'Nah! Of course it wasn't!'
'What do you know?' I glared at Jim. 'What about that Romulo and Gianetta, in that play?'
'That was different. They were both young. Gianetta was only twelve. That sort of age, you do stupid things like fall in love at first sight.'
'It wasn't first sight.'
'Good as. How old was she, your Professor?'
'I dunno. Over thirty.'
'More like forty, I'll bet. Old enough to be your mother.'
'Oh shut up! Look, she was kind to me. She didn't have to be.'
'Are you really trying to tell me that you fell for this dried-up old Prof just because she made you a hot drink?'
'It… well…'
'My auntie makes me chocolatl when I go to see her. Gives me pasties and cake, too. Doesn't mean I want to bed her.'
'It wasn't like that.'
'Oh no?'
'No. It wasn't.'
'All right.' Jim handed me back my exercise book. 'Write it down the way it was. Convince me.'
While the Professor and her daemon were busy in what I supposed was her kitchen, I warmed my hands at the fire (they'd got cold holding the parcel) and looked around the room. It was very much the sort of room you'd have expected a professor to live in – there were elmwood shelves all around the walls, filled with books of all kinds. There were huge heavy looking leather-bound volumes on wide deep shelves near the floor and smaller books on the narrower shelves further up. There was a smaller bookcase by the desk, and the books in it looked especially old and well-used. The floor was partly covered by an old and worn, but probably priceless, carpet and there was a round mahogany table in the middle of it, piled up with yet more books and the walnut mantel clock, still in its wrappings where the Professor had put it down. Next to the clock there was a large piece of what looked like sky-iron, blackened with shiny edges. If the sun hadn't been slanting into the room through the windows it would all have been very dark and depressing, but as it was the ancient panelling which covered the walls caught the light and threw it back into the air, changed to a warm orange glow.
The sunlight caught something else, too. There was an instrument of some kind glinting on the Professor's desk. I wondered what it was, so I got up from my chair and went over to take a closer look at it, Viola following me.
We sometimes get scientific instruments in for repair at James and James. Theodolites, sextants, astrolabes, lodestones; that sort of thing. So I was interested, in a professional way you might say, in this particular device. At first I thought it was a large pocket watch, nicely made in brass and gold. Then I realised that that couldn't be right. None of the four hands were moving, and there were too many divisions around the outside. (I've seen a few twenty-four hour clocks, by the way. They're strange, with all the hours of the day around the bezel, but this instrument had more markings, even, than that.)
No. I looked again. Was it a compass? I noticed that there were three knurled wheels spaced around the rim. I was tempted to try turning one of them but something, Providence maybe, stopped me. I guessed that the wheels adjusted the hands in some way. That would account for three of them, and perhaps the other pointer was free to move. I'd come across a compass like that once; where you adjust the dial so that when you hold the compass out in front of you and let the lodestone point to north, the compass, and you, are pointing the way you want to go. Perhaps this was an advanced version of one of those, they call them "silver", compasses. But why would you want to go three different ways at the same time?
'It's called an alethiometer.'
I turned round, no doubt looking as guilty as I felt.
'I didn't touch it, Madam Professor.'
The Professor leaned over the desk and examined the dial of the instrument. Her daemon – a pine-marten – jumped up and looked at it too. 'No, I can see that. I'm glad you didn't – it might have upset the work I'm doing.'
She was holding two white china mugs; one frothing with chocolatl and the other full of India tea. 'Come and sit down again, where you can't get into any trouble.'
She was smiling at me, her face both grave and amused. I've never really understood the Professor's expression. When she's laughing at some feeble joke I've made, or telling a mischievous story at the expense of one of her stuffy male colleagues, her pale blue eyes sparkle and she'll grin like a young girl, and perhaps only I and a few others who know her very well suspect that she's hiding an inner sadness. But at other times, when there was sorrow or danger, what you saw in her face was that there was a spring of joyful confidence deep inside her, bubbling up all the time and saying Don't worry, Peter. Everything will work out for the best in the end.
We sat facing each other by the fire, me slurping noisily at my hot chocolatl and the Professor drinking her tea. Without actually seeming to question me, and without telling me a great deal about herself, she found out that my name was Peter Joyce, that I came from Tring, where my father and mother and younger brother were still living. I told her that my father was a master ropemaker, but that he'd decided not to take me into his trade, as I wasn't big or strong enough. Rope-making is strenuous work and it can be dangerous too. I told her about the time, when I was only eight, when I took the kitchen clock apart, and put it back together too, and dismantled the aneroid barometer (we get those at James and James, from time to time) and almost put that together right, except that it always seemed to say the weather would be stormy when it turned out to be fair, or the other way around.
I explained that there was a famous Grammar School in Tring, but as we weren't gentry it would have been unlikely that I'd have been able to study there – and, anyway, I'd have hated it – so it had been decided to apprentice me to Master James. There's a sort of arrangement the Guilds have, when it comes to sorting out who gets apprenticed to whom.
In return, the Professor told me that she had lived nearly all her life in Oxford. Her mother and father had died almost thirty years ago, but she had a sister whose name was Elizabeth and who lived in a big house not far from town. I supposed, without thinking about it very much, that she was the housekeeper there, or something like that.
I finished off my chocolatl with a final, satisfied, slurp.
'Thank you, Madam Professor. I must go now; my master will be wondering where I am. But please…'
'Yes?'
'Could I take another look at your alethi… instrument?'
The Professor laughed. 'Yes, of course, Peter.' She stood up and her daemon – I knew now that his name was Pantalaimon, which seemed like rather a mouthful and I suspected that she probably called him Pan. (Viola has always insisted on me using her full name. She hates being called "Vi") – followed her. Viola clung onto my muffler, which was hanging loosely around my shoulders.
'Don't touch the wheels,' she said, 'but you can pick it up if you like.'
I bent over the desk and took the alethiometer, holding it carefully in my cupped right hand. 'What does it do?' I asked.
'It's an oracular device. It tells the truth.'
'Sorry?'
'Do you see all those symbols around the outside?'
I looked around the rim of the bezel. There they were, thirty-six tiny pictures engraved in black on what looked like ivory. 'Yes, Madam Professor.'
'Each of those symbols has a meaning. In fact each symbol has many meanings; a primary meaning and a set of further ones; secondary, tertiary, quaternary and so on.'
'But what do you do with it?' I was no clearer as to the instrument's purpose.
'Suppose that I want to discover something that is unknown, or hidden, or obscure, like, oh I don't know…'
'What's for dinner tonight?'
'I could open the window and sniff the air if I wanted to know that.'
'How about… What is my master doing now? Or; will I get into trouble when I get back to the shop?'
The Professor looked sternly at me. 'The alethiometer does not predict. It is not a toy. Nor is it a fairground attraction, to be used to catch pennies from the credulous. Lives have been lost and people – good people – have suffered at the hands of the Church to preserve this instrument.' Her expression softened. 'I'll answer your first question for you. It is a simple one and the reading will not be difficult.
'Now, you carry on holding it. We need to set the three pointers according to their meanings and their relevance to the question. Let's start with Master James. He is your master, so I will set the first pointer to the Sun, which signifies Authority. He is also a skilled craftsman, which makes the selection of the second pointer straightforward. I will choose the Cauldron, which signifies Alchemy as its primary meaning, but also Craft or Achieved Wisdom. Lastly, we are interested in his work, so I'm going to set the third pointer to the Beehive, which as I am sure you can guess, means Productive Work. Now, with the enquiry framed mechanically, the practised alethiometrist needs to concentrate his mind on the question, which I will now do…'
She stopped speaking, and looked startled. The needle had begun to move, of its own accord. It spun and whirled around the dial, stopping at certain positions for a second, only to move on, randomly it seemed, and spin again for a few seconds, before stopping again. I looked up, to see the Professor's lips moving as she, she told me later, memorised the places where the needle stopped.
After a minute or so the needle's movement stopped. I realised suddenly that I had been holding my breath and let it out with a great whoosh. I put the alethiometer back on the desk, aware that my hand was shaking.
The Professor stared at me. I could tell that she had received quite a surprise.
'The needle stopped on the Sun, the Compass, the Griffin and the Hourglass. Your master is making a clock for a person in authority, who has control over money. It could be the town clerk or the mayor.'
'Yes, Madam Professor, that's quite right. We're making a long-case clock for the mayor.'
Professor Belacqua, unconsciously I'm sure, lifted her right hand and patted her hair into place.
'Peter, please sit down. Can you tell me what you did, while I was setting the pointers?'
'Nothing!' Had I done something wrong? We sat down in our old places by the fire. The Professor leaned forward and searched my face. 'Were you thinking about the question that we were putting to the alethiometer?'
'Yes, I suppose I was.'
'I wasn't. I never do. First I set the pointers, and then I consider the question.
'Peter, the needle didn't move for me. It moved for you.'
'Doesn't that happen anyway? When anyone asks it a question?'
'I have only seen it happen for one person before.'
'Who was that?'
'Me.' The Professor shrugged; an odd gesture for her.
'Can we try it again?' I was keen to have another go.
'No, Peter, sorry. You've got to go back to your master, and I have work to do as well. I was in the middle of a complicated reading when you came in. Fortunately, I have my notes and can continue the divination.
'Will you come and see me again? Next week?'
'My master may not let me go.'
'I will send for you. There are, at last count, at least one thousand three hundred clocks in Jordan College. I am sure that Master James would like to stay on good terms with us.' The Professor winked, which was the last thing I expected from her.
I wrapped my muffler around my neck, scooped up Viola, and turned for the door.
'Peter?'
'Yes?'
'Don't forget your master's five shillings!' Professor Belacqua, smiling broadly and looking all of twelve years old, was holding out a coin. I took it, bowed awkwardly to her, and left the room, pulling the door almost, but not quite, shut behind me. She hadn't even glanced at the mantel clock where she had left it on the table, next to the piece of sky-iron.
