Chapter Twenty-Two Coruscating #2
The priest came back. “So, nothing open in the town?” he said.
“Nothing I saw. But I imagine people are being careful in the temporary circumstances. When did you hear about the unfortunate death of Mustafa Bey?”
“Newspaper this morning. He was very clever man, very important. Many business, charity, hospital, things like that.”
“That was the first time the news came here?”
“This is a small town, Monsieur…I don’t know your name.”
“Oh. So sorry. I am Beno?t Dupont. I work for the secretariat of the Magisterial High Council.”
“Ah,” said the priest, as if he knew what that meant. He put a log in the stove and sat down. Then he nodded to Bonneville, with one suspicious glance at the wounded daemon.
“So you only heard this morning,” Bonneville prompted.
“Yes. This morning.”
“And what effect did the news have?”
“Oh, big effect. Yes.”
The door opened. An elderly woman came in with a teapot and a cup and saucer. Both men watched as she put the teapot on top of the samovar, which was steaming thinly, and laid the cup and saucer on the table.
“Very kind,” said Bonneville, beaming at the servant, and getting only a sour look in return as she left.
“What do you think will happen next?” Bonneville asked the priest. “After Mustafa Bey, I mean.”
“More problems.”
“Ah, no doubt. Does your town depend a great deal on commerce and business?”
“No. We are farmers. You know farm, grow food, animals?”
“Ah, yes. I see.”
Father Katcheres nodded. They sat in silence for a minute or more.
“So, tea,” said the priest, and poured some tar-looking tea into the cup, topping it up with hot water from the samovar. Bonneville had heard of this process but never drunk the result, and when he tasted it he resolved never to do so again.
“Good, no?”
“Yes, very good. Thank you.”
“So, what your urgent mission is from Geneva?”
“Ah. Naturally I would love to tell you, but the nature of it is of course secret.”
“To do with new war, perhaps.”
“New war…”
“What your President said. New war to destroy bad places. Also to rescue young woman.”
Bonneville sipped his tea critically, burning with impatience. Yes, the young woman: what exactly had Delamare said? The samovar was quietly steaming. Somewhere else in the house, he heard a door shut. The logs settled in the stove.
“I would be interested to know what news you’ve heard,” Bonneville said. “Part of my task includes reporting to the President how people are learning about his words. What impression they make, how faithfully they are reported, that sort of thing.”
“So you are spy,” the priest said placidly.
“Oh, no, no, no, I’m not a spy, by no means,” said Bonneville, laughing heartily. “Simply a humble representative of the High Council, looking into the effectiveness of its work so far from Geneva.”
“Ah.”
Another sip. “The sermon, the important sermon delivered by the President…You saw reports of that?”
“Some. There were some report.”
“What did you think of what he said?”
Father Katcheres smiled and shook his head.
“You didn’t see them?”
The priest shrugged, and smiled again. Bonneville understood him to mean: You’re not catching me like that.
Bonneville tried again: “Did you read what he said about his own family, the sister, her daughter…?”
Another shake of the head.
“You see,” Bonneville said earnestly, “this is very interesting from the point of view of the accurate dissemination of news. The young woman, for instance, mentioned by the President. Did her name reach you here in, in…in this village?”
“This village name? Madina.”
“Ah, no, I meant the name of the young woman…The one mentioned by the President in his sermon.”
“Ah. I don’t know. Just young woman. No picture.”
Bonneville nodded. Plainly, that was all he was going to get. The priest was hiding behind stupidity, and it made no difference whether that was real or false.
Bonneville tapped his fingers on the table. Father Katcheres watched with a bovine sort of interest. Bonneville thought he ought to reinforce his claim to be an agent of the Magisterium, just in case the stupidity was feigned.
“I’ve been traveling quickly,” he said, “and I didn’t think I was going to be spending any time in this area, so I know little about it. Tell me, who is your bishop? And where is his seat?”
“Bishop?”
“Episkop—something like that?”
“Ah, yes. I know. Yebisgobos.”
“What is his name?”
“Nicolai.”
“And…do you see him often? Where is his seat?”
“No.”
The holy bastard looked as if he was enjoying this, Bonneville thought.
“Is there a railway station anywhere nearby?” he asked.
The priest shrugged, shook his head, looked bewildered.
“Train—Eisenbahn. Ferrovia. Chemin de fer,” Bonneville said tightly.
“Ah. Yes, I have been. Very fast, long way.”
“Is there a station nearby? Railway station—gare?”
Another shrug and a blank look. Bonneville took a final sip of the tepid and bitter liquid at the bottom of his cup, and sat back.
The priest said, “You want more tea? Give me cup.”
Bonneville sat up again hastily. “No, no thank you, really. That was delicious. But no more.” He put the cup on the table and firmly pushed it away.
Then the door opened. Two men came in, one carrying a rifle, and Bonneville leapt to his feet, nearly overturning the samovar. Behind the men stood the housekeeper. She was beckoning to the priest, who slowly got to his feet and moved out of the way as the first man pointed his rifle at Bonneville.
“No! No! What do you want? Que voulez-vous?” Bonneville found himself almost gabbling.
Bonneville’s daemon was flapping her one good wing and digging her claws into his shoulder, and his hands were so high he felt his fingers touch the ceiling.
The second man, dressed like the first in a heavy overcoat and an astrakhan cap, reached up and seized one wrist and then the other and snapped handcuffs on them, twisting Bonneville’s arms behind his back to do so.
In intense discomfort Bonneville protested in the three languages he knew, without making the slightest impression on the heavy-featured policemen, if that was what they were.
The man with the rifle was speaking to the priest, and the housekeeper stood watching with satisfaction as the priest spoke rapidly in answer, frequently pointing to Bonneville and nodding or gesturing as if to imply that yes, this intruder was a villain of the deepest dye, who had threatened to cut his throat and rape the housekeeper and then ransack the poor box in the oratory.
Bonneville spread his shackled hands as wide as the handcuffs would allow, but since they were behind his back, all he got was more discomfort.
“Innocent! Innocent!” he pleaded.
No one took any notice, but the housekeeper shot him a look of triumphant venom. Finally the second policeman raised his hand and snapped a command. The priest fell silent.
“Magisterium! Personal agent of the President!” said Bonneville, his voice shaking helplessly.
The rifleman lowered the barrel of his gun and then suddenly swiped up with the stock, catching Bonneville right on the point of the jaw. He fell and cried out. He would have fainted if he could, but he was too frightened, and he resented it bitterly that unconsciousness was denied him.
The other man dragged him to his feet and shoved him out of the room and out of the house altogether. His companion said a few words to the priest, and followed.
“My rucksack!” cried Bonneville. “Mon sac! Rucksack! Backpack!”
He tried to indicate what he meant by shrugging his shoulders and jerking his chin sideways and trying to look at his back. It all hurt. Then they stamped on his feet and pulled his shoes off.
“No, not my shoes, no! Leave me my shoes!”
The soldiers exchanged a word or two and then banged on the door. The housekeeper handed them the rucksack, which, he noticed, had already been opened. One of the men shouldered it and they began to march him away. As he tripped and stumbled painfully over the cobbles, it started to rain.
—
Lyra was passionately anxious to hear any news, and completely unable to find any.
The unrest in the streets had calmed down after gunshots from various directions; a few people were moving carefully about, as she could see from her window, but no shops seemed to be open; the hotel announced that it would be serving basic dishes and drinks only, and during limited hours at that.
Ionides had gone out to see if he could find any source of information.
Lyra had written to Malcolm, telling him through the lodestone about the death of Mustafa Bey and the reaction in the streets and everything else she could think of, taking an hour at least with the only pencil she had, which was getting blunter all the time; and there was no reply.
So she and Asta sat together at the window and talked about the people they could see, or wandered through the public rooms of the hotel and into the garden and back again, or speculated about what Malcolm might be doing.
“It doesn’t matter about the alethiometer case, after all,” Lyra said as they settled back at the window again. “It’s the works that matter, and if he’s got those…And I’ve still got the needle.”
She touched the little paper package in her shirt pocket where the needle was wrapped up.
“Pan’s doing something now. He’s feeling tense,” she said.
“No—worse than that. Fear without knowing what there is to be afraid of, apart from the obvious. Of being cut off…I never realized how important it was to know the news. When we were in the Arctic, me and Pan, it hardly seemed to matter at all, so we never missed it…But now, it’s just the feeling of being connected to things that I miss…
Being part of the world. I suppose it’s because we were young then, and we’re older now. Maybe.”
“You mean you feel anxious, or he does?”
“Both, probably. We’re bound to, don’t you think? Not knowing anything for certain. And knowing that the best part of me is somewhere else.”