Empire of Ivory

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‘You will need linkboys on it all winter long to brush the snow clear, and I will not give a brass farthing for the gutters after two seasons,’ Royle said. ‘A good slate roof, that is the thing, do you not agree with me, Mr. Cutter?’

Mr. Cutter had no opinion to offer, as he had backed against the trees and looked ready to bolt; and would have if Laurence had not prudently stationed his ground-crew around the border of the clearing to forestall just such panic.

‘I am very willing to be advised by you, sir, as to the best plan of construction, and the most reasonable,’ Laurence said, while Royle blinked around looking for the source of the response. ‘Temeraire, our climate here is a good deal wetter, so we must cut our cloth to suit our station.’

‘Very well, I suppose,’ Temeraire said, casting a wistful eye at the upturned roof and the brightly painted wood.

Iskierka meanwhile, had been inspired and began to plot her acquisition of capital. ‘If I burn up a ship, is that good enough, or must I bring it back whole?’ she demanded.

Her piratical career began the next morning, when she presented Granby with a small fishing-boat, which she had picked out of the Dover harbour during the night. ‘Well, you did not say it must be a French ship,’ she said crossly, to their recriminations, and curled up to sulk. Stealthy little Gherni was hastily recruited to replace it the following night, under the cover of darkness, undoubtedly to the great consternation of its temporarily bereft owner.

‘Laurence, do you suppose that we could obtain more capital by taking French ships?’ Temeraire asked, with a level of thoughtfulness very alarming to Laurence, who had just returned from dealing with Iskierka’s pretty piece of confusion.

‘The French ships are penned in their harbours by the Channel blockade, thank Heaven, and we are not privateers, to go plying the lanes for their shipping,’ Laurence said. ‘Your life is too valuable to risk in such a selfish endeavour. In any case, once you have began to behave in such an undisciplined manner, you may be sure Arkady and his lot would follow your example and leave Britain undefended; not to mention the encouragement that Iskierka would take from it.’

‘Whatever am I to do with her?’ Granby said, wearily taking a glass of wine with Laurence and Jane in the officers’ common room at the covert headquarters that same evening. ‘I suppose being dragged hither and yon in the shell, has caused it; and all the fuss and excitement she has had since. But that cannot excuse it forever. I must manage her somehow, and I am at a standstill. I would not be surprised if one morning I awoke to find the entire harbour set alight, because she took it into her head that we would not have to sit about defending the city if it were all burned up. I cannot even make her sit still long enough to get her under full harness.’

‘Never mind; I will come by tomorrow, and see what I can do,’ Jane said, pushing the bottle over to him again. ‘She is a little young for work, but I think her energy had better be put to use, than cause all this fretting. Have you chosen your lieutenants yet, Granby?’

‘I will have Lithgow, for my first, if you’ve no objection, and Harper for a second, to act as captain of the riflemen also,’ he said. ‘I don’t like to take too many men, when we don’t know what her growth will be like.’

‘You would not like to turn them off later, you mean, when they, like as not, they cannot get another post.’ Jane said gently, ‘I know it will be hard if it comes to that; but we cannot short-change her, not with her so wild. Take Row also, as captain of the bellmen. He is old enough to retire if he must be turned off, and he is a good steady campaigner, who will not blink at her starts.’

Granby nodded a little, his head bowed. The next morning, with great state, Jane came to Iskierka’s clearing. She wore all of her medals, a gold-plated sabre and pistols on her belt and even her great plumed hat, which aviators scarcely used. Granby had assembled his new crew, and they saluted her with a great noise of arms. Iskierka nearly coiled herself into knots with excitement, and the ferals and even Temeraire peered over the trees to watch with interest.

‘Well, Iskierka; your captain tells me that you are ready for service,’ Jane said, putting her hat under her arm, and looking sternly at the little Kazilik, ‘but what are these reports I hear, that you will not mind his orders? We cannot send you into battle if you cannot follow orders.’

‘Oh! It is not true!’ Iskierka said. ‘I can follow orders as well as anyone, it is only that no one will give me any good ones. I am told only to sit, and not to fight, and to eat three times a day; I do not want any more stupid cows!’ she added, smoulderingly. The ferals, after having this translated for them by their own handful of officers, set up a low squabbling murmur of disbelief.

‘It is not simply the pleasant orders we must follow, but the tiresome as well,’ Jane said, when the noise had died down. ‘Do you suppose Captain Granby likes to sit in this clearing, forever waiting for you to grow more settled? Perhaps he would rather go back to service with Temeraire, and enjoy some fighting.’

Iskierka’s eyes stretched platter-wide, and her spikes hissed like a furnace. In an instant she had thrown a pair of jealous coils around Granby, which bade fair to boil him like a lobster in steam. ‘He would not! You would not, at all, would you?’ she appealed. ‘I will fight just as well as Temeraire, I promise; and I will even obey the stupidest orders, at least, if I may have some pleasant ones also,’ she qualified hastily.

‘I am sure she will mind better in future, sir,’ Granby managed coughing, his hair was already soaking, and plastered against his forehead and neck. ‘Pray don’t fret; I would never leave you, only I am getting wet,’ he added, plaintively.

‘Hm,’ Jane said, with frowning consideration. ‘Since Granby speaks for you, I suppose we will give you your chance.’ she said, at last, ‘You may even have your first orders, Captain, if she will let you come for them, and stand still for her harness.’

Iskierka immediately let him loose and stretched herself out for the ground-crew, only craning her neck a little to see the red-sealed and yellow-tasselled packet, which communicated their instruction in very ornate and important language, to do nothing more than run a quick, hour long patrol down to Guernsey and back. ‘And you may take her by that old heap of rubble at Castle Cornet, where the gunpowder blew up the tower. Tell her it is a French outpost, and that she may flame it from aloft,’ Jane added to Granby, in a soft tone, not meant for Iskierka’s ears.

Iskierka’s harness was a great deal of trouble to arrange as her spines were arranged quite randomly, and the frequent issuing of steam made her hide slick. An improvised collection of short straps and many buckles, had been constructed and were wretchedly easy to tangle, so she could not entirely be blamed for growing tired of the process. But the promise of action and the interested crowd made her more patient this time; and at some length she was properly rigged out. Granby said, with relief, ‘There, it is quite secure. Now, see if you can shake any of it loose, dear one.’

She writhed and beat her wings, twisting herself this way and that to inspect the harness. ‘You are supposed to say, ‘all lies well,’ if you are comfortable,’ Temeraire whispered loudly to her, after she had been engaged in this sport for several minutes.

‘Oh, I see,’ she said, and settling again announced, ‘All lies well. Now, we shall go?’

In this way she was at least a little reformed, though no one could have called her obliging, and she invariably stretched her patrols further afield than Granby would have them; in hope of meeting an enemy more challenging than an old fort and a couple of innocent birds. ‘But at least she will take a little training, and is eating properly, which I call victory enough, for now,’ Granby said. ‘And after all, as much as she frightens us, she’ll give the Frogs a worse scare. Laurence, can you believe, we talked to the fellows up at Castle Cornet, and they set up a bit of sail for her at aim at, and she can set it alight from eighty yards away. That’s twice the range of a Flamme-de-Gloire, and she can go at it for five minutes straight! I don’t understand how she gets her breath while she does it.’

They’d had considerable trouble keeping her out of direct combat, for the French continued their harassment and scouting of the coast with ever-increasing aggression. Jane used the sick dragons more frequently for basic patrols to spare Temeraire and the ferals, who instead waited for most of the day on the cliff tops for the warning flare to go up, or listening with ears pricked for the report of a signal-gun, before dashing frantically to meet another incursion.

In the space of two weeks, Temeraire had four skirmishes with small groups, and once Arkady and a few of his band, sent on patrol by themselves while Temeraire snatched a few more hours of sleep, barely managed to turn back a Pou-de-Ciel who had daringly tried to slip past the shore-batteries at Dover, less than a mile away from having a clear view of the quarantine-grounds.

The ferals returned from their narrow victory naturally delighted with themselves, and Jane with quick cleverness took the opportunity to present to Arkady, with full ceremony, a long length of chain with a large dinner-platter inscribed with his name for a medal; almost worthless, being made only of brass, but polished to a fine golden shine. Arkady was rendered speechless as it was fastened about his neck; but for only a moment, after which he erupted into a torrent of carolling joy, and insisted that every single one of his fellows inspect his prize; even Temeraire did not escape this fate. He bristled and withdrew with indignity to his own clearing to polish his breastplate vigorously.

‘You cannot compare them.’ Laurence said, cautiously, ‘It is only a trinket, to make him complacent, and encourage them in their efforts.’

‘Oh, certainly.’ Temeraire said, haughtily. ‘Mine is much nicer; I would not want anything so common as brass.’ After a moment he added, muttering, ‘But his is very large.’

‘Cheap at double the price,’ Jane said the next day, when he came to give the morning report, for once uneventful. The ferals were more zealous than ever, and rather disappointed not to find more enemies. ‘They come along handsomely, just as we had hoped.’ But she spoke wearily.

Laurence poured her a small glass of brandy and brought it to her at the window, where she stood looking out at the ferals cavorting in mid-air over their clearing. ‘Thank you, I will.’ She took the glass, but did not drink at once. ‘Conterrenis has gone,’ she said abruptly. ‘The first Longwing we have lost; it was a bloody business.’ She sat down heavily. ‘He took a bad chill and suffered a haemorrhage in his lungs, so the surgeons tell me. At any rate, he could not stop coughing, and so his acid came and came; it began to build up on his spurs and sear his skin. It laid his jaw bare to the bone.’ She paused. ‘Gardenley shot him this morning.’

Laurence took the chair beside her, feeling wholly inadequate to the task of providing any comfort. After a little while she drank the brandy and set down her glass, and they turned back to the maps to discuss the next day’s patrolling.

He left her, ashamed now of dreading the party, now only a few days’ hence, and determined to put himself forward with no regard for his own mortification; for even the smallest chance of improving’ the conditions of the sick dragons.

… and I hope you will permit me to suggest, Wilberforce had written, that any Oriental touch to your wardrobe, even a little one, which might at a glance set you apart, would be most useful. I am happy to report that we have engaged some Chinese to serve, by offering a good sum in the ports, where occasionally a few of them may be found having taken service on an East Indiaman. They are not properly trained, of course, but they will only be carrying dishes to and from the kitchens, and we have instructed them most severely to show no alarm in the presence of the dragon, which I hope they have understood. However, I do have some anxiety as to their comprehension of what faces them, and should you have enough liberty to come early, hope that we may try their fortitude.

Laurence stifled his sighs, sent his Chinese coat to his tailors for refurbishment, and asked Jane her permission to go early. The Chinese servants did indeed cause a great commotion on their arrival, but only by abandoning their work and running to prostrate themselves before Temeraire, almost throwing themselves beneath his feet in their efforts to make the show of respect that they considered a Celestial’s due. The British workmen who were engaged in the final decoration of the covert were not nearly so complaisant, and vanished one and all, leaving the great panels of embroidered silk, ordered at vast expense, hanging askew from the tree branches and dragging upon the earth.

Wilberforce exclaimed in dismay as he came to greet Laurence; but Temeraire issued instructions to the Chinese servants, who set to work with great energy, and with the assistance of the crew the covert was a handsome sight in time to receive the guests. Brass lamps were tied onto branches to stand in place of Chinese paper lanterns, and small coal-stoves placed at intervals along the tables.

‘We may bring the business off, if it does not snow,’ Lord Allendale said, pessimistically, arriving early to inspect the arrangements. ‘It is a great pity your mother could not be here,’ he added, ‘but the child has not yet come, and she does not like to leave Elizabeth in her confinement,’ referring to the wife of Laurence’s eldest brother, soon to present him with his fifth child.

The night stayed clear, if cold, and the guests began to arrive in cautious dribs and drabs, keeping well away from Temeraire, who was ensconced in his clearing at the far end of the long tables, and peering at him not very surreptitiously through their opera glasses. Laurence’s officers were meanwhile standing by him, stiff and equally terrified in their best clothes: all new, fortunately, and Laurence was rewarded for the trouble he had taken in directing his officers to the better tailors in Dover, for the repairs which all their wardrobes required after their long stay abroad, by seeing them in well fitting coats and trousers.

Emily was the only one of them truly pleased, as she had acquired her first silk gown for the occasion; and if she tripped upon the hem a little she did not seem to mind. She was rather exultant over her kid gloves and string of pearls, which Jane had bestowed upon her. ‘It is late enough in all conscience for her to be learning how to manage skirts,’ Jane said. ‘Do not fret, Laurence. I promise you no one will be suspicious. I have made a cake of myself in public a dozen times, and no one has ever thought me an aviator for it. But if it gives you any comfort, you may tell them that she is your niece.’

‘I will do no such thing; my father will be there, and I assure you he is thoroughly aware of all his grandchildren,’ Laurence said. His father would immediately conclude Emily to be his own natural-born child, should he make such a claim. He privately decided that he would keep Emily close by Temeraire’s side, where she would be little seen; he had no doubt that his guests would keep a good distance away, whatever persuasion Mr. Wilberforce intended to apply.

That persuasion, however, took the most undesirable form. Mr. Wilberforce spotted Emily and said, ‘Come; behold this young girl who thinks nothing of standing within reach of the dragon. Even if you can permit yourself, madam, to be outdone by trained aviators, I hope you will not allow a child to outstrip you?’

With a sinking heart Laurence observed his father turning to cast an astonished eye on Emily, confirming his worst fears. Lord Allendale did not scruple, either, to approach and interrogate her. Emily, perfectly innocent of malice, answered him in her clear girlish voice, ‘Oh, I have lessons every day, sir, from the Captain, although it is Temeraire who gives me my mathematics, now, as Captain Laurence does not like arithmetic. But I would rather practice fencing,’ she added candidly, looking a little uncertain when she found herself laughed over and pronounced a dear by the pair of ladies who had been persuaded to venture close to the great table, by her example.

‘A masterful stroke, Captain,’ Wilberforce murmured softly. ‘Wherever did you find her?’ He did not wait for an answer as he then accosted a party of gentlemen who had risked coming closer, and continued to work upon them in the same fashion; embellishing his persuasions with if Lady So-and-So had been brave enough to approach Temeraire, surely they could not show themselves hesitant.

Temeraire was very interested in all of the guests, particularly admiring the more bejewelled ladies, and managed by accident to please the Marchioness of Carstoke, a lady of advanced years whose bosom was concealed only by a vulgar array of emeralds set in gold, by informing her that she looked a good deal more like a monarch, in his estimation, than did the Queen of Prussia, whom he had only seen in travelling clothes.

Several gentlemen challenged him to perform simple sums, a challenge to which he blinked a little, and having given them the answers, enquired whether this was the sort of game normally played at parties, and whether he ought to offer them a mathematical problem in return.

‘Dyer, pray bring me my sand-table,’ he said, and when this was agreed. Using his claw he sketched out a small diagram for the purpose of posing them a question on the Pythagorean theorem, which proved sufficient to baffle most of the gentlemen, whose own mathematical skill did not extend past the card tables.

‘But it is a very simple exercise,’ Temeraire insisted in some confusion, wondering aloud to Laurence if he had missed some sort of joke. At last a member of the Royal Society on a quest to observe certain aspects of Celestial anatomy, was able to provide the answer.

When Temeraire had spoken to the servants in Chinese, conversed in fluent French with several of the guests and failed to eat or crush anyone, fascination began at last to trump fear and draw more of the company towards him. Soon Laurence found himself quite neglected and of considerably less interest; a circumstance which would have delighted him, if only it had not left him to make awkward conversation with his father, who inquired stiltedly about Emily’s mother. He posed questions which if evaded would only have made Laurence seem more guilty, and yet whose perfectly truthful answers, that Emily was the natural-born daughter of Jane Roland, a gentlewoman living in Dover, and that he had taken charge of her education, still left entirely the wrong impression. And Laurence could no more correct this, than his father could outright ask.