Lyra had to adjust to her new sense of her own story, and that couldnt be done in a day. To see Lord Asriel as her father was ohing, but to accept Mrs.
Coulter as her mother was nowhere near so easy. A couple of months ago she would have rejoiced, of course, and she khat too, a fused.
But, being Lyra, she didnt fret about it for long, for there was the fen town to explore and many gyptian children to amaze. Before the three days were up she was an expert with a punt (in her eyes, at least) and shed gathered a gang of urs about her with tales of her mighty father, so unjustly made captive.
「And then one evening the Turkish Ambassador was a guest at Jordan for dinner.
And he was under orders from the Sultan hisself to kill my father, right, and he had a ring on his finger with a hollow stone full of poison. And when the wine e round he made as if to reach ay fathers glass, and he sprihe poison in. It was done so quick that no one else saw him, but—」
「What sort of poison?」 demanded a thin-faced girl.
「Poison out of a special Turkish serpent,」 Lyra ied, 「what they catch by playing a pipe to lure out and thehrow it a sponge soaked in honey and the serpent bites it and t get his fangs free, and they catch it and milk the venom out of it. Anyway, my father seen what the Turk done, and he says, Gentlemen, I want to propose a toast of friendship between Jordan College and the College of Izmir, which was the college the Turkish Ambassador beloo.
And to show our willio be friends, he says, well s glasses and drink each others wine.
「And the Ambassador was in a fix then, cause he couldnt refuse to drink without giving deadly insult, and he couldnt drink it because he k oisoned. He went pale and he fainted right away at the table. And when he e round they was all still sitting there, waiting and looking at him. And then he had to either drink the poison or own up.」
「So what did he do?」
「He drunk it. It took him five whole mio die, and he was in torment all the time.」
「Did you see it happen?」
「No, cause girls ent allowed at the High Table. But I seen his body afterwards when they laid him out. His skin was all withered like an old apple, and his eyes were starting from his head. In fact, they had to push em ba the sockets....」
And so on.
Meanwhile, around the edges of the fen try, the police were knog at doors, searg attid outhouses, iing papers and interrogating everyone who claimed to have seen a blond little girl; and in Oxford the search was even fiercer. Jordan College was scoured from the dustiest boxroom to the darkest cellar, and sabriel and St. Michaels, till the heads of all the colleges issued a joint protest asserting their a rights. The only notion Lyra had of the search for her was the incessant drone of the gas engines of airships crisscrossing the skies. They werent visible, because the clouds were low and by statute airships had to keep a certai above fen try, but who knew what ing spy devices they might carry? Best to keep under cover when she heard them, or wear the oilskin souwester over her bright distinctive hair.
And she questioned Ma Costa about every detail of the story of her birth. She wove the details into a mental tapestry even clearer and sharper thaories she made up, and lived over and ain the flight from the cottage, the cealment in the closet, the harsh-voiced challehe clash of swords—
「Swords? Great God, girl, you drea