Blood of Tyrants (Temeraire)

by Naomi Novik

  Laurence ducked away from that furious hail, and only belatedly realized his shelter was none other than the throne. “What was that?” Temeraire said, and added, “ow!” in protest: the explosion had ceased, and Laurence looked around to see the dragon’s side sprouting half-a-dozen red-enameled splinters the size of rapiers, dug in between the scales.

  The first moments of blank surprise gone, abruptly the guards sprang into action: they surrounded the crown prince bodily, and Laurence found himself enveloped in their protective ranks as well. A deep-voiced man somewhere beyond them was shouting orders to get the prince away, to hide him—

  “Laurence!” he heard Granby shout, but Laurence had no opportunity to answer over the noise: the enormous orange-red dragons in their armored plates, who had been arrayed at the back of the room, were running forward to make formation around the throne: smashing to pieces the wooden floor, bowling men and dragons to either side in their haste: there were twelve of them, heavy-weights all. Four of the beasts seized the elaborate carved borders of the dais, which Laurence had thought mere decoration, but now seemed to be intended almost as handles. A shout came; that deep voice—one of the dragons, Laurence belatedly realized—counted three, and they heaved; the entire dais swayed up into the air and they were moving, the dragons’ heavy four-taloned feet thumping upon the ground as they began to run.

  Laurence, holding on to the throne for very life, had only time to throw one startled look back at Temeraire, who had been shouldered out of the way by the pack and was only just righting himself. The back wall of the palace fell before the red dragons as they bulled forward; it went down not smashed but in a single piece, as though by design; then there were wings everywhere blotting out the sky, the translucent skin glowing orange-red with the sun above them, and with another heave they were aloft. The palace grounds fell away: off the side of the dais, Laurence could see the yellow roofs glowing in the late-morning sun, and the silver-grey brick of the vast plazas, rapidly dwindling away below.

  Laurence said to Prince Mianning, “Where are they taking us?” He supposed it was a violation of all etiquette, but at present there was no-one to object to that: they were quite alone upon the dais. The platform was carried low, beneath the dragons’ sides; each one clutched a handle, and their wings beat wildly overhead. Laurence could not even catch sight of a single officer, nor see the dragons’ heads.

  Mianning’s face was composed, despite the assassination attempt and his having been swept pell-mell away in such a fashion. “To the Summer Palace,” he answered, as calmly as though he had only gone for a pleasant stroll, but then he paused: he leaned forward from the throne and looked down at the ground that spilled away beneath them, and then towards the position of the sun.

  Laurence caught sight of his look, of the frown that suddenly touched the crown prince’s forehead. Mianning put his hand on the hilt of his long blade: though the sheath was adorned with jewels and gold, when Mianning drew a few inches of the blade to loosen it, they gleamed good serviceable steel. Laurence watched him: he missed his own sword painfully at the moment. “What is it?” he asked grimly.

  “We are being taken in the wrong direction,” Mianning said.

  He fell silent, and Laurence could think of nothing to propose. He glanced over the side: they were already past the city limits, and the pale green fields of spring spilling away below were so far distant they were merely squares upon a chessboard. There was nothing to be done but wait. Laurence looked back: was there a small speck that might have been a dragon, to their rear? He could not be sure: it might as easily have been a bird. Temeraire would surely have followed them as soon as he was able, but he might have been held back somehow, or misdirected.

  “Did you see the assassin?” Laurence said to Mianning, who regarded him thoughtfully a long moment; Laurence did not know what to make of his expression, until Mianning said, “He was of your own party: he wore Western clothes.”

  “What?” Laurence said. “That is impossible. Hammond, myself, your own servant Gong Su—Captain Granby, Captain Berkley—that was the sum of our party. It is perfectly impossible any one of them should have done such a thing. We were searched, in any case, before we came into the room, and required to leave our swords.”

  “And yet six of you entered,” Mianning said. He raised a hand, when Laurence would have protested. “You misunderstand me. The sixth man was surely introduced to your party as you entered the pavilion. If his attack had succeeded, and I had been slain, your party would surely have been blamed.”

  Laurence paused. “And will be blamed, if, for instance, we should be found to have died of wounds taken in the attempt?” he asked grimly. Mianning inclined his head in answer.

  Hammond had been deeply anxious over the preparations for this mission not least because its outcome was by no means certain: a substantial conservative faction of the Imperial court passionately opposed anything they called foreign adventures, and had made an attempt to unseat Mianning as the Imperial heir on the occasion of their last visit. It had not occurred to Laurence that this passion might extend so far as to openly murder their crown prince, but he could imagine no-one else who might have arranged such an incident. Napoleon might have a long arm, but not so long as this.

  “Lord Bayan was given the right to oversee the preparations for our meeting,” Mianning said. “The conservative party raised a great protest at your coming at all within the walls of the Forbidden City, and suggested I am excessively partial towards your nation, and might be inclined to allow you too much license.” He looked towards the sun, which lay ahead of their flight. “His estate lies west of the city.”

  The dragons carried them towards the lowering sun for nearly an hour. At last they began a descent over what seemed to Laurence a sprawling country estate: a great wilderness of gardens in the Chinese style—meandering paths and great pitted boulders amidst running streams crossed by graceful arched bridges, and a large pavilion which might have accommodated a horde of dragons beside the house.

  Their dais was set down in a wide courtyard with great care, and a gentleman dressed in embroidered robes of great magnificence came out of the house to meet them, prostrating himself with all correct formality. “Lord Bayan,” Mianning said, calm but watchful; there were a dozen blank-faced guards on either side, besides of course the dragons.

  “My humble abode is honored beyond measure by your visit, Your Highness,” Lord Bayan said. “I am full of desolation that the peace and tranquility of your days should have been profaned by so desperate an attack upon you by the Westerners, whom I am told have infested the palace grounds like so many evil termites gnawing away at live wood.” If this speech were not enough to make his position plain, the look he gave Laurence, sidelong, would have sufficed alone: a mingling of disgust and disdain. And beneath that, something of terror; there was a dew of sweat scattered upon the top of his broad shaven forehead, and he had the look of a man who knows he has gone too far.

  “My poor home will be your shelter,” Bayan continued, “and I pledge my own life to your safety from attack. I have three most beautiful young concubines, all virgin, who will attend you, and a troupe of actors are in attendance for your entertainment.”

  “We are indebted to you for your concern for our well-being, and our brother’s,” Mianning said. “We must at once however write to our father, who even now shall have heard such news as will make him concerned for our health.”

  “You shall be given pen and ink at once, Your Highness,” Bayan said; after a few more stilted pleasantries and fencing exchanges they were with inexorable courtesy escorted inside the house with the guards trailing, deep within to a spacious chamber, nobly appointed, with a great writing-desk. Brushes and ink and paper were already laid out waiting. Mianning seated himself as easily as though he were in his own house and favorite chair, and taking up the brush began to write.

  Lord Bayan hesitated, but after a moment kowtowed again and left them, the practiced s
mile already falling from his face as he went out the door. They were left alone.

  Laurence himself remained standing by the desk. Mianning had given him the shorter of his blades; it was hidden yet beneath his robes, thrust into the waist of his trousers—for what use a single blade might be.

  Mianning tapped his brush against the inkwell, noisily; Laurence glanced down and saw upon the sheet a message written in clear simple characters: Having gone to such lengths, they likely cannot let me leave alive.

  Laurence inclined his chin halfway to his collarbone slowly, only once, to show he had heard and seen. Any act so overt as this would put the conspirators far beyond the pale, and surely demand reprisals. Except of course, if their plot succeeded. Laurence met Mianning’s eyes, in defiance of all Hammond’s laborious tutelage on the subject: in the moment they were no longer marionetting the forms of Imperial etiquette, representatives of states, but mortal prisoners together, and in that exchanged look shared the understanding of their likely fate.

  Too many witnesses had seen them carried away alive, surely not all of them suborned, and the bomb had not wreaked much damage inside the building; Bayan could not easily claim they had been brought to him already dead, victims of the assassin. But some other deadly outcome might now be engineered: perhaps Mianning murdered by Laurence’s own hand, the supposed culmination of a British plot to slay the crown prince, and Laurence slain in reprisal and wrath by Bayan’s guards.

  That would be a good story, and the Emperor would have little alternative but to accept such an explanation on its face to keep the peace in his own court, to gain the time for the laborious process of grooming another heir. And in doing so, he would be forced as well to treat the British as the murderers of his son and heir, despite their having come under pretense of seeking friendship: betrayers of the worst kind. There would be no alliance; instead the reverse entirely, all the wrath of the Imperial armies flung upon their party and on the Potentate in Tien-sing harbor, and every last man of their company put to torture and death for so outrageous a crime.

  Laurence went to the door and looked out of the room. Two dozen guards were lined against the walls to either side. Too many to fight: if they wished, they could put a knife in Laurence’s fist, close their hands around his arm, and force him to thrust the blade into Mianning’s breast. They did not meet his eyes, nor even turn their heads to look at him. He closed the door again.

  Mianning was taking his scribbled note off the scroll-handles and putting it to the lamp to burn; Laurence looked at it catching the flames, at the oil, at the jug of rice wine standing; and then he took up another of the blank scrolls from the table and unrolled it into a long sheet at his feet. Mianning watched him, and then silently joined him: soon they had laid all the scrolls down in rows stretching from one end of the long chamber to the other. There were two lamps burning in the room. They each took one and poured the oil out, spilling it in a glossy line across the parchment, and after that splashed on the contents of the jug of wine, and dropped the first burning sheet down. Blue flame went leaping across the wooden floor.

  They took scraps of flame, burning pieces of paper, and spread the fire to the delicate scrolls hanging on the walls, to the silken draperies and furnishings. Smoke began to fill the room; the furniture, beneath its enamel, was catching. Laurence covered his mouth with a fold of his robe and kept to the work; the fire was climbing to a steady yellow-red crackling in a few corners of the room as the seasoned wood took light. His face was streaming sweat already, and Mianning’s was made distant and blurred by the smoke: Laurence had the strange unpleasant itching of a memory he could not quite grasp, something he should have remembered—flame and smoke, voices shouting, a crammed struggling belowdecks. A ship in flames, a ship burning; but he could not remember her name, or what had happened, or when.

  He pushed the sensation aside and flung cushions down into the building blaze, and then at last the door opened: the nearest guard looked in and cried out. Others came running to the doorway: Laurence leapt for the narrow entry with the short sword in his hand and stabbed the first man coming through in one eye, and got away his longer sword. Mianning took the other side of the door, his own blade drawn. They took the first three easily and backed the rest away from the door for a moment’s hesitation: realizing the opposition that faced them, the guards began to group themselves together for a united rush, to bull through the door.

  But the smoke was thickening now, and the sickening charred smell of human flesh rose as corpses fell amid the kindling: the opened door had fed the fire with a rush of air, and flames were now climbing the walls, leaping for the rafters. The house had caught, well and truly. Laurence drew a gulp of air from the doorway and then, catching Mianning by the arm, pointed to the fallen guards. Together they stripped off swiftly the slain guards’ helms and retreated into the grey haze of smoke even as more guards came pouring through the door.

  Laurence threw off his elaborate robes behind the veil of smoke, dropping them into another corner of the fire. The milling guards were shouting to one another as they swiftly organized a defense: already buckets of water slopping were being brought from the kitchens. The disorder was great. Laurence was dizzy and ill with smoke and struggling not to breathe; stinging burning cinders were falling into his hair, onto his bare chest and shoulders. He jammed on his helm, saw Mianning doing so as well beside him; Mianning caught his arm and they pushed out into the hallway together through the din of shouting and panic, and snatched empty buckets from the serving-boys who carried them.

  They ran through the hallway towards the back of the house, where more servants came staggering under tubs and buckets; shouts pursued them almost at once. Laurence knocked down a burly cook’s assistant who tried to thrust an arm in his path, and reaching for the pots and deep-bowled skillets standing on the stoves flung them behind him, leaving a greasy slick of steaming water and cooking-oil upon the floor. They burst out through the back door of the kitchens and were in the courtyard in back of the house, looking out upon the grounds; more guards were running towards them. Laurence did not suppose they could defeat so many; together he and Mianning drew their swords, however, and ran towards the stables. If they could but get horses—

  Laurence stopped and caught Mianning’s arm to halt him; he flung off his helm and bellowed aloft, “Temeraire!” waving his hand; and the guards slowed hastily and backed away as Temeraire landed in a rush of thundering wings, in the courtyard.

  “Whatever is happening?” Temeraire said. “Why is that house on fire? Laurence, you see I did not let them keep me from coming after you, this time: although they tried; some fellow of the guards even had the gall to say that one of our friends threw that bomb, if you can credit it. But you may be sure I quite silenced him: I caught the fellow who threw it, though he was trying to put off his clothes, and he was not from our ship at all.”

  “ ’Ware above you!” Laurence cried out: the four scarlet dragons who had abducted himself and Mianning were descending towards him, claws outstretched, bulkier than Temeraire himself and plainly bent on his destruction.

  Temeraire, startled, sat up on his haunches, fanning back his wings. “What do you mean by this?” he demanded, and then had to make a writhing leap, twisting himself away from their talons and teeth as he got himself aloft again, eeling between two of them. “Oh,” he said indignantly, “I do not know in the least what you are doing, but if you mean to get between me and Laurence—!”

  He beat up and away, drew breath, and roared at the foremost beast coming towards him: that terrible earth-shattering resonance again, which Laurence heard yet lingering in his dreams from the moment upon that hill in Japan, familiar and dreadful at once, and the scarlet beast’s eyes quite literally burst in their sockets, blood erupting in a sickening rush. The dragon plummeted from the sky. It was already dead when its corpse smashed into the roof of the house and in its sprawl tore down half the north wall: smoke and flame leapt out around it like a ma
ssive pyre, and other rooms left gaping open to the air, cries of horror and men and women looking out in astonished dismay.

  The three other dragons fell back in dismay and horror, and dropped to the ground cowering: they flattened themselves before Temeraire as he came down, and remained there with their wings nearly covering their heads.

  Temeraire still did not quite understand what had happened. First that wretched assassin had nearly slain Laurence, and then the Imperial guards had flown off with him—Temeraire had tried to be understanding; Hammond had shouted urgently to him that they meant only to protect Laurence, to protect Mianning, and take them to a place of safety. That sounded well enough, until several of the courtiers had begun to cry out that the British had tried to kill the crown prince; fortunately Temeraire had already snatched up the bomb-thrower, as that fellow tried to creep out a side door, and he could see that it was only a fellow dressed in Western clothes, which were anyway not quite right: his too-long wool coat dyed royal blue, instead of navy or bottle-green, and no waistcoat, and his hair lightened somehow; he had been wearing a dented hat drawn low down his face.

  Temeraire had been forced to knock down several guards, who had tried to advance on Mr. Hammond and the rest of his party with swords, to make them all listen to him; he had even been forced to roar—awkwardly; it had brought down a portion of the roof—and it had required the better part of an hour to straighten out the matter, and persuade the Imperial dragons to take charge of the scene. “Mr. Hammond,” Temeraire had said, at that point, having handed over the assassin to Mianning’s guards with what he considered was extraordinary restraint; he had not killed him straightaway, “I perfectly understand those fellows did not mean anything terrible by carrying Laurence away, and I will try not to be very short with them, but they certainly ought to have consulted my opinion on the subject of his protection, and you may be sure I will make that quite plain to them: I do not mean to have any repetition of such a misunderstanding. Now, someone had better tell me which way they have gone.”