Read His Dark Materials 01 - The Golden Compass for Free Online Page A

Lord Asriel visited the College. A rich and powerful uncle was all very well to boast about, but the price of boasting was having to be caught by the most agile Scholar and brought to the Housekeeper to be washed and dressed in a clean frock, following which she was escorted (with many threats) to the Senior Common Room to have tea with Lord Asriel and an invited group of senior Scholars. She dreaded being seen by Roger. He'd caught sight of her on one of these occasions and hooted with laughter at this beribboned and pink-frilled vision. She had responded with a volley of shrieking curses that shocked the poor Scholar who was escorting her, and in the Senior Common Room she'd slumped mutinously in an armchair until the Master told her sharply to sit up, and then she'd glowered at them all till even the Chaplain had to laugh.
    What happened on those awkward, formal visits never varied. After the tea, the Master and the other few Scholars who'd been invited left Lyra and her uncle together, and he called her to stand in front of him and tell him what she'd learned since his last visit. And she would mutter whatever she could dredge up about geometry or Arabic or history or anbarology, and he would sit back with one ankle resting on the other knee and watch her inscrutably until her words failed.
    Last year, before his expedition to the North, he'd gone on to say, "And how do you spend your time when you're not diligently studying?"
    And she mumbled, "I just play. Sort of around the College. Just...play, really."
    And he said, "Let me see your hands, child."
    She held out her hands for inspection, and he took them and turned them over to look at her fingernails. Beside him, his daemon lay sphinxlike on the carpet, swishing her tail occasionally and gazing unblinkingly at Lyra.
    "Dirty," said Lord Asriel, pushing her hands away. "Don't they make you wash in this place?"
    "Yes," she said. "But the Chaplain's fingernails are always dirty. They're even dirtier than mine."
    "He's a learned man. What's your excuse?"
    "I must've got them dirty after I washed."
    "Where do you play to get so dirty?"
    She looked at him suspiciously. She had the feeling that being on the roof was forbidden, though no one had actually said so. "In some of the old rooms," she said finally.
    "And where else?"
    "In the claybeds, sometimes."
    "And?"
    "Jericho and Port Meadow."
    "Nowhere else?"
    "No."
    "You're a liar. I saw you on the roof only yesterday."
    She bit her lip and said nothing. He was watching her sardonically.
    "So, you play on the roof as well," he went on. "Do you ever go into the library?"
    "No. I found a rook on the library roof, though," she went on.
    "Did you? Did you catch it?"
    "It had a hurt foot. I was going to kill it and roast it but Roger said we should help it get better. So we gave it scraps of food and some wine and then it got better and flew away."
    "Who's Roger?"
    "My friend. The kitchen boy."
    "I see. So you've been all over the roof—"
    "Not all over. You can't get onto the Sheldon
Building because you have to jump up from Pilgrim's Tower across a gap. There's a skylight that opens onto it, but I'm not tall enough to reach it."
    "You've been all over the roof except the Sheldon
Building. What about underground?"
    "Underground?"
    "There's as much College below ground as there is above it. I'm surprised you haven't found that out. Well, I'm going in a minute. You look healthy enough. Here."
    He fished in his pocket and drew out a handful of coins, from which he gave her five gold dollars.
    "Haven't they taught you to say thank you?" he said.
    "Thank you," she mumbled.
    "Do you obey the Master?"
    "Oh, yes."
    "And respect the Scholars?"
    "Yes."
    Lord Asriel's daemon laughed softly. It was the first sound she'd made, and Lyra blushed.
    "Go and play, then," said Lord Asriel.
    Lyra turned and darted to the door with relief, remembering to turn and blurt out a "Goodbye."
     
    So Lyra's life had been, before the day when she decided to