La Belle Sauvage, Page 39

  Alice was holding Lyra tight. He felt a surge of love for them both, of love and of infinite regret that he'd brought them into this; but he couldn't dwell on that because there was a new sound now, piercing the noise of the wind and the battering rain: a siren--an alarm--shrieking behind them, its cry like a seabird tossed and flung this way and that in the buffeting air. Alice was straining to see over his shoulder, clutching Lyra to her chest, hand up to keep the rain out of her eyes--and at the same time Malcolm heard a clangor of bells from directly ahead.

  And other sounds came to them on the pummeling wind--the roaring beat of an engine, the creak and howl of great masses of wood being crushed together, human cries. Malcolm could focus on none of them. La Belle Sauvage was worrying him to madness--was she breaking apart?

  Suddenly there came a massive blow from something behind: a powerboat--Malcolm could hear the engine screaming as the propeller rose out of the water, and hear Alice scream over that, and then feel the thrust and shudder as the propeller plunged into the water again and forced the boat against the little canoe. What were they doing? Alice was shouting--her words were snatched away like a piece of paper--another crash as the navy-blue-and-ocher hull of the powerboat shouldered the canoe sideways in the water, and La Belle Sauvage leaned over and shipped a heavy wave before swinging upright again. Malcolm was fighting now with every little fraction of his strength, digging the paddle deep, leaning into the stroke, heaving hard--and nursing the broken thing, which was finally coming apart. He snatched off the useless blade and flung it backwards spinning through the air. Was there a crash of broken glass? A shout of anger?

  Impossible to hear because now another powerboat, the higher note of a different engine, screamed in from the right and smashed into the first--Malcolm could see nothing: the lashing rain drenched his eyeballs, and the wild confusion of sound and the lurching, smashing, pitching, plunging movements of the canoe were his only guide.

  And then a gunshot--two more--four more from a different gun--a sudden immense shock, and immediately the freezing water began to gush in, and nothing would ever stop it now.

  Another smash against the wounded canoe, this time from the right. A powerful deep voice roaring, "Pass her up to me!"

  Lord Asriel...

  Malcolm wiped his right hand across his eyes and saw Alice trying to hold Lyra away from the hands that reached down, and he screamed, "Alice! It's all right! Pass her up!"

  One wild look from her, and he nodded as hard as he could--"Pass her up!" again in that harsh, deep shout--and Alice thrust the child up, and Lyra was screaming, and those hands snatched her, thrust her backwards, and then, before Alice could move, seized one of her wrists and hoisted her instantly up too, as if she weighed no more than the baby. Ben, as a little monkey, was clinging to her waist.

  The first boat had swung back. Now it smashed into the canoe again, a deathblow, and the brave little boat was broken open like an egg. Both Malcolm and Asta cried out with love.

  "Now you, boy!" That huge voice again.

  Balancing knee-deep in the surging water, Malcolm swung the rucksack up. It was hard to lift with one hand, and those hands from above pushed it aside. "You--you fool!"

  "Take this first!" Malcolm screamed, and Alice was shouting too: "Take it, take it!"

  Out of his grasp it sprang upwards and vanished, and then he stood in the sinking canoe with Asta as a snake coiled tightly around his leg, and an iron-hard hand closed around his right arm and swung him up, and then he fell on a wooden deck with a crash that knocked every scrap of air out of his lungs, and he stared down with rain-lashed, tear-filled eyes as the little Belle Sauvage, smashed to matchwood, died and was borne away forever.

  Nothing then but noise and the plunging, thumping, swinging of the powerboat on the wild water. Malcolm scrambled across to Alice, dragging the rucksack, and they sat clinging together with the child between them, all their daemons clinging together too, as suddenly the movement stilled, the engine fell silent, and they were inside a great shed with anbaric lights blazing down at them.

  Malcolm felt a wave of exhaustion move slowly through him from feet to head.

  Asriel was shouting, "What the hell do you think you were playing at?"

  Malcolm gathered his strength to sit up and answer, but he had none left. Alice leapt to her feet instead, and stood with fists clenched, facing Lord Asriel, and Ben, her daemon, bristling with defiance as a wolf, bared his teeth beside her. Her voice was like a whip.

  "Playing? You think we were playing? This was Mal's idea. He said we'd bring Lyra to you to keep her safe, because by God there was nowhere else she'd be safe. I was against it because I thought it was impossible, but he was stronger than me, and if he says he'll do something, he'll bloody do it. You don't know nothing about him to ask a stupid question like that. Playing! You dare even think that. If I told you half of what he's done to keep us alive and safe, well, you wouldn't imagine it could be true. You couldn't dream of it. Whatever Mal says, I believe. So take that fucking smile off your face, you."

  Malcolm was barely conscious now. He thought he was dreaming. But the expression on Lord Asriel's face, warm with amusement and admiration for Alice, was too real to be imagined. He dragged himself to his feet and said hoarsely, "Scholastic sanctuary. We tried to get her to Jordan College, but the flood was too strong, and anyway, I don't know the words. The Latin words. So we thought you might..."

  And he held out with trembling fingers the little white card that he'd found in the canoe.

  Lyra was crying passionately. Once again Malcolm tried to hold himself steady, but it was too hard altogether. Just before he fainted, he heard someone say, "The boy's bleeding--he's been shot...."

  --

  When he came to, it was in a different space, small, hot, close to the drumming of a gyropter engine, lit by the glow of an instrument panel. His left arm was ablaze with pain. Where had that come from?

  Someone squeezed his right hand. It was Alice.

  "Where's Lyra?" he managed to say.

  She pointed to the floor. Lyra lay wrapped up as tightly as a mummy, fast asleep, and Pan lay coiled around her neck as a little green snake.

  Asta was lying, cat-shaped, on Malcolm's lap. He tried to stroke her with his left hand, but that made his arm throb with even more pain. She stood up and rubbed her face against his.

  "Where are we?" he whispered.

  "In a gyropter. He's flying it."

  "Where are we going?"

  "He didn't say."

  "Where's the rucksack?"

  "Behind your legs."

  He felt for it with his right hand: there it was, safe. He felt his left arm delicately, and found a rough bandage covering the forearm.

  "What happened?" he said.

  "You got shot," said Alice.

  The gyropter was shaking and swaying, but Alice was calm enough, so Malcolm decided not to be anxious. The engine was so loud and so close that it was difficult to hear each other anyway. He leaned back in the hard seat and fell asleep.

  Alice adjusted the way he was lying so he wouldn't wake up with a stiff neck. Over the thudding of the engine, she heard Asriel shout something and thought she heard her name. She leaned forward and shouted back, "What? I can't hear you."

  There was another man in the copilot's seat, some sort of servant. He twisted around and handed her earphones, and showed her how to put them on and bring the microphone round in front of her mouth. Suddenly Lord Asriel's voice was loud and clear.

  "Listen carefully, and don't interrupt. I'm going away, and I won't be back for some time. I want to find the child safe when I come back, and the best way to ensure that is to keep yourself and Malcolm quiet and inconspicuous. You understand what I mean?"

  "You think I'm stupid?"

  "No, I think you're young. Go back to the Trout. I know you work there; I saw you. Go back there and take up your life again. Tell no one about any of this. Oh, you can talk to Malcolm, of course, but not a wo
rd to anyone else except the Master of Jordan College. He's a good man; you can trust him. But there are all kinds of dangers ready to pounce when the flood goes down."

  "What, the CCD, you mean? Why do they want her?"

  "I haven't got time to explain. But they'll be watching you, and they'll be watching Malcolm, so stay away from her for a while. I'd take her with me into the far north, where the dangers are open and obvious, except for one thing."

  "What?"

  "She seems to have found some good guardians already. She must be lucky."

  He said no more. Alice took off the earphones. She bent down to touch Lyra's forehead, but the child was fast asleep, with no fever. Greyhound Ben licked Pantalaimon's emerald serpent head, and Alice took Malcolm's right hand and closed her eyes.

  --

  And almost at once, it seemed, they were descending. Malcolm felt a lurch in his stomach and clenched his muscles against it; but it only lasted a few moments, and then the aircraft settled on the ground. The engine noise changed, becoming quieter, and then stopped altogether. Malcolm's ears were ringing, but he did hear the hammering of rain against the body of the gyropter, and heard Lord Asriel's voice above it: "Thorold, stay here and guard the machine. I'll be ten minutes."

  Then he turned and said over his shoulder, "Get out and follow me. Bring the child, and bring your bloody rucksack."

  Alice found a door on her side and scooped up Lyra before scrambling out. Malcolm hauled the rucksack along and got out the same side, into the bitter wind and the teeming rain.

  "This way," said Lord Asriel, and hurried off.

  A flash of lightning showed Malcolm a great domed building, walls of stone, towers, and treetops.

  "Is this...," said Alice.

  "Oxford, yes. This is Radcliffe Square, I think--"

  Lord Asriel was waiting at the entrance to a narrow lane lit by a flickering gaslamp. The rain made every surface shiny. His black hair glinted like stone.

  He set off down the lane, and after a hundred yards or so, he took a key from his pocket and opened a door in the wall on the right.

  They followed him into a large garden, overlooked by buildings on two sides. In one of them, large Gothic windows were lit, showing shelves of ancient books. Lord Asriel made straight for a corner of the garden under a high stone wall and went along a narrow passage that was lit, like the lane outside, by a flickering yellow light on the wall.

  "Let me take the child," he said.

  Alice handed her over carefully. Lord Asriel's daemon, the powerful snow leopard, wanted to see her, and Lord Asriel crouched down to let her put her face next to the sleeping child. Malcolm shifted the rucksack awkwardly, and an idea came to him. He'd never managed to give Lyra the little toy he'd made, but perhaps...

  "Is this Jordan College?" he said.

  "As you suggested. Come on. We must be here and gone for this to work."

  He stopped by a large door set between two elegant bay windows, and knocked loudly. Malcolm, ignoring the awful pain in his left arm, rummaged at the bottom of the rucksack for the alethiometer in its black velvet cloth. The cloth fell open as he brought it out, and the gold glittered in the dim light.

  "What's that?" said Lord Asriel.

  "It's a present for her," said Malcolm, and thrust it in among Lyra's blankets.

  They heard the sound of a key turning and bolts sliding back, and as thunder crashed overhead, the door opened to show a distinguished-looking man holding a lamp. He peered out at them in astonishment.

  "Asriel? Can that be you?" he said. "Come inside, quickly."

  "Put your lamp down, Master. On the table--that'll do."

  "What in the world--"

  When the Master turned back, Lord Asriel put the child in his arms before he could protest.

  "Secundum legem de refugio scholasticorum, protectionem tegimentumque huius collegii pro filia mea Lyra nomine reposco," Asriel said. "Look after her."

  "Scholastic sanctuary? For this child?"

  "For my daughter, Lyra, as I said."

  "She's not a scholar!"

  "You'll have to make her into one, then, won't you?"

  "And what about these two?"

  Asriel turned to look at Malcolm and Alice, sodden, shivering, filthy, exhausted, bloody.

  "Treasure them," he said.

  Then he left.

  It was no good; Malcolm couldn't stand up any longer. Alice caught him and laid him on the Turkish carpet. The Master shut the door. In the sudden silence, Lyra began to cry.

  Now strike your sails yee jolly Mariners, For we be come into a quiet rode,

  Where we must land some of our passengers, And light this weary vessel of her lode.

  Here she a while may make her safe abode, Till she repaired have her tackles spent, And wants supplied. And then againe abroad On the long voyage whereto she is bent: Well may she speede and fairely finish her intent.

  EDMUND SPENSER, THE FAERIE QUEENE, 1 XII 42

  To be continued...

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