by Naomi Novik
“If you prefer, sir,” Laurence said, “you may pay them their board and a wage above it; the form matters little. The question at hand is, whether you will agree they have a right to pay, and to all the same rights and liberties under which any man serves.”
“Why the devil ask me?” Wellesley said. “Go speak to Dalrymple, if you like. I have no authority to make commitments on behalf of the Government.”
Laurence said, “Sir, you are likely to be appointed to the command, and to just that authority; we both know that their Lordships are not likely to overrule, in the broad strokes, what commitments you feel necessary to make to secure so critical a victory, nor even question them greatly, if those commitments should deliver to the effort a substantial force of dragons, which otherwise have no inclination to remain and to serve.”
Wellesley tapped his boot again, and said nothing for a moment, looking at Laurence. “I can give you my word it will be considered, shall we say,” he offered, “and I can promise your beast the two thousand pounds per annum directly, as he is so sure he may be trusted. And we need hear nothing more of your own—difficulties.”
“Hah,” Minnow said, putting her head over Temeraire’s shoulder. “Just so: they are offering you something, only for you and your captain.”
Wellesley started back: he had evidently not noticed Minnow sitting quietly on Temeraire’s back, listening in.
“Yes, but I am not going to take it,” Temeraire said, and lowered his head more closely, so Wellesley had to look at him directly. “I do not choose to wait, and rely on generosity: I know perfectly well how generous their Lordships are. If you would like our help now, then you may say how much it is worth to you, also now. And if it is not as much as I think it worth, I will tell the others so, and they will leave, I expect. I will stay myself for Laurence, but I will not keep the others for my own personal sake. And it is not very handsome of you to propose anything so insulting, either,” he added reproachfully, lifting his head back away, “when you know I cannot fight you over it, because you are too small.”
“Do you know, you are the most damned peculiar pair of traitors I have ever heard of,” Wellesley said to Laurence. “Are you trying to get yourself into Foxe’s Book of Martyrs?”
Temeraire snorted angrily: Laurence had read him bits of that book, and it was all about people who had died in especially unpleasant ways. But Laurence only said, “Sir, there are abundant proofs for any man, by now, that any nation which gives its dragons liberty and brings them into the life of the state, winning their loyalty direct and not merely by intermediaries, must profit by it to so great an extent that no enemy which does not follow the same course can long hope to mount an aerial force to compete with them. If you do not care to learn from the example of China—”
One of the young officers on Wellesley’s staff, who had walked out with him, made a rude noise. “You need not sniff, either,” Temeraire said. “China may not have so many guns as here, but there are thousands of dragons in the army.”
“Thousands indeed,” Wellesley said, skeptically.
“Six thousand two hundred and eighty-eight, my mother told me,” Temeraire said. No one said anything a moment, and he supposed it might seem odd to be so precise, so he explained, “Because that is a lucky number—of course they have more dragons who can fight, but those dragons are not officially in the army.”
“And if,” Laurence said to Wellesley, “the population of France is not so great as that of China, if they should even achieve the same proportion of dragons to men and arable land, using the same techniques of husbandry which you may be sure Lien has conveyed to Bonaparte, their nation will shortly be able to field a military force of a thousand. Would you care to face that in five years, with the Corps at its present rate of growth?”
“Damn you, I am not in a mood to be lectured at with figures, as though I were in a boardroom in Whitehall,” Wellesley said. “Very well. Your beasts will have their keep, and above that, the same wages as any other man in service under the Navy Board—”
“A shilling a day will keep a seaman’s wife and children, and let him carouse on shore a little when he comes into port; it will not do as much for a dragon,” Laurence said.
“And we don’t want little coins we must keep track of, either, and cannot hold on to,” Minnow put in. “A proper mess that would be.”
Temeraire nodded. “No, and what we really want is to be able to go where we like. That is what I want promised, also: if we may go where we like, and do any work that is offered to us, then even should Government offer us unfair wages, we will work for someone else instead. And the same for harnessed dragons, too,” he added.
“Any work that is offered to you?” Wellesley said. “By all means. As for going where you like—”
He and Laurence wrangled a long time, in low voices, over sums and coverts, and how much ought to be paid to a heavy-weight, over a courier, and so on. Temeraire listened carefully, but he did not know all the places which Laurence named, where coverts ought to be, and also he was not quite certain about the money. His breastplate, he knew, was worth nearly ten thousand pounds, but shillings and pence were new. They were interrupted at last only by the arrival of a breathless courier from the main camp, to inform them that the last stragglers from the battlefield had been regrouped, and were ready to begin the march to the north.
“I have no more time for this,” Wellesley said. “Twenty coverts, on the Bath Road and the Great North Road, where they can go to sleep and be fed. As for pavilions, they can build the damned things themselves with their own shillings: set themselves up like admirals, if they like. And after this, they had damned well better keep in line.”
“Sir,” Laurence said, and made a bow: to Wellesley’s back; the general had already turned and walked away.
LAURENCE FOUND HIMSELF almost at once the center of a large and interested audience of dragons, all pressing in and jostling for room to hear him, as soon as he had begun to try and explain to Temeraire and Minnow the system of coinage.
“So ten pounds will buy a cow?” Minnow said intently, “and a pound and a shilling is a bit of gold?”
“If it is twenty shillings to a pound, and twenty-four shillings a day,” Temeraire said thoughtfully, “then that is nearly four hundred pounds a year for a heavy-weight—” performing calculations in his head, which produced a buzz of satisfaction among the other dragons.
“But where is it?” Iskierka demanded. “I did not come back to just hear numbers; what sort of treasure is that?”
Temeraire snapped at her a little. “It is reliable treasure,” he said. “Not all of us want to be always running around picking quarrels and making difficulties, like you, all to grab more and more: this is for everyone every day who does their duty, like proper soldiers, and it is fair.”
The other dragons were generally of his mind, if Iskierka continued to sulk, and agreed they were satisfied with their lot. But Laurence himself felt not a little disgusted, on having stooped to such back-room negotiations, at such a moment: maneuvering for personal interest, while Bonaparte marched into London and the French followed on their heels, felt more like treason to him than any of the acts for which he had been charged. “We must see to your dinners,” he said, more out of an urgent wish to put an end to the gloating noise. “The Army will march at first light, and we must be ready.”
In the morning, when the dragons had breakfasted and gone aloft, the first regiments were already out on the road, their pace sluggish enough that Requiescat remarked, near dinner-time, “Now, this is what I call a pleasant flight, no fussing or hurry.” Temeraire only sighed.
“We might go over to them and offer to carry them, at least a little way, as many as could climb aboard us?” he suggested to Laurence. “I am sure they could go faster.”
“Not without orders,” Laurence said; he could well imagine Wellesley’s reaction, or Dalrymple’s, if the dragons should begin to fly towards the ranks, and likely pan
ic some of the men and cavalry-beasts into running, after all the difficulty in forming them back into their regiments.
“It is only so dull: we might fly to to-night’s rendezvous and back again three times over, before they have got there,” Temeraire said, “and some of us more than that. What if Requiescat and a few of the others should stay pacing them, and we go ahead—or perhaps,” he added, ruff coming up with enthusiasm, “we might go back, and see if we cannot pay Napoleon back a little, for everything which he has done.” He peered back over his shoulder, to see how this was received.
“It is not your place even to propose such a thing, anymore,” Laurence said. “You have accepted a commission; you are obliged to preserve discipline, not to undermine it—” Hearing himself thus condemned from his own mouth, Laurence abruptly stopped; he did not know how to speak to Temeraire of duty anymore, without being a hypocrite.
“I suppose,” Temeraire said, regretfully. “It is not always so pleasant to be an officer. And I am sure Iskierka will complain, all night, and say more cutting things about going slowly, and running away, and not getting treasure.” He snorted, and looked, and then said doubtfully, “Where is Iskierka?”
She had been flying sullenly to their rear all the morning, amusing herself by occasional wild darts into the heavy low clouds above, where her flames made gold and crimson and purple flashes through the white and grey, like a sunset in mid-morning. But Laurence did not remember her doing it the last two hours and more. Arkady was gone also, with a handful of the other ferals, and when questioned, Wringe had a guilty twist to her neck, even while she professed surprise and confusion.
Temeraire did not miss it, either. “But how am I to make Wringe tell me where they have gone?” he asked Laurence, and batted her reaching talons away from a bleating sheep. He had brought them down in a broad meadow, the better to interrogate the remaining ferals, and the other dragons were driving the luckless resident herd in towards them all, so they should make a meal while they worked out what Iskierka and the others had done. “No, you may not eat, until you have told me: they have made a great deal of trouble for all of us.”
“I call that hard,” Requiescat said, mumbling around a sheep. “It ain’t as though we will not outstrip those redcoats anyhow, and nobody minds a snack, either.”
“You may find it less pleasant when we have had to fly thirty miles back to catch Iskierka up, and then sixty on to the rendezvous,” Laurence said grimly; and that the very best outcome they could hope for.
“Hum,” Requiescat said, licking his chops thoughtfully, “that’s so, but I don’t see as we have to go finding her at all. She and those fellows know where the rendezvous is as well as anyone, and they have some men and their compasses with them, if they should get themselves lost like hatchlings. We can just go on and let them catch us up.”
“They must know we would miss them, after they have been gone so long,” Temeraire said, “so I expect that they have got themselves into a fight, and are probably all dying somewhere full of French bullets.” He did not sound as though he would be very sorry to find as much the case.
Wringe squirmed as Temeraire pointedly translated this for her, but still said nothing. “Temeraire,” Laurence said, low, “it is not only foolishness on her part; this is a challenge to your authority.”
“Oh!” Temeraire said, and, having told Wringe as much, he added, “so now you will tell me, or else,” and when she continued mute, he drew a great expanding breath and roared out, over her head.
“Payom zhe reng!” Wringe said, flattening herself to the ground, and everyone jumped. A gentle pattering like rain came from the trees in the path of Temeraire’s roar, old acorns shaken loose into the dead leaves, and a few small birds dropping stone-dead. Gong Su promptly went in after them while Wringe muttered her confession: the miscreants had gone back towards London with a notion of taking some of Napoleon’s army by surprise, winning either treasure or accolades. There had been no very well-formed goal; they had gone looking for a fight as much as for any practical reward.
“We ought to go on and leave them to catch up,” Temeraire said, panting a little, still ruffled and angry, “just as Requiescat says, except then I dare say she will come back with two eagles or something like, and there will be no living with her at all.”
Laurence did not like to ill-wish aloud, but if Iskierka had so overridden Granby as to make herself a deserter, she was unlikely to be guided in any other respect of sense, and he thought Temeraire’s earlier expectation was the more likely to be met.
But Temeraire brightened after a moment and added, “Anyway, I do not suppose anyone can blame us for going after her, to fetch her back, Laurence? After all, she is very important; or so everyone says.”
The roads beneath them were empty as they flew back towards London, warily and quick. The haze of dust which the British soldiers raised had already settled, and no sign of French pursuit. No-one much was to be seen out of doors, except farmers and herdsmen at their husbandry: cattle and crops cared nothing for Napoleon or politics, and implacably demanded all the same attention. But even these few men kept their heads low, and hurried through their work as much as could be done; by late afternoon the countryside seemed nearly deserted, with the sun yearning impatiently to its rest.
“We ought to see her miles off, if she is showing away as she always does,” Temeraire was saying ungraciously, as they flew, and then he pricked up his ruff: a small speck in the distance, coming closer, had emerged from the clouds and begun to resolve itself into wings.
It was Gherni: a much-battered Gherni, panting with the speed of her flight, and her face mazed with a trickle of blood she ineffectually tried to rub off against her shoulder, now and again, only smearing it about into a brick-red film overlaid on her blue hide. Tharkay was with her, and he leapt down to Temeraire’s back from hers mid-flight, like a boarder, but tethered by a long double strap of thick leather. He unclipped it from his own waist as soon as he had landed and latched on to Temeraire’s harness; Gherni caught up the snapping-free loose end, which jangled loudly with small clapper bells, and wrapped it around her own forearm a few times.
“What is that?” Temeraire said, with interest, craning his head to see.
“I had it made in Istanbul, my last journey,” Tharkay said, and to Laurence said, “Iskierka has been taken.”
He led them to Arkady and the other deserters, huddled and licking their wounds in the shelter of a tall hill that shielded them from the road, casting an afternoon shadow long enough to conceal them from cursory observation from aloft. The red-patched feral roused when Temeraire came in to land, and mantled his wings defensively.
“That is enough, you shan’t bristle at me,” Temeraire said. “You knew very well you were behaving like a—” He paused, for consideration. “—like a scrub, or else you shouldn’t have sneaked, and if you have been served out as you deserved, it is no-one’s fault but your own. You had better to be sorry and promise not to do it again, than hiss.”
“They broke away a little before noon,” Tharkay told Laurence, as they squatted down and scraped clean a patch of dirt, for him to sketch out the action. “Well-managed: they had been going into the clouds all morning, and making a noise with their singing, so by the time we realized they had turned us around you were all far out of ear-shot. Granby’s gunners shot off a few flares, but it was a hopeless effort.
“From there our luck was as evil as it might have been: two hours flying towards London without any challenge, so we were on Bonaparte’s doorstep by the time we came on any other beasts; and then it was Davout’s advance guard out gathering cattle: two Grand Chevaliers and another half-a-dozen heavy-weights. Of course all of them went directly for her; I think I saw sixty men jump for her back at once. Arkady grew remarkably less deaf to me, after that, and we managed to get away; but the French already had Granby trussed like a chicken on one of the Chevaliers and were racing him away as fast as they could go, with Iskierka
flinging herself madly after them.”
“I knew I ought never have let her have Granby,” Temeraire said stormily. “Now look how she has lost him, and not even in a real battle. We ought to get him back and leave her to them, and good riddance.”
Laurence exchanged a glance with Tharkay: it was by no means good riddance to lose their one fire-breather to the French, no matter how recalcitrant. “Did you see where they went?” Laurence asked, low.
“Straight for London,” Tharkay said.
Chapter 10
I AM AN OFFICER NOW, though,” Temeraire said, “so I do not see why I must wait.”
“You might be a general, and it will not make you any smaller,” Laurence said. “A twenty-ton dragon must give over trying to sneak, and that is our only hope at all of getting Granby out.”
“But what if you should be captured,” Temeraire said, “and then I would be just as bad as Iskierka: it is my duty to keep you safe.”
They had fought very nearly this same battle before, however, in Istanbul, and his protests were rather an expression of unhappiness than fresh and determined objections. “We have not time to quarrel; Granby’s very life if not his liberty may depend on quick action,” Laurence said gently, and Temeraire sank to his belly with his ruff pinned back, threshing the matted straw of the meadow uneasily with his claws and raking up dust and furrowed earth with it.
Laurence was grateful for the established habit of the conversation, if a little guilty, for it allowed him to practice a degree of deceit: he knew under ordinary circumstances, he would not in this same situation go, however much he might wish to. If he were captured, Temeraire would be prisoner, and in their already dire straits the risk could not be run, not for so slim a chance as they faced to bring out Granby and Iskierka.
The circumstances were not ordinary. Laurence was a man already dead in law. He could not value preserving his own life very high; and so long as he were killed instead of captured in the attempt, which he had some right to hope might be arranged, Temeraire would not be lost to Britain: he had made the agreement with Wellesley, and now was bound directly, not only through Laurence himself.
