The man fell back, and his pinscher dæmon, who had been baring her teeth at the mild-mannered golden monkey, instantly cowered and tucked her tail stump as low as it would go.
The guard cranked the handle of a telephone, and under a minute later a fresh-faced young priest came hastening into the gatehouse, wiping his palms on his robe in case she wanted to shake hands. She didn’t.
“Who are you?” she said.
“Brother Louis,” said the man, soothing his rabbit dæmon, “Convener of the Secretariat of the Consistorial Court. If you would be so kind—”
“I haven’t come here to parley with a scrivener,” she told him. “Take me to Father MacPhail. And do it now.”
The man bowed helplessly and led her away. The guard behind her blew out his cheeks with relief.
Brother Louis, after trying two or three times to make conversation, gave up and led her in silence to the President’s rooms in the tower. Father MacPhail was at his devotions, and poor Brother Louis’s hand shook violently as he knocked. They heard a sigh and a groan, and then heavy footsteps crossed the floor.
The President’s eyes widened as he saw who it was, and he smiled wolfishly.
“Mrs. Coulter,” he said, offering his hand. “I am very glad to see you. My study is cold, and our hospitality is plain, but come in, come in.”
“Good evening,” she said, following him inside the bleak stone-walled room, allowing him to make a little fuss and show her to a chair. “Thank you,” she said to Brother Louis, who was still hovering, “I’ll take a glass of chocolatl.”
Nothing had been offered, and she knew how insulting it was to treat him like a servant, but his manner was so abject that he deserved it. The President nodded, and Brother Louis had to leave and deal with it, to his great annoyance.
“Of course you are under arrest,” said the President, taking the other chair and turning up the lamp.
“Oh, why spoil our talk before we’ve even begun?” said Mrs. Coulter. “I came here voluntarily, as soon as I could escape from Asriel’s fortress. The fact is, Father President, I have a great deal of information about his forces, and about the child, and I came here to give it to you.”
“The child, then. Begin with the child.”
“My daughter is now twelve years old. Very soon she will approach the cusp of adolescence, and then it will be too late for any of us to prevent the catastrophe; nature and opportunity will come together like spark and tinder. Thanks to your intervention, that is now far more likely. I hope you’re satisfied.”
“It was your duty to bring her here into our care. Instead, you chose to skulk in a mountain cave—though how a woman of your intelligence hoped to remain hidden is a mystery to me.”
“There’s probably a great deal that’s mysterious to you, my Lord President, starting with the relations between a mother and her child. If you thought for one moment that I would release my daughter into the care—the care!—of a body of men with a feverish obsession with sexuality, men with dirty fingernails, reeking of ancient sweat, men whose furtive imaginations would crawl over her body like cockroaches—if you thought I would expose my child to that, my Lord President, you are more stupid than you take me for.”
There was a knock on the door before he could reply, and Brother Louis came in with two glasses of chocolatl on a wooden tray. He laid the tray on the table with a nervous bow, smiling at the President in hopes of being asked to stay; but Father MacPhail nodded toward the door, and the young man left reluctantly.
“So what were you going to do?” said the President.
“I was going to keep her safe until the danger had passed.”
“What danger would that be?” he said, handing her a glass.
“Oh, I think you know what I mean. Somewhere there is a tempter, a serpent, so to speak, and I had to keep them from meeting.”
“There is a boy with her.”
“Yes. And if you hadn’t interfered, they would both be under my control. As it is, they could be anywhere. At least they’re not with Lord Asriel.”
“I have no doubt he will be looking for them. The boy has a knife of extraordinary power. They would be worth pursuing for that alone.”
“I’m aware of that,” said Mrs. Coulter. “I managed to break it, and he managed to get it mended again.”
The President wondered why she was smiling. Surely she didn’t approve of this wretched boy?
“We know,” he said shortly.
“Well, well,” she said. “Fra Pavel must be getting quicker. When I knew him, it would have taken him a month at least to read all that.”
She sipped her chocolatl, which was thin and weak; how like these wretched priests, she thought, to take their self-righteous abstinence out on their visitors, too.
“Tell me about Lord Asriel,” said the President. “Tell me everything.”
Mrs. Coulter settled back comfortably and began to tell him—not everything, but he never thought for a moment that she would. She told him about the fortress, about the allies, about the angels, about the mines and the foundries.
Father MacPhail sat without moving a muscle, his lizard dæmon absorbing and remembering every word.
“And how did you get here?” he asked.
“I stole a gyropter. It ran out of fuel and I had to abandon it in the countryside not far from here. The rest of the way I walked.”
“Is Lord Asriel actively searching for the girl and the boy?”
“Of course.”