“Youll have to go and spy,” she whispered. “As soon as its clear, well have to run. Be a moth,” she added. “Remember, the second theres no one looking...”
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.
“Did Professor Docker say that you had some connection with Mrs. Coulter?”
“Gobblers?” said the young woman. “What a peculiar name! Why do they call them Gobblers?”
“Im Adele Starminster. Im a journalist. Could I have a quiet word?”
“Svalbard, did you say?”
“My Uncle Asriel.”
“And where did you say he was being held?”
Meanwhile, she hastily flung on the warmest clothes she had and stuffed some more into one of the coal-silk bags from the fashionable shop theyd visited that very afternoon. Mrs. Coulter had given her money like sweets, and although she had spent it lavishly, there were still several sovereigns left, which she put in the pocket of the dark wolfskin coat before tiptoeing to the door.
“Why did Mrs. Coulter pick you to—”
“If you come across anyone else who obviously hasnt been invited, dear, do come and find me, wont you?”
“Just about what I was doing and who I was, and stuff like that.”
Interesting. Have you taken part yet?”
“Well?” she whispered, and he became a goldfinch on her shoulder.
“Do I detect the Zoroastrian heresy?”
“Course. If we do it now with all these people about, she might not notice for a while.”
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 Adele Starminster had no force to resist. Her daemon 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 daemon in place.
“I see. And what else have you been learning about? Did I hear you mention the Oblation Board?”
“Lyra.”
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 canape from the plate on the table. A man in a bishops purple was saying:
Pantalaimon was whispering in Lyras ear.
Im very pleased.”
Lyra hesitated, for this was not lying but something else, and she wasnt practiced at it.
Coulter herself had told her.
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.
“Shes very clever,” said Lyra. Before this evening she would have said much more, but things were changing.
She slipped through the door and into the hall, and in less than three seconds she was opening the front door of the flat. A moment after that she was through and pulling it quietly shut, and with Pantalaimon a goldfinch again, she ran for the stairs and fled.
“What is it? Youre not her daughter, by any chance? I suppose I should know—”
She stopped very suddenly, because Mrs. Coulter herself had appeared close by.
The womans butterfly daemon rose into the air, casting about to left and right, and fluttered down to whisper something, at which Adele Starminster said, “Come to the window seat.”
Because Lyra was feeling rebellious and uneasy, she didnt answer this patronizing question with the truth, or with one of her usual flights of fancy.
“Ah, I see....And where do you come from? What was your name again?”
“The Oblation Board—”
He knows about the alethiometer!”
“Theyve got this special kind of photogram where you can see Dust, and when you see a man, theres like all light coming to him, and theres none on a child. At least, not so much.”
She opened the door a crack and he crawled out, dark against the warm pink light in the corridor.
“Stop a minute....Whats your name?”
“...No, I dont think Lord Asriel will be troubling us for quite some time.”
Pantalaimon meant Mrs. Coulters daemon. When Lyra thought of his lithe golden shape, she felt ill with fear.
“What used to be a heresy—”
“Ill fight him this time,” Pantalaimon said boldly. “I can change and he cant.
Unwilling, but more interested now, she went across.
“Miss Lyra, the gentleman by the fireplace would like to speak to you. Hes Lord Boreal, if you didnt know.”
“Yes.”
“I dont 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.”
“Her personal assistant? Youre a bit young, arent you? I thought you were related to her or something. Whats she like?”
Lyra felt Pantalaimon tremble suddenly, but he was on his best behavior. The daemons of the two grownups, a cat and a butterfly, didnt seem to notice.
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.
“And if we could isolate the dark principle—”
This was a favorite spot of Lyras; 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. Adele Starminster sat down and moved along the cushioned seat to make room.
The hot metallic smell was vanishing. Perhaps Lyra had only imagined it. She could smell Mrs. Coulters 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, dont we?” and moved on to greet some other guests.
“I expect they were all sorry to say goodbye to you.”
At once she seemed at ease again.
“When he was in Jordan College last time.”
As she said that, Lyra noticed that Mrs. Coulter was alone, without her daemon.
“What sort of things do you do? How do you help her?”
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 wasnt allowed to try, and increasingly fretful. She wasnt aware that anyone was watching her until the commissionaire appeared at her side and bent to say:
“In the fortress of Svalbard, Im told. Guarded by panser-bj0rne—you know, armored bears. Formidable creatures! He wont escape from them if he lives to be a thousand. The fact is that I really think the way is clear, very nearly clear—”
From the way Adele Starminster looked up at her, and the agitated way her daemon was fluttering around her head, Lyra could tell that the young woman wasnt supposed to be at the party at all.
Again, that wasnt exactly a lie, she thought; she had never said that Mrs.
“Then Mrs. Coulter must have decided you were ready to help her in that work.
Last of all she packed the alethiometer in its black velvet cloth. Had that abominable monkey found it? He must have done; he must have told her; oh, if shed only hidden it better! She tiptoed to the door. Her room opened into the end of the corridor nearest the hall, luckily, and most of the guests were in the two big rooms further along. There was the sound of voices talking loudly, laughter, the quiet flushing of a lavatory, the tinkle of glasses; and then a tiny moth voice at her ear said:
“From the initials, dyou 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.
“While she was here, her daemon was coming out of our bedroom. Hes been spying.
“And is Mrs. Coulter keeping you busy? What is she teaching you?”
“And has she told you what happens to the children?”
“He wasnt 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—”
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 servants 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.
Which was exactly true, she thought.
“Yes, they were.”
“I do calculations and all that. Like for navigation.”
“When?”
Thinking it only natural that people should wish to talk to her, Lyra said simply, “Yes.”
“What was she asking?”
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.
Ill change so quickly he wont be able to keep hold. This time Ill win, youll see.”
Instead she said, “Im learning about Rusakov Particles, and about the Oblation Board.”
“Shes very nice,” said Lyra stolidly.
“Good evening, child,” he said. His voice was smooth and commanding. His serpent daemons mailed head and emerald eyes glittered in the light from the cut-glass lamp on the wall nearby.
“Oh, yes,” said Lyra. “Im safe from everyone here. Where I used to live, in Oxford, there was all kinds of dangerous things. There was gyptians—they takekids and sell em to the Turks for slaves. And on Port Meadow at the full moon theres a werewolf that comes out from the old nunnery at Godstow. I heard him howling once. And theres the Gobblers....”
“Theyre doing experiments in the North,” Lyra said. She was feeling reckless now. “Like Dr. Grumman.”
He was looking at her narrowly. She gazed back with all the innocence she had.
Lyra nodded distractedly. What should she wear? How could she get out without being seen?
“Armored bears—”
“Now! Quick!”
Lyra was about to tell her one of the bloodcurdling stories shed made up to frighten the Oxford kids with, but the man was already speaking.
“He will.”
“Thats what I mean,” the man said. “Thats what they call the Oblation Board, dont they?”
“Lord Asriel imprisoned—”
She and Pantalaimon could sense each others 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—
“Very well, thank you.”
“Who showed it to you?”
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.
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.
“Yes, but personally,” Adele Starminster insisted. “I mean, is she friendly or impatient or what? Do you live here with her? Whats she like in private?”
“The last experiments have confirmed what I always believed—that Dust is an emanation from the dark principle itself, and—”
“How is my old friend the Master of Jordan?”
“Did Mrs. Coulter show you a picture like that?”
“Are we going to run away?” he whispered back.
“No,” she said after a moment. “I saw that one at Jordan College.”
“Yes. But I didnt hear about that from him, I heard it here.”
“Good evening,” said Lyra.
“The children dont suffer, Im sure of it—”
“Lyra. I come from Oxford.”
“No, she hasnt told me that. I only just know that its about Dust, and theyre like a kind of sacrifice.”
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 dont you go and talk to Lord Boreal?” he added to Lyra directly. “Im sure hed like to meet Mrs. Coulters protegee....Thats him, theman with gray hair and the serpent daemon.”
“Sacrifice is rather a dramatic way of putting it. Whats done is for their good as well as ours. And of course they all come to Mrs. Coulter willingly. Thats why shes so valuable. They must want to take part, and what child could resist her? And if shes going to use you as well to bring them in, so much the better.
“Go on.”
“Who showed you that picture?”
“I never told her anything important,” Lyra said.
“Well?” said Mrs. Coulter to Lyra.
“Suppose you tell me what you know,” he said.
“No!” said Lyra. “Course not. Im her personal assistant.”
“No,” said Lyra. What was he talking about? Pantalaimon was cleverly in his most inexpressive shape, a moth, and couldnt betray her feelings; and she was sure she could keep her own face innocent.
Finally he nodded.
