Lyra Belacqua is dead, then.

What did she die of?  Doctor William Parry could perhaps have told us, had he somehow been able to cross the gap between the worlds and find his way to the place where she lay.  If he could have found the strength of purpose to examine the dead body of his first love, then he might, if his skill were not too much blunted by his grief, have come to the conclusion, provisional of course and subject to confirmation by an experienced pathologist, that she died of a broken heart.  Or a brain haemorrhage.  Or something like that.

London

Elizabeth Boreal is triumphant. This is her victory.  She has finally put an end to the rivalry between her sister and herself.  At last she is revenged upon Lyra; not least for the way she looked that day in Brown's, over twenty years ago, when she announced that she had finally made contact with Will Parry and humiliated Elizabeth before all the diners there.

She, Lady Elizabeth Boreal, heiress to the incomparable beauty of her mother and the immense fortune of her father, Lord Charles Boreal.  She, head of the powerful and influential Boreal Foundation; feared and respected equally the length and breadth of Brytain, second only to Jordan College in its social and industrial power.

It has been more than ten years since Elizabeth last needed to handle actual money, she is so detached from the commerce of the everyday world.  It is longer than that since she last had to dress herself, or walk anywhere, unless she chose to, or eat anything that she had rather not, or feel too cold, or too warm, or suffer any discomfort at all.  There are cars, yachts, airships and private trains to transport her, a horde of servants to minister to her, a choice of elegant and stylish houses and apartments for her to occupy.  Everything that may be bought with money is hers, and more.  She has never failed to be admitted to any Society gathering, never been debarred from any place but one, and that merely Jordan College, a wasteful and inefficient establishment staffed by wilful eccentrics and over-ripe for reform.  No man has been able to resist her perfumed aura of beauty and power for very long – the rumours that she was once the King's mistress may not be altogether unfounded.

Despite all this – the money, the luxury, the power, the cosseting – there was one person whom she could not suborn, one who stood up to her, one whose moral strength was so great that all her efforts to overcome it were in vain.  How can it have been that her insignificant half-sister Lyra; not rich, not beautiful, buried in academic obscurity, only modestly talented, could have resisted her for so long?

One by one, Elizabeth has seen her attempts to resume her trade with the world of Will Parry fail.  She has lost the Subtle Knife twice, her experiments with buckythread have come to nothing and, although her Foundation succeeded in constructing a vehicle to travel between the worlds it too was destroyed and the source of its power, the Dust of intercised children, cut off.  Not even the Boreal Foundation could kidnap and murder children on such an industrial scale and expect to escape justice for long.

She has had her partial revenge, cutting off the lines of communication between her enemies by corrupting their dreams, but it was a terrible strain to project such extreme nightmares into their thoughts – a strain that she could not endure indefinitely.   Lyra's death, if it was not actually caused by the mental torment inflicted on her night after night by her estranged sibling, was a very welcome, though unexpected, outcome of it.  And it was also a considerable relief for Elizabeth, who was beginning to notice that her own dreams were starting to be infected with dread.

She rises from the breakfast table and looks out over the Embankment to the river Isis and the office blocks on the south bank, all of them owned and operated by the Boreal Foundation.  The morning sun sparkles off the surface of the river and the windows of the buildings opposite.  There is a car, long, silver-grey and low-slung, waiting for her by the front door, waiting to take her to Oxford.

She knows she looks stunning in black, and it is a beautiful day for a funeral.

Bristol

At the very last moment Judy Parry has decided that she will, after all, accompany her husband and son to Oxford.  All week she has been struggling with herself, her mind a battleground over which the forces of her conflicting emotions have raged to and fro.  Now her sympathy for Will's distress convinces her that she must be with him in this difficult time, standing by him, supporting him, and drives back her jealousy.  Now her resentment of Lyra's pre-eminent, for so she cannot help but see it, place in her husband's affections freezes her heart, dries up the wellsprings of her spirit, leaving her cold, parched and desolate.  She has been hanging on the old barbed wire of the no-mans-land of this trench war for her immortal soul for seven whole days.

Although she does not know it, the same battle has been fought between Will and the angel Remiel, who has begged to be allowed to intervene, to try himself to persuade her to go to Oxford with Will and John.  In the end, Will prevailed.  'She must go of her own free will, or not at all,' he said, chin thrust forward, hands on hips, defying the golden shape which stood before him in the darkness of the midnight house.

Judy has suffered terribly.  But now that the war has been fought, and won, perhaps, when the funeral is over and Lyra is buried, Will and Judy will be able to start again, and rediscover the love that brought them together, that night in his Oxford flat, when they first shared their stories with one another.

Perhaps.

Oxford

Master James has given his apprentice special leave of absence today.  Even his mistress has treated him kindly, making sure that the boy has eaten a decent breakfast and buying a posy for him to place on the grave.  He is wearing his best Sunday clothes, augmented by a black tie which his master has given him.  His shoes are polished, his face freshly scrubbed and his hair carefully brushed.  He looks solemn and, did he but know it, very handsome as he walks slowly out of the front door of the shop, and Jane Phipps, waiting for him in the shade of the canopy which protects the milliner's shop opposite from the rays of the sun, cannot help it that her heart jumps unexpectedly when she sees him, even on such a day as this.  Jane is also dressed in sober black, in an outfit made up for her, as a gift, by her seamstress friends at Maison Jeanette.  She takes Peter's arm and they walk together down Shoe Lane and into the High Street.

It is not far from there to Magdelen Bridge.

Cittagazze

Giancarlo and Guilietta cannot tell which location in their world corresponds with the place in Lyra's Oxford where she is to be buried, so they walk slowly hand-in-hand up the dusty road which climbs out of Cittagazze until it becomes a narrow lane, and then a path, before fading away completely and merging into the springy grass that carpets the hills which stand above their home.  Reaching the top, they turn and look out towards the south, over the town with its red roofs, white walls and green parks, across the blue sea and, shading their eyes, towards the sun, riding at the zenith.  They let go of each other's hands and stand, heads bowed, waiting for midday.

Oxford

The car drops Will, Judy and John at the park and ride station in Witney.  They have been unable to gain the special dispensation from the city authorities which would permit them to drive all the way into overcrowded Oxford, so they must make this part of their journey by bus, sitting incongruously dressed in mourning clothes among the shoppers who have crowded the vehicle with their trolleys, baskets and noisy children.  The trip takes thirty hot and uncomfortable minutes; then they are at Oxford railway station, where Mary Malone, who has flown directly from Switzerland this morning, is waiting to join them on the last stage of their pilgrimage.

It is both a joy and a penance, to walk up the hill from the station towards the centre of Oxford, and thence towards the river.