Empire of Ivory (53 page)

gladly have seen Temeraire suffering the torments of the

damned. Laurence would not disdain what protection from her

malice the public avowals of imperial gratitude might

provide.

It had certainly a more immediate effect: De Guignes had

scarcely left the room before Laurence was shifted to a

handsome chamber upstairs, appointed plainly but with some

eye to comfort; a pleasant view of the open harbor, gaily

stocked with sails, outside his window. The shirt and

trousers materialized by morning: of very fine linen and

wool, with silk thread, and with them clean stockings and

linen; in the afternoon arrived a notable coat to replace

his own much-battered and-stained article: cut of black

leather, with skirts lower than the tops of his boots, and

buttons in gold so pure they were already no longer quite

circular.

Temeraire admired the results, very much, when in the

morning they were reunited to be transferred to Paris; and

barring an inclination to complain that Laurence was not

permitted to ride upon him, for the journey, was perfectly

satisfied with their change of venue. He did glare

ferociously at the small and quailing Pou-de-Ciel who would

serve as transport, as if he suspected her of planning to

carry Laurence off for some nefarious ends. But the

precaution would have been wise even if Laurence had given

their parole, as without it he would have set a pace

impossible for his escort to match; even as it was, they

were hard-pressed. Temeraire outdistanced them, except in

fits and starts, when he doubled back to come alongside the

Pou-de-Ciel and call out remarks to Laurence; so the other

dragons, most of them showing early signs of the illness,

were rather exhausted when they came in sight of the Seine.

Laurence had not been to Paris since the year one, in the

last peace, and had never before seen it from the dragonheights; but even with so little familiarity, he could

scarcely have failed to notice transformation on such a

scale. A broad avenue, still more than half raw dirt, had

been driven straight through the heart of the city,

smashing through all the old medieval alley-ways. Extending

from the Tuileries towards the Bastille, it continued the

line of the Champs-Élysées, but dwarfed that into a

pleasant country lane: the new avenue perhaps half as wide

as that massive square of Peking, which stood before the

Forbidden City, and much longer; with dragons hovering over

and lowering great stacks of paving-stones into the street.

A triumphal arch of monumental scale was going up, in the

Place de l'Étoile, half still presently mocked up in wood,

and new embankments upon the Seine; more prosaically, in

other places the ground had been opened up to a great

depth, and new sewers were being laid in mortared

cobblestones. On the city's border an enormous bank of

slaughterhouses stood behind a newly raised wall, with a

plaza open beside them, and a handful of cows on spits

roasting; a dragon was sitting there eating one, holding it

on the spit like an ear of corn.

Below them directly, the gardens of the Tuileries had been

widened, out from the banks of the Seine nearly an

additional quarter-of-a-mile in the opposite direction,

swallowing up the Place Vendôme into their boundaries; and

overlooking the riverbank, at right corners to the palace,

a great pavilion in stone and marble was going up: an

edifice in the Roman style, but on a different scale. In

the grassy courtyard already laid down beside it, Lien lay

drowsily coiled in the shade, a thin white garden-snake

seen from so far aloft, easy to make out among the other

dragons who were scattered at decorous distance around her.

They were brought down in those gardens: not where Lien

slept, but in another plaza before the palace, with a

makeshift pavilion of wood and sailcloth hastily erected in

their honor. Laurence had scarcely time to see Temeraire

established, before De Guignes took his arm and smiling

invited him inside; smiling, but with a firm grip, and the

guards gripped their muskets tightly: still honored guest

and prisoner both.

The apartments where they conducted him would have befitted

a prince; he might have wandered blindfold through the room

for five minutes together without knocking into a wall.

Used as he was to cramped quarters, Laurence found their

scale irritating rather than luxurious: the walk from the

chamberpot to the dressing-table a nuisance, and the bed

too soft and overburdened with hangings for the hot

weather; standing alone under the high and muraled ceiling,

he felt an actor in a bad play, with eyes and mockery upon

him.

He sat down at the writing-table in the corner, to have

somewhere to put himself, and pushed up the cover: paper

aplenty, and good pens, and ink, fresh and liquid when he

opened the jar; he closed it slowly again. He owed six

letters; they would never be written.

Outside it grew dark; from his window he could see the

pavilion on the riverbank, illuminated with many colorful

lanterns. The workers had gone away; Lien was now lying

across the top of the stairway, her wings folded to her

back, watching the light on the water: a silhouette more

than a shape. She turned her head, and Laurence saw a man

come walking down the broad path towards her, and ascend

into the pavilion: lanterns shone red on the uniforms of

his guard, which he had left at the foot of the stair.

De Guignes came the next morning after breakfast, all

renewals of kindness and generous sentiments, and took him

walking down to see Temeraire, with only a moderate guard.

Temeraire was awake and by the lashing of his tail in a

state of near-agitation; "She has sent me an invitation,"

he said plaintively, as soon as Laurence had sat down. "I

do not know what she means by it; I am not going to go and

talk to her, at all."

The invitation was a handsomely calligraphed scroll, in

Chinese characters, tied with a tassel of red and gold; it

was not long, and merely requested the pleasure of the

company of Lung Tien Xiang at the Pavilion of the Seven

Pillars for drinking tea and restful repose, in the heat of

the day. "There is nothing evidently insincere in it;

perhaps she means it as a gesture of reconciliation,"

Laurence said, though he did not think much of the chances.

"No, she does not," Temeraire said darkly. "I am sure if I

go, the tea will be very unpleasant, at least my tea will

be, and I will have to drink it or look ill-mannered; or

she will make remarks which do not seem offensive, until I

have gone away and thought them over; or she will try and

have you murdered while I am not there: you are not to go

anywhere without a guard, and if anyone tries to murder

you, you must call for me very loud," he added. "I am sure

I could knock down a wall of that palace, if I had to, to

reach you," a remark which left De Guignes with a peculiar

rigid expression; he could not forbear a glance at the

substantial stone wall of the Tuileries, overlooking the

pavilion.

"I assure you from my heart," he said, recovering his

aplomb, "that no one could be more sensible of the

generosity which you have shown to France; Madame Lien has

been among the first, to receive the cure which you have

delivered us-"

"Oh," Temeraire said, disgruntled.

"-and, as all of the nation, welcomes you with open arms,"

De Guignes carried on manfully.

"Stuff," Temeraire said. "I do not believe it at all; and I

do not like her anyway, even if she does mean it, so she

may keep her invitations and her tea; and her pavilion,

too," he added, low, with an envious twitch of his tail.

De Guignes coughed, and did not attempt further to persuade

him; instead he said, "I will make your regrets, then; in

any event, you may be occupied with preparations, as

tomorrow morning His Majesty wishes to meet you, and to

convey to you all the thanks of the nation. He wishes you

to know it grieves him very much that the formalities of

war should attend such a meeting; and that for his part, he

welcomes you as brothers, and not as prisoners at all," he

added, with a look at once tactful and significant: a

delicate hinting that they need not be prisoners for their

part, either, if they chose.

The whole speech, his earnest manner, had a vaguely

mercenary quality, which, to do justice to the man's

humanity, he gave with a very faint, dismissive air; so to

accept would have needed only a nod. Laurence looked away

instead; to hide his expression of distaste; but Temeraire

said, "If he does not like us to be prisoners, it seems to

me he is the Emperor, and can let us go if he likes. We are

not going to fight for you against our own friends back in

England, if that is what you mean."

De Guignes smiled without any sign of offense. "His Majesty

would never invite you to any dishonorable act." A pretty

sentiment, and one which Laurence was inclined to trust

from Bonaparte as much as from the Lords of the Admiralty:

less. De Guignes rose gracefully and said, "I hope you will

excuse me now to my other duties: Sergeant Lasalle and his

men will escort you to your quarters for dinner, Captain,

when you have finished your conversation," and so quitted

them strategically, to let them contemplate his vague

suggestions alone.

They did not say anything a while; Temeraire scratched at

the ground. "I suppose we cannot stay," he muttered, halfashamedly, "even if we did not fight? I thought we would go

back to China, but then we have still left everything in

Europe as it is. I am sure I can protect you from Lien, and

perhaps I might help work upon that road; or I might write

books. It seems very nice here," he added. "One could go

walking, here in the gardens, or in the road, and meet

people."

Laurence looked down at his hands, which held no answer. He

did not mean to grieve Temeraire, or to distress him, but

he had known his own fate since first they had embarked

upon this adventure; and at last he said quietly, "My dear,

I hope you will stay, and have whatever profession you

desire; or that Bonaparte will give you passage back to

China if you prefer it. But I must go home to England."

Temeraire paused, and then he said uncertainly, "But they

will hang you-"

"Yes," Laurence said.

"I will not, I will never let them," Temeraire said.

"Laurence-"

"I have committed treason," Laurence said. "I will not now

add cowardice to that crime, nor let you shield me from its

consequences." He looked away; Temeraire was silent and

trembling, and it was painful to look at him. "I do not

regret what we have done," he said quietly. "I would not

have undertaken the act, if I were not willing to die for

it; but I do not mean to live a traitor."

Temeraire shuddered, and drew himself back onto his

haunches, staring blindly out into the gardens; motionless.

"And if we stay," he said, eventually, "they will say it

was all self-interest-that we brought the cure for a

reward, so that we should have a pleasant life, here or in

China; or perhaps that we were cowards, and thought

Napoleon would win the war, and we did not want to fight.

They will never admit that they were in the wrong; and that

we have sacrificed our own happiness, to repair what never

ought have been done, in the first place."

Laurence had not so articulated his instinctive decision;

he did not need to, to know what he must do. For his own

part, he did not care what should be thought of it, and

said so. "What will be thought of it, I already know, and I

do not suppose anything now will alter those sentiments; if

that were of any importance, we should not have gone. I am

not returning to make a political gesture, but because it

must be done; if there is any honor to be preserved after

such an act."

"Well, I would not give a button for honor," Temeraire

said. "But I do care about the lives of our friends, and

that those lords should learn to be ashamed of what they

have done; which I suppose they will never do, but others

might, if they were not given so convenient an excuse to

dismiss the whole matter." He bowed his head. "Very well;

we will tell him no, and if he will not set us free, we can

escape and return, on our own."

"No," Laurence said, recoiling. "My dear, there is no sense

in it; you had much better go back to China. They will only

throw you in the breeding grounds."

"Oh! certainly! that I should run away, but not you, when

you have done it for me, you never thought of it but for

me?" Temeraire heaped scorn upon the notion. "No; if they

mean to put you to death, they will have to put me to death

also; I am as guilty or more, and I will certainly not let