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

by Philip Pullman

In the kitchen she found some paper and a pencil and left a note: Sorry—so sorry—and thank you so much—but I’ve got to go. Can’t explain. Lyra.

  Two minutes later she was walking along the riverbank again, and looking only at the path ahead of her, with the hood of her parka pulled up over her head. If she saw anyone, she’d have to take no notice. People often carried their dæmons, if they were small enough, in a pocket or buttoned inside their coats. She might be doing that. There was no need for anyone to suspect her if she walked on quickly, and it was still early.

  But the journey to Botley, where Dick lived with his family, still took most of an hour, even walking fast, and she heard the bells of the city across the expanse of Port Meadow, striking unhelpfully—what? Half past seven? Half past eight? Surely not yet. She wondered what time his night shift finished. If he started work at ten, then he should be coming out sometime soon.

  She slowed down as she came to Binsey Lane. It was going to be a rare clear day; the sun was bright now and the air was fresh. Binsey Lane led down from the meadow into the Botley Road, the main route into Oxford from the west. And people would be getting up now, and going to work. She hoped they’d be too busy to look at her, and had their own worries and preoccupations; she hoped that she looked uninteresting, as Will made himself look, as the witches did when they made themselves invisible, so that no one would give them more than a glance, and then forget them at once. She might be a witch herself, with her dæmon hundreds of miles away on the tundra.

  That thought sustained her until she reached the Botley Road, where she had to look up to check the traffic before she could cross, and to look for the right little street going off the other side. She’d been to the Orchards’ house three or four times: she remembered the front door, even if she’d forgotten the number.

  She knocked. Dick should be home by now…surely? But what if he wasn’t, and she had to explain herself to his mother or his father, who were nice enough, but…She almost turned and walked away, but then the door opened, and it was Dick.

  “Lyra! What you doing here? You all right?” He looked tired, as if he’d just come home from work.

  “Dick, are you on your own? Is there anyone else in?”

  “What’s the matter? What’s happened? There’s only me and my gran. Come in. Hang on….” His vixen dæmon was backing away behind his legs and uttering a little cry. He picked her up, and then he saw what the matter was. “Where’s Pan? Lyra, what’s going on?”

  “I’m in trouble,” she said, and she couldn’t hold her voice steady. “Please, can I come in?”

  “Yeah, sure, course you can….”

  He moved back to make room in the little hall, and she stepped inside quickly and shut the door behind her. She could see all kinds of consternation and anxiety in his eyes, but he hadn’t flinched for a moment.

  “He’s gone, Dick. He’s just left me,” she said.

  He put a finger to his lips and looked upstairs. “Come in the kitchen,” he said quietly. “Gran’s awake, and she’s easily frightened. She can’t make sense of things.”

  He looked at her again, as if he were unsure who she was, and then led the way along the narrow corridor to the kitchen, which was warm and rich with the smell of fried bacon.

  She said, “I’m sorry, Dick. I need some help, and I thought—”

  “Sit down. You want some coffee?”

  “Yes. Thanks.”

  He filled a kettle and set it on the range. Lyra sat in the wooden armchair on one side of the fire, holding her rucksack tight against her chest. Dick sat in the other. His dæmon, Bindi, leapt up to his lap and sat close, trembling.

  “I’m sorry, Bindi,” Lyra said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why he went. Or, I mean, I do, but it’s hard to explain. We—”

  “We always wondered if you could do this,” said Dick.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Separate. We never seen you do it, but it just felt like if anyone could do it, you could. When did he go?”

  “In the night.”

  “No message or nothing?”

  “Not exactly…We’d been arguing….It was difficult.”

  “You didn’t want to wait in case he came back?”

  “He won’t come back for a long time. Maybe never.”

  “You don’t know.”

  “I think I’ve got to go and look for him, Dick.”

  A thin cry came from upstairs. Dick looked at the door. “Better go and see what she wants,” he said. “Won’t be a minute.”

  Bindi was out of the door before he was. Lyra sat still and closed her eyes, trying to breathe calmly. When he came back, the kettle was boiling. A spoonful of coffee essence in each mug, a splash of milk, the offer of sugar, and he poured some water into two mugs and handed one to Lyra.

  “Thanks. Is your gran all right?” she said.

  “Just old and confused. She can’t sleep easy, so there’s got to be someone here with her in case she gets up and does herself some damage.”

  “You know the grandfather you mentioned the other night at the White Horse…is she his wife?”

  “No. This one’s Dad’s mother. The gyptians are on Mum’s side of the family.”

  “And you said he was in Oxford now?”

  “Yeah, he is. He had a delivery to the Castle Mill boatyard, but he’s off soon. Why?”

  “Could he…D’you think I could meet him?”

  “Yeah, if you want to. I’ll go there with you when Mum gets back.”

  His mother worked as a cleaner in Worcester College, Lyra remembered. “When would that be?” she said.

  “About eleven. But she might be a bit later. Do a bit of shopping or something. Why d’you want to meet my grandad?”

  “I need to go to the Fens. There’s someone I have to see there. I need to ask the best way of getting there without being seen or caught or…I just want to ask his advice.”

  He nodded. He didn’t look very gyptian himself at the moment; his hair was disheveled, his eyes red-rimmed with tiredness. He sipped his coffee.

  “I don’t want to get you into trouble either,” she added.

  “Is this something to do with what you told me the other night? Someone being killed near the river?”

  “Probably. But I can’t see the connection yet.”

  “Benny Morris is still away from work, by the way.”

  “Oh, the man with the wounded leg. You haven’t told anyone about what I said?”

  “Yeah, I put a great big notice up on the bloody canteen wall. What d’you take me for? I wouldn’t give you away, gal.”

  “No. I know that.”

  “But this is serious stuff, right?”

  “Yes. It is.”

  “Anyone else know about it?”

  “Yeah. A man called Dr. Polstead. Malcolm Polstead. He’s a Scholar at Durham College, and he used to teach me a long time ago. But he knows about it all because…Oh, it’s complicated, Dick. But I trust him. He knows things that no one else…I can’t tell him about Pan leaving, though. I just can’t. Pan and me, we’d been quarreling. It was horrible. We just couldn’t agree about important things. It was like being split in half….And then this murder happened, and suddenly I was in danger. I think someone knows I saw it. I stayed at Dr. Polstead’s parents’ pub for a couple of nights, but—”

  “Which pub’s that?”

  “The Trout at Godstow.”

  “Do they know Pan’s…disappeared?”

  “No. I left before anyone got up this morning. I really need to get to the Fens, Dick. Can I see your grandad? Please?”

  There was another cry from upstairs, and a thump, as if something heavy had fallen on the floor. Dick shook his head and hurried out.

  Lyra was too restless to sit still. She got up and looked out of the kitch
en window at the neat little yard with its cobblestones and bed of herbs, and at the calendar on the kitchen wall with a picture of Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guard, and at the frying pan on the draining board with the bacon fat already beginning to congeal. She felt like crying, but took three deep breaths and blinked hard.

  The door opened, and Dick came back. “She’s woken up proper now, dammit,” he said. “I’ll have to take her some porridge. Sure you can’t stay here for a while? They’ll never know.”

  “No. I’ve really got to keep moving.”

  “Well, take this, then.” He held out his blue-and-white-spotted neckerchief, or one very similar, tied in a complicated knot.

  “Thanks. But why?”

  “The knot. It’s a gyptian thing. It means you’re asking for help. Show it to my grandad. His boat’s called the Maid of Portugal. He’s a big tough man, good-looking, like me. You won’t miss him. He’s called Giorgio Brabandt.”

  “All right. And thanks, Dick. I hope your gran gets better.”

  “There’s only one way that’ll end. Poor old girl.”

  Lyra kissed him. She felt very fond of him. “See you…when I get back,” she said.

  “How long you going to stay in the Fens?”

  “As long as I need to, I hope.”

  “And what was that name again? Doctor something.”

  “Malcolm Polstead.”

  “Oh, yeah.” He came to the door with her. “If you go up Binsey Lane, past the last house, there’s a path through some trees on the right that takes you to the river. Cross the old wooden bridge and keep going a little way and you come to the canal. Go left up the towpath and that’ll get you to Castle Mill. Good luck. Just keep bundled up, then maybe they’ll think he’s…you know.”

  He gave her a kiss and embraced her briefly before seeing her out of the door. Lyra saw the compassion in Bindi’s eyes and wished that she could stroke the pretty little vixen, just for the sake of touching a dæmon again, but that was impossible.

  Lyra could hear the old woman calling in a quavering voice from upstairs. Dick shut the door, and Lyra was out in the open again.

  Back up to the Botley Road, still busy with traffic, and then Lyra went across and set off for the river. She kept her hood up and her head down, and before long she came to the path through the trees and the old wooden bridge that Dick had mentioned. To left and right the slow river extended, upstream through Port Meadow and downstream towards the Oxpens and the murder spot. There was no one in sight. Lyra crossed the bridge and continued on the muddy path between water meadows, and came to the canal, where a line of boats was moored, some with smoke coming out of their tin chimneys, one with a dog that barked furiously until she came closer, when it must have sensed something wrong: it turned and skulked down to the other end of the boat, whining.

  A little further along, Lyra saw a woman pegging out some washing on a line strung the length of her boat, and she said, “Good morning, lady. I’m looking for Giorgio Brabandt, of the Maid of Portugal. D’you know where he might have moored?”

  The woman turned to her, half-suspicious of any stranger and half-mollified by Lyra’s correct use of the term of respect for a gyptian stranger.

  “He’s further up,” she said. “At the boatyard. But he’s moving on today. You might have missed him.”

  “Thanks,” said Lyra, and walked on fast before the woman noticed anything wrong.

  The boatyard extended along an open space on the other side of the canal, under the campanile of the Oratory of St. Barnabas. It was a busy place; there was a chandlery, where Malcolm had gone twenty years before to look for some red paint; there were workshops of different kinds, a dry dock, a forge, and various pieces of heavy machinery. Gyptians and landlopers were working side by side, repairing a hull or repainting a roof or fitting a tiller, and the longest of the boats tied up, and by some way the most richly decorated, was the Maid of Portugal.

  Lyra crossed the little iron bridge and walked along the quay till she came to the boat. A large man with sleeves rolled up over his tattooed arms was kneeling in his cockpit, reaching down into the engine with a spanner. He didn’t look up when Lyra stopped beside the boat, but his black-and-silver keeshond dæmon, ruffed like a lion, stood up and growled.

  Lyra approached the boat, steady, quiet, watchful.

  “Good morning, Master Brabandt,” she said.

  The man looked up, and Lyra saw Dick’s features—larger, older, coarser, and stronger, but unmistakably Dick. He said nothing, but scowled and narrowed his eyes.

  Lyra took the neckerchief out of her pocket and held it carefully in both hands, opening them to display the knot.

  He looked at it, and his expression changed from suspicious to angry. A dull red suffused his face. “Where’d you get that?” he said.

  “Your grandson Dick gave it to me about half an hour ago. I went to see him because I’m in trouble and I need help.”

  “Put it away and come aboard. Don’t look around. Just step over the side and go below.”

  He wiped his hands on an oily rag. When she was inside the saloon, he came through to join her and shut the door behind him.

  “How’d you know Dick?” he said.

  “We’re just friends.”

  “And did he put this trouble in your belly?”

  For a moment Lyra didn’t know what he meant. Then she blushed. “No! It’s not that kind of trouble. I take better care of myself than that. It’s that…my dæmon…”

  She couldn’t finish the sentence. She felt horribly vulnerable, as if her affliction had suddenly become gross and visible. She shrugged and opened her parka and spread out her hands. Brabandt looked at her from head to foot, and his face lost all its color. He took a step backwards and clutched the door frame.

  “You en’t a witch?” he said.

  “No. Just human, that’s all.”

  “Dear God, then what’s happened to you?” he said.

  “My dæmon’s lost. I think he’s left me.”

  “And what d’you think I can do about it?”

  “I don’t know, Master Brabandt. But what I want to do is get to the Fens without being caught and see an old friend of mine. He’s called Coram van Texel.”

  “Farder Coram! And he’s a friend o’ yourn?”

  “I went to the Arctic with him and Lord Faa about ten years ago. Farder Coram was with me when we met Iorek Byrnison, the king of the bears.”

  “And what’s your name?”

  “Lyra Silvertongue. That’s the name the bear gave me. I was called Lyra Belacqua till then.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so?”

  “I just did.”

  For a moment she thought he was going to slap her for being insolent, but then his expression cleared as the blood came back to his cheeks. Brabandt was a good-looking man, just as his grandson had said, but he was perturbed now, and even a little frightened.

  “This trouble o’ yours,” he said. “When did it come on you?”

  “Just this morning. He was with me last night. But we had a terrible quarrel, and when I woke up, he was gone. I didn’t know what to do. Then I remembered the gyptians, and the Fens, and Farder Coram, and I thought he wouldn’t judge me badly, he’d understand, and he might be able to help me.”

  “We still talk about that voyage to the north,” he said. “Lord Faa’s dead and gone now, but that was a great campaign, no doubt about it. Farder Coram dun’t move much from his boat these days, but he’s bright and cheerful enough.”

  “I’m glad of that. I might be bringing him trouble, though.”

  “He won’t worry about that. But you weren’t going to travel like this, were you? How d’you expect to go anywhere without a dæmon?”

  “I know. It’ll be difficult. I can’t stay where I am, where I
was staying, because…I’ll bring trouble on them. There’s too many people coming and going there all the time. I couldn’t hide for long, and it wouldn’t be fair to them, because I think I’m in danger from the CCD as well. It was just luck I heard from Dick that you were in Oxford, and I thought maybe…I don’t know. I just don’t know where else to go.”

  “No, I can see that. Well…”

  He looked out through the window at the busy waterfront, and then down at his big keeshond dæmon, who returned his gaze calmly.

  “Well,” Brabandt said, “John Faa come back from that voyage with some gyptian children what we’d never’ve seen again else. We owe you that. And our people made some good friends among the witches, and that was something new. And I got no work on for a couple of weeks. Trade en’t good at the moment. You bin on a gyptian boat before? You must’ve bin.”

  “I sailed to the Fens with Ma Costa and her family.”

  “Ma Costa, eh? Well, she wouldn’t stand no nonsense. Can you cook and keep a place clean?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then welcome aboard, Lyra. I’m on me own at the moment, since me last girlfriend took a run ashore and never come back. Don’t worry—I en’t looking for a replacement, and in any case, you’re too young for me. I like my women with a bit o’ mileage on ’em. But if you cook and clean and do my washing, and keep out o’ sight of any landlopers, I’ll help you in your trouble and take you to the Fens. How’s that?”

  He held out his oily hand, and she shook it without hesitation.

  “It’s a bargain,” she said.

  * * *

  * * *

  At the very moment when Lyra was shaking the hand of Giorgio Brabandt, Marcel Delamare was in his office at La Maison Juste, touching a little bottle with the point of a pencil, pushing it sideways, turning it around. The weather was clear, and the sunlight fell across his mahogany desk and sparkled on the little bottle, which was no longer than his little finger, capped with a cork, and sealed with a reddish wax that had dripped halfway down the side.

  He picked it up and held it to the light. His visitor waited quietly: a man of Tartar appearance but in shabby European clothes, his face gaunt and sunburned.