Victory of Eagles t-5

by Naomi Novik

  They would be in Nottinghamshire before nightfall, and Wollaton Hall had a herd of four hundred or more. “I can send you elsewhere,” Jane said, but Laurence shook his head. He little wished to be at home in the present circumstances: a condemned traitor, with the worst sort of news, bringing twenty hungry dragons to tear up the estate. But it could not be helped; worse if he took himself to some other house nearby, without paying his formal respects, and let some other group of dragons use the grounds; that would be cowardice, and shirking. If Lord Allendale chose to forbid him the house when he came, that was his father’s privilege; his own duty was to endure the rebuke he had earned.

  They landed at last a few hours later, the dragons setting down their burdens with deep and grateful sighs; it was no joke even for a heavy-weight to carry two sixteen-pounders, over a distance of thirty miles, and Maximus and Requiescat had been loaded down with four apiece. Temeraire sighed and stretched himself out upon the cool ground like a long black snake.

  Laurence slid down from Temeraire’s back, weary and sore himself with the long hours sitting dragon-back. “Will you speak to them up at the house?” Jane asked him, “or will I send Frette?”

  “No; I will go,” Laurence said, and touching his hat turned away.

  “Pray give my best regards to your mother,” Temeraire said, rousing a little, when Laurence rubbed his muzzle in farewell.

  He walked slowly and with reluctance to the house, the windows mostly dark, and only a few link lights burning, near the door. There were a couple of footmen outside gripping muskets, nervously. “It is all right, Jones,” Laurence said, when he came close enough to recognize their faces. “It is only me; is Lord Allendale at home?”

  “Oh—yes, sir, but,” Jones said, looking at him wide-eyed, and then the door opened. For a moment Laurence thought it was his father; but it was his eldest brother George, in slippers and dressing-gown over his nightshirt, and a valet getting a coat on over his shoulders.

  “For Heaven’s sake, Will,” George said, coming down the stairs: he was Laurence’s senior by six years, and nearly as much time had gone by since Laurence had last seen him; he had grown stouter, but the tone of exasperation was unchanged. “That will be all,” he added abruptly to the footmen, “you may go back inside.” He said nothing more, until the door had shut behind them, and then turning back to Laurence hissed, “What in God’s name are you doing here? And coming to the front door—you might have a little discretion, at least. Have you—are you—hungry, do you need—”

  He floundered, and Laurence flushed in sudden understanding, and bit out, “I have not fled gaol and come to the door to beg; I am paroled, to fight the invasion.”

  “Paroled?” George said. “Paroled, for the invasion, and here you are in the middle of Nottinghamshire! Whoever is likely to believe such a story, I ask you.”

  “Good God, I am not lying to you,” Laurence said impatiently. “I am not going to explain this twice over; will my father see me?”

  “No; I shan’t so much as tell him you are here,” George said. “He is sick, Will: three stone down since August, and the doctors have said he must keep quiet, do you understand, perfectly quiet, if we want him to see another year. He cannot even oversee the estate manager anymore; why do you think I am here? and no wonder, with the worry he has had. If you need money, or someplace to sleep—”

  “I am not here for myself,” Laurence broke in on him at last, feeling stiff and strange; the idea of his father ill, reduced, seemed unreal. “I am here with the Corps; we must requisition the deer, to feed the dragons. There are nine at present,” he added, “and will be more before morning; I did not want you to be alarmed.”

  “Nine—” George looked towards the deer park, and saw the lights, the shadows of many dragons moving. “Then, you are not lying,” he said slowly. “What has happened?”

  The news could hardly be concealed. “Trounced us, outside London,” Laurence said. “The army is strung out from Weedon to here, and he took ten thousand prisoner. We are falling back on Scotland.”

  “My God,” George said, and they stood together in silence a moment. “Are you staying by the wood?” When Laurence had nodded, George said, “Well—you may take whatever you need of the deer, of course; it is the King’s right. There are the stables, and the farmhouse—I will send food down to you all from the kitchens, and your commander, we can give him a bed—” It was all a long string of delaying tactics, and at last he came to it and finished, awkwardly, “I am still not going to have you in, Will; I am sorry.”

  “No,” Laurence said. “No, of course.” He might have insisted, for himself or his fellows: it was their right as officers to be quartered, when there was room in the house. But he could not bear to do so. Jane might, if she chose; he could not, himself, force his way in.

  “Will you tell me—will he come through here?” George asked him, low. “Ought I send Elizabeth and Mother and the children away, to Northumbria perhaps—”

  “I imagine he will send men to take cattle, for his beasts,” Laurence said, “but if he marches, he will march up the coast; he cannot leave our outposts behind his flank.” He drew his hand across his forehead, tiredly. “I am sorry, I cannot be sure of the counsel I am giving you, but I think there is no place much safer than here, unless you send them to Liverpool and by ship to Halifax.”

  George nodded again, and turned and went up the stairs. He hesitated at the door, as if he would have spoken again; but in the end he said nothing. He went back inside, and the door shut behind him.

  Laurence walked back alone from the house, his feet sure on the familiar lanes despite the dark; no insect sounds or any noise but the sighing of wind, occasionally, shaking the few dried leaves like rattles, drifting the smell of the dragons near, and of smoke. The ground crews of the harnessed dragons were making a little camp, not comfortless; fire at least was easy enough to come by when Granby only needed ask Iskierka for a little. The other captains were standing by it, warming their hands and talking in low voices, tracing the course they should take in the morning.

  Some of the dragons were still arriving, who had guarded the rear of the retreat, and others already deep into their dinners, the lean bodies of deer stretched out limp upon the ground. Iskierka was doing the hunting, to the satisfaction of all except the smaller creatures of the forest, who fled out into the open with the panicked deer when she belched a roaring tongue of flame over the timber: mice and rabbits and sparrows, and a few poachers from the village fleeing with their snares.

  “We will head onwards to Scotland, to Loch Laggan,” Jane was saying, “and wait there for the army to regroup. It will be a precious slow trip for them, but Wellington will pick up twenty thousand men at Weedon Bec guns, and another twenty in Manchester.”

  “But can we keep the beasts fed along the way, and while we wait?” another woman’s voice asked from above, as another Longwing settled. “Mort, be a love and set me down.”

  Laurence had never met Captain St. Germain before; she had long been assigned to Gibraltar. Mortiferus put her down beside the fire: a woman very tall and fat with delicate features, a mop of fair hair curling in wisps and pale-lashed blue eyes; in complete effect rather like a Rubens painting. She could have made two of Jane, who was not slender, and likely would have tipped the scales over Berkley.

  “The countrymen will find venison thin on the ground for a few winters, but we will manage somehow,” Jane said. She looked around, at a small shriek; the servants from the house with their lanterns and the baskets of food had come down the lane, and one of the maids had stopped and fainted, on seeing the dragons. “Why, I call that handsome, Laurence; I hope you have given them our thanks,” she said, and waved her men forward to go take the food off their hands.

  Laurence felt rather he might blush for the lack of hospitality, that left them out in the cold with the great house standing there on the hill, so many windows staring out empty with no-one behind them. But he was evidently
the only one so conscious: the other aviators walked up the hill with expressions of pleased surprise, to meet the baskets coming, full of cold meat and bread, fresh-boiled eggs, and many pots of hot tea. One servant did come down the hill with them, carrying an enormous steaming platter that smelled pungently of Oriental spices, and even before he had stepped into the firelight, and Laurence saw his face, Temeraire had already raised his head and said joyfully, “Gong Su, you are here.”

  The cook came forward and bowed repeatedly, to Temeraire and then as afterthought to Laurence, beaming as he set the platter down to be attacked by the aviators. “I am glad to find you well; but how came you here?” Laurence asked.

  “Lady Allendale’s generosity,” Gong Su said, and turned to Temeraire, explaining in Chinese that Lady Allendale had written the Corps, and obtained the names of all Laurence’s followers, to see them taken care of by one means or another; she had given Gong Su a place. “And he says that he will come with us again,” Temeraire added with satisfaction, to the end of this translation, “so we may have properly cooked food, and if we will stop eating the deer now, he will soon have them stewed for us, with some grain.” At this announcement, several of the dragons unenthusiastically drew their deer all the closer, and began to eat as quickly as they could.

  A fuss was still being made, along the path; the maid now enjoying her hysterics sufficiently to resist being helped away by a couple of the footmen who would just as lief had been gone themselves. “That is quite enough, Martha; Peyle, take her back to the house and give her hartshorn,” Lady Allendale said, putting an end to the noise; she continued on towards them steadily, well-wrapped in furs and trailed unhappily by a footman with a lantern, who lagged as they came closer and closer the clearing.

  Lady Allendale herself paused, near the edge; she had last seen Temeraire some ten weeks after his hatching, before he had reached his full growth or even sprouted his ruff. It had been rather a different experience to encounter one half-grown beast in broad daylight, than now a dozen of them, mostly heavy-weights and the alarming orange-eyed Longwings, all of them up to their jowls in blood and magnified by the flickering of the fire upon their scaled hides.

  Laurence was already on his feet; the other officers hastily stood as she came in timidly to their circle. “I am very happy to see you again, my lady,” Temeraire said, adding in an undertone to Laurence, “that is correct, is it not?—and thank you for keeping Gong Su safe for me.”

  “Quite correct,” Lady Allendale said, and coming forward with a struggling, unhappy smile gave Laurence her hands; he silently bent and kissed her offered cheek. It was paler than it had been, the skin a little dry and papery, and more lined; her hair was quite silver. She did not keep smiling long, but let it fade, and took his arm for a support she for once truly needed, to look around the camp. “I hope you are all comfortable; we should be happy to make up beds, inside, for you gentlemen—I am sure room can be found—”

  No-one immediately answered her, and then Jane had to say, “We do very well here, ma’am, although I thank you for the hospitality; we sleep with our dragons, when we are on the march. Frette, can you manage a chair,” she added, and Lady Allendale looked at her, and at Laurence, with a bewildered expression.

  There was no help for it, of course, and he said, “Mother, may I present Admiral Roland, of Excidium; Lady Allendale.”

  Jane bowed, and offered a hand to shake; Lady Allendale had recovered herself enough to accept it with cordiality, and also the folding camp chair which Frette brought from out of Jane’s tent and set near the fire, with another for Jane herself. Captain St. Germain was walking up and down the camp, stretching her legs, and had not noticed the visitor yet. “Thankee, Frette, I had rather stand; we will be sitting all day tomorrow,” she said, when he offered her one; and then pulled up short seeing Lady Allendale. There was a little awkward silence. Lady Allendale gazed with fascination at Jane, and at St. Germain, and around all the camp, with more attention than she had paid before to the other aviators. She was no fool; Laurence saw her marking out, quickly, the handful of other female officers: another on Jane’s crew, a lieutenant on Berkley’s, and a few midshipmen and ensigns, scattered about.

  No-one offered any explanation, and of course she did not ask, but only said to Jane, “You are bound for Scotland, then,” politely.

  “Aye, ma’am,” Jane said, “I hope we do not put you out,” an admirable beginning to a brief exchange of wine and small conversation, which might be quickly brought to a close with no rudeness on either side.

  But Temeraire was now unoccupied, waiting for his dinner to be cooked, and he put in, anxiously, “Perhaps you had better come with us, and not stay here; I have just thought of it. Perhaps Napoleon may come here, before we have had a chance to beat him properly.”

  “You cannot be carrying about civilians where you like,” Jane said to him, repressively. “A nice job we would do of keeping anyone safe, when it is our duty to go look him out. He may come marching through here by bad luck, or not; but we are sure to meet him sooner or late.”

  “Yes, but when we meet him, we can fight him,” Temeraire said, “and be sure of keeping our friends safe.”

  “I am very grateful for the concern,” Lady Allendale said gently, “but we will not go, I think; it would be quite unforgivable to leave our servants and the tenants alone to manage, in such circumstances: that is our duty.”

  But this quite changed the conversation; she then inquired of Jane, whether her own family was somewhere safe. “I haven’t any to worry for, but my Emily, and of course I am lucky enough to have her in eye-shot, at present,” Jane said, nodding at where Emily was helping to put up the camp, and naturally then Emily had come over to be introduced, and having made her bow added earnestly, “And thank you very much, my lady, for the present; I am much obliged to you.”

  Laurence knew his mother well enough to see, as most strangers would not have, that she was puzzled; and then understanding dawned. “Do you like the garnets, then?” she said, and leaned forward to look searchingly into Emily’s face, with a very different sort of interest; while Laurence felt his heart sink.

  In London, the past year, his father had drawn entirely the wrong conclusion, from Emily’s presence among Temeraire’s crew and Laurence’s evident responsibilities towards her; and he had passed that conclusion along to Lady Allendale in terms not sufficiently guarded as to prevent her becoming very interested in Emily’s welfare.

  “Oh, yes,” Emily said, “and I have been able to wear them, twice, to the theater in Dover.”

  “Are you, are you in service, then?” Lady Allendale asked, willing to be inquisitor of a young girl, and where she felt she had a right, as she had not been of Jane herself. Emily unconcernedly nodded, unaware of any undercurrent, and said, proudly, “I am lately made ensign, my lady.”

  “There, enough puffery; Dorset is looking for you,” Jane said, more discreet, and Emily bobbed once more and dashed away.

  Lady Allendale watched her run back to her duties. The surgeon was working over the dragons: Temeraire was not the only one of the unharnessed beasts who had been carrying a musket-ball too long, and several of them were having to be treated in similar wise. Fortunately, he was downwind at present, and working on Ballista’s far side, so the gruesome operation was not in open view. Emily vanished around her flank, and Lady Allendale turned back and ventured, “She is very young,” to Jane, with not a little anxiety.

  “Oh, she has been in harness since before she could walk,” Jane said. “We start them young, ma’am, so they don’t have much to be trained out of; and then she must be up to snuff to take Excidium, when I get too long in the tooth to be scrambling about aloft.”

  “Well, I see where you come by it,” Jane said to Laurence, later: most of the dragons and the aviators asleep, and the fire crackling to cover their low conversation, a conversation made easier by several glasses of the wine which had been sent down for their supper, “all
that noblesse oblige; but it is not stiffness. I like her. That is prodigious kind of her, to have taken an interest in Emily; does she think her your by-blow?”

  So Laurence, who had been hoping devoutly Jane had noticed nothing out of the ordinary, had to admit the wretched muddle. Jane laughed heartily, as he had feared she would; but under the circumstances he found he could not be sorry to have given her a cause for unfeigned pleasure, even one embarrassing to himself. “Whyever did you not set her right?” she said, amused. “No, never mind. I expect she has not said a word about it openly, which you could answer, and you would not broach the subject if hot pokers were put to you. It must be very inconvenient, talking of anything awkward in your family.”

  She fell silent then; it evoked too well their own awkward circumstances, and she looked down at her cup and rolled it between her palms. “I do beg your pardon,” Laurence said, after a moment, “with all my heart.”

  “Yes,” Jane said, “but you beg it for the wrong things. Charging off alone, without a word, and that appalling letter you left for me, all ‘I could not love thee dear, so much,’ as though you owed me apology as a lover and not as your commander. I blushed to show it to anyone, and of course it had to be handed over. For a week, I could cheerfully have run you through myself, sitting in rooms with them reading out bits of it in insinuating tones, and putting Sanderson over me, damn them.”

  “Jane,” he said, “Jane, you must see, I could ask no-one; to have put you in such a position—”

  “What position, which you did not put me into, regardless?” Jane said. “They could not have suspected me more if I had really had all the guilty knowledge in the world.”