The Temeraire Series

‘Medieval sentiment—’ They were both standing now, Reynolds shaking off Gounod's half-hearted restraining hand to get up. Their voices were loud enough to drown all nearby conversation.

Laurence rose, and catching Reynolds by the shoulder firmly, pressed him back towards his chair. ‘Sir, you do me no kindness by this. Leave off,’ he said, low and sharply.

‘That's right, let him teach you how to be a coward,’ the other man said.

Laurence stiffened. He could not resent insults he had earned, he had sacrificed the right to defend himself against traitor, but coward was a slap he could not gladly swallow. But he could not make the challenge. He had caused enough harm. He could not—would not, do more. He closed his mouth on the bitterness in the back of his throat, and did not turn to look the man in the face, though he now stood so close his liquored breath came hot and strongly over Laurence's shoulder.

‘Call him a coward, when you would've sat and done nothing,’ Reynolds flung back. He shook off Laurence's hand, or tried. ‘I suppose your dragon would enjoy you being happy to see ten thousand of them put down, poisoned or good as, like dogs—’

‘One at least ought to be poisoned,’ the other man said, and Laurence let go of Reynolds, turned, and knocked the officer down.

The man was drunk and unsteady, and as he went down pulled the table and the bottle over with him. Cheap liquor bubbled out over the ground as it rolled away. For a moment no one spoke, and then chairs went back across the tent, as if nothing more had been wanted than a pretext.

The quarrel at once devolved into a confusing melee, with no sides. Laurence even saw two men from the same table wrestling in a corner. But a few men singled him out, one a captain he knew by face from Dover, if not immediately by name. He had fresh streaks of black dragon-blood on his clothing. His name was Geoffrey Windle, Laurence remembered incongruously, as they grappled, just before Windle struck him full on the jaw.

The impact rocked him back on his heels; his teeth snapped together, and he felt the startling pain of a bitten cheek. Gripping a tent-pole for purchase, Laurence managed to seize a chair and pull it around between them as Windle lunged at him again; the man tripped over it and went into the pole with his full weight, which was considerable: he had some three stone over Laurence. The canvas roof above them sagged precipitously.

Two more men came at Laurence, faces ugly with anger. They caught him by the arms and rushed him against the nearest table. They were drunk enough to be belligerent, but not enough to be clumsy. He still wore his buckled shoes and laddered stockings, and lacked good purchase on the ground, and the weight of his boots to kick out with. They pinned him down, and one of them held out a blade, a dull eating-knife, still slick with grease from his dinner. Laurence set his heel down against the surface of the table and heaved, managing to get his shoulders loose for a moment, twisting away from the short furious stabbing, so the blade only tore into his ragged coat.

The tent pole creaked and gave way. Canvas fell upon them in a sudden catastrophic rush. Laurence had freed his arms, only to be imprisoned in the smothering folds. They were heavy, and he had an effort to lift it enough from his face to breathe. He rolled off the table, and then felt hands gripping his arm again, pulling at him. Laurence struck out blindly at the new attacker, and they struggled upon the ground until the other man managed to drag the edge of the canvas off their heads and heave them into the open air. It was Granby.

‘Oh, Lord,’ Granby said. Laurence turned and saw that half the tent had crumpled in on the heaving mass beneath. Those sober enough to have avoided the fighting were carrying out the lanterns from the other side. Others doused the collapsed canvas with water; smoke trickled out from beneath.

‘You'll do a damned sight better out of the way,’ Granby said, when Laurence would have gone to help, and drew him along one of the camp paths, narrow and stumbling-dark, towards the dragon clearings.

They walked in silence over the uneven ground. Laurence tried to slow his short, clenched breathing without success. He felt inexpressibly naïve. He had not even thought to fear such a possibility, until he heard it in the mouth of a drunkard. But when they did hang him, knowing it would lose them Temeraire's use,—what might those men do, those men who had meant to infect all the world's dragons with consumption and condemn them to an agonizing death. They would see Temeraire dead, rather than of use to anyone they were disposed to see as an enemy: France, or China, or any other nation. They would not scruple at any sort of treachery necessary to achieve his destruction. To them Temeraire was only an inconvenient animal.

‘I suppose,’ Granby said, abruptly, out of the dark, ‘that he insisted on it? Your carrying the stuff to France, I mean.’

‘He did,’ Laurence said, after a moment, but he did not mean to hide behind Temeraire's wings. ‘I am ashamed to say, he was forced to, but only at first. I would not have you believe I was taken against my will.’

‘No,’ Granby said, ‘no, I only meant, you shouldn't have thought of it at all, on your own.’

The observation felt true, and uncomfortably so, though Laurence supposed Granby had meant it as consolation. He felt a sharp sudden stab of loneliness. He wanted very badly to see Temeraire. Laurence had slept his last night beneath his sheltering wing nearly four months ago, in the northern mountains. Their treason committed, they had snatched a few hours of freedom before they made the fatal flight across the Channel. Since then there had been only a succession of prisons, more or less brutal, for them both. Temeraire had spent months alone, friendless and unhappy, in breeding grounds full of feral beasts and veterans, with no order or discipline to keep them from fighting.

They passed the clearings one by one, the millhouse rumble of sleeping dragons to either side, their dinners finished and their crews toiling on the harnesses by lantern-light, the faint clanking of hammers tapped away and the acrid smoky stink of harness oil carried on the breeze. They had a long walk out in the dark after the last clearing, up a steep slope to the crown of a hill overlooking all the camp, where Iskierka lay sleeping in a thick spiny coil, steam issuing with her every breath, and the feral dragons scattered around her.

She cracked an eye open as they came in and inquired drowsily, ‘Is it a battle time yet?’

‘No, love, back to sleep,’ Granby said, and she sighed and shut her eye. But she had drawn the attention of the men, they looked from Laurence to Granby, and then they looked back down again, saying nothing.

‘Perhaps I had best not stay,’ Laurence said. He knew some of the faces, men from his own crew, even some of his former officers. He was glad they had found places here.

‘Stuff,’ Granby said. ‘I am not so damned craven, and anyway,’ he added, more despondently, when he had led Laurence into his own tent, pitched in the comfortable current of heat which Iskierka gave off, ‘I cannot be much farther in the soup than I am already, after yesterday. She's spoilt, there is no other word for it. Wouldn't keep in formation, wouldn't obey signals, took the ferals with her—’ He shrugged, and taking a bottle from the floor poured them each a glass, which he drank with an unaccustomed enthusiasm.

‘It's not so bad, on patrol,’ Granby said, after wiping his mouth. ‘She doesn't need any coaxing to look out the enemy, and she'll take directions to make it easier. But in a fleet action—I don't mean she was useless,’ he added, with a defensive note. ‘They did for a first-rate and three frigates, and chased off a dozen French beasts. But she hasn't a shred of discipline. Pretended not to hear me, left the right wing of the Corps wide open, and two beasts badly hurt for it. I would be broken for it, if they could afford to give her up.’

He was pacing the small confines of his tent, still holding the empty glass, and talking swiftly, almost nervously. More to be saying something, to fill the air between them, than to impart these particular words. ‘This is the sort of thing that rots the Corps,’ he said. ‘I never thought I would be a bad officer, someone who ruins his dragon, the kind of fool, kept on only because his beast won't serve otherwise. The Army— the Navy—they sneer at us for that, as much as for anything else we do, but there at least they are right to sneer. So our admirals have to dance to the Navy's tune, and meanwhile the youngsters see it, too, and you can't ask them to be better, when they see a fellow let off anything, anything at all—’

He pulled himself up abruptly, realizing too late that his words were applicable to more of his audience than himself, and looked at Laurence miserably.

‘You are not wrong,’ Laurence said. He had assumed the same himself, in his Navy days. He had thought the Corps full of wild, devil-may-care libertines, who delighted in disregarding law and authority as far as they dared, barely kept in check. To be used for their control over the beasts, but not respected.

‘But if we have more liberty than we ought,’ Laurence said, after a moment, struggling through, ‘it is because our dragons haven't enough. They have no stake in victory other than our happiness. Any nation would give them their daily bread just to have peace and quiet. We are granted our license for as long as we do what we should not. So long as we use their affections to keep them obedient.’

‘How else do you make them care?’ Granby said. ‘If we did not, the French would run right over us, and take our eggs themselves.’

‘They care in China,’ Laurence said, ‘and in Africa. They care that their rational sense is not imposed on, nor their hearts put into opposition with their minds. If they cannot be woken to a natural affection for their country, such as we feel, it is our fault and not theirs.’

Laurence slept the night in Granby's tent, on top of a blanket. He would not take Granby's cot. It was odd to sleep warmly and wake in a sweat, then step out and see the camp below dusted overnight with snow, soiled grey tents for the moment clean white, and the ground already churning into muddy slush.

‘You are back,’ Iskierka said, looking at Laurence. She was wide awake, picking over the charred remnants of her breakfast, and watching the sluggish camp with a disgruntled eye. ‘Where is Temeraire? He has let you get into a wretched state,’ she added, with rather a smug air. Laurence could not argue, he was a pitiful sight indeed. His coat was ragged and his shoes were starting to open at the seams. The less said of his stockings the better. ‘Granby,’ she said, looking over his shoulder, ‘you may lend Laurence your fourth-best coat, and then you may tell Temeraire,’ she added to Laurence, ‘that I am very sorry he cannot give you nicer things.’

However, Granby was wearing his fourth-best coat, as the other three were wholly unsuitable for actual fighting. They were ostentatiously adorned with the fruits of Iskierka's determined prize-hunting. It would not in any case have been a very successful loan, as Laurence had some four inches in the shoulders, which Granby had instead in height. But Granby sent word out, and shortly a young runner returned carrying a folded coat, and a spare pair of boots.

‘Why, Sipho,’ Laurence said. ‘I am glad to find you well; and your brother, also, I hope?’ He had worried what might have become of the two boys, brought from Africa, who had helped them there. He had made them his own runners by way of providing for them, but had then found himself unable to be of further assistance.

‘Yes, sir,’ Sipho said in perfect English, though less than a year before the child had never heard a word of it. ‘He is with Arkady, and Captain Berkley says, you are welcome to these, and to come and say hello to Maximus would you, if you are not too damned stiff-necked. He said to say just that,’ he added earnestly.

‘You aren't the only one who owes them,’ Berkley said, in his blunt way, when Laurence had come and thanked him for assuming responsibility for the boys. ‘You needn't worry about them being cast off anyway, we need them. They can jaw with those damned ferals better than any man jack of us. That older boy talks their jabber quicker than he does English. You'd better worry about them getting knocked on the head instead. I had a fight on my hands to make the Admiralty let me keep this one grounded for now. They would have put him up as an ensign, if you like, not nine years of age. Demane they would have no matter what I said, but that is just as well. He fights,’ he added succinctly, ‘so he may as well do it against the Frogs, where it don't get him in hot water.’

Maximus was much recovered, from the last time Laurence had seen him. Three months of steady feeding on shore had brought him nearly up to his former fighting weight, and he put his head down and said in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘Tell Temeraire that Lily and I have not forgotten our promise, and we are ready to fight with him whenever he should ask. We will not let them hang you, not at all.’

Laurence stared up at the immense Regal Copper. All his crew looked deeply distressed, as well they might, the outlaw remark being perfectly audible several clearings over. Berkley only snorted. ‘There has been plenty of talk like that, and louder,’ he said. ‘I expect that is why you have been kept stuffed between decks in a ship instead of a in a decent prison on land. No, don't beg my pardon. It was sure as sixpence you and that mad beast of yours would make a spectacle of yourselves sooner or later. Bring him back, do for a dozen Frogs, and save us all the bother of the execution.’

With this sanguine if unlikely recommendation, Laurence reported to the courier-clearing with his orders, looking a little less shabby. Berkley was a thickset man, and if the borrowed coat was too large, at least he could get it on. And the borrowed boots were entirely serviceable, with a little padding of straw at the toes. His repaired appearance got him no better treatment, however. There were a dozen beasts waiting for messages and orders, and when Laurence had presented himself, the courier-master said, ‘If you will be so good as to wait,’ and left him outside the clearing. Laurence was near enough to see the master talking with his officers. None of the courier captains looked very inclined to take him up. He was left standing an hour, while four messages came in and were sent out, before another Winchester landed bringing fresh orders from the Admiralty, and at last the courier-master came and said, ‘Very well; we have a man to take you.’

‘Morning, sir,’ the captain said, touching his hat, as Laurence came over. It was Hollin, his former ground-crew master. ‘Elsie, will you give the captain a leg up? There is a strap there, sir, handy for you.’

‘Thank you, Hollin,’ Laurence said, grateful for the steady, matter-of-factness, and climbed up to her back. ‘We are for Pen Y Fan.’

‘Right you are, sir, we know the way,’ Hollin said. ‘Do you need a bite to sup, Elsie, before we go?’

‘No,’ she said, raising her head dripping from the water-trough. ‘They always have lovely cows there, I will wait.’

They did not speak very much during the flight. Winchesters were so small and quick one felt always on the point of flying off from the force of the wind steadily testing the limits of the carabiner straps. Laurence's hands, already blistered, grew bruised where he held on to the leather harness. They raced past blurred fields of brown stalks and snow. The thin cold air chapped at their faces and leaked into the neck of Laurence's coat, and through his threadbare shirt. He did not mind, he wished they might go quicker still. He resented now every mile remaining.

Goodrich Castle swelled up before them, on its hill, and Hollin put out the signal-flags as they flashed by: courier, with orders, and the fort's signal-gun fired in acknowledgment, already falling behind them.

The mountains were growing closer, and closer, and as the sun began to set Elsie came over the final sharp ridge and over the broad blood-stained feeding grounds, and the cliffs full of dragon-holes. She landed. The cattle pen was empty, its wide door standing open. There were no lights and no sound. There was not a dragon anywhere to be seen.

Chapter Four

Overnight, icicles had grown upon the overhang of the cave, a row of glittering teeth, and now as the sun struck they steadily dripped themselves away upon the stone, an uneven pattering without rhythm or sense. Temeraire opened his eyes once in a while, dully to watch them shrink; then he closed his eyes and put his head down. No one had proposed his removal, or disturbed him.

A scrabbling of claws made him look up; a small dragon had landed on the ledge, and Lloyd was sliding down from its back. ‘Come now then,’ Lloyd said, tramping in, his boots ringing and smearing field-muck on the clean stone. ‘Come now, old boy, why such a fuss, today? We have a lovely visitor waiting. A nice fat bullock will set you up—’

Temeraire had never wanted to kill anyone, except of course anyone who tried to hurt Laurence; he liked to fight well enough, as it was exciting, but he had never thought that he would like to kill anyone just for himself. Only, in this moment it seemed to him he would much rather that than have Lloyd before him, speaking so, when Laurence was dead.

‘Be silent,’ he said, and when Lloyd continued without a pause.

‘—the very best put aside for you special, tonight—’

Temeraire stretched out his neck and put his head directly before Lloyd and said, low, ‘My captain is dead.’

That at least meant something to Lloyd: he went white, stopped talking and held himself very still; Temeraire watched him closely. It was almost disappointing. If only Lloyd would say something else dreadful, or do something foul as he always did; if only—but Laurence would not like it— Laurence would not have liked it—Temeraire took a long hissing breath, and drew his head back, curling in upon himself again, and Lloyd sagged in relief.

‘Why there's been some mistake,’ he said, after a moment, his voice only a few shades less hearty. ‘I've heard nothing of the sort, old boy, word would've been sent me—’

His words made Temeraire angry all over again, but differently now: the sharp strange feeling was dulled, and he felt quite tired, wishing only for Lloyd to be gone.

‘I dare say you would tell me he was alive, even if he had been hanged at Tyburn,’ he said, bitterly, ‘as long as it made me eat, and mate, and listen to you. Well, I will not. I have borne it; I would have borne anything, only to keep Laurence alive, but I will bear it no longer. I will eat when I like, and not otherwise, and I will not mate with anyone unless I choose to.’ He looked at the little dragon who had brought Lloyd and said, ‘Now take him away, if you please; and tell the others that I do not want him brought again without asking first.’

The little dragon bobbed his head nervously and picked up the startled and protesting Lloyd to carry him down again. Temeraire closed his eyes and coiled himself again; the drip of the icicles his only company.

A few hours later, Perscitia and Moncey landed on the cave ledge with a studied air of insouciance, carrying two fresh-killed cows. They brought them inside, and laid them in front of him. ‘I am not hungry,’ Temeraire said sharply.

‘Oh, we only told Lloyd they was for you so he would let us have extra,’ Moncey said cheerfully. ‘You don't mind if we eat them here?’ and he tore into the first one. Temeraire's tail twitched, entirely without volition, at the hot juicy smell of the blood, and when Perscitia nudged the second cow towards him, he took it in his jaws without really meaning to. In a few swallows it was gone, and what they had left of the first followed swiftly.

He flew down for another, and even a fourth; he did not have to think or feel while he ate. A small flock of the more diminutive dragons clustered together on the edge of the feeding grounds watching him anxiously, and when he looked for yet another cow, a couple of them rose up to herd one towards him. But none of them spoke to Temeraire. When he had finished, he flew for a long distance along the river and settled down to drink only where he might be quite alone again. He felt sore in all his joints, as if he had flown hard in sleeting weather for a long, long time.

He washed, as well as he could manage alone, and went back to his cave to think. Perscitia came up to see him, to present an interesting mathematical problem, but he only glanced at it and said, ‘No. Help me find Moncey; I want to know what has been happening with the war.’

‘Why, I don't know,’ Moncey said, surprised, when they had tracked him down, lazing in a meadow on the mountainside with some of the other Winchesters and small ferals. They had been playing a bit of a game, where they tossed branches upon the ground and tried to pick up as many as they could without dropping any. ‘It's nothing to do with us, you know, not here. The Frenchy dragons and their captains are all kept over in Scotland, further up. There won't be any fighting round here.’

‘It is to do with us, too,’ Temeraire said. ‘This is our territory, all of ours; and the French are trying to take it away. That has as much to do with us as it would if they were trying to take your cave, and more, because they are trying to take everything else along with your cave.’

The little dragons put down their sticks and came closer to listen, with some interest. ‘But what do you want to do?’ Moncey said.

Numerous official couriers were crossing the countryside in every direction, at all speed, and the afternoon was not entirely spent before Moncey and the other Winchesters were able to return, full of as much news as Temeraire could wish for. If the numbers reported were a little inconsistent, it did not matter very much; Napoleon had landed a great many men, all near London, and there had not yet been any great battle to throw him off.

‘He is all over the coast, and the fellows say there is this Marshal Davout fellow poking about in Kent, to the south of London, and another one Lefèbvre, who is already somewhere along this way,’ Moncey said, pointing out the countryside west of the capital, and nearest Wales.

‘Oh, I know that one, he was at the siege of Danzig,’ Temeraire said. ‘I do not think he was so very clever, he did not make a big push to have us out, not until Lien came and took charge of everything. Where is our army?’

‘All fallen back about London,’ Minnow said. ‘Everyone says there is going to be a big battle there, in a couple of weeks perhaps.’

‘Then there is not a moment to lose,’ Temeraire said.

They passed the word for a council meeting, and everyone came promptly: the other big dragons considerably more respectful now, even if Ballista still was patronizing, ‘You are upset, of course, and no wonder; but I am sure if you tell them you would like another captain—’

‘No,’ Temeraire said, the resonance making his whole body tremble, and looked away, while everyone fell quiet. After a moment he was able to continue. ‘I am not going to take another captain,’ he said, ‘and a stranger; I do not need a handler as if I were one of Lloyd's cows. I can fight on my own, and so can any of you.’

‘But what is there to fight for?’ Requiescat said. ‘If the French win, they aren't going to give us any bother, it will only mean someone else taking eggs; they'll be just as careful.’

There was a murmur of agreement, and Moncey added, a little plaintively, ‘And I thought you were always on about how unfair the Admiralty are, not letting us have any liberty.’

‘I do not mean to speak for the Government,’ Temeraire said. ‘But this country is our territory as much as it is any man's; it belongs to us all together, and if we simply sit here eating cows while Napoleon tries to take it away, we have no right to complain of anything.’