He reached for the bell, but before he could ring, Mrs. Coulter spoke.
“Please,” she said urgently, “listen to me first. I can help. I’ve been closer to the heart of the Magisterium than anyone you’re likely to find again. I know how they think, I can guess what they’ll do. You wonder why you should trust me, what’s made me leave them? It’s simple: they’re going to kill my daughter. They daren’t let her live. The moment I found out who she is – what she is – what the witches prophesy about her – I knew I had to leave the Church; I knew I was their enemy, and they were mine. I didn’t know what you all were, or what I was to you – that was a mystery; but I knew that I had to set myself against the Church, against everything they believed in, and if need be, against the Authority himself. I…”
She stopped. All the commanders were listening intently. Now she looked Lord Asriel full in the face and seemed to speak to him alone, her voice low and passionate, her brilliant eyes glittering.
“I have been the worst mother in the world. I let my only child be taken away from me when she was a tiny infant, because I didn’t care about her; I was concerned only with my own advancement. I didn’t think of her for years, and if I did, it was only to regret the embarrassment of her birth.
“But then the Church began to take an interest in Dust and in children, and something stirred in my heart, and I remembered that I was a mother and Lyra was… my child.
“And because there was a threat, I saved her from it. Three times now I’ve stepped in to pluck her out of danger. First, when the Oblation Board began its work: I went to Jordan College and I took her to live with me, in London, where I could keep her safe from the Board… or so I hoped. But she ran away.
“The second time was at Bolvangar, when I found her just in time, under the… under the blade of the… My heart nearly stopped… It was what they – we – what I had done to other children, but when it was mine… Oh, you can’t conceive the horror of that moment, I hope you never suffer as I did then… But I got her free; I took her out; I saved her a second time.
“But even as I did that, I still felt myself part of the Church, a servant, a loyal and faithful and devoted servant, because I was doing the Authority’s work.
“And then I learned the witches’ prophecy. Lyra will somehow, sometime soon, be tempted, as Eve was – that’s what they say. What form this temptation will take, I don’t know, but she’s growing up, after all. It’s not hard to imagine. And now that the Church knows that, too, they’ll kill her. If it all depends on her, could they risk letting her live? Would they dare take the chance that she’d refuse this temptation, whatever it will be?
“No, they’re bound to kill her. If they could, they’d go back to the Garden of Eden and kill Eve before she was tempted. Killing is not difficult for them; Calvin himself ordered the deaths of children; they’d kill her with pomp and ceremony and prayers and lamentations and psalms and hymns, but they would kill her. If she falls into their hands, she’s dead already.
“So when I heard what the witch said, I saved my daughter for the third time. I took her to a place where I kept her safe, and there I was going to stay.”
“You drugged her,” said King Ogunwe. “You kept her unconscious.”
“I had to,” said Mrs. Coulter, “because she hated me,” and here her voice, which had been full of emotion but under control, spilled over into a sob, and it trembled as she went on: “She feared me and hated me, and she would have fled from my presence like a bird from a cat if I hadn’t drugged her into oblivion. Do you know what that means to a mother? But it was the only way to keep her safe! All that time in the cave… asleep, her eyes closed, her body helpless, her daemon curled up at her throat… Oh, I felt such a love, such a tenderness, such a deep, deep… My own child, the first time I had ever been able to do these things for her, my little…! washed her and fed her and kept her safe and warm, I made sure her body was nourished as she slept… I lay beside her at night, I cradled her in my arms, I wept into her hair, I kissed her sleeping eyes, my little one…”
She was shameless. She spoke quietly; she didn’t declaim or raise her voice; and when a sob shook her, it was muffled almost into a hiccup, as if she were stifling her emotions for the sake of courtesy. Which made her barefaced lies all the more effective, Lord Asriel thought with disgust; she lied in the very marrow of her bones.
She directed her words mainly at King Ogunwe, without seeming to, and Lord Asriel saw that, too. Not only was the king her chief accuser, he was also human, unlike the angel or Lord Roke, and she knew how to play on him.
In fact, though, it was on the Gallivespian that she made the greatest impression. Lord Roke sensed in her a nature as close to that of a scorpion as he had ever encountered, and he was well aware of the power in the sting he could detect under her gentle tone. Better to keep scorpions where you could see them, he thought.
So he supported King Ogunwe when the latter changed his mind and argued that she should stay, and Lord Asriel found himself outflanked: for he now wanted her elsewhere, but he had already agreed to abide by his commanders’ wishes.
Mrs. Coulter looked at him with an expression of mild and virtuous concern. He was certain that no one else could see the glitter of sly triumph in the depths of her beautiful eyes.
“Stay, then,” he said. “But you’ve spoken enough. Stay quiet now. I want to consider this proposal for a garrison on the southern border. You’ve all seen the report: is it workable? Is it desirable? Next I want to look at the armory. And then I want to hear from Xaphania about the dispositions of the angelic forces. First, the garrison. King Ogunwe?”
The African leader began. They spoke for some time, and Mrs. Coulter was impressed by their accurate knowledge of the Church’s defenses, and their clear assessment of its leaders’ strengths.
But now that Tialys and Salmakia were with the children, and Lord Asriel no longer had a spy in the Magisterium, their knowledge would soon be dangerously out of date. An idea came to Mrs. Coulter’s mind, and she and the monkey daemon exchanged a glance that felt like a powerful anbaric spark; but she said nothing, and stroked his golden fur as she listened to the commanders.
Then Lord Asriel said, “Enough. That is a problem we’ll deal with later. Now for the armory. I understand they’re ready to test the intention craft. We’ll go and look at it.”
He took a silver key from his pocket and unlocked the chain around the golden monkey’s feet and hands, and carefully avoided touching even the tip of one golden hair.
Lord Roke mounted his hawk and followed with the others as Lord Asriel set off down the stairs of the tower and out onto the battlements.
A cold wind was blowing, snapping at their eyelids, and the dark blue hawk soared up in a mighty draft, wheeling and screaming in the wild air. King Ogunwe drew his coat around him and rested his hand on his cheetah daemon’s head.
Mrs. Coulter said humbly to the angeclass="underline"
“Excuse me, my lady: your name is Xaphania?”
“Yes,” said the angel.
Her appearance impressed Mrs. Coulter, just as her fellows had impressed the witch Ruta Skadi when she found them in the sky: she was not shining, but shone on, though there was no source of light. She was tall, naked, winged, and her lined face was older than that of any living creature Mrs. Coulter had ever seen.
“Are you one of the angels who rebelled so long ago?”
“Yes. And since then I have been wandering between many worlds. Now I have pledged my allegiance to Lord Asriel, because I see in his great enterprise the best hope of destroying the tyranny at last.”
“But if you fail?”
“Then we shall all be destroyed, and cruelty will reign forever.”