The second CCD man produced another notice from his briefcase and pinned it up like the first one. Then the two of them finished their drinks, taking their time, and gathered their coats before going out to deal with their abject prisoner. No one said a word.
It turned out that instead of waiting obediently for the CCD men to come out and take him away, George Boatwright had vanished. Good for him, thought Malcolm, but no one talked about it or wondered aloud what had happened to him. That was the way of things with the CCD: it was better not to ask, better not to think about it.
The atmosphere in the Trout was subdued for some days afterwards. Malcolm went to school, did his homework, fetched and carried at the inn, and read over and over again the secret message in the acorn. It wasn't an easy time; everything seemed hung about with an unhappy air of suspicion and fear, quite unlike the normal world, as Malcolm thought of it, the place he was used to living in, where everything was interesting and happy.
Besides, the CCD man had been asking about the lord chancellor's companion, and his interest had been in the matter of whether the priory had ever looked after an infant; and Malcolm thought that the care of infants was probably not the sort of thing the CCD usually bothered with. Acorns containing secret messages, perhaps, but they hadn't mentioned anything like that. It was all very puzzling.
--
In the hope of seeing someone else either leaving or collecting a message from the oak tree, Malcolm went there several times over the next few days, covering up his interest in that little stretch of the canal by watching the great crested grebes. The other thing he did was to hang about in the chandlery. It was a good place to watch the piazza; people were always going back and forth or stopping to drink coffee in the cafe opposite. They sold all kinds of boat-related stuff in the chandlery, including red paint, of which he bought a small tin and a fine brush to go with it. The woman behind the counter soon realized that his interest didn't stop at red paint.
"What else you looking for, Malcolm?" she said. Her name was Mrs. Carpenter, and she'd known him ever since he was allowed to go out in the canoe on his own.
"Some cotton cord," he said.
"I showed you what we've got yesterday."
"Yes, but maybe there's another reel somewhere..."
"I don't understand what's wrong with the one I showed you."
"It's too thin. I want to make a lanyard, and it's got to be a bit heavier than that."
"You could always double it. Use two strands instead of one."
"Oh, yeah. I suppose I could."
"How much d'you want, then?"
"About four fathoms."
"Doubled, or single?"
"Well, eight fathoms. That should be enough if I double it."
"I should think it would be," she said, and measured the cord and cut it.
It was a good thing Malcolm had plenty of money in his tin walrus. Once he'd got the cord stowed away tidily in a big paper bag, he peered out the window, looking left and right, as he'd been doing for the previous quarter of an hour.
"Don't mind me asking," said Mrs. Carpenter, and her drake daemon murmured in agreement, "but what are you looking for? You been staring out there for ever such a long time. You meeting someone? They not turned up?"
"No! No. Actually..." If he couldn't trust Mrs. Carpenter, he thought, he couldn't trust anyone. "Actually, I'm looking for someone. A man in a gray coat and hat. I saw him the other day and he dropped something and we found it, and I want to give it back to him, but I haven't seen him since."
"That's all you can tell me about him? A gray coat and hat? How old was he?"
"I didn't see him clearly. I suppose he was about the same age as my dad. He was kind of thin."
"Where did he drop this thing you've got? Along the canal?"
"Yes. Under a tree back down the towpath...It's not important."
"It's not this chap, is it?"
Mrs. Carpenter brought the latest Oxford Times out from under the counter and folded it back to an inside page before holding it out for Malcolm to see.
"Yes, I think that's him....What's happened? What's...He's been drowned?"
"They found him in the canal. Looked as if he'd just slipped in, apparently. You know how rainy it's been, and they don't look after the towpath as they ought to--he's not the first to lose his footing and fall in. Whatever he lost, it's too late to give it back now."
Malcolm was reading the story with wide eyes, gulping the words down. The man's name was Robert Luckhurst, and he'd been a scholar of Magdalen College, an historian. He was unmarried, and was survived by his widowed mother and a brother. There would be an inquest in due course, but there were no signs that his death was anything other than an accident.
"What was it he dropped?" said Mrs. Carpenter.
"Just a little ornament kind of thing," said Malcolm in a steady voice, though his heart was thumping. "He was throwing it up and catching it as he went along, and then he dropped it. He looked for it a bit, and then it started raining and he left."
"What were you doing?"
"I was watching the great crested grebes. I don't suppose he saw me. But when he left, I went to see if I could find it and I did, so I've been looking for him ever since to give it back. But I can't now."
"What day was it you saw him?"
"I think..." Malcolm had to think quite hard. He looked at the paper again to see if it said when the man's body had been discovered. The Oxford Times was a weekly, so it could have been any day in the past five or six. With a jolt, he realized that Luckhurst's body had been found the day after he had seen him being arrested by the CCD men.
They couldn't have killed him, could they?
"No, it was a few days before this," he lied with great assurance. "I don't suppose it was connected at all. There's lots of people who walk along the towpath. He might have done it every day, like for exercise. He wasn't very bothered about losing it, because he left as soon as it started raining."
"Oh, well," said Mrs. Carpenter. "Poor man. Perhaps they'll take a bit more care of the towpath now it's too late."
A customer came in, and Mrs. Carpenter turned to deal with him. Malcolm wished he hadn't told her about the man and the thing he'd dropped; if he'd had his wits about him, he could have pretended that he'd been looking for a friend. But then she'd never have told him about the story in the paper. This was all very difficult.
"Bye, Mrs. Carpenter," he said as he left, and she waved vaguely as she listened to the other customer.
"I wish we could ask her not to say anything," Malcolm said as they turned the canoe round.
"Then she'd think it was even more worth noticing, and remember it specially," said Asta. "That was a good lie you told."
"I didn't know I could do that. Best to do it as little as possible."
"And remember exactly what we've said each time."
"It's raining again...."
He paddled steadily up the canal, with Asta perching close to his ear so they could whisper together.
"Did they kill him?" she said.
"Unless he killed himself..."
"It might have been an accident."
"It's not likely, though. Not after the way they got hold of him."
"And what they did to Mr. Boatwright...They'd do anything. Torture, anything, I bet."
"So what could the message mean?"
They came back to that again and again. Malcolm had copied it so that he didn't have to keep unfolding the paper in the acorn, but even writing the words out himself didn't help make much sense of them. Someone was asking someone else to ask a question, and it was about measuring something, but more than that was hard to work out. And then there was the word Dust, with a capital D, as if it wasn't ordinary dust but something special.
"D'you think if we went to Magdalen College and asked the other scholars..."
"Asked them what?"
"Well, sort of detective questions. Work out what he did--"
"He was a historian. That'
s what it said."
"An historian. We could work out what else he did. What friends he had. Maybe talk to his students, or some of them, if we could find them. Whether he came back to college that evening after we saw them grab hold of him, or whether that was the last anyone saw of him. That sort of thing."
"They wouldn't tell us even if they knew. We don't look like detectives. We look like a schoolkid. And then there's the danger."
"The CCD..."
"Of course. If they hear we've been asking about him, wouldn't they get suspicious? Then they'd come and search the Trout and find the acorn, and then we'd be in real trouble."
"Some of the students who come in the Trout wear college scarves. If we knew what the Magdalen one was like..."
"That's a good idea! Then if we ask anything, it could seem like just being nosy. Or gossip."
It was raining even harder now, and Malcolm found it difficult to see ahead. Asta became an owl and perched on the prow, her feathers shedding the water in a way she'd discovered when she was trying to become an animal that didn't yet exist. The best she could do so far was to take one animal and add an aspect of another, so now she was an owl with duck's feathers; but she only did it when no one but Malcolm was looking. Guided by her big eyes, he paddled as fast as he could, stopping to bail out the canoe when the rain had filled it to his ankles. When they got home, he was soaked, but all she had to do was shake herself and she was dry again.
"Where've you been?" said his mother, but not crossly.
"Watching an owl. What's for supper?"
"Steak and kidney pie. Wash your hands. Look at you! You're soaking wet! You make sure you change into something dry after you've eaten. And don't leave your wet things on the bedroom floor."
Malcolm rinsed his hands under the kitchen tap and wiped them perfunctorily on a tea towel.
"Have they found Mr. Boatwright yet?" he said.
"No. Why?"
"They were all talking about something exciting in the bar. I could tell something was up, but I couldn't hear any details."
"There was a famous man in earlier. You could have waited on him if you weren't watching your blooming owls."
"Who was it?" said Malcolm, helping himself to mashed potato.
"Lord Asriel, the explorer."
"Oh," said Malcolm, who hadn't heard of him. "Where's he explored?"
"The Arctic mostly, so they say. But you remember what the lord chancellor was asking about?"
"Oh, the infant? If the sisters had ever had an infant to look after?"
"That's right. It turns out it's Lord Asriel's child. His love child. A little baby girl."
"Did he tell people that?"
"Course not! He never said a word about that. Well, he wouldn't go blabbing about that in a public bar, would he?"
"I dunno. Prob'ly not. So how d'you know--"
"Oh, you just put two and two together! The story about how Lord Asriel killed Mr. Coulter, the politician--that was in the papers a month back."
"If he killed someone, why en't he--"
"Eat your pie. He en't in prison because it was a matter of honor. Mr. Coulter's wife had the baby, Lord Asriel's baby, and then Mr. Coulter came charging down to Lord Asriel's estate and burst in, threatening to kill him, and they fought and Lord Asriel won and it turned out there's a law allowing a man to defend himself and his kin--that'd be the child, the baby--so he wasn't put in gaol nor hanged, but they fined him all his fortune, near enough. Eat your pie--come on, for goodness' sake!"
Malcolm was enthralled by this tale, and plied his knife and fork with only half his attention.
"But how d'you know he's come here to put his infant with the sisters?"
"Well, I don't, but it must be that. You can ask Sister Fenella next time you see her. And stop calling it an infant. No one talks like that. She's a baby still. Must be--oh, six months old, I suppose. Maybe a bit more."
"Why isn't her mother looking after her?"
"Lord, I don't know. Some say she never wanted anything more to do with the child, but maybe that's just gossip."
"The nuns won't know how to look after her, if they've never done it before."
"Well, they won't be short of advice. Give me your plate. There's rhubarb and custard on the side there."
--
As soon as possible, which was three days later, Malcolm hurried to the priory to learn more about the child of the famous explorer. Sister Fenella was his first port of call, and as the rain flung itself against the window, they sat at the kitchen table and kneaded some dough for the priory's bread. After Malcolm had washed his hands three times, making little change to their appearance, Sister Fenella gave up telling him.
"What is that in your fingernails?" she said.
"Tar. I was repairing my canoe."
"Well, if it's only tar...They say it's healthy," she said doubtfully.
"There's coal-tar soap," Malcolm pointed out.
"True enough. But I don't think it's that color. Never mind, the rest is clean enough. Knead away."
As he pulled and pushed at the dough, Malcolm pressed the nun with questions. Was it true, about Lord Asriel's baby?
"Well, and what have you heard about a baby?"
"That you're looking after it because he killed a man and the court took all his money away. And that was why the lord chancellor was asking about it in the Trout the other day. So is it true?"
"Yes, it is. A little baby girl."
"What's her name?"
"Lyra. I don't know why they didn't give her a good saint's name."
"Will she be here till she's grown up?"
"Oh, I don't know, Malcolm....Harder with that now. Teach it who's boss."
"Did you see Lord Asriel?"
"No. I tried to peep along the corridor, but Sister Benedicta had the door firmly closed."
"Is she the person who's in charge of her?"
"Well, she was the sister who spoke to Lord Asriel."
"So who looks after the baby and feeds her and all that?"
"We all do."
"How do you know how to do all those things? I wondered because..."
"Because we're all maiden ladies?"
"Well, it's not the usual thing you get nuns doing."
"You'd be surprised at what we know," she said, and her elderly squirrel daemon laughed, and so did Asta, so Malcolm did too. "But, you know, Malcolm, you mustn't say anything about the baby. It's a great secret that she's here. You mustn't breathe a word about it."
"Lots of people know already. My mum and dad know, and customers...They've all been talking about it."
"Oh, dear. Well, perhaps it doesn't matter, then. But you'd better not say any more. Perhaps that would be all right."
"Sister Fenella, did any men from the CCD come the other night? You know, the Consist--"
"The Consistorial Court of Discipline? Lord preserve us. What have we done to deserve that?"
"I don't know. Nothing. There were some men, two of them, in the Trout the other night, and everyone was afraid of them. They were asking about one of the men who came with the lord chancellor. And Mr. Boatwright stood up to them and they were going to arrest him, but he disappeared. Probably ran away. He might be living in the woods."
"Goodness me! George Boatwright the poacher?"
"You know him, then?"
"Oh, yes. And now he's in trouble with the...Oh, dear. Oh, dear."
"Sister, what does the CCD do?"
"I expect they do God's work," she said. "It's too hard for us to understand."
"Did they come here?"
"I wouldn't know, Malcolm. Sister Benedicta would have seen them, not me. And she would have kept it to herself, like the brave lady she is, and not troubled anyone else."
"I just wondered if they had anything to do with the baby."
"Well, I wouldn't know, and I wouldn't ask. Come on, that's enough with that dough."
She took it from him and slapped it hard on the stone working surface. Mal
colm could see she was troubled, and he wished he hadn't asked about the CCD.
Before he left, Sister Fenella took him along to see Lyra. The baby was asleep in the nuns' parlor, the room where they received visitors, but Sister Fenella said it would be all right if he was very quiet.
He tiptoed after her into the room, which was cold and smelled of furniture polish, and miserably gray in the light from the rain-washed window. In the middle of the floor stood a crib of heavy-looking oak, and inside it there lay a baby, asleep.
Malcolm had never seen a baby at close quarters, and he was struck at once by how real she seemed. He knew that would be a silly thing to say, so he held his tongue, but that was his impression all the same: it was unexpected that something so small should be so perfectly formed. She was as perfectly made as the wooden acorn. Her daemon, the chick of a small bird like a swallow, was asleep with her, but as soon as Asta flew down, swallow-shaped too, and perched on the edge of the crib, the chick woke up and opened his yellow beak wide for food. Malcolm laughed, and that woke the baby, and seeing his laughing face, she began to laugh too. Asta pretended to snap at a tiny insect and thrust it down the baby daemon's gaping mouth, which satisfied him, making Malcolm laugh harder, and then the baby laughed so hard she got hiccups, and every time she hicked, the daemon jumped.
"There, there," said Sister Fenella, and bent to pick her up; but as she lifted the baby, Lyra's little face crumpled into an expression of grief and terror, and she reached round for her daemon, nearly twisting herself out of the nun's arms. Asta was ahead of her: she took the little chick in her mouth and flew up to place him on the baby's chest, at which point he turned into a miniature tiger cub and hissed and bared his teeth at everyone. All the baby's dismay vanished at once, and she lay in Sister Fenella's arms, looking around with a lordly complacency.
Malcolm was enchanted. Everything about her was perfect and delighted him.
"Better put you down again, sweetheart," said Sister Fenella. "Shouldn't have woken you, should we, darling?"
She laid the baby in the crib, tucking her up and taking the greatest care not to brush a hand against her daemon. Malcolm supposed the prohibition against touching another person's daemon was true for babies as well; in any case, he would never have dreamed, after those few minutes, of doing anything to upset that little child. He was her servant for life.
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.