The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage

Four Uppsala

In a comfortable study at the University of Uppsala, in Sweden, three men sat talking as the wild rain lashed the windows and the wind sent occasional puffs of smoke back down the chimney to disturb the fire in the iron stove.

The host was called Gunnar Hallgrimsson. He was a bachelor, a man of sixty or so, plump and sharp-witted. He was a professor of metaphysical philosophy at the university. His dæmon, a robin, stayed on his shoulder and said little.

One of his guests was a university colleague, Axel Löfgren, professor of experimental theology. He was thin, taciturn but amiable, and his dæmon was a ferret. He and Hallgrimsson were old friends, and their habit of teasing each other was usually in full flow after a good dinner, but it was moderated this evening by the presence of the third man, a stranger to them both.

The visitor was about the same age as Hallgrimsson, but he looked older; certainly his face bore the marks of more experience and trial than did the professor’s smooth cheeks and unlined brow. He was a gyptian of the people of Eastern Anglia, a man called Coram van Texel, who had traveled much in the far north. He was lean and of middle height, and his movements were careful, as if he thought he might break something inadvertently, as if he was unused to delicate glasses and fine tableware. His dæmon, a large cat with fur of a thousand beautiful autumnal colors, stalked the corners of the study before leaping gracefully to Coram’s lap. Ten years after this evening, and again ten years after that, Lyra would marvel at the coloring of that dæmon’s fur.

They had just dined. Coram had arrived that day from the north, with a letter of introduction from an acquaintance of Professor Hallgrimsson’s, the consul of the witches at the town of Trollesund.

“You’ll take some Tokay?” said Hallgrimsson, sitting down after looking through the window along the rain-swept street, and then pulling the curtains across against the draft.

“That would be a rare pleasure,” said Coram.

The professor turned to a small table no more than an arm’s length from his comfortable chair and poured some golden wine into three glasses.

“And how is my friend Martin Lanselius?” the professor continued, handing a glass to Coram. “I must say, I never thought he would end up in the diplomatic service of the witches.”

“He’s thriving,” said Coram. “In fine fettle. He’s making a study of their religion.”

“I’ve often thought the belief systems of the witch clans would reward investigation,” said Hallgrimsson, “but my own studies led me elsewhere.”

“Even further into the void,” said the professor of experimental theology, taking a glass from his host.

“You must excuse my friend’s absurdities. Your good health, Mr. Van Texel,” said Hallgrimsson, taking a sip.

“And yours, sir. By God, this is fine.”

“I’m glad you think so. There is a wine merchant in Buda-Pesth who sends me a case of it every year.”

“We don’t taste it very often,” said Löfgren. “Every time I see a bottle, there’s less in it than there was before.”

“Oh, nonsense. Now, what can we do for you here in Uppsala, Mr. Van Texel?”

“Dr. Lanselius told me about the instrument you have, the truth measurer,” said the gyptian. “I was hoping to consult it.”

“Ah. Tell me about the nature of your inquiry.”

“My people,” said Coram, “the gyptian people, are under threat from various political factions in Brytain. They want to restrict our ancient freedoms and limit the activities we can take part in — buying and selling, for instance. I want to know which of these threats can be dealt with by opposition, which by negotiation, and which can’t be dealt with at all. Is that the sort of question your instrument could answer?”

“In the right hands, yes. Given enough time, I could even make a rough attempt at interpreting it myself.”

“You mean you’re not an expert reader?”

“By no means expert.”

“Then—”

“Let me show you the instrument, and perhaps you will understand the problem.”

The professor opened a drawer in the little table and brought out a leather box, circular in shape and about the size of the palm of a man’s hand, and three fingers deep. Löfgren pulled out a tapestry-covered stool, and Hallgrimsson placed the box on it and lifted the lid.

Coram leaned forward. In the soft naphtha light, something gleamed richly. The professor adjusted the lampshade so that the light fell full on the stool, and took the instrument out of its box. His short stubby fingers were touching the instrument with what looked to Coram like the tenderness of a lover, as if he thought it was alive.

It was a clock-shaped device of bright gold, with a crystal face uppermost. At first, Coram could see little but a beautiful complexity, until the professor began to point things out.

“Around the edge of the dial — you see? — we have thirty-six pictures, each painted on ivory with a single hair. And around the outside we have three little wheels a hundred and twenty degrees apart, like the knobs you use to wind a watch. This is what happens when I turn one.”

Coram leaned closer, and his dæmon stepped off his lap and stood on the arm of the chair so that she could see too. As the professor turned the wheel, they saw a slender black hand, like a minute hand, detach itself from the complicated background and move around the dial with a series of clicks. The professor stopped when it was pointing at a tiny picture of the sun.

“We have three hands,” the professor said, “and we point each at a different symbol. If I were framing your question, I would probably include the sun in the three symbols I chose, because it stands, among other things, for kingship and authority, and by association, for the law. The other two”—he turned the other wheels, and the hands moved obediently round the dial—“would depend on which aspect of your question we wanted to deal with first. You mentioned buying and selling. Somewhere in the griffin range of meanings, those actions occur. Why? Because griffins are associated with treasure. I would also guess that the third hand should point to the dolphin, whose primary meaning is water, because your people are water dwellers, no?”

“That’s true. I begin to see.”

“Let’s try, then.”

The professor moved the second hand to the griffin and the third to the dolphin.

“And then this happens,” he said.

A needle so slender that Coram hadn’t seen it at all, and of a mid-gray color, began to move, apparently of its own accord, slowly, hesitating, and then swung round very quickly, stopping here and there before moving on again.

“What’s that doing?” said Coram.

“Giving us the answer.”

“You got to be quick, en’t you?”

“Your mental faculties have to be calm, but alert. I have heard it compared to the way in which a hunter will lie in wait, ready to pull the trigger at any moment, but without any nervous excitement.”

“I understand,” said Coram. “I’ve seen archers in Nippon do something similar.”

“Really? I would like to hear about that. But the mental attitude is only one aspect of the difficulty. Another is this: that each symbol has a very deep range of meanings, and they are only made clear in the books of readings.”

“How many meanings?”

“Nobody knows. Some have been explored to the depth of a hundred or more, but they show no sign of coming to an end. Perhaps they go on forever.”

“And how were these meanings discovered?” put in Löfgren.

Coram looked at the professor; he’d thought Löfgren was familiar with the alethiometer, as Hallgrimsson was, and believed in its powers, but there was a tone of skepticism in his question.

“By contemplation, by meditation, by experiment,” said Hallgrimsson.

“Oh. Well, I believe in experiment,” said Löfgren.

“I’m glad to hear you believe in something,” said his friend.

“These meanings — the relation between them — if they work by kinds of similarity,” said Coram, “they could go on a lot past a hundred. There’s no end to finding similarities, once you start looking for ’em.”

“But what matters is not the similarities your imagination finds, but the similarities that are implicit in the image, and they are not necessarily the same. I have noticed that the more imaginative readers are often the less successful. Their minds leap to what they think is there rather than waiting with patience. And what matters most of all is where the chosen meaning comes in the hierarchy of meanings, you see, and for that there is no alternative to the books. That is why the only alethiometers we know about are kept in or by great libraries.”

“How many are there, then?”

“We think there were six made. We know where five of them are: there is this one in Uppsala, there is one in Bologna, one in Paris, the Magisterium has one in Geneva, and there is one in Oxford.”

“Oxford, eh?”

“In the Bodleian Library. It is a remarkable story. When the Consistorial Court of Discipline was gathering its power in the last century, the prefect of the court heard of the existence of the Bodleian alethiometer and demanded its surrender. The librarian refused. The convocation of the university, the governing body, ordered him to comply. Instead, what he did was to conceal the instrument in the hollowed-out pages of a work of experimental theology, of which they already had several identical copies, and place it on the open shelves in plain view — but, of course, impossible to find among the million or more volumes in the library. That time the Consistorial Court gave up. Then they came a second time. The prefect sent a body of armed men to the library and threatened the librarian with death if it was not given up. Again the librarian refused, saying that he had not taken up his office in order to give away the contents of the library, and that he had a sacred duty to conserve and protect them for scholarship. The officer in charge ordered his men to arrest the librarian and bring him out into the quadrangle to be shot. The librarian took his place in front of the firing squad and faced the officer for the first time — they had negotiated only by messenger previously, you see — and they recognized each other as old college friends. The officer was abashed, the story says, and would not give the order, and instead stood his men down and went to drink brantwijn with the librarian. The outcome was that the alethiometer remained in the Bodleian Library, where it is still, the librarian retained his position, and the officer was ordered back to Geneva, where shortly afterwards he died, apparently by poison.”

The gyptian gave a long, low whistle.

“And who reads the Oxford one now?” he said.

“There is a small body of scholars who have made it their object of study. I have heard there is a woman of great gifts who has made considerable progress in the principles… Ralph? Relph? Something like that.”

“I see,” said Coram, sipping his wine and looking closely at the alethiometer. “You said there were six of these, Professor, and then you told me the whereabouts of five of ’em. Where is the sixth?”

“Well might you ask. No one knows. Well, I daresay somebody knows, but I don’t think any scholar knows. Now, if we could come back to your question, Mr. Van Texel: it’s a complicated one, but that’s not the main problem. The problem is that our leading scholar is not here. He is in Paris, spending a sabbatical term in the Bibliothèque Nationale. I am too slow and clumsy to find my way from one level to another, and to see the connections and estimate where I should look next in the books. I would read it for you if I could, of course.”

“Despite the danger?” said Coram.

The professor said nothing for a few moments. Then he said, “The danger of…”

“Of summary execution,” said Coram, though he was smiling.

“Oh, yes. Aha. Well, I think those days are behind us, fortunately.”

“Let’s hope so,” said Löfgren.

Coram took another sip of the golden wine and sat back in the chair as if he was contented and comfortable. The fact was that the alethiometer, pretty though it was, had little interest for him, and the question he had posed to Professor Hallgrimsson was a blind: the gyptians were perfectly capable of working out the answer for themselves, and indeed they already had. Coram was up to something else altogether, and now he had to maneuver the conversation towards a different matter.

“I daresay you have a lot of visitors,” he said.

“Well, I don’t know,” said the professor. “No more than most universities, I suppose. Of course, we do specialize in one or two areas, and that brings interested scholars from quite some distance. Not only scholars either.”

“Explorers, I expect.”

“Among others, yes. On their way to the Arctic.”

“I wonder if you’ve met a man called Lord Asriel. He’s a friend of my people, a notable explorer in that part of the world.”

“He has been here, but not recently. I did hear…” The professor looked awkward for a second, and then his eagerness overcame his reluctance. “I don’t listen to gossip, you understand.”

“Oh, neither do I,” said Coram. “Sometimes I overhear it, though.”

“Overhear!” said Löfgren. “That is very good.”

“Yes, I overheard a remarkable story about Lord Asriel not long ago,” Hallgrimsson said. “If you have just come from the north, perhaps it won’t have reached you yet… It seems that Lord Asriel has been involved in a murder case.”

“Murder?”

“He had a child with a woman who was married to someone else, and then he killed the woman’s husband.”

“Good God!” said Coram, who knew the story well already. “How did that come about?”

He listened to the professor’s version of the tale, which differed only slightly from the one he knew, waiting for the opportunity to steer the conversation the way of his question.

“And what happened to the child?” he said. “With its mother, I expect?”

“No. I think the court has custody. For the moment, at any rate. The mother is a remarkably beautiful woman, but not one in whom, shall we say, the flame of motherhood burns very brightly.”

“You speak as if you’ve met her.”

“Indeed we have,” said Hallgrimsson, and if Coram had had to describe his expression, he would have said that the scholar was preening himself just a little. “We have dined with her. She visited us just a month ago.”

“Did she really? And was she off exploring too?”

“No, she came to consult Axel here. She is a remarkable scholar herself, you know.”

This was the moment.

“She came to consult you, sir?” said Coram to the experimental theologian.

Löfgren smiled. Coram noticed that his bony face was actually showing a faint blush.

“I used to think my old friend here was immune to the charms of the fair sex,” said Hallgrimsson. “In years gone by, Mr. Van Texel, he would hardly have noticed that she was a woman. But this time I think the dart of Cupid might actually have penetrated his carapace.”

“I don’t blame you, sir,” said Coram to Löfgren. “Speaking for myself, I’ve always found great intelligence in a woman a highly attractive feature. What did she want to consult you about, if I may ask?”

“Oh, you won’t get anything out of him,” said Hallgrimsson. “I’ve tried. Anyone would think he had signed an oath of secrecy.”

“Because you would make a joke of it, you old buffoon,” said Löfgren. “She came to ask me about the Rusakov field. Do you know what that is?”

“No, sir. What is it?”

“You know what a field is, in natural philosophy?”

“I’ve got a vague idea. It’s a region where some force applies. Is that it?”

“That will do. But this field is like no other we know of. Its discoverer, a Muscovite called Rusakov, was investigating the mystery of consciousness — human consciousness — that is, of why something entirely material, such as a human body — including the brain, of course — should be able to generate this impalpable, invisible thing, awareness. Is it material, this consciousness we have? We can’t weigh it or measure it. Is it something spiritual, then? Once we use the word spiritual, we don’t have to explain anymore, because it belongs to the Church then, and no one can question it. Well, that’s no good to a real investigator of nature. I won’t go into all the steps Rusakov took, but he finally arrived at the extraordinary idea that consciousness is a perfectly normal property of matter, like mass or anbaric charge; that there is a field of consciousness that pervades the entire universe, and that makes itself apparent most fully — we believe — in human beings. Precisely how is a question that is now being investigated with urgent excitement by scientists in every part of the world.”

“Every part of the world, that is, where they are allowed to,” said Hallgrimsson. “So you see, Mr. Van Texel, how easily this must attract the attention of the Consistorial Court.”

“I do, sir. It must have shaken the Church to its foundations. And this was what the lady came here to ask about?”

“It was,” said Löfgren. “Mrs. Coulter’s interest was unusual in someone who was not a professional scholar. She asked several very perceptive questions about the Rusakov field and human consciousness. I showed her my results, she absorbed everything I could tell her with instant understanding, and then she seemed to lose interest in me, to my sorrow, and started to flatter my colleague here.”

“Had she heard about this wine, then, sir?” said Coram.

“Ho ho! No, it wasn’t the wine, and it wasn’t my many personal attractions. She wanted to consult the alethiometer about her daughter, Mr. Van Texel.”

“Her daughter?” said Coram. “You mean the child she had by—”

“By Lord Asriel,” said Hallgrimsson. “Indeed. The very same. She wanted me to use the alethiometer to find out where the child was.”

“She doesn’t know?”

“Oh, no. It — I suppose I mean she—is under the supervision of the courts of law, but of course she could be anywhere. Apparently, it’s a matter of some secrecy. And now — remember you are just overhearing this, Mr. Van Texel — the mother has discovered that the child is the subject of a prophecy by the witches. She did not tell us that. We — ahem—overheard it from one of her servants. Mrs. Coulter is very eager to discover more about this, and especially to find out where the child is, so as to take her back into her… I was going to say into her care, but I think it would be more like custody.”

“I see,” said Coram. “And what did this prophecy say? Did you happen to overhear that?”

“No, alas. I believe it was simply that the child was of supreme importance in some way. That is all we heard. And her mother does not know what the prophecy foretells. Yes, a very remarkable woman. But should we now be expecting a call from the agents of the Consistorial Court, Mr. Van Texel?”

“I hope not. But these are trying times, Professor.”

Coram had asked enough; he had learned what he wanted to. After a few more minutes of conversation, he stood up.

“Well, gentlemen,” he said, “I’m greatly obliged to you. A splendid dinner, some of the finest wine I’ve ever tasted in my life, and a look at that remarkable instrument.”

“I’m very sorry I could do no more for you than roughly sketch how it works,” said Professor Hallgrimsson, getting to his feet with a little effort. “But at least you have seen the difficulties.”

“Indeed, sir. Has it stopped raining yet, I wonder?”

Coram went to the window and looked out at the street: empty to left and right, and very dark between the streetlamps, the roadway glistening wet.

“Can I lend you an umbrella?” said the professor.

“No need for that, thank you. It’s dry enough now. Good night, gentlemen, good night to you, and thank you again.”

And now came the second problem Coram had to deal with.

The rain had stopped, but the air was heavy with moisture and bitterly cold. A nimbus of mist surrounded every streetlight so that they looked like golden dandelion seed heads, and the drip of water from the eaves was unceasing as Coram and Sophonax walked slowly along the riverfront.

“Want to come up, Sophie?” said Coram, because dæmon or not, Sophonax was a cat, and the pavements were drenched; but she said, “Better not.”

“He still there?” Coram murmured.

“He’s keeping out of sight, but he’s there.”

Since they had left Novgorod the previous week, Coram had known they were being followed. It was time to put a stop to it.

“Same one, eh?”

“That dæmon can’t hide,” said Sophonax.

Coram was moving in a roundabout way towards the narrow little boardinghouse near the river where he’d rented a room, and now he slowed down by the water’s edge, where half a dozen barges were tied up at a stone embankment. It was half past midnight.

He paused there, hands on the wet iron railing, looking out across the black water while his dæmon wound herself round his legs, pretending to pester for attention but really watching every movement behind them.

To get to the boardinghouse, they’d have to cross a little iron footbridge that spanned the river, but Coram didn’t go that way. Instead, when Sophonax said, “Now,” he turned away from the river and walked swiftly across the road and into an alley between two stone-fronted buildings that might have been banks or government offices. He had noticed this alley before, when coming along the river towards the university — a quick glance, an almost automatic registering of possibility — and he’d seen that it was open at the other end. He wouldn’t get trapped here, but he might ambush whoever was following him. As soon as he was in the shadows, he ran on soft feet for the large rubbish bins halfway down, almost invisible in the darkness on the right-hand side.

There he crouched and reached inside the sleeve of his coat for the short, heavy stick of lignum vitae he carried along his left forearm. He knew how to use it in at least five lethal ways.

Sophonax waited till he had the stick ready before leaping up to his shoulder, and then, after delicately testing the top of the nearest dustbin in case it was loose, she climbed up there and lay flat, staring at the entrance to the alley with her cat eyes wide. Coram watched the other end, which opened into a narrow street of office buildings.

What happened next would depend on how skillfully the other man’s dæmon could fight. They had once overpowered a Tartar and his wolf dæmon when they were younger, and Sophonax was afraid of nothing, and swift and very strong; in a fight to the death, the great taboo against touching another person’s dæmon didn’t count for much. In fighting for their life, Sophonax had more than once had to scratch and bite with fury at the hideous touch of a stranger’s hand and then afterwards wash herself in a near frenzy to get rid of the taint.

But this dæmon…

Sophie whispered, “There.”

Coram turned, careful and slow, and saw in silhouette against the lighted embankment the small head and hulking shoulders of a hyena. She was looking directly at them. She was a brute such as Coram had never seen: malice in every line of her, jaws that could crack bones as if they were made of pastry. She and her man were clearly trained at the business of following, because Coram was trained at the business of spotting it, and admired their skill; but as Sophie remarked, it wasn’t easy for such a dæmon to remain inconspicuous. As for what they wanted, Coram had no idea; if they wanted a fight, they’d get one.

He tightened his grip on the fighting stick; Sophie readied herself to spring. The hyena dæmon came forward a little, emerging into a full silhouette, and the man stepped silently forward after her. Coram and Sophie both spotted the pistol in his hand the moment before he flattened himself against the wall of the alley and disappeared into shadow.

Silence, apart from the eternal drip of water from the roofs.

Coram wished that Sophie had hidden behind the bin with him rather than crouching on the lid. She was too exposed—

A sound like a man spitting a pip — it was a gas pistol — followed at once by a great clatter as the bullet hit the dustbin and sent it tumbling over Coram and rolling across the alley. In the same instant, Sophie leapt away and landed by Coram’s side. A gas pistol wasn’t accurate over a distance but was deadly enough at close range: they’d have to neutralize it. They kept perfectly still. Slow footsteps came towards them, and they could hear the snuffling, grunting sounds of that creature and the clicking of her claws on the pavement, and then Coram thought, Now! and Sophie sprang directly at where the hyena’s head would be, claws out, and the man fired the gas pistol again twice, and one bullet scorched its way across Coram’s scalp. But it gave him a fix on where the man was, and he lunged forward and slashed with his stick at the darkness, connecting with something — arm? hand? shoulder? — and knocking the gun away.

Sophie’s claws, all of them, were firmly fixed in the hyena’s scalp and throat. The dæmon was shaking her head wildly, trying to dislodge her, and smashing her against the wall and the ground again and again. Coram saw the man’s shadow reach down as if to pick up the gun, and he sprang forward to lash down with the stick but missed and slipped on the wet ground and fell at the man’s feet, rolling away at once and kicking out hard towards where the gun had fallen.

His foot connected with something that skittered away over the cobbles, and the man kicked him in the ribs, horribly hard, and then grappled closely with him, trying for a choke hold, and he was wiry and tough, but Coram still had the stick in his hand and stabbed up with it as hard as he could into the man’s midriff. A gasping cough and the grip weakened, and then Coram felt a shock as the hyena finally managed to slam Sophie loose, tearing out a corner of her fur between those brutal teeth, and immediately fastened her massive jaws around Sophie’s head.

Instantly Coram twisted upright. The man fell away, and Coram swung his arm with every gram of strength he had towards the hyena. He had no idea where he hit her and was only concerned that he didn’t fatally damage Sophie, but the blow that landed was a cruel one: he heard bones snapping and saw in the dimness Sophie trying to tear herself away from the hideous jaws. Merciless now, Coram balanced and took aim, and lashed again and again at the hyena’s now-broken leg. He didn’t let up because the hyena had only to crush her mouth shut and he and Sophie would die in a moment.

So as the hyena opened her great jaws to scream, Sophie twisted away and scratched at the man’s hand, tearing his skin and drawing blood, even at the cost of her own disgust; and the man, crying out as the dæmon’s pain made his own nerves throb with agony, pulled away and dragged the hyena with him. The dæmon snarled and snapped her jaws in a frenzy of pain and misery, and Coram would have followed them and attacked the man himself, now that they were wounded, except when he tried to stand up, he fainted and fell down again.

He came to only a few moments later, in a sudden silence. Apart from himself and Sophie, the alley was empty. His head was spinning. He tried to sit up, but Sophie said, “Lie down. Let the blood back in your brain.”

“Have they gone?”

“They ran away. Well, he did. I don’t think she’ll ever run again. He was carrying her, and she was mad with pain.”

“Why…” He couldn’t finish, but she understood.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” she said.

He hadn’t felt much pain till she said that, but then he felt the line the bullet had made through his scalp suddenly reminding him of itself, and the warm wetness on his neck and shoulders beginning to turn cold as the fighting passion subsided, and he lay back to gather his strength. Then he sat up carefully.

“You hurt bad?” he said.

“I would have been. If those jaws had closed, I don’t think they’d ever have opened again.”

“We should have finished him. Damn, they were good, though. Think he was a Muscovite?”

“No. Don’t ask me why. Maybe… French?”

Coram stood up, holding on to the wall. He looked out towards both ends of the alley and said, “Come on, then. Back to bed. I don’t think we did very well there, Sophie.”

His ribs hurt furiously; he thought one of them might be broken. His scalp was bleeding thickly and felt as if a red-hot iron had been pressed against it. He scooped up his dæmon and she attended to the scalp wound, licking and cleaning him tenderly as they walked back to their boardinghouse.

After a wash in the only water available, which was icy cold, he put on a clean shirt and sat down at the little table. By the light of a candle, he composed a letter, saying everything as briefly as possible.

Then he set about the laborious task of transcribing it into code and addressed it in an ordinary envelope to an insignificant part of central London. He carefully burned the original, and then he went to bed.