Blood of Tyrants

Page 5

Chapter 5
TEMERAIRE’S SPIRITS HAD BEEN equal to the challenge of thinking Laurence swept overboard and flung onto the shore, even in the face of general doubt and disagreement; but he began to find it difficult to sustain his confidence, knowing Laurence in such dreadful circumstances: not merely a shipwreck in a strange country, alone, but with every hand against him—every man his enemy, every dragon.
Temeraire could not bring himself to choke down more than a few swallows of soup and rice to share room in his belly with the lump of anxiety, nor could he take any pleasure even in the egg, though Granby and Roland had spoken to him several times that afternoon, anxiously, and remarked upon how nicely it came along. Ferris also had complimented it, very prettily, while Forthing scowled at him and then only stammered out his own attempt—which no-one wanted, anyway; but in neither case could Temeraire raise much of either satisfaction or irritation. He lay unhappy upon the dragondeck, watching the harbor traffic more from a dull consciousness of duty than from any real interest.
The Japanese boats which crowded the harbor, though not large, were well-handled: fishermen and porters and barges. Besides these and the Chinese ships, the Dutch ship stood out in the harbor: a clipper, with a long and narrow draught for her three masts; she would be a fast sailor, Temeraire thought vaguely. He did not much care about her; she was no danger, as she was all alone, and would scarcely have made a threat to the Potentate even without aerial support. He could not see that she had any guns at all.
She did have a dragon: at least, she had put out a pontoon-platform for one to rest upon, and he wore harness, so he was a Western dragon, surely, although his harness was a little strange and looked like nothing so much as a waistcoat, at this distance. But he was only a light-weight, a little bigger than Dulcia, and not very dangerous-looking: a very ordinary sort of brown speckled with cream, with a long and narrow snout and broad forehead. Certainly he did not look anything like the sea-dragon; if anything he looked more like Churki in the conformation of his body, though he was not feathered, of course.
He did not stay at the ship for very long at any one time, but flew busily back and forth to the shore several times over the course of the afternoon carrying substantial parcels away from the ship, which the crew delivered to him over the side with pulleys, and taking them to the shore, where he held several conversations with some party, whom Temeraire could not make out at the distance, before returning to his own ship.
On the fourth pass, Temeraire suddenly picked up his head. “Roland,” he said, “that ship there, that is Dutch; she is lawful prize, is she not?”
“Oh?” Iskierka said interrogatively, waiting with interest for the answer.
“Oh,” Roland said, looking sidelong, “well, I suppose she is, as she is under Dutch colors; but—”
“No, no,” Temeraire said, “I do not mean to take her—”
“Whyever not!” Iskierka interrupted.
Temeraire snorted at her. “Because we have more important matters to consider than prize-taking, at present! But if she is lawful prize, then I suppose she is quite afraid of us; they are taking those parcels to shore, so we should not get them if we decide to demand she strike. Nitidus,” he said, twisting his neck around and over Iskierka, to peer awkwardly at him, “would you be so kind as to go over to that dragon there, and invite him to come and have a cup of tea with us, if you please?”
“But,” Nitidus said, “but you don’t suppose they will shoot at me?”
“Of course they will not shoot at you,” Temeraire said. “We are all here, quite ready to come over and answer anything they like to try against you; but if you like,” he added, “you may hang out a flag of truce, so they are not worried when you come.”
Roland looked a little anxious, and ventured that she might go and speak to Captain Warren before Nitidus should go; but Captain Warren and the others were at dinner: Hammond had in great haste arranged that all the captains should eat together that evening, as his guests. He only wanted to better argue with them all at once more conveniently, but that did not give anyone an excuse for refusing when Hammond was the King’s envoy, no matter how rude his own behavior or late the invitation.
“Besides, I am not going to do anything: we are only going to have a conversation,” Temeraire said, “so pray do go over, Nitidus,” and he was persuaded to go, carrying a scrap of white sailcloth streaming away.
Temeraire watched the encounter anxiously: he was quite sure they would not fire on Nitidus, he hoped; but even so, perhaps the other dragon would not like to come; or perhaps he would not speak either English or French, which was all that Nitidus could do, although in such a case he hoped there might be a translator aboard the ship. But Nitidus was received, if not with visible pleasure, at least with no hostility; the brown dragon politely made room for him to land on the platform, and listened with attention to his message, as did several men leaning over the ship’s side straining with ear-trumpets to overhear.
Temeraire nudged the others beside him, when he saw the brown dragon look over, to make an inviting open place for him to land on the deck. That was no easy feat—Captain Blaise did not like to put out their own pontoons when their position was so uncertain, and so they were very sadly crowded yet—but with a great deal of squirming and writhing it was accomplished, just as the brown dragon leapt aloft, following Nitidus, and came towards them.
“Oh, Gong Su,” Temeraire said, turning as he came climbing up to the dragondeck, with Roland and Forthing and Ferris, “we are to have a guest: pray tell me, do you suppose is there any chance of our offering him a proper bowl of tea? And something to eat? I should be happy to see us offer that last goat, which I believe is marked out for me, if I might beg you to put a word in the ears of the cook,” he added. Of course it was not really suitable, to Gong Su’s proper rank, to ask him to cook anymore; but it was a sad fact that none of the British cooks seemed at all able to make a respectable meal for a dragon other than the plainest roasted meat, and Gong Su had hinted to Temeraire that so long as he should put the matter on the footing of a personal favor, no shame could attach to the act on his own side.
Gong Su bowed deeply. “I will make inquiries, and see what can be done, of course,” he said, and instantly went; meanwhile Forthing could think of nothing better to do than to stamp up to the dragondeck and say, “Look, Temeraire, whatever are you about? We cannot be gabbing away with the enemy.”
“How absurd,” Temeraire said with scorn, “only look how small he is! An enemy of mine: I should say not. Anyway, I am only going to have a conversation with him. Hammond was closeted for hours with the Dutch commissioner, so I do not see why I should not have a chat with this fellow.”
Ferris was trying to catch Forthing by the arm, murmuring to him, “Look, if it should bring up his spirits at all—”
Forthing shook him off and said, in cutting tones, “I know very well your motive to allow any degree of license whatsoever—” and Ferris flushed angrily, but Temeraire could not pay attention to them further, as he had to turn to meet their guest as he came in to land.
The brown dragon’s harness was odd indeed, as it came into closer view: it was indeed made up of almost pouches of some ordinary fabric, brown wool perhaps, and these were overlaid upon and attached to a fine mesh which covered him nearly from the base of his neck to his tail almost like a shirt, made up of many thin chains—chains of gold, Temeraire realized with a real start, as the sun caught upon them, and so many! although almost entirely concealed by the dull fabric.
“But why would anyone wear gold chains in such a way, where you can hardly tell they are golden,” he whispered doubtfully to Iskierka; they certainly would not be very handy, in a fight.
They could not discuss it: the dragon landed with an easy flip upon the deck before them, and settled himself in the waiting opened place, while Nitidus landed on Temeraire’s back and made himself comfortable.
“Hello,” Temeraire said, inclining his head. “How do you do? I am Temeraire, and also Lung Tien Xiang; and I am very pleased to make your acquaintance: thank you very much for coming.”
“Well, it’s kind of you to ask me,” the brown dragon said, in perfectly good English although broadly accented. “And I am John Wampanoag, of Salem, Massachusetts, at your service,” and he bowed his own head politely as well.
Temeraire said, a little uncertainly, “But surely that is not in Holland?” He was not perfectly sure of the geography of that nation, but there had been a great many places around Capetown, which had possessed Dutch names, and that did not sound in the least like any of them.
“Why, no,” the dragon said, “I am American, you know. That is my ship, the Lacewing,” and gave a flip of his tail in the direction of the Dutch vessel. “She is only under Dutch colors because we have been hired to bring in a cargo, since you have that Bonaparte fellow making hay of things in Europe.”
“Oh, I see,” Temeraire said, although he did not, at all: Bonaparte had conquered the Dutch, he was quite sure. “But is he not their emperor?” he inquired.
The American dragon shrugged. “The fellow in charge here don’t like to think him so,” he said, “and he is the one who can sell my cargo for me and get me my copper for the return road, so I guess what he says is good enough for me.”
“Your cargo,” Temeraire said, a little perplexed, “and your ship—do you mean to say, she is your prize?”
“Prize?” Wampanoag said. “No; I paid to have her built, and I bought the wool cloth and the other trade goods in her belly. Well,” he amended, “if you like to be precise, my firm did so: she is a venture of Devereux, Pickman, and Wampanoag: but as Devereux is in India, at present, and Pickman is back at Salem minding the store, you may as well call her mine.”
Temeraire was staggered, and looked at the rather small and nondescript dragon with new respect: he was well aware that to outfit a ship, even quite a little one, was a very serious undertaking—thousands and thousands of pounds, at the least, and Wampanoag spoke of laying out the money for it as a matter-of-course, and buying cargo besides. “I do not suppose,” he ventured, “—would it be quite rude of me to inquire, where you got the funds?”
“From other ventures,” Wampanoag said. “I have been to the South Seas half-a-dozen times, and to India; we do a pretty brisk business in tea, I can tell you.”
“Yes, but where did you get the money for the first one,” Temeraire clarified, rather urgently. “—your capital, I suppose I mean.”
He did not wish to be distracted from his original purpose for long, but he felt he could scarcely overlook such an opportunity as Wampanoag had just unexpectedly presented, of finding a way to restore Laurence’s fortunes. A gauzy and splendid vision hung before him: Laurence rescued, Laurence back aboard the ship with him, on the way to China again, and very offhand, very casually, when they were alone on deck with the ocean slipping by Temeraire would say, “By the way, Laurence: I have brought you back your ten thousand pounds which I lost you, and I hope you will put them into the Funds, straightaway.”
Of course it could be done with prize-taking—Temeraire knew that, and Iskierka was forever nagging after finding some, but Laurence did not really approve of that. A prize taken legitimately, in the course of one’s duty, he thought was very well; hunting after prizes for their own sake he frowned upon. Laurence would not be satisfied, if he were to ask where Temeraire had got the funds—and he would ask, Temeraire was glumly certain—should he hear, as answer, by taking prizes. And Temeraire had forfeited his own share of the perfectly correct prizes which he and his company had taken during the invasion of Britain, when he had been transported away with Laurence; those had all gone to building pavilions, back in Britain.
“I had a good bit from the tribe, when we formed the firm, which I have since bought out; but of course they would not go in with me until I showed I could raise some funds of my own,” Wampanoag said. “I began with doing some cross-country carrier work, for other firms, and when I had shown I was a steady fellow and was not going to go haring off with someone’s cargo, good old Devereux gave me my chance and hired me to be agent on one of his Indiamen, with two points of interest. When I had realized my share from that journey, the tribe went in with me, and Devereux’s third son, and Pickman, to outfit our first ship; and we have done pretty well for ourselves since.”
“Cross-country,” Temeraire said, latching on to the first part of this nearly incomprehensible narrative, “—across your own country?”
“From Boston to the Kwaikiutl, on the West Coast,” Wampanoag confirmed. “It’s a good deal cheaper, you know, to carry things dragon-back instead of sailing all the way round.” Then he sat back and looked at Temeraire with a tipped head. “I beg your pardon, am I being a dullard? Are you looking for work? There’s not quite so much call for heavy-weights in shipping, as the cost of your feed is difficult to make back; but there is a particularly fine timber, on the West Coast, which I have been thinking might make it profitable to get a big fellow aboard.”
“Why,” Temeraire said, brightening, “that is very kind of you: how long a flight is it?”
“Not above a month,” Wampanoag said, “once you are in Kwaikutl lands: that is three months’ sailing, from here.”
“Oh,” Temeraire said, “I do not suppose I can: we cannot leave the war for four months. And then we should have to get back,” he added, and sighed a small sigh; he ought have known that it could be no easy matter to build up a fortune, or else everyone would have done it already before now.
“But anyone can do this?” Dulcia ventured, from Maximus’s back: they had all been listening raptly.
“If you know your book-keeping, so you cannot be cheated; and will do steady work,” Wampanoag said, “and if you don’t mind an empty belly now and again, and you are steady about avoiding fights and trouble and fuss, and showing away,” rapidly diminishing the luster of the enterprise as he went on.
“An empty belly?” Maximus said, and snorted. “That is not for me: anyway we do very well, Temeraire. We do have pay now, you know, and it stacks up quite agreeably, when you ask to see it in coin.”
“No—yes—I suppose,” Temeraire said, though regretfully. “Still it is very generous of you to offer,” he added to Wampanoag, “and I am very flattered, I am sure: will you stay to tea, if you please?” He saw with great relief that Gong Su was coming back up to the dragondeck with several of the galley cooks, the ship’s boys carrying handsome brass bowls polished to a shine and steaming cauldrons of food, and upon a rack dripping over porridge the roasted goat, with what smelled like some fish liver in sauce to give it some interest.
“Thank’ee, I don’t mind if I do,” Wampanoag said. “If I am not putting you out: I can see you are crowded a bit,” a sad understatement: Maximus was curled over all of the deck where Temeraire was not, and all the others heaped atop them both, whenever they were not aloft or swimming.
“We do very well, pray do not think anything of it,” Temeraire said, of course.
“I suppose you fellows have come from England? Have you the latest news of the war?” Wampanoag asked, when they had settled themselves and begun to eat: there was of course fish and rice, to eke out the goat, but Temeraire had made sure—frowning down both Maximus and Kulingile—that Wampanoag received a haunch entirely for himself, as the courtsey due a guest.
“We have come from Brazil,” Temeraire said, “and we have only a little news from there: the Incan Empress has married Napoleon, and we suppose gone to France with him.” He hurried through this part of the story, and added, “But far more importantly, the Tswana have quite cast him off—they have made peace, in Brazil, and they do not mean to help him make war there any longer.”
He finished on this, as the best note of triumph available; although the situation in Brazil had by no means been quite so settled as all that at their departure. The Portuguese owners had been as laggard as they could in freeing many of their slaves, and those released had not all been perfectly happy to find themselves subsequently claimed as the family of the Tswana dragons, however much cherished by the same. But so far the arrangement had held, at least in name; they had remained in Brazil several months to see it established, despite all their urgent wish to be on the way to China, and Temeraire counted it yet as a success.
“Why, that is very interesting, there,” Wampanoag said, thoughtfully, though not as impressed as Temeraire might have liked by the news from Brazil, and rather more interested in the Incan side of things, asking, “Do they have so much gold and silver as they are supposed to do?”
“Heaps,” Iskierka said, with a resentful and significant eye on Temeraire: she had not ceased to mutter quietly, where Granby could not hear, how much better everything should have been if he had married the Incan Empress instead, as she had busily tried to arrange. Temeraire paid her no mind. Granby had not wanted to marry the Empress at all.
“I must try and lay in some stock of silk, then, and pottery,” Wampanoag said, which Temeraire did not follow at all, though he was too polite to say so; but Kulingile was not so shy of asking, and Wampanoag willingly explained, “Why, cotton will be cheaper soon, with this peace with the Tswana: the South shan’t be looking to the sea-lanes and fearing to send out any ships, and gold and silver won’t buy as much, if there is more to be had floating around. I will buy ten thousand dollars’ worth of silk now, if I can get the Japanese to give it to me, and sell it for a hundred then: see if I don’t.” He gave a very decided nod.
“That,” said Churki, when Wampanoag had flown back to his own ship, after tea, “is a highly respectable dragon, I am sure. And you see how many people he has, all his own! I wish you had asked him more about this tribe of his,” she added, with a slightly censorious note, “instead of thinking only of his money. Money is very well and one must have enough, but it is not all that matters.”
“That is not why I asked him, at all,” Temeraire said, loftily, and well-pleased with the success of his opening gambit, swallowed his medicine in better spirits, and put himself to sleep with his new and private hope: if he could not go and find Laurence, and his friends could not, perhaps someone else might.
“He is just an Englishman going to Nagasaki,” Kiyo said, eating a quarter of beef. “I am taking him as far as Seto. Pass that hot sake, if you please,” she added to the headman, or something along those lines, Laurence gathered, picking out a few words and seeing the village chief looking between him and her helplessly and then turning to have the bowl of hot wine before her refreshed from a heated kettle.
There was very plainly an extraordinary degree of deference paid to the river-dragons, and Kiyo evidently considered herself—and likely was—above any considerations of the law. But the headman was not so, and his suspicions were not to be so easily allayed. He did not challenge Kiyo directly, but Laurence saw him speak to one of the other men, and shortly a few messengers slipped away from the celebration. He watched them go, grimly, and exchanged a look with Junichiro, who himself had been keeping back.
The headman came towards him shortly, to press him with smiling firmness to come down to the village and be housed there for the night. Laurence had not the least doubt there would be a guard on the house, and he did not mean to carve his way out of another prison through innocent farmers.
“Pray thank him for his kindness,” Laurence said, casting for some way of deferring the entanglement, “and tell him I am honored to accept his invitation: we will come down very shortly, if Kiyo does not wish to get back on the water.”
“Oh, I do not mind staying the night,” Kiyo said, unhelpfully, without looking up from her gnawed bones. “We will not get to Ariake to-day, anyway, and there is not much moon to-night. We had much better sleep here, and get on the way in the morning.”
By the morning, Laurence was sure, he would have no opportunity; but he bowed to the headman, and determined to wait for some small chance to get into the trees and out of sight. Kiyo abruptly compensated for her indiscretion by sitting up and belching enormously and noxiously, emitting a large diffuse cloud of greyish smoke that stung in the nostrils and left those near-by coughing and gasping: perhaps some aftereffect of her labors in heating the water, and the stink of it not unlike burning tar.
Many of the guests were wiping streaming eyes; the headman was distracted. Laurence seized his bundle in one arm and caught Junichiro with the other; they did not exchange a word, but together hurried as discreetly as they could back into the trees.
They ran as soon as they were out of sight, until they reached the banks of the river and pulled up again: there were a few small fishing-boats pulled up on the shore, with serviceable-enough oars. Junichiro balked. “We cannot steal from peasants,” he said, but Laurence had already reached into the bundle and twisted off one of the gold buttons upon his coat.
He pressed it into the soft dirt of the bank. “Let us hope that will make adequate answer,” he said. “I will tell you again, you may go back: it is not too late—”
“You know my course is decided,” Junichiro said flatly, already climbing in.
“Very well,” Laurence said, pushing off, and he bent his back to the oars with a will.
The river ran at a good pace, the boat was light; Laurence had labored harder, for less cause, and arms that took a regular turn at the pumps were not overly tasked by the steady pull. The day had been already long, even with Kiyo’s assistance earlier, but Laurence thought it better to row through the night and seek some concealment for the day; the countryside would surely be roused after them, now. “How much further, to this Ariake Sea?” he asked Junichiro, as he rowed onwards.
“Another night after this one,” Junichiro said, dully. He sat huddled low in the bottom of the boat: their narrow escape had been a fresh reminder to him of his crime, and there was no longer the pleasure of a dragon’s company to distract him. He watched as Laurence rowed on and on; when at last they came to a quicker eddy, and Laurence shipped the oars to give himself a rest, he asked abruptly, “Are you truly a—nobleman?”
“What, because I can row?” Laurence said, half-amused. “Yes; my father is Lord Allendale. But I have been aboard ship since I was twelve years old. I dare say there is not a shipboard task I have not set my hand to.”
The river was empty, for the most part, in the advancing night; only fishermen seeking a last piece of luck were out, and not many of those, mere shadows; one they passed was singing softly to himself, and raised a hand to them as they glided on past. Laurence felt the deep peacefulness of the countryside, its stillness, and the loneliness of being outside that quiet.
“Are we likely to meet anyone along the river?” Laurence asked quietly.
“Only at the fords,” Junichiro said, “if we are unlucky.” He paused and then said a little too quickly, as though he at once wanted very much to ask, and was conscious he should not desire it, “Have you been in a battle, at sea?”
“Three fleet actions,” Laurence said, “and perhaps a dozen ship-to-ship. There is nothing very pretty in it. Have you never seen a battle?”
“The bakufu has kept the peace in Japan for two hundred years,” Junichiro answered, with not-unmerited pride. “There are pirates and bandits, of course, but not near my mas—not near the honorable Kaneko’s home.” For all his satisfaction, there was a small wistful note in his voice.
“They are to be congratulated, then,” Laurence said. “I do not think we have had peace in Europe for ten years together, in living memory: nor are like to have, with Napoleon roosting in France.”
They fell silent together: there were a few huts approaching, and a lantern hung with a gleam of light. Laurence took up the oars again and fell into the easy rhythm of the work, no sound but the faint dripping patter of the water upon the river surface with each oar-stroke, the hush of the wind going by. The moon rose, gibbous and pale on the black water, and he drifted. He might have been on the broad deck of his ship at the prow, facing into the wind and the sails making a low clap-clap behind, the hands singing at the stern and a lantern throwing light in a circle on a book before him as he read aloud, looking up to speak to—
He started and looked over his shoulder: there was a light, and music, up ahead. A road came to cross the river at a ford, and on the left bank stood several houses lit up and festooned with lamps, women in long gowns at their doors calling out in a great noise to a party of travelers on the road, and several porters and two ferrymen perched upon both sides of the crossing, watching the approach of their small boat with interest and suspicion.
Temeraire had meant to send Wampanoag another invitation, the next day, but he did not need to; instead in the morning, when the hands had just finished holystoning down the dragondeck, the American dragon flew over of his own volition with a white scrap waving. Kulingile grumbled: it was his turn to sleep, after staying aloft during all Maximus’s turn—as Temeraire could not presently take a turn aloft himself—and he disliked having to move.
“I am sorry to come shoving in amongst you,” Wampanoag said, as he came down, “but as I can’t ask you over to Lacewing, in turn, I hope you’ll forgive me for making this answer instead for all your hospitality,” and he lay down a large package wrapped in oilcloth, tied up with string.
“Oh!” Temeraire said, astonished but by no means displeased; Iskierka sat up and took notice. Maximus had been taking a swim, in lieu of going aloft, but he put his forelegs on the railing and peered over, and all the other dragons raised their heads to have a look; even Kulingile cracked an eye. “Roland, will you open it, if you please?”
She cut open the strings, and folding back the sheets revealed a glory of blaze, beautiful glass beads strung on silver chain, with pearls and gold beads scattered along the length, and how immensely long indeed—it might have made an anchor-chain for the Potentate, and a little more to spare.
“If you have a smith aboard, as I suppose you must,” Wampanoag said, while they all gazed upon it in mute delight, “he can parcel it out for you all into lengths: I thought that might be better than my trying to cut it up beforehand. We wear it like so, in Salem,” he added, and sitting up on his heels showed how a similar chain hung from one woolen pouch to another across his breast.
“Now that,” Temeraire said, “I must call very handsome.” No-one at all was inclined to disagree, and Temeraire considered it all the evidence which he required, of Wampanoag’s being a very good sort of dragon, and to be trusted with important business. He knew perfectly well that Hammond might have a different view of the matter, of course—Hammond had complained a great deal of Temeraire’s having spoken with Wampanoag yesterday at all—but Hammond had certainly forfeited any right to consideration after his shameful attempt to leave Laurence behind, and Temeraire did not mean to waste any time in useless quarreling with him where his own mind was made up.
It was too early to eat again, but Wampanoag was very ready to be persuaded to sit with them just for company, awhile, and when they had settled themselves as conveniently as possible, Temeraire delayed no longer in broaching the topic, very delicately. “For you see,” he said, “I am afraid that Mr. Hammond may not quite have pursued the matter properly: it does not seem to me that any real search can have been put into train. And,” he added, “I consider all the sailors of the ship to be our responsibility. I do not think it at all the thing for us to leave any of them here. We cannot sail away until we have found him: our lost sailor, I mean.”
He was not entirely insensible to all Hammond’s cautions: there was no need for anyone to know that Laurence should be a valuable hostage, so they might try to put him in prison; Temeraire much preferred for them only to know that if Laurence were returned, they would leave, and otherwise not.
“Are you sure he isn’t only dead?” Wampanoag said, greatly diminishing Temeraire’s opinion of his intelligence. “They usually are, if they get washed overboard.”
Temeraire with an effort restrained himself from mantling. “I am quite sure,” he said, repressively. “And I intend to remain so until I am offered proof otherwise.”
Wampanoag had a trick of tilting his head a little to one side, as though he were looking you over from another angle to see if you seemed different, which Temeraire now found had the effect of making him feel under a too-sharp observation. But Wampanoag only said, “So you are only lingering to find him, this fellow you lost?”
“Yes,” Temeraire said, eagerly. “And we should be very glad of any assistance in recovering him.”
“But I beg your pardon,” Wampanoag said, “aren’t you here over the Phaeton?”
“No, for we hadn’t any notion what had happened to her,” Temeraire said. “We were only on our way to China: we have been invited to the court, you see.”
Wampanoag was quite gratifyingly surprised to hear of their destination; he expressed himself very prettily on the matter indeed, calling it a remarkable honor. “And I will not scruple to say, that puts a very different shade on things here, it seems to me,” he added, “if you are not here to quarrel.”
“We are not, in the least,” Temeraire said, although a stab of guilt, when he thought of what Laurence should say when he heard of the Phaeton, forced him to add, “although I do say we think it very hard that the Phaeton should have been sunk, so far from home with all her hands, and all because, we suppose, of some misunderstanding.”
“Let us certainly call it that, for the moment,” Wampanoag said. “That is a very good name for it, I must say.”
He declared himself delighted to be of service in any way he could, promised to speak with the chief of the Dutch, a gentleman called Doeff, to forward the search, and even with the Japanese directly. “I have a bit of Dutch myself, you know,” he said, “from the shell: my tribe adopted a good many of them back during the quarreling over New Amsterdam that was. So I can have a jaw with their translators, myself: that is why I hired us on here.”
He was so ready to be obliging that Temeraire could not even be too angry with him for adding, “but pray do understand that it is more than I undertake, to return you your sailor. I don’t mean to distress you, but my firm have lost a few ships entire ourselves, all hands, too. It is a dreadful sad wrench, I can tell you, to hear that a neat clipper with her hold packed full and three dozen men aboard has gone to the bottom of the ocean, to be gnawed by serpents, and a clear loss of twenty thousand pounds sterling.”
Temeraire shuddered in real horror, his ruff flattening involuntarily down against his neck, and Churki exclaimed in passionate dismay; but Wampanoag made a prosaic flip of his wing in the air. “I don’t complain: it is a hard business,” he said, “and a necessary risk to run, if you mean to make your fortune at it. But what I mean to say is, not a scrap of sail or bit of timber do we have to show for any ship we have lost: we only know they are lost because they left the one port and never came in at any other, and after we had sat hoping after them a couple of years it was time to leave off saying, ‘She will come in tomorrow.’ So I cannot promise you we will find a trace to say, one way or another, what has happened to your sailor. But whatever I can do, I will, sure enough.”
“I cannot hope for more than that,” Temeraire said as politely as he could manage, rather wishing that Wampanoag would leave now before sharing any other ghoulish stories, and seeing before him a long empty stretch of days, waiting and waiting, while Laurence did not come.
The party about to ford the river was evidently the train of a lord on his way home from the capital, amongst them several armed retainers wearing two swords and more serviceable armor as well. Laurence kept his head bent down and rowed industriously but not, he hoped, too fast; Junichiro was silent in the boat’s belly. Laurence thought for a moment they would manage it. The ferrymen and the porters lost interest when they saw that Laurence showed no intention to compete with their business, of which in any case there bade fair to be as much as they could manage with the sheer size of the lord’s retinue, and the confusion and noise of the welcoming inns might have overwhelmed any interest in Laurence and Junichiro’s quiet passage.
But luck turned against them: one of the lord’s servants on the far bank, evidently in charge of getting the entire assembly across the river and looking exasperated and hot, with a few strands of hair straggled loose from his neatly swept-back arrangement, caught sight of the boat. He called out to them peremptorily, beckoning—you there, you, the boat—plainly wishing them to come and assist in the ferrying, despite the scowls of the ferrymen.
Laurence pretended not to hear, not to see; he rowed onwards with more vigor, trying to evade the clumsy-handled ferries, crammed too full of men. But an eddy pushed one of the waddling boats towards their little fishing-boat and bumped her, and a disapproving older woman in the prow took the opportunity to reach over and swat him reprovingly, gesturing back at the crowded bank as she chided him.
The swat dislodged the rag covering his hair; one of the samurai aboard the ship glanced over, and, after a moment of confusion, a recognition dawned. The samurai leaned over, and sought to grab him; Laurence shipped one oar and seized the other mid-stem, jabbing the handle hard into the man’s belly, and tipped him over the side. Another was standing up in the ferry, trying to draw his sword, which he would have needed to practice a good deal more on the water before trying to accomplish it on a wallowing tub of the sort. Before he could get it out, Laurence swung up the flat of the oar and struck the man a hard and ringing clout across the head, knocking him down to the floor of the ferry.
The two boats were yet entangled. “Ma’am, I beg your pardon,” Laurence said to the old woman, who was still sitting ramrod-straight in the ferry over the side from him and regarding him with a flat expression of utter disapproval and not the least evidence of fear; he put out a boot over the side and shoved the ferry off with a heave, and they were loose.
But the entire retinue were now alive to his presence, swarming out upon the banks, and a couple of the samurai wading out towards them with blades drawn: the ford was shallow enough to make attack practical, the river not waist-high on a man. “Take the oars!” Laurence said to Junichiro, who was hesitating with his hand on the hilt of his blade—he could scarcely have been eager to strike men of rank, of his own nation.
Junichiro looked even more torn; but he seized the oars and began awkwardly to pull. One of the samurai had reached them, catching at the boat’s side: Laurence gripped the man’s wrist to hold away the blade, and with his other hand closed hard struck him across the face and away from the boat. Another was struggling furiously through the current, almost there, but Junichiro had mastered the boat, and they were moving into deeper water.
Laurence ducked a last wild desperate swing of blade, and then he sat again and took the oars—pulled as urgently as ever he had pulled in his life: no longer the easy strokes he had used to move them along, but deep cupping sweeps, legs and back and shoulders all gone into every stroke. He had put a hundred yards between them and the ford before the first ferry could be emptied of her passengers, and a pursuit began to organize. Then he was further on, around a bend of the river, and they had vanished from sight.
He did not slacken his pace; he thought at first he might hope to escape the pursuit—the boats at the ford had by no means been very serviceable, and any rowers they had were like to be unhandy. But as he pulled them onwards, a blue flare went shooting up, back from the ford, and burst with a great thunderclap noise and a shining light on the water. A signal, and faintly he heard an answering roar—a dragon, alerted.
“They will set the patrols on us now,” Junichiro said. “We will be taken,” with a calm certainty, given almost in a conversational tone. He had straightened up in the boat, and looked as though he were already preparing himself to meet his fate.
“I do not propose to be quite so dull a fox as that,” Laurence said. “Pick up that bundle, and jump for the shore when we are near enough.” He turned them towards the left, where the bank came low to the water, with trees close together but not impassable.