At one point, he heard some men—familiar customers—talking about the river level, and he stopped to listen in the way he’d always done and that hardly anyone noticed.
“It en’t gone up for days,” said someone.
“They know how to manage the level now,” said another. “Remember when old Barley was in charge of the River Board? He used to panic every time there was a shower.”
“It never flooded in his time, mind you,” said a third. “This rain what we been having, that’s exceptional.”
“It’s stopped now, though. The Weather Office—”
Jeers from the others.
“The Weather Office! What do they know?”
“They got the latest philosophical instruments. Course they know what’s going on in the atmosphere.”
“What do they say, then?”
“They say we got fine weather coming.”
“Well, they might be right for once. The wind’s changed, ennit? This is dry air out the north what’s coming along now. You watch—it’ll be clear in the morning, and then it won’t rain for a month. A whole month of sunshine, boys.”
“I en’t so sure. My granny says—”
“Your granny? She know more than the Weather Office?”
“If the army and navy listened to my granny instead of the Weather Office, they’d be better off for it. She says—”
“You know why the river en’t burst its banks? Scientific management of resources, that’s what it is. They know what to do now, better’n in old Barley’s time, how to hold it back and when to let it out.”
“There’s more water up Gloucester way—”
“The water meadows en’t taken up a tenth of what they can. I seen ’em far worse—”
“Scientific management of resources—”
“It all depends on the state of the upper atmosphere—”
“It’s drying out. You watch—”
“My granny—”
“No, we’ve had the worst of it now.”
“Get us another pint of Badger, would you, Malcolm?”
—
When Malcolm was going to bed, Asta said, “Mr. Van Texel knows a lot more than they do.”
“They wouldn’t listen if we warned them, though,” he said.
“Don’t forget to look up that word….”
“Oh, yeah!”
Malcolm darted into the sitting room and found the family dictionary. He was going to look up the expression Dr. Relf had used when he’d told her about the spangled ring. He knew what migraine meant because sometimes his mother had one, only she called it my-grain and Dr. Relf had called it me-grain. But the other word…
“Here it is. I thought so.”
Robin Asta peered at the page from his forearm and read, “ ‘Aurora: a luminous celestial phenomenon of anbarical character seen in the polar regions, with a tremulous motion and streamers of light, sometimes known as the northern lights.’…You sure that was the word? It sounded more like Lyra. Two syllables.”
“No, this is it,” said Malcolm firmly. “Aurora. It’s the northern lights, in my head.”
“It doesn’t say spangled, though.”
“Probably it’s different each time. It was tremulous and luminous, all right. Whatever causes the northern lights causes the spangled ring, I bet!”
The thought that the inside of his head was in direct contact with the remote skies above the North Pole gave him a feeling of immense privilege and even awe. Asta was still not quite convinced, but he was thrilled.
—
In the morning he could hardly wait to go out and look at the canoe in daylight, but his father wanted help clearing up in the bar after the busy evening. La Belle Sauvage would have to wait.
So he hurried between the tables and the kitchen, jamming his fingers through as many tankard handles as he could or carrying four glasses with one finger in each of three and two in the fourth. When he took them through to Alice in the scullery, where he normally just put them down on the counter and left without saying a word, something made him stop and look at her. She seemed unusually distracted this morning, as if there was something on her mind. She kept looking around, clearing her throat as if to speak, turning back to the sink, glancing at Malcolm. He was tempted to say, “What is it? What’s the matter?” but held his tongue.
Then came a moment when his mother was out of the kitchen. Alice looked at Malcolm directly and said under her voice, “Hey, you know the nuns?”
Malcolm was too surprised to answer at first. He had just picked up half a dozen clean glasses that were ready to be taken back to the bar, and he put them down again and said, “In the priory?”
“Course. That’s the only ones there are, en’t there?”
“No. There’s others in other places. What about them?”
“Are they looking after a baby?”
“Yeah.”
“You know whose baby it is?”
“Yeah, I do. So what?”
“Well, there’s a man who— Tell you later.”
Malcolm’s mother had come back. Alice tucked her head down and plunged her hands back into the water. Malcolm picked up the glasses again and carried them through, and found his father reading the paper.
“Dad,” he said, “d’you reckon there’s going to be a flood?”
“Was that what they were on about last night?” said his father, folding back the sports page.
“Yeah. Mr. Addison reckoned there wasn’t, ’cause the air from the north was dry and there’s going to be a month of sunshine, but Mr. Twigg says his granny—”
“Oh, don’t worry about ’em. What’s this about your canoe? Your mother tells me some gyptian came to the door last night.”
“You remember Lord Asriel? I lent it to him, and that man came to return it.”
“I didn’t know he was a pal of the gyptians. What’d he want to borrow your canoe for?”
“ ’Cause he liked canoeing and he wanted to go up the river in the moonlight.”
“There’s no accounting for some people. You’re lucky to get it back. Is it all right?”
“Better than ever. And, Dad, that gyptian man said there was going to be more rain after this bit of sunshine, and then the biggest flood in a hundred years.”
“Did he?”
“He said to warn you. ’Cause the gyptians can read the signs in the water and the sky.”
“Did you warn those old boys last night?”
“No, ’cause they’d already drunk a bit, and I didn’t reckon they’d listen. But he did say to warn you.”
“Well, they are water people, gyptians….That’s worth knowing, just to think about. But no need to take it seriously.”
“He meant it seriously. There’d be no harm in getting ready for it.”
Mr. Polstead considered the matter. “True enough,” he said. “Like Noah. You reckon me and Mum could fit in the La Belle Sauvage along with you?”
“No,” said Malcolm firmly. “But you ought to mend the punt. And maybe Mum ought to keep her flour and stuff up here and not in the cellar.”
“Good idea,” said his father, turning back to the sports page. “You tell her. You cleared the Terrace Room?”
“I’m just going in there.”
Seeing his mother come into the bar and start to talk to his father about vegetables, Malcolm took the glasses from the Terrace Room and hurried back to the kitchen.
“What was that about a man?” he said to Alice.
“I dunno if I should say.”
“If it’s about the baby…You said something about the baby, and then a man. What man?”
“Well, I dunno. Maybe I said too much.”
“No, you en’t said enough. What man?”
She looked around.
“I don’t want to get into trouble,” she said.
“Well, just tell me. I won’t tell on you.”
“All right…This man, his dæmon’s got a leg missing. She’s a hyena or so
mething. Horrible ugly. But he’s nice, or he seems nice enough.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen him. You met him, then?”
“Sort of,” she said, and she was blushing, so she turned away. Her jackdaw dæmon looked down from her shoulder and turned his head away from Malcolm too. Then she went on: “I spoken to him a bit.”
“When?”
“Last night. Down Jericho. He was asking about the baby in the priory, the nuns, all that….”
“What d’you mean, ‘all that’? What else?”
“Well, he said he was the baby’s father.”
“He’s not! Her father’s Lord Asriel. I know that.”
“He said he was, though, and he wanted to know if they kept her safe in the priory, whether they locked the doors at night—”
“What?”
“And how many nuns there were, and that.”
“Did he tell you his name?”
“Gerard. Gerard Bonneville.”
“Did he say why he wanted to know about the nuns and the baby?”
“No. We didn’t only talk about that. But…I dunno…it gave me a weird feeling. And his dæmon chewing at her bloody leg…Except he was nice. He bought me some fish and chips.”
“Was he on his own?”
“Well, yeah.”
“And you? Did you have any friends with you?”
“What if I did?”
“It might have made a difference in what he said.”
“I was on me own.”
Malcolm didn’t know what else to ask. It was clearly important to find out whatever he could, but his imagination was limited at this point: he couldn’t conceive what a grown man would want with a solitary girl at night, or what could pass between them. Nor could he understand why she was blushing.
“Did your dæmon talk to the hyena?” he said after a pause.
“He tried a bit, but she didn’t say nothing.”
She looked down towards the sink and plunged her hands into the water. Malcolm’s mother had come back from the bar. Malcolm carried the clean glasses out, and the moment passed.
But when Alice had finished for the morning and was putting on her coat to leave, Malcolm saw and caught up with her on the porch.
“Alice—wait a minute….”
“What d’you want?”
“That man—with the hyena dæmon—”
“Forget it. I shouldn’t have said nothing.”
“It’s just that someone warned me about him.”
“Who?”
“A gyptian man. He said not to go near him.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. But he really meant it. Anyway, if you see him again—Bonneville, I mean—can you tell me what he says?”
“It en’t your business. I shouldn’t have told you.”
“I’m worried about the nuns, you see. I know they’re worried about safety and that, ’cause they told me. That’s why they got the new shutters put up. So if this man Bonneville is trying to find things out about them…”
“He was nice. I told you. Maybe he wants to help them.”
“Well, the thing is, he came in here the other night and no one would go near him. As if they were frightened. My dad says if he comes again, he en’t going to let him in because he keeps other customers away. They know something about him, as if he’s been in prison or something. And there’s that gyptian man who warned me about him.”
“He didn’t worry me.”
“Still, if you see him again, can you tell me?”
“S’pose so.”
“And specially if he asks about the baby.”
“Why are you so worried about the baby?”
“Because she is a baby. There’s no one to protect her except the nuns.”
“And you think you can? Is that it? You’re going to save the baby from the big bad man?”
“Just can you tell me?”
“I said I would. Don’t go on about it.”
She turned away and stamped off quickly in the thin sunshine.
—
That afternoon, Malcolm went to the lean-to and inspected the improvements to La Belle Sauvage. The tarpaulin of coal silk was as light and impermeable (he tried it) as Mr. Van Texel had said, and the clips to attach it to the gunwales were easy to work and firmly fixed. It was water green in color, like the boat herself, and he thought that when it was in place, he and his vessel would be practically invisible.
The current was running very strongly, so he decided not to take her out and try the slippiness of the new paint, but his fingertips told him the difference. What a gift this was!
There were no other surprises in the canoe, so Malcolm pulled the old tarpaulin over it and made sure it was pegged down.
“It might rain again,” he said to Asta.
But there was no sign of that. The cold sunshine lasted all day, and the sky was red when the sun went down, meaning more sunshine tomorrow. As the sky was clear, the evening was bitterly cold, and for the first time in weeks, there were only a few customers in the Trout. His mother decided not to roast a joint or make a set of pies because most would remain uneaten. It was going to be ham and eggs that evening, with fried potatoes if you were early and bread and butter if you weren’t.
But since so few customers came at all, and since the assistant barman Frank was on duty in case they did, Malcolm and his father and mother sat down together in the kitchen to have supper.
“Might as well finish up these cold potatoes. Can you eat any more, Reg?”
“You bet. Fry ’em up.”
“Malcolm?”
“Yes, please.”
Into the frying pan they went, sizzling and spitting and making Malcolm’s mouth water. He sat there happily with his parents, thinking of nothing, content with the warmth and the smell of frying food.
Then he was aware that his mother had asked him something.
“What?”
“Again, politely,” she said.
“Oh. I beg your pardon?”
“That’s better.”
“The boy’s dreaming,” said his father.
“I said, what were you and Alice talking about?”
“Was he talking to Alice?” said Mr. Polstead. “I thought there was a noncommunication treaty between those two.”
“Nothing in particular,” said Malcolm.
“But come to think of it, he spent five minutes yakking to her on the porch when she left,” said his father. “Must have been important.”
“Not really,” Malcolm said, beginning to feel awkward. He didn’t want to keep things from his parents, but then they didn’t usually have the time to ask anything more than once. A noncommittal answer normally satisfied them. But with nothing else to do this evening, the matter of Malcolm’s talking to Alice became of great interest.
“You were talking to her when I came back in the kitchen,” his mother said. “I could hardly believe my eyes. Is she getting friendly?”
“No, it’s not that,” said Malcolm reluctantly. “She was just asking about the man with the three-legged dæmon.”
“Why?” said his father. “She wasn’t here that night. How’d she know he came in?”
“She didn’t till I told her. She told me about him because he’d been asking her about the nuns.”
“Was he? When?” said his mother, dishing up the fried potatoes.
“In Jericho the other night. He was talking to her and asking about the nuns and the baby.”
“What was he doing talking to her?”
“I dunno.”
“Was she on her own?”
Malcolm shrugged. He’d just put a forkful of hot potato in his mouth and couldn’t speak. But he did see the glance that passed between his parents: an expression of muted alarm.
When he’d swallowed his mouthful, he said, “What is it about that man? Why did everyone move away from him in the bar? And what if he was talking to Alice? She said he was nice.”
“The thing is, Malcolm,�
� said his father, “he’s got a reputation for violence. And for…for attacking women. People don’t like him. You saw the bar the other night. That dæmon—she has a strange effect on people.”
“He can’t help that,” said Malcolm. “You can’t help what shape your dæmon settles as, can you?”
“You’d be surprised,” came a voice from the floor, gruff and rich and slow. His mother’s badger dæmon rarely spoke, but when he did, Malcolm always listened with close attention.
“You mean you can choose?” he said, surprised.
“You didn’t say you can’t choose; you said you can’t help. You can help, all right, but you don’t know you’re doing it.”
“But how—what do you—”
“Eat your supper and you’ll find out,” he said, and trundled back to his bed in the corner.
“Hmm,” Malcolm said.
They didn’t speak any more about Gerard Bonneville. Malcolm’s mother said she was worried about her mother because she hadn’t been well, and said she’d go over to her house in Wolvercote the next day and see if she was all right.
“Has she got enough sandbags?” said Malcolm.
“She won’t need those anymore,” said his mother.
“Well, Mr. Van Texel said people were going to think it had stopped raining, but the rain was going to come back and there was going to be a big flood.”
“Is there, indeed?”
“He said to warn you.”
“Did you see him, Brenda?” said his father.
“The gyptian? Yes, briefly. Very polite and quiet.”
“They do know the rivers.”
“So Granny might need more sandbags,” said Malcolm. “I’ll help her if she does.”
“I’ll bear it in mind,” said his mother. “Have you told the sisters?”
“They’ll all have to come over and stay here,” said Malcolm. “They’d have to bring Lyra.”
“Who’s Lyra?” said his father.
“The baby, of course. The one they’re looking after for Lord Asriel.”
“Oh. Well, there wouldn’t be room for ’em all. We’re probably not holy enough either.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Mrs. Polstead. “They do the holiness themselves. They’d just need somewhere dry.”
The Book of Dust, Volume 1 Page 17