Oxford
It is one o'clock in the morning and Lyra Belacqua is still awake. The alethiometer reading has not been going well; for a number of reasons. Firstly, because it concerns Will and she is finding it hard to manage her feelings for him, and for her half-sister Lizzie. I should be making a life for myself. There's the Republic to build! She cannot help her feelings of jealousy towards Lizzie, and she cannot help wondering about her mother.
Lizzie's close physical resemblance to their dead mother is too obvious to ignore and it has waked doubts and fears in Lyra's mind that she cannot shake off. Was it really me that Will loved? Or did he, all along, desire the image of my mother that he saw in me? Every time she sees Lizzie the same questions rise up in her mind, choking her. She knows she should not mind that Lizzie has become rich and powerful and a noted society beauty, while she is buried in obscurity, in dusty Jordan College.
Will and me, we made the difference. It was our love that stopped the Dust-flow and our sacrifice that saved the worlds. So why is it that she is the one who talks directly to Will while I have to be content with second-hand messages, passed via her?
There is another thing too. They slept together. I know it.
Pantalaimon: 'Stop it. You won't help Will, thinking like this.'
Lyra: 'I know.' She takes off her glasses, placing them carefully on the book-strewn table in front of her. Jordan College is proud of its traditions; and they do not extend to the fitting of anbaric lighting in the rooms of mere postgraduate students. Years of closely studying the Books in dim light have taken their toll on Lyra's eyesight. 'I'm nearly there.' She points to a pile of notes and references by her side. She has to take notes as the reading progresses or she will lose her way and have to start again from the beginning.
The other reason that the reading has been so hard is the vague nature of the request. There are a larger number of variables than she usually has to deal with. Simple enquiries, like Is it worth digging for gold in Cirencester? or Is this man guilty of fraud? are comparatively easy to answer. But the Knife is in another world… She takes up her pen again, with a sigh.
Two hours later, three o'clock in the morning, and she has her answers. She writes a note to Lizzie:
Dear Lizzie,
Here are the answers the alethiometer gave:
The Knife is on the move
The girl's mother died
Look for the Ring
I hope they help.
Best wishes,
Lyra
She takes the letter down to the porter's lodge and leaves it in the outgoing pigeonhole. Lizzie will receive it with her morning post.
The hills above Siemione
Guilietta's spirits are high as she and her brother walk on the springy grass in the hills above the cottage where they spent the night. Seeing Sophia's face above her as she woke brought back memories of her own mother that had lain half-forgotten in her memory for four years. The soft voice singing a lullaby as she slipped into sleep, the warmth of her breast resting against her cheek, the safety, the love. She chatters gaily to Giancarlo – will they live in a house by the sea, will there be boats they can go fishing out in, will they see Papa soon, will she have to go to school?
Giancarlo answers her questions in a half-detached, abstracted manner. He is glad to see his sister in good spirits, but he is feeling the weight of his responsibilities:
For Guili – she is so young, so vulnerable and so easily hurt.
For the Knife – how long can he keep it safe? He is wearing its sheath inside his waistband, concealed, he hopes, from casual view. He knows, however, that their descriptions must have been spread around the surrounding area by the men who are following him and his sister. He cannot believe that the cottage was not being watched, and anyway, he knows that they have at the most three or four hour's lead, for he is sure that Marco will not hesitate to inform on them.
For their future – what will they do? The best he can think of at the moment is that they should ask a fisherman to take them in his boat to another country, where they may be safe for a while.
And his talk with Marco and Sophia last night and this morning has started another question insistently and inexorably repeating in his mind. Guili's mother. Why did she die?
It is an old question, which he has, over the years, pushed to the back of his mind as being just one more of the world's unanswerable mysteries. It has come back to him now, with increased significance. The numbers still don't add up, no matter how he tries. He rehearses them over and over:
Sophia's daughter Maria was killed by the Spectres fifteen years ago, she said. That was in the time before he became the Knife-bearer; in fact before his predecessor Will Parry had care of it. So no blame could attach to him, or Will, for opening the window which created the Spectre that took Maria's mind, ending her life.
Ten years ago, he was given the Task of using the Knife to make new openings between the worlds so that the people who had been stranded far from their homes when the angels closed the windows after the Fall of Metatron could be saved. He, his father, and the angel Remiel had travelled from world to world, following up a rumour here and a sighting there, or information from the angels themselves, and offering each of the Exiles the opportunity of going back to their own world. Most had accepted the offer with great relief; they were dying, away from the place where their daemons – visible or not – had first come to life. Some had accepted the price of staying in their adopted homes and decided to end their lives where they were. But, as the months passed there were fewer and fewer Exiles left and, five years ago, the Task was ended and the Knife put aside. There had been no news of any estranged person for over six months.
Every time that Giancarlo had opened a window with the Knife, a Spectre had been created. Every time, the angel Remiel had gone to the world where the Spectre had appeared – usually in the world of Cittagazze where the Knife was created – and extinguished it. Each window had been opened for the least time possible. We obeyed the Laws of the Knife. We did all we could to mitigate the damage it did, thinks Giancarlo. But… Guili's mother was killed by a Spectre, just the same. Had Remiel failed to destroy all the Spectres the Knife admitted into the worlds? Had more than one – perhaps hundreds – been let in every time he cut an opening, and had one or two escaped the angel's notice?
Am I responsible, despite the care we took and all our good intentions, for killing Guili's mother? The thought has haunted him for years. Together with another one, which countervails against it, although it always seems to him as if he is trying to find a way to duck out of facing up to his own guilt. Guilietta's mother was killed four years ago. He last used the Knife to cut a window five years ago. How could it be his fault? The Spectre could have been hiding for who knows how long – ten years or more. But the angels said they would deal with the Spectres. Will told me. It could still be one of his, not mine. But it might not be.
Argument and counter-argument spin fruitlessly around in his head, torturing him and leading nowhere. He tries his best to put them out of his mind and concentrate on finding the best path through the pass in the hills which leads down to the village of Siemione and, he hopes, safety.
Oxford
'Discharged? You have to be joking!' Dr Parry turns on the ward sister. 'Who authorised this?'
'Nobody. He discharged himself.'
'He did what? He can't do that. He's still wearing a nano-collar.'
'They said they'd return it. Doctor, there wasn't anything I could do.'
That's put the kibosh on it. Will had come down to the general surgical ward to carry on the conversation with Jack Farrell which was interrupted the day before. There is something very wrong here.
'What about his care?'
'They said they were taking him to a private medical facility'
'Who? Where?'
'They didn't say.'
'And the f-collar? What about that? They cost a fortune, and they come out of our budget!'
'They left a cheque. For ten thousand euros.'
'How much? Who signed it? Have you got it?'
'I don't know. I sent it down to the bursar's office.'
Will gives up. His patient has disappeared, leaving only a name which may, for all he knows, be false.
Now what?
Will is on duty all evening again, while Judy stays in and, under Miriam's instruction, tries to choose clothes to wear for her night out with Will tomorrow.
Why am I behaving like a silly schoolgirl on her first date? After all, he's only a man, even if he's a very nice one. Somewhere in her modest wardrobe must be an outfit that will strike the correct balance between, on one hand, dowdiness (beige cardigan, tweed skirt) and on the other making her look as if she's going to a tarts and vicars fancy-dress party.
That night, Will has lucid dreams, or appears to do so, and in the morning there is a message on his TV screen, and Kirjava is wearing an expression whose smugness is excessive, even for a cat:
The Knife is on the move
The girl's mother died
Look for the Ring
Love, Lizzie
'Smartarse daemon! Did you do this?'
'I thought it would be a good idea to write it down. I sent it to Mary, too. She'll see it when she next checks her phone.'
Will takes a look at his. Mary is offline, presumably in a conference session. She has sent him a list of URLs overnight, but he has no time to follow them up now.
As he gets ready to leave for the John Radcliffe Hospital, Will and Kirjava talk about the message.
'We knew that something was happening with the Knife.'
'Yes, that's plain enough. But who is the girl?'
'Lyra? Lizzie?'
'Their mother certainly died. At least I suppose she did. But Lyra would have said if it meant her. She'd have said My mother died, and she'd have said what it meant.'
'And Look for the Ring?'
'"One Ring to rule them all"?'
'What?'
'Tolkien. The One Ring.'
'She can't mean that. There was no Lord of the Rings in Lyra's world.'
'No – it would have been burnt as heresy!'
Kirjava stays at home while Will sets off for the hospital. There are unsolved mysteries, and she wonders whether they are, in fact, soluble and where the solutions may lead.