The Secret Commonwealth (The Book of Dust #2)

by Philip Pullman

Every thing possible to be believ’d is an image of truth. —William Blake

And not a few of these outside visitors were surprised by the presence of this young girl, so apparently confident, so eager to hear what they had to say about the world. Lyra had discovered how to listen, how to respond and encourage these people to say a little more than they meant to, to be indiscreet. She was surprised to find how many of these shrewd and worldly men—and women too—seemed to enjoy the sensation of giving away little secrets, little glimpses into the background of this political maneuver or that business merger. She did nothing with the knowledge she gained in this way, but she was aware that sometimes a Scholar of the college, listening nearby, perhaps an economist or a philosopher or an historian, was grateful to her for unlocking a small revelation or two that they would never have managed to open themselves.

The new Master was Dr. Werner Hammond: not a Jordan man, or even an Oxford man, but a businessman from the world of pharmaceuticals who had had a distinguished career as a scholar of chemistry before becoming chairman of one of the great medical corporations and enlarging its powers and revenues considerably. Now he had returned to the academic sphere, and no one could say he didn’t belong there; his scholarship was impeccable, his command of five languages complete, his tact flawless, his conscientious immersion in the history and traditions of Jordan beyond reproach; but there were some older Scholars who found him a little too good to be true, and wondered whether his Mastership of the college was the real culmination of his career or a stepping-stone on the way to something even grander. The one thing he had not completely understood about Jordan College was Lyra. Dr. Hammond had never known anything like this strange young self-possessed figure who inhabited the college as if she were a wild bird that had chosen to make her nest in a corner of the oratory roof, among the gargoyles, and was now regarded with protective affection by everyone in the place.

When Lyra visited Hannah Relf, as she did every week during term and quite often during the vacation, she normally took the alethiometer with her, since that was the subject of their study. When she thought of the carefree way she’d carried it with her to the Arctic and out into other worlds, of how she’d thoughtlessly let it be stolen and how she and Will had stolen it back with such care and at such risk, she was amazed at her own confidence, her own luck. Her stock of those qualities felt low at the moment.

You’re in a world full of color and you want to see it in black and white.

“And what d’you think I can do about it?” “I don’t know, Master Brabandt. But what I want to do is get to the Fens without being caught and see an old friend of mine. He’s called Coram van Texel.” “Farder Coram! And he’s a friend o’ yourn?” “I went to the Arctic with him and Lord Faa about ten years ago. Farder Coram was with me when we met Iorek Byrnison, the king of the bears.” “And what’s your name?” “Lyra Silvertongue. That’s the name the bear gave me. I was called Lyra Belacqua till then.” “Well, why didn’t you say so?” “I just did.”

“Novy Kievsk. This is where you can come from. It’s that little island, and there is a witch clan there, and it’s fiercer and prouder for being so small. You invent a story to explain how something’s sent you all the way south on some high purpose. When you were a little gal, you could’ve spun out a yarn like that for hours on end, and had everyone around listening and half believing every word.” “Yes, I could,” she said, and for a moment all the exhilaration of telling a story like that returned to her heart, and the old man saw the light in her eyes as she remembered it.

“Exactly what I felt about her when we saw her again,” said Malcolm. “When she was younger, she was fierce, defiant, insolent even, but there was something melancholy about her even then, don’t you think?”

She thought she’d been certain about things when she came back from the north, but the things she’d learnt during her adventures there seemed so far away now; all that remained was a scatter of vivid impressions, of personalities such as Lee Scoresby and Mary Malone, and of events like the fight between the bears, and above all of the moment when she and Will kissed in the little wood in the world of the mulefa.

The stars wheeled slowly around the pole. The ferry moved steadily along the coast. From time to time the lights of a village glimmered on the shore, their reflections shaken into a thousand silver or gold flakes by the myriad movements of the water. Once or twice she saw a different kind of light, a glow from the fishing boats, each with a lantern in the prow, setting out their nets to catch bluefish or squid. They gave her another image: she was enticing monsters out of the darkness of herself. And she remembered what the dead child Roger, once her closest friend, had told her about the harpies in the world of the dead: they know every bad thing you’ve ever done, and they whisper about them to you all the time. She was getting a foretaste of that now.

“I believe she goes by the nickname Silvertongue. But legally that is not her name. Where is she, Mrs. Lonsdale?” “Fuck off,” said Alice calmly.

“Cooperate with these gentlemen, and the college will make sure you have legal representation. But if you adopt an attitude of truculent hostility, there’s little I can do to help.” “Truculent hostility,” she said. “I like the sound of that.”

Lyra smelled a tang of powerful spirits, and remembered another occasion when she’d had the same sensation: outside Einarsson’s bar in the Arctic town of Trollesund, seeing the great bear Iorek Byrnison drinking spirits from an earthenware jug.