EIGHT - FRUSTRATION-1

百度搜索 THE GOLDEN COMPASS 天涯 或 THE GOLDEN COMPASS 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.

    Lyra had to adjust to her new sense of her own story, and that couldnt be done in a day. To see Lord Asriel as her father was ohing, but to accept Mrs.

    Coulter as her mother was nowhere near so easy. A couple of months ago she would have rejoiced, of course, and she khat too, a fus<mark>.9９lｉｂ.</mark>ed.

    But, being Lyra, she didnt fret about it for long, for there was the fen town to explore and many gyptian children to amaze. Before the three days were up she was an expert with a punt (in her eyes, at least) and shed gathered a gang of urs about her with tales of her mighty father, so unjustly made captive.

    “And then one evening the Turkish Ambassador was a guest at Jordan for dinner.

    And he was under orders from the Sultan hisself to kill my father, right, and he had a ring on his finger with a hollow stone full of poison. And when the wine e round he made as if to reach ay fathers glass, and he sprihe poison in. It was done so quick that no one else saw him, but—”

    “What sort of poison?” demanded a thin-faced girl.

    “Poison out of a special Turkish serpent,” Lyra ied, “what they catch by playing a pipe to lure out and thehrow it a sponge soaked in honey and the serpent bites it and t get his fangs free, and they catch it and milk the venom out of it. Anyway, my father seen what the Turk done, and he says, Gentlemen, I want to propose a toast of friendship between Jordan College and the College of Izmir, which was the college the Turkish Ambassador beloo.

    And to show our willio be friends, he says, well s glasses and drink each others wine.

    “And the Ambassador was in a fix then, cause he couldnt refuse to drink without giving deadly insult, and he couldnt drink it because he k oisoned. He went pale and he fainted right away at the table. And when he e round they was all still sitting there, waiting and looking at him. And then he had to either drink the poison or own up.”

    “So what did he do?”

    “He drunk it. It took him five whole mio die, and he was in torment all the time.”

    “Did you see it happen?”

    “No, cause girls ent allowed at the High Table. But I seen his body afterwards when they laid him out. His skin was all withered like an old apple, and his eyes were starting from his head. In fact, they had to push em ba the sockets....”

    And so on.

    Meanwhile, around the edges of the fen try, the police were knog at doors, searg attid outhouses, iing papers and interrogating everyone who claimed to have seen a blond little girl; and in Oxford the search was even fiercer. Jordan College was scoured from the dustiest boxroom to the darkest cellar, and sabriel and St. Michaels, till the heads of all the colleges issued a joint protest asserting their a rights. The only notion Lyra had of the search for her was the incessant drone of the gas engines of airships crisscrossing the skies. They werent visible, because the clouds were low and by statute airships had to keep a certai above fen try, but who knew what ing spy devices they might carry? Best to keep under cover when she heard them, or wear the oilskin souwester over her bright distinctive hair.

    And she questioned Ma Costa about every detail of the story of her birth. She wove the details into a mental tapestry even clearer and sharper thaories she made up, and lived over and ain the flight from the cottage, the cealment in the closet, the harsh-voiced challehe clash of swords—

    “Swords? Great God, girl, you dreaming?” Ma Costa said. “Mr. Coulter had a gun, and Lord Asriel k out his hand and struck him down with one blow. Then there was two shots. I wonder you dont remember; you ought to, little as you were. The first shot was Edward Coulter, who reached his gun and fired, and the sed was Lord Asriel, who tore it out his grasp a sed time and tur on him. Shot him right between the eyes and dashed his brains out. Then he says cool as paint, e out, Mrs. Costa, and bring the baby, because you were setting up such a howl, you and that daemon both; aook you up and dandled you and sat you on his shoulders, walking up and down in high good humor with the dead man at his feet, and called for wine and bade me swab the floor.”

    By the end of the fourth repetition of the story Lyra erfectly vinced she did remember it, and even volunteered details of the color of Mr. Coulters coat and the cloaks and furs hanging in the closet. Ma Costa laughed.

    And whenever she was alone, Lyra took out the alethiome-ter and pored over it like a lover with a picture of the beloved. So each image had several meanings, did it? Why shouldnt she work them out? Wasnt she Lord Asriels daughter?

    Rem??embering what Farder  had said, she tried to focus her mind on three symbols taken at random, and clicked the hands round to point at them, and found that if she held the alethiometer just so in her palms and gazed at it in a particular lazy way, as she thought of it, the long needle would begin to move more purposefully. Instead of its wayward divagations around the dial it swung smoothly from one picture to another. Sometimes it would pause at three, sometimes two, sometimes five or more, and although she uood nothing of it, she gained a deep calm enjoyment from it, unlike anything shed known. Pantalaimon would crouch over the dial, sometimes as a cat, sometimes as a mouse, swinging his head round after the needle; and once or twice the two of them shared a glimpse of meaning that felt as if a shaft of sunlight had struck through clouds to light up a majestie of great hills in the distanething far beyond, and never suspected. And Lyra thrilled at those times with the same deep thrill shed felt all her life on hearing the word North.

    So the three days passed, with muing and goiween the multitude of boats and the Zaal. And then came the evening of the sed roping. The hall was more crowded than before, if that ossible. Lyra and the Costas got there in time to sit at the front, and as soon as the flickering lights showed that the place was crammed, John Faa and Farder  came out on the platform and sat behind the table. John Faa didnt have to make a sign for silence; he just put his great hands flat oable and looked at the people below, and the hubbub died.

    “Well,” he said, “you done what I asked. Aer than I hoped. Im a going to call on the heads of the six families now to e up here and give over their gold and ret their promises. Nicholas Rokeby, you e first.”

    A stout black-bearded ma??n climbed onto the platform and laid a heavy leather bag oable.

    “Thats old,” he said. “And we offer thirty-eight men.”

    “Thank you, Nicholas,” said John Faa. Farder  was making a he first man stood at the back of the platform as John Faa called for the , and the ></tt>xt, and each came up, laid a bag oable, and annouhe number of men he could muster. The Costas were part of the Stefanski family, and naturally Tony had been one of the first to volunteer. Lyra noticed his hawk daemon shifting from foot to foot and spreading her wings as the Stefanski money and the promise of twenty-three men were laid before John Faa.

    When the six family heads had all e up, Farder  showed his piece of paper to John Faa, who stood up to address the audience again.

    “Friends, thats a muster of one hundred ay men. I thank you proudly.

    As for the gold, I make no doubt from the weight of it that youve all dug deep in your coffers, and my warm thanks go out for that as well.

    “What were a going to do  is this. Were a going to charter a ship and sail north, and find them kids a em free. From what we know, there might be some fighting to do. It wohe first time, nor it wohe last, but we never had to fight yet with people who kidnap children, and we shall have to be unon ing. But we ent going to e back without our kids. Yes, Dirk Vries?”

    A man stood up and said, “Lord Faa, do you know why they captured them kids?”

    “We heard its a theological matter. Theyre making an experiment, but what nature it is we dont know. To tell you all the truth, we dont even know whether any harm is a ing to em. But whatever it is, good or bad, they got nht to reach out by night and pluck little children out the hearts of their families. Yes, Raymond va?”

    The man whod spoken at the first meeting stood up and said, “That child, Lord Faa, the one you spoke of as being sought, the one as is sitting in the front row now. I heard as all the folk living around the edge of the fens is having their houses turned upside down on her at. I heard theres a move in Parliament this very day to resd our a privileges on at of this child. Yes, friends,” he said, over the babble of shocked whispers, “theyre a going to pass a law doing away with ht to free movement in and out the fens. Now, Lord Faa, what we want to know is this: who is this child on at of which we might e to such a pass? She ent a gyptian child, not as I heard. How es it that a landloper child  put us all in danger?”

百度搜索 THE GOLDEN COMPASS 天涯 或 THE GOLDEN COMPASS 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.