La Belle Sauvage

  A murmur of "amen" followed from most of the children. Malcolm lifted his head and looked at the woman, who seemed to be looking straight back at him, so he felt horribly uneasy for a moment; but then she turned to the headmaster.

  "Thank you, Headmaster," she said. "I leave it in your hands."

  She walked out. The headmaster stood up, stiffly and wearily.

  "Lead off, Class Five" was all he said.

  On Saturday, Malcolm had a lot to tell Hannah. He told her about Eric's father and his guess that the murdered man had been a spy; he told her about the woman in the priory, and about everything she'd said on that strange afternoon in the school hall, and about how many of his classmates had signed up for the League of St. Alexander.

  "And the next day, when they all came to school with their badges on, the headmaster talked about them in assembly. He said they had never allowed badge wearing in the school, and he wasn't going to start now. Everyone wearing a badge had to take it off. What they did at home was their own business, but no one was allowed to wear one at school. And he said the form they'd signed had no legal something--no legal force or something--and it meant nothing. Some people tried to argue with him, but he punished them and took their badges away.

  "And then some of the kids who had joined the league said they were going to report him, and they must have done, because on Thursday the head wasn't at school, nor yesterday. Mr. Hawkins--he's the deputy, and he was in favor of the league--he took the assembly yesterday, and he said that Mr. Willis had made a mistake, and that people could wear the badges if they wanted to. He found the box of badges in the headmaster's study and gave them all out again."

  "What do the other teachers think of this league?"

  "Some like it and some don't. Mr. Savery, the math teacher, hates it. Someone asked him during a lesson what he thought about it, and they must have guessed he was against it because he said he thought the whole thing was disgusting, it was a celebration of a nasty rotten little sneak who got his parents killed. I think one or two people saw it differently after that and they took their badges off when no one was looking and pretended they'd lost 'em. No one actually said they agreed with Mr. Savery 'cause then they'd get reported themselves."

  "But you haven't joined?"

  "No. I suppose about half the kids have and the other half haven't. I didn't like her--that was one reason. Another was I didn't...Well, if I thought my parents were doing something wrong, I still wouldn't want to tell on 'em. And...I suppose I reckon this league has got something to do with the CCD."

  It had occurred to Malcolm already, and it came back to him now, that what he was doing in talking to Dr. Relf was very like what St. Alexander was celebrated for. What was the difference? Only that he liked and trusted Dr. Relf. But he was no less a spy for that.

  He felt uncomfortable, and she noticed.

  "Are you thinking--"

  "I'm thinking that I'm sneaking to you, really."

  "Well, it's true in a way, but I wouldn't call it sneaking. I have to report the things I find out, so I'm doing the same sort of thing. The difference is that I think the people I work for are good. I believe in what they do. I think they're on the right side."

  "Against the CCD?"

  "Of course. Against people who kill and leave bodies in the canal."

  "Against the League of St. Alexander?"

  "One hundred percent against it. I think it's a loathsome idea. But what about those forms you said people had to sign? Didn't they have to take them home for their parents to look at?"

  "No, because she said that this was a matter just for children, and if St. Alexander had had to ask his parents, they'd have said no. Some of the teachers didn't like it, but they had to go along with it."

  "I must try and find out about this league. It doesn't sound good to me at all."

  "I don't know why she came to the priory to see Lyra. She's too young to join anything."

  "It's interesting, though," said Dr. Relf, getting up to make some chocolatl. "But we'll talk about books now. How are you getting along with the quantum one?"

  --

  Hannah had been busy in the past few days seeking out a number of new left-luggage boxes. Once she'd found half a dozen, she went to Harry Dibdin at the Bodleian Library with another cataloging query.

  "Glad you came," he said. "They've found you another insulator."

  "That was quick."

  "Well, things are hotting up. You must have noticed."

  "Actually, I had. Anyway, if there's an insulator in place, I can use these new boxes straightaway. Harry...you've got children at school, haven't you?"

  "Two of them. Why?"

  "Have they heard of the League of St. Alexander?"

  "Yes, now that you mention it. I said no."

  "They came home and asked?"

  "They were full of it. I told them it was a horrible idea."

  "D'you know where it started? Who's behind it?"

  "I imagine the usual sources. Why?"

  "It's something new. I'm just curious. You said things were hotting up--this is part of it. In your children's school, was there a woman called Carmichael involved?"

  "I don't know. They just said it had been announced. I don't get told details."

  She told him what had happened at Ulvercote Elementary School.

  "And this is your young agent reporting?" he said.

  "He's very good. But he's worried now that he's doing that very thing--spying on people and telling me."

  "Well, he is."

  "He's very young, Harry. He's got a conscience."

  "You have to look after him."

  "I know," she said. "No one can advise me, but I have to advise him. No, don't get up. Here's the list of my new drops. Bye, Harry."

  --

  The report she wrote took up four sheets of the special India paper she used, even cramming her writing as tightly as she could and using a super-sharp hard pencil. It wasn't easy to fold it small enough to fit inside the acorn, but she got it in eventually, and then went for a walk in the Botanic Garden, where a space under a particular thick root inside one of the hothouses was the first left-luggage box.

  Then she went back to the work she should have been doing with the alethiometer. She had fallen behind; it was beginning to look as if she'd hit an obstacle, or had fallen out of sympathy with the instrument. She would have to be careful. There was a monthly meeting of the alethiometer research group coming up, when they compared results and discussed lines of approach, and if she had nothing to say, her privileges might be withdrawn.

  --

  Malcolm's headmaster, Mr. Willis, was still away on Monday, and on Tuesday Mr. Hawkins, the deputy head, announced that Mr. Willis wouldn't be coming back, and that he would be in charge himself from then on. There was an intake of breath from the pupils. They all knew the reason: Mr. Willis had defied the League of St. Alexander, and now he was being punished. It gave the badge wearers a giddy sense of power. By themselves they had unseated the authority of a headmaster. No teacher was safe now. Malcolm watched the faces of the staff members as Mr. Hawkins made the announcement: Mr. Savery put his head in his hands, Miss Davis bit her lip, Mr. Croker, the woodwork teacher, looked angry. Some of the others gave little triumphant smiles; most were expressionless.

  And there was a sort of swagger among the badge wearers. It was rumored that in one of the older classes, the Scripture teacher had been telling them about the miracles in the Bible and explaining how some of them could be interpreted realistically, such as Moses's parting of the Red Sea. He told them that it might just have been a shallow part of the sea and that a high wind would sometimes blow the water away, so it was possible to walk across. One of the boys had challenged him and warned him to be careful and held up his badge, and the teacher had backed down and said that he was only telling them that as an example of a wicked lie, and the Bible was right: the whole deep sea had been held apart for the Israelites to cross.

  Ot
her teachers fell into line as well. They taught less vigorously and told fewer stories, lessons became duller and more careful, and yet this seemed to be what the badge wearers wanted. The effect was as if each teacher was being examined by a fierce inspector, and each lesson became an ordeal in which not the pupils but the teachers were being tested.

  The badge wearers began to put pressure on the other children too.

  "Why aren't you wearing a badge?"

  "Why haven't you joined?"

  "Are you an atheist?"

  When Malcolm was challenged, he just shrugged and said, "Dunno. I'll think about it." Some children said that their parents hadn't let them join, but when the badge wearers smiled with triumph and wrote down their names and addresses, they became frightened and took a badge when they were told to.

  A few teachers held out. Malcolm stayed behind after a woodwork class one day; he wanted to ask Mr. Croker about his one-way screw idea. Mr. Croker listened patiently, then looked around and, seeing the woodwork room empty except for the two of them, said, "I see you're not wearing a badge, Malcolm."

  "No, sir."

  "Any reason?"

  "I don't like 'em, sir. I didn't like her--that Miss Carmichael. And I did like Mr. Willis. What's happened to him, sir?"

  "We haven't been told."

  "Is he going to come back?"

  "I hope so."

  Mr. Croker's daemon, a green woodpecker, drilled vigorously into a waste piece of pine with a sound like a machine gun. Malcolm wanted to talk more about the badge business, but he didn't want to get Mr. Croker into trouble.

  "These screws, sir--"

  "Oh, yes. You invented that idea yourself, did you?"

  "Yes, sir. But I can't think of how to undo 'em."

  "Well, someone beat you to it, Malcolm. Look..."

  Mr. Croker opened a drawer and found a little cardboard box of screws with ready-filed one-way heads, just like the one Malcolm had made in Mr. Taphouse's workshop, but much neater.

  "Blimey," said Malcolm. "And I thought I was the first person to think of 'em. But how d'you undo them?"

  "Well, you need a special tool. Hang on...."

  Mr. Croker fumbled through the drawer and brought out a tin box with half a dozen short steel rods in it. Each rod had a threaded end that narrowed to a point, and the other end was shaped to fit into a carpenter's brace. They varied in thickness as much as the most common sizes of screws.

  Malcolm picked out the largest, and then saw something about the screw thread.

  "Oh! It goes backwards!"

  "That's it. You drill a hole down the middle of the screw you want to get out, not very far, and then you screw one of these into it the same way as if you're unscrewing, and once it bites, it'll bring the original one out with it."

  Malcolm was overcome with admiration. "That's brilliant! That's genius, that is!"

  He was so impressed that he very nearly told Mr. Croker about the wooden acorn that unscrewed the wrong way too. He stopped himself just in time.

  "Well, Malcolm," said Mr. Croker, "I'm never going to use these. You're a good craftsman--you take them, and the screws as well. Go on, they're yours."

  "Oh, thank you, sir," said Malcolm. "That's really kind. Thank you."

  "That's all right. Dunno how long I'll last here. Just like to think these tools are in the hands of someone who appreciates 'em. Go on, bugger off now."

  --

  By the end of the week, Mr. Croker had vanished too. So had Miss Davis. The school was placed in some difficulty, what with the need to replace them at such short notice, and Mr. Hawkins, the new head, spoke about it during assembly, choosing his words with care.

  "You will have noticed, boys and girls, that some of our teachers are no longer with us. Of course, it's right and proper that the staff of a school should change from time to time, have a natural turnover, but it does create temporary difficulties. Perhaps it would be a good idea if this turnover came to a halt now, for a while, so we can settle down into our normal pattern of work again."

  Everyone knew that this was a plea to the badge wearers, but of course he couldn't beg them directly. Malcolm wondered whether it would work. As the week went past, he listened and watched, and soon he saw different factions emerging. One group was all for pushing on zealously, and talked openly about reporting Mr. Hawkins himself for speaking like that. Another group said that they should hold their hand and build on their first great success by reminding the teachers who was really in charge, and operating a series of public warnings to keep them in line.

  Eventually the second group seemed to prevail. No more teachers were denounced directly, but two or three were made to stand up in assembly and apologize for this or that misdeed.

  "I'm truly sorry that I forgot to start that lesson with a prayer."

  "Let me apologize to the whole school for expressing doubt about the story of St. Alexander."

  "I acknowledge that I was wrong to tell off three members of the league for what I thought was bad behavior during a lesson. I realize it wasn't bad behavior at all, but a perfectly justified discussion about important matters. Please forgive me."

  Malcolm told his parents about these extraordinary events, and they were angry, but not angry enough--or perhaps too busy--to do as some parents had done and go to the school and complain. One evening that week, some people were talking about it in the bar, and Malcolm's father called him to come and tell them what he'd seen in Ulvercote Elementary, because it seemed that similar things were happening at other schools in the city.

  "Who's behind it--that's what I'd like to know," said a man whose children went to West Oxford Elementary.

  "Have you heard who's behind it, Malcolm?" asked Mr. Partridge, the butcher.

  "No," said Malcolm. "The badge people just report who they want to, and things happen to them. There's some parents been taken, as well as teachers."

  "But who do they report to?"

  "I've asked, but they won't tell me till I wear a badge."

  The fact was that he'd more than once thought of joining the League of St. Alexander so that he'd know more about it, and have more to tell Dr. Relf. The thing that stopped him was that the badge wearers seemed to have to give up a lot of spare time to go to Church meetings, which again were secret and not to be spoken about, and Malcolm didn't want to do that.

  There was one way he could find out, though. Eric, having dithered about joining, had finally committed himself, and now wore a badge proudly. He hadn't changed much, of course, and Malcolm found that if he asked the right questions, Eric would tell him things that were supposed to be secret, because the pleasure of knowing secrets was doubled by telling them to people. Malcolm began by saying that he was interested in joining the league, but that he wasn't sure about it. Soon Eric had told him most of what there was to know.

  "If you were going to denounce Mr. Johnson, like," Malcolm said, naming a teacher whose pious fervor made him the least likely candidate, "who would you tell?"

  "Ah, well. There's a proper procedure. You can't just go and tell on someone you don't like. That would be wrong. If you have sound reasons and clear knowledge of incorrect or wrongful behavior"--the way he said it made it sound like a formula he'd memorized--"you write their name on a piece of paper and send it to the Bishop."

  "What bishop? The bishop of Oxford?"

  "No. The Bishop, he's called. I think he's the bishop of London, maybe. Or maybe somewhere else. You just write their name and send it to him."

  "But anyone could do that. I could do that to Mrs. Blanchard for giving me detention."

  "No, 'cause that's not wrongful behavior. Not sinful, like. If she was to teach you atheism, though, that would be wrongful. You could name her then, all right."

  Malcolm didn't press any more on that occasion. It was like fishing; you had to be suitable, as Eric would have said.

  "You know Miss Carmichael, right," Malcolm said the next day. "I think I seen her before she came to the scho
ol. I think she was at the priory talking to the nuns."

  "Maybe she wants to get them to take in some teachers and people who need reeducating," said Eric.

  "What's reeducating?"

  "Oh, being taught what's right."

  "Oh. Is she the boss of the whole league?"

  "No. She's a deacon. She can be a deacon but not a priest, because she's a woman. I 'spect her boss is the Bishop."

  "Is the Bishop the boss of the league?"

  "Well, I'm not s'posed to tell you that," said Eric, which only meant that he didn't know. "Actually, I'm not s'posed to talk to you at all unless I'm persuading you to join the league."

  "Well, you are," said Malcolm. "Everything you say is persuading me."

  "You going to wear a badge, then?"

  "Not quite yet. Maybe soon."

  --

  Malcolm wasn't going to find out what the woman had been doing at the priory until he spoke to the nuns, so on Thursday evening he ran there through the rain and knocked on the kitchen door. As soon as he got inside, he noticed a strong smell of paint.

  "Oh! Malcolm! You gave me a start," said Sister Fenella.

  Malcolm had been careful about startling Sister Fenella ever since she'd told him she had a weak heart. When he was younger, he'd thought her heart was weak because she'd had it broken a long time ago, when she was a girl, and that's why she'd become a nun. A young man had broken it, she'd told him. Malcolm saw now that she didn't mean it literally, but the poor old lady was easily startled, and now she sat down and breathed quickly, her face pale.

  "Sorry," he said. "I really didn't think that would startle you. I'm sorry."

  "There, there, dear, it's all right. No harm done. You come to help me with these potatoes?"

  "Yes, I'll do them," he said, taking up the knife she'd dropped. "How's Lyra?"

  "Oh, babbling away. She jabbers all the time to that daemon, and he jabbers back--like a pair of swallows. I don't know what they can be saying to each other, and I don't suppose they do either, but it's very pretty to hear."

  "They're making up a private language."

  "Well, if it doesn't turn into proper English soon, they might get stuck."

  "Will they?"

  "No, dear, I don't expect so, not really. All babies do that sort of thing. It's part of how they learn."

  "Oh..."

  The potatoes were old and full of black patches. Sister Fenella had just ignored that and dropped them in the pot as they were, but Malcolm cut around the worst bits. Sister Fenella began to grate some cheese.