Empire of Ivory (47 page)

God knows you have done all you might, and more. But they

seem to think at the Admiralty that it is like putting the

wheel back on a cart, and they want us flying all the old

routes again at once. Halifax and back, by way of Greenland

and a transport, anchored in the middle of the north

fifties, with ice-water coming over the bow with every

wave; of course she is coughing again." He stroked the

little dragon's muzzle; she sneezed plaintively.

The floor was very comfortably warm, at least, and if the

wood-fire was a little smoky, worming up through the square

stone slabs of the floor, the open plan blew the fumes

away. It was a simple, practical building, not at all

elegant or ornate, and Temeraire might have slept in it,

but it could not have been called spacious, on his scale.

He regarded it with brooding disappointment, and was not

disposed to linger; the crew did not even have the

opportunity to dismount before he wished to be off again,

putting the pavilion at his back, and flying with rather a

drooping ruff.

Laurence tried to console him by remarking on the sick

dragons yet sheltering there, even in the summer's heat.

"Jane tells me that they would pile them in ten at a time,"

he said, "during the winter, so wet and cold; and the

surgeons are quite certain it saved a dozen lives."

Temeraire only muttered, "Well, I am glad it has been

useful," ungraciously; such distant triumphs, achieved out

of his sight and several months before, were not quite

satisfactory. "That is an ugly hill," he added, "and that

one, also; I do not like them," inclined to be displeased

even with the landscape, when ordinarily he was mad for

anything out of the common way, and would point out

anything of the most meager interest to Laurence's

attention, with delight.

The hills were odd; irregular and richly covered with

grass, they drew the eye queerly as they went overhead.

"Oh," said Emily suddenly, on the forward lookout, craning

her head over Temeraire's shoulder to look down at them,

and shut her mouth hurriedly in embarrassment at the

solecism of having spoken without a warning to give.

Temeraire's wingbeats slowed. "Oh," he said.

The valley was full of them: not hills but barrow-mounds,

raised over the dragon-corpses where they had breathed

their last. Here and there an outthrust horn or spike came

jutting from the sod; or a little fall of dirt had bared

the white curve of a jaw-bone. No one spoke; Laurence saw

Allen reach down and close his hands around the jingle of

his carabiners, where they hooked on to the harness. They

flew on silently, above the verdant deserted green,

Temeraire's shadow flowing and rippling over the spines and

hollows of the dead.

They were still quiet when Temeraire came in to the London

covert, and the little unpacking necessary carried on

subdued: the men carried the bundles to be stacked at the

side of the clearing, and went back for others; the

harness-men had none of their usual cheerful squabbling

over who was to manage the belly-netting, but in silence

Winston and Porter went to it together. "Mr. Ferris,"

Laurence said, voice deliberately raised, "when we are in

reasonable order, you may give a general leave, through

tomorrow dinner; barring any pressing duties."

"Yes, sir; thank you," Ferris said, trying to match his

tone; it did not quite take, but the work went a little

more briskly, and Laurence was confident a night's revelry

would soon finish the work of rousing the men out of the

sense of oppression.

He went and stood at Temeraire's head, putting his hand

comfortingly on his muzzle. "I am glad it was useful,"

Temeraire said, low, and slumped more deeply to the ground.

"Come; I would have you eat something," Laurence said. "A

little dinner; and then I will read to you, if you like."

Temeraire did not find much consolation in philosophy, or

even mathematics; and he picked at his food until, pricking

up his ruff, he raised his head and put a protective

forehand over his cow, and Volly came tumbling into the

clearing, kicking up a furious hovering cloud of dust

behind him.

"Temrer," Volly said happily, and butted him in the

shoulder, then immediately cast a wistful eye on the cow.

"Don't be taken in," James said, sliding down from his

back. "Fed not a quarter-of-an-hour ago, while I was

waiting for the mails in Hyde Park, and a perfectly

handsome sheep, too. How are you, Laurence? Tolerably

brown, I find. Here's for you, if you please."

Laurence gladly accepted the parcel of letters for his

crew, with one on top, to his personal direction. "Mr.

Ferris," he said, handing the packet over, to be

distributed. "Thank you, James; I hope we find you well?"

Volly did not look so bad as Meeks's report might have made

Laurence fear, if with a degree of rough scarring around

the nostrils, and a slightly raspy voice. It did not

inhibit him from rambling happily on to Temeraire, with an

enumeration of the sheep and goats which he had lately

eaten, and a recounting of his triumph at having sired,

early in the recent disaster, an egg, himself. "Why, that

is very good," Temeraire said. "When will it hatch?"

"Novembrer," Volly said delightedly.

"He will say so," James said, "although the surgeons have

no notion; it hasn't hardened a tick yet, and it would be

early. But the blessed creatures do seem to know,

sometimes, so they are looking out a likely boy for the

thing."

They were bound for India, "Tomorrow, or the day after,

maybe; if the weather keeps fair," James said airily.

Temeraire cocked his head. "Captain James, do you suppose

that you might carry a letter for me? To China," he added.

James scratched his head to receive such a request;

Temeraire was unique among British dragons, so far as

Laurence knew, in writing letters; indeed, not many

aviators managed the habit themselves. "I can take it to

Bombay," he said, "and I suppose some merchantman is bound

to be going on; but they'll only go to Canton."

"I am sure if they give it to the Chinese governor there,

he will see it delivered," Temeraire said with justifiable

confidence; the governor was likely to consider it an

Imperial charge.

"But surely we ought not delay you, for personal

correspondence," Laurence said a little guiltily; if James

did seem a little careless of his schedule.

"Oh, don't trouble yourself," James said. "I don't quite

like the sound of his chest yet, and the surgeons don't,

either; as their Lordships ain't disposed to worry about

it, so neither am I, about being quite on time. I'm happy

enough to linger in port a few days, and let him fatten

himself up and sleep a while." He slapped Volly on his

flank, and led him away to another clearing, the small

Greyling following on his heels almost like an eager hound,

if a hound were imagined the size of a moderate elephant.

The letter was from his mother, but it had been franked: a

small but valuable sign of his father's approval, of its

having been sent, with replies to his last letter:

We are very shocked by the News you send us from Africa,

which in many respects exceeds that appearing in the

Papers, and pray for the Solace of those Christian souls

caught in the Wrack, but we do not repudiate some

Sentiment, which the Abhorrence of such dreadful Violence

cannot wholly silence, that the Wages of Sin are not always

held in Arrears to be paid off on the Day of Reckoning, but

Malefactors by God's Will may be held to account even in

this earthly life; Lord Allendale considers it a Judgment

upon the failure of the Vote. He is much satisfied by your

Account, that the Tswana (if I have it correctly) might

perhaps have been appeased, by the Ban; and we have hopes

that this necessary Period, to that evil trade, may soon

lead to a better and more humane Condition for those poor

Wretches who yet suffer under the Yoke.

She concluded more unfortunately by saying,

...and I have taken the Liberty of enclosing a small

Trinket, which amused me to buy, but for which I have no

Use, as your Father has mentioned to me that you have taken

an Interest in the Education of a Young Lady, who I hope

may find it suitable.

It was a fine string of garnets, set in gold; his mother

had only one granddaughter, a child of five, out of three

sons and now five grandsons, and there was a wistful note

to be read between the closely written lines. "That is very

nice," Temeraire said, peering over at it with an

appraising and covetous eye, although it would not have

gone once around one of his talons.

"Yes," Laurence said sadly, and called Emily over to

deliver the necklace to her. "My mother sends it you."

"That is very kind of her," Emily said, pleased, and if a

little perplexed, quite happy to forgo that sentiment in

favor of enjoyment of her present. She admired it, over her

hands, and then thought a moment, and a little tentatively

inquired, "Ought I write to her?"

"Perhaps I will just express your thanks, in my reply,"

Laurence said; his mother might not dislike receiving the

letter, but it would only have encouraged the

misunderstanding, and his father would certainly look with

disfavor on any such gesture as suggesting expectations of

a formal acknowledgment, no part of his sense of the

responsibilities towards an illegitimate child; and there

was no easy way to explain to him the perfect lack of

foundation for such a concern.

Laurence was sadly puzzled how to write, even in his own

letter, to avoid adding to the confusion, as he could not

in civility omit the barest facts: that he had delivered

the gift, seen it received, and heard thanks; all of which

alone revealed that he had seen Emily very lately and, by

the speed of his reply, it would seem regularly. He

wondered how he might explain the situation to Jane: he had

the vague and slightly lowering thought that she would find

it highly amusing, nothing to be taken seriously; that she

would not at all mind being taken for-and here his pen

stuttered and halted, with his thoughts, because of course,

she was the mother of a child, out of wedlock; she was not

a respectable woman, and it was not only the secret of the

Corps which would have prevented him ever making her known

to his mother.

Chapter 15

"JANE," LAURENCE SAID, "will you marry me?"

"Why, no, dear fellow," she said, looking up in surprise

from the chair where she was drawing on her boots. "It

would be a puzzle to give you orders, you know, if I had

vowed to obey; it could hardly be comfortable. But it is

very handsome of you to have offered," she added, and

standing up kissed him heartily, before she put on her

coat.

A timid knock at the door prevented anything more he might

have said: one of Jane's runners, come to tell her the

carriage was ready at the gates of the covert, and they had

perforce to go. "I will be glad when we are back in Dover;

what a miserable swamp," Jane said, already blotting her

forehead on her sleeve as she left the small barrackshouse: the London setting added, to the attractions of

stifling heat and the heavy moisture-laden air, all the

city's unrivaled stench, and the mingling of barnyard

scents with the acrid stink of the small covert's presently

overburdened dragon-middens.

Laurence said something or other about the heat, and

offered her his handkerchief mechanically. He did not know

how to feel. The offer had come from some deeper impulse

than conscious decision; he had not meant to speak, and

certainly not yet, not in such a manner. An absurd moment

to raise the question, almost as if he wished to be

refused; but he was not relieved, he was by no means

relieved.

"I suppose they will keep us past dinner-time," Jane said,

meaning their Lordships, an opinion which seemed to

Laurence rather optimistic; he thought it very likely they

should be kept for days, if Bonaparte were not so obliging

as to invade, with no warning. "So I must look in on

Excidium before we go: he ate nothing at all, last night;

nothing, and I must try and rouse him up to do better

today."

"I do not need to be scolded," Excidium murmured, without

opening his eyes, "I am very hungry," but he was scarcely

able to rouse himself from his somnolence even to nudge

briefly at her hand. Though naturally one of those earliest

dosed with the supply of mushroom sent on by frigate from

Capetown, he was by no means yet fully recovered from his

ordeal; the disease had been well advanced in his case by

the time the cure had arrived, and only in the last few

weeks had it been judged safe for him to leave the

uncomfortable sand-pits which had made his home for more