Empire of Ivory (55 page)

will never stay here, while they try to hang you."

Laurence bowed his head, and felt the justice of it; he did

not think Temeraire ought to stay, but only wished that he

would, and be happy. "You will promise me not to stay

forever in the breeding grounds," he said, low. "Not past

the New Year, unless they let me visit you in the flesh."

He was very certain they would execute him by Michaelmas.

Extracts from

The Tswana Kingdom

By

Sipho Tsuluka Dlamini

[1838]

LONDON, CHAPMAN & HALL

Being a history of the Tswana Kingdom from its origins to

the present day, and a complete geographical survey of its

territories, with particular reference to the capital at

Mosi oa Tunya, and several interesting remarks on the

native customs.

THE GRADUAL PROCESS of consolidation of the Tswana and

Sotho peoples brought together a loose confederation of

tribal kingdoms, founded originally, according to tribal

historians, throughout the southern part of the continent

towards the end of the first millennium, by a general but

undeliberate southerly and eastern migration, whose impetus

has been lost to us: perhaps a search for fresh hunting

grounds, and new territory, by an expanding population both

human and dragon.

The first vague beginnings of elephant-farming are believed

to have developed shortly after this vast migration was

mostly complete, and the pressures of hunger might no

longer be relieved by further nomadic progress; a study of

the art of the ivory-carvers gives testament to the success

of the breeding project that rendered the domesticated

beasts more bovine-docile, and considerably larger than

their wild counterparts: a succession of tusks held at the

capital, each pair the largest harvested within a

generation, carved elaborately and presented to the (then

largely ceremonial) king....

These tribes, previously united only by distant ties of

blood, mutually intelligible dialect, and certain shared

customs and religious observances, most notable among these

of course the practice of dragon-rebirth, first began to

collaborate more closely for the joint administration of

the elephant herds, which demanded more labour than could

be organised by a single tribe.... [A] centralisation

further encouraged from the seventeenth century onwards by

the increasing demand for ivory and gold, which penetrated

to the African interior for several decades before the

hunger for slaves was risen to a sufficient pitch to

overcome the reluctance of the more aggressive slave-taking

tribes to venture into dragon-territory; and spurring, from

the middle of the eighteenth century, the rapid development

of gold-mining (a venture that the Tswana authorities

indicate is most productively pursued through the cooperation of at least ten dragons, more than belong to

nearly any individual tribe), and of the ivory trade, which

by the open of the present century was sending some sixty

thousand pounds a year to the coast without any suspicion

on the part of the European traders, who carried the

elephant teeth away, that these were obtained by, and not

in despite of, the dragons who barred any further entry to

the interior....

On Mosi oa Tunya

THE FALLS AT Mosi oa Tunya, so justly celebrated by all who

have beheld them, were, despite their beauty, as a

settlement inconvenient to men alone, who could not easily

navigate the gorges, and in their natural state offered no

real haven to feral dragons; admired and occasionally

visited, either for mere scenic pleasure or religious

observation, they were yet undeveloped and uninhabited when

the first Sotho-Tswana peoples moved into the region, and

quickly made them their ceremonial capital, a further

centralising tie among the tribes.... [T]he desire of the

dragon-ancestors for more comfortable shelter impelled the

first attempts at cave-drilling, the relics of which may

yet be seen at the falls, in the holiest and roughest

chambers, low in the cliff-side...and which later were to

prove the foundation of the efficient gold-mining

operations....

The practice of rebirth here requires a few words, to

expand upon the treatment it has received in the British

press, at the hands of well-meaning missionary reporters,

who in their zeal have too easily disposed of it as a

matter of pure pagan superstition, urgently to be

eradicated in favor of Christianity.... It will not be

found that anyone of the Tswana imagines that the human is

naturally reborn, in the manner espoused, for instance, by

the Buddhist or the Hindu, and if one should propose

leaving a selected dragon egg alone in the wilderness, in

accordance with the suggestion of Mr. Dennis, to snatch

such an egg "to demonstrate to the heathen the wild fancy

of their custom," by proving that the resulting hatchling

would have no recollection of its former life, no tribesman

would dispute this as the natural consequence, but merely

abuse the bad husbandry and irreligiosity united, which

should so waste a dragon-egg, and insult the spirit of the

dead ancestor.

That the feral dragon in the wilderness is no more a reborn

human than is a cow is perfectly understood by them, and

viewed as no contradiction to their practice. Careful

coaxing and ritual are necessary, besides a suitable

housing, to induce an ancestral spirit to take up residence

again in material form; the article of faith is to believe,

once this has been achieved, that the dragon is certainly

the human reborn, a belief much harder to dislodge, by its

being firmly held not only by the men but the dragons, and

of so much practical importance within the tribe.

The dragon-ancestors at once serve as a substantial source

of labor and military power, and as repositories of tribal

history and legend, compensating for the neglect of the

written word. Furthermore, each tribe will consider

carefully the disposal of the eggs of their own dragonancestors, common tribal property, which may be used to

reincarnate one of their own, should there be one of

sufficient standing to merit the honor, or, far more

commonly, traded to a remote tribe in more urgent need,

through a complex network of communications sure to bring

the news of a suitable egg to those seeking the same, this

network serving to knit together tribes that might

otherwise have grown more distinct, left to act in

isolation. Nor are these dragon bloodlines ignored, as

might be expected by one who imagines a sort of simplistic

literal belief; rather, such an exchange of eggs is held to

establish a kind of distant familial relation between the

receiving tribe and the donor, much like state marriages,

further strengthening ties....

Mokhachane I (h), a Sotho chieftain, carved out a

relatively minor territory that proved notable for its

position on the extremes of the Sotho-Tswana tribal

regions, touching upon Xhosa territory to the south, and

thus indirectly receiving at least vague intelligence of

the growing Dutch settlements at the Cape, and having some

communication with the beleaguered Monomotapa kingdoms on

the East African coast, the descendants of the zimbabwebuilders.

Broader relations were established with this latter power

near the turn of the century under the urging of his son,

Moshueshue I (h), demonstrating from his youth that wisdom

for which his name was to become a byword, which relations

were to have great significance after Mokhachane's (h)

death in raiding during the year 1798, when Moshueshue was

able to negotiate the acquisition of a large dragon egg of

the Monomotapa royal lines, for his father's rebirth; the

Monomotapa government by this time fracturing under

increasing pressure from the Portuguese gold-hunters along

the eastern coast, and in need of the gold and the military

reinforcements that Moshueshue could provide, as a result

of negotiations with neighboring Tswana tribes....

The acquisition of so powerful a dragon, in conjunction

with Moshueshue's coming of age, which eliminated the last

barriers to his being received as an equal by other tribal

chieftains, very shortly vaulted the tribe to pre-eminence

in the southernmost regions of the Tswana lands. Mokhachane

I (d) easily established dominance over the dragonancestors of neighboring tribes, in joint raiding that

Moshueshue organized, and together they were soon able to

establish several new mines, both of gold and of precious

stones, in the formerly unexploited region; and with the

steady increase in wealth and respect soon acquired a

primacy that enabled them, in the year 1804, to claim the

central seat, at Mosi oa Tunya, and the title of king.

The depredations of the slave-takers had by this time for

several years been making systematic inroads into the

Tswana territories, as more than isolated incidents, and

were a not inconsiderable factor in the willingness of the

smaller kingdoms to submit formally to central leadership,

in hopes of making a united answer to those raids, and

repulsing them decisively, an argument that Moshueshue did

not fail of making, in his careful solicitations of fealty

from his fellow tribal chieftains, who might otherwise have

resisted from pride. The practical as well as ceremonial

reign of Mokhachane I was confirmed by the conquest of

Capetown and the Slave Coast raids of 1807, and the Tswana

themselves date the founding of their kingdom from this

year....

Acknowledgements

AMONG MANY WORKS, Basil Davidson's survey of primary

sources, African Civilization Revisited, stands out as a

priceless resource, as does UNESCO's General History of

Africa, for illuminating the history of the continent

outside colonization. I am also deeply indebted to the

guides at the Ker & Downey camps in the Okovango Delta of

Botswana for sharing their expertise and tolerating endless

questions, with particular thanks to our brilliant camp

manager at Okuti, Paul Moloseng.

Empire of Ivory has been in some ways the most difficult of

the Temeraire books to write so far, and I have to give

deep and heartfelt thanks to all my beta readers for heroic

work under the gun, as I hardly gave them a weekend for

comment on the draft before I was tearing onward into

revisions: Holly Benton, Sara Booth, Alison Feeney, Shelley

Mitchell, Georgina Paterson, Meredith Rosser, L. Salom,

Kellie Takenaka, and Rebecca Tushnet. And much gratitude to

Betsy Mitchell, Emma Coode, and Jane Johnson, my wonderful

editors, and to my agent, Cynthia Manson.

And always, always, both gratitude and love to Charles, my

first and best and most beloved reader.

"Enthralling reading-it's like Jane Austen playing Dungeons

& Dragons with Eragon's Christopher Paolini."

-Time

"This book is for anyone who's read one of Patrick

O'Brian's nineteenth-century-set naval adventures and

mused: You know what would make this better? Dragons. A

completely authentic tale, brimming with all the detail and

richness one looks for in military yarns as well as the

impossible wonder of gilded fantasy."

-Entertainment Weekly

(Editor's Choice, grade of A)

"Patrick O'Brian with dragons, and it works like a

charm...an amazing performance."

-Chicago Tribune

"All hail Naomi Novik...Here's hoping that the next two

books in the series...contain the same generous dollop of

intelligent derring-do as this first, most original of

dragon books."

-The Washington Post Book World on His Majesty's Dragon

"Terrifically entertaining.... Is it hard to imaginea cross

between Susanna Clarke, of Norrell and Strange fame, and

the late Patrick O'Brian? Not if you've read this

wonderful, arresting novel."

-STEPHEN KING on His Majesty's Dragon

"One of the most entertaining and enlightening fantasy

series in some time."

-St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"The Temeraire trilogy could well be this year's Jonathan

Strange & Mr. Norrell."

-BookPage

"Very addictive...it would be exhilarating to see [His

Majesty's Dragon] pulled off on the big screen."

-Ain'tItCoolNews

"Temeraire remains one of the most interesting dragons to

ever grace the printed page."

-Romantic Times BOOKclub

"Just when you think you've seen every variation possible

on the dragon story, along comes Naomi Novik to prove you

wrong."

-TERRY BROOKS

"A joy of a first novel, a wonderful take on dragons, on

those who fly them, and on the relationship that unfolds."

-The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

"A splendid novel. Not only is it a new way to utilize