Chapter Twenty-Two Coruscating
Twenty-Two
Coruscating
The impact of Marcel Delamare’s sermon was immediate and widespread.
The personal element made it irresistible to journalists, who began to search every archive, every reference book, every collection of newspaper and magazine cuttings for pictures of this sister, and found many of Mrs. Coulter, and some of her daughter, the renegade.
Artists were employed to draw pictures of what Lyra probably looked like now, with the usual implausible results.
Business owners and other rich people were swift to take up the hint and offer rewards for her capture.
Alice Lonsdale, reading the Daily Mirror during her break from the linen room of the Savoy hotel in the Strand, gasped and stood up in shock.
Sixty miles away, the Bursar of Jordan College read the same story more staidly expressed in a different newspaper, and reached at once for the telephone to call the Master.
Hannah Relf, in a coffee shop near Magdalen Bridge, held her cup suspended in the air while she read to the end of the story in the Guardian.
On a boat in the Fens, Farder Coram’s great-niece Rosella saw the story in the Eastern Daily Press, and wondered whether to shake the old man’s shoulder and tell him; but he slept so much now, and seemed to need every minute of it. It could wait till he woke up.
Lyra didn’t see it at all.
—
At La Maison Juste, an entire floor had been given over to coordinating the search for the mysterious openings and their subsequent destruction.
Reports of new discoveries came in daily.
Some of them were found to be authentic, though not many: the committee in charge were considering the possibility that there were really fewer of these phenomena than had first been thought.
As for their destruction, Colonel Schreiber’s method continued to be the favored one.
A powerful, firmly contained tonnerre double explosion left nothing but shreds of emptiness in the air.
These gaps were too small for anyone to go through, though possibly small objects or messages might be passed from one side to the other, if there was someone on the other side to receive them.
If you put your eye to one of these slits or rents, you could see something of what was on the other side, but very little useful, because most of them seemed to be located in barren or waste places, deep in tangled undergrowth or high up among rocky cliffs or scree, and that was true of the world on the other side.
Half a dozen times or so the Schreiber unit met with opposition.
Where the opening had been the center of a local cult or some similar activity, Schreiber’s men had to use weapons to deal with the native people who tried to defend it.
At one spot in the East Indies, a local university had set up a center to study the phenomenon, and a large energy corporation was interested in funding it.
Diplomacy, not violence, was the answer to that.
A word from the President of the Magisterial High Council to the chief executive of the energy company, the award of the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Boniface, and opposition faded like dew.
But reports kept coming in, and they all had to be investigated.
—
One of the people most interested in the story of the mysterious renegade (and now possibly terrorist, it was rumored) niece of President Delamare was Olivier Bonneville.
The Magisterial nuncio in Aleppo had turned him out: his room was needed for other visitors.
But he’d provided the wretched boy with a small amount of money and a passport to aid his future travel, so Bonneville was able to buy a ticket on an autobus de luxe and set off eastwards, in the certain knowledge that with the alethiometer he’d be able to find Lyra before anyone else, and claim a reward as well as regaining his own alethiometer and punishing the girl.
Unfortunately for him, the death of Mustafa Bey brought his journey to a halt in Armenia.
The bus driver had stopped to refuel late one afternoon at a small town in the foothills of the Lesser Caucasus, and found that the credit attached to the great merchant’s name had suddenly evaporated.
Cash or nothing, he was told. As soon as the driver learned why, he saw very clearly what the consequences of the assassination would be, told all the passengers to get out because he needed a spare part, and used the little fuel left in the tank to drive to a motor dealer who bought the bus for a decent price, given the circumstances; and then he slipped away.
The passengers, twenty or so in number, sat on the benches of the little bus station, variously bewildered, disconsolate, angry, and resigned.
Olivier Bonneville suspected the spare-part story from the beginning, and banged on the door of the station manager’s office until the man came out and told everyone that normal service had been suspended for the time being.
“But why?” demanded an angry woman.
“Because of the sad and unexpected disaster in Aleppo.”
“What disaster?”
“The sudden and unexpected death of His Excellency Mustafa Bey.”
That shook them all.
“But what happened?”
“Was he taken ill?”
“When?”
“He was killed?”
“Who killed him?”
“What’s going to happen to us?”
“When did you know about this?”
“How long will it be before we can leave?”
“Where has the bus driver gone? Can we call him back?”
“What is the name of this place? Is there a police station here?”
“Is there a hotel nearby?”
“Anywhere we can stay?”
“Can we send a message from here?”
And so on. The manager spread his hands, shrugged, shook his head, made expressions of sympathy and helplessness. There was nothing more he could tell them, because there was nothing more he knew.
Olivier Bonneville was frightened, though he took great care not to show it.
To be marooned in this wilderness—and with political and social and economic panic soon to follow—was more awkward than he liked.
He sat tight, listened to all the voices around him, felt the alarm and despondency growing among his fellow passengers as the daylight lessened.
But no one seemed to be doing anything or going anywhere, and the manager was helpless. Bonneville swung his rucksack over his shoulder and left the bus station without saying a word.
The town was only just larger than a village. A marketplace, deserted now; a town hall where a flag hung limp, and no lights shone in the windows, and the door was locked; a café of some sort, closed; a few shops, empty. It looked as if the entire population had been spirited away.
So naturally Bonneville made for the oratory. The onion dome was the second-highest building in the town, after the town hall, and it took no more than five minutes to walk there. He had passed all his life among priests and officials of the Magisterium, and knew exactly how to talk to the clergy.
He found the priest in his narrow house right next to the oratory. He had to knock loudly several times before the man came to the door, and when he unlocked it, Bonneville saw it was on a chain. The priest’s dark, suspicious eyes glared at him through the opening.
“Père Katcheres,” said Bonneville warmly, having first checked the notice board in the oratory porch.
“Who are you?” said the priest, taking the hint and speaking in French.
“An emissary from Geneva, on an urgent mission. May I come inside?”
The chain rattled, the door swung wider. The priest was holding something in his right hand, which he tried to conceal behind his back. Bonneville couldn’t see it clearly, but he was sure it was a pistol.
He stepped in and removed his cap at once, out of politeness.
“Very kind, Father,” he said. “I completely understand your precautions,” indicating the door chain. “Things are a little disturbed right now. I take it you’ve heard the news?”
“Mustafa Bey?”
“That’s right. I imagine that people will be profoundly anxious for a while.”
“What do you want with me?”
“Firstly, Father, somewhere to spend the night. Everywhere in town is closed or empty. I was a passenger on the autobus to Baku, expecting to continue my journey peacefully when the driver had refueled, but he made all the passengers get out and then drove away without us. I hope you might be able to let me stay with you till the morning, and I’ll attempt to find some other transport then.
I was hoping to get to Baku tonight, but…
” He shrugged, and assumed an expression of regret.
The priest nodded slowly. “Baku? A long way. Well, come in and sit down. Will you take some tea?” He glanced at the samovar on the table.
“Very kind, very kind.”
Beaming modestly, being a little awkward with his rucksack, not being sure whether to precede his host into the parlor, as invited, or to follow him, Bonneville gave a perfect imitation of a gauche and harmless clerical functionary ill at ease in a foreign land, but doing his best to be polite.
He sat down, pretending to fuss with his scarf, and watched out of the corner of his eye as the priest swiftly put something in a sideboard drawer and closed it again.
“So,” the priest said. “Mustafa Bey.”
“Indeed. Very shocking.”
“Did you know him?”
In truth, Bonneville had never heard of him, and he didn’t want to be drawn into a long discussion about the man. At the same time, he wanted to find out as much as he could.
“I knew his name only,” he said. “In Geneva we are out of the way of world affairs as much as possible.”
“To be sure. Excuse me a moment.”
Father Katcheres left the parlor and said something to the servant in the kitchen.
Bonneville looked around. In the light of the single naphtha lamp and the meager fire in the stove he saw a small, dingy, poorly furnished room smelling faintly of garlic and strongly of smokeweed.
His daemon settled uneasily on his shoulder, still nursing her broken wing. He stroked her head.