25

The Princess Cantacuzino

The ferry didn’t reach Smyrna till late in the following afternoon. During the day Lyra hardly moved, staying in her wicker chair and stirring only to fetch some coffee and bread, thinking about what she should do next, and looking through the little notebook, the clavicula. The name Kubiček had written in it was that of a Princess Rosamond Cantacuzino, and it was the rose in her name that decided it. Lyra set off for her house as soon as she left the boat.

The princess lived in one of the great houses further along the waterfront. The city was a famous centre of trade; in earlier times, merchants had made enormous fortunes from buying and selling carpets, dried fruit, grain, spices, and precious minerals. For the sake of the cool breezes in summer, and the views of the mountains, the richest families had long settled in splendid mansions along the palm-shaded corniche. The Cantacuzino house stood back from the road, behind a garden whose neatness and complexity of planting spoke of great wealth. Lyra thought that great wealth would help a lot if you’d lost your dæmon; you could pay for well-guarded privacy.

And thinking that, she wondered if she’d ever get inside the house to meet the princess. She almost quailed. Why did she want to meet her, anyway? Well, to ask for advice about the rest of her journey, obviously. And if Kubiček had her on his list, there must have been at least one occasion when she’d agreed to be helpful to those like herself. Courage! Lyra thought.

She walked through the gate and along a gravel path between symmetrical beds of tightly pruned roses whose buds were just beginning to show. A gardener at work in a far corner looked up and saw her, and straightened his back to watch as she made, with all the confidence she could assume, for the marble steps up to the entrance.

An elderly manservant answered the bell. His crow-dæmon gave one hoarse croak as soon as she saw Lyra, and the old man’s hooded eyes flickered with a moment’s understanding.

‘I hope you can speak English,’ Lyra said, ‘because I have little Greek and no Anatolian. I have come to present my compliments to Princess Cantacuzino.’

The servant looked her up and down. She knew her clothes were shabby, but she also remembered Farder Coram’s advice, and tried to imitate the way the witches bore themselves: supremely at ease in their ragged scraps of black silk, as if they wore the most elegant couture.

The butler inclined his head and said, ‘May I tell the princess who is calling?’

‘My name is Lyra Silvertongue.’

He stood aside and invited her to wait in the hall. She looked around: heavy dark wood, an elaborate staircase, a chandelier, tall palms in terracotta pots, the smell of beeswax polish. And cool, and quiet. The sound of traffic on the corniche, the stir of the air in the outside world, were all hushed behind the layers of wealth and custom that hung like heavy curtains all around.

The butler returned and said, ‘The princess will see you now, Miss Silvertongue. Please follow me.’

He’d come from a door on the ground floor, but now he began to climb the stairs. He moved slowly, wheezing a little, but his posture was soldierly and upright. On the first floor he opened a door and announced her, and Lyra walked past into a room flooded with light, overlooking the bay and the harbour and the distant mountains. It was very large, and it seemed full of life: an ivory-coloured grand piano covered in a dozen or more silver-framed photograms, many modern paintings, crowded white-painted bookshelves, and elegant light-coloured furniture, all made Lyra like it at once. A very old lady sat in a brocaded armchair near the great windows, dressed all in black.

Lyra approached her. She wondered for a moment if she ought to curtsey, but decided immediately that it would look ridiculous, and simply said, ‘Good afternoon, Princess. It’s very good of you to see me.’

‘Is that how you were brought up to address a princess?’ The old woman’s voice was dry, astringent, amused.

‘No. That didn’t form part of my lessons at all. I can do several other things quite well, though.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. Bring that chair forward and sit down. Let me look at you.’

Lyra did as she was told and looked back calmly as the old woman scrutinised her. The old woman was both fierce and vulnerable, and Lyra wondered what her dæmon had been, and whether it would be polite to ask.

‘Who were your people?’ said the princess.

‘My father’s name was Asriel, Lord Asriel, and my mother was not his wife. She was called Mrs Coulter. How did you know— I mean, why did you say were? How could you tell they weren’t alive?’

‘I can tell an orphan when I see one. I met your father once.’

‘Did you?’

‘It was at a reception in the Egyptian Embassy in Berlin. It must have been thirty years ago. He was a very handsome young man, and very rich.’

‘He lost his wealth when I was born.’

‘Why was that?’

‘He wasn’t married to my mother, and there was a court case—’

‘Oh! Lawyers! Have you any money, child?’

‘None at all.’

‘Then you will be of no interest to lawyers, and all the better for it. Who gave you my name?’

‘A man in Prague. He was called Vaclav Kubiček.’

‘Ah. A very interesting man. A scholar of some repute. Modest, unassuming. Did you know of him before you went to Prague?’

‘No, not at all. I had no idea there could be anyone else who— I mean, without … He was very helpful to me.’

‘Why are you travelling? And where are you going?’

‘I’m going to Central Asia. To a place called Tashbulak, where there’s a botanical research station. I’m going there to find out the answer to a puzzle. A mystery, really.’

‘Tell me about your dæmon.’

‘Pantalaimon …’

‘A good Greek name.’

‘He settled in the form of a pine marten. He and I discovered we could separate when I was about twelve. We had to. At least, I had to keep a promise, which meant leaving him behind and going into a place where he couldn’t come. Nothing … Almost nothing has ever felt worse. But after a while we found each other again and I think he forgave me. And we were together after that, though we had to keep our separating very secret. We didn’t think anyone could do it except witches. But for the last year or so we’ve been quarrelling. We couldn’t stand each other. That was horrible. And one day I woke up and he’d just gone. So I’m searching for him, really. I’m following clues … Little things that don’t make rational sense … In Prague I met a magician who gave me a clue. And I’m relying on chance. It was by chance that I met Mr Kubiček.’

‘There’s a great deal you’re not telling me.’

‘I don’t know how long you’ll be interested for.’

‘You don’t suppose my life is so full of fascinating events that I can pass up the chance to listen to a stranger in the same depleted condition as I am myself?’

‘Well, it might be. Full of fascinating events, I mean. I’m sure there’s no shortage of people who’d like to meet you, or friends who could come and talk. Perhaps you have a family.’

‘I have no offspring, if that’s what you mean. No husband. But in another sense I am smothered by family; this city, this country, are full of Cantacuzinos. What I have instead of a family is – yes, I have a handful of friends, but they are embarrassed by me, they make allowances, they avoid painful subjects, they’re full of kindly understanding, and as a result conversation with them is a kind of purgatory. When Mr Kubiček came to see me I was nearly dead with boredom and despair. Now the people who come here through him and through two or three other people of our sort in other places are the most welcome of guests. Will you take some tea with me?’

‘I would love to.’

The princess rang a little silver bell on the table beside her. ‘When did you arrive in Smyrna?’ she said.

‘This afternoon. I came straight from the port. Princess, why did your dæmon leave you?’

The old lady held up a hand. She heard the door open. When the butler came in she said, ‘Tea, Hamid,’ and he nodded deeply and went out again.

The princess listened. When she was satisfied that the servant had gone, she turned back to Lyra.

‘He was a particularly beautiful black cat. He left me because he fell in love with someone else. He became utterly fascinated by a dancer, a nightclub dancer.’

Her tone made it clear that she meant ‘someone little better than a prostitute’. Lyra was silent, intrigued.

‘You will be wondering,’ the princess went on, ‘how he could possibly have come to know such a woman. My social circle and hers would normally never touch. But I had a brother whose physical appetites were insatiable, and whose gift for making unsuitable alliances caused the family a great deal of embarrassment. He introduced the woman one evening into a soirée – he was perfectly open about it – “This young woman is my mistress,” he would say when meeting people – and to do her justice, she was remarkably pretty and graceful. I could feel her attractiveness myself, and my poor dæmon became besotted at once.’

‘Your poor dæmon?’

‘Oh, I felt sorry for him. To be so abjectly dependent on a woman of that kind. It was a sort of madness. I felt every little quiver of it, of course, and I tried to speak to him about it, but he refused to listen, refused to control his feelings. Well, I daresay they were beyond control.’

‘What about her dæmon?’

‘He was a marmoset or something of that kind. Lazy, incurious, vain. Quite indifferent to what was going on. My brother persisted in bringing the girl to the opera, to race meetings, to receptions, and whenever I was present too my dæmon’s obsession would force me to seek her company and experience his passion for her. It became unendurable. He would get as close as he could and talk quietly, whispering into her ear, while her own dæmon preened and yawned nearby. In the end—’

The door opened, and she stopped while the butler came in with a tray, which he set on the little table to her right. He bowed and left, and she completed the sentence:

‘In the end it became notorious. Everyone knew about it. I have never been so unhappy.’

‘How old were you?’

‘Nineteen, twenty, I can’t remember. It would have been the natural thing for me to accept the attentions of any one of a number of young men my parents thought suitable, and to marry, and so on. But this absurdity made that impossible. I became an object of ridicule.’

She spoke calmly, as if the young woman who had been her twenty-year-old self were someone else entirely. She turned to the tray, and poured tea into two pretty cups.

‘How did it end?’ said Lyra.

‘I begged, I pleaded with him, but he was lost in his madness. I said we would both die if he didn’t stop, but nothing would make him stay with me. I even – and this will show you how abject a human being can become – I even left my parents and went to live with her myself.’

‘The dancer? You went to live with her?’

‘It was reckless. I pretended to be in love with her, and she was happy enough with that. I lived with her, I forsook all my family responsibilities, I shared her bed, her table, her wretched occupation, because I could dance too, I was graceful, I was no less pretty than she was. She had a little talent, but no more than that. Together we attracted a bigger audience; we had a great success. We danced in every nightclub from Alexandria to Athens. We were offered a fortune to dance in Morocco, and an even greater one to dance in South America. But my dæmon wanted more, always more. He wanted to be hers and not mine. Her dæmon became a slave of poppy, which didn’t affect her; but she turned to my dæmon, and when he felt his own obsession returned, I knew it was time for me to leave.

‘I was ready to die. One night – we were in Beirut – one night I tore myself away from them. He was clinging to her, she was holding him tight, crushing him to her breast, all three of us were sobbing with pain and terror; but I wouldn’t stop; I wrenched myself apart from him and left him there with her. From that day to this, I have been alone. I came back to my family, who regarded it all as a mildly amusing addition to the family legends. I could not marry, of course, in my solitary state; no one would have had me.’

Lyra sipped her tea. It was delicately scented with jasmine.

‘When did you meet my father?’

‘It was a year before all that.’

Lyra thought: but that can’t be true. He wouldn’t have been old enough.

‘What do you remember most about your time with the dancer?’ she said.

‘Oh, that’s easy. The hot nights, our narrow bed, her slender body, the scent of her flesh. That will never leave me.’

‘And were you in love with her, or were you still pretending?’

‘You can pretend and pretend that sort of thing until it comes true, you know.’ The old woman’s face was calm and deeply lined. Her eyes were very small amid the wrinkles, but bright and still.

‘And your dæmon …’

‘Never came back. She died, the dancer, oh, a long time ago. But he never came back to me. I think he might have gone to al-Khan al-Azraq.’

‘The Blue Hotel – is that … is it true, that story? About the ruined city where no one but dæmons can live?’

‘I believe so. Some of my visitors – people from Mr Kubiček, I mean – have been on their way there. No one has come back as far as I know.’

Lyra’s mind was racing over deserts and mountains, to a ruined city stark and silent under moonlight.

‘Now I have told you my story,’ said the princess, ‘you must tell me something remarkable. What have you seen on your journey that might interest an old lady without a dæmon?’

Lyra said, ‘When I was in Prague … It seems a long time ago, but it was really only last week. I got off the train and, before I’d even tried to find out about the timetable, Mr Kubiček spoke to me. It was as if he’d been waiting for me, and as it turned out, he had …’

She recounted the entire story of the furnace-man, and was rewarded by utter stillness and concentration. When she finished, the princess sighed with satisfaction.

‘And he was the magician’s son?’ she said.

‘Well, so Agrippa claimed. Cornelis and Dinessa …’

‘It was a cruel game to play with him and his dæmon.’

‘I thought so too. But he was determined to find Dinessa, and he did.’

‘Love …’ said the princess.

‘Tell me more about the Blue Hotel,’ said Lyra. ‘Or what’s the other name – Madinat al-Qamar – the City of the Moon. Why is it called that?’

‘Oh, no one knows. It’s a very old idea. My nurse used to tell me ghost stories when I was very young, and it was she who told me about the Blue Hotel. Where are you going next?’

‘Aleppo.’

‘Then I shall give you the names of some people there who are in our condition. One of them might know a little about it. Of course, it is a subject of horror and superstitious dread. Not to be spoken of in front of people who are entire, and easily frightened.’

‘Of course,’ said Lyra, and sipped the last of her tea. ‘This is such a lovely room. Do you play the piano?’

‘It plays by itself,’ said the princess. ‘Go and pull out the ivory knob on the right of the keyboard.’

Lyra did, and at once a mechanism inside the piano began playing the keys, which were depressed as if by an invisible pair of hands. The sounds of a sentimental love song of fifty years before filled the room. Lyra was delighted, and smiled at the princess.

‘L’Heure bleue,’ the old lady said. ‘We used to dance to that.’

Lyra looked back at the piano, at the multitude of silver-framed photograms, and suddenly fell still.

‘What is it?’ said the princess, startled by Lyra’s expression.

Lyra pressed in the knob to stop the music, and picked up one of the photograms with a trembling hand. ‘Who is this?’ she said.

‘Bring it to me.’

The old lady took it and peered through a pair of pince-nez. ‘It is my nephew, Olivier,’ she said. ‘My great-nephew, I suppose I should say. Do you know him? Olivier Bonneville?’

‘Yes. That is I haven’t actually met him, but he … he thinks I’ve got something that belongs to him, and he’s been trying to get it back.’

‘And have you?’

‘It belongs to me. My father … my father gave it to me. Monsieur Bonneville is wrong, but he won’t accept it.’

‘Always a very stubborn boy. His father was a ne’er-do-well who probably died a violent death. Olivier is related to me on his mother’s side, and she too is dead. He has expectations of me. If it were not for those I should certainly never see him.’

‘Is he in Smyrna now?’

‘I hope not. If he comes here I shall say nothing about you, and if he asks I shall lie through my teeth. I am a good liar.’

‘I used to be good at lying when I was young,’ Lyra said. She was feeling a little calmer. ‘These days I find it more difficult.’

‘Come here and kiss me, my dear,’ said the princess, and held out her hands.

Lyra was glad to do so. The old lady’s papery cheeks smelled of lavender.

‘If you do go to al-Khan al-Azraq,’ said the princess, ‘and if it really is a ruined city inhabited by dæmons, and if you see a black cat, and if his name is Phanourios, tell him that I would be glad to see him again before I die, but that he had better not leave it too long.’

‘I shall.’

‘I hope that your quest goes well, and that you solve your mystery. There is a young man involved, I take it.’

Lyra blinked. The princess must have meant Malcolm. Of course, he was young to her. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘not—’

‘No, no, not my great-nephew, of course not. Now if you come this way again, do not fail to come and see me, or I shall haunt you.’

She turned to a little ormolu desk beside her, took out a piece of paper and a fountain pen, and wrote on it for a minute or so. Then she blew on it to dry the ink and folded it in half before giving it to Lyra.

‘One of these people will be sure to help,’ she said.

‘Goodbye. I’m very grateful indeed. I shan’t forget the things you’ve told me.’

Lyra left and closed the door quietly. The butler was waiting in the hall to see her out. When she left the garden, she walked a little further until she was out of sight of the house, and then leaned against a wall to recover her composure.

She had been nearly as shocked as if Bonneville had come into the room himself. He had the power to disturb her, even as a picture. This had all the quality of a warning from the secret commonwealth. It said, ‘Be on your guard! You never know when he’ll appear.’

Even in Smyrna, she thought, he might find her.