The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth (Book of Dust, Volume 2) (35 page)

He climbed round the trunk a little way and looked for the towers of the Stadtkirche, and soon found them again.

Maybe he could get there by moving from roof to roof. The houses were tall and narrow, with no gaps between them, opening directly onto the pavement without the little basement area that was common in English town houses. He darted across the road and into a small alley, climbed a drainpipe, slipped into the gutter it drained, and then onto the tiles and up to the ridge of a roof. Now he could see the church towers in the pale sunlight, and many other tall buildings besides, and no one could see him. It was almost like being on the roof of Jordan College long ago. He settled down to sleep by a warm chimney and dreamed of Lyra.

“Wittenberg!” said Olivier Bonneville aloud, and jubilantly. He couldn’t stop himself, and it didn’t matter, because he was alone in his cabin on the old river steamer, which was right over the engine room. The clanking and wheezing and thudding were more than enough to cover his voice, had anyone been listening outside.

He’d been watching Pantalaimon with the alethiometer ever since he’d first seen him on the riverbank, in brief snatches so as not to let the nausea build up. It wasn’t long before he realized that Lyra’s dæmon was traveling up the Elbe. Bonneville traveled at once by train to Dresden, further up the river from wherever Pantalaimon was, where he booked a cabin on this surely soon-to-be-retired steamboat, which traveled strenuously up and down the river between Prague and Hamburg. They were in Meissen when he saw Pan climb up the side of a building and look across the rooftops towards a church with two towers. It was a familiar sight: there was an engraving showing the famous Wittenberg Stadtkirche on the wall of Marcel Delamare’s office.

Bonneville swiftly shuffled through the scatter of papers on his bunk and found the boat company’s timetable. Meissen was six hours’ journey from Wittenberg. Not long now, in fact.

Rooftop to rooftop…Pan should have thought of that before. The old houses were built joining one another, or with only a very narrow alley between them, and people seldom looked up, because their attention was focused at ground level, on traffic and cafés and shop windows. Pan’s nature was suited to high things, and his footing was secure, so rooftops it was.

He scouted the whole district, unseen and unsuspected by those below. In the early afternoon he found a house that looked promising, just behind the Stadtkirche, as the girl had said; and by creeping down a drainpipe and looking across the street, he could even make out the words
Das Kaufmannshaus
in Gothic letters on a brass plate by the front door. There was little traffic; it was a very quiet street. He took a risk and ran across, making for an alley three or four houses further along, and then there was another climb, and then he was on the roof of Gottfried Brande’s house.

It was steeper than its neighbors, but the tiles gave Pan quite enough grip. He made his way over the ridge, past a cluster of tall brick chimneys, and down towards the rear of the house.

There was someone playing in the garden.

That there was a garden at all was surprising, because none of the other houses he could see had more than a small paved courtyard. But the
Kaufmannshaus
had a square of grass, two or three small trees, and a summerhouse where a girl was throwing a ball against the wooden wall and spinning round before trying to catch it. He could hear the regular thud of the ball, the little gasps of satisfaction when she caught it, the hisses of disappointment when she didn’t. Her dæmon was something so small, he couldn’t make it out: just a little scamper on the lawn. He might have been a mouse.

Was there any point in waiting? Of course not. Pan looked down from the gutter and saw to his satisfaction that the rear wall of the house was covered in ivy. A moment later he was moving down through the leaves silently, watching the girl as he did. She didn’t notice. As he reached the gravel path at the foot of the wall, she threw the ball again, spun round, and this time stopped halfway round because she saw him.

The ball hit her on the shoulder and fell to the grass. She snapped a cross word and picked it up, and then turned back to throw it again, ignoring Pan.

He was still at the foot of the wall, under a tall window. He watched her throw the ball again and again, taking no notice of him, and then he stalked across the path, making no noise at all, and walked across the grass towards her and sat down in the shadow of the house, only a few feet away from the girl. She could see him without even turning her head, but she went on playing as if he wasn’t there.

She was about fifteen years old, blond and slender, with an expression of discontent that looked as though it had settled on her face for life. Two little frown lines had already marked her forehead. She wore a formal white dress with puffed sleeves, and her hair was tied up elaborately: the dress was too young for her, and the hairstyle too old; she looked as if nothing about her was right, and she knew it.

Throw, thud, spin, catch.

Her mouse dæmon had seen Pan and made a movement as if to approach him, but she saw and hissed. The dæmon stopped and crept back.

Throw, thud, spin, drop.

Pan said, “Is this the house of Gottfried Brande?”

“What if it is?” she said, snatching up the ball from the ground.

“I’ve come a long way to see him.”

“He won’t talk to you.”

“How do you know?”

She shrugged and threw the ball again, and caught it.

“Why are you playing a little children’s game?” Pan said.

“Because he pays me to.”

“What? Why?”

“It gives him pleasure, I suppose. He watches me from the window. He’s working now, but he still likes to hear the sound.”

Pan looked at the house. There was no sign of movement, but the ground-floor window facing the garden was slightly open.

“Can he hear us talking?”

Another shrug, another catch.

He said, “Why won’t he talk to me?”

“He won’t even look at you. What are you doing on your own, anyway? It’s not natural. Where’s your person?”

“I’m looking for her imagination.”

“You think he’s got it?”

“I think he stole it.”

“What would he want with that?”

“I don’t know. But I’ve come to ask him about it.”

She looked at him then, disdainfully. The last of the watery sunshine was just touching the top of the two trees; the shadow of the house across the garden was already chilling the air.

“What’s your name?” Pan said.

“Nothing to do with you. Oh, this is too strange for me.” She threw the ball to the ground and turned away, shoulders slumped. Then she sat down on the step of the summerhouse, and her dæmon ran up her arm and buried his face in her hair.

“Does he pay you to play all day long?” Pan asked.

“He’s given up everything else.”

He tried to think what that could mean; she wasn’t likely to give him a clear answer. “Is he in the house now?”

“Where else? He never goes out.”

“Which room would he be in?”

She sat up impatiently. “Oh, for God’s sake. The study, of course. That open window.”

“Is there anyone else there apart from him?”

“There are servants, naturally. It won’t do you any good, you know.”

“Why are you so sure?”

She gave a heavy sigh, as if his question was too stupid to deserve an answer. Then she turned away, leant over, and laid her head on her folded arms. Two glittering little black eyes stared at him from the fortress of her hair.

“Go away,” she said, her voice muffled. “Too many ghosts. You think you’re the first? They keep coming back, and he won’t say a word.”

Pan wasn’t sure what he’d heard. He wanted to know much more about this discontented girl. So would Lyra, he thought, but she’d know how to talk to her, and he didn’t.

“Thanks,” he said quietly.

He left her and ran across the lawn. There was a light in the study window now, or perhaps he only noticed it because the late-afternoon light was fading fast. He saw an open window on the floor above and scampered up in the ivy and darted through.

He found himself in a bedroom: it was austere like a monk’s cell, bare floorboards, no pictures or bookshelves, one narrow bed with thin bedclothes very tightly tucked in, a bedside table with nothing but a glass of water on it.

The door was slightly open. He went through and made his way down the steep stairs into a dark hall, with a door nearby that led (to judge from the smell of cabbage) to the kitchen, and another door from which came a powerful smell of smokeleaf. He crept along the wall, trying to make no noise with his claws on the polished wooden floor, and paused outside that door.

Brande’s voice (it could only have been his: clear and forceful and precise) sounded as if he were giving a lecture.

“…and it is clear that no further examples are necessary. Here the reign of stupidity comes to its final phase, characterized at first by a bloom of decadence, and then by the flowering of every kind of extravagant, timorous, and crepuscular piety. At this point—”

“Sorry, Professor,” came a woman’s voice. “What sort of piety?”

“Extravagant, timorous, and crepuscular.”

“Thank you. Sorry.”

“You have not worked for me before, I think?”

“No, Professor. The agency explained—”

“Continue. At this point everything is in place for the coming of the strong leader, which will form the subject of the next chapter.”

He stopped. There was silence for a few seconds.

“That is all,” he said. “Kindly tell the agency that I would be obliged if they would send a different stenographer tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry, Professor. I was the only person available—”

“Are you sorry? If it is your fault, you should be sorry. If it is not, there is no blame to be sorry for. A mistake is your fault. An incapacity is not.”

“I know I’m not used to— I trained for business and commerce, and the terms you use are unfamiliar—I know you want to get it right….”

“It is right.”

“Of course. Sorry.”

“Goodbye,” he said, and Pan heard the sound of a chair being moved, some papers being stacked, a match being struck.

A few moments later a young woman came out of the room, shrugging herself into a shabby overcoat and trying to hold back a bundle of papers and a pen case from falling on the floor. It was no use: they tumbled out from under her arm, and the parrot dæmon, who’d flown to the newel post of the stairs, said something disparaging.

She ignored him and bent to pick them up, and at the same moment she caught sight of Pan, who had nowhere to hide. He tried to stand as still as possible against the wall.

Her eyes widened. She took a sharp breath, and her dæmon uttered a quiet squawk of alarm.

Pan’s eyes met hers. He shook his head.

“It’s not possible,” she whispered.

“No,” he whispered back. “Not possible.”

The parrot was actually whimpering. From the doorway came a strong smell of smokeleaf. The young woman scooped up her papers and hastened to open the front door and leave even before she had her coat fully over her shoulders. The parrot flew ahead of her, and the door slammed shut.

There was nothing to be gained by waiting. Pan walked through the doorway into the cigar-burdened, book-lined study, where Gottfried Brande was sitting at a large desk, watching him.

He was a large-boned man, gaunt and stiff, with short gray hair and very light blue eyes. He was dressed formally, as if he were about to give an academic lecture, and his expression was one of stark terror.

Pan looked for his dæmon. She was a very large German shepherd, and she lay on the carpet at his feet, apparently asleep, or pretending to be. She looked as if she were trying to make her great size as small as possible.

Brande hadn’t moved, but he looked away from Pan and stared into the corner of the room. Unless that was the natural expression his face fell into, the terror still possessed him. Pan was disconcerted: of all the reactions he’d expected, this was not one.

He stalked across the room and leapt up onto the desk.

Brande closed his eyes and turned his body away.

“You’ve stolen Lyra’s imagination,” said Pan.

No movement from Brande, not a word.

“You’ve stolen it,” Pan said. “Or corrupted it. Or poisoned it. You’ve made it small and unkind. I’ve come here to make you undo the damage you’ve done.”

Brande felt for the ashtray with a trembling hand and put his cigar down. His eyes were still closed.

“What were you dictating just now?”

No response.

“It didn’t sound much like a novel. Have you given up writing fiction?”

Brande’s eyelids flickered open, just a tiny fraction of an inch, and Pan saw him trying to look sideways. Then they closed again.

“Who’s the girl outside? Why do you pay her to play silly games?” As Pan said that, he realized that he hadn’t heard the thud of the ball against the summerhouse since he left her there. “What’s her name? How much do you pay her?”

Brande sighed, but furtively, as if he were trying not to show it. Pan heard his dæmon moving quietly on the floor—turning over, perhaps—and then came a muffled whimper.

Pan stalked to the edge of the desk and looked down at her. She had her face tucked down, with one paw over her eyes. There was something odd about her, and it wasn’t just that a big, powerful creature should be showing so much fear. It was uncanny, and it made him think of something the girl had said.

He turned back to the man and said, “She told me there are ghosts here. Too many ghosts. They keep coming back, she said. D’you think I’m a ghost? D’you think that’s what I am?”

Brande’s eyes were tight shut. He looked as if he thought keeping absolutely still would make him invisible.

“Because I wouldn’t have thought you believed in ghosts,” Pan went on. “I’d have thought you’d scoff at the very idea. You’d feel nothing but contempt for anyone who did believe in them. There’s a page on that very subject in
The Hyperchorasmians.
Have you forgotten your own words?”