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 daemon said, "Bastards," and growled again.
He didn't know how to reply, and the daemon said no more. Then Malcolm's mother came back, the daemon 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 Horned 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 daemon, 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 daemon 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?"
Malcolm went through it as fully as he could remember.
"The Office of Child Protection?"
"That's what they called themselves, sir."
"What did they look like?"
Malcolm described their uniforms. "The one who took his cap off, he seemed like he was in charge. He was more polite than the others, more sort of smooth and smiling. But it was a real smile, not a fake one. I think I'd even've liked him if he'd come in here as a customer--that sort of thing. The other two were just dull and threatening. Most people would've been dead scared, but Sister Benedicta wasn't. She faced 'em off all by herself."
The man sipped his Tokay. His daemon lay with her head up and her front paws stretched out ahead of her, like the picture of the Sphinx in Malcolm's encyclopedia. The black-and-silver patterns on her back seemed to flicker and shimmer for a moment, and Malcolm felt as if the spangled ring had changed its form and become a daemon, but then Lord Asriel spoke suddenly.
"Do you know why I haven't been to see my daughter?"
"I thought you were busy. You probably had important things to do."
"I haven't been to see her because if I do, she'll be taken away from there and put in a much less congenial place. There'll be no Sister Benedicta to stand up for her there. But now they're trying to take her anyway....And what was that oth
er thing I've heard about? The League of St. Alexander?"
Malcolm told him about that.
"Disgusting," said Asriel.
"There's plenty of kids at my school joined. They like being able to wear a badge and tell the teachers what to do. Excuse me, sir, but I told Dr. Relf about all this. Didn't she tell you?"
"Still not quite sure about me?"
"Well...no," said Malcolm.
"Don't blame you. You going to go on visiting Dr. Relf?"
"Yes. Because she lends me books as well as listening to what's happened."
"Does she? Good for her. But tell me, the baby--is she being well looked after?"
"Oh, yes. Sister Fenella, she loves her like--" He was going to say like I do, but thought better of it. "She loves her a lot. They all do. She's very happy--Lyra, I mean. She talks to her daemon all the time, just jabber jabber jabber, and he jabbers back. Sister Fenella says they're teaching each other to talk."
"Does she eat properly? Does she laugh? Is she active and curious?"
"Oh, yeah. The nuns are really good to her."
"But now they're being threatened...."
Asriel got up and went to the window to look at the few lights from the priory across the river.
"Seems like it, sir. I mean, Your Lordship."
"Sir will do. D'you think they'd let me see her?"
"The nuns? Not if the lord chancellor had told them not to."
"And he has, eh?"
"I couldn't say, sir. What I think is they'd do anything to protect her. Specially Sister Benedicta. If they thought anyone or anything was a danger to her, they'd...I suppose they'd do anything, like I said."
"So you know them well, these nuns."
"I've known 'em all my life, sir."
"And they'd listen to you?"
"I suppose they would, yes."
"Could you tell them I'm here and I'd like to see my daughter?"
"When?"
"Right now. I'm being pursued. The High Court has ordered me not to go within fifty miles of her, and if I'm found here, they'll take her away and put her somewhere else where they aren't so careful."
Malcolm was torn between saying, "Well, you ought not to risk it, then" and simple admiration and understanding: of course the man would want to see his daughter, and it was wicked to try to prevent him.
"Well..." Malcolm thought, then said, "I don't think you could see her right now, sir. They go to bed ever so early. I wouldn't be surprised if they were all fast asleep. In the morning they get up ever so early too. Maybe--"
"I haven't got that long. Which room have they made into a nursery?"
"Round the other side, sir, facing the orchard."
"Which floor?"
"All their bedrooms are on the ground floor, and hers is too."
"And you know which one?"
"Yes, I do, but--"
"You could show me, then. Come on."
There was no refusing this man. Malcolm led him out of the Terrace Room and along the corridor and out onto the terrace before his father could see them. He closed the door very carefully behind them and found the garden brilliantly lit by the clearest full moon there'd been for months. It felt as if they were being lit by a floodlight.
"Did you say there was someone pursuing you?" said Malcolm quietly.
"Yes. There's someone watching the bridge. Is there any other way across the river?"
"There's my canoe. It's down this way, sir. Let's get off the terrace before anyone sees us."
Lord Asriel went beside him across the grass and into the lean-to where the canoe was kept.
"Ah, it's a proper canoe," said Lord Asriel, as if he'd been expecting a toy. Malcolm felt a little affronted on behalf of La Belle Sauvage and said nothing as he turned her over and let her slip silently down the grass and onto the water.
"First thing," he said, "is we'll go downstream a short way, so's no one can see us from the bridge. There's a way into the priory garden on that side. You get in first, sir."
Asriel did so, much more capably than Malcolm had anticipated, and his leopard daemon followed, with no more weight than a shadow. The canoe hardly moved at all, and Asriel sat down lightly and kept still as Malcolm got in after him.
"You been in a canoe before," Malcolm whispered.
"Yes. This is a good one."
"Quiet now..."
Malcolm pushed off and began to paddle, staying close to the bank under the trees and making no noise whatsoever. If there was one thing he was good at, this was it. Once they were out of sight of the bridge, he turned the boat to starboard and made for the other shore.
"I'm going to come up alongside a willow stump," he said very quietly. "The grass is thick there. We'll tie her up and go across the field, behind the hedge."
Lord Asriel was just as good at getting out as he'd been at getting in. Malcolm couldn't imagine a better passenger. He tied the boat to a stout willow branch growing from the stump, and a few seconds later they were moving along the edge of the meadow, under the shade of the hedge.
Malcolm found the gap he knew about and forced his way through the brambles. It must have been harder for the man, being bigger, but he didn't say a word. They were in the priory orchard; the lines of plum trees and apple trees, of pear trees and damson trees, stood bare and neat and fast asleep under the moon.
Malcolm led the way around the back of the priory and came to the side where the window of Lyra's nursery would be, if it hadn't been hidden by the new shutters. They did look remarkably solid.
He counted once more to make sure it was the right one, and then tapped quietly on the shutter with a stone.
Lord Asriel was standing close by. The moon was shining full on this side of the building, so they would both be clearly visible from some way off.
Malcolm whispered, "I don't want to wake any of the other nuns, and I don't want to startle Sister Fenella because of her heart. We got to be careful."
"I'm in your hands," said Lord Asriel.
Malcolm tapped again a little harder.
"Sister Fenella," he said quietly.
No response. He tapped a third time.
"Sister Fenella, it's me, Malcolm!"
What he was really worried about was Sister Benedicta, of course. He dreaded to think what would happen if he woke her, so he kept as quiet as he could while still trying to wake Sister Fenella, which was not easy.
Asriel stood still, watching and saying nothing.
Finally Malcolm heard a stirring inside the room. Lyra gave a little mew, and then it sounded as if Sister Fenella moved a chair or a small table. Her soft old voice murmured something, like a word or two of comfort to the baby.
He tried again, just a little louder. "Sister Fenella..."
A little exclamation of shock.
"It's me, Malcolm," he repeated.
A soft noise, like the movement of bare feet on the floor, and then the click of the window catch.
"Sister Fenella--"
"Malcolm? What are you doing?"
Like him, she was whispering. Her voice was frightened and thick with sleep. She hadn't opened the shutter.
"Sister, I'm sorry, I really am," he said quickly. "But Lyra's father's here, and he's being pursued by--by his enemies, and he really needs to see Lyra before--before he goes on somewhere else. To--to say good-bye," he added.
"Oh, that's nonsense, Malcolm! You know we can't let him--"
"Sister, please! He's really in earnest," Malcolm said, finding that phrase from somewhere.
"It's impossible. You must go away now, Malcolm. This is a bad thing to ask. Go away before she wakes up. I daren't think what Sister Benedicta--"
Malcolm didn't dare think it either. But then he felt Lord Asriel's hand on his shoulder, and the man said, "Let me speak to Sister Fenella. You go and keep watch, Malcolm."
Malcolm moved away to the corner of the building. From there he could see the bridge and most of the garden, and he watched as Lord Asriel leaned towards
the shutter and spoke quietly. It was a whisper; Malcolm could hear nothing at all. How long Asriel and Sister Fenella spoke he couldn't have guessed, but it was a long time, and he was shivering hard when he saw, to his amazement, the heavy shutter move slowly. Lord Asriel stood back to let it open, and then stepped in again, showing his open, weaponless hands, turning his head a little to let the moonlight fall clearly on his face.
He whispered again. Then there was a minute--two minutes, perhaps--in which nothing happened; and then Sister Fenella's thin arms held out the little bundle, and Asriel took it with infinite delicacy. His leopard daemon stood up to put her forepaws on his waist, and Asriel held the baby down so she could whisper to Lyra's daemon.
How had he persuaded Sister Fenella? Malcolm could only wonder. He watched the man lift the baby again and walk along the grass between one bare flower bed and the next, holding the bundle high so he could whisper to her, rocking her gently, strolling along slowly in the brilliant moonlight. At one point he seemed to be showing the moon to Lyra, pointing up at it and holding her so she could see, or perhaps he was showing Lyra to the moon; at any rate he looked like a lord in his own domain, with nothing to fear and all the silvery night to enjoy.
Up and down he strolled with his child. Malcolm thought of Sister Fenella waiting in fear--in case Lord Asriel didn't bring her back, in case his enemies attacked, in case Sister Benedicta suspected something was up. But there was no sound from the priory, no sound from the road, no sound from the man and his baby daughter in the moonlight.
At one point the leopard daemon seemed to hear something. Her tail lashed once, her ears pricked, her head turned to face the bridge. Malcolm and Asta turned immediately, ears and eyes tightly focused on the bridge, every separate stone of which was clearly outlined in black and silver; but nothing moved, and there was no sound but the call of a hunting owl half a mile away.
Presently the leopard daemon's statuelike stillness melted, and she moved away once more, lithe and silent. Malcolm realized that that was true of the man as well--during their journey over the river and through the meadow, into the orchard and up to the priory wall, he had not heard the slightest sound of footsteps. Asriel might as well have been a ghost, for all the sound he made.
He was turning now at the end of the walk and making for Sister Fenella's window again. Malcolm watched the bridge, the garden, what he could see of the road, and saw nothing wrong; and when he turned, Asriel was handing the little bundle up through the window, whispering a word or two, and silently swinging the shutter closed.