Now Lyra was completely dazed.
“Who was it watching over me?” said Lyra. She felt immensely important and strange, that all her doings should be an object of concern so far away.
“Well, the law let things be. Lord Asriel went back to his explorations, and you grew up at Jordan College. The one thing he said, your father, the one condition he made, was that your mother shouldnt be let see you. If she ever tried to do that, she was to be prevented, and he was to be told, because all the anger in his nature had turned against her now. The Master promised faithfully to do that; and so time passed.
“Or even the opposite,” said John Faa.
“Lord Asriel was out a hunting, but they got word to him and he came riding back in time to find your mothers husband at the foot of the great staircase.
“But Lord Asriel wouldnt stand for that. He had a hatred of priors and monks and nuns, and being a high-handed man he just rode in one day and carried you off. Not to look after himself, nor to give to the gyptians; he took you to Jordan College, and dared the law to undo it.
“So anyway,” John Faa went on, “we heard about you going away from Jordan College, and how it came about at a time when Lord Asriel was imprisoned and couldnt prevent it. And we remembered what hed said to the Master that he must never do, and we remembered that the man your mother had married, the politician Lord Asriel killed, was called Edward Coulter.”
“Why, it was Billy Costas mother, of course. She wont have told you, because I ent let her, but she knows what were a talking of here, so its all out in the open.
“You got three hands you can control,” Farder Coram explained, “and you use them to ask a question. By pointing to three symbols you can ask any question you can imagine, because youve got so many levels of each one. Once you got your question framed, the other needle swings round and points to more symbols that give you the answer.”
“And another concern of the Master is you, child. Bernie Johansen was always clear about that. The Master of Jordan and the other Scholars, they loved you like their own child. Theyd do anything to keep you safe, not just because theyd promised to Lord Asriel that they would, but for your own sake. So if the Master gave you up to Mrs. Coulter when hed promised Lord Asriel he wouldnt, he must have thought youd be safer with her than in Jordan College, in spite of all appearances. And when he set out to poison Lord Asriel, he must have thought that what Lord Asriel was a doing would place all of them in danger, and maybe all of us, too; maybe all the world. I see the Master as a man having terrible choices to make; whatever he chooses will do harm, but maybe if he does the right thing, a little less harm will come about than if he chooses wrong. God preserve me from having to make that sort of choice.
Lyra could only sit in wonder.
“Yes,” she said. “They said I was—they said they—they said Lord Asriel put me there because my mother and father died in an airship accident. Thats what they told me.”
When three days is gone past, well have another roping and discuss all there is to do. You be a good girl. Goodnight, Lyra.”
Lyra couldnt hold it in.
Coulter....It was like he wanted to protect me from her...” She stopped, and looked at the two men carefully, and then decided to tell them the whole truth about the Retiring Room. “See, there was something else.
“Now you best be getting back to her. You got plenty to be a thinking of, child.
“What are you talking about, child?” said John Faa.
“I see,” said Farder Coram. “Thats very interesting.”
“Thats a Greek word. I reckon its from aktheia, which means truth. Its a truth measure. And have you worked out how to use it?” he said to her.
“No. Least, I can make the three short hands point to different pictures, but I cant do anything with the long one. It goes all over. Except sometimes, right, sometimes when Im sort of concentrating, I can make the long needle go this way or that just by thinking it.”
“Yeah, thats it. And in the lights of the Roarer there was like a city. All towers and churches and domes and that. It was a bit like Oxford, thats what I thought, anyway. And Uncle Asriel, he was more interested in that, I think, but the Master and the other Scholars were more interested in Dust, like Mrs.
“Yes. But her daemon, right, he used to go in my room. And Im sure he found it.”
Lyra suddenly understood the Masters curious behavior on the morning shed left.
“The trouble was, your mother was already married. Shed married a politician.
“She is. And if your father had been free, she wouldnt never have dared to defy him, and youd still be at Jordan, not knowing a thing. But what the Master was a doing letting you go is a mystery I cant explain. He was charged with your care. All I can guess is that she had some power over him.”
“Goodnight, Lord Faa. Goodnight, Farder Coram,” she said politely, clutching the alethiometer to her breast with one hand and scooping up Pantalaimon with the other.
“Well come back to that,” said John Faa. “Go on with how you read it.”
“And you kept this secret from Mrs. Coulter, like the Master told you?” said John Faa.
Another moment and hed have forced open the closet where the gyptian woman was hiding with you, but Lord Asriel challenged him, and they fought there and then, and Lord Asriel killed him.
One thing she had to ask, though.
Finally John Faa shook his head and became serious again.
“Whats it do, Farder Coram?” said John Faa. “And how do you read it?”
“We didnt damage it! Honest! It was only a bit of mud! And we never got very far—”
“He might have had it in mind to ask Lyra to return it to Lord Asriel, as a kind of recompense for trying to poison him. He might have thought the danger from Lord Asriel had passed. Or that Lord Asriel could read some wisdom from this instrument and hold back from his purpose. If Lord Asriels held captive now, it might help set him free. Well, Lyra, you better take this symbol reader and keep it safe. If you kept it safe so far, I ent worried about leaving it with you.
Bernie was a kindly, solitary man, one of those rare people whose daemon was the same sex as himself. It was Bernie shed shouted at in her despair when Roger was taken. And Bernie had been telling the gyptians everything! She marveled.
“Now, Lyra,” said John Faa, “Im a going to tell you something. Farder Coram here, hes a wise man. Hes a seer. Hes been a follering all whats been going on with Dust and the Gobblers and Lord Asriel and everything else, and hes been a follering you. Every time the Costas went to Oxford, or half a dozen other families, come to that, they brought back a bit of news. About you, child. Did you know that?”
“The consequence was a great lawsuit. Your father ent the kind of man to deny or conceal the truth, and it left the judges with a problem. Hed killed all right, hed shed blood, but he was defending his home and his child against an intruder. On tother hand, the law allows any man to avenge the violation of his wife, and the dead mans lawyers argued that he were doing just that.
“Oh, yes,” he said when he could speak again, “we heard about that too, little girl! I dont suppose the Costas have set foot anywhere since then without being reminded of it. You better leave a guard on your boat, Tony, people say. Fierce little girls round here! Oh, that story went all over the fens, child. But we ent going to punish you for it. No, no! Ease your mind.”
“But he didnt want to...” she said, trying to remember it exactly. “He...I had to go and see him first thing that morning, and I mustnt tell Mrs.
“He said Uncle Asriel presented the alethiometer to Jordan College years before,” Lyra said, struggling to remember. “He was going to say something else, and then someone knocked at the door and he had to stop. What I thought was, he might have wanted me to keep it away from Lord Asriel too.”
“The case lasted for weeks, with volumes of argument back and forth. In the end the judges punished Lord Asriel by confiscating all his property and all his land, and left him a poor man; and he had been richer than a king.
When she laid the alethiometer bare, it was Farder Coram who spoke first.
“But how does it know what level youre a thinking of when you set the question?” said John Faa.
But Lyra wasnt laughing. With trembling lips she said, “And even if we had found the bung, wed neverve took it out! It was just a joke. We wouldntve sunk it, never!”
“Who was the gyptian woman who nursed me ?”
“The Master told me there was only six made,” Lyra said.
“Now the Masters got a hundred things to look after. His first concern is his College and the scholarship there. So if he sees a threat to that, he has to move agin it. And the Church in recent times, Lyra, its been a getting more commanding. Theres councils for this and councils for that; theres talk of reviving the Office of Inquisition, God forbid. And the Master has to tread warily between all these powers. He has to keep Jordan College on the right side of the Church, or it wont survive.
Lyra shook her head. She was beginning to be frightened. Pantalaimon was growling too deep for anyone to hear, but she could feel it in her fingertips down inside his fur.
“So you was took to Oxfordshire, where your father had estates, and put in the care of a gyptian woman to nurse. But someone whispered to your mothers husband what had happened, and he came a flying down and ransacked the cottage where the gyptian woman had been, only shed fled to the great house; and the husband followed after, ina murderous passion.
Then John Faa began to laugh too. He slapped a broad hand on the table so hard the glasses rang, and his massive shoulders shook, and he had to wipe away the tears from his eyes. Lyra had never seen such a sight, never heard such a bellow; it was like a mountain laughing.
“Mrs. Coulter?” said Lyra, quite stupefied. “She ent my mother?”
“And do you know them all?”
That evening I hid in the Retiring Room, I saw the Master try to poison Lord Asriel. I saw him put some powder in the wine and I told my uncle and he knocked the decanter off the table and spilled it. So I saved his life. I could never understand why the Master would want to poison him, because he was always so kind. Then on the morning I left he called me in early to his study, and I had to go secretly so no one would know, and he said...” Lyra racked her brains to try and remember exactly what it was the Master had said. No good; she shook her head. “The only thing I could understand was that he gave me something and I had to keep it secret from her, from Mrs. Coulter. I suppose its all right if I tell you....”
“The Aurora,” said Farder Coram. “Is that right, Lyra?”
“It was a kitchen servant. It was Bernie Johansen, the pastry cook. Hes half-gyptian; you never knew that, Ill be bound.”
“I know some, but to read it fully Id need the book. I seen the book and I know where it is, but I ent got it.”
“Then there was you. If things had fallen out different, Lyra, you might have been brought up a gyptian, because the nurse begged the court to let her have you; but we gyptians got little standing in the law. The court decided you was to be placed in a priory, and so you were, with the Sisters of Obedience at Watlington. You wont remember.
“I see. Well, Lyra, I dont know if well ever understand the full truth, but this is my guess, as good as I can make it. The Master was given a charge by Lord Asriel to look after you and keep you safe from your mother. And that was what he did, for ten years or more. Then Mrs. Coulters friends in the Church helped her set up this Oblation Board, for what purpose we dont know, and there she was, as powerful in her way as Lord Asriel was in his. Your parents, both strong in the world, both ambitious, and the Master of Jordan holding you in the balance between them.
He looked at Farder Coram, and the two old men laughed again, but more gently.
Did he tell you anything about it, child?”
He folded the velvet over it and slid it back across the table. Lyra wanted to ask all kinds of questions, but suddenly she felt shy of this massive man, with his little eyes so sharp and kindly among their folds and wrinkles.
“Ah, by itself it dont. It only works if the questioner holds the levels in their mind. You got to know all the meanings, first, and there must be a thousand or more. Then you got to be able to hold em in your mind without fretting at it or pushing for an answer, and just watch while the needle wanders. When its gone round its full range, youll know what the answer is. I know how it works because I seen it done once by a wise man in Uppsala, and thats the only time I ever saw one before. Do you know how rare these are?”
Both old men smiled kindly at her. Outside the door of the parley room Ma Costa was waiting, and as if nothing had happened since Lyra was born, the boat mother gathered her into her great arms and kissed her before bearing her off to bed.
“Then come all this anxiety about Dust. And all over the country, all over the world, wise men and women too began a worrying about it. It werent of any account to us gyptians, until they started taking our kids. Thats when we got interested. And we got connections in all sorts of places you wouldnt imagine, including Jordan College. You wouldnt know, but theres been someone a watching over you and reporting to us ever since you been there. Cause we got an interest in you, and that gyptian woman who nursed you, she never stopped being anxious on your behalf.”
“I were saying, Lyra, as we knew about you from a child. From a baby. You oughter know what we know. I cant guess what they told you at Jordan College about where you came from, but they dont know the whole truth of it. Did they ever tell you who your parents were?”
“Oh, yes,” said John Faa, “all your doings, they all get back to Farder Coram here.”
“The gyptian woman heard and saw it all, Lyra, and thats how we know.
Coulter and Lord Boreal and them.”
She felt in the pocket of the wolfskin coat and took out the velvet package. She laid it on the table, and she sensed John Faas massive simple curiosity and Farder Corams bright flickering intelligence both trained on it like searchlights.
“Ah, did they. Well now, child, Im a going to tell you a story, a true story. I know its true, because a gyptian woman told me, and they all tell the truth to John Faa and Farder Coram. So this is the truth about yourself, Lyra. Your father never perished in no airship accident, because your father is Lord Asriel.”
He was a member of the kings party, one of his closest advisers. A rising man.
“Whatever the number, it ent large.”
“No. Only that Id have to work out how to read it by myself. And he called it an alethiometer.”
“As for your mother, she wanted nothing to do with it, nor with you. She turned her back. The gyptian nurse told me shed often been afeared of how your mother would treat you, because she was a proud and scornful woman. So much for her.
“I never thought Id ever set eyes on one of them again. Thats a symbol reader.
“Whats that mean?” said John Faa, turning to his companion.
“Heres how it came about,” John Faa went on. “When he was a young man, Lord Asriel went exploring all over the North, and came back with a great fortune.
And Lyra felt contented, and safe.
“Now when your mother found herself with child, she feared to tell her husband the child wasnt his. And when the baby was born—thats you, girl—it was clear from the look of you that you didnt favor her husband, but your true father, and she thought it best to hide you away and give out that youd died.
“And when it come to the point where he had to let you go, he gave you the symbol reader and bade you keep it safe. I wonder what he had in mind for you to do with it; as you couldnt read it, Im foxed as to what he was a thinking.”
But there might come a time when we need to consult it, and I reckon well ask for it then.”
Farder Coram laughed. When he did that, his shaking stopped and his face became bright and young.
“And your mother, she was passionate too. Not so well born as him, but a clever woman. A Scholar, even, and those who saw her said she was very beautiful. She and your father, they fell in love as soons they met.
And he was a high-spirited man, quick to anger, a passionate man.
“All these pictures round the rim,” said Farder Coram, holding it delicately toward John Faas blunt strong gaze, “theyre symbols, and each one stands for a whole series of things. Take the anchor, there. The first meaning of that is hope, because hope holds you fast like an anchor so you dont give way. The second meaning is steadfastness. The third meaning is snag, or prevention. The fourth meaning is the sea. And so on, down to ten, twelve, maybe a never-ending series of meanings.”
“What dyou mean, John?” said Farder Coram.
