The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth (Book of Dust, Volume 2) by Philip Pullman Read Free Book Online Page B

’em, and this is the finest. It’s for gentlemen and their guests to dab their napkins in, rinse their fingers, whatever takes their fancy. But we can’t get the rosewater anymore. We’ve got enough for this Feast, and that’s it.”
    “Whyever can’t you get it? They grow roses everywhere. The Master’s garden is full of roses! Surely you could make some rosewater? I bet I could. I bet it’s not hard to do.”
    “Oh, there’s no shortage of English rosewater,” said the Steward, lifting down a heavy flask from a shelf above the door, “but it’s thin stuff. No body to it. The best comes from the Levant, or beyond. Here—sniff this.”
    He took the stopper out of the flask. Lyra bent over the open vessel and found the concentrated fragrance of every rose that had ever bloomed: a sweetness and power so profound that it moved beyond sweetness altogether and out of the other side of its own complexity into a realm of clear and simple purity and beauty. It was like the smell of sunlight itself.
    “Oh!” she said. “I see what you mean. And this is the very last of it?”
    “The very last I could get hold of. I think Mr. Ellis, the Chamberlain at Cardinal’s, has a few bottles left. But he guards himself close, Mr. Ellis. I shall try to wheedle my way into his affections.”
    Mr. Cawson’s tone was so dry that Lyra was never sure to what extent he was joking. But this rosewater business was too interesting to leave alone.
    “Where did you say it came from, the good stuff?” she said.
    “The Levant. Syria and Turkey in particular, so I understand; there’s some way they can detect the difference between them, but I never could. Not like wine, not like Tokay or Porto—there’s a wealth of tastes in every glass, and once you know your way round ’em, there’s no mistaking one vintage for another, far less one kind of wine for a different one. But you’ve got your tongue and your taste buds involved with wine, haven’t you? Your whole mouth’s involved. With rosewater, you’re just dealing with a fragrance. Still, I’m sure there’s some that could tell the difference.”
    “Why is it getting scarce?”
    “Greenfly, I expect. Now, Lyra, have you done ’em all?”
    “Just this candlestick to go. Mr. Cawson, who’s the supplier for the rosewater? I mean, where do you buy it from?”
    “A firm called Sidgwick’s. Why are you suddenly interested in rosewater?”
    “I’m interested in everything.”
    “So you are. I forgot. Well, you better have this….” He opened a drawer and took out a tiny glass bottle no bigger than Lyra’s little finger, and gave it to her to hold. “Pull the cork out,” he said, “and hold it steady.”
    She did, and Mr. Cawson, with the utmost care and the steadiest hand, filled the tiny bottle from the flask of rosewater.
    “There you are,” he said. “We can spare that much, and since you’re not invited to the Feast and you’re not allowed in the Retiring Room, you might as well have it.”
    “Thank you!” she said.
    “Now hop it, go on. Oh—if you want to know about the Levant and the east and all that, you better ask Dr. Polstead over at Durham.”
    “Oh yes. I could. Thank you, Mr. Cawson.”
    She left the Steward’s pantry and wandered out into the winter afternoon. Unenthusiastically she looked across Broad Street at the buildings of Durham College; no doubt Dr. Polstead was in his rooms, no doubt she could cross the road and knock on the door, and no doubt he’d welcome her, full of bonhomie, and sit her down and explain all about Levantine history at interminable length, and within five minutes she’d wish she hadn’t bothered.
    “Well?” she said to Pan.
    “No. We can see him anytime. But we couldn’t tell him about the rucksack. He’d just say take it to the police, and we’d have to say we couldn’t, and…”
    “Pan, what is it?”
    “What?”
    “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
    “No, there isn’t. Let’s