The Book of Dust, Volume 1

by Philip Pullman

  But she couldn’t walk in the rain all afternoon. It was absurd. Besides, she had friends. She was a highly respectable member of a great Oxford college. She would be missed; questions would be asked; she knew lawyers who could get her out of any cell in a matter of hours.

  She turned back and made straight for her house. Splashing through the water that already lay an inch or two deep on the pavement, she called out when she was close enough: “Can I help? What do you want?”

  The man knocking turned and looked. She stood at the gate, trying to seem as if she wasn’t afraid.

  “This your house, ma’am?”

  “Yes. What is it you want?”

  “We’re from Environmental Protection, ma’am. Just calling on all the houses in this street and the others to see if you’re all right in case we get any flooding.”

  The speaker was a man in his forties, whose dæmon was a bedraggled-looking robin. The other man was younger. His dæmon was an otter, and she had been standing on the sandbags outside Hannah’s door. When Hannah spoke, the dæmon flowed over to the young man, who picked her up.

  “I—” Hannah began.

  “These sandbags are leaking, ma’am,” the young man said. “They’ll let water in down in that corner.”

  “Oh. Well, thank you for letting me know.”

  “All right round the back?” the other man said.

  “Yes, that’s sandbagged as well.”

  “Mind if we have a look?”

  “No, I suppose not….Round this way.”

  She led them along the narrow space between her house and next door’s fence, and stood back while they looked at the sandbags at the foot of the back door. While the younger man examined the gap between the door and the frame, the older man said, pointing next door: “Any idea who lives there, miss?”

  Miss, now, she thought.

  “It’s a man called Mr. Hopkins,” she said. “He’s rather old. I think he’s gone to stay with his daughter.”

  He peered over the fence. The house was dark and quiet.

  “No sandbags there,” he said. “Charlie, we better put a few bags here, front and back.”

  “Righto,” said Charlie.

  “Is it going to flood, then?” Hannah asked.

  “No way of telling, really. The weather forecast…” He shrugged. “Best to be ready, I always think.”

  “Quite true,” she said. “Thank you for checking.”

  “ ’S all right, miss. Ta-ta.”

  They splashed away to their van. Hannah pulled and pushed and kicked at the corner they’d said was leaking, to redistribute the sand, and then went inside and locked the door.

  —

  Malcolm was keen to speak to Sister Fenella and ask her what Lord Asriel had said to her in the night, but she simply refused to talk about it.

  “If you want to help, peel those apples” was all she said.

  He had never known her to be so stubborn. She didn’t even acknowledge his questions. Finally he felt he was being rude, and also felt that he should have realized that from the first, so he kept quiet and peeled and cored the Bramley apples, all misshapen and full of brown spots. The nuns sold their best specimens and kept the less perfect ones to eat themselves, though Malcolm thought Sister Fenella’s pies tasted pretty good, whatever the apples looked like. She generally kept back a small slice for him.

  When enough minutes had gone by, he said, “I wonder what Mr. Boatwright’s doing.”

  “If they haven’t caught him, I expect he’s still hiding in the woods,” said Sister Fenella.

  “He might be in disguise.”

  “What d’you think he’d disguise himself as?”

  “As a…I don’t know. His dæmon would have to be disguised as well.”

  “Much easier for children,” said her squirrel dæmon.

  “When you were little, what sort of games did you play?” said Malcolm.

  “Our favorite game was King Arthur,” said the old lady, putting down her rolling pin.

  “How did you play that?”

  “Pulling the sword out of the stone. You remember, no one else could pull it out, and he didn’t know it was impossible and he just put his hand on the hilt, and out it came….”

  She took a clean knife from the drawer and thrust it into the big lump of pastry she hadn’t yet rolled.

  “There, now you pretend you can’t pull it out,” she said, and Malcolm went into a pantomime of vast effort, straining and grunting and gritting his teeth and hauling at the knife without moving it at all. Asta joined in, heaving at his wrist as a monkey.

  “And then the boy Arthur goes to fetch his brother’s sword—” said Sister Fenella’s dæmon.

  “—and he sees the sword stuck in the stone and thinks, Oh, I’ll take that one,” said Sister Fenella, and her dæmon finished, “And he set his hand on the hilt, and it came out—just like that!”

  Sister Fenella pulled out the knife and waved it in the air.

  “And so Arthur became the king,” she said.

  Malcolm laughed. She was contracting her features in what she thought was a majestic frown, and the squirrel dæmon ran up her arm and stood on her shoulder in triumph.

  “Were you always King Arthur?” said Malcolm.

  “No. I always wanted to be. Usually I was a squire or someone lowly.”

  “We played on our own, though, too,” said her dæmon. “You were always King Arthur then.”

  “Yes, always,” she said, and wiped the knife clean and put it back in the drawer. “What games do you play, Malcolm?”

  “Oh, I suppose exploring games. Discovering lost civilizations and stuff like that.”

  “Going up the Amazon in your canoe?”

  “Er—yeah. That sort of thing.”

  “How is your boat these days? Is she surviving the winter?”

  “Well…I lent her to Lord Asriel. When he came and saw Lyra.”

  She said nothing and went back to rolling the pastry. Then she said, “I’m sure he was very grateful.”

  But her tone was as close as she ever got to being severe.

  —

  After they left the kitchen, Asta said, “She was embarrassed. She was ashamed because she knew she’d done something wrong.”

  “I wonder if Sister Benedicta found out.”

  “She might stop Sister Fenella from looking after Lyra altogether.”

  “Maybe. But maybe she hasn’t found out.”

  “Sister Fenella would confess.”

  “Yes,” Malcolm agreed. “She probably would.”

  They didn’t look in on Mr. Taphouse because there was no light in his workshop. He’d probably gone home early.

  “No—wait,” said Asta suddenly. “There’s someone there.”

  It was dusk already; the gray rain-sodden sky was ushering darkness in the better part of an hour before it was really due. Malcolm stopped on the path to the bridge and peered back towards the dark workshop.

  “Where?” he whispered.

  “Round the back. I saw a shadow….”

  “It’s all shadows.”

  “No, like a man—”

  They were about a hundred yards from the workshop. The gravel path lay open and clear in the gray twilight and the little glow of yellow from the priory windows. Nothing moved. And then from behind the workshop came, in a sort of lurching limp, a shape the size of a large dog, but hunched and heavy in the shoulders, which stood and stared at them directly.

  “It’s a dæmon,” Asta breathed.

  “A dog? And what’s—”

  “Not a dog. That’s a hyena.”

  “And it’s got…It’s only got three legs.”

  The hyena didn’t move, but behind it the shape of a man detached itself from the darkness of the building. He looked directly at Malcolm, though Malcolm couldn’t see his face at all, and then merged back into the shadow.

  But his dæmon stayed where she was, and then spread her two back legs and pissed right in t
he middle of the path. Her heavy-jawed face never moved as she glared at Malcolm; all he could see of it were two glints where her eyes caught the light. She took a lurching step forward, propping her weight on her one front leg, and looked at Malcolm for a moment more before turning and loping clumsily back into the shadow.

  The little episode shook Malcolm considerably. He’d never seen a maimed dæmon before, or a hyena, or felt such a wave of malevolence. Nevertheless…

  “We’ve got to,” said Asta.

  “I know. Be an owl.”

  She changed at once, and sat on his shoulder, staring intently at the dark shape of the workshop.

  “Can’t see them,” she whispered.

  “Don’t take your eyes off that shadow….”

  He moved back along the path, or rather along the grass beside the gravel, and came to the kitchen door again, fumbling at the handle and almost falling inside.

  “Malcolm,” said Sister Fenella. “Have you forgotten something?”

  “Just something I need to tell Sister Benedicta. Is she in her office?”

  “I expect so, dear. Is everything all right?”

  “Yes, yes,” said Malcolm, hurrying to the corridor. The smell of paint was still faintly apparent near Lyra’s nursery. He knocked on Sister Benedicta’s door.

  “Come in,” she said, and blinked in surprise when she saw him. “What is it, Malcolm?”

  “I saw— I just— We were going home past Mr. Taphouse’s workshop and we saw a man—and his dæmon was a hyena with three legs—and they—”

  “Slow down,” she said. “Did you see them clearly?”

  “Only the dæmon. She—she had three legs, and she…I didn’t think they ought to be there, so— I mean, I thought you ought to know, so you could make extra sure the shutters were locked.”

  He couldn’t tell her what the hyena had done. Even if he’d found the right words, he wouldn’t have been able to express the contempt and hatred in the action. He felt soiled and belittled by it.

  She must have seen something of that in his face because she put down her pen and stood up to put a hand on his shoulder. He couldn’t remember her ever touching him before.

  “And yet you came back to warn us. Well, Malcolm, that was a good deed. Now let’s go and make sure you get home safely.”

  “You’re not going to come with me!”

  “You wouldn’t like me to do that? Very well, I’ll watch you from the door. How would that be?”

  “Be careful, Sister! He— I don’t know how to say it— Have you ever heard of a man with a dæmon like that?”

  “One hears all sorts of things. The question is whether they matter. Come along.”

  “I didn’t want to frighten Sister Fenella.”

  “That was good of you.”

  “Is Lyra—”

  “She’s asleep. You can see her tomorrow. And she’s perfectly safe behind Mr. Taphouse’s shutters.”

  They went through the kitchen, where Sister Fenella watched them, puzzled, and Sister Benedicta stood at the door.

  “Would you like a lantern, Malcolm?”

  “Oh, no, thanks, really. There’s enough light…and Asta can be an owl.”

  “I’ll wait till you’re on the bridge.”

  “Thank you, Sister. Good night. You better lock all the doors.”

  “I will. Good night, Malcolm.”

  What she could actually do, if the man leapt out and attacked him, Malcolm didn’t know, but he felt protected by the nun’s attention, and he knew she wouldn’t take her eyes off him till he was on the bridge.

  When he was, he turned and waved. Sister Benedicta waved back and went inside and closed the door.

  Malcolm ran home, with Asta flying ahead of him. They tumbled into the kitchen together.

  “About time,” said his mother.

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “On the roof, signaling to Mars. Where d’you think?”

  Malcolm ran into the bar and then stopped dead. Sitting on a stool, with his elbow on the counter, was a man Malcolm had never seen before, and at his feet lay a hyena dæmon with one foreleg.

  The man had been talking to Malcolm’s father. There were half a dozen other drinkers there, but none of them were close by; in fact, a couple of men who were always found standing by the bar were sitting at a table in the far corner, and the rest were near them, almost as if they wanted to be as far away from the stranger as they could get.

  Malcolm took this in at once, and then saw the expression on his father’s face. The stranger was looking at Malcolm, and behind him his father was looking down with weary, helpless loathing. When the stranger turned back, Mr. Polstead lifted his head and forced a bright smile.

  “Where you been, Malcolm?” he said.

  “Usual place,” Malcolm muttered, and turned away. The hyena dæmon clacked her teeth—big sharp yellow teeth in a small head. She was astonishingly ugly. Whatever had robbed her of her right foreleg would have suffered for it, if those teeth had met in its flesh.

  Malcolm went to the tables across the room.

  “Anything I can get you, gentlemen?” he said, conscious that his voice was shaking a little as it fell into the silent room.

  He took orders for two more pints, but before he could leave, one of the drinkers surreptitiously took hold of his sleeve.

  “Just mind him,” came a whisper from the table. “Watch your step with that man.”

  Then the man let go and Malcolm took the glasses down to the other end of the bar. Asta, of course, had been looking at nothing else, and since she was a ladybug, the direction of her gaze wasn’t obvious.

  “I’ll go and look in the Terrace Room,” said Malcolm to his father, who nodded briefly.

  There was no one in the Terrace Room, but there were two empty glasses on the table. He picked them up and whispered to Asta, “What does he look like?”

  “Actually, he’s sort of friendly and interested, as if he’s listening while you’re telling him something he wants to know about. There’s nothing really wrong about him. It’s her….”

  “They’re one person, en’t they? We are!”

  “Yeah, course, but…”

  There were a few empty glasses in other places around the pub, and Malcolm took his time collecting them.

  “There’s hardly anyone here,” he said to Asta.

  “We won’t have to stay in the bar, then. Go upstairs and write it down. Something to tell Dr. Relf.”

  He took the glasses into the kitchen and began to wash them.

  “Mum,” he said, “there’s a man in the bar….” He told her what had happened as he left the priory, again leaving out what the dæmon had done on the path. “And now he’s here! And Dad looks ever so fed up. And no one else wants to go near him.”

  “You went and told Sister Benedicta? She’ll make sure they’re all shut up safe.”

  “But who is he? What’s he do?”

  “Goodness knows. If you don’t like the look of him, stay away from him.”

  That was the trouble with his mother: she thought an instruction was an explanation. Well, he’d ask his father later.

  “There’s hardly anyone in tonight,” he said. “Not even Alice.”

  “I said she needn’t bother to stay on, since it was so quiet. If that man makes a habit of coming here, it’ll be like this every night. Dad’ll have to tell him to stay away.”

  “But why—”

  “Never mind why. Got any homework?”

  “Some geometry.”

  “Well, you might as well eat your supper now and get it over with.”

  Supper was cauliflower with cheese sauce. Asta perched on the table as a squirrel and toyed with a nut. Malcolm hurried through the meal and burned his mouth, but soothed it with a piece of cold plum pie and cream.

  The glasses he’d washed had drained dry, so before going upstairs, he took them back to the bar. There were a few more people in, but the man with the hyena dæmon was still sitting
on his stool at the counter, and the new arrivals were at the other end, ignoring him.

  “Everyone seems to know about him,” Asta grumbled. “Except us.”

  The hyena dæmon hadn’t moved. She lay there gnawing and licking at the stump of her missing leg, and the man sat still, one elbow on the bar, looking all around with an air of mild and knowing interest.

  Then something surprising happened. Malcolm was sure no one else could see: his father was chatting with the newcomers at the other end of the bar, and the men at the tables were playing dominoes. Afire with curiosity, Malcolm couldn’t help staring at the man. He was about forty, Malcolm thought, with black hair and bright brown eyes, and all his features were clear and easy to see, as if he was a very well-lit photogram. He was wearing the sort of clothes a traveler might wear, and he might have been handsome, except that there was a kind of vigor and rough mischief about him that that word didn’t do justice to. Malcolm couldn’t help liking him.

  And the man saw him looking, and smiled, and winked.

  It was a smile of warmth and complicity. It seemed to say, We know a thing or two, the pair of us…, meaning him and Malcolm. There was knowledge in his expression, and enjoyment. It invited Malcolm into a little conspiracy of acquaintance against the rest of the world, and Malcolm found himself smiling back. Under normal circumstances, Asta would have flown down at once to talk to the dæmon, from politeness, even though she was frightening and ugly, but these circumstances weren’t normal. So it was just the curious boy and the man with the complicated, attractive face, and Malcolm had to smile in return.

  Then it was over. Malcolm left the clean glasses on the bar and turned to go upstairs.

  “I can’t even remember what he’s wearing,” he said once the bedroom door was shut.

  “Something dark,” said Asta.

  “D’you think he’s a criminal?”

  “Bound to be. But she…”