His Majesty's Dragon t-1

by Naomi Novik

  He and Berkley met at breakfast and training every day, and he continued to find the other captain an astute airman and aerial tactician; but at dinner or in company Berkley was silent. Laurence was not sure either that he wished to draw the man into intimacy, or that a gesture in that direction would be welcome, so he contented himself with being civil, and discussing technical matters; so far they had known each other only a few days, and there would be time enough to take a better measure of the man’s real character.

  He had steeled himself to react properly on meeting Captain Harcourt again, but she seemed shy of his company; he saw her almost only at a distance, though Temeraire was soon to be flying in company with her dragon, Lily. One morning however she was at table when he arrived for breakfast, and in an attempt to make natural conversation, he asked how her dragon came to be called Lily, thinking it might be a nickname like Volly’s. She flushed to her roots again and said very stiffly, “I liked the name; pray how did you come to name Temeraire?”

  “To be perfectly honest, I did not have any idea of the proper way of naming a dragon, nor any way of finding out at the time,” Laurence said, feeling he had made a misstep; no one had remarked on Temeraire’s unusual name before, and only now that she had brought him to task for it did he guess that perhaps he had raised a sore point with her. “I called him after a ship: the first Téméraire was captured from the French, and the one presently in service is a ninety-eight-gun three-decker, one of our finest line-of-battle ships.”

  When he had made this confession, she seemed to grow more easy, and said with more candor, “Oh; as you have said as much, I do not mind admitting that it was nearly the same with me. Lily was not properly expected to hatch for another five years at the earliest, and I had no notion of a name. When her egg hardened, they woke me in the middle of the night at Edinburgh covert and flung me on a Winchester, and I barely managed to reach the baths before she broke the shell. I simply gaped when she invited me to give her a name, and I could not think of anything else.”

  “It is a charming name, and perfectly suits her, Catherine,” Rankin said, joining them at the table. “Good morning, Laurence; have you seen the paper? Lord Pugh has finally managed to marry off his daughter; Ferrold must be desperately hard up.” This piece of gossip, concerning as it did people whom Harcourt did not know at all, left her outside the conversation. Before Laurence could change the subject, however, she excused herself and slipped away from the table, and he lost the opportunity to further the acquaintance.

  The few days remaining in the week before the excursion passed swiftly. The training as yet was still more a matter of testing Temeraire’s flying abilities, and seeing how best he and Maximus could be worked into the formation centered on Lily. Celeritas had them fly endless circuits around the training valley, sometimes trying to minimize the number of wingbeats, sometimes trying to maximize their speed, and always trying to keep them in line with one another. One memorable morning was spent almost entirely upside down, and Laurence found himself dizzy and red-faced at the end of it. The stouter Berkley was huffing as he staggered off Maximus’s back after the final pass, and Laurence leapt forward to ease him down to the ground as his legs gave out from under him.

  Maximus hovered anxiously over Berkley and rumbled in distress. “Stop that moaning, Maximus; nothing more ridiculous than a creature of your size behaving like a mother hen,” Berkley said as he fell into the chair that the servants had hurriedly brought. “Ah, thank you,” he said, taking the glass of brandy Laurence offered him, and sipped at it while Laurence loosened his neckcloth.

  “I am sorry to have put you under such a strain,” Celeritas said, when Berkley was no longer gasping and scarlet. “Ordinarily these trials would be spread over half a month’s time. Perhaps I am pressing on too quickly.”

  “Nonsense, I will be well in a trice,” Berkley said at once. “I know damned well we cannot spare a moment, Celeritas, so do not be holding us back on my account.”

  “Laurence, why are matters so urgent?” Temeraire asked that evening after dinner, as they once again settled down together outside the courtyard walls to read. “Is there to be a great battle soon, and we are needed for it?”

  Laurence folded the book closed, keeping his place with a finger. “No; I am sorry to disappoint you, but we are too raw to be sent by choice directly into a major action. Still, it is very likely that Lord Nelson will not be able to destroy the French fleet without the help of one of the Longwing formations presently stationed in England; our duty will be to take their place, so they may go. That will indeed be a great battle, and though we will not participate in it directly, I assure you our part is by no means unimportant.”

  “No, though it does not sound very exciting,” Temeraire said. “But perhaps France will invade us, and then we will have to fight?” He sounded rather more hopeful than anything else.

  “We must hope not,” Laurence said. “If Nelson destroys their fleet, it will pretty well put paid to any chance of Bonaparte’s bringing his army across. Though I have heard he has something like a thousand boats to carry his men, they are only transports, and the Navy would sink them by the dozens if they tried to come across without the protection of the fleet.”

  Temeraire sighed and put his head down over his forelegs. “Oh,” he said.

  Laurence laughed and stroked his nose. “How bloodthirsty you are,” he said with amusement. “Do not fear; I promise you we will see enough action when your training is done. There is a great deal of skirmishing over the Channel, for one thing; and then we may be sent in support of a naval operation, or perhaps sent to harass the French shipping independently.” This heartened Temeraire greatly, and he turned his attention to the book with restored good humor.

  Friday they spent in an endurance trial, trying to see how long both dragons could stay aloft. The formation’s slowest members would be the two Yellow Reapers, so both Temeraire and Maximus had to be kept to that slower pace for the test, and they went around and around the training valley in an endless circle, while above them the rest of the formation performed a drill under Celeritas’s supervision.

  A steady rain blurred all the landscape below into a grey monotony and made the task still more boring. Temeraire often turned his head to inquire, a little plaintively, how long he had been flying, and Laurence was generally obliged to inform him that scarcely a quarter of an hour had passed since the last query. Laurence at least could watch the formation wheeling and diving, their bright colors marked against the pale grey sky; poor Temeraire had to keep his head straight and level to maintain the best flying posture.

  After perhaps three hours, Maximus began to fall off the pace, his great wings beating more slowly and his head drooping; Berkley took him back in, and Temeraire was left all alone, still going around. The rest of the formation came spiraling down to land in the courtyard, and Laurence saw the dragons nodding to Maximus, inclining their heads respectfully. At this distance he could not make out any words, but it was clear they were all conversing easily among themselves while their captains milled about and Celeritas gathered them together to review their performance. Temeraire saw them as well, and sighed a little, though he said nothing; Laurence leaned forward and stroked his neck, and silently vowed to bring him back the most elegant jewels he could find in the whole of Edinburgh, if he had to draw out half his capital to do so.

  Laurence came out into the courtyard early the next morning to say farewell to Temeraire before his trip with Rankin. He stopped short as he emerged from the hall: Levitas was being put under gear by a small ground crew, with Rankin at his head reading a newspaper and paying little attention to the proceedings. “Hello, Laurence,” the little dragon said to him happily. “Look, this is my captain, he has come! And we are flying to Edinburgh today.”

  “Have you been talking with him?” Rankin said to Laurence, glancing up. “I see you were not exaggerating, and that you do indeed enjoy dragon society; I hope you will not find yours
elf tiring of it. You will be taking Laurence along with myself today; you must make an effort to show him a good pace,” he told Levitas.

  “Oh, I will, I promise,” Levitas said at once, bobbing his head anxiously.

  Laurence made some civil answer and walked quickly to Temeraire’s side to cover his confusion; he did not know what to do. There was no possible way to avoid the journey now without being truly insulting; but he felt almost ill. Over the last few days he had seen more evidence than he liked of Levitas’s unhappiness and neglect: the little dragon watched anxiously for a handler who did not come, and if he or his harness had been given more than a cursory wipe, it was because Laurence had encouraged the cadets to see to him, and asked Hollin to continue attending to his harness. To find Rankin the one responsible for such neglect was bitterly disappointing; to see Levitas behaving with such servility and gratitude for the least cold attention was painful.

  Perceived through the lens of his neglect of his dragon, Rankin’s remarks on dragons took on a character of disdain that could only be strange and unpleasant in an aviator; and his isolation from his fellow officers also, rather than an indication of nice taste. Every other aviator had introduced himself with his dragon’s name ready to his lips; Rankin alone had considered his family name of more importance, and left Laurence to find out only by accident that Levitas was assigned to him. But Laurence had not seen through any of this, and now he found he had, in the most unguarded sort of way, encouraged the acquaintance of a man he could never respect.

  He petted Temeraire and made him some reassurances meant mostly for his own comfort. “Is anything wrong, Laurence?” Temeraire said, nosing at him gently with concern. “You do not seem well.”

  “No, I am perfectly well, I assure you,” he said, making an effort to sound normal. “You are quite certain you do not mind my going?” he asked, with a faint hope.

  “Not at all, and you will be back by evening, will you not?” Temeraire asked. “Now that we have finished Duncan, I was hoping perhaps you could read me something more about mathematics; I thought it was very interesting how you explained that you could tell where you are, when you have been sailing for a long time, only through knowing the time and some equations.”

  Laurence had been very glad to leave behind mathematics after having forced the basics of trigonometry into his head. “Certainly, if you like,” he said, trying to keep dismay out of his voice. “But I thought perhaps you would enjoy something about Chinese dragons?”

  “Oh, yes, that would be splendid too; we could read that next,” Temeraire said. “It is very nice how many books there are, indeed; and on so many subjects.”

  If it would give Temeraire something to think about and keep him from becoming distressed, Laurence was prepared to go as far as to bring his Latin up to snuff and read him Principia Mathematica in the original; so he only sighed privately. “Very well, then I leave you in the hands of the ground crew; I see them coming now.”

  Hollin was leading the party; the young crewman had attended so well to Temeraire’s harness and seen to Levitas with such goodwill that Laurence had spoken of him to Celeritas, and asked to have him assigned to lead Temeraire’s ground crew. Laurence was pleased to see the request had been granted; because this step was evidently a promotion of some significance, there had been some uncertainty about the matter. He nodded to the young man. “Mr. Hollin, will you be so good as to present me to these other men?” he asked.

  When he had been given all their names and repeated them silently over to fix them in his memory, he deliberately met their eyes in turn and said firmly, “I am sure Temeraire will give you no difficulty, but I trust you will make a point of consulting his comfort as you make the adjustments. Temeraire, please have no hesitation about informing these men if you notice the least discomfort or restriction upon your movement.”

  Levitas’s case had provided him with evidence that some crewmen might neglect their assigned dragon’s gear if a captain was not watchful, and indeed anything else was hardly to be expected. Though he had no fear of Hollin’s neglecting his work, Laurence meant to put the other men on notice that he would not tolerate any such neglect where Temeraire was concerned; if such severity fixed his reputation as a hard captain, so be it. Perhaps in comparison with other aviators he was; he would not neglect what he considered his duty for the sake of being liked.

  A murmur of “Very good” and “Right you are” came in response; he was able to ignore the raised eyebrows and exchanged glances. “Carry on, then,” he said with a final nod, and turned away with no small reluctance to join Rankin.

  All his pleasure in the expedition was gone; it was distasteful in the extreme to stand by while Rankin snapped at Levitas and ordered him to hunch down uncomfortably for them to board. Laurence climbed up as quickly as he could, and did his best to sit where his weight would give Levitas the least difficulty.

  The flight was brief, at least; Levitas was very swift, and the ground rolled away at a tremendous pace. He was glad to find the speed of their passage made conversation nearly impossible, and he was able to give brief answers to the few remarks Rankin ventured to shout. They landed less than two hours after they had left, at the great walled covert which spread out beneath the watchful looming eye of Edinburgh Castle.

  “Stay here quietly; I do not want to hear that you have been pestering the crew when I return,” Rankin said sharply to Levitas, after dismounting; he threw the reins of his harness around a post, as if Levitas were a horse to be tethered. “You can eat when we return to Loch Laggan.”

  “I do not want to bother them, and I can wait to eat, but I am a little thirsty,” Levitas said in a small voice. “I tried to fly as fast as I could,” he added.

  “It was very fast indeed, Levitas, and I am grateful to you. Of course you must have something to drink,” Laurence said; this was as much as he could bear. “You there,” he called to the ground crewmen lounging around the edges of the clearing; none of them had stirred when Levitas had landed. “Bring a trough of clean water at once, and see to his harness while you are about it.”

  The men looked a little surprised, but they set to work under Laurence’s hard eye. Rankin did not make any objection, although as they climbed up the stairs away from the covert and onto the streets of the city he said, “I see you are a little tender-hearted towards them. I am hardly surprised, as that is the common mode among aviators, but I must tell you that I find discipline answers far better than the sort of coddling more often seen. Levitas for instance must always be ready for a long and dangerous flight; it is good for him to be used to going without.”

  Laurence felt all the awkwardness of his situation; he was here as Rankin’s guest, and he would have to fly back with the man in the evening. Nevertheless, he could not restrain himself from saying, “I will not deny having the warmest sentiments towards dragons as a whole; in my experience thus far I have found them uniformly appealing and worthy of nothing but respect. However, I must disagree with you very strongly that providing ordinary and reasonable care in any way constitutes coddling, and I have always found that deprivation and hardship, when necessary, can be better endured by men who have not been subjected to them previously for no cause.”

  “Oh, dragons are not men, you know; but I will not argue with you,” Rankin said easily. Perversely it made Laurence even angrier; if Rankin had been willing to defend his philosophy, it could have been a sincere if wrongheaded position. But clearly it was not; Rankin was only consulting his own ease, and these remarks were merely excuses for the neglect he performed.

  Fortunately they were at the crossroads where their paths were to diverge. Laurence did not have to endure Rankin’s company any longer, as the man had to go on rounds to the military offices in the city; they had agreed to meet back at the covert before their departure, and he escaped gladly.

  He wandered around the city for the next hour without direction or purpose, solely to clear his mind and temper. There was no
obvious way to ameliorate Levitas’s situation, and Rankin was clearly inured to disapproval: Laurence now recalled Berkley’s silence, Harcourt’s evident discomfort, the avoidance of the other aviators in general, and Celeritas’s disapproval. It was unpleasant to think that by showing such an evident partiality for Rankin’s company, he had given himself the character of approving the man’s behavior.

  Here was something for which he had rightly earned the cold looks of the other officers. It was of no use to say he had not known: he ought to have known. Instead of putting himself to the trouble of learning the ways of his new comrades-in-arms, he had been happy enough to throw himself into the company of one they avoided and looked at askance. He could hardly excuse himself by saying he had not consulted or trusted their general judgment.

  He calmed himself only with difficulty. He could not easily undo the damage he had done in a few unthinking days, but he could and would alter his behavior henceforth. By putting forth the dedication and effort that was only Temeraire’s due in any case, he could prove that he neither approved nor intended to practice any sort of neglect. By courtesy and attention to those aviators with whom he would be training, like Berkley and the other captains of the formation, he could show that he did not hold himself above his company. These small measures would take a great deal of time to repair his reputation, but they were all he could do. The best he could do was resolve upon them at once, and prepare to endure however long it would take.