Malcolm counted them out and put the first one in the vise while Mr. Taphouse put a second coat of Danish oil on the finished shutters to keep them safe from the weather.
“Course, there’s other sorts of evildoers than human ones,” the old man said.
“Is there?”
“Oh, yes. There’s spiritual evil as well. Take more’n an oak shutter to keep that out.”
“What d’you mean by spiritual evil? Ghosts?”
“Ghosts are the least of it, boy. Night-ghasts, specters, apparitions—all they can do is say boo and frighten you.”
“You ever seen a ghost, Mr. Taphouse?”
“Yes. Three times. Once in the graveyard over at St. Peter’s in Wolvercote. Another in the Old Gaol in town.”
“What were you in gaol for?”
“I wasn’t in gaol, you half-wit. It was the Old Gaol, after they built the new one. I was working there one winter’s day, taking down some of the old doors and that so they could paint it up nice and make it into offices or whatever. There was this one room—big tall place, high ceiling, only one window very high up, and that was all thick with cobwebs, and this dismal gray light coming in. I had to take down this big platform, oak beams, heavy stuff, I didn’t know what it was. Had a sort of trapdoor in the middle. Well, I was down on the floor, setting up my sawhorse, and I heard this tremendous bang from behind me, where the platform was. So I jumped and turned round, and damn me if there wasn’t a rope hanging through the trapdoor with a dead man on the end of it. That was the execution chamber, see, and the platform was the scaffold.”
“What did you do?”
“I fell to me knees and I prayed like fury. When I opened me eyes, it was gone. No rope, no dead man, and the trapdoor was closed.”
“Blimey!”
“Give me a proper turn, it did.”
“You never knelt down and prayed—you fainted clean away,” said the old man’s woodpecker dæmon from the workbench.
“Well, you may be right,” he said.
“I remember, because I fell off the sawhorse,” she said.
“Cor,” said Malcolm, deeply impressed. And then, ever practical, he said, “What did you do with the wood?”
“I burned it all. Couldn’t use it. Soaked in misery, it was.”
“Yeah, I bet….And where was the third ghost you saw?”
“Right in here. In fact, now I think of it, it was right where you’re standing. It was the most horrible thing I ever saw. It was indescribable. How old d’you think I am, eh?”
“Seventy?” said Malcolm, who knew well that Mr. Taphouse had had his seventy-fifth birthday the previous autumn.
“See, that’s what terror does to you. I’m thirty-nine, boy. I was a young man till I saw that apparition right there, exactly where you’re standing. Turned me hair white overnight.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Malcolm, half sure.
“Suit yourself. I shan’t tell you any more. How you doing with them screws?”
“I think you’re just making it up. I’ve done four.”
“Well, get on with—”
But before he could finish, there came a furious knocking at the door, and a desperate fumbling with the handle. Malcolm was already primed for fear and felt his skin prickle all over and a lurch in his stomach. He and the old man looked at each other, but before either could say a word, Sister Fenella called, “Mr. Taphouse! Come quickly! Please come and help!”
Without hurrying, Mr. Taphouse picked up a stout hammer and opened the door. Sister Fenella stumbled into the workshop and seized him by the arm.
“Come quickly!” she said, her voice high and quavering, every limb trembling, her face white.
She didn’t see Malcolm standing behind him, file in hand. He followed the two of them out quietly.
“What’s the trouble?” said the old man as she hurried him along the path to the priory kitchen.
Malcolm’s first thought was that a pipe had burst, but that wouldn’t account for the old nun’s terror. Then he thought there must be a fire, but there was no smell of smoke, no glare of flame. She was gabbling something to Mr. Taphouse, but he couldn’t make it out either, because he said, “Slow down, Sister. Slow down. Take a breath and speak slowly.”
“Some men—wearing uniforms—they came in and they want to take Lyra away—”
Malcolm could hardly stifle a cry. They probably wouldn’t have heard him anyway, over the sound of their feet on the gravel path, and Sister Fenella’s panic, and Mr. Taphouse’s hearing wasn’t all that good in the first place; but nothing was going to prevent Malcolm from following. He wished he’d picked up a hammer like the old man.
“They say who they were?” said Mr. Taphouse.
“No—or at least I didn’t understand—like soldiers, or police, or something—oh, dear—”
They were entering the kitchen as she said that. She clutched one hand to her heart and felt around with the other, and Malcolm darted to bring her a chair. She sank onto it, her breathing fast and shallow. Malcolm thought she might die, and he wanted to do something immediately to save her life, but he didn’t know what he could do; and in any case there was Lyra….
Sister Fenella gestured shakily towards the corridor. She couldn’t say anything.
Mr. Taphouse set off, slow and steady, and he didn’t seem to mind Malcolm coming too. In the corridor outside the room that was now Lyra’s, there was a group of nuns, all of whom Malcolm knew well, and they were crowding nervously around the door, which was closed.
“What’s going on, Sister Clara?” said Mr. Taphouse.
Sister Clara was plump and red-faced and sensible. She jumped slightly and turned round to whisper, “Three men in uniform—they say they’ve come to take the baby away. Sister Benedicta is talking to them….”
A man’s voice was rumbling behind the door. Mr. Taphouse moved towards it, and the nuns all shuffled out of his way. Malcolm went with him.
The old carpenter knocked firmly three times, and then opened the door. Malcolm heard a man’s voice saying, “But we have all the authority we need—”
Mr. Taphouse said, “Sister Benedicta, do you need my help?”
“Who is—” the man began, but Sister Benedicta spoke over him.
“Thank you, Mr. Taphouse. Please stay outside, if you’d be good enough. But leave the door open, because these gentlemen are about to go.”
“I don’t think you quite understand the situation,” said another man’s voice, educated and pleasant.
“I understand it perfectly,” she said. “You are going to go away, and I don’t expect you to come back.”
Malcolm marveled at the clarity and calm in her voice.
“Let me explain again,” said the second man. “We have a warrant from the Office of Child Protection—”
“Oh, yes, the warrant,” said Sister Benedicta. “Let me see it.”
“I have shown it to you already.”
“I want to see it again. You didn’t give me a chance to read it properly.”
There was the sound of a piece of paper being unfolded, and then a few seconds’ silence.
“What is this office, of which I have never heard?” she said.
“It’s under the jurisdiction of the Consistorial Court of Discipline, of which I expect you have heard.”
And then Malcolm, peering around the edge of the door, saw Sister Benedicta tear the sheet of paper into several pieces and throw them into the fire. One or two of the nuns gasped. The men watched, narrow-eyed. Their uniforms were black, and two of them hadn’t taken their caps off, which Malcolm knew was bad manners, apart from anything else.
Then Sister Benedicta picked up Lyra with the utmost care and held her tight.
“Did you seriously think for one moment,” she said, sounding fierce now, “that I would let this little baby, who has been given into our care, be taken away by three strangers on the strength of a single piece of paper? Three men who practically forced thei
r way into this holy building without any invitation? Who frightened the oldest and the least well of us with threats and weapons—yes, weapons—waving your guns in her face? Who do you think you are? What do you think this place is? The sisters have been giving care and hospitality here for eight hundred years. Think what that means. Am I going to abandon all our holy obligations because three bullies in uniform come shouldering their way in and try to frighten us? And for a helpless baby not six months old? Now go. Get out and don’t come back.”
“You haven’t heard—”
“Oh, now, go on—tell me I haven’t heard the last of it. Get out, you bully. Take your two thugs and go home. And you might think of praying to the good Lord and asking for forgiveness.”
All this time Malcolm had heard Lyra and her little dæmon chattering away in their pidgin English. Now, for some reason, they stopped, and a thin, uncertain sobbing began to come from her instead. Holding her tight, Sister Benedicta stood firm and faced the men, who had no choice; they turned sullenly and came towards the door. Mr. Taphouse stepped back to make room for them, and so did Malcolm and the nuns, so that there was almost a guard of dishonor for the men to walk through.
Once they’d gone, all the nuns flooded into the baby’s room and surrounded Sister Benedicta, uttering little words of sympathy and admiration, stroking Lyra’s head. Her crying stopped, and Malcolm saw her smile and laugh and preen herself, as if she had done something splendid.
Mr. Taphouse took him by the shoulder and pulled him gently away. As the two of them made their way back to the workshop, Malcolm asked, “Were they malefactors?”
“Yes, they were,” the old man replied. “Time to clear up now. Leave them screws till next time.”
He wouldn’t say any more, so Malcolm helped sweep up and tidy, and fetched a bucket of water for the rags Mr. Taphouse had been wiping the Danish oil on with, to stop them spontaneously combusting. Then he went home.
—
“Mum, what’s the Office of Child Protection?”
“Never heard of it. Eat your supper.”
In between mouthfuls of sausage and mash, Malcolm told his mother what had happened. She had seen Lyra herself now—had even held her—and so she realized what it would have meant for the nuns to be deprived of her.
“Wicked,” she said. “What happened to Sister Fenella?”
“She wasn’t in the kitchen when we went back through. She probably went to bed. She was well scared.”
“Poor old lady. I’ll take her round some cordial tomorrow.”
“Sister Benedicta didn’t budge an inch. You should have seen the malefactors when she tore their warrant up.”
“What d’you call ’em?”
“Malefactors. Mr. Taphouse told me that word.”
“Hmm” was all she said to that.
While Malcolm and his mother talked, Alice had been washing the dishes in her silent, sullen way, and she and Malcolm had been pointedly ignoring each other, as usual. But just then Mrs. Polstead left the kitchen to fetch something from the cellar, and to Malcolm’s great surprise, Alice’s dæmon growled.
Malcolm looked up, astonished. The dæmon was in the form of a big rough-coated mongrel, sitting behind Alice’s legs. The hair on his neck was bristling, and he was looking up at Alice, who wiped a wet and soapy hand on her dress before stroking his head with it.
Alice said, “I know what the Office of Child Protection is.”
Malcolm had a mouthful of food, but he managed to say, “What is it?”
Her dæmon said, “Bastards,” and growled again.
He didn’t know how to reply, and the dæmon said no more. Then Malcolm’s mother came back, the dæmon lay down, and Malcolm and Alice resumed their mutual silence.
—
There weren’t many customers in that evening, so there was little for Malcolm to do. He went to his room and wrote a list of the principal rivers of England for geography homework before drawing them on a map. There were more of them than he’d thought. He supposed that they must all be full, like the Thames, if it had been raining everywhere as it had been here in the south. And if they were, then the sea itself would get fuller. He wondered how La Belle Sauvage would float at sea. Could he paddle across to France? He opened his atlas to the page showing the English Channel and tried to measure it with his dividers and the miniature scale at the foot of the page, but it was all too small to read properly.
But no, it wasn’t too small. There was something in the way. Something was flickering and swimming exactly on the spot he was looking at, so that he couldn’t see it clearly, though everything around it seemed clear, at least until he moved his gaze to look at something else and the flickery thing moved too. It was always in the way, and he could see nothing behind it.
He brushed the page, but there was nothing there. He rubbed his eyes, but it still didn’t go away. In fact, it was even more curious because he could still see it when his eyes were closed.
And it was very slowly getting bigger. It wasn’t a spot anymore. It was a line: a curved line, like a loosely scribbled letter C, and it was sparkling and flickering in a zigzag pattern of blacks and whites and silvers.
Asta said, “What is it?”
“Can you see it?”
“I can feel something. What can you see?”
He described it as well as he could. “And what can you feel?” he added.
“Something strange, like a sort of far-off feeling…as if we’re a long way apart and I can see for miles and everything’s very clear and calm….I’m not afraid of anything, just calm….What’s it doing now?”
“Just getting bigger. I can see past it now. It’s getting closer, and I can see the words on the page and everything through the middle of it. It’s making me feel dizzy, a bit. If I try and look at it directly, it slides away. It’s about this big now.”
He held out his left hand with the thumb and forefinger curved round, indicating the gap between them to be about as long as the thumb itself.
“Are we going blind?” said Asta.
“I don’t think so, ’cause I can see perfectly well through it. It’s just getting closer and bigger, but sort of sliding out of the way too, out towards the edge…as if it’s just going to float past and behind my head.”
They sat in the quiet little room, in the warm lamplight, and waited until the sparkling line had drifted closer and closer to the edge of his vision, and eventually just beyond it, and then was gone. Altogether, from beginning to end, the experience lasted about twenty minutes.
“That was very strange,” he said. “Like spangled. Like that hymn—you remember: And the Hornèd moon at night, ’Mid her spangled sisters bright. It was spangled.”
“Was it real?”
“Of course it was real. I saw it.”
“But I couldn’t see it. It wasn’t outside. It was in you.”
“Yeah…but it was real. And you were feeling something. That was real too. So it must be part of it.”
“Yeah…I wonder what it means.”
“Maybe…I don’t know. Maybe nothing.”
“No, it must be something,” she said firmly.
But if it did mean something, they couldn’t imagine what. And before they could think about it anymore, there was a knock on his door, and the handle turned.
It was his father.
“Malcolm, you en’t in bed yet—good. Come downstairs for a minute. There’s a gentleman wants a word with you.”
“Is it the lord chancellor?” said Malcolm eagerly, jumping up and following his father out.
“Keep your voice down. It en’t the lord chancellor, no. He’ll tell you who he is if he wants to.”
“Where is he?”
“In the Terrace Room. Take him a glass of Tokay.”
“What’s that?”
“Hungarian wine. Come on, hurry up.”
“Has it suddenly got busy or something?”
“No. Gentleman wants to see you, that’s all. Mind
your manners and tell the truth.”
“I always do,” said Malcolm automatically.
“News to me,” said his father. But he ruffled Malcolm’s hair before they entered the bar.
The Tokay was a rich gold color and smelled sweet and complicated. Malcolm was seldom tempted by the drinks they sold in the Trout: beer was bitter, and wine was usually sour, and whisky was abominable. But if he could find the bottle later, he’d take a sip of this, all right, once his father’s back was turned.
Malcolm had to stand in the corridor outside the Terrace Room for a moment to regain his sense of reality. His mind was still absorbed by the spangled ring. He took a deep breath and went in.
The gentleman waiting gave him a start, though all he was doing was sitting by the cold fireplace. Perhaps it was his dæmon, a beautiful silvery spotted leopard, or perhaps it was his dark, saturnine expression; in any event, Malcolm felt daunted, and very young and small. Asta became a moth.
“Good evening, sir,” he said. “Your Tokay what you ordered. Would you like me to make up the fire? It’s ever so cold in here.”
“Is your name Malcolm?” The man’s voice was harsh and deep.
“Yes, sir. Malcolm Polstead.”
“I’m a friend of Dr. Relf,” said the man. “My name is Asriel.”
“Oh. Er—she hasn’t told me about you,” Malcolm said.
“Why did you say that?”
“Because if she had, I’d know it was true.”
The leopard growled, and Malcolm took a step backwards. But then he remembered how Sister Benedicta had faced down the men and stepped forward again.
Asriel gave a short laugh.
“I understand,” he said. “You want another reference? I’m the father of that baby in the priory.”
“Oh! You’re Lord Asriel!”
“That’s right. But how are you going to test the truth of that claim?”
“What’s the baby’s name?”
“Lyra.”
“And what’s her dæmon called?”
“Pantalaimon.”
“All right,” said Malcolm.
“All right now? You sure?”
“No, I en’t sure. But I’m more sure than I was.”
“Good. Can you tell me what happened earlier this evening?”
The Book of Dust, Volume 1 Page 13