The Gyptian

'Excellent!'

'Yes, today's progress has indeed been very satisfactory. I trust you will keep our masters in Genève informed of our progress.'

'A message to that effect has already been dispatched, Bishop.'

'Good. Now all that is left is to deal with the king. We must induce a change of mind in him. I wonder; should we send the woman to him? She can be very persuasive, I believe.'

'Yes, let's do that.'

Molly refused to pack Lyra's things or call for a hansom. 'My lady, you're in no fit state to leave now. Have a good night's sleep…'

'I don't think I will…'

'Have a good night's sleep. Things will look better in the morning. I'll get you some tea and a nice piece of carrot-cake. You sit there by the fire.'

Lyra did as she was told. The treacherous alethiometer lay disregarded on the floor beside her chair.

'Good God! You're Lyra's sister!' It was obvious to him immediately.

Elizabeth Boreal continued letting down her hair. She did it slowly, deliberately, knowing how much it aroused Alfred's senses.

'Alan said there was a family connection!'

'Alan was right.' Elizabeth was wearing only her chemise. She stood next to Alfred, her hair hanging loosely around her shoulders, glinting golden in the firelight. 'Do wish she was here now?' She pressed herself close to the king and looked up into his eyes.

'I could be her now, if you'd like me to. I can be anyone – you know that. Tell me Alfred, would you like me to be Lyra tonight?'

There was a knock on the door.

'Come in,' Lyra called. That was odd. Molly didn't usually knock.

'Madam Professor? Can we come in?'

It was Mister Shire, the gyptian. He was almost the last person Lyra wanted to see.

'Molly?'

'She knows we're here.' Mister Shire's magpie-daemon raised her wings above her head. She perched on the back of a mahogany chair.

'You'd better sit down.'

'Thank you.'

'Get out! Get out of here!'

'What's wrong? Don't I please you, sire?'

'Just go! Now!'

Elizabeth put out her arm and her serpent-daemon Parander uncoiled himself from Eleanor's neck and slithered up to her shoulders. Something had gone very badly astray, but what? Pausing only to collect her things from the bedroom floor, she went into the bathroom and dressed herself. When she came back the king was still lying in bed, staring fixedly at the ceiling.

'Goodnight, Alfred.'

'Goodnight, Lizzie.'

'Shall I come and see you again?'

'No. Yes. Oh, I don't know. Not for a while. Go away now.'

Shall I be Lyra, she had said. As if she were a common tart, and he a mark. A fool. A dupe. There was no doubt that Elizabeth was the beautiful sister, and Lyra the plain one. But…

One face hovered in front of his in the semi-darkness. It was a hurt face; a face that knew, and had known, much pain. Oh, he realised that he would not be able to give Lizzie up. She knew him far too well for that.

'Told you,' said Eleanor. 'Damsels in distress, and all that.'

'All right. Yes. There's something else. Why did Lizzie come here tonight, rather than any other night? Why did she want to talk about the Council? How did she know about it?'

'Sir Patrick is a good Boreal man.'

'I don't think McCormack's got anything to do with this. Something nasty and devious is going on, Eleanor, and I've been too busy to see it.'

'First, is you the Lyra that was at Bolvangar?'

Lyra had not heard that word for many years. She hid her surprise as best she could. 'Yes. I was at Bolvangar. Why, were you there too? You can't have been. You're too old, aren't you; your daemon would have settled…'

'Her name's Sarastus. Yes, she was settled. Does the name Stan Tulliver mean anything to you?'

'No. I don't remember. Was he at Bolvangar? With Tony… Tony Makarios?'

'Yes he was.'

'Was he…?'

'No. He was left whole. No thanks to you, or your bitch mother.'

Oh. How did he find out Mrs Coulter was my mother?

'I'm sorry.'

'Sorry for what? Sorry for your mother? She's not your fault.'

'She died, you know.'

'We knows. She fell into a pit of darkness. We saw it.'

'You saw my mother die? How?'

'We saw it. We asks questions. We sees things.'

'Yes. I think you do, Mister Shire. Did you know Farder Coram?'

'Of course we did.'

A pause.

'Why do you hate my mother so?'

Mister Shire stared at Lyra. 'You doesn't know? You is a Professor at high-and-mighty silver-spoon Jordan College and you doesn't know why I hates the Gobblers and that mother of yours?'

'Did you lose someone to them? Was it a brother or a sister?'

'She was a common tart! She wasn't even mine – only once!'

'Who was?'

'It doesn't matter.'

'Yes it does.'

'It doesn't matter!'

Lyra leaned forward. 'Mister Shire. It's Arthur, isn't it? Please tell me about it. Tell me why you hate me so much.'

Arthur took off his cloth cap and held it in front of him, resting on his knees. 'Her name… her name was Maggie…'

'What?'

'I tell you my lord bishop, there was something different about him.'

'What difference would that make to you? They tell me that you are very… skilful.'

'It's Lyra. She's got to him in some way. It was as if she had somehow come between us.'

'Lady Boreal, you are telling me that you have not succeeded with the king. That you have not persuaded him to abandon his ridiculous schemes.'

'There will be another opportunity, I am sure.'

'We cannot wait for another opportunity! Once it becomes generally known that the king wishes to cleave Holy Church and State apart, the idea will spread among the populace like a plague. We will never be rid of it. We must act, and act now.'

'Dispose of the Belacqua woman, you mean?'

'Once that would have been enough, Fra Pavel. But we have failed in that.'

'That was not my fault.'

'Nobody says that it is. You have done well. But the stakes are higher now and the costs of failure are much greater. We must take correspondingly drastic action.'

'You mean…?'

'Nothing that need concern you, king's whore. Get away with you.'

'So we both lost somebody in the War.'

'It looks like it.'

'Your Maggie, my Will.'

'Maggie's dead, though.'

'And it was my mother who killed her.'

'Her daemon, you mean.'

'Sometimes I wish Will were dead, too.'

They were quiet for a while. The fire patterned the walls of the room with orange light.

'Lyra, would you do something for us?'

'What is it, Arthur?'

'Would you try the alethiometer again?'

'It doesn't work for me any more. You saw.'

'I saw more than you know. Try it again. Try it on something easy. Try it now.'

Elizabeth Boreal did not attempt to return to the king's bedchamber. She knew that way would be barred to her now. Instead, she made her way down unfamiliar passages to the servant's quarters and there demanded to be told the whereabouts of Lady Belacqua's apartments.

'It worked!' Lyra's eyes glittered in the lamplight.

'We thought it would.'

'How did you know?'

'The alethiometer is powered by Dust, you said.'

'Yes.'

'And you knows that we can see Dust. Control its flow too.'

'Yes, you told me.'

'When you was reading it – or trying to read it – this afternoon I saw the Dust that made it work. We saw other Dust too.'

'What do you mean?'

'We saw two Dust-streams. One flowing towards you, the other towards the bishop's chaplain, that Fra Pavel. Lyra, what happens if there are two alethiometers in the same room?'

'Two alethiometers? I don't know – I've never seen two alethiometers together. They're very rare.'

'Not so rare that that Church doesn't have one as well as you. Lyra, Fra Pavel is an alethiometrist too, but he's been keeping it secret.'

'Fra Pavel? But… wait… Did you see him using it?'

'Who knows what was going on under his habit?'

'Do you mean he was reading his alethiometer at the same time as I was reading mine?'

'Yes, we does.'

'That wouldn't matter. I'm sure it wouldn't matter. Unless… Unless…'

'Yes?'

'Unless he was asking his instrument the same question as I was asking mine, but a little before me. The oracle – it never answers the same question twice!'

'And Fra Pavel had got there first.'

'Yes. I was taking my time. I was being careful.'

'Too careful, perhaps.'

'This changes things, Arthur.'

'Not as much as you might think. Nobody in Council will believe in your ability to read the alethiometer any more.'

'I'll believe in it, though. That's what really matters to me.'

'It'll be best if the Church doesn't find out what we know.'

'I agree. I wonder what they'll do now.'

'We may not have to wait very long to find out. What's all that banging and hammering outside?'

The door to the corridor burst open and a wild breathless figure crashed into the room. Arthur stood up, ready to defend Lyra from an attacker, but Lyra sat unmoving in her chair.

'Elizabeth! You! Arthur, can you fetch Molly, please?'

'Lyra! Wait, don't call anyone! This is urgent!'

'I'm sure it is. Arthur, meet Lady Elizabeth Boreal. She's my half-sister and a very, very important person indeed. She's much too important to be allowed to go dashing up and down the corridors of the Palace of Westminster in such a state. What's happened, sister mine? Has one of your boyfriends thrown you out again?' A frost congealed around Lyra's words.

'Lyra, stop it! Please stop it! Listen to me! You've got to get help! It's the Church! They're going to kill the king!'

Author's Note

I realise that I've skimmed over, in my usual elliptical manner, some things in this chapter that you might have expected me to go into more detail about; specifically what happened to Arthur Shire at Bolvangar. I think I've said here all that actually needs to be said in this story. If you want to find out more, and perhaps get a better fix on why Arthur was predisposed to dislike Lyra, you can read The Reliquary and Arthur and Maggie at Jopari's site www.geocities.com/joparistories.