"Gael, maybe we shouldn't be doing this…" Pattertwig fluttered nervously in the form of a red, leathery-skinned dragon roughly the size of a typical rich noblewoman's lap-dog, flapping his small but strong wings.
"What's the worst that could happen?" Gael asked, slipping out of the bedroom that had once housed twelve-year-old Lyra Belacqua and Lucy Pevensie and was now declared-by the Master-her new domain and into the hollow, nearly-soundless hallway. "I just want to have a quick look."
"Do you really think it's safe?" he asked, shifting into a firefly so that his little mistress (who had not been left with a candle when it became apparent that she had no fear of the dark and was a mite too curious to be trusted with a flame) could see better in the darkness. "I mean, really?"
"I don't know," whispered Gael, her soft tone wavering more with excitement than with genuine fear. "But I saw them; I saw them clear as day."
And she had, too! She had seen them.
Who they were, she couldn't say, as she didn't know; but she felt thrilled all the same.
She had been looking out of her window at the grass below silvered by the great big moon; not full, but only slightly waned from being such and still swollen with brightness. Then there had been the figures, perhaps half a dozen-give or take-all in black, hooded cloaks. She hadn't gotten a good look at their dæmons, which had gone by so quickly Pattertwig didn't have a chance to sense them properly and register if they belonged to anybody they knew. All she saw was that one of the dæmons could fly and was of a pale-grime colour that made it look like a poorly tendered, greatly tarnished pearl with wings.
"They came right into the college," Gael had whispered to her dæmon as she planned to creep out and see what was happening. "They're up to something, I know it!"
"Maybe they want to collect nuts," Pattertwig suggested innocently, too perky and flighty-natured, oftentimes, for serious conversation. "I saw a whole lot in the dishes at the high table at supper tonight."
"No," said Gael, "I think it's something political, like a raid or a secret meeting. I wish Uncle Rhince was awake and walking with us now-he's so clever, you know-I'm sure he'd be able to figure out what's happening."
"Why do we call him Uncle Rhince, anyhow?" Pattertwig asked, off-handedly. "He isn't your uncle."
"No," she admited. "Only, he is just the sort of uncle I would've picked out if I had a choice. I like him. I wish he wouldn't leave us here, though. I heard the Master say we've got to live here now. They'd've done better to bring Edmund here with them-he wouldn't have let them leave me here, I'll bet."
"They haven't left yet, have they?" Pattertwig seemed fearful, though it was hard to tell when he was in such an unexpressive form-such as the firefly shape he was currently sporting.
"I hope not. Uncle Rhince wouldn't leave without…without saying goodbye…would he?"
Pattertwig did not answer. He didn't know. Like his human, he wanted to believe they wouldn't just be left without a single goodbye-at least from 'Uncle Rhince', if not the others-but their lives hadn't been simple and beautiful enough for him know for sure, without doubt-to be confident of his hopes.
Gael wandered a little farther. Then, she approached the dinning hall-which had ever so many more shadows now than it had had at supper, all lit up softly with oil lamps at the high table, and candles and the electric sort of lights everywhere else-and stood gawking at its blank emptiness.
In the light, it was such a powerful-looking room so as to be the masculine equivalent of 'pretty'; handsomely decorated. In darkness, at this hour, it might have been a room from a long-abandoned ghost-town, minus the dust and cobwebs, for everything here was immaculate.
If it was not for the single red-wine-crimson curtain on the far-end that had not been drawn all the way she wouldn't have been able to see even as much as the pale reflection of the silver moon on the largest wineglass in the Master's place at the high table.
The Master; she wondered if he was sleeping, and where he slept. Did he have a grand bedroom somewhere within the walls of this college? He must have, yet, just as she had discerned that Rhince's eyes had sadness in them, Gael took in the dark rings round the Master's eyes and gathered, in her childish mind and way of reasoning, that here was a man who had never fallen asleep properly.
She was about to whisper to Pattertwig and ask him if he thought the Master was sleeping or not; then came the sound of footsteps from behind her.
There was no time to think, no time to plan. Gael had no choice other than to dash into that dinning hall of shadows and hide behind a chair to avoid the figures.
At least, she thought over the sound of her franticly beating heart, I'll be able to get a closer look at them.
"I hope you're happy now," whimpered Pattertwig, knowing her thoughts.
For surely these were the same figures she had seen from her window.
In the murky silver-light she could almost make out the shapes of their cloaks-which she could hear rustling when they moved anyhow.
Pattertwig began to tremble; and Gael finally realized she was a little afraid. Not so much of the figures themselves as of getting into trouble. She hadn't been thinking of trouble when she'd left her bedroom so readily, only she couldn't stop thinking of it now.
Here she was, a little girl with Gyptian blood in her veins as likely as not, a sort of permanent guest at Jordan, and wandering areas that did not concern her at what grown-ups referred to as ungodly hours. It seemed most unfair. Why shouldn't she be allowed to see what was happening? She should! But, no, she had to fear getting into trouble; or, rather, Pattertwig did, and she felt the fear through him and his constant jitteriness.
There was something very familiar, though, about the hooded figures, especially the one with the flying dæmon, only she couldn't place him (her? it?); and Pattertwig was too nervous to be of any help. In his fear he had shifted into a white moth and hidden himself in the folds of her pale-coloured nightgown.
In the end they decided to hide in the retiring room. Really, they couldn't have chosen a worse place.
No sooner had they entered the room breathlessly, glad enough to have crept in unnoticed by the cloaked figures, and shut the doors behind them, than they saw the knob beginning to turn.
"Oh no!" Pattertwig, now a sparrow, beat his wings in terror. "Quick, look! The wardrobe…over there!"
There seemed to be no other way out, so Gael obeyed her fretful dæmon and climbed into the wardrobe, leaving it ever so slightly open so that she could breath and perhaps still see what the figures would do once they got into the room.
To her surprise, it wasn't a hooded figure that appeared. Instead, it was Peter Pevensie, that nerve-wracking man with no dæmon, who she-unlike most children-was having a hard time warming to. It was just too hard to deal with someone who might as well have been missing a limb for all the shuddering the sight of him caused her.
Squinting and pressing her face closer to the opening she'd allowed herself in the wardrobe, Gael noticed something. Peter seemed to have a dæmon after all; there was a black-and-white cat in the crook of one of his arms. For a moment she almost relaxed, marveling over the miracle, until it became apparent-to Pattertwig, at least-that it was just an ordinary cat, nothing more and nothing less. Very like, she thought, a man with a wooden leg, arm, or eye. Unsettling, but not as bad as seeing the bloody stump itself.
"I can't believe I'm doing this," Peter said to himself, setting the cat-who had begun to yowl and squirm-down on the ground and walking over to the table in the middle of the room.
"Look, Pattertwig," whispered Gael, taking care to speak softly enough so that Peter wouldn't hear and learn that she was hiding there. "Do you see that decanter on the table? I think he's going to do something to it."
"We shouldn't have come," moaned Pattertwig. "I wish we hadn't!"
"Shh!" Gael reprimanded her flighty dæmon and put her finger to her lips. "He'll hear us. And I want to see what's happening, alright?"
"I'm scared," was all the little sparrow at her side would reply.
"I know," she said, "but be scared quietly; you got to, or we'll get caught."
Looking both ways and over his shoulders, Peter sighed heavily and took a piece of card-paper out of his sleeve; the master had given it to him earlier and explained what he must do, for the good of all the worlds-and for their own safety as well.
The doorknob turned again and Peter jumped, knocked over a chair with a thud somewhat muffled by the thick carpet underfoot, and spun around, nearly dropping the card-paper.
One of the cloaked figures appeared in the doorway.
It was the one with the flying dæmon that Gael thought she recognized. He (for it was a he, after all) pulled back his hood and Peter's tightly clenched jaw muscles relaxed.
"Hang it all, Ed!" he hissed. "Are you trying to give me the fright of my life?"
"Sorry," said the figure-Edmund-stepping further into the room and shutting the door behind himself. "You're early."
"Not really." Peter shrugged his shoulders. "I'm very uncomfortable about this, Edmund, whatever the Master says."
"If he lives," said Edmund calmly, stretching out his wrist so that Ella-the flying dæmon who had disguised herself with dust and ashes to appear less brightly-feathered in the moonlight-could land there, "you know what will happen. It's too dangerous. That's what the alethiometer said…he'll…he'll do horrible things if he is given the chance…he might even harm Lucy and Lyra!"
"That doesn't mean I have to like the idea of cold-blooded murder." Peter shook his head. "Whether I like the man or not isn't the point." He would do anything for Lucy's-and Lyra's-safety, even this, but he still felt uneasy. It was one thing to have been shooting at captors as they escaped from Svalbard, one thing to have fought Miraz in honourable single combat, this was quite another. And for the hundredth time, he wished the Master had chosen a different man for the job or else done it himself.
"Yes, well we can ponder over that later," said Edmund hastily. "They'll be here any minute. If you're going to do it, do it now."
Peter nodded and removed the stopper from the decanter. His fingers fumbling, he opened the card-paper and poured, into the wine, a thin stream of powder.
"You didn't come alone?" Peter double-checked, looking over his right shoulder at his brother-in-law as he hastily crumbed up the now empty card-paper and stuffed it into his doublet pocket.
"No," said Edmund. "Some of the Gyptians came-they're hiding in the dinning hall. Also, Lucy and Lyra refused to stay behind."
"I'm not surprised," said Peter, a tad darkly, wishing they would do something about their girlish curiosity and fierce loyalty and stay where it was safest for once.
The doorknob turned again. This time, it was Edmund who jumped and looked wary, with widened eyes; Ella flew to the top of the wardrobe and perched there.
"Peter, quick, you have to hide." Edmund flung the wardrobe door open and urged his brother-in-law to get in. "It might be…"
"What about you?"
"Don't worry about me," said Edmund hurriedly, knowing the door would be open in a manner of seconds.
You've done this before, hiding someone else and not thinking about yourself, Peter thought, obeying Edmund for urgency's sake but feeling rotten for doing so, and of course it worked out so well the last time…you getting dragged off to prison…
Inside the wardrobe, Gael was petrified and Pattertwig was nearly hyperventilating. The man with no dæmon was in the wardrobe with her now, little more than an arm's length away! He hadn't noticed her yet, but how long would that last? She'd had to pull back, squeezing her small body in-between the hanging scholars' gowns and robes, and now she couldn't see what was happening. Peter could, probably, but not her-not without giving herself away.
She could still hear, however. And what she heard was awful. A man with a voice she didn't like (the priest) was demanding to know who the hooded person in the room was. Oh, if he dared hurt Edmund…Gael felt as though she would kill him if he tried it…tiny thing that she was…she wouldn't let him get away with that.
But, no, there didn't seem any danger of that after all; the Master was saying that Edmund was a high-ranking scholar with a facial deformity, that he had been invited into the retiring room personally, so the priest had 'no reason to worry'. Gael wondered if college Masters were allowed to lie. She hadn't taken the kindly old man who ran Jordan for a liar…but, then, if it was to help protect Edmund, she would never hold that against him, even if she had been taught it was wicked to lie. There seemed to be so much wickedness in so many different forms recently. It was hard to chose a side. But she decided early on to take the part of her alethiometrist friend and no other.
Yet, as the priest spoke about heresy, and there came the sound of the stopper being pulled out of the decanter, Gael half-wanted to cry out, "No! don't! It's poison!" She supposed she could relate to the dæmonless man after all; Peter hadn't wanted to kill in cold blood, and she didn't want to hear someone dying that way. She wished she'd listened to Pattertwig and not come. This was too frightening.
Soundlessly, the priest was lifting the glass to his lips…There was the muffled thud of his body falling over onto the carpet. If he wasn't dead yet, he soon would be. Behind his hood, Edmund's face recoiled; Ella looked away from the priest's body, tucking her face behind a wing.
Feeling lightheaded, Gael retched, then fainted. Peter caught her and lost his footing; and they both tumbled out of the wardrobe, landing at the Master's feet.
When she came back into consciousness again, they sat her down and explained what she had witnessed. They didn't want to, not really. Explaining a political murder to a young child wasn't their idea of a good time, nor did it give any of them a warm, safe feeling, doing so. But there seemed to be no other way out of it. Gael would be more traumatized in the long-run if they didn't explain everything now.
Rhince, who appeared in the retiring room shortly afterwards, scolded her being where she wasn't supposed to and even raised his hand to smack her, but he couldn't bring himself to go through with it-or even to make his scolding sound less half hearted and more scathing. In an odd kind of way, this made Edmund feel a little better, knowing that 'Uncle Rhince' was unlikely to treat Gael quite as harshly as Lord Asriel had often coldly regarded Lyra.
They decided it would be best to have Edmund do most of the explaining, since Gael was still rather scared of Peter and uncertain as to everybody else.
As simply as he could, Edmund told her that after Gyptian spies brought back the news of the priest with the Ruling Powers' crest on his tunic coming to Jordan and demanding an audience with the Master, he, Lyra, and Lucy had all consulted their alethiometers. In the end, it led them all to one conclusion; they had to get rid of the priest. If he lived, they would never succeed and perhaps the Ruling Powers would go on-maybe for ever-and even extend into other worlds, corrupting a potentially endless muli-verse. The fate of all the worlds had depended on getting rid of him.
They didn't understand, not completely, and they hadn't wanted to kill him, or send word to the Master as to what the alethiometer had told them, but they'd had no choice. Although they didn't like the priest and thought him a pest, a prissy annoying fellow, more than a threat, the alethiometer showed that he would grow more dangerous.
Edmund had struggled, vainly, to find another meaning for the symbols, something easier.
Finally, looking at Lucy, knowing she had seen the same thing by instinct, that there was no other way, he had nodded, swallowed hard, and squeezed her hand. She squeezed back, blinking away anxious tears.
True, the priest had tried to poison Lord Asriel some years ago, but doing the same back to him didn't make them any better. It was all political.
Gael listened to all this holding Pattertwig in his squirrel form in her arms as a girl in a world without visible dæmons might clutch a teddy bear to her chest, her face gone very white. Her eyes, however, did not pop or widen, she nodded as surely and grimly as Edmund had earlier, not liking but understanding anyway.
She seemed so calm and reserved, yet intense, over the matter that Edmund wondered, rather nervously, if she would, no matter what he said to dissuade her and encourage her to find her own path in life, become an alethiometrist when she grew up.
AN: Reviews are more than welcome.