Crucible of Gold

by Naomi Novik

Page 31

 

  “Some display would be most suitable,” Hammond began, and was silenced only by Temeraire’s coldest look and his flat refusal to allow any such mutilation to be considered.

  “Have done; you have made enough of a guy of me,” Granby himself said, with impatience. “You are as bad as her,” meaning Iskierka, who was meanwhile prancing about looking unbearably self-satisfied, and making eyes at Maila every minute of the day: Temeraire would have thought not even for gold would Iskierka have handed Granby over to someone else, to marry; and Granby did not even want to marry the Sapa Inca.

  “You might at least wait for nicer weather,” Temeraire suggested, as a last resort; but not even Granby agreed on that point.

  “Let us get the meeting over with; and I hope to God she thinks better of it,” he said, and two days later at morning their party was assembled in the Cusipata courtyard: the twenty aviators all in their fresh coats of green and their white trousers scrubbed and lemon-bleached and mended; Hammond in his handsome brown coat which did not show the stains of travel, and his sash of ambassadorship; Mrs. Pemberton in her black dress; and Granby undeniably splendid in the red cloak. Temeraire had not even the consolation of seeing Laurence in his finery: the robes remained in their box, and Laurence wore only one of the new coats and patched boots.

  “I cannot outshine Granby on such an occasion,” Laurence had said; and Temeraire supposed it were just as well: if Anahuarque were to take it into her head to want Laurence instead, that would have been quite dreadful. Of course, Laurence would have made a splendid Emperor, but Temeraire was not Iskierka, to all but sell Laurence into marriage in such a manner, only to advance his rank.

  “And wealth,” Iskierka said, “for Granby will own all of this, you know,” under her breath, indicating with the avaricious sweep of her gaze all the great hall of the Empress. For the occasion the walls had been specially burnished and all the silver polished bright, and great lanterns had been hung even though it was still daylight, only to make the metal and the gemstones shine all the more brightly.

  The Inca herself wore a gown of surpassing magnificence, which Temeraire could not deny might even rival Laurence’s robes for elegance and splendor: it was woven of yellow and red and even threads spun out of gold, so that it sparkled in the light, and on this occasion she wore a crown of gold and silver, with the gorgeous plumes clasped within it at the top.

  “That was my notion,” Iskierka whispered to Temeraire, who heard her out unwillingly, “they had no crowns here, but I told Maila that the monarchs of Europe all wear them, and he was in perfect agreement with me that it was an excellent design; so he has had one made for the Inca; and Granby shall have one, too, when they are married: and they are going to have thrones, also, only those take longer to be made. ”

  “They are not married yet; nothing has been settled,” Temeraire said to her, coldly; but it was a poor rejoinder, and she justly ignored it: the Sapa Inca did look at Granby with an acquisitive eye, while her courtiers looked at him sullenly, and Maila simpered at Iskierka and ruffled his feathers up along his shoulders and made a general spectacle of himself.

  “I will be sure to tell her, Captain Granby,” Hammond said in a low voice, as they approached, “that you have no interest in governance—that you would not seek to interfere—?”

  “Yes,” Granby said wearily, “you may tell her I will be a proper lap-dog, and let her have her own way in everything, and not do anything but sit next to her and nod when she pokes me; and you may as well remind her if I ever do care to do otherwise, I still shan’t be able to, as I don’t know ten words of the language yet and likely won’t put a sentence together for a year to come. ”

  “Captain Granby begs Your Majesty’s pardon,” Hammond said, “that his lack of skill in the language bars him expressing his gratitude for the honor which you have done him, by this invitation; and wishes me to convey to Your Majesty—”

  He went on in this perfectly untruthful vein, with which Anahuarque seemed quite well-satisfied; Temeraire looked away to watch instead the traffic of dragons coming and going among the great stepped terraces and high roofs of the city, laid out before their present vantage point, which if less remarkable was at least less dreadful than the debacle in progress before him; and for interest there were three dragons coming in from the south, two rigged out with elaborate streaming banners of great size.

  Then Temeraire sat up sharply: the banners were the tricolor, and the dragon in the center was white: “Laurence!” he said, interrupting Hammond, “Laurence, Lien is coming; and those are Flammes-de-Gloire beside her. ”

  Chapter 13

  IT WAS NOT HIS FAULT, of course, but Temeraire conceded that his announcement had disrupted the ceremony beyond repair: the dragons of the Incan court were all sitting up and watching the oncoming dragons warily, paying Hammond’s attempts to resume his speechmaking no attention, and Maila had reared up on his hind legs and put a foreleg on the Inca’s podium as though he meant to snatch her up and go at once.

  Temeraire could see Genevieve go up from the hall where the French were quartered, with Piccolo and Ardenteuse on her heels, to join the approaching party: and then all six dragons circled together overhead and descended one after another into the royal court, Piccolo unsubtly crowding against Kulingile’s shoulder to make room for Lien to come down.

  She was looking splendidly, Temeraire could not help but reluctantly acknowledge: besides the immense diamond upon her breast, which caught the light of the lamps, she wore also a sort of gauntlet upon each foreleg—talon-sheaths tipped in rubies, joined by delicate lacy chains of silver to broad cuffs set with diamonds, which were in turn joined to another set of cuffs above her elbow-joint set with sapphires, so that she wore the colors of the tricolor herself. She wore no other harness, and carried but one rider—

  The French dragons all bowed their heads low, and the men aboard their backs removed their hats; De Guignes slid from Genevieve’s back and knelt, as Napoleon dismounted from Lien’s back, stepping easily down onto her proffered foreleg, which she then lowered to the ground.

  He took De Guignes by the shoulders and raised him up, kissed him on either cheek, and said in French, “Best of emissaries! You must not be offended that I have come myself, any more than are my Marshals when I come to take the field; some battles a man must win himself. This is the Empress?” And when De Guignes confirmed it, Napoleon said, “Then tell her, my friend, that I myself have come! And hazarded my own person, to show her the honor which I and France mean to do her, if she will come and grace our throne. ”

  If the Inca’s dragons were inclined to resent the intrusion of the French party into the ceremony, and Napoleon’s disregard of their protocol, his very temerity seemed to carry fortune with it: De Guignes was heard out, and the ruffled dragons gradually subsided on hearing Napoleon identified and his flamboyant message translated. Certainly there was enough courage to impress in the act of delivering himself into the power of a foreign sovereign; although Laurence noted that the two Flammes-de-Gloire bore each of them more than a usual complement of riflemen, all wary-eyed and with their guns ready to their hands.

  A murmuring ran among the Incan dragons; even Maila looked uncertain, and abruptly Anahuarque raised a hand, and her court fell silent. “Tell the Emperor we welcome him to our court,” she said. “Such a great journey must have left him fatigued: you shall go and rest, and we will dine all together this evening, to celebrate the opening friendship among all our nations. ”

  Hammond translated this excessively optimistic speech for Laurence’s benefit, as the Sapa Inca turning spoke low to Maila, with a hand upon his muzzle. She then stepped into the dragon’s grasp; with one final look at Iskierka, he went aloft and carried her from the hall, while the other dragons swept away the rest of her retinue in similar fashion, and left the courtyard to their foreign guests.

  Napoleon did not immediately depart himself, either: he turne
d smiling to the Frenchwomen who had been serving as De Guignes’s deputies, and kissed their hands; and not content with stopping there came towards them, exclaiming, “Captain Laurence! I hope I find you in the best of health. ” He greeted Hammond and Granby on De Guignes’s introduction with a similar warmth, which disregarded all the just cause any Briton had to resent both his general overarching ambition, and most egregiously his late invasion of England, which had been only just thrown off two years before at the dreadful cost of Admiral Nelson’s life and the loss of fourteen ships-of-the-line, and twenty thousand men or more.

  Laurence answered his inquiries with all the reserve which he could muster; Napoleon disregarded the latter, and pursued the former with unexpected intensity: before the onslaught of questioning Laurence found that he was saying more than he meant, about the peculiarities of the interior of Australia, and the sea-serpent trade established with China; at the description of which Lien might be seen to flatten her ruff back against her neck disapprovingly.

  “I expect she does not think China ought to engage in commerce with foreign nations,” Temeraire said when they had returned to their own quarters, “just as she thinks Celestials ought not engage in battle. ”

  Hammond had managed to extricate them from the Emperor’s company with excuses barely short of outright rudeness; and when he had been set down fell to anxious pacing in their hall, muttering to himself, and packing coca leaves into his teapot. “Pray have a care not to disarrange your appearance,” he added, raising his head. “We cannot be sure when we will be summoned to dinner, and we must be ready; they are certain to have plans—offers to make—oh! The wretched timing of it all. Has Maila come to see Iskierka?”

  “We have scarce been back here in the hall five minutes, so no, he hasn’t. And it is a sorry state of affairs,” Granby said to Laurence, dropping himself to the floor with a sigh, and no care for the beautiful red cloak which crumpled beneath him, “when I must cheer Napoleon on, and hope that he outdoes us all: but my God, I think I have never been so happy in my life as when he landed. ”

  Temeraire could not be pleased to see Napoleon, and still less Lien, but that did not mean feeling the least unhappiness at the oversetting of the ceremony. He felt Iskierka had deserved any amount of discomfiture. He flattened back his ruff as Maila came winging down to the courtyard to see her, and threw a scornful look her way. “I hope,” he said loudly, “that no self-respecting dragon would abase themselves, by pleading with the representative of a foreign nation, only from disappointment. ”

  “Oh!” said Iskierka, “I do not plead, with anyone,” and Temeraire had to do her justice: she received Maila very coolly, and only grew more so when he began to sidle around talking of Napoleon’s dramatic arrival, and how it must alter their immediate plans—how the Flammes-de-Gloire had been demonstrating the range of their own fire-breath, that afternoon—how Lien was a most unusual beast, and clearly blessed by the gods because of her remarkable coloration—

  “You might try your luck with her,” Temeraire said, not even bothering to pretend that he was not listening in, “perhaps she will have eggs for you; but I should not expect it, myself. ”

  Maila huffed out his neck-collar feathers and said, “Lien has explained she is not able to have eggs, with a dragon so distant from her own ancestry—that Celestial dragons cannot be crossed with other kinds. She does not wish to waste our time, or else she would be honored; that is why she has brought the fire-breathers, who are two dragons of her honor-guard. They will remain here, if we wish it, to form closer ties between our people. ”

  While Temeraire reeled back into silence, appalled, Iskierka snorted. “If you think a couple of ratty French beasts are as good as me,” she said, “only because they can breathe a little fire, then you are welcome to their company: I have better things to do with my time than to make a push for anyone, much less anyone so undiscriminating. ”

  “I do not!” Maila protested. “I do not think them your equal, at all: that is why I am here. I am only warning you. You must come and speak to Anahuarque; you must persuade her—she must marry Granby, and send this foreign Emperor away, not marry him and go across the ocean. ”

  “If you ask me,” Temeraire said, his tail lashing violently—he had been deeply agitated since Maila’s visit, and Laurence had not yet had any opportunity to pursue the cause—“he is not interested in you and your eggs, after all; he wants only to keep the Empress locked up safe here in the mountains, and not let to do anything: and I am sure he will want to do the same with Granby, too. ”

  “He is, too, interested in my eggs,” Iskierka said, flaring, while Hammond urged their immediate attendance on the Inca: Maila was prepared to arrange a private audience at once, informally, for them to plead their cause.

  “There can be not a moment to lose—the dinner this evening may decide everything, and in any case De Guignes may already be making them proposals by some other channel,” Hammond said, very nearly trying to drag Granby out the door, or push him, all while straightening his cloak and ignoring Granby’s half-attempts to thrust him away. “We must go, at once, at once. ”

  The conversation was thoroughly one-sided. Granby retired to the background with relief, after the first presentation, while Hammond flung himself into the breach wholeheartedly. But Anahuarque only listened impassive while Hammond tried one avenue and then another. He hinted at the dangers of the ocean crossing—spoke of the revolution in France, and the execution of the King and Queen—listed all the many nations which had lined up to oppose Napoleon’s ambition, never acknowledging that of these, Spain had all but fallen, Prussia had been defeated, Austria had accepted truce, Russia only watched from afar—