The Rose Field, page 57
It was like any market in their own world; stallholders were selling vegetables, fruit, cheese, meat, and one or two stalls offered shabby-looking household items like brushes, dusters, buckets. The awnings over the stalls were striped in colors that a long time ago had been bright, and the town hall, for all its Gothic-looking crockets and finials and spires, looked forlorn. Perhaps it was being repaired; men were erecting scaffolding around it.
“Are you hungry?” said Malcolm.
“I think I am. I’m not sure. We haven’t got any local money, though. Local? What am I saying? This is a different world. The old lady spoke about a new kind of money, didn’t she. I’ve got two gold coins left that Farder Coram gave me, but that’s all, and I don’t suppose they’d be able to give any change even if they took them. We’ll manage somehow.”
That illusion held till they tried to buy a loaf of bread. Lyra proffered one of her two coins, and the woman’s expression changed so quickly, and in so many ways, that Lyra was bewildered. The woman looked shocked, then embarrassed, then cautious, then furtive, and finally, with a little shake of the head, cold and unfriendly.
“Let me try,” said Malcolm.
Lyra moved back and watched as he spoke to her, easily, calmly, in what sounded like Persian. The stallholder responded carefully at first, glancing around as if looking for some figure of authority who might stop her, but then agreed to swap the loaf for a small bottle he took from his rucksack.
“Impressive,” said Lyra. “What did you give her for it?”
“The last of my brantwijn. Let’s see if we can swap something for some cheese.”
A mechanical pencil bought them a piece of some hard cheese like cheddar, and then a little pair of nail-scissors from Lyra paid for half a dozen apples. Each stallholder was unwilling at first, and the apple merchant took out a handful of banknotes from a wooden box and shook them angrily in Lyra’s face, tapping them hard with her forefinger. It was clear what she meant: she wanted proper money, bank money. But the delicacy of the pretty scissors won her over, and she put the apples in a paper bag and thrust them at Lyra, gesturing Go, go somewhere else, don’t stay here, looking around cautiously as the bread woman had done.
“There we are,” said Malcolm as they left the marketplace and turned down a little street towards the lake, whose water they could see shining ahead of them.
They were looking for somewhere to sit and eat. It was getting hotter; a comfortable bench beneath a shady tree would have been ideal, but all they could see along the length of the lakeshore was work being done to build up an embankment. Excavating machines, trucks carrying away soil and other trucks bringing blocks of concrete, men working with shovels or boiling pitch: the noise was incessant, the smell of tar inescapable.
They moved on further to the right, towards a little bridge that spanned a stream flowing into the lake. The work on the new embankment hadn’t reached this far, but beyond the bridge they could see more activity with machines and trucks. There was a shady tree, but although there was a stone base beneath it that had supported a bench, the bench itself was gone.
“Well, we can sit on the grass,” said Malcolm.
His coat was uncomfortable. He took it off and spread it out beneath the tree, and they sat down to share the bread and cheese.
“I can’t understand…” Lyra began, but stopped as she realized that there were so many things about this place that she couldn’t understand, it would be hard to choose what to say first.
“Neither do I. Anything.”
“Have you ever seen a place with so much building going on?”
“No, but…”
“But what? Anywhere like it?”
“Some parts of our world. Parts of London. Parts of Oxford, even. Paradise Square…”
“Oh, yes. All those old terraced houses near the Royal Mail place.”
“Did you see—as we came into the marketplace here—did you see that old building covered in scaffolding?”
“I thought it was a town hall.”
“It might have been, once. There was a sign above the door, and it said it was going to be a brand-new shopping center, developed by Thuringia Potash.”
“But there are lots of shops in the town. Isn’t it already a shopping center?”
“The old shops don’t pay rent to Thuringia Potash, and the new ones will.”
“Is that how it works?”
“Always, everywhere. It’s only just beginning in our world; it looks as if it’s more advanced here.”
Lyra thought of Jordan College, and its new Master, Dr. Hammond, once of Thuringia Potash himself, and probably still involved with it. How long before it would be Thuringia Potash College?
Something was troubling her memory, but she couldn’t see what it was. She thought of Malcolm describing his private aurora, the spangled ring; this was similar, she thought, but with memory. The idea was still there, at the heart of a shimmering tangle of ideas and images, but she couldn’t work out what it had been.
Malcolm said something. He was looking over his shoulder at the houses across the bridge. A terrace of small brick-built houses followed the line of the stream and turned right to follow the main road along the lakeshore. They looked as if they’d once been neat and well-kept and comfortable, but now most of them seemed to be empty, with paint-peeling front doors and uncurtained windows. The exception was the house on the corner. There every window box was filled with scarlet geraniums, the white paint on the front door was fresh and clean, the brass fittings brightly polished.
Three men were standing outside the front door, and one of them was knocking loudly. That was what had drawn Malcolm’s attention.
“They look like police or something,” said Lyra.
They wore black uniforms, and two of them had guns. They knocked again, even more loudly, so that no one inside could have failed to hear.
Malcolm slowly stood up. “Someone’s answering,” he said.
“Stay behind the tree.”
The door opened a little way and an old man looked out. His raven dæmon sat on his shoulder. He said something; the chief of the three men listened courteously, even taking off his cap, and then began to speak himself. One of the other two stood back into the road and looked up at the windows; a curtain inside twitched across.
The old man listened to the policeman, and then said, not loudly but very clearly, “No, I’m sorry, I’m not going to let you in. There was a general alert yesterday—didn’t you hear that? We’re not supposed to let anyone into our houses, uniforms or guns or nothing. You’re strangers to me. I can’t tell who you are nor where you come from, nor what authority you’re answering to.”
The policeman replaced his cap and said something in a low voice. Lyra couldn’t hear the words, but his tone sounded steady and implacable. Clearly they’d reached an impasse.
The old man replied in a couple of short sentences. There was no need to hear them: he was saying no. Then he shut the door and the policemen spoke together briefly before turning away. The chief wrote briefly in a notebook, looked at the upstairs window, and turned and led the other two away.
“Did you see their dæmons?” said Lyra.
“There was one in a pocket, half-dead, by the look of her. Otherwise, no.”
“They’ll be coming back pretty soon. Let’s talk to the old man before they do.”
“But—”
She had already gathered her rucksack. “We’re reporters,” she told him. “Just follow me and take notes.”
Malcolm bundled the scraps of their meal into his rucksack and did as she said, looking back along the lakefront road to see if the policemen had gone. They were nowhere in sight; all the other activity continued, untidy but purposeful.
Lyra knocked on the door. The old man was still close by, and he opened it at once.
“I told you—” he said, and then halted. He looked along the road, in both directions, and then back to her, puzzled.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” she said. “My name is Lyra Silvertongue. I’m a journalist, and my colleague and I are interested in the way this town is changing. Have you got a moment to answer some questions?”
He looked doubtful. “You see them policemen a minute ago? They’ll be back before long.”
“Henry?” called a woman’s nervous voice. “Who is it?”
“ ’S all right, Ethel,” he called back. And then to Lyra and Malcolm, “Come in, then, you might as well.”
He stood aside, and Lyra saw his raven dæmon watch her with bright eyes, and then turn to look at Malcolm. She noticed how neat and clean everything was; the only thing out of place was a bag of knitting on the hall table. The old man shut the door.
“Come into the parlor,” he said. “We can see ’em before they get here.”
The parlor was a neat little room with a bay window from which they could see along the lakefront in both directions. There was just room for a small sofa and two chairs.
“Sit down,” said the old man. “Have the chairs. This old sofa sags terrible. Ethel, these two people are journalists. Not police. Oh, our names are Mr. and Mrs. Butler.”
The old man’s wife had been busy in the kitchen; the smell of baking came into the parlor with her, and she was wiping her floury hands on her apron. She was gray-haired and plump, and her dæmon was a turtledove nestling on her shoulder.
“You from the papers?” she said.
“Yes,” said Lyra. “Well, a news agency really. We’re based in Baku, but we’re traveling this way to look at conditions throughout the region.”
“What sort of conditions?” said Mr. Butler. “What d’you mean?”
“Economic conditions, among other things,” said Malcolm. “How is your work being affected, for example?”
The old man scratched his chin. “This new money…” he said uncertainly. “Can’t easily say.”
“We used to be the toll-keepers here,” explained his wife. “Everyone coming into the town from the east, from that way”—gesturing out of the window towards the right—“they had to pay a toll for the upkeep of the bridge. It was only a penny per traveler, double for a loaded cart or lorry. Had been for years. Paid us a wage and a living, and made sure there was enough to keep the bridge in good repair. Then this new money come in.”
“When did that first appear?” said Lyra.
She shook her head. “Can you remember, Henry?”
“Four years ago. Everything had to be charged in tokens and rubles. They tried to call them rubles, but that didn’t last. Just tokens and credits now. A hundred tokens makes one credit.”
“We didn’t understand what they meant, you know, what they were really worth.”
“Rubles?” said Malcolm. “Did it come from Muscovy?”
They looked puzzled.
“No,” said the woman. “Just everybody seemed to be using tokens all of a sudden. No one knew where it came from. Sit down, do…”
Lyra and Malcolm took the chairs. Malcolm fished a notebook and pencil out of his pocket and began to make notes.
“We was told there was something called an exchange rate,” said Henry, sitting down beside his wife on the sofa. “Never heard of that before. All the traders, the rose growers, they had to use it as well. It seemed easy when they told us about it, simple and straightforward to understand, kind of thing. But for us, you see, charging money wasn’t easy when you had no change to give them. We needed change back then, coins like, for using the bridge. Everyone knew what a penny was. But tokens and credits…What were they supposed to look like? What did they mean? We didn’t know.”
“Messed it all up,” said Ethel. “Everyone knew the old system. Travelers all had a penny in their pockets for the bridge. It sort of held us all together, all knowing things like that. Just the habits of our lives.”
“We tried to buy some bread in the market,” said Lyra. “Does every trader have to use the money now?”
“By law, yes. It’s changed everything.”
Malcolm was writing it all down.
Lyra went on, “Can I ask about something else? We noticed it as soon as we came into this world. Is there a sickness that affects dæmons here? Both your dæmons seem to be well. But some others we’ve seen even seem to have died—”
The tollkeeper’s raven dæmon suddenly uttered a shriek loud enough to hurt their ears. The old man stood up, trembling, and his wife held on with one hand to her dove dæmon, who was uttering soft moans of fear. She reached out to her husband’s hand with the other, and he took it tightly.
“What you talking like that for?” the tollkeeper said, and his eyes were blazing with anger. “How dare you come into decent people’s houses and frighten them with thoughtless things like that, lies, terrible things? En’t you got any decent manners?”
His anger was directed at Lyra, and she felt shocked and frightened and guilty, though she didn’t know why. She also saw that the old man was as much frightened as angry.
Malcolm turned to face him. “My colleague meant no offense,” he said. “Please excuse us. We’ve only been in your world for an hour or so. Things are still very strange to us. But if there is a condition that affects the well-being of your dæmons, we want to tell the world about it. Our world.”
“So we can help safeguard people who aren’t affected yet, and maybe help cure those who are,” Lyra added.
“Where’s your dæmon, then?” the old man demanded. “You might be the source of all this trouble yourself. You thought of that?”
“My dæmon left me a few months ago. He said he was going to look for my imagination, and I’ve been following him ever since. I’m still looking now.”
“Sit down, Henry,” said his wife. “This maid can’t be to blame any more than we are.”
“I won’t have bad talk in my house,” the old man grumbled.
“No, you shouldn’t,” said Lyra. “I wouldn’t either. I apologize for upsetting you. It really wasn’t bad manners, though. It was ignorance, but I know better now. There’s another thing we need to ask about. Who’s in charge of all this building work? How long has it been going on? Who’s paying for it? What are they hoping to do?”
“It’s all them companies,” said Ethel. Her dæmon was calmer; he settled on her shoulder, but still hid his head in her hair. “They make up what they call a conglomerate, but they never said what that meant. They called a meeting in the town hall, things to eat and drink, little booklet things they gave out, pictures on a screen, and speeches, and it sounded like heaven. Everything thought about. Schools for the children, parks, hospitals…”
“What we didn’t know then was that they counted everybody there as voting in favor,” said the tollkeeper. He was less angry now, but Lyra and Malcolm could see he was still trembling underneath. And so could his wife, who was looking at him fondly and anxiously and patiently. They were still holding hands. “So we were voting in favor without knowing it. They said later there’d been no need to take a vote officially because everyone was already in favor of the idea. Clearing old buildings out the way, setting up new roads, a new market, new systems. Knocking things down…This house is going, the whole terrace is going. There’s going to be flats here. Small apartments for businesspeople, and machines to take the toll automatically. And we thought we’d be here all our lives. No pension, you see, just taking the toll like we’d always done. It was like a wind was coming, a hurricane, to sweep all the old things out and replace them with new ones.”
“It was around then that the dæmons started getting sick,” said Ethel. “People seemed to have a different feeling about them, I don’t know why. Ever since I was a baby everyone had their dæmon, it was like part of you.”
“What we couldn’t understand,” said Henry, “was how people came to forget those old ways, kind of thing. As if everything they used to know had suddenly become just unwanted.”
“It was fashionable,” said his wife. “Young people started to pretend they weren’t interested in their dæmons, like it was out of date to take any notice of them. Then they just became a nuisance for some people.”
“An embarrassment,” her husband put in.
At that point, like a spark on a little trail of gunpowder, a thought in Lyra’s mind caught light and raced away, and she saw herself before Pan had left her, deep in the works of Brande and Talbot and their followers, fashionably ignoring her dæmon entirely until he began to fade and weaken. It could have happened so easily.
“That’s it,” said Ethel. “Not just dæmons, either. Other things we used to rely on. You know, like the idea of helping your neighbor. Or having laws that companies have to obey, like about not building on public land. That road along the lakeshore, you seen that?”
“They’re widening it. Building up the embankment,” said Lyra.
“They never got permission to do that,” said Ethel. “That’s public land. Builders used to have to apply for permission to alter public roadways, but now they just do as they want. It’ll change everything.”
“And the town hall in the market square. We don’t need a town hall no more, they say, because decisions about public affairs are going to be made by company boards, to save a lot of townspeople’s money, apparently. So they’re going to pull the town hall down and put up a hotel or a big shop or something. But it’s no use talking to ’em. It’s like arguing with fog. They got lawyers who—”
“There’s someone coming,” said Malcolm, who could see out of the bay window. “Police, or soldiers.”
Ethel gave a little gasp and shrank back into the sofa. Henry sat up and put his arm around her, and she turned her head into his neck.
“ ’S all right, my old love,” he murmured. “They won’t part us. Whatever happens, I won’t let ’em put us apart.”
Their dæmons, raven and turtledove, were whispering to each other on the back of the sofa. The old man was holding his wife closely to himself.
