Empire of Ivory

Chapter 4

GONG SU WAS ENLISTED in the cause, and all but emptied his spice cabinets, making especially vigorous use of his sharpest peppers; much to the intense disapproval of the herdsmen, who were rousted from a post usually requiring little more than dragging cows from pen to slaughter, and set to stirring pungent cauldrons. The effect was a marked one, the dragons' appetites more startled awake than coaxed, and many of the nearly somnolent beasts began clamoring with fresh hunger. The spices were not easily replaced, however, and Gong Su shook his head with dissatisfaction over what the Dover merchants could provide; the cost even of this astronomical.
"Laurence," Jane said, having called him to her quarters for dinner, "I hope you will forgive me for serving you a shabby trick: I mean to send you to plead our case.
I do not like to leave Excidium for long now, and I cannot take him over London sneezing as he does. We can manage a couple of patrols here, while you are gone, and make it a rest for Temeraire: he needs one in any case. What? No, thank Heaven, that fellow Barham who gave you so much difficulty is out. Grenville has the place now; not a bad fellow, so far as I can tell; if he does not understand the least thing about dragons, that hardly makes him unique."
"And I will say, privately, in your ear," she added, later that evening, reaching over for the glass of wine by the bed and settling back against his arm; Laurence lying back thoroughly breathless with his eyes half-closed, the sweat still standing on his shoulders, "that I would not hazard two pins for my chances of persuading him to anything. He yielded to Powys in the end, over my appointment, but he can scarcely bear to address a note to me; and the truth is I have made use of his mortification to squeak through half-a-dozen orders I have not quite the authority for, which I am sure he would have liked to object to, if he could do so without summoning me. Our chances are precious small to begin, and we will do a good deal better with you there."
It did not prove the case, however; because Jane, at least, could scarcely have been refused admittance by one of the secretaries of the Navy: a tall, thin, officious fellow, who said impatiently, "Yes, yes, I have your numbers written in front of me; and in any case you may be sure we have taken note of the higher requisitions of cattle. But have any of them recovered? You say nothing of it. How many can fly now that could not before, and how long?" - as if, Laurence felt resentfully, he were inquiring about the improved performance of a ship, given changes in her cordage or sailcloth.
"The surgeons are of the opinion, that with these measures we can hope to greatly retard the further progress of the illness," Laurence said; he could not claim that any had recovered. "Which alone must be of material benefit, and perhaps with these pavilions also - "
The secretary was shaking his head. "If they will do no better than now, I cannot give you any encouragement: we must still build these shore batteries all along the coastline, and if you imagine dragons are expensive, you have not seen the cost of guns."
"All the more reason to care for the dragons we have, and spend a little more to safeguard their remaining strength," Laurence said. His frustration added, "And especially so, sir, that it is no more than their just deserts from us, for their service; these are thinking creatures, not cavalry-horses."
"Oh; romantical notions," the secretary said, dismissive. "Very well, Captain; I regret to inform you his Lordship is occupied to-day. We have your report; you may be sure he will reply to it, when he has time. I can give you an appointment next week, perhaps."
Laurence with difficulty restrained himself from replying to this incivility as he felt it deserved; and went out feeling he had been a far worse messenger than Jane herself would have been. His spirits were not to be recovered even by the treat of catching a glimpse of the lately created Duke of Nelson in the courtyard: that gentleman splendid in his dress uniform and his peculiar row of misshapen medals. They had been half-melted to the skin at Trafalgar, when a pass by the Spanish fire-breather there had caught his flagship, and his life nearly despaired of from the dreadful burns. Laurence was glad to see him so recovered: a line of pink scarred skin was visible upon his jaw, running down his throat into the high collar of his coat, but this did not deter him from talking energetically with, or rather to, a small group of attentive officers, his one arm gesturing.
A crowd had collected at a respectful distance to overhear, placed so that Laurence had to push his way out to the street through them, making apologies muttered as softly as he could; he might have stayed to listen, himself, another time. At present he had to make his way through the streets, a thick dark slurry of half-frozen ice and muck chilling his boots, back to the London covert, where Temeraire was waiting anxiously to receive the unhappy news.
"But surely there must be some means of reaching him," Temeraire said. "I cannot bear that our friends should all grow worse, when we have so easy a remedy at hand."
"We will have to manage on what we can afford within the current bounds, and stretch that little out," Laurence said. "But some effect may be produced by the searing of the meat alone, or stewing; let us not despair, my dear, but hope that Gong Su's ingenuity may yet find some answer."
"I do not suppose this Grenville eats raw beef every night, with the hide still on, and no salt; and then goes to sleep on the ground," Temeraire said resentfully. "I should like to see him try it a week and then refuse us." His tail was lashing dangerously at the already-denuded tree-tops around the edge of the clearing.
Laurence did not suppose it, either: and it occurred to him that the First Lord might very likely dine from home. He called to Emily for paper, and wrote quickly several notes; the season was not yet begun, but he had a dozen acquaintances likely to be already in town in advance of the opening of Parliament, besides his family. "There is very little chance I will be able to catch him," he warned Temeraire, to forestall raising hopes only to be dashed, "and still less that he will listen to me, if I do."
He could not wish whole-heartedly for success, either; he did not think he could easily sustain his temper, in his present mood, against still more of the casual and unthinking insult he was likely to meet in his aviator's coat, and any social occasion promised to be rather a punishment than a pleasure. But an hour before dinner, he received a reply from an old shipmate from the gunroom of the Leander, long since made post and now a member himself, who expected to meet Grenville that night at Lady Wrightley's ball: that lady being one of his mother's intimates.
There was a sad and absurd crush of carriages outside the great house: a blind obstinacy on the part of two of the coach drivers, neither willing to give way, had locked the narrow lane into an impasse so that no one else could move. Laurence was glad to have resorted to an old-fashioned sedan-chair, even if he had done so for the practical difficulties in getting a horse-drawn carriage anywhere near the covert. He reached the steps un-spattered, and if his coat was green, at least it was new, and properly cut; his linen was beyond reproach, and his knee-breeches and stockings crisply white, so he felt he need not blush for his appearance.
He gave in his card and was presented to his hostess, a lady he had met in person only once before, at one of his mother's dinners. "Pray how does your mother; I suppose she has gone to the country?" Lady Wrightley said, perfunctorily giving him her hand. "Lord Wrightley, this is Captain William Laurence, Lord Allendale's son."
A gentleman just lately entered was standing beside Lord Wrightley, still speaking with him; he startled at overhearing the introduction, and turning insisted on being presented to Laurence as a Mr. Broughton, from the Foreign Office.
Broughton at once seized on Laurence's hand with great enthusiasm. "Captain Laurence, you must permit me to congratulate you," he said. "Or Your Highness, as I suppose we must address you now, ha ha!" and Laurence's hurried, "I beg you will not - " went thoroughly ignored as Lady Wrightley, astonished as she might justly be, demanded an explanation. "Why, you have a prince of China at your party, I will have you know, ma'am. The most complete stroke, Captain, the most complete stroke imaginable. We have had it all from Hammond: his letter has been worn to rags in our offices, and we go about wreathed in delight, and tell one another of it only to have the pleasure of saying it over again. How Bonaparte must be gnashing his teeth!"
"It was nothing to do with me, sir, I assure you," Laurence said with despair. "It was all Mr. Hammond's doing - a mere formality - " too late: Broughton was already regaling Lady Wrightley and half-a-dozen other interested parties with a representation both colorful and highly inaccurate of Laurence's adoption by the emperor, which had been nothing more in truth than a means of saving face. The Chinese had required the excuse to give their official imprimatur to Laurence serving as companion to a Celestial dragon, a privilege reserved, among them, solely for the Imperial family, and Laurence was quite sure the Chinese had happily forgotten his existence the moment he had departed: he had not entertained the least notion of trading upon the adoption now he was got home.
As the brangle of carriages outside had stifled the flow of newcomers, there was a lull in the party, still in its early hours, which made everyone very willing to hear the exotic story; if in any case its success would not have been guaranteed by the fairy-tale coloration which it had acquired. Laurence thus found himself the interested subject of much attention, and Lady Wrightley herself was by no means unwilling to claim Laurence's attendance as a coup rather than a favor done an old friend.
He would have liked to go, at once; but Grenville had not yet come, and so he clenched his teeth and bore the embarrassment of being presented around the room. "No, I am by no means in the line of succession," he said, over and over, privately thinking he would like to see the reaction of the Chinese to the suggestion; he had been made to feel an unlettered savage more than once, among them.
He had not expected to dance; society was perennially uncertain whether aviators were entirely respectable, and he did not mean to blight some girl's chances, nor open himself to the unpleasant experience of being fended off by a chaperone. But before the first dance, his hostess presented him deliberately to one of her guests, as an eligible partner; so even though much surprised he of course had to ask. Miss Lucas was perhaps in her second season, or her third; a plump attractive girl, still very ready to be delighted with a ball, and full of easy, cheerful conversation.
"How well you dance!" she said, after they had gone down the line together, with rather more surprise than would have made the remark perfectly complimentary, and asked a great many questions about the Chinese court which he could not answer: the ladies had been kept thoroughly sequestered from their view. He entertained her a little instead with the description of a theatrical performance, but as he had been stabbed at the end of it, his memory was imperfect; and in any case it had been carried on in Chinese.
She in turn told him a great deal of her family in Hertfordshire, and her tribulations with the harp, so he might express the hope of one day hearing her play, and mentioned her next younger sister coming out next season. So she was nineteen, he surmised; and was struck abruptly to realize that Catherine Harcourt at this age had been already Lily's captain, and had flown that year in the battle of Dover. He looked at the smiling muslin-clad girl with a strange hollow feeling of astonishment, as if she were not entirely real; and then looked away. He had written already two letters each to Harcourt and to Berkley, on Temeraire's behalf and his own; but no answer had come. He knew nothing of how they did, or their dragons.
He said something polite afterwards, returning her to her mother, and, having displayed himself in public a satisfactory partner, was forced to submit with rigid good manners to filling out one set after another; until at last near eleven o'clock Grenville came in, with a small party of gentlemen.
"I am expected in Dover tomorrow, sir, or would not trouble you here," Laurence said grimly, having approached him; he loathed the necessity of anything like encroachment, and if he had not been introduced to Grenville at least the once, many years before, did not know he could have steeled himself to it.
"Laurence, yes," Grenville said vaguely, looking as though he would have liked to move away. He was no great politician: his brother was Prime Minister, and he had been made First Lord for loyalty, not for brilliance or ambition. He listened without enthusiasm to the carefully couched proposals, which Laurence was forced to make general for the benefit of the interested audience, who were not to know of the epidemic: there would be no concealing such information from the enemy, once the general public was in possession of it.
"There is provision made," Laurence said, "for the relics of the slain, and for the sick and wounded; not least because that care may preserve them or their offspring for future service, and give encouragement to the healthy. The plan which has been advanced is for nothing more than such practical attentions, sir, which have been proven beneficial by the example of the Chinese, whom all the world acknowledge as first in the world, so far as an understanding of dragonkind."
"Of course, of course," Grenville said. "The comfort and welfare of our brave sailors or aviators, and even our good beasts, is always foremost in the considerations of the admiralty," a meaningless platitude, to one who had ever visited in a hospital; or had, as Laurence, been forced to subsist from time to time upon such provisions as were considered suitable for the consumption of those brave sailors: rotting meat, biscuit-and-weevil, the vinegar-water beverage which passed for wine. He had been applied to for support by veterans of his own crews or their widows, denied their pensions on scurrilous grounds, on too many occasions to find such a claim other than absurd.
"May I hope, then, sir," Laurence said, "that you approve our proceeding in this course?" An open avowal, which could not be easily retracted without embarrassment, was what he hoped for; but Grenville was too slippery, and without openly refusing, evaded any commitment.
"We must consider the particulars of these proposals, Captain, more extensively; before anything can be done," he said. "The opinions of our best medical men must be consulted," and so on and so forth, continuing without a pause in this vein until he was able to turn to another gentleman of his acquaintance, who had come up, and address him on another subject: a clear dismissal, and Laurence knew very well that nothing would be done.
* * *
He limped back into the covert in the early hours of the morning, a faint lightness just beginning to show. Temeraire lay fast asleep and dreaming with his slit-pupiled eyes half-lidded, his tail twitching idly back and forth, while the crew had disposed of themselves in the barracks or tucked against his sides: likely the warmer sleeping place, if less dignified. Laurence went into the small cottage provided for his use and gladly sank upon the bed to work off, wincing, the tight buckled shoes, still new and stiff, which had cut sadly into his feet.
The morning was a silent one; besides the failure of the attempt, which had somehow been communicated generally throughout the covert, although Laurence had told no one directly but Temeraire, he had given a general furlough the previous night. Judging by the evidence of their bloodshot eyes and wan faces, the crew had made good use of their leave. There was a certain degree of clumsiness and fatigue apparent, and Laurence watched anxiously as the large pots of oat-porridge were maneuvered off the fire, to break their fast.
Temeraire meanwhile finished picking his teeth with a large leg bone, the remnant of his own breakfast of tender veal stewed with onions, and set it down. "Laurence, do you still mean to build the one pavilion, even if the Admiralty will give us no funds?"
"I do," Laurence answered. Most aviators acquired only a little prize-money, as the Admiralty paid but little for the capture of a dragon compared to that of a ship, the former being less easily put to use than the latter, and requiring substantial expense in the upkeep, but Laurence had established a handsome capital while still a naval officer, upon which he had little charge, his pay being ordinarily sufficient to his needs. "I must consult with the tradesmen, but I hope that by economizing upon the materials and reducing the pavilion in size, I may afford to construct one for you."
"Then," Temeraire said, with a determined and heroic air, "I have been thinking: pray let us build in the quarantine-grounds instead. I do not much mind my clearing at Dover, and I had rather Maximus and Lily were more comfortable."
Laurence was surprised; generosity was not a trait common amongst dragons, who were rather jealous of anything which they considered their own property, and a mark of status. "If you are quite certain, my dear; it is a noble thought."
Temeraire toyed with the leg-bone and did not look entirely certain, but eventually made his assent final. "And in any case," he added, "once we have built it, perhaps the Admiralty will see the benefit, and then I may have a handsomer one: it would not be very pleasant to have a small poky one, when everyone else has a nicer." This thought cheered him considerably, and he crunched up the bone with satisfaction.
Revived with strong tea and breakfast, the crew began to get Temeraire under harness for the return to Dover, only a little slowly; Ferris taking especial pains to see that the buckles were all secure after Laurence dropped a quiet word in his ear. "Sir," Dyer said, as he and Emily came in from the covert gates with the post for Dover, which they would carry with them, "there are some gentlemen coming," and Temeraire raised his head from the ground as Lord Allendale came into the covert with a small, slight, and plainly dressed gentleman at his side.
Their progress was arrested at once, while they stared up at the great inquisitive head peering back at them, Laurence very glad for the delay in which he could gather his own wits: he would scarcely have been more shocked to receive a visit from the King, and a good deal better pleased. He could imagine only one cause for it: more than one person of his parents' acquaintance had been at the ball, and the news of the foreign adoption must have traveled to his father's ears. Laurence knew very well he had given his father just cause to reproach him by having submitted to the adoption, whatever its political expedience; but he was by no means satisfied to endure those reproaches in front of his officers and his crew, aside from any practical consideration of what Temeraire's reaction might be to seeing him abused.
He handed away his cup to Emily and gave his clothing a surreptitious look, devoutly grateful the morning was cold enough he had not been tempted to forgo coat or neckcloth. "I am honored to see you, sir; will you take tea?" he asked, crossing the clearing to shake his father's hand.
"No, we have breakfasted," Lord Allendale said abruptly, his eyes still fixed on Temeraire, and only with a jerk of effort turned away to present to Laurence his companion, Mr. Wilberforce: one of the great movers of the cause of abolition.
Laurence had only met the gentleman once, long before. Wilberforce's face had settled into graver lines in the intervening decades, and now he looked anxiously up at Temeraire; but there was still something warm and good-humored about the mouth, a gentleness to his eyes, confirming that early generous impression which Laurence had carried away, if indeed his public works had not been testament enough. Twenty years of city air and incessant fighting had ruined his health, but not his character; parliamentary intrigue and the West Indies interests had undermined his work, but he had persevered; and besides his tireless labor against slavery, he had stood a resolute reformer all the while.
There was scarcely a man whose advice Laurence would more have desired, in furthering Temeraire's cause; and if the circumstances had been other, and he had reached that rapprochement with his father, which he had hoped for, he would certainly have sought an introduction. The reverse, however, he could not understand; there was no reason his father should bring Wilberforce hence, unless perhaps he had some curiosity to encounter a dragon.
But the gentleman's expression, looking on Temeraire, did not seem enthusiastic. "I myself would be very happy for a cup of tea, in quiet, perhaps?" he said, and after a certain hesitation yielded to the further question, "Is the beast quite tame?"
"I am not tame," Temeraire said very indignantly, his hearing perfectly adequate to the task of overhearing this unwhispered exchange, "but I am certainly not going to hurt you, if that is what you are asking; you had much better be afraid of being stepped upon by a horse." He knocked his tail against his side in irritation, nearly sweeping off a couple of the topmen engaged in pitching the traveling-tent upon his back, and so gave himself the lie even as he spoke. His audience was sufficiently distracted by his remarks not to notice this nice point, however.
"It is most wonderful," Mr. Wilberforce said, after conversing with him a little longer, "to discover such excellent understanding in a creature so far removed from ourselves; one might call it even miraculous. But I see that you are making ready to depart; so I will beg your pardon," he bowed to Temeraire, "and yours, Captain, for so indelicately moving to the subject which has brought us here, to seek your assistance."
"I hope you will speak as frankly as you like, sir," Laurence said, and begged them to sit down, with many apologies for the situation: Emily and Dyer had dragged chairs out of the cabin for their use, as that building was hardly fit for receiving guests, and arranged them near the embers of the cooking-fire for warmth.
"I wish to be clear," Wilberforce began, "that no-one could be insensible of the service which his Grace has rendered his country, or begrudge him the just rewards of that service, and the respect of the common man - "
"You might better say, the blind adoration of the common man," Lord Allendale put in, with more heavy disapproval. "And some not so common, who have less excuse; it is appalling to see the influence the man has upon the Lords. Every day he is not at sea is a fresh disaster," and Laurence gathered, after a few moments more of confusion, that they were speaking of none other than Lord Nelson himself.
"Forgive me; we have spoken so much of these matters, among ourselves, that we go too quickly." Wilberforce drew a hand over his jaw, rubbing down his jowls. "I believe you know something already," he said, "of the difficulties which we have encountered, in our attempts to abolish the trade."
"I do," Laurence said: twice already, victory had seemed in reach. Early in the struggle, the House of Lords had held up a resolution already past the Commons, with some excuse of examining witnesses. On another attempt, a bill had indeed gone through, but only after amendments had changed abolition to gradual abolition: so gradual indeed that there were no signs of it as yet to be seen, fifteen years later. The Terror in France had by that time been making a bloody ruin of the word liberty, and putting into the hands of the slave traders the choice name of Jacobin to be leveled against abolitionists; no further progress had been made, for many years.
"But in this last session," Wilberforce said, "we were on the verge of achieving a vital measure: an act which should have barred all new ships from the slave trade. It ought to have passed; we had the votes in our grasp - then Nelson came from the countryside. He had but lately risen from his sickbed; he chose to address Parliament upon the subject, and by the vigor of his opposition alone caused the measure to fail in the Lords."
"I am sorry to hear it," Laurence said, if not surprised: Nelson's views had been pronounced in public, often enough. Like many a naval officer, he thought slavery, if an evil, also a necessary one, as a nursery for her sailors and a foundation of her trade; the abolitionists a cohort of enthusiasts and quixotics, bent on undermining England's maritime power and threatening her hold upon her colonies, while only that domination allowed her to hold fast against the looming threat of Napoleon.
"Very sorry," Laurence continued, "but I do not know what use I can be to you; I cannot claim any personal acquaintance, which might give me the right to try and persuade him - "
"No, no; we have no such hope," Wilberforce said. "He has expressed himself too decidedly upon the subject; also many of his great friends, and sadly his creditors, are slave-owners or involved with the trade. I am sorry to say such considerations may lead astray even the best and wisest of men."
They sought rather, he explained, while Lord Allendale looked morose and reluctant, to offer the public a rival for their interest and admiration; and Laurence gradually understood through circular approaches that they meant him for this figure, on the foundation of his recent and exotic expedition, and the very adoption which he had expected his father to condemn.
"To the natural interest which the public will have, in your late adventure," Wilberforce said, "you join the authority of a military officer, who has fought against Napoleon himself in the field; your voice can dispute Nelson's assertions, that the end of the trade should be the ruin of the nation."
"Sir," Laurence said, not certain if he was sorrier to be disobliging Mr. Wilberforce, or happier to be forced to refuse such an undertaking, "I hope you will not think me lacking in respect or conviction, but I am in no way fitted for such a role; and could not agree, if I wished to. I am a serving-officer; my time is not my own."
"But here you are in London," Wilberforce pointed out gently, "and surely, while you are stationed at the Channel, can on occasion be spared," a supposition which Laurence could not easily contradict, without betraying the secret of the epidemic, presently confined to the Corps and only the most senior officials of the Admiralty. "I know it cannot be a comfortable proposal, Captain, but we are engaged in God's work; we ought not scruple to use any tool which He has put into our way, in this cause."
"For Heaven's sake, you will have nothing to do but attend a dinner party, perhaps a few more; kindly do not cavil at trifles," Lord Allendale said brusquely, tapping his fingers upon the arm of his chair. "Of course one cannot like this self-puffery, but you have tolerated far worse indignities, and made far greater a spectacle of yourself, than you are asked to do at present: last night, if you like - "
"You needn't speak so to Laurence," Temeraire interrupted coldly, giving the gentlemen both a start: they had already forgotten to look up and see him listening to all their conversation. "We have chased the French off four times this last week, and flown nine patrols; we are very tired, and we have only come to London because our friends are sick: and left to starve, and die in the cold; because the Admiralty will do nothing to make them more comfortable."
He finished stormily, a low threatening resonance building in his throat, the instinctive action of the divine wind operating; it lingered as an echo, when he had already stopped speaking. No one spoke for a moment, and then Wilberforce said thoughtfully, "It seems to me we need not be at cross-purposes; and we may advance your cause, Captain, with our own."
They had meant, it seemed, to launch him with some social event, the dinner-party Lord Allendale had mentioned, or perhaps even a ball; which Wilberforce now proposed instead to make a subscription-party, "whose avowed purpose," he explained, "will be to raise funds for sick and wounded dragons, veterans of Trafalgar and Dover - there are such veterans, among the sick?" he asked.
"There are," Laurence said; he did not say, all of them: all but Temeraire himself.
Wilberforce nodded. "Those are yet names to conjure with, in these dark days," he said, "when we see Napoleon's star ascendant over the Continent; and will give still further emphasis, to your being also a hero of the nation, and make your words a better counterweight to Nelson's."
Laurence could scarcely bear to hear himself so described; and in comparison with Nelson, who had led four great fleet actions, destroyed all Napoleon's navy, established Britain's complete primacy at sea; who had justly won a ducal coronet by valor and deeds in honorable battle, not been made a foreign prince through subterfuge and political machination. "Sir," he said, with an effort restraining himself from a truly violent rejection, "I must beg you not to speak so; there can be no just comparison."
"No, indeed," Temeraire said energetically. "I do not think much of this Nelson, if he has anything to say for slavery: I am sure he cannot be half so nice as Laurence, no matter how many battles he has won. I have never seen anything as dreadful as those poor slaves in Cape Coast; and I am very glad if we can help them, as well as our friends."
"And this, from a dragon," Wilberforce said, with great satisfaction, while Laurence was made mute by dismay. "What man can refuse to feel pity for those wretched souls, when it may be stirred in such a breast? Indeed," he said, turning to Lord Allendale, "we ought to hold the assembly here where we sit. I am certain it will answer all the better, so far as producing a great sensation, and moreover," he added, with a glint of humor in his eye, "I should like to see the gentleman who will refuse to consider an argument made to him by a dragon, with that dragon standing before him."
"Out of doors, at this season?" Lord Allendale said.
"We might organize it like the pavilion-dinners in China: long tables, with coal-pits underneath to make them warm," Temeraire suggested, entering with enthusiasm into the spirit of the thing, while Laurence could only listen with increasing desperation as his fate was sealed. "We will have to knock down some trees to make room, but I can do that very easily, and if we were to hang panels of silk from the remainder, it will seem quite like a pavilion, and keep warm besides."
"An excellent notion," Wilberforce said, leaving his chair to inspect the scratched diagrams which Temeraire was making in the dirt. "It will have an Oriental flavor, exactly what is needed."
"Well, if you think it so; all I can say in its favor, it will certainly be the nine-days' wonder of society, whether more than half-a-dozen curiosity-seekers come or not," Lord Allendale said.
"We can spare you for one night, now and again," Jane said, sinking Laurence's final hopes of escape. "Our intelligence is nothing to brag about, now we have no couriers to risk on spy-missions; but the Navy do a good business with the French fishermen, on the blockade, and they say there has yet been no movement to the coast. They might be lying, of course," she added, "but if there were a marked shift in numbers, the prices of the catch would have risen, with livestock going to dragons."
The maid brought in the tea, and she poured for him. "Do not I beg you repine too much upon it," Jane went on, meaning the Admiralty's refusal to give them more funds. "Perhaps this party of yours will do us some good in that quarter, and Powys has written me to say he has cobbled together something for us already, by subscription among the retired senior officers. It will not do for anything extravagant, but I think we can keep the poor creatures in pepper, at least until then."
In the meanwhile, they set about the experimental pavilion: the promise of so substantial a commission proved enough to tempt a handful of more intrepid tradesmen to the Dover covert. Having met them at the gates, with a party of crewmen, Laurence escorted them the rest of the way to Temeraire, who in an attempt to be unalarming hunched himself down as small as a dragon of some eighteen tons could manage, and nearly flattened his ruff down against his neck. Yet he could not help but insinuate himself into the conversation once the construction of the pavilion was well under discussion, and indeed his offerings were quite necessary, as Laurence had not the faintest notion how to convert the Chinese measurements.
"I want one!" Iskierka said, having overheard too much of the proceedings from her nearby clearing: heedless of Granby's protests, she squirmed herself through the trees into Temeraire's clearing, shaking off a blizzard of ash-flakes, and alarming the poor tradesmen very much with a hiccough of fire which sent steam shooting out her spines to clear them. "I want to sleep in a pavilion, too: I do not like this cold dirt at all."
"Well, you cannot have one," Temeraire said. "This is for our sick friends, and anyway you have no capital."
"Then I shall get some," she declared. "Where does one get capital, and what does it look like?"
Temeraire proudly rubbed his breastplate of platinum and pearl. "This is a piece of capital," he said, "and Laurence gave it me: he got it from taking a ship in a battle."
"Oh! that is very easy," Iskierka said. "Granby, let us go get a ship, and then I may have a pavilion."
"Lord, you cannot have anything of the sort, do not be silly," Granby said, nodding his rueful apologies to Laurence as he came into the clearing, along the trail of smashed branches and crushed hedge which she had left in her wake. "You would burn it up in an instant: the thing is made of wood."
"Can it be made of stone?" she demanded, swinging her head around to one of the wide-eyed tradesmen. She was not grown very large, despite the twelve feet in length she had acquired since settling at Dover with a steady diet, being rather sinuous than bulky, in the Kazilik style, and she yet looked little more than a garden-snake next to Temeraire. But her appearance at close quarters was by no means reassuring, with the hissing-kettle gurgle of whatever internal mechanism produced her fire plainly audible and the vents of hot air issuing from her spines, white and impressive in the cold.
No one answered her, except the elderly architect, a Mr. Royle. "Stone? No, I must advise against it. Brick will be a much more practical construction," he opined; he had not looked up from the papers since being handed them, so badly nearsighted he was inspecting the plans with a jeweler's loupe, an inch from his watery blue eyes, and could most likely not make either dragon out in the least. "Silly oriental stuff, this roof, do you insist on having it so?"
"It is not silly oriental stuff at all," Temeraire said, "it is very elegant: that design is my mother's own pavilion, and it is in the best fashion."
"You will need linkboys on it all winter long to brush the snow clear, and I will not give a brass farthing for the gutters after two seasons," Royle said. "A good slate roof, that is the thing, do you not agree with me, Mr. Cutter?"
Mr. Cutter had not the least opinion to offer, as he was backed to the trees and looked ready to bolt, if Laurence had not prudently stationed his ground crew around the border of the clearing to forestall just such panicked flight.
"I am very willing to be advised by you, sir, as to the best plan of construction, and the most reasonable," Laurence said, while Royle blinked around himself looking for a response. "Temeraire, our climate here is a good deal wetter, and we must cut our cloth to suit our station."
"Very well, I suppose," Temeraire said, with a wistful eye for the upturned roof-corners and the brightly painted wood.
Iskierka meanwhile took inspiration, and began to plot the acquisition of capital. "If I burn up a ship, is that good enough, or must I bring it back?" she demanded, and began her piratical career by presenting Granby with a small fishing-boat, the next morning, which she had picked up from Dover harbor during the night. "Well, you did not say it must be a French ship," she said crossly, to their recriminations, and curled up to sulk. Gherni was hastily recruited to replace it under cover of darkness, the following night, undoubtedly to the great puzzlement of its temporarily bereft owner.
"Laurence, do you suppose that we should be able to get more capital, by taking French ships," Temeraire asked, with a thoughtfulness very alarming to Laurence, who had just returned from dealing with this pretty piece of confusion.
"The French ships-of-the-line are penned in their harbors by the Channel blockade, thank Heaven, and we are not privateers, to go plying the lanes for their shipping," Laurence said. "Your life is too valuable to be risked in such a selfish endeavor; in any case, once you began to behave in such an undisciplined manner, you may be sure Arkady and his lot would follow your example at once, and leave all Britain undefended, not to mention the encouragement Iskierka would take."
"Whatever am I to do with her?" Granby said, wearily taking a glass of wine with Laurence and Jane that evening, in the officers' common room at the covert headquarters. "I suppose it is being dragged hither and yon in the shell, and all the fuss and excitement she has had; but that is no excuse forever. I must manage her somehow, and I am at a standstill. I would not be amazed to find the entire harbor set alight one morning, because she took it into her head that we would not have to sit about defending the city if it were all burnt up; I cannot even make her sit still long enough to get her under full harness."
"Never mind; I will come by tomorrow, and see what I can do," Jane said, pushing the bottle over to him again. "She is a little young for work, by all the authorities, but I think her energy had better be put to use than go in all this fretting. Have you chosen your lieutenants, Granby?"
"I will have Lithgow, for my first, if you've no objection, and Harper for a second, to act as captain of the riflemen also," he said. "I don't like to take too many men, when we don't know what her growth will be like."
"You do not like to turn them off later, you mean, when they like as not cannot get another post," Jane said gently, "and I know it will be hard if it comes to that; but we cannot shortchange her, not with her so wild. Take Row also, as captain of the bellmen. He is old enough to retire if he must be turned off, and a good steady campaigner, who will not blink at her starts."
Granby nodded a little, his head bowed, and the next morning Jane came to Iskierka's clearing in great state, with all her medals and even her great plumed hat, which aviators scarcely wore, a gold-plated saber and pistols on her belt. Granby had assembled all his new crew, and they saluted her with a great noise of arms, Iskierka nearly coiling herself into knots with excitement, and the ferals and even Temeraire peering over the trees to watch with interest.
"Well, Iskierka: your captain tells me that you are ready for service," Jane said, putting her hat under her arm to look sternly at the little Kazilik, "but what are these reports I hear of you, that you will not mind orders? We cannot send you into battle if you cannot follow orders."
"Oh! it is not true!" Iskierka said. "I can follow orders as well as anyone, it is only no one will give me any good ones, and I am only told to sit, and not to fight, and to eat three times a day; I do not want any more stupid cows!" she added smolderingly; the ferals, hearing this translated for them by their own handful of officers, set up a low squabbling murmur of disbelief.
"It is not only the pleasant orders we must follow, but the tiresome ones as well," Jane said, when the noise had died down. "Do you suppose Captain Granby likes to be forever sitting in this clearing, waiting for you to grow more settled? Perhaps he would rather go back to service with Temeraire, and have some fighting himself."
Iskierka's eyes went platter-wide, and she hissed from all her spikes like a furnace; in an instant she had thrown a pair of jealous coils around Granby, which bid fair to boil him like a lobster in steam. "He would not! You would not, at all, would you?" she appealed to him. "I will fight just as well as Temeraire, I promise; and I will even obey the stupidest orders; at least, if I may have some pleasant ones also," she qualified hastily.
"I am sure she will mind better in future, sir," Granby managed himself, coughing, his hair already plastered down soaking against his forehead and neck. "Pray don't fret; I would never leave you, only I am getting wet," he added plaintively, to her.
"Hm," Jane said, with an air of frowning consideration. "Since Granby speaks for you, I suppose we will give you your chance," she said, at last, "and here you may have your first orders, Captain, if she will let you come for them and, to be sure, stand still for her harness."
Iskierka immediately let him loose and stretched herself out for the ground crew, only craning her neck a little to see the red-sealed and yellow-tasseled packet, a formality often dispensed with in the Corps, which directed them in very ornate and important language to do nothing more than run a quick hour's patrol down to Guernsey and back. "And you may take her by that old heap of rubble left at Castle Cornet, where the gunpowder blew up the tower, and tell her it is a French outpost, so she may flame it from aloft," Jane added to Granby, in an undertone not meant for Iskierka's ears.
Iskierka's harness was indeed a great deal of trouble to arrange, as the spines were placed quite randomly, and the frequent issuing of steam made her hide slick: an improvised collection of short straps and many buckles, wretchedly easy to tangle, and she could not entirely be blamed for growing tired of the process. But the promise of coming action and the observing crowd made her more patient; at length she was properly rigged out, and Granby with relief said, "There, it is quite secure; now try and see if you can shake any of it loose, dear one."
She writhed and beat her wings quite satisfactorily, twisting herself this way and that to inspect the harness. "You are supposed to say, All lies well, if you are comfortable," Temeraire whispered loudly to her, after she had been engaged in this sport for several minutes.
"Oh, I see," she said, and settling again announced, "All lies well; now we shall go."
In this way she was at least a little reformed; no one would have called her temper obliging, certainly, and she invariably stretched her patrols farther afield than Granby would have them, in hopes of meeting some enemy more challenging than an abandoned old fortification, or a couple of birds. "But at least she will take a little training, and eats properly, which I call a victory, for now," Granby said. "And after all, as much a fright she gives us, she'll give the Frogs a worse; Laurence, do you know, we talked to the fellows at Castle Cornet, and they set up a bit of sail for her: she can set it alight from eighty yards. Twice the range of a Flamme-de-Gloire, and she can go at it for five minutes straight; I don't understand how she gets her breath while she is at it."
They had indeed some trouble in keeping her out of direct combat, for meanwhile the French were continuing their harassment and scouting of the coast, with ever-increasing aggression. Jane used the sick dragons more heavily for patrol, to spare Temeraire and the ferals: they, instead, sat most of the day waiting on the cliffs for one warning flare or another to go up, or listening with pricked ears for the report of a signal-gun, before they dashed frantically to meet another incursion. In the space of two weeks, Temeraire skirmished four times more with small groups, and once Arkady and a few of his band, sent experimentally on patrol by themselves while Temeraire snatched a few more hours of sleep, just barely turned back a Pou-de-Ciel who had daringly tried to slip past the shore batteries at Dover, less than a mile from a clear view of the quarantine-grounds.
The ferals came back from their narrow but solitary victory delighted with themselves, and Jane with quick cleverness took the occasion to present Arkady ceremonially with a long length of chain: almost worthless, being made only of brass, with a large dinner-platter inscribed with his name for a medal, but polished to a fine golden shine and rendering Arkady for once speechless with amazement as it was fastened about his neck. For only a moment: then he burst forth in floods of caroling joy, and insisted on having every single one of his fellows inspect his prize; nor did Temeraire escape this fate. He indeed grew a little bristling, and withdrew in dignity to his own clearing to polish his breastplate more vigorously than usual.
"You cannot compare the two," Laurence said cautiously, "it is only a trinket, to make him complacent, and encourage them in their efforts."
"Oh, certainly," Temeraire said, very haughty, "mine is much nicer; I do not in the least want anything so common as brass." After a moment he added, muttering, "But his is very large."
"Cheap at the price," Jane said the next day, when Laurence came to report on a morning for once uneventful: the ferals more zealous than ever, and rather disappointed not to find more enemies than the reverse. "They come along handsomely: just as we had hoped." But she spoke tiredly; looking into her face, Laurence poured her a small glass of brandy and brought it to her at the window, where she was standing to look out at the ferals, presently cavorting in mid-air over their clearing after their dinner. "Thank you, I will." She took the glass, but did not drink at once. "Conterrenis has gone," she said abruptly, "the first Longwing we have lost; it was a bloody business."
She sat down all together, very heavily, and put her head forward. "He took a bad chill and suffered a haemorrhage in the lungs, the surgeons tell me. At any rate, he could not stop coughing, and so his acid came and came; it began at last to build up on the spurs, and sear his own skin. It laid his jaw bare to the bone." She paused. "Gardenley shot him this morning."
Laurence took the chair beside her, feeling wholly inadequate to the task of offering any comfort. After a little while she drank the brandy and set down her glass, and turned back to the maps to discuss the next day's patrolling.
He went away from her ashamed of his dread of the party, now only a few days' hence, and determined to put himself forward with no regard for his own mortification; if for the least chance of improving the conditions of the sick.
...and I hope you will permit me to suggest [Wilberforce wrote] that any oriental touch to your wardrobe, only a little one, which might at a glance set you apart, would be most useful. I am happy to report that we have engaged some Chinese as servants for the evening, by offering a good sum in the ports, where occasionally a few of them may be found having taken service on an East Indiaman. They are not properly trained, of course, but they will only be carrying dishes to and from the Kitchens, and we have instructed them most severely to show no alarm at being in the presence of the dragon, which I hope they have understood. However, I do have some Anxiety as to their comprehension of what faces them, and should you have enough liberty to come early, that we may try their Fortitude, it would be just as well.
Laurence did not indulge in sighs; he folded the letter, sent his Chinese coat to his tailors for refurbishment, and asked Jane her permission to go some hours earlier. In the event, the Chinese servants did set up a great commotion on their arrival, but only by leaving all their work and running to prostrate themselves before Temeraire, nearly throwing themselves beneath his feet in their efforts to make the show of respect generally considered due a Celestial, as symbolic of the Imperial family. The British workmen engaged in the final decoration of the covert were not nearly so complaisant, and vanished one and all, leaving the great panels of embroidered silk, surely made at vast expense, hanging half askew from the tree branches and dragging upon the earth.
Wilberforce exclaimed in dismay as he came to greet Laurence; but Temeraire issued instructions to the Chinese servants, who set to work with great energy, and with the assistance of the crew the covert was a handsome if astonishing sight in time to receive the guests, with brass lamps tied makeshift onto branches to stand in place of Chinese paper lanterns, and small coal-stoves placed at intervals along the tables.
"We may bring the business off, if only it will not come on to snow," Lord Allendale said pessimistically, arriving early to inspect the arrangements. "It is a pity your mother could not be here," he added, "but the child has not yet come, and she does not like to leave Elizabeth in her confinement," referring to the wife of Laurence's eldest brother, soon to present him with his fifth.
The night stayed clear, if cold, and the guests began to arrive in cautious dribs and drabs, keeping well away from Temeraire, who was ensconced in his clearing at the far end of the long tables, and peering at him not very surreptitiously through opera glasses. Laurence's officers were all meanwhile standing by him, stiff and equally terrified in their best coats and trousers: all new, fortunately, Laurence having taken the trouble to direct his officers to the better tailors in Dover, and funding himself the necessary repairs which all their wardrobes had required after their long sojourn abroad.
Emily was the only one of them pleased, as she had acquired her first silk gown for the occasion, and if she tripped upon the hem a little she did not seem to mind, rather exultant in her kid gloves and a string of pearls, which Jane had bestowed upon her. "It is late enough in conscience for her to be learning how to manage skirts," Jane said. "Do not fret, Laurence; I promise you no one will be suspicious. I have made a cake of myself in public a dozen times, and no one ever thought me an aviator for it. But if it gives you any comfort, you may tell them she is your niece."
"I may do no such thing; my father will be there, and I assure you he is thoroughly aware of all his grandchildren," Laurence said. He did not tell her that his father would immediately conclude Emily to be his own natural-born child, should he make such a false claim, but only privately decided he should keep Emily close by Temeraire's side, where she would be little seen; he had been in no doubt that his guests would keep a very good distance, whatever persuasion Mr. Wilberforce intended to apply.
That persuasion, however, took the most undesirable form, Mr. Wilberforce saying, "Come; behold this young girl here who thinks nothing of standing in reach of the dragon. If you can permit yourself, madam, to be outdone by trained aviators, I hope you will not allow a child to outstrip you," while Laurence with sinking heart observed his father turning to cast an astonished eye on Emily which confirmed all his worst fears.
Lord Allendale did not scruple, either, to approach and interrogate her; Emily, perfectly innocent of malice, answered in her clear girlish voice, "Oh, I have lessons every day, sir, from the captain, although it is Temeraire who gives me my mathematics, now, as Captain Laurence does not like the calculus. But I had rather practice fencing," she added candidly, and looked a little uncertain when she found herself laughed over, and pronounced a dear, by the pair of society ladies who had been persuaded to venture close to the great table, by her example.
"A masterful stroke, Captain," Wilberforce murmured softly; "wherever did you find her?" and did not wait for an answer before he accosted a few gentlemen who had risked coming near, and worked upon them in the same fashion, adding to his persuasions that if Lady So-and-So had approached Temeraire, surely they could not show themselves hesitant.
Temeraire was very interested in all the guests, particularly admiring the more bejeweled of the ladies, and managed by accident to please the Marchioness of Carstoke, a lady of advanced years and receded neckline whose bosom was concealed only by a vulgar set of emeralds-in-gold, by informing her she looked a good deal more the part, in his estimation, than the Queen of Prussia, whom he had only seen in traveling-clothes. Several gentlemen challenged him to perform simple sums; he blinked a little, and having given them the answers inquired whether this was a sort of game performed at parties, and whether he ought to offer them a mathematical problem in return.
"Dyer, pray bring me my sand-table," he said, and when this was arranged, he sketched out with his claw a small diagram for purposes of setting them a question on the Pythagorean theorem, sufficient to baffle most of the attending gentlemen, whose own mathematical skills did not extend past the card-tables.
"But it is a very simple exercise," Temeraire said in some confusion, wondering aloud to Laurence if he had missed some sort of joke, until at last a gentleman, a member of the Royal Society on a quest to observe for himself certain aspects of Celestial anatomy, was able to solve the puzzle.
When Temeraire had audibly spoken to the servants in Chinese, and conversed in fluent French with several of the guests, and had failed to eat or crush anyone, increasing fascination began at last to trump fear and draw more of the company towards him. Laurence shortly found himself quite neglected as of considerably less interest: a circumstance which would have delighted him, if only it had not left him subject to awkward conversation with his father, who inquired stiltedly about Emily's mother: questions whose evasion would only have made Laurence seem the more guilty, and yet whose perfectly truthful answers, that Emily was the natural-born daughter of a Jane Roland, a gentlewoman living in Dover, and whose education he had taken as his charge, left entirely the wrong impression, which Laurence could no more correct than his father would outright ask.
"She is a pretty-behaved girl, for her station in life, and I hope she does not want for anything," Lord Allendale said, in a sort of sidling way. "I am sure if there was any difficulty in finding her a respectable situation, when she is grown, your mother and I would be glad to be of assistance."
Laurence did his best to make it clear that this handsome offer was unnecessary, in some desperation turning to a lie of omission, saying, "She has friends, sir, as must prevent her ever being in real distress; I believe there is already some arrangement made for her future." He gave no details, and his father, his sense of propriety satisfied, did not inquire further; fortunate, as that arrangement, military service in the Corps, would hardly have recommended itself to Lord Allendale. The bleak notion came to Laurence only afterwards, that if Excidium were to die, Emily should have no dragon to inherit, and thus no assured post: though a handful of Longwing eggs were presently being tended at Loch Laggan, there were more women serving in the Corps than would be needed to satisfy these new hatchlings.
He made his escape, saying he saw Wilberforce beckoning him over; that gentleman indeed welcomed his company, if he had not immediately been soliciting it, and took hold of Laurence's arm to guide him through the crowd, and introduce him to all his prodigious acquaintance, amongst the curiously mingled attendance. Many had come merely to be entertained, and for the sensation of seeing a dragon; or more honestly for the right to say they had done so: a substantial number of these being gentlemen of fashion, come already from heavy drinking, whose conversation would have made the noise impenetrable in a smaller space. Those ladies and gentlemen active in the abolition movement, or evangelical causes, were easily distinguished by their markedly more sober appearance, both in dress and mien; the tracts which they were giving out were ending largely upon the ground, and being trodden into the dirt.
There were also a great many patriots, whether from real feeling or the desire to attach their names to a subscription-list with the word Trafalgar upon it, as Wilberforce had arranged it should be published in the newspapers, and not inclined to be quibbling over whether those veterans were men or dragons. The political range was thoroughly represented, therefore, and more than one heated discussion had broken out, with the lubrications of liquor and enthusiasm. One stout and red-faced gentleman, identified by Wilberforce as a member from Bristol, was declaring to a pale and fervent young lady trying to give him a tract that "it is all nonsense; the passage is perfectly healthy, for it is in the interest of the traders to preserve their goods. It is as good a thing as ever will happen to a black, to be taken to a Christian land, where he may lose his heathen religion and be converted."
"That is excellent grounds, sir, for importing the Gospel to Africa; it does less well to excuse the behavior of Christian men, in tearing away the Africans from their homes, for profit," he was answered, not by the lady, but by a black gentleman, who had been standing a little behind her, and assisting her in giving out the pamphlets. A narrow, raised scar, the thickness of a leather strap, ran down the side of his face, and the edges of ridged bands of scar tissue protruded past the ends of his sleeves, paler pink against his very dark skin.
The gentleman from Bristol perhaps had not quite that brazen character which would have permitted him to defend the trade in the face of one of its victims. He chose rather to retreat behind an expression of offended hauteur at having been addressed without introduction, and would have turned aside without reply; but Wilberforce leaned forward and said with gentle malice, "Pray, Mr. Bathurst, allow me to present you the Reverend Josiah Erasmus, lately of Jamaica." Erasmus bowed; Bathurst gave a short jerking nod, and cravenly quitted the field, with an excuse too muttered to be intelligible.
Erasmus was an evangelical minister, "And I hope a missionary, soon," he added, shaking Laurence's hand, "back to my native continent," whence he had been taken, a boy of six years of age, to suffer through that aforementioned healthy passage, chained ankles and wrists to his neighbors, in a space scarcely large enough to lie down in.
"It was not at all pleasant to be chained," Temeraire said, very low, when Erasmus had been presented him, "and I knew at least they would be taken off, when the storm had finished; anyway, I am sure I could have broken them." Those chains of which he spoke, indeed, had been for his own protection, to keep him secured to the deck through a three-days' typhoon; but the occasion had come close on the heels of his witnessing the brutal treatment of a party of slaves, at the port of Cape Coast, and had left an indelible impression.
Erasmus said simply, "So did some of our number; the fetters were not well made. But they had nowhere to go but to throw themselves on the mercy of the sharks: we had not wings to fly."
He spoke without the rancor for which he might have been pardoned, and when Temeraire had expressed, darkly, the wish that the slavers might have been thrown overboard instead, Erasmus shook his head. "Evil should not be returned for evil," he said. "Their judgment belongs to the Lord: my answer to their crimes will be to return to my fellows with the word of God. And I hope that the practice cannot long continue when we are all brothers in Christ, so that the slaver and his prey will both be saved."
Temeraire was dubious of this most Christian speech, and after Erasmus had left them muttered, "I would not give a fig for the slavers, myself; and God ought to judge them more quickly," a blasphemous remark which made Laurence blanch, lest Wilberforce should have overheard; but his attention was fortunately elsewhere at present, on a growing noise at the far end of the long clearing, where a crowd was gathering.
"I wonder he should have come," Wilberforce said: it was Nelson himself, who had entered the clearing in the company of several friends, some of them naval officers of Laurence's acquaintance, and was presently paying his respects to Lord Allendale. "Of course we did not omit an invitation, but I had no real expectation; perhaps because it was sent in your name. Forgive me, I will take myself off awhile; I am happy enough to have him come and lend his reflected glow to our party, but he has said too much in public for me to converse easily with him."
Laurence was better pleased, for his own part, to find Nelson not offended in the least at whatever whispers and comparisons had been put about between them; that gentleman was rather as amiable as anyone could wish, offering his good hand. "William Laurence; you have gone a long way since we last met. I think we were at dinner together on the Vanguard in ninety-eight, before Aboukir Bay: how very long ago, and how short a time it seems!"
"Indeed, sir; and I am honored your Grace should remember," Laurence said, and at his request rather anxiously took him back to be presented to Temeraire, adding, when Temeraire's ruff ominously unfurled at the name, "I hope you will make his Grace most welcome, my dear; it is very kind of him to come and be our guest."
Temeraire, never very tactful, was unfortunately not to be warned by so subtle a hint, and rather coldly asked, "What has happened to your medals? They are all quite misshapen."
This, he certainly meant as a species of insult; however Nelson, who famously preferred only to win more glory, than to speak of what he already had gained, could not have been better pleased at the excuse to discuss the battle, told over so thoroughly by the public before ever he had risen from his injuries, with an audience for once innocent of the details. "Why, a rascal of a Spanish fire-breather gave us a little trouble, at Trafalgar, and they were caught in the flame," he said, taking one of the ample number of vacant chairs at the table nearby, and arranging bread rolls for the ships.
Temeraire, growing interested despite himself, leaned in closely to observe their maneuvers on the cloth. Nelson did not flinch back in the least, though the onlookers who had gathered to observe took nearly all of them several steps back. He described the Spanish dragon's passes with a fork and much lurid detail, and further rescued his character, in Temeraire's eyes, by concluding, "And very sorry I am that we did not have you there: I am sure you should have had no trouble in running the creature off."
"Well, I am sure, too," Temeraire said candidly, and peered at the medals again with more admiration. "But would the Admiralty not give you fresh ones? That is not very handsome of them."
"Why, I consider these a better badge of honor, dear creature, and I have not applied for replacement," Nelson said. "Now, Laurence, do I recall correctly; can I possibly have read a report in the Gazette that this very dragon of yours lately sank a French ship, called the Valerie, I believe, and in a single pass?"
"Yes, sir; I believe Captain Riley of the Allegiance sent in his report, last year," Laurence said uneasily; that report had rather understated the incident, and while he was proud of Temeraire's ability, it was not the sort of thing he thought civilian guests would find reassuring; still less so should any of them learn that the French, too, now had their own Celestial, and that the same dreadful power might be turned against their own shipping.
"Astonishing; quite prodigious," Nelson said. "What was she, a sloop-of-war?"
"A frigate, sir," Laurence answered, even more reluctantly. " - forty-eight guns."
There was a pause. "I cannot be sorry, although it was hard on the poor sailors," Temeraire said, into the silence, "but it was not very noble of them, stealing upon us during the night, when their dragon could see in the dark and I could not."
"Certainly," Nelson said, over a certain murmur from the assembled company; he, having recovered from his surprise, had rather a quick martial gleam in his eye, "certainly; I congratulate you. I think I must have some conversation with the Admiralty, Captain, on your present station; you are on coastline duty at present, am I not correct? A waste; an unconscionable waste; you may be sure they will hear from me on the subject. Do you suppose he could manage as much on a ship-of-the-line?"
Laurence could not explain the impossibility of a change in their assignment without revealing the secret; so he answered a little vaguely, with gratitude for his Grace's interest.
"Very clever," Lord Allendale said grimly, in conference with them and Wilberforce, when Nelson had gone away again, nodding his farewells in the most affable manner to all who sought his attention. "I suppose we must consider it a badge of success that he should prefer to send you away."
"Sir, I believe you are mistaken; I cannot allow his motives on this matter to be other than sincere, in wishing the best use made of Temeraire's abilities," Laurence said stiffly.
"It is very boring, always going up and down the coast," Temeraire put in, "and I should much rather have some more interesting work, like fighting fire-breathers, if we were not needed where we are; but I suppose we must do our duty," he finished, not a trifle wistfully, and turned his attention back to the other guests, who were all the more eager to speak with him now in imitation of Nelson's example: the party most assuredly a success.
"Laurence, may we fly over the quarantine-grounds, as we go, and see how comes the pavilion?" Temeraire asked, the next morning, as they made ready for the flight back to Dover.
"It will not be very far advanced," Laurence said; Temeraire's ulterior motive, to look into the quarantine-grounds to see Maximus and Lily, was tolerably transparent: there had been no reply to the letters which Laurence had sent, either to them or to their captains, and Temeraire had begun to inquire after them with increasing impatience. Laurence feared Temeraire's likely reaction to seeing them so reduced by illness as he supposed them to be, but could think of no very good reason with which to divert him.
"But I should like to see it in all its stages," Temeraire said, "and if they have made any mistakes, we ought to correct it early, surely," he finished triumphantly, with the air of having hit upon an unanswerable justification.
"Is there any reason to fear infection in the air?" Laurence asked Dorset quietly, aside. "Will there be a danger to flying over the grounds?"
"No, so long as he keeps a good distance from any of the sick beasts. It is certainly the phlegmatic humors which carry the infection. So long as he does not put himself directly in the way of a sneeze or a cough, I cannot think the danger substantial, not aloft," Dorset said absently, without much consideration to the question, which did not fill Laurence with great confidence.
But he settled for extracting a promise that Temeraire should stay well aloft, where perhaps he might not see the worst of the ravages which had been inflicted on his friends, nor approach any dragon in the air.
"Of course I promise," Temeraire said, adding, unconvincingly, "I only want to see the pavilion, after all; it is nothing to me if we see any other dragons."
"You must be sure, my dear, or Mr. Dorset will not countenance our visit; we must not disturb the sick dragons, who require their rest," Laurence said, resorting to stratagem, which at last won Temeraire's sighs and agreement.
Laurence did not truly expect to see any dragons aloft; the ill beasts only rarely left the ground anymore, for the brief showy patrols which Jane continued to use to keep up their illusion of strength for the French. The day was cloudy and drear, and as they flew towards the coast, they met a thin misting of rain blowing in from the Channel; the exertion surely would not be asked of the sick dragons.
The quarantine-grounds were inland of Dover itself, the borders marked off by smoking torches and large red flags, planted into the ground: low deserted rolling meadows, the dragons scattered about with little cover even from the wind, which snapped all the flags out crisply and made them all huddle down small to escape. But as Temeraire drew near the proscribed territory, Laurence saw three specks, increasing rapidly into three dragons: aloft, and flying energetically, two on the heels of a much smaller third.
Temeraire said, "Laurence, that is Auctoritas and Caelifera, from Dover, I am sure of it, but I do not know that other little dragon at all; I have never seen one of that kind."
"Oh, Hell, that is a Plein-Vite," Ferris said, after a single borrowed look through Laurence's glass. The three dragons were directly over the quarantine-grounds, and the great miserable hulks of other sick beasts were plainly visible for the French dragon to see, even through the mist, in all their bloodstained dirt. And already the two dragons who had attempted to halt her were falling off the pace and drooping earthwards, exhausted, as the tiny French dragon darted and looped and evaded, beating her wings mightily, and flung herself past the borders of the grounds, heading towards the Channel as quick as ever she could go.
"After her, Temeraire," Laurence said, and they leapt into pursuit, Temeraire's enormous wings beating once to every five of hers, but eating up the yards with every stroke.
"They haven't much endurance, they're close-couriers only, for all they're fast as bloody lightning; they must have brought her nearly up to the coast by boat, at night, to save her strength for the flight back," Ferris said, shouting over the knife-cut wind. Laurence only nodded, to save his voice: Bonaparte had likely been hoping to slip so small a messenger-beast through where the larger had not been able to manage.
He raised the speaking-trumpet and bellowed, "Rendezvous," to no effect. The flare they fired off for emphasis, launched ahead of the little dragon's nose, was a signal less easily missed or misinterpreted, but there was no slackening in the furious pace. The Plein-Vite had only a small pilot, a young boy scarcely much older than Roland or Dyer, whose pale and frightened face Laurence could plainly see in his glass as the boy looked back to see the vast black-winged pursuit ready to engulf him. He turned back to speak encouragement to his beast, casting off bits of harness and buckle as she flew: the boy even kicked off his shoes, and threw overboard his belt with its sword and pistol, flashing in the sunlight as they turned end-over-end, surely prized treasures; and heartened by her rider's example, with an effort the little dragon began to speed her strokes and pull away, her advantage in speed and small breadth before the wind telling.
"We must bring her down," Laurence said grimly, lowering his glass; he had seen what effect the divine wind had on enemy dragons of fighting-weight, and on soldiers under arms: what damage it might wreak, upon so small and helpless a target, he neither liked to think nor wished to witness, but their duty was plain. "Temeraire, you must stop them; we cannot let them slip away."
"Laurence, she is so very little," Temeraire objected unhappily, turning his head only just enough to be heard; he was still pressing on after her, with all the will in the world, but she would not be caught.
"We cannot try to board her," Laurence answered, "she is too small and too quick; it would be a death-sentence to make any man attempt that leap. If she will not surrender, she must be brought down. She is pulling away; it must be now."
Temeraire shuddered, then with decision drew breath and roared out: but over the French dragon, not directly at her. She gave a startled shrill cry of alarum, backwinging as if she was trying to reverse her course, her pace dropping off to nothing for a moment. With a convulsive gathered lunge, Temeraire was above her and folding his wings, bearing her bodily down towards the earth below: soft pale yellow sand, heaped in rolling dunes, and the little French dragon went tumbling pell-mell as they plowed into the dirt behind her, oceanic waves of dust billowing up in a cloud around them.
They slid across the ground some hundred yards, Laurence blind and trying to shield his mouth from the flying sand, hearing Temeraire hissing in displeasure and the French dragon squalling. Then "Hah!" Temeraire said triumphantly, "je vous ai attrape il ne faut pas pleurer; oh, I beg your pardon, I am very sorry," and Laurence wiped the grit from his face and nostrils, coughing violently, and clearing his stinging vision found himself looking almost directly into the alarming fiery orange of a Longwing's slit-pupiled eye.
Excidium turned his head to sneeze, acid droplets spraying involuntarily with the gesture, smoking briefly as the sand absorbed them. Laurence gazed in horror as the great head swung wearily back and Excidium said, in a harsh and rasping voice, "What have you done? You ought not have come here," while the sand-cloud settled to show him one among a half-a-dozen Longwings, Lily raising her head out of her shielding wing beside him, all of them huddled close in the sand-pit that was their place of quarantine.