Victory of Eagles t-5

by Naomi Novik

  “We are going out again on patrol to-night, along the North Sea,” Maximus said to Temeraire. “Are you with us, this next run?”

  “Patrolling,” Temeraire said, with a sigh, “but yes, of course we shall go together; shall we not, Laurence? And at least,” he added, “it is better than ferrying.”

  “You may have other duties, to your regiment,” Laurence said.

  It was no easy matter to organize the whole company of unharnessed dragons into patrols. Temeraire insisted the Yellow Reapers should be allowed to all go together, as they seemed to prefer, even though by the general rule they would have been used for balance in mixed groups; and Arkady’s ferals, on the other hand, he divided up among many bands, even though they could not speak a word to the other dragons. “Yes, but they do not need to speak out loud to understand enough for patrols,” Temeraire said, “and otherwise they will fly off adventuring, especially,” he added darkly, “if Iskierka is let anywhere near them.”

  “She is a good deal improved, though,” Granby said to Laurence and Tharkay, over dinner snatched one night, while they were all encamped near Newcastle. A little way back from the fire, Temeraire and Iskierka were squabbling at volume, and Arkady throwing in his occasional piece. “She makes as much noise,” Granby added hurriedly, “but she has turned perfectly obliging: has flown all the patrols as neat as a pattern-card, and no haring off after prizes at all, or a word of complaint; for as much, I would gladly be captured five times over.”

  Laurence looked down at the fire; he yet felt too strongly, what Granby’s capture had cost: he had heard nothing of Edith, though he had stooped so far as to beg Jane to make inquiry of the intelligence-officers. Spy reports came in by the dozens each day from London, but the arrest—even the execution—of a solitary British gentlewoman might be too insignificant to mention.

  Tharkay said to Granby, “I would not for the world diminish your satisfaction, but perfectly obliging invites caution: a smaller improvement might be more secure. No creature in the habit of freedom is easily persuaded to adopt discipline,” he added, giving a gobbet of meat to the kestrel, who observed their roasting rabbit with a cocked and eager eye.

  “I am, too, disciplined,” Iskierka said, overhearing. “I will not run off at all; and I am very happy to carry more,” meaning cattle: they were each carrying half-a-load of supply along with their crew, Jane’s compromise between transport and patrol. Half-a-load was enough for a party of even middle-weight dragons to move a full company with their officers, or to bring in supply for themselves, without weighting the dragons too much to fight; their own party was presently coming up along the North Sea coast, and gathering what supply they could find. Iskierka was already responsible for the transport of a dozen large black hogs, presently penned up outside the camp and squealing occasionally through their drunken haze; they had been dosed with the easiest drug to supply, strong liquor, and smelled powerfully of spirits.

  “If you ask me, it is only an act,” Temeraire said, disdainfully, “because you are trying to show Granby he ought not leave you. You know perfectly well we haven’t any more.”

  Deer could not be successfully transported, panicking themselves to death before they could even be drugged, and fish did not keep; they were only good for feeding the dragons on the wing. Already cattle had begun to grow scarce, along the coast, and the more time they spent inland searching, the more risk of leaving an opening in their patrol where a substantial number of soldiers could be brought over: Bonaparte had dragons loaded down with men flying along the Channel and the coast, daily, waiting for just such a chance.

  Tharkay said, “We will find more tomorrow,” a puzzling degree of confidence; but the next evening he took Arkady into the lead and flew directly to an estate with several handsome dairy farms, which yielded two dozen bullocks; he watched the stupefied animals loaded onto the dragons with an odd, wry expression, which made Laurence wish all the more to ask how he had known; and equally made such an inquiry impossible. They were just over the border into Scotland: Laurence knew Tharkay had been embroiled in a law-suit here, although none of the details, and if Tharkay did not choose to volunteer them, respect dictated they could not be pursued.

  The cattle completed their tally, but only just, and they found nothing more the rest of the way on their patrol, and on the flight to deliver their supplies to Loch Laggan: the farmers were grown adept at hiding their diminishing herds.

  “Damn the lot of them and Boney, too,” Jane snapped, when Laurence gave her the news, and rubbed the back of her hand across her forehead. “Tell him we have one week less of supply than I said,” she told the aide hovering at her desk, the young man, an Army officer, at once nervous and impatient, shifting his weight side-to-side. “And no, he mayn’t have twenty, he may have ten, and not all of those heavy-weights, either. Wellesley wants you,” she added to Laurence, and tossed him a wax-sealed packet from among those upon her desk, “and as many as I can spare, in Edinburgh.”

  Laurence broke the seal and unfolded the orders, a single sheet, a few lines only, hastily and informally written, with no signature: Bring that fire-breathing monster, and however many more Roland will give you; the best fighters you have, and the more vicious the better.

  He read it over slowly, and then folded it back up again; vicious was a cold indigestible presentiment in his belly. Jane, he thought, had not seen the contents; she would object as strongly as he would, and he looked up.

  She had scarcely interrupted her work. “Frette, have Rightley take himself and five middle-weights to Inverness, and send a note to that damned colonel that if he don’t get his men on board tomorrow night when the beasts land, I will have him up for a court-martial the next morning. We haven’t time to waste on this nonsense,” she said, handing off three orders at once. “Laurence, you may choose your beasts, anyone you like; formations make no nevermind.”

  He could not burden her. “We may have ten?” Laurence said. “Wellesley wants Iskierka,” he added.

  “Yes,” Jane said, distracted, “you may as well take her; Lord knows it is a waste to have her patrolling, if there is skirmishing to be had. Oh, and here,” she added, giving him a letter dug out of many others on her over-burdened desk, “you may read that here, although I cannot let you take it.”

  A hand had written, broadly and with many misspellings and stray capitals:

  The Lady In Question is watchd, but, not yet Molestd; I have Contrivved, to Whisper in a few ears, that her Husb’d was a Nown Enthusiast and she Married Late in Desp’ration. May she one day Forgive This Slur aganst her, and upon the name of a Hero of His Country! I hope the Danger, of Arrest, is Passd. This is All I can convay Reliably, as she refuses to Receve Me as a Caller, but Gossip says she is Much Grieved and the Child continues Sick.

  To-Morrow I am invitd to Dinner with Marshl Davout, but do not Expect Much as he is Close-Mouthd unlike M. Murat…

  The letter had no signature. He read the section over twice, and gave it back again. “Thank you,” he said only, and bowing left; he did not trust himself to say anything more.

  TEMERAIRE WAS VERY PLEASED to be so singled out for a particular assignment, and even more to be let off the job of patrolling, and ferrying men about, however important it might be. The only difficulty was in deciding who should be chosen to come along. “Wellesley wants the best fighters you have, and the most enthusiastic,” Laurence said, which was only fair, anyway, as those had the most right to be doing something more exciting than carrying the infantry back and forth. But there were more than ten deserving, and anyway it was only eight, because of course he should go himself, and another would be Iskierka, even though she did not merit the privilege at all.

  It was this showy fire-breathing, which was not anything particularly extraordinary: anyone could set things on fire, if only you had a little bit to start with. Temeraire sighed, but anyway she was not of much use: she had already been let off carrying people, because it was difficult for many peop
le to sit upon her with all her spikes jetting off steam as they did. So he had to put up with her; and then of course Maximus and Lily had to be asked, although to Temeraire’s startled dismay, Laurence tried to speak against the choice.

  “But it would be very unhandsome of me not to invite them for some real fighting, when I may,” Temeraire protested, looking over his shoulder, lest Maximus and Lily should overhear, and be offended. Fortunately, Maximus was solidly asleep and snoring, under a blanket of nine Winchesters and little ferals, and Lily was presently encamped outside the far wall of the citadel just below Captain Harcourt’s window, jealously: Catherine was gone inside to see to the baby.

  “Harcourt is not well, I find,” Laurence said.

  “Yes,” Temeraire said, “Lily thinks so, too, and that is as much a reason to ask her as any: she is quite sure Catherine must do better to go south, and have some real fighting, than all this flying back and forth in the wet. She takes cold so easily now, and ought not be so long aloft.”

  “Berkley don’t take cold easily, because he is so fat,” Maximus said sleepily, cracking open an eye, “but I would also like to go and fight.”

  So that was settled, but for the rest, Temeraire scratched his head a little. “Gentius may as well come with us, without counting against our tally,” he said at last, “because it is not as though he can carry anyone or patrol: he is only staying here in Loch Laggan and sleeping. And we shall have Armatius to carry him. That would do very well for heavy-weights. I do not think I ought to take Majestatis or Ballista, for they are so very handy at managing the others, and I am not quite sure that everyone would mind so well, carrying the soldiers back and forth, if they were to leave also; and Requiescat, because no-one who is not a heavy-weight will argue with him, even if he must be told what orders to give.”

  He was a little puzzled how to leave them behind without giving offense, however, until he hit on the notion of giving them rank instead. “You do not suppose Wellesley can mind?” he asked Laurence.

  “It is a capital scheme,” Admiral Roland said in amusement, when Laurence had inquired of her. “Your militia had better be shifted under command of the Corps in any case, so we will make you a commodore instead of a colonel, and your officers shall be captains; although it will be damned difficult to manage epaulettes for them.”

  “Oh, epaulettes,” Temeraire said, eagerly. A party of seamstresses had been recruited from the local villages around Loch Laggan to help sew carrying-harnesses, for the transport of the soldiers, and they were now induced to make up rosettes out of some of the leftover silk and leather. The results were not very like real epaulettes, nearer instead to enormous mop-heads of the brightest colors, with a little cloth of gold at the knotted center for some flash, and a great many ties to attach them to a bit of harness. But no-one minded that, in the least.

  “I call that handsome,” Requiescat said, admiring the bright green knot upon his shoulder from every direction, craning his head nearly upside down, and even Majestatis did not quite manage to affect his usual degree of amused disdain and kept glancing back sidelong at his own: it was in red, to go against his cream-and-black, and looked almost as fine, Temeraire thought, as his own pale blue matched set: he of course had needed two.

  “Yes, and if anyone should be particularly clever at helping you to manage, you may make them lieutenants, and they may have a smaller one,” Temeraire said. “So that is all settled,” he added to Laurence, “and for the rest, let us take some Yellow Reapers. Messoria and Immortalis, of course, because they are our wing-mates, and also the two best of our unharnessed, and that will do very well, because I also want Perscitia: she is very clever, and,” he confided, “if I leave her here she will offend someone, I am afraid. Anyway, we may need to manage some artillery.”

  The Reapers quarrelled it out amongst themselves, and finally settled that Chalcedony and Gladius should come, and Cantarella should take charge of the rest staying behind, and have an epaulette. Moncey got one for command of the couriers—it was nearly as large as his head but pleased him very well—and Minnow also.

  So there was no quarrelling or ill-feeling at all in the end, which Temeraire felt a credit to his arrangements. “We are a very handsome company, are we not?” Temeraire asked Laurence, hoping to find him satisfied. “It is a pity about Iskierka, but no-one could quarrel with our choices, otherwise, I am sure.”

  “Yes,” Laurence said.

  “I have only been thinking,” Temeraire said, with a sidelong look; he hoped it would not seem selfish, “that it would be just as well, if we got back the rest of our crew: not that we are not perfectly comfortable as we are,” he added, “but a few more bellmen to manage some bombs, and it might be convenient to have Winston back, to help Fellowes—”

  “Those who wished to return have done so,” Laurence said. “I cannot require any man to serve with a traitor.”

  “Oh,” Temeraire said. “But—” and stopped. It had not occurred to him that the crew had chosen not to come back: that they had rather be elsewhere, on another dragon, and with another captain. It seemed very strange to him, when he was now a commodore, and must surely have been more impressive, if anything. He wondered if perhaps Laurence was mistaken, or only shy of asking for them: perhaps they did not even know that he and Laurence were free. “But surely Martin, at least, or Ferris, would come,” he said.

  Laurence was very still a moment, and then he said, “Ferris has been dismissed the service,” only because, it seemed, the admirals imagined that Ferris had been of some help, even though he had done nothing at all.

  “But then where is he?” Temeraire asked. If Ferris were not with some other dragon, it stood to reason he would rather be with them; but Laurence said with finality, “Any communication from me must be wholly unwelcome.”

  Temeraire did not press him further, but privately he thought that perhaps he would write to Ferris: if he could get Emily or Sipho, perhaps, to take down a letter for him, and find out Ferris’s direction; and then a dragon he knew a little from Dover, Orchestia, landed in the courtyard. She was back from a patrol, and his own midwingman Martin was with her crew, his bright yellow hair standing out against his green coat.

  “Mr. Martin,” Temeraire called out, seeing him go by, thinking perhaps to ask him over; and see if he knew, that Temeraire had been made commodore; and whether he was quite sure he would not prefer to go with them, on their own particular mission—

  Martin started a little, at being named, and looked over; but then he turned his back and walked on into the citadel with the rest of Orchestia’s crew—not even a word, or a gesture, and he had always been so very friendly.

  “Temeraire,” Laurence said, “you will oblige me very greatly if you will make no such gesture again.”

  “No, I will not,” Temeraire said, much subdued; it was not only that Martin had ignored them: he had done it so very openly, as though he wanted everyone else to know he meant to do it. There was something particularly unpleasant to it: anyone might not feel like conversation, of course, but this was showing away how little he wanted it with them, in particular. “But,” Temeraire said to Laurence, slowly, “does that mean he does not approve, that we took over the cure? Surely he would not have wished to see all those dragons dead—”

  “Between two evils, he might have found that the lesser than treason,” Laurence said, without lifting his head from the book which he was reading.

  “Oh! Then I am not sorry,” Temeraire said defiantly. “He may stay with Orchestia, for all I care; if she wants him.”

  He felt rather wounded, though, for all his bravado: and he had not yet understood the worst; he did not realize the implication of what they had done to poor Ferris, until that very afternoon: all of them assembled and ready to fly, his harness rigged out and his epaulettes bright in the thin wintry sunshine, and a runner had come to let them know they might go to Edinburgh, and he said, “Mr. Laurence, your orders, sir, from the admiral,” handing him th
e packet.

  “Yes,” Laurence said, and did not correct the boy; he only took the papers and put them in his coat pocket; and for the first time Temeraire realized, looking closely, that Laurence was not wearing the gold bars upon his shoulders, which the other captains wore.

  Temeraire did not want to ask; he did not want to hear the answer, but he could not help it. “Yes,” Laurence said, “I have been struck the service, too. It does not matter now,” he added, after a moment, when of course it mattered, as much as anything. “We must away.”

  LAURENCE STOOD BY THE PARAPET, looking out to sea, in the upper court of Edinburgh Castle. Temeraire lay somewhere in the dark covert below the castle, a great yawning darkness in the side of the illuminated city, which stretched out around the castle and down to the River Forth. Ships rose and fell uneasily on the water, and the wind blew sharp needles of frozen rain into his face. In the far distance he could see a handful of lights moving, too high for ships, too bright for stars: a few dragons on patrol.

  “Another three hundred thousand of them buggers lying along the coast from Calais to Boulogne, just waiting for their chance,” a sergeant of Marines said to his fellow soldier, as the two of them came by on their round, and he spat aggressively over the parapet towards the sea, as if he might hit the distant enemy.

  They had not yet seen Laurence. Wellesley and his staff were inside the tower chambers; he had been left outside until called for, despite the night cold and wet, the stones slick with ice, and room enough in the antechamber for him to wait inside: a deliberate slight. The damp penetrated his cloak and his leather coat effortlessly. But he had chosen to stand at the limit of the parapet, out of the lantern light, so he could see farther out. It was only a romantic impulse: he could not see anything of real significance at this hour.

  “He’ll squeeze over another thousand to-night,” the sergeant went on. “Every dark night, those fucking Fleur-de-Nuits carry them. The Navy shot one down two days ago, though,” he added, with vindictive satisfaction. “Down into the ocean like a stone, and two hundred Frogs on its back, I hear: but more often than not they can’t be seen.”