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with the children, and Lord Asriel no longer had a spy in the Magisterium, their knowledge would soon be dangerously out of date.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 dæmon 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 dæmon’s head.
Mrs. Coulter said humbly to the angel:
“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.”
As they spoke, they followed Lord Asriel’s rapid strides along the wind-beaten battlements toward a mighty staircase going down so deep that even the flaring lights on sconces down the walls could not disclose the bottom. Past them swooped the blue hawk, gliding down and down into the gloom, with each flaring light making his feathers flicker as he passed it, until he was merely a tiny spark, and then nothing.
The angel had moved on to Lord Asriel’s side, and Mrs. Coulter found herself descending next to the African king.
“Excuse my ignorance, sir,” she said, “but I had never seen or heard of a being like the man on the blue hawk until the fight in the cave yesterday . . . Where does he come from? Can you tell me about his people? I wouldn’t offend him for the world, but if I speak without knowing something about him, I might be unintentionally rude.”
“You do well to ask,” said King Ogunwe. “His people are proud. Their world developed unlike ours; there are two kinds of conscious being there, humans and Gallivespians. The humans are mostly servants of the Authority, and they have been trying to exterminate the small people since the earliest time anyone can remember. They regard them as diabolic. So the Gallivespians still cannot quite trust those who are our size. But they are fierce and proud warriors, and deadly enemies, and valuable spies.”
“Are all his people with you, or are they divided as humans are?”
“There are some who are with the enemy, but most are with us.”
“And the angels? You know, I thought until recently that angels were an invention of the Middle Age; they were just imaginary . . . To find yourself speaking to one is disconcerting, isn’t it . . . How many are with Lord Asriel?”
“Mrs. Coulter,” said the king, “these questions are just the sort of things a spy would want to find out.”
“A fine sort of spy I’d be, to ask you so transparently,” she replied. “I’m a captive, sir. I couldn’t get away even if I had a safe place to flee to. From now on, I’m harmless, you can take my word for that.”