Page 9 (1/2)

Chapter Nine

The Spies

Over the next few days, Lyra concocted a dozen plans and dis away, and how could you stoay on a narrowboat? To be sure, the real voyage would involve a proper ship, and she knew enough stories to expect all kinds of hiding places on a full-sized vessel: the lifeboats, the hold, the bilges, whatever they were; but she’d have to get to the ship first, and leaving the fens yptian way

And even if she got to the coast on her own, sheto hide in a lifeboat and wake up on the way to High Brazil

Meanwhile, all around her the tantalizing work of asse around Ada as heforce She pestered Roger van Poppel with suggestions about the stores they needed to take: Had he reet arctic maps?

The man she most wanted to help was Benjamin de Ruyter, the spy But he had slipped away in the early hours of the , and naturally no one could say where he’d gone or when he’d return So in default, Lyra attached herself to Farder Coram

"I think it’d be best if I helped you, Farder Coram," she said, "because I probably knowas I was nearly one of them Probably you’ll need es"

He took pity on the fierce, desperate little girl and didn’t send her away Instead he talked to her, and listened to her memories of Oxford and of Mrs Coulter, and watched as she read the alethiometer

"Where’s that book with all the sy," he said

"And is there just the one?"

"There may be others, but that’s the one I’ve seen"

"I bet there’s one in Bodley’s Library in Oxford," she said

She could hardly take her eyes off Farder Coram’s daemon, as the most beautiful daemon she’d ever seen When Pantalaied and harsh, but Sophonax, for that was her naant beyond e as a real cat and richly furred When the sunlight touched her, it lit up any than Lyra could naainst it, but of course she never did; for it was the grossest breach of etiquette iht touch each other, of course, or fight; but the prohibition against human-daemon contact went so deep that even in battle no warrior would touch an enemy’s daemon It was utterly forbidden Lyra couldn’t re to be told that: she just knew it, as instinctively as she felt that nausea was bad and coh she adht feel like, she never htest move to touch her, and never would

Sophonax was as sleek and healthy and beautiful as Farder Coraht have suffered a crippling blow, but the result was that

he could not ithout leaning on two sticks, and he trembled constantly like an aspen leaf His h, and soon Lyra cae and for the firlass mean, Farder Cora in his boat "It keeps co back to that"

"There’s often a clue there if you lookon top of it?"

She screwed up her eyes and peered

"That’s a skull!"

"So what d’you think that ht mean?"

"DeathIs that death?"

"That’s right So in the hourglass range of et death In fact, after time, which is the first one, death is the second one"

"D’you knohat I noticed, Farder Corao-round! On the first round it kind of twitches, and on the second it stops Is that saying it’s the secondit, Lyra?"

"I’ - " she stopped, surprised to find that she’d actually been asking a question without realizing it "I just put three pictures together because! was thinking about Mr de Ruyter, seeAnd I put together the serpent and the crucible and the beehive, to ask how he’s a getting on with his spying, and - "

"Why theht the serpent was cunning, like a spy ought to be, and the crucible could e, what you kind of distill, and the beehive was hard work, like bees are alorking hard; so out of the hard work and the cunning coe, see, and that’s the spy’s job; and I pointed to theht the question in my mind, and the needle stopped at deathD’you think that could be really working, Farder Coraht, Lyra What we don’t knohether we’re reading it right That’s a subtle art I wonder if - "

Before he could finish his sentence, there was an urgent knock at the door, and a young gyptianpardon, Farder Coram, there’s Jacob Huismans just come back, and he’s sore wounded"

"He ith Benjamin de Ruyter," said Farder Coram "What’s happened?"

"He won’t speak," said the young man "You better co, he’s a bleeding inside"

Farder Coraed a look of alarm and wonderment, but only for a second, and then Farder Corae, with his dae with i ar-beet jetty, where a wo her suspicious glance at Lyra, Farder Coraot to say, mistress"

So the woman let them in and stood back, with her squirrel daemon perched silent on the wooden clock On a bunk under a patchwork coverlet lay a lazed

"I’ve sent for the physician, Farder Coraitate hiony of pain He coo"

"Where’s Peter now?"

"He’s a tying up It was hiht Now, Jacob, can ye hear me?"

Jacob’s eyes rolled to look at Farder Cora on the opposite bunk, a foot or tay

"Hello, Farder Coram," he murmured

Lyra looked at his daemon She was a ferret, and she lay very still beside his head, curled up but not asleep, for her eyes were open and glazed like his

"What happened?" said Farder Coram

"Benjamin’s dead," came the answer "He’s dead, and Gerard’s captured"

His voice was hoarse and his breath was shallow When he stopped speaking, his daeth fro into the Ministry of Theology, because Benjaht that the headquarters was there, that’s where all the orders was coain

"You captured some Gobblers?" said Farder Coram

Jacob nodded, and cast his eyes at his daemon It was unusual for daemons to speak to humans other than their own, but it happened soht three Gobblers in Clerkenwell andfor and where the orders came fro taken, except it was north to Lapland"

She had to stop and pant briefly, her little chest fluttering, before she could go on

"And so they and Lord Boreal Benjamin said him and Gerard Hook should break into the Ministry and Frans Broeko and find out about Lord Boreal"

"Did they do that?"

"We don’t know They never ca we did, they knew about before we did it, and for all we know Frans and Toot near Lord Boreal"

"Co Jacob’s breathing getting harsher and seeing his eyes close in pain

Jacob’s daeave a little mew of anxiety and love, and the woman took a step or two closer, her hands to her mouth; but she didn’t speak, and the daemon went on faintly:

"Benjamin and Gerard and us went to the Ministry at White Hall and found a little side door, it not being fiercely guarded, and we stayed on watch outside while they unfastened the lock and went in They hadn’t been in but a minute e heard a cry of fear, and Benja out and beckoned to us for help and flew in again, and we took our knife and ran in after her; only the place was dark, and full of wild forhtful movements; and we cast about, but there was a commotion above, and a fearful cry, and Benjah staircase above us, his dae to hold him up, but all in vain, for they crashed on the stone floor and both perished in aof Gerard, but there was a howl from above in his voice and ere too terrified and stunned to move, and then an arrow shot down at our shoulder and pierced deep doithin"

The daeroan caently pulled back the counterpane, and there protruding from Jacob’s shoulder was the feathered end of an arrow in a mass

of clotted blood The shaft and the head were so deep in the poor man’s chest that only six inches or so remained above the skin Lyra felt faint

There was the sound of feet and voices outside on the jetty

Farder Coram sat up and said, "Here’s the physician, Jacob We’ll leave you now We’ll have a longer talk when you’re feeling better"

He clasped the woman’s shoulder on the way out Lyra stuck close to hi already, whispering and pointing Farder Corao at once to John Faa, and then said:

"Lyra, as soon as we knohether Jacob’s going to live or die, we o and occupy yourself elsewhere, child; we’ll send for you"

Lyra wandered away on her own, and went to the reedy bank to sit and throw : she was not pleased or proud to be able to read the alethio that needle swing and stop, it knew things like an intelligent being

"I reckon it’s a spirit," Lyra said, and for ainto the middle of the fen

"I’d see a spirit if there was one in there," said Pantalaihost in Godstow I saw that when you didn’t"

"There’s ly "You can’t see all of ’em Anyhat about those old dead Scholars without their heads? I saw thehast"

"It was not They were proper spirits all right, and you know it But whatever spirits’sneedle en’t that sort of spirit"

"It ht not be a spirit," said Pantalaimon stubbornly

"Well, what else could it be?"

"It ht be elementary particles" She scoffed

"It could be!" he insisted "You reot at Gabriel? Well, then"

At Gabriel College there was a very holy object kept on the high altar of the oratory, covered (now Lyra thought about it) with a black velvet cloth, like the one around the alethiometer She had seen it when she accompanied the Librarian of Jordan to a service there At the height of the invocation the Intercessor lifted the cloth to reveal in the di too distant to see, until he pulled a string attached to a shutter above, letting a ray of sunlight through to strike the do like a weathervane, with four sails black on one side and white on the other, that began to whirl around as the light struck it It illustrated a moral lesson, the Intercessor explained, and went on to explain what that was Five otten thevanes in the ray of dusty light They were delightful whatever they meant, and all done by the power of photons, said the Librarian as they walked hoht If elementary particles could push a photoht work of a needle; but it still troubled her

"Lyra! Lyra!"

It was Tony Costa, waving to her froot to go and see John Faa at the Zaal Run, gal, it’s urgent"

She found John Faa with Farder Cora troubled

John Faa spoke:

"Lyra, child, Farder Cora of that instrument And I’m sorry to say that poor Jacob has just died I think we’re going to have to take you with us after all, against my inclinations I’m troubled in my mind about it, but there don’t seem to be any alternative As soon as Jacob’s buried according to custom, we’ll take our way You understandtoo, but it en’t an occasion for joy or jubilation There’s trouble and danger ahead for all of us

"I’ Don’t you be a trouble or a hazard to hi the force ofand explain to Ma Costa, and hold yourself in readiness to leave"

The next teeks passed more busily than any time of Lyra’s life so far Busily, but not quickly, for there were tedious stretches of waiting, of hiding in da a dismal rain-soaked autuain, of sleeping near the gas fu with a sick headache, and worst of all, of never once being allowed out into the air to run along the bank or claates or catch arope thrown from the lockside