Malcolm Polstead is the 11-year-old protagonist of La Belle Sauvage. He lives with his parents on the outskirts of Oxford, where his family owns a riverside inn called the Trout. Malcolm is a happy and gentle child. He is studious, curious, helpful, and hardworking. He loves playing alone with his dæmon, Asta, especially in his beloved canoe, La Bella Sauvage. Malcolm helps his parents in the inn, serving customers and clearing glasses. He takes “the work for granted” (2) and is content to think that he will one day own the inn, even though he would like to become “an astronomer or an experimental theologian, making discoveries about the deepest nature of things” (6). Malcolm often frequents the Godstow Priory, where he willingly helps the nuns in the kitchen and ferries them down the river in his canoe to run errands. Most of all, Malcolm loves listening to conversations and learning from the nuns and the inn’s patrons. He is “used to the ways of travelers” (6) and dreams of taking his own voyage in the canoe. 

Malcolm’s happy world is upended when he witnesses a spy drop gone wrong. The acorn he recovers and the secret message it contains leads him to Dr.