Tongues of Serpents t-6

by Naomi Novik

  This conversation, which had been carried out in a combination of coaxing whispers and covert pantomime—to evade Laurence’s attention, as he had made quite clear his opinion of such behavior—went forward for some ten minutes, with the woman’s attitude passing from initially a half-flirtatious fascination to withdrawal, as Maynard tried to put his hand upon her arm and draw her out.

  Temeraire had just been wondering if he ought perhaps say something to Laurence, even though the young women were Tharunka’s and not his; but Binmuck had silently risen up, taken one of the logs from the fire, and coming over to Maynard clouted him solidly across the back, with so much force that he was knocked flat to the ground on his face, the rum spilling beneath him. He sprang up red-faced and wet, which Temeraire felt served him right; the women all laughed with great enjoyment, pointing at the spreading dark stain upon his shirt—they none of them wore much in the way of clothing—and Maynard slunk hurriedly away in the face of Binmuck’s unsmiling and censorious expression, and her substantial cudgel.

  Now she listened thoughtfully to Tharunka’s translation of their question, then answered at length: “This one was particularly good,” Tharunka said, “but Binmuck says that they have been bringing more and more, as they get more of the serpents trained: the Chinese don’t like to put goods on any one of them until it has swum the route back and forth three times without, you see, because it is such a long way; sometimes a new serpent will change its mind and just go another way, and then all your goods are lost. They come once a month,” she added, “because there are two schools now trained to come here and return to Guangzhou; when one leaves here, another leaves there, and they go in opposite directions.”

  “And they may add more, I expect,” Laurence said grimly, “and with no great delay,” which Temeraire supposed was true; after all, if all one wanted was fish, and one did not mind where one swam, why ought they not swim here where they should be given so many: the Larrakia had been feeding them all day, whenever they swam up to the bell.

  “They won’t like it above half in Whitehall, I suppose,” Granby said. “How soon do you think they will hear of it? It can’t be long.”

  “No,” Laurence said. “These gentlemen,” indicating the ships yet riding at anchor, “are adventurers, following nothing much better than a rumor in hopes of finding a profitable run; but each one of them will make that rumor into news, wherever they put into port, and I cannot imagine no British captain has yet heard those same stories: we have any number of Indiamen running all over these waters, and going on to China as well.”

  Temeraire did not see how it should be anything to the British, even so; but Laurence and Granby and Tharkay all seemed not even to doubt that it should be provoking in the extreme, and that there was only a question when an angry answer should come about it.

  “The absence of those tariffs which drive up the price of Chinese goods must wreck the trade in and out of Canton, as soon as it reaches a sufficient quantity,” Laurence said, “as also must the lower risk: a serpent cannot be sunk, and if they will from time to time wander afield, or lose a container, each single one is not on the scale of a full merchantman.

  “But that must now be scarcely the worst of the situation,” Laurence added. “This is no smugglers’ cove; this is a port city and a growing one, under the auspices of a nation which if it is not our enemy, is not our ally; a port here upon the very rim of the Indian Ocean must represent a very real strategic threat to the security of our shipping and to British mastery of the seas.”

  Temeraire privately felt that it seemed a little unreasonable for a country as small as Britain to want to rule an ocean halfway around the world, and to complain if China, which was much larger and nearer anyway, wished to only have some sea-serpents coming by, with splendid things which people wanted to buy. “I am sure they would not mind if British merchants should come also,” Temeraire suggested.

  “They have never objected to taking our silver before,” Laurence said, “but that will only lead to the same complications as before which our government have already been protesting, and the deficit between our nations will only be increased by a greater flow of goods: they are not likely to take finished goods, or anything else which it profits Britain to trade.”

  “Except opium,” Tharkay said, a little sardonic, “which manages its own popularity. The public inspection of the goods might offer some difficulties, but I think one must have faith in the ingenuity of man.”

  Laurence was silent; he did not approve of opium, although it was so very useful for managing cattle and sheep when one wished to carry them along and eat better than whatever one could hunt; Temeraire was rather sorry they had not had some of it with them upon their journey, as they might have taken along some of the cows, from their valley.

  “Even that trade is not likely to be sufficient consolation in Whitehall,” Laurence said finally, “for the establishment of a port which, at the discretion of the Emperor, might give safe harbor to the French to prey upon our shipping, or at his will lock out British traders and none others from the profits of the trade, whatever those may be.”

  Rankin was particularly insistent, but Granby and even Laurence were also firm in agreeing they must return to Sydney at once with the intelligence they had acquired; although Temeraire did point out that if as they assumed, Government would shortly learn of the port without their doing anything, the news would no longer be news by the time they had brought it. Nevertheless, it was their duty, it seemed; and so Temeraire sighed, and supervised Roland and Sipho in packing up the robes along with his other treasures. He felt wistfully how long it would be, before they might once again enjoy such hospitality, and such comfort.

  Of course, he did not say so; that was he felt a very poor-spirited reason for not wishing to go, if duty were involved. Only, it was a little hard to know there would be so long a journey, through the uncomfortable desert, hungry and too-hot all the long way—and the hunger would be all the more difficult to manage this way, now that Kulingile was eating more and more—and nothing at the end to hope for but the very awkwardness which had caused them to leave in the first place.

  “By now some answer must have been received from Government,” Laurence said.

  “But what if they have sent to put Bligh back in?” Temeraire said. “That would not suit us at all, and I am sure he would be unpleasant about it.”

  “If they have,” Laurence said, “we must endure him early or late,” which Temeraire thought an excellent argument for late.

  But he consoled himself with the prospect of visitors: Shen Li might come, and Tharunka had already promised she should do so as well, one day. “And even if we don’t wish to go so far very often, it is a cheering thought,” she said, “that we can go visiting, if we only can manage the trouble of finding food and water. My people tell me you have been lucky, and it has been a very wet year; ordinarily it is not nearly so green, and the water-holes nearly all run dry by this time of the year.”

  Temeraire sighed to hear it; while he would be happy to see Shen Li, too, who could more easily make the journey, one could not look for much in the way of conversation from her.

  She returned to the port one last time shortly before they were to depart, and there was something of a stir, for when she landed outside the pavilion, she said, without even having folded her wings, “Jia Zhen, pray ask everyone together at once; I have a letter from the Emperor, for Lao-ren-tze,” so of course everyone had to put down whatever they were doing, and assemble in the courtyard, which a brief discussion established as the most appropriate place, and kowtow to the letter.

  “To the letter?” Laurence said, in dismay, when Temeraire explained.

  “It has the Imperial seal,” Temeraire said, “so it is as though the Emperor himself is here in part, or at least, I gather that is the notion. Perhaps you would wish to put on your robes again, for the occasion?”

  “No, I thank you,” Laurence said. “If I am going to be b
owing and scraping to a letter, at least I may do it without fearing to trip and fall by accident.”

  “My captain says he would not do it for anything,” Caesar observed, and Temeraire snorted.

  “Of course not; there is no reason whatsoever why the Emperor should ever be writing to your captain,” Temeraire returned smartly, “who is of no particular account.”

  With this splendid rejoinder he went with Laurence to the ceremony, and afterwards the letter with its magnificent red seal was handed to Laurence, who broke it and looked without comprehension: Temeraire was sorry to admit it, but Laurence had not mastered an adequate number of characters to read very much of anything; and the letter was too small for he himself to quite make it out very well.

  “Sipho may read it, however,” Temeraire said, “and inquire of me if he cannot make anything in particular out, by drawing it large.”

  It was not a very long letter, but full of great kindness: the Emperor sent wishes for the health of Laurence’s family, and inquired if Laurence had yet married—Sipho paused and added, “and he says if not, there is a young noblewoman of the fourth banner come of age who has not yet been married, which would be very suitable,” which made Temeraire put back his ruff, and Laurence said, “What?”

  “I would of course not quarrel with the Emperor,” Temeraire said, “but it does not seem to me that Laurence must marry anyone if he does not like to. Pray what else does it say?”

  “We have learned that you were responsible for widely conveying the remedy for—coughing fever, I think it says,” Sipho said, reading on, “when certain unenlightened and disordered individuals within the government of the nation of England would have guarded this blessing for themselves, at the cost of many lives. We commend your behavior: as all know, loyalty to the state is founded upon filial loyalty, and upon the proper observance of the will of Heaven: faced with a difficult situation you have acted in accordance with right principles, and we are pleased.”

  Laurence did not seem quite so flattered as Temeraire thought he might have been; certainly the young official who had been appointed to guard the letter and carry it upon its golden tray looked deeply impressed by this mark of favor, reading the letter upside-down even as Sipho worked through it. “Any praise and reward for the act are rightly yours,” Laurence said, “and in any case I cannot take any satisfaction in being thanked by anyone whose feelings did not enter into my consideration at all, whether that should be Bonaparte or the Emperor of China. Does he say anything else?”

  “Only that he hopes you will call upon Jia Zhen for anything which you might require,” Sipho said, and Laurence paused and said, “Do you mean to tell me this letter has come from him direct?—he knew that we were here, in this outpost?”

  Temeraire looked at Shen Li; she said, “Having delivered the news of your arrival, I awaited the reply and then came, so there should be no unwonted delay: this answer came to Guangzhou in two days by Jade Dragon, and so did your letter.”

  For Temeraire had also a reply to his own letter, written much larger upon a scroll of parchment, from Lung Tien Qian, his mother, and she wrote to hope that he was well.

  It is a great comfort to me that you are so much nearer: although the distance is very great still, at least one need not endure such inconveniently long delays for correspondence. Your letter of last August had only just reached me, which cannot be considered satisfactory. I am all the more happy to hear of your safe arrival in this part of the world, as I have suffered great consternation upon hearing of the recent upheaval in the country of England, from your friend Mr. Hammond.

  I am charmed by the description of your valley, and await with pleasure a view of the landscape. Will you be settled here a long time? You would make me very happy to hear that it is so. I have enclosed a copy of the Songs of Chu, also, which you may enjoy if your studies have advanced.

  “And you may read it with me as well, Sipho,” Temeraire said, very pleased. “How kind my mother is! Perhaps we will save the poems and read them out only one a day, as we make our way back, and that will make the journey go more quickly.”

  Laurence seemed silent and rather thunderstruck by the letters’ having come so quickly; although Temeraire thought that it was more peculiar and embarrassing that they should take quite so long to come from England.

  “They might at least bring letters by courier to somewhere that does not need so much flying across the open ocean—perhaps from Macassar, where those fishermen were from,” Temeraire said, “and then they might row it across, and Shen Li bring them to us in Sydney; that would not be quite so fast, but it would not take eight months! What good is a letter eight months late, when everything must be changed? One might as well write stories that were quite made up—one might say, oh, I have just received a bag of lovely pearls, and if ever a reply came asking to see, one might say, why that was a year ago: they are all gone, now.”

  Laurence began to write a letter himself, to Arthur Hammond, the envoy in Peking; Temeraire did not remember him very fondly, as it had been very clear that Hammond would have been perfectly delighted to trade him away for any advantage he might get in the way of ports, or of shipping, and Temeraire had felt this was not merely a great misjudgment of his value to England, but also more than a little rude.

  But in the end, Hammond had proven very useful, and had worked out the very many confusing details of the adoption, and Temeraire had grown quite reconciled to him; so he was telling Laurence to send Hammond his best wishes, when Mr. Chukwah came into the pavilion, in search of Jia Zhen.

  “I am sorry to run out before dinner, more for myself than for you, to tell the truth,” he said, “but I had better: a frigate has just heaved up over the horizon, and she isn’t flying any colors, but I think I know British handling when I see it; and I don’t care to have half my best men pressed. No offense to you, sir,” he added, giving Laurence a small bow, “but the Navy has been getting a little unreasonable about it: we objected in ’seventy-six, and we’ll object again if we have to.”

  “Why,” Temeraire said to Laurence, “surely that means we do not have to hurry away at all; now they must know for certain.”

  “Yes,” Laurence said, grimly. “Now they know.”

  Chapter 16

  THE FRIGATE MIGHT BE SEEN from shore before dusk fell, and a little after a sloop-of-war, sailing in company. “That is the Nereide, I think,” Laurence said, looking through his glass for what he could glimpse of the bow. “She was sent with the expeditionary force to Île de France, by my last Gazette; under Corbet.” He did not share what he had heard of that officer: a hard-knocks captain, court-martialed for brutality; anything might have changed in half-a-year, and rumor might be mistaken.

  “I suppose—” Granby said, reluctantly.

  “Caesar is the only one who can go,” Laurence said. “Neither Iskierka nor Temeraire could land upon the ship; and I have no confidence they would listen to Demane—or for that matter to me; the captain can scarcely have failed to hear of my case.”

  “I don’t know I wouldn’t rather wait until he was close enough to row out to,” Granby muttered, but there was no help for it; they could not with any conscience at all allow a British company to approach without speaking them, so Rankin must go with them; in any case, he was scarcely waiting for their opinion on the matter, and had already gone to dress. Caesar was arranged upon the shore waiting, preening with self-importance.

  “Well, we are glad enough to find you,” Willoughby said—Nesbit Willoughby, captain of the Nereide, having supplanted Corbet in that position after, he said, the successful taking of Réunion, which had been undertaken, under Commodore Rowley, to secure a port in place of the lost Capetown; but Laurence could not take any great comfort in the substitution: Willoughby had himself been charged with cruelty before a court-martial, in his previous command, and the ship did not have a happy air; there was a lowering stiffness everywhere, and Caesar was looked upon with a wariness more intimate than mer
e reflexive anxiety: these were men who feared punishment, and feared it might grow worse.

  “Not,” Willoughby continued, “that I imagine we will have any great difficulty. I wonder at them, indeed: planting themselves here cool as you please, not a single possession nearer than four thousand miles and only that one floundering mess of a junk to defend it; other than the dragons, of course, and I am relieved to hear they have only the one they stole. I believe we cannot expect to recapture her?” he inquired.

  “Sadly,” Rankin said, “I am afraid the beast has been too thoroughly suborned to permit us to entertain any such hope: several of my officers,” some effrontery in that, which Laurence controlled himself from remarking upon, “have attempted to entice her back, but she has rejected wholly all the lures: her egg was in their possession too long.”

  Willoughby nodded. “Well, it is a shame,” he said, “but at least we cannot be too worried about her, new-hatched and untrained. I suppose they will strike their colors at once when we have made clear the situation, in any case.”

  “And what is that situation?” Laurence said, a little sharply, and Willoughby looked at him with disfavor.

  “I do not much care for your presence at this conference in any case, Mr. Laurence,” he said, “and I will thank you to keep silent. I do not propose to answer to the inquisition of a convicted traitor.”

  “Captain Willoughby,” Laurence said, too impatient to tolerate this, “I must beg you to imagine my own interest in either your feelings or your opinion of myself, when I have allowed no similar consideration for those who had greater claims by far to alter my course; and if you dislike my company, you may be shot of it all the sooner if you will not stand upon some notion of preserving ceremony, in circumstances so wholly irregular and unexpected: unless you imagine that a twenty-ton Celestial will have any more patience for it than do I.”