Victory of Eagles t-5

by Naomi Novik

  “I heard as he burned Weedon to the ground,” the young soldier with him ventured. “I heard, he set dragons on it, sent the whole place up.”

  “Fucking Jacobin buggers,” the sergeant said gloomily. “Begging your pardon, sir,” he said, seeing Laurence and touching his hat.

  He nodded to them, and they fell silent, taking their post. A door opened in the side of the tower, and raised voices came drifting out while it sighed gently shut again: more heated argument, strategy and sacrifice. Laurence looked, but it was not Wellesley or one of his aides; it was an old man in nightshirt and bed slippers, muttering to himself as he came into the rain. His hair was grey and thinned out, matted without a wig, and he walked with the uneasy hitch of rheumatism as he groped his way towards the chapel across the courtyard.

  “Is it the vicar?” the young Marine whispered.

  “At this hour?” the sergeant said, doubtfully, and they both looked at Laurence.

  Laurence crossed the courtyard to go to his side: the old man did not seem steady on the wet icy stones, and he was talking to himself, a stream of low unintelligible speech, which remained incomprehensible even as Laurence came close enough to make out the words. “Horses,” the old man said, “horses and mules, and three weeks’ grain, and Copenhagen; the fleet in Copenhagen. Thirty-three pounds.”

  He did not seem to notice Laurence’s approach at all; until Laurence said, “Sir, should you not go back inside?”

  “I will not,” the old man said, querulous. “Is that you, Murat? Is that you?” He peered at Laurence’s face, touched his coat, and, evidently satisfied, nodded. “You are not Napoleon; you are Murat. Are you here to kill me? Give me your arm,” he said, abruptly peremptory, and, taking a grip on Laurence’s arm, leaned on him heavily. He had fixed his gaze on the chapel, and started determinedly to limp on towards it. “They all mean to kill me,” he told Laurence, confidentially. “They are in there talking of it now. My son is with them.” He sounded neither indignant nor afraid, more as though he were sharing a piece of interesting gossip.

  Laurence looked back at the tower, and then at the old man again, at his profile; and recognition came. “Sire,” Laurence said, low and wretchedly, “may I not help you inside? You ought not be out in this weather.” He dragged at the ties of his own cloak, and shrugging it off managed to put it over the King’s shoulders.

  “I will go to Windsor,” the King said. “Napoleon is not there. Why may I not go to Windsor?” He continued his unsteady progress towards the chapel, and Laurence had either to pace him or let him go alone. “He is in London, he is in London. He is not in Windsor. I need not go to Halifax. It would be cowardly to go. Do you want me to go to Halifax?” he demanded. “My son wants me to go. He wishes me to die on the ocean.”

  “I would wish to see you safe, Sire,” Laurence said, “as I am sure would he.”

  “I will not go,” the King said. “I ought not go. I will die in England.”

  The door flung open again: frightened servants hurrying with cloak and umbrella to hold over him, and coax him back within; they gave Laurence no more than a glance, and he stepped back to let them work. The King’s voice rose in protest over their guiding hands, and then died away again into muttering confusion. He let himself be drawn gradually back inside.

  “Poor old fellow,” the sergeant of Marines said, coming close to peer after them, for a glimpse inside the tower. “Gone out of his head, I suppose. Who was he?”

  Laurence stood in the courtyard behind the closing door, rain running down his sleeves and his face like blood; stood and said aloud, “O God, I wish I had not done it.”

  III

  Chapter 13

  TEMERAIRE PULLED CLOSE around himself, his tail coiled snugly against his body, and tried without much success to sleep; there were a great many things he did not want to think about, but so long as he continued awake, they clamored for his attention.

  They had landed in Edinburgh covert only after dark, and found it wet and bleak and muddy, and the water of the pond not fit to drink: there were too many dragons buried there, too recently. So they had to take turns putting their heads below a thin run-off from the castle walls, which tasted unpleasantly green, and settle themselves uncomfortably between the two burial-mounds most widely separated. They were crowded, and there was plenty of room for one or another of them to go and sleep among the other mounds, but no-one at all proposed to go off alone; they rather huddled more closely. Laurence had left almost at once to go and speak with Wellesley, and he was gone a long time; enough that they had finished their dinner long before his return—a couple of old tough cows and three sheep, hacked up and pit-roasted with a great heap of potatoes, which Gong Su had organized the crews to procure: happily these took on some of the flavor of the meat and were not unappetizing at all, once they had cooked long enough.

  “I don’t hold with this cookery much,” Maximus had said, licking his chops, having slowly and thoughtfully wrecked seventeen bushels of potatoes roasted in their skins, “but these are not half bad, if one cannot have a nice fresh cow, that is.”

  Temeraire took a long time over his own meal, but at last he had stretched it as far as it could go, and Maximus was eyeing the last pile of sheep-intestines hopefully, so Temeraire had to finish it off; and then he had nothing to do but lie uncomfortably in the mud, curled up small to stay warmer, and worry about Laurence.

  “Of course he ain’t happy,” Gentius said sleepily. “The country overrun by all these Frogs, who would be happy? I would not think much of his sense if he were dancing a jig.”

  “But that is not the same as unhappy,” Temeraire said, “when we are going to fight to make the French leave, and will have some battles soon.”

  Gentius cocked his head ruminatively. “Men like to be unhappy sometimes,” he offered. “My second captain would come sit under my wing with a book and weep over it, most evenings. I thought at first she must be wounded, but she told me not to fret at all, she liked to do it; and the next morning she would be right as rain again.” Temeraire was doubtful; he had never noticed Laurence weeping over a book, although sometimes he did not enjoy them very much.

  But he did not quite like to press the conversation very far. To be perfectly honest, Temeraire was a little concerned—he was perhaps anxious—very well, he was afraid, that he might learn that Laurence was not so much upset as angry—He was afraid that Laurence was angry with him.

  Temeraire had not quite understood what it would mean, for Laurence to be called a traitor. Of course, the Government meant to execute him or imprison them away from one another, but Temeraire had thought, with those two fates averted, that otherwise all would be much the same; and at first it seemed so: they flew together, and were given orders, and everything nearly like. But it was not the same at all. Of course there had been no other alternative but to take over the cure; only, Temeraire had not quite understood, before they went, that treason meant Laurence should be losing his life, and his crew, and his rank.

  “At least,” he said, “at least, you are still my captain; and after all, while there are many captains who have some sort of dragon, I am the only dragon who is a commodore—” But when he had tried this argument out privately to himself, it did not sound really consoling after all: puffing himself off, as though Laurence ought to be satisfied with Temeraire’s consequence and none of his own—insult to injury, and Laurence had lost his gold bars, too.

  Temeraire raised his head out of the mud and said, “Roland, do you know Captain Fenter’s neck-chain, the gold one, with the emerald? It is not official, is it? Anyone might wear something of the sort?” It was a handsome piece which he and all the others at Loch Laggan had remarked, on the captain of a smug Anglewing named Orchestia; and, Temeraire thought, something very suitable to the captain of a dragon of elevated rank, however neglectful of him the Corps might be. “Do you suppose that Laurence might buy something like it, here in town?”

  “I expect he could not af
ford it; the law-suit, you know,” she said wisely, looking up from her boots, which she was blacking.

  “What law-suit?” Temeraire said, puzzled.

  “Over those slaves,” she said, “which we let loose in Africa. Those slave-owners we carried back sued the captain, and I suppose he could not fight the suit very well, as he was in prison, so they have taken all his capital.”

  “Taken it?” Temeraire with difficulty kept his tail from quivering and thumping upon the ground. “Surely not all his capital,” he said, in a struggling voice.

  “I heard it was ten thousand pounds, or something like,” Emily said.

  “Ten thousand pounds!” Gentius exclaimed, horror-struck, his head jerking from the ground, the mud squelching dreadfully. “Ten thousand pounds! You did not say anything about ten thousand pounds gone. Why, that is ten of those eagles, or more,” and everyone murmured shocked; even Maximus and Lily flinched, and could not quite look at Temeraire.

  Temeraire felt quite staggered, and nearly ill. Laurence had not said anything beforehand; he had not said that all his treasure should be taken away; or so Temeraire tried to argue to himself. But it felt a very flimsy and weak excuse, and when he opened his mouth to make it to the others, he stopped without giving it voice. He had not troubled to find out, and now here he was, himself a commodore, showing away with jewels and two epaulettes, while Laurence had nothing but a plain coat growing every day more shabby.

  “Ten thousand pounds,” Gentius said again, censoriously, wagging his head from side to side. “You have certainly made a good mull of it,” and Temeraire huddled himself down, feeling all the justice of the condemnation.

  “But, if we had not taken over the cure,” he said, rather small, “a great many dragons should have died, even who had nothing at all to do with the war, or France. It cannot have been wrong.”

  “If you ask me,” Perscitia said, after a moment, “the French ought to have given you some treasure to make up for it, as you went on their account; at least, not precisely on their account,” she amended, “but they did well out of it, so I don’t think much of them letting you come out the worser, when you needn’t have done it at all.”

  “Well,” Temeraire said, and was forced to admit that such an offer had been made, and a most handsome one. “Only Laurence said no, because that would have been more treasonous,” he finished.

  “I don’t see myself how getting treasure, after you had already done treason, could make it any worse,” Chalcedony said. “After all, they are the enemy, and if they gave you treasure, they would have less, and that would be worse for them; so if you ask me, it would really have been making up for the treason, to take it,” which struck Temeraire as a very just point, and one he rather wished he had thought of at the time.

  “Only, I did not realize Laurence would lose his capital,” Temeraire said unhappily, “so I did not think it would be so important.”

  “Well, well, you are a young fellow yet,” Gentius said, relenting a little, “and you have time to make it up. Win battles, take some prizes while you are at it, and it will all come right in the end—Government will do you up right, if you are only heroic enough.”

  “But I have been very heroic,” Temeraire protested, “and they have not been fair at all; they have even tried to take Laurence away from me.”

  “You ain’t been the right sort of heroic,” Gentius said. “You must win battles, that is the road. That is how my first captain was made, you know; they did not use to let Longwing captains be captain, properly. They called her only Miss, and there was a fellow aboard she was supposed to listen to, only he was a lummox and managed to be drunk out of his wits just when we had a battle to go to, and all our formation waiting.” He snorted. “So she said to the crew—‘Gentlemen’—” and here he paused, rubbing his forelegs restlessly against one another, with a frowning expression.

  They waited, and waited, and waited; although Temeraire was almost quivering with impatience: if Gentius’s captain had gone from Miss to Captain, surely Laurence might have his rank repaired, in the same fashion—

  “It is difficult to remember, the way she said it, exact,” Gentius said defensively. “They don’t talk as they used to, but I think I have it: she said, ‘Gentlemen, seeing that our duty consisteth in going to war, I should judge this a sad excuse to fail in it, insofar as we expect to contrive without Captain—without Captain—’ Bother,” Gentius muttered, interrupting himself, “I have forgot his name. But she said it,” he went on, “and she said, ‘insofar as we expect to contrive without his company, no worser an outcome upon the field than our absence will ensure, the which I will stand surety for: therefore will I still go, and any man who wisheth not to venture himself, under my command, may remain behind.’”

  He rolled triumphantly through to the end of his recitation, but then had to wait for applause while his audience worked out just what had been said. “But I don’t understand, did you win the battle or not?” Messoria said finally, puzzled.

  “Of course we won the battle,” Gentius said irritably. “And we did a sight better without Captain Haulding—hah, I have remembered his name after all—aboard, I can tell you that. I was writ up in the newspapers, even, and Government gave over and made her captain properly: because we had done well,” he finished, with a meaningful nudge to Temeraire’s shoulder. “That is the road: win battles for them, and they will come about, see if they don’t.”

  “That is all very well,” Iskierka remarked, “as soon as they let us have some battles. There he comes now, ask him when we shall be fighting,” and she nudged Temeraire: Laurence was coming down the path from the castle.

  Temeraire hardly knew how to look Laurence in the face; bitterly conscious now of his guilt, he half-expected Laurence to upbraid him at once. But Laurence said only, to Roland and to Demane and Sipho, “Go and rouse up the other captains; at once, if you please,” and stood waiting and silent until the others had been drawn from their uncomfortable bivouacs. “Gentlemen, I have been commissioned temporarily, and given command of this expedition; you will find your written orders there, and I trust they allow of no ambiguity.”

  Laurence had a sheaf of papers in his hands, packets each sealed separately and inscribed with the other captains’ names; he handed the orders to Sipho to carry around.

  “Damned paperwork, with Bonaparte in our parlor,” Berkley muttered. “Trust the Army for this sort of thing—”

  “You will oblige me greatly, Berkley, by putting those orders by safe, somewhere they cannot come to harm,” Laurence said, when Berkley would have crumpled the parchment. “I would be glad to know the chain of command quite clear, to anyone who should inquire, in future.” All the other captains paused and looked at him, and Temeraire wondered puzzled why it should matter; the red wax seals affixed to the parchment were attractive, but they might be made anytime one wished; and Laurence had not kept one himself.

  But Laurence did not explain further. Instead he went on, “The French are harassing our farmers with raiding bands, and so supplying the wants of their army. Our duty is to stop this predation, and so far as is practicable without undue risk to the dragons, to reduce the forces available to Napoleon.”

  There was a pause, and then Granby said, “—you mean—his irregulars?”

  “I do,” Laurence said.

  “What does he expect us to do with the prisoners, cart them about with us in the belly-rigging?” Berkley said.

  “There will be no quarter given,” Laurence said. There was a heavy finality to his tone, which somehow warned off any other questions; the captains did not say anything even to one another. “We will begin in Northumberland, tomorrow, and work our way south. We leave at dawn, gentlemen; that is all.”

  They stood a moment longer looking at their orders and at Laurence, with oddly uncertain expressions; in the end they all drifted away back to their tents without another word said. Temeraire himself was at a standstill. He could not understand why Laurenc
e should have taken the command. He was already in command, and it was important, was it not, for a dragon to have the post—Laurence himself had said as much. Temeraire did not mean to be selfish anymore, at all, now that he knew he had been selfish; if Laurence wished the command, of course he should have it, and yet, if it mattered for politics—for all the dragons—

  He struggled over it; ventured at last timidly to ask, and added hurriedly, “I do not mind at all, for myself, personally, I am very happy that you are restored, and a captain now again. Only, if it is important—”

  He was yet mostly coiled up with the others, but everyone else was asleep; the other men were gone into their tents. Laurence had told Roland and Demane and Sipho to go and sleep in his tent, and had stayed out, wrapped in his coat and cloak and looking over maps, which he had laid out on a small camp-table; he was marking them with a small wax pencil, here and there.

  “In the present case, it is the more important you should not be in command, or anyone but myself,” Laurence said.

  There was something odd in his voice: queerly flat, as if he did not much care what he was saying, and he did not look up from his work. Temeraire wished very much it were not so dark, and he could see Laurence’s face. “In any case,” Laurence added, “whether the courts will believe you truly the commander is a proposition yet untried; and I hope you would not risk the lives and the careers of the other captains, unconsenting, for the sake of your precedence.”

  “But,” Temeraire said, “are they not risking their lives anyway?”

  “In battle,” Laurence said, “not afterwards.”

  Temeraire did not much want to pursue; however dreadful to think Laurence was angry with him, it would be all the worse to know, to hear it from Laurence himself. “Laurence,” Temeraire said anyway, bravely, “pray explain to me; I know—I know I have let you be hurt, because I did not try to understand well enough, and I do not mean to let it happen again, only I cannot help it, if I do not know.”