La Belle Sauvage, Page 27

  "This is where Lord Murdstone used to bring his victims," said Bonneville. "Have you heard his name? They used to call him Lord Murderer. Not all that long ago either."

  Malcolm's heart was beating painfully. "Did he--" He couldn't speak clearly. "Did he own this house?"

  "He could do what he liked here," the slow, dark voice went on through the door. "There was no one to stop him. So he used to bring children down here and dismember them."

  "Did--what?" Malcolm could only whisper.

  "Cut them apart bit by bit while they were still alive. That was his special pleasure. And naturally the horrible agony of those children was too great to disappear forever when they eventually died. It soaked into the stonework. It lingered in the air. There's no clean wind blowing through these cellars, Malcolm. The air you're breathing now was last in the lungs of those tortured children."

  "I don't want to hear any more," said Malcolm.

  "I don't blame you. I wouldn't want to hear it either. I'd want to stop my ears up and wish it would go away. But there's no escaping it, Malcolm. They're all around you now, the spirits of that agony. They're sensing your fear, and they're flocking towards you to lap it up. Next thing you'll start hearing them--a sort of desperate little whisper--and then you'll begin to see them."

  Malcolm was nearly fainting by this time. He believed everything Bonneville was saying; it all sounded so likely that he believed it helplessly and immediately.

  Then a little current of air found his candle flame and made it lean sideways for a moment, and he looked at it, and instantly there in his vision was the little floating grain of light and movement, the seed of his aurora. A tiny spring of relief and hope began to flow in his mind.

  "You're wrong about the baby," he said, and was surprised to find his voice steady.

  "Wrong? In what way?"

  "You think she's your child, but she's not."

  "Well, you're wrong about her too."

  "I en't wrong about that. She's Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter's child."

  "You're wrong to think I'm interested in her. I might be interested in Alice."

  Asta whispered, "Don't let him make us talk about what he wants."

  Malcolm nodded. She was right. His heart was pounding.

  Then he remembered the message in the wooden acorn and said, "Mr. Bonneville, what's the Rusakov field?"

  "What do you know about that?"

  "Nothing. That's why I'm asking."

  "Why don't you ask Dr. Hannah Relf?"

  That was a surprise. He had to answer quickly.

  "I have," he said, "but it's not what she knows about. She knows about stuff like the history of ideas."

  "Right up her street, I would have thought. Why are you interested in the Rusakov field?"

  The spangled ring was growing larger, as it always did. Now it was like a small jeweled serpent twisting and twining for him alone. He went on steadily. " 'Cause you know how the gravitational field deals with the force of gravity, right, and the magnetic field deals with that force, so what force is it that the Rusakov field deals with?"

  "Nobody knows."

  "Is it something to do with the uncertainty principle?"

  Bonneville was silent for a few moments. Then he said, "My, my, you are a persistent child. If I were in your position, I'd want to know something quite different."

  "Well, I want to know all sorts of things, but in the right order. The Rusakov field is the most important one, 'cause it's connected with Dust...."

  Malcolm heard a quiet noise behind him and turned to see Alice coming through the archway, holding the candle. He put his finger to his lips and mouthed in an exaggerated way, "Bonneville," pointing to the door. He gestured: Go, go!

  Her eyes widened and she stood still.

  Malcolm turned back. Bonneville was speaking. He was saying: "Because there are some things you can explain to an elementary school pupil and others that move quickly out of his range. This is one of them. You need at least an undergraduate grasp of experimental theology before the Rusakov field will have the slightest meaning for you. There's no point in even beginning."

  Malcolm looked round silently and saw that Alice had gone. "But all the same--" he said, turning back.

  "Why were you turning round?"

  "I thought I heard something."

  "That girl? Alice? Was it her?"

  "No, it wasn't. It's just me here."

  "I thought we'd disposed of that notion, Malcolm. Those dead children--did I tell you what he did to their daemons? It was the most ingenious..."

  Malcolm turned away with the candle held in both hands and went back across the cellar, which, despite his success in distracting the man, and despite his aurora, now glittering at the edge of his vision, was still thronged with almost-visible horrors. He felt forward with his feet, trying to hold his balance and keep the candle alight, and all the time Bonneville's voice spoke on behind the door, and Malcolm mouthed to himself, "Not true! Not true!"

  Finally he reached the other room. Alice and Lyra had gone. He almost stumbled up to the flight of steps, held himself steady, and began to climb, silent, careful, slow.

  He got to the trapdoor and stopped: Could he hear anything? The urge to fling it open and rush out into the clear air was almost overpowering, but he made himself listen. Nothing. No voice, no footsteps, nothing but the thudding of his own heart.

  So he put his back against the trapdoor and pushed up, and up it went, quite smooth and easy, and then a gust of air blew his candle out--but it was all right--there was light coming in through the kitchen window--he could see the table, the walls--and there was the glow of the fire still. He climbed out in a moment, lowered the trapdoor swiftly and silently, and then, before racing to the door and the world outside, stopped.

  This was a kitchen, and if the cooks here were anything like his mother or Sister Fenella, there would be a drawer with knives in it. He felt around the table, found a knob, pulled it open, and there they were: an assortment of wooden-handled cooks' knives, all lying ready to hand. He felt through the handles till he came to one that wasn't too long to conceal, whose blade came to a point and not a rounded end.

  He put it in his belt behind his back and made for the door and the clear, cold air outside.

  In the very last gray of the day, he could see Alice stumbling across the grass in great haste, carrying Lyra. Bonneville's boat was still tied up, but the body of the other man had floated away, and there was no sign of Bonneville himself.

  He ran to the dinghy, pulled the stick it was tied to out of the ground, and began to shove the boat out into the current.

  But he stopped: there was a rucksack in it, under the thwart. The thought came at once: If we have this, we can bargain with him. So he reached in and swung it up--it was heavy--and out onto the grass, and then pushed the boat away from the land.

  He grabbed the rucksack and ran back towards Alice. She had put Lyra down on the grass and was tugging La Belle Sauvage out of the bushes, so Malcolm dropped the rucksack in the canoe and joined her.

  But they hadn't moved it a foot before they heard behind them the "Haa! Haa! Haa!" of that abominable daemon, and turned to see Bonneville sauntering down from the entrance of the house, shotgun under his arm, the daemon limping and lurching beside him, as if on an invisible leash.

  Malcolm let go of the canoe and quickly picked up Lyra, and Alice, turning to see what was happening, said, "Oh, God, no."

  There wouldn't be time to get the canoe into the water, and even if they did, the man still had that gun. Although his face was indistinct in the gathering gloom, every line of his body looked as if he knew he'd won.

  He stopped a few paces away and moved the gun to his left hand. Was he left-handed? Malcolm couldn't remember, and cursed his carelessness in not noticing.

  "Well, you might as well give her to me," Bonneville said. "You've got no hope of getting away now."

  "But why d'you want her?" said Malcolm, holding the chil
d even tighter to his chest.

  " 'Cause he's a bloody pervert," said Alice.

  Bonneville laughed gently.

  Malcolm's heart was hammering so much it hurt. He felt Alice tense beside him. He was desperate to keep Bonneville looking their way, because the man hadn't yet noticed that his own boat was gone. "What you were saying in there, through the door, it wasn't true," he said.

  Malcolm had Lyra in his left arm, tight against his chest. She was quiet; Asta, as a mouse, was whispering to her and Pan. Malcolm felt behind him with his right hand, trying to feel for the knife. But the muscles of his arm were trembling so much that he was afraid he'd drop the knife before he could use it; and did he really intend to stab the man, anyway? He had never deliberately harmed so much as a fly, and the only fights he had had were playground scuffles. Even when he'd knocked the boy into the river for painting an S over the V of SAUVAGE, he'd pulled him out straightaway.

  "How would you ever know what the truth was?" said Bonneville.

  Malcolm said, "Your voice changes when you say something not true." He was still feeling for the knife, and hoping that Bonneville didn't see him moving.

  "Oh, you believe that sort of thing? I suppose you believe that the last thing someone sees is imprinted on their retina?"

  Malcolm found the handle of the knife and said, "No, I don't believe that. But why do you want Lyra? What are you going to do with her?"

  "She's my daughter. I want to give her a decent education."

  "No, she's not. You'll have to give us a better reason than that."

  "All right, then. I'm going to roast her and eat her. Have you any idea how delicious--"

  Alice spat at him.

  "Oh, Alice," he said. "You and I could have been such friends. Perhaps even more than friends. How close we nearly came, you and I! We really shouldn't let such a little thing spoil a beautiful possibility."

  Malcolm had got the knife out of his belt. Alice could see what he was doing, dark though it was, and getting darker, and she moved a little closer.

  "You still haven't told the truth," said Malcolm, shifting Lyra's weight.

  Bonneville stepped nearer. Malcolm held Lyra away from his chest, as if to give her to the man, and Bonneville held out his right arm, as if to take her.

  The second he was close enough, Malcolm brought his right hand round and stabbed the knife as hard as he could into Bonneville's thigh. It was the closest part of him. The man roared with pain and staggered sideways, dropping the gun to grab at his leg. His daemon howled and lurched forward, slipping and falling flat. Malcolm turned around swiftly and put Lyra down--

  --and then there was an explosion so loud it knocked him flat.

  His head ringing, he pulled himself up to see Alice holding the gun. Bonneville was groaning and rocking back and forth on the grass, clutching his thigh, which was bleeding heavily, but his daemon lay thrashing, howling, screaming, utterly unable to get up: her one foreleg was smashed beyond repair.

  "Take Lyra!" Malcolm shouted to Alice, and scrambled over to seize the painter of the canoe and drag it down over the grass to the water's edge.

  Behind him Bonneville was shouting incoherently and trying to haul himself over the ground towards the child. Alice threw the gun into the darkness of the trees and snatched Lyra up. Bonneville tried to grab her as she came near, but she easily evaded him and leapt over the howling daemon, who twisted and squirmed and fell again, trying to stand up on a leg that was hardly there.

  It was horrible to watch: Malcolm had to close his eyes. Then Alice was climbing into the canoe with Lyra secure in her arms, and he pushed off from the grass, and the sweet-natured canoe did his bidding at once and carried them away and onto the breast of the flood.

  Heavy clouds loomed above, but behind the clouds the moon was nearly full and lent a faint radiance to the whole sky.

  Lyra lay awake, happy enough to gurgle with the swaying of the boat. Malcolm's stiff arms and shoulders began to loosen, and the canoe made good speed on the dark water. Alice was looking intently past Malcolm's head towards the house as it vanished behind them. Even in the dimness, Malcolm could see her face, sharp and anxious and angry, and he saw her bend forward to adjust Lyra's blankets and stroke her face.

  "D'you wanna biscuit?" she said softly.

  He thought she was speaking to Lyra. Then she looked up at him.

  "What's the matter? Wake up," she said.

  "Oh. Me. Yes, please, I'd like a biscuit. Actually, I'd like a whole plate of steak and kidney pudding. And some lemonade. And--"

  "Shut up," she said. "Stupid, talking like that. All we got's biscuits. D'you want one or not?"

  "Yes."

  She leaned forward and gave him a handful of fig rolls. He ate them in small mouthfuls, taking as long as he could to chew each bite.

  "Can you see him?" Malcolm said after five minutes.

  "Can't even see the house. I reckon we lost him now."

  "But he's mad. Mad people, they don't know when to give up."

  "You must be mad, then."

  He didn't know what to say to that. He paddled on, though the force of the flood was such that all he had to do was steer and keep the boat's head forward.

  "He's prob'ly dead by now," Alice said.

  "I was thinking that. He was bleeding a lot."

  "I think there's an artery there, in his leg. And that daemon..."

  "She can't live, surely. Won't be able to move, neither of 'em."

  "We better hope they are dead."

  The clouds overhead parted from time to time and let the brilliant moonlight through--so bright that Malcolm almost had to shade his eyes. Alice sat up and peered even more fiercely at the water behind them, and Malcolm scanned ahead left and right, looking for somewhere to land and rest; but only isolated clumps of bare trees rose above the racing water. He felt as if he had passed beyond exhaustion into a state of trance, and that minutes went by in which his sleeping body paddled and watched and steered without any influence from his dreaming mind.

  The only sound was the wind over the flood, except for a tiny insect buzz that came and went. The floodwater must be breeding pestilence, Malcolm thought. "Better be careful to keep mosquitoes and that away from Lyra," he said.

  "What mosquitoes? It's far too cold."

  "I can hear one."

  "That en't a mosquito," she said, sounding scornful, and she nodded at something behind him.

  He turned. The bulky clouds had shouldered one another aside, and the moon shone down over the whole waste of water; and in all that wide emptiness there was only one thing that moved with purpose, and that was an engine-boat a long way behind them. He could only see it because it had a searchlight on the bow, and it was getting very slightly closer every minute.

  "Is that him?" Malcolm said.

  "Can't be. It's too big. He never had a boat with an engine."

  "They haven't seen us yet."

  "How d'you know that?"

  " 'Cause they're moving the searchlight all over the place. And they'd be going a lot faster if they wanted to catch us. We'll have to hide, though, 'cause they'll see us if they get any closer."

  He bent his back to paddling harder, even though every bone and muscle in his body ached and he longed to cry with fatigue. He would hate to cry in front of Lyra, because to her he was big and strong, and she would have been frightened to see him frightened, or at least he thought so.

  So he gritted his teeth and plunged the paddle into the water with his trembling muscles and tried to ignore the whine of the motor, which was not intermittent anymore, but constant and getting louder.

  The flood was taking them into an area of hills and woodlands, hills that crowded closer than before and woodlands that were partly bare and partly evergreen. The clouds drifted over the moon again and darkened everything.

  "I can't see 'em," said Alice. "They've gone behind that wood....No, there they are."

  "How far back are they, d'you think?"

/>   "They'll catch us in about five minutes."

  "I'll pull in, then."

  "Why?"

  "On the water they could just tip us over. On land we got a chance."

  "Chance to what?"

  "Chance to not die, maybe."

  In fact, he was terrified, so much so that he could barely move the canoe forward anymore in case he dropped the paddle. There was a wooded slope to their left--dark trees--and what looked in the gloom like a stone embankment, though it was probably the roof of a big house--anyway, he made for that, and then the moon came out again.

  It was no rooftop, simply a flat piece of land in front of the wood. Malcolm drove La Belle Sauvage up onto the soft soil, and Alice seized Lyra and stepped out almost in one movement. Malcolm leapt out and turned to look for the launch.

  Alice, holding Lyra, had retreated further up the slope, but the open space was not very large: close-branched holm oaks with spiked leaves crowded in on all sides. She clung to the baby and watched fearfully for the launch, moving her weight unconsciously from one foot to the other, shivering, breathing quickly, making a little moaning noise in her throat.

  Malcolm had never found it so difficult to move; every muscle quivered. He looked up at the close-leafed trees, dark evergreens that were darker than the sky. The moon shone down with what felt like merciless force, but it was unable to penetrate the canopy of the leaves. He hauled and hauled La Belle Sauvage up over the stony ground and into the shadow of the trees just as the searchlight appeared from behind a thick wood a couple of hundred yards away and swung towards them.

  "Don't move," said Malcolm. "Just keep absolutely still."

  "Think I'm stupid?" said Alice, but sotto voce.

  Then the light was directly shining at them, dazzling, blinding. Malcolm shut his eyes and stood like a statue. He could hear Alice whispering, desperate for Lyra to stay quiet. Then the light moved away, and the launch moved past.

  When it had gone, the fear Malcolm had been holding down since he stabbed Bonneville came back, and he had to lean forward and be sick.

  "Don't worry," said Alice. "You'll feel better in a minute."

  "Will I?"

  "Yeah. You'll see."

  He had never heard that tone in her voice before, or ever expected it. Lyra was grizzling. He wiped his mouth and felt in the canoe for the torch. He switched it on and waved it about to distract Lyra. She stopped crying and held out her hands for it.