust, and they’re like a kind of sacrifice.”

Again, that wasn’t exactly a lie, she thought; she had never said that Mrs. Coulter herself had told her.

“Sacrifice
is rather a dramatic way of putting it. What’s done is for their good as well as ours. And of course they all come to Mrs. Coulter willingly. That’s why she’s so valuable. They must want to take part, and what child could resist her? And if she’s going to use you as well to bring them in, so much the better. I’m very pleased.”

He smiled at her in the way Mrs. Coulter had: as if they were both in on a secret. She smiled politely back and he turned away to talk to someone else.

She and Pantalaimon could sense each other’s horror. She wanted to go away by herself and talk to him; she wanted to leave the flat; she wanted to go back to Jordan College and her little shabby bedroom on Staircase Twelve; she wanted to find Lord Asriel—

And as if in answer to that last wish, she heard his name mentioned, and wandered closer to the group talking nearby with the pretext of helping herself to a canapé from the plate on the table. A man in a bishop’s purple was saying:

“… No, I don’t think Lord Asriel will be troubling us for quite some time.”

“And where did you say he was being held?”

“In the fortress of Svalbard, I’m told. Guarded by
panserbjørne
—you know, armored bears. Formidable creatures! He won’t escape from them if he lives to be a thousand. The fact is that I really think the way is clear, very nearly clear—”

“The last experiments have confirmed what I always believed—that Dust is an emanation from the dark principle itself, and—”

“Do I detect the Zoroastrian heresy?”

“What
used
to be a heresy—”

“And if we could isolate the dark principle—”

“Svalbard, did you say?”

“Armored bears—”

“The Oblation Board—”

“The children don’t suffer, I’m sure of it—”

“Lord Asriel imprisoned—”

Lyra had heard enough. She turned away, and moving as quietly as the moth Pantalaimon, she went into her bedroom and closed the door. The noise of the party was muffled at once.

“Well?” she whispered, and he became a goldfinch on her shoulder.

“Are we going to run away?” he whispered back.

“ ’Course. If we do it now with all these people about, she might not notice for a while.”

“He
will.”

Pantalaimon meant Mrs. Coulter’s dæmon. When Lyra thought of his lithe golden shape, she felt ill with fear.

“I’ll fight him this time,” Pantalaimon said boldly. “I can change and he can’t. I’ll change so quickly he won’t be able to keep hold. This time I’ll win, you’ll see.”

Lyra nodded distractedly. What should she wear? How could she get out without being seen?

“You’ll have to go and spy,” she whispered. “As soon as it’s clear, we’ll have to run. Be a moth,” she added. “Remember, the second there’s no one looking …”