League of Dragons (30 page)

He was nevertheless relieved that the first to arrive was Jane's recommendation, Captain Adair, whom the Admiralty had grudgingly allowed him. Adair was of an older Corps family and a gentleman; he and Laurence were even connected distantly, fourth cousins somewhere on the maternal side, and while he could not be called warm, his manners were punctilious. His dragon Levantia was young and not a little nervous; she had the claws of a Parnassian and the cheerful yellow coloration of a Reaper, and an anxious habit of mind distinct from either breed. But she was squarely middle-weight, well-trained and well-crewed, and Laurence had every hope of her making a solid anchor for their defense against the screen of light-weight dragons which Napoleon liked so well to put up at the head of his offensive maneuvers.

The rest of the party arrived in slightly tardy stages, and made Laurence greetings stilted when not verging on outright rudeness. Captain Poole did not verge: did not offer a hand, nor even make the smallest bow, and said only, “Laurence,” in a cold and remote voice.

Laurence paused and said quietly, “
Admiral
Laurence; or you may report yourself to Whitehall for insubordination.”

Poole stood a moment. Thin and thin-lipped, with almost a pared quality, as though someone had whittled him down like a stick; there was a hardness in his face, and his hair was shingled close to his head. But he was a young man still; he had been a lieutenant when Laurence had last seen him, on the eve of the ill-fated Battle of London. He had won his step sometime in the intervening years; his young Anglewing, Fidelitas, was larger than most of that breed, solidly in the heavy-weight class, and was likely one of the eggs bred up while the plague had been ravaging the British ranks with no prospect of a cure.

“Admiral,” he said finally—adequate; Laurence nodded and stood aside. Poole immediately continued into the pavilion and crossed the length of the table to join Windle and three other captains, who were holding themselves well apart from the rest of the company, and speaking in low voices; the glances they threw at Laurence from across the table left little doubt of the likely subject of their conversation, nor their sentiments thereupon.

The dinner was not a success by any measure Laurence would ordinarily have used: the conversation stilted and labored, and the atmosphere heavy. His preparations achieved the quelling effect he had desired, but not by mere elevation of tone. He was sorry to realize that several of the captains had never before been confronted with the full array of a formal dinner service, and found themselves at a disadvantage. A quarter of the gentlemen refused soup until nudged by their neighbors, and nearly all of them plainly had to remind themselves at regular intervals not to eat from their knives. Captain Whitby called out across the table to say, “Hi, Alfred, light along those mushrooms you have there by you,” only to make poor Alfred—Captain Gorden—startle violently and knock over his glass when one of the footmen made a desperate leap from behind him to fetch the desired dish before he could reach it.

So Laurence had without intending it established a distinction of social standing, and if he had made his captains polite, he had also made them uncomfortable. But the dinner succeeded in avoiding the worst dangers he had foreseen: there was no open rudeness, and the conversation though not lively was unobjectionable. The most resentful of the captains had been scattered around the table by the correct order of seating—although a little whispering had been required to arrange that, aviators as a rule not much given to working out their exact precedence—and as a result, had less opportunity for speaking among themselves in a small group. Laurence was willing to have their dislike a little transmitted, in exchange for having it dispersed and thereby restrained.

He proposed the loyal toast to the King, and afterwards necessarily saluted Windle, as the most senior captain present; all raised their glasses, even if Windle looked sour at the honor, and from there the round of toasts proceeded without incident. The excellent wines had a mellowing effect upon the company, and Temeraire meanwhile was having some success among the dragons seated in the outer ring to enjoy their own meal—an arrangement which if it surprised them and their officers plainly recommended itself to the former. On landing, one captain had said, loud enough to be overheard, “Bellamar, if they should try to feed you any foreign mess, or some nonsense of gruel, be sure I will see you properly fed back in Dover,” but when they were ushered inside the pavilion to their places, the glittering array of the tables had an appeal which not the strongest captainly opprobrium could entirely overcome.

“Is this a dinner-party, then? Why, they are very splendid after all; I did not know how it should be,” said Windle's own Obituria, a large Chequered Nettle, to the visible and scowling annoyance of her captain. It was a sentiment much repeated, particularly once the beef was served—one entire side to a dragon, roasted beautifully and showing to advantage upon the brightly polished platters, with whole oranges stuck upon the points of the ribs. Many harnessed dragons had developed an expensive taste for strong spice, much used during the plague to overcome the deadening of their appetites, which they of late had little opportunity to indulge. The curried sauce, delivered in large tureens, went around to especially loud enthusiasm, and, it had to be admitted, equally loud consumption.

The wheat porridge served after, which might have occasioned protests, was presented to them decorated with large lumps of rock sugar that had a look almost of jewels, so that several of the dragons leaned forward to ask their captains in undertone if they were really meant to
eat
such marvels, rather than take them away to keep. Temeraire had to give the company their lead and say, “Are the sugar jewels not remarkable? Pray tell me your opinion,” to Obituria, on his right, as he took his own first large swallow.

The porridge-bowls were cleaned bare all around the table, and then the dragons' second course brought out: fish, overlapped and arranged on the plate into the shape of a sea-serpent, each appropriate to the size of the guest, with an enormous stuffed pumpkin for a glaring orange eye and masses of stewed greens for the ocean waves, oysters and clams and mussels in quantity rounding out the sea-bed, and for each plate a handsome lobster bright red as a flourish. Delight reigned; even Poole's dragon might be overheard whispering—as dragons whispered—“Roger, but he cannot be so very bad, only look at my plate—and the lanterns!” Poole looked irritable.

Laurence was glad to establish Temeraire, at least, in the esteem of the dragons. Meanwhile, at the officers' table every man had been toasted, as well as Nelson's memory. The second course was carried away in satisfactory ruins, particularly the same turbot which had furnished the dragons' dish, and the cloth being removed Laurence took his chance and rising said, “Gentlemen, we leave for the Continent in three days' time. We confront a tyrant whose genius for war has made him the dismay of every army he has faced, and the architect of misery in nearly every part of the world. He has seemed at times unassailable and invincible. But we have proven him otherwise here on England's soil and in Spain; the Russians have lately proved it in their own country. The hour advances when we shall prove it in Germany and in France, God willing. May we all of us, man and beast, do our part in ensuring his defeat.”

It was not a long speech, nor very elegant, but it served the purpose: “hear, hear,” went around the table, every man drank, and Laurence sat again conscious of relief and having bound his officers in at least so much unity of purpose. The dessert was spread out over the table and the company might now circulate more freely, but those early knots of opposition had been broken up, and the captains did not move far from their dragons, who were murmuring raptures over their own pudding, flickering blue with a monstrous expenditure of brandy. Laurence counted it well-spent to the last shilling for the ecstasies it produced among them. A small group of musicians—intrepid and overpaid—had been set to play for the company, and now began their work. Laurence had been used to this form of entertainment after shipboard dinners, if more informally produced by the hands, and if the music served to dissuade low conversations, that, too, was just as well.

He had never before given a dinner with so much calculation, but there was a familiarity to the undertaking: just so his mother had on many an occasion organized her political dinners, more akin to a military campaign than a convivial gathering. He thought of her with brief pain, and looked down at the black riband on his arm tight against the green coat. He would have no opportunity to see her: there was no time to fly to Nottinghamshire, and she had no heart to come to town; she had written to tell him so, and to congratulate him on his flag. She had not said,
Your father would be proud.
Laurence could not have persuaded himself to believe her, if she had. But that pain stood for a moment at a remove from the practical necessities of the moment, and he found the bitterness lessened, also. He could never have his father's pardon; but he had Jane's, and was content as he had not expected ever again to be.

“Oh, and look,” Temeraire said, as the dragons finally emerged from the pavilion onto the crest of the hillside for some air, “there is the
Spartiate,
beating up the Channel. Let us salute her: I am sure if we roar all together, it will be as loud as a broadside, and it is only due her,” that ship being the one survivor of the wreck of Nelson's fleet, after the battle of Shoeburyness.

The dragons were nothing loath, and even the most sour captain could hardly have made objection. The roar they made was a prodigious noise, once, twice, and then the third something else entirely. Laurence was braced, as was Granby; but all the other guests man and beast fell silent as Temeraire unleashed the full unthrottled roaring of the divine wind over all their united voices, and drowned them beneath that endless wave of noise. All was silent when he finished: the stones beneath their feet still trembling with resonance, and faint splashes coming from the surf below as gulls fell out of the sky dead into the sea.

The
Spartiate
—Laurence had sent a courier to her captain to warn him of the honor to be paid her—took a moment to recover, but then answered with all her guns, a distant rumbling at the distance but full of glowing fire and smoke. She was a fine and martial sight against the growing dark, enough to lift any heart with zeal.

After the ship had passed, Temeraire with sudden inspiration leaned over and whispered, “Laurence, ought we give everyone one of the lanterns, to take back to their coverts?” and the dragons, at least, were won. They carried away their paper baubles as jealously as gold, with many abjurations to their captains to be careful of the sides, and the hanging-cords, and not to let them fly off during the passage.

“Well, my dear,” Laurence said to Temeraire with some satisfaction, when the company had gone, “I think we may have won the field, so far as it could be won. What did you wish to speak to me about, earlier?”

T
HE FRESHLY MINTED
D
RAGON
Rights Act 1813 received its first reading in Parliament unopposed, to the great dismay of the Government: evidently no-one had felt equal to raising objections to Perscitia's face, or rather teeth. Laurence was well aware that the reception he met at the Admiralty, the next day, was restrained only by the almost unwelcome intelligence, arrived that very morning, of the Chinese having promised six hundred dragons to the allied forces.

He faced Yorke and his subordinate ministers with something almost like amusement, knowing those men wishing to violently castigate him for the one event and stifled by the other. Gong Su had been sent with the news by Crown Prince Mianning, and he had insisted on attending the conference, smilingly. He sat with a placid and benevolent expression that implied—very falsely—that he had only a vague understanding of the proceedings, and his presence forced the admirals to maintain the appearances of respect towards Laurence.

“It seems you have once more encountered difficulties with your King's ministers,” Gong Su observed afterwards, as they walked together from Whitehall—that gentleman's elaborate and impressive robes, and mandarin's cap and button, as well as his long queue, drawing much fascinated attention from the Marines on duty and every other passerby in the courtyard.

“I am grateful, sir, that your lord seems to have overcome the objections of his own,” Laurence said.

Gong Su did not answer immediately. Only when they were ensconced in the privacy of a hackney carriage did he resume the conversation. “Matters in China have altered since your departure. It is my very great sorrow to inform you, Captain, that your dread imperial father is in failing health.”

“I am sorry to hear it,” Laurence said, although he understood at once how Mianning had carried his point against the conservative faction. Men who might stand against a crown prince many years from his throne would not risk the same opposition when he would very shortly be their emperor. “And sorry as well that he should have been robbed, since we last met: I believe their Lordships have already told you of the hatching of the egg.”

Gong Su inclined his head. “It is part of my instructions from His Imperial Highness to visit the hatchling and make observations on her character, whenever it should be convenient.”

Laurence still did not hold himself very knowledgeable in the court etiquette of China, but he had learned enough to know that this meant “without the loss of a moment.” He opened the window and spoke to the driver, who very unwilling had to be reminded thrice of his obligation under the hackney regulation, and promised a half-guinea before he would carry them even to the intersection of Portland and Weymouth, still a quarter-mile's walk from the gates of the covert. To do the man justice, only so far would his horses go, either; they were already restive and stamping as Laurence and Gong Su disembarked, and shied at the shadow of a Winchester courier falling upon the cobblestones in passing. Fortunately Gong Su was accustomed to the isolation of British coverts, and the alarm the general populace took from dragons; Laurence did not have to make excuses, and a gaggle of braver chair-men were waiting by the corner, hoping for similarly abandoned passengers, who could be prevailed upon to pay twice the going rate to be carried the rest of the way.

When they had reached the covert, Laurence took Gong Su to meet Ning, not without the liveliest concern; he could not help but fear the consequences of an unfavorable report of her behavior. The alliance between their nations was too tentative and gossamer a thing to easily support the weight of disappointment: not much interest united them, except the desire to see Napoleon overthrown, and a great deal divided. The Chinese port in Australia and its sea-serpent hordes were still thriving, to the ongoing chagrin of Whitehall, and the opium trade continued to evade Imperial restrictions, to the wrath of Peking; resentments which would easily stir up into a quarrel, on only slight additional grounds.

But Ning comported herself with perfect decorum, rousing from another nap for the introduction and inclining her head to Gong Su politely. “I am deeply honored by the concern shown me by His Imperial Highness, and it is my great hope soon to have reached that maturity of body and spirit which should fit a dragon to assume the august responsibility of making herself a comfort to one who supports the will of Heaven,” she said, in fluent Chinese. “Lung Tien Xiang has with great generosity furnished me with his copy of the Analects, as well as many other works of significance and real value, that my education need not suffer excessively on account of the unfortunate events which caused the removal of my egg from its harbor in the precincts of the Imperial City and prevented the ordinary course of my hatching therein. I would be very glad of any further guidance for my reading.”

Laurence could not but notice that this speech in no way committed her, but Gong Su was satisfied. “I rejoice to have the pleasure of informing my lord that you are in excellent health, and that no evil effects have attended on the theft which took you with such harsh abruptness from your home,” he said. “He will take much comfort in hearing that you have endured the upheaval with a spirit of resolution and equanimity. I will make every small and humble effort in my power, such as it is, to acquire at least a few manuscripts for your further pleasure. As well, Captain,” he added, to Laurence, “I would be honored deeply if you would permit me to offer on behalf of your elder brother,” this another courtly fiction, as Laurence could give Mianning seven years without a stretch, “the proper festivities of welcome and celebration due the hatching of a new Celestial.”

“I would like nothing better than to oblige you, sir,” Laurence said, wary of how he might be expected to figure in such a ceremony, “but I must inform you that my present orders do not allow of any delay. We must leave for the Continent at first light tomorrow morning, and I go back to Dover to-night. That need not halt your plans; I trust my absence would not be felt with such a motive.”

“If I may be forgiven for expressing an opinion in such a matter,” Ning interjected unexpectedly, “I should feel it more appropriate to wait for a more auspicious moment. As I understand it, we stand upon the eve of war, where the armies of China shall strike against the very one who has so grievously offended the Celestial Throne by thieving away my egg. A celebration of my hatching might better be deferred until we may unite it with a celebration of victory, and thereby magnify the joys of the occasion.”

Gong Su paused, and then said thoughtfully, “I receive your wise proposal humbly and with gratitude, Lung Tien Ning, and without substituting my own judgment for that of the Son of Heaven, believe there can be no objection to a temporary postponement under these circumstances.”

“I am gratified by your kindness to our guest,” Laurence said to Ning, afterwards, when Gong Su had left to return to his hotel, “and your patience in the matter.” He was surprised to find her willing to postpone a ceremony which should certainly have gone far to establish her reputation in the eyes of the world.

“This island is too isolated,” Ning said matter-of-factly, “and your own position too irregular: it does not seem to me very likely that any particularly notable persons are likely to attend, should Gong Su offer a feast at present on my behalf—certainly no heads of state, or other personages of importance; I understand from Temeraire that he has never met your own king at all.

“When Napoleon has been defeated, it is certain a gathering will recommend itself to all the allies to decide how best to divide the spoils of victory: every ruler shall send a representative, and any formal celebration held at that time will naturally attract guests of the best quality, who will not wish to miss any chance of furthering negotiations to their advantage. And the presence of the expected force from China can only add to the consequence of that nation, and therefore myself. It will do much better. Do you find any flaw in my reasoning?” she asked; perhaps Laurence's expression showed something of his feelings.

“No,” Laurence said. “No; your reasoning seems to me eminently sound. And if we should lose?”

“Such an unhappy outcome cannot really be taken into consideration,” Ning said cheerfully: but certainly having avoided any public display of loyalty to China, or its future emperor, would make it less notable a treachery if she allowed herself to be won over by a victorious Napoleon, to claim the post of companion to his heir.

Laurence felt a qualm at visiting this scheming creature on an unsuspecting Mianning, who if he did not really have a familial claim upon him had certainly earned his gratitude. But an emperor of China required a Celestial, and Ning had at least proven she could be circumspect when her situation demanded. She might not indeed be so poor a companion for a ruler much beset by conspirators, once she had finally committed herself to his service.

“Meanwhile,” Ning went on, “after consideration I have decided it would be best should I accompany you to the Continent. Although I cannot take part in the fighting directly, as the Chinese will think it inappropriate, I feel there will be much for me to learn by observation, and I expect there will be more opportunity of acquainting myself with other officers of high rank while in your company, now that you have been made an admiral—so long as you were not demoted to-day?” Her head came swiveling down to inspect him, tilting an eye towards the bars upon his shoulders. “There were some remarks I overheard made among the couriers that supposed this might be the case.”

“No,” Laurence said dryly. “I am happy to say I remain an admiral, and of more use.”

“That is excellent,” Ning said, quite unruffled. “It would have been inconvenient otherwise.”

“I must however demur: you are not yet up to the flight,” Laurence said. “We have near six hundred miles to cover in three days' flying, and every dragon of our company will be under full weight of harness and men; none of them can carry you. You must remain here.”

“
That
will not do,” Ning said. “No-one comes to this covert except low officers and couriers, and too few of those besides. But pray do not worry,” she added. “You are beset with many cares, and must be desiring to return to Temeraire at once. You may dress for flying; I will make all the necessary arrangements.”

Laurence did have to dress, so he deferred further argument even while wondering what arrangements she thought she might make. There was no dragon in the covert who could manage her bulk and the necessary speed of their flight both: she was growing with the same explosive speed Laurence recalled from Temeraire's early weeks, and more nearly approximated the size of a light-weight than a courier beast, by now. In an emergency, she might have been carried, but he would not slow the entire company for her and her unknown purposes.

But when he emerged from his cabin, she looked only satisfied and said, “Good, you are ready; our transport is nearly here.”

Nearly
in this case proved to mean the better part of an hour, and only when Laurence was on the point of refusing to wait any longer, and taking a courier, did a heavy ponderous flapping of large wings aloft clear the landing-ring of the covert. The massive Regal Copper of Temeraire's acquaintance from the breeding grounds, Requiescat, came thumping down.

“I regret that it was not possible for you to be more timely,” Ning said, rather coldly.

“It ain't
my
fault,” Requiescat said. “I don't fly a mile straight up for my own pleasure. But you can't guess the fuss the groundlings make, only if I choose to coast in at a decent height—‘stampeded everyone on Rotten Row,' ” he mimicked a whine. “They don't take much stampeding, let me tell you. Climb on, since you're in such a hurry, and let's be off.”

“A moment, if you please,” Laurence said.