His Majesty's Dragon t-1

by Naomi Novik

  “A thousand men; God rest their souls,” Warren said; conversation ceased, and when finally resumed it was at first subdued.

  But excitement, joy gradually overcame what perhaps were the more proper sentiments of the moment. “I hope you will excuse me, gentlemen,” Laurence said, nearly shouting as the noise climbed to a fresh pitch; it precluded any chance of acquiring further intelligence for the moment. “I promised Temeraire to return at once. James, I suppose that the report of Bonaparte’s demise is a false one?”

  “Yes, more’s the pity: unless he falls down in an apoplexy over the news,” James called back, which roused a general shout of laughter that continued by natural progression into a round of “Hearts of Oak,” and the singing followed Laurence out the door and even through the covert, as the song was taken up by the men outside.

  By the time the sun rose, the covert was half empty. Scarcely a man had slept; the prevailing mood could not help but be joyful almost to the point of hysteria, as nerves which had been drawn to their limits abruptly relaxed. Lenton did not even attempt to call the men to order and looked the other way as they poured out of the covert into the city, to carry the news to those who had not yet heard and mingle their voices into the general rejoicing.

  “Whatever scheme of invasion Bonaparte has been working towards, this must surely have put paid to it,” Chenery said exultantly, later that evening, as they stood together on the balcony and watched the returning crowd still milling more slowly about in the parade grounds below, all the men thoroughly drunk but too happy for quarreling, snatches of song bursting out occasionally to float up towards them. “How I should like to see his face.”

  “I think we have been giving him too much credit,” Lenton said; his cheeks were red with port and satisfaction, as well they might be: his judgment to send Excidium had proven sound and contributed materially to the victory. “I think it clear he does not understand the navy so well as the army and the aerial corps. An uninformed man might well imagine that thirty-three ships-of-the-line had no excuse to lose so thoroughly to twenty-seven.”

  “But how can it have taken his aerial divisions so long to reach them?” Harcourt said. “Only ten dragons, and from what James said, more than half of those Spanish—that is not a tenth of the strength he had in Austria. Perhaps he has not moved them from the Rhine after all?”

  “I have heard the passes over the Pyrenees are damned difficult, though I have never tried them myself,” Chenery said. “But I dare say he never sent them, thinking Villeneuve had what forces he needed, and they have all been lolling about in covert and getting fat. No doubt he has been thinking all this time that Villeneuve would sail straight through Nelson, perhaps losing one or two ships in the process: expecting them daily, and wondering where they were, and we here biting our nails meanwhile for no good reason.”

  “And now his army cannot come across,” Harcourt said.

  “Quoth Lord St. Vincent, ‘I don’t say they cannot come, but they cannot come by sea,’ ” Chenery said, grinning. “And if Bonaparte thinks to take Britain with forty dragons and their crews, he is very welcome to try, and we can give him a taste of those guns the militia fellows have been so busily digging-in. It would be a pity to waste all their hard work.”

  “I confess I would not mind a chance to give that rascal yet another dose of medicine,” Lenton said. “But he will not be so foolish; we must be content with having done our duty, and let the Austrians have the glory of polishing him off. His hope of invasion is done.” He swallowed the rest of his port and said abruptly, “There is no more putting it off, though, I am afraid; we cannot need anything more from Choiseul now.”

  In the silence that fell among them, Harcourt’s drawn breath was almost a sob, but she made no protest, and her voice remained admirably steady as she merely asked, “Have you decided what you will do with Praecursoris?”

  “We will send him to Newfoundland if he will go; they need another breeding sire there to fill out their complement, and it is not as though he were vicious,” Lenton said. “The fault is with Choiseul, not him.” He shook his head. “It is a damned pity, of course, and all our beasts will be creeping about miserable for days, but there is nothing else for it. Best to get it done with quickly; tomorrow morning.”

  Choiseul was given a few moments with Praecursoris, the big dragon nearly draped with chains and watched closely by Maximus and Temeraire on either side. Laurence felt the shudders go through Temeraire’s body as they stood their unpleasant guard, forced to observe while Praecursoris swung his head from side to side in denial, and Choiseul made a desperate attempt to persuade him to accept the shelter Lenton had offered. At last the great head drooped in the barest hint of a nod, and Choiseul stepped close to lay his cheek against the smooth nose.

  Then the guards stepped forward; Praecursoris tried to lash at them, but the entangling chains pulled him back, and as they led Choiseul away the dragon screamed: a dreadful sound. Temeraire hunched himself away from it, his wings flaring, and moaned softly; Laurence leaned forward and stretched himself fully against his neck, stroking over and over. “Do not look, my dear,” he said, the words struggling to come through the thickening of his throat. “It will be over in a moment.”

  Praecursoris screamed once more, at the end; then he fell to the ground heavily, as if all vital force had gone from his body. Lenton signaled that they might go, and Laurence touched Temeraire’s side. “Away, away,” he said, and Temeraire launched himself far from the scaffold at once, striking out over the clean, empty sea.

  “Laurence, may I bring Maximus over here, and Lily?” Berkley asked, in his usual abrupt way, having come upon him without warning. “Your clearing is big enough, I think.”

  Laurence raised his head and stared at him dully. Temeraire was still huddled in misery, head hidden beneath his wings, inconsolable: they had flown for hours, just the two of them and the ocean below, until Laurence had at last begged him to turn back to land, out of fear that he would become exhausted. He himself felt almost bruised and ill, as if feverish. He had attended at hangings before, a grim reality of naval life, and Choiseul had been far more deserving of the fate than many a man Laurence had seen at the end of a rope; he could not say why he felt such anguish now.

  “If you like,” he said, without enthusiasm, letting his head sink again. He did not look up at the rush of wings and shadows as Maximus came over the clearing, his enormous bulk blotting out the sun until he landed heavily beside Temeraire; Lily followed after him. They huddled at once around each other and Temeraire; after a few moments, Temeraire unwound himself enough to entwine more thoroughly with them both, and Lily spread her great wings over them all.

  Berkley led Harcourt over to where Laurence sat leaning against Temeraire’s side, and pushed her unresisting to sit beside him; he lowered his stout frame awkwardly to the ground opposite them and handed about a dark bottle. Laurence took it and drank without curiosity: strong, unwatered rum, and he had not eaten anything all day; it went to his head very quickly, and he was glad for the muffling of all sensation.

  Harcourt began to weep after a little while, and Laurence was horrified to find his own face wet even as he reached to grip her shoulder. “He was a traitor, nothing but a lying traitor,” Harcourt said, scrubbing tears away with the back of her hand. “I am not sorry in the least; I am not sorry at all.” She spoke with an effort, as though she were trying to convince herself.

  Berkley handed her the bottle again. “It is not him; damned rotter, deserved it,” he said. “You are sorry on account of the dragon, and so are they. They don’t think much of King and country, you know; Praecursoris never knew a damned thing about it but where Choiseul told him to go.”

  “Tell me,” Laurence said abruptly, “would Bonaparte have really executed the dragon for treason?”

  “Likely enough; the Continentals do, once in a great while. More to scare the riders off the notion than because they blame the beasts,” Berkley said.
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  Laurence was sorry to have asked; sorry to know that Choiseul had been telling the truth so far at least. “Surely the Corps would have granted him shelter in the colonies, if he had asked,” he said angrily. “There is still no possible excuse. He desired his place in France restored; he was willing to risk Praecursoris to have it back, for we might just as easily have chosen to put his dragon to death.”

  Berkley shook his head. “Knew we are too hard up for breeders to do as much,” he said. “Not to excuse the fellow; I dare say you are right. He thought Bonaparte was going to roll us up, and he did not like to go and live in the colonies.” Berkley shrugged. “Still damned hard on the dragon, and he has not done anything wrong.”

  “That is not true; he has,” Temeraire put in unexpectedly, and they looked up at him; Maximus and Lily raised their heads as well to listen. “Choiseul could not have forced him to fly away from France, nor to come here bent on hurting us. It does not seem to me that he is any less guilty at all.”

  “I suppose it is likely he did not understand what was being asked of him,” Harcourt said tentatively to this challenge.

  Temeraire said, “Then he ought to have refused until he did understand: he is not simple, like Volly. He might have saved his rider’s life, then, and his honor too. I would be ashamed to let my rider be executed, and not me too, if I had done as much.” He added venomously, his tail lashing the air, “And I would not let anyone execute Laurence anyway; I should like to see them try.”

  Maximus and Lily both rumbled in agreement. “I will never let Berkley commit treason, ever,” Maximus said, “but if he did, I would step on anyone who tried to hang him.”

  “I would just take Catherine and go away, I think,” Lily said. “But perhaps Praecursoris would have liked to do the same. I suppose he could not break all those chains, for he is smaller than either of you, and he cannot spray. Also, there was only one of him, and he was being guarded. I do not know what I would do, if I could not have escaped.”

  She finished softly, and they all began to slump down in fresh misery, huddling together again, until Temeraire stopped and said with sudden decision, “I will tell you what we shall do: if ever you need to rescue Catherine, or you Berkley, Maximus, I will help you, and you will do as much for me. Then we do not need to worry; I do not suppose anyone could stop all three of us, at least not before we could escape.”

  All three of them appeared immeasurably cheered by this excellent scheme; Laurence was now regretting the amount of rum he had consumed, for he could not properly form the protest he felt had to be made, and urgently.

  “Enough of that, you damned conspirators; you will have us hanged a great deal sooner than we will,” Berkley said, thankfully, on his behalf. “Will you have something to eat, now? We are not going to eat until you do, and if you are so busy to protect us, you may as well begin by saving us from starvation.”

  “I do not think you are in any danger of starving,” Maximus said. “The surgeon said only two weeks ago that you are too fat.”

  “The devil!” Berkley said indignantly, sitting up, and Maximus snorted in amusement at having provoked him; but shortly the three dragons did allow themselves to be persuaded to take some food, and Maximus and Lily returned to their own clearings to be fed.

  “I am still sorry for Praecursoris, even though he acted badly,” Temeraire said presently, having finished his meal. “I do not see why they could not let Choiseul go off to the colonies with him.”

  “There must be a price for such things, or else men would do them more often, and in any case he deserved to be punished for it,” Laurence said; his own head had cleared with some food and strong coffee. “Choiseul meant to make Lily suffer as much as Praecursoris does; only imagine if the French had me prisoner, and demanded that you fly for them against your friends and former comrades to save my life.”

  “Yes, I do see,” Temeraire said, but with dissatisfaction in his tone. “Yet it still seems to me they might have punished him differently. Would it not have been better to keep him a prisoner and force Praecursoris to fly for us?”

  “I see you have a nice sense of the appropriate,” Laurence said. “But I do not know that I can see any lesser punishment for treason; it is too despicable a crime to be punished by mere imprisonment.”

  “And yet Praecursoris is not to be punished the same way, only because it is not practical, and he is needed for breeding?” Temeraire said.

  Laurence considered the matter and could not find an answer for this. “I suppose, in all honesty, being aviators ourselves we cannot like the idea of putting a dragon to death, and so we have found an excuse for letting him live,” he said finally. “And as our laws are meant for men, perhaps it is not wholly fair to enforce them upon him.”

  “Oh, that I can well agree with,” Temeraire said. “Some of the laws which I have heard make very little sense, and I do not know that I would obey them if it were not to oblige you. It seems to me that if you wish to apply laws to us, it were only reasonable to consult us on them, and from what you have read to me about Parliament, I do not think any dragons are invited to go there.”

  “Next you will cry out against taxation without representation, and throw a basket of tea into the harbor,” Laurence said. “You are indeed a very Jacobin at heart, and I think I must give up trying to cure you of it; I can but wash my hands and deny responsibility.”

  Chapter 12

  B Y THE NEXT morning Praecursoris had already gone, sent away to a dragon transport launching from Portsmouth for the small covert in Nova Scotia, whence he would be led to Newfoundland, and at last immured in the breeding grounds which had lately been started there. Laurence had avoided any further sight of the stricken dragon, and deliberately had kept Temeraire awake late the night before, so that he would sleep past the moment of departure.

  Lenton had chosen his time as wisely as he could; the general rejoicing over the victory at Trafalgar continued, and served to counter the private unhappiness to some extent. That very day a display of fireworks was announced by pamphlets, to be held over the mouth of the Thames; and Lily, Temeraire, and Maximus, being the youngest of the dragons at the covert and the worst affected, were sent to observe by Lenton’s orders.

  Laurence was deeply grateful for the word as the brilliant displays lit the sky and the music from the barges drifted to them across the water: Temeraire’s eyes were wide with excitement, the bright bursts of color reflecting in his pupils and his scales, and he cocked his head first one way then another, in an effort to hear more clearly. He talked of nothing but the music and the explosions and the lights, all the way back to the covert. “Is that a concert, then, the sort they have in Dover?” he asked. “Laurence, cannot we go again, and perhaps a little closer next time? I could sit very quietly, and I would not disturb anyone.”

  “I am afraid fireworks such as those are a special occasion, my dear; concerts are only music,” Laurence said, avoiding an answer; he could well imagine the reaction of the city’s inhabitants to a dragon’s coming to take in a concert.

  “Oh,” Temeraire said, but he was not greatly dampened. “I would still like that extremely; I could not hear very well tonight.”

  “I do not know that there is any suitable accommodation which could be made in the city,” Laurence said slowly and reluctantly, but happily a sudden inspiration came to him, and he added, “but perhaps I can hire some musicians to come to the covert and play for you, instead; that would be a great deal more comfortable, in any case.”

  “Yes, indeed, that would be splendid,” Temeraire said eagerly. He communicated this idea to Maximus and Lily as soon as they had all once again landed, and the two of them professed equal interest.

  “Damn you, Laurence, you had much better learn to say no; you will forever be getting us into these absurd starts,” Berkley said. “Just see if any musicians will come here, for love or money.”

  “For love, perhaps not; but for a week’s wages and a hearty meal, I
am quite certain most musicians could be persuaded to play in the heart of Bedlam,” Laurence said.

  “It sounds a fine idea to me,” Harcourt said. “I would quite like it myself. I have not been to a concert except once when I was sixteen; I had to put on skirts for it, and after only half an hour a dreadful fellow sat next to me and whispered impolite remarks until I poured a pot of coffee into his lap. It quite spoiled my pleasure, even though he went away straight after.”

  “Christ above, Harcourt, if I ever have reason to offend you, I will make damned sure you have nothing hot at hand,” Berkley said; while Laurence struggled between nearly equal portions of dismay: at her having been subjected to such insult and at her means of repulsion.

  “Well, I would have struck him, but I would have had to get up. You have no notion how difficult it is to arrange skirts when sitting down; it took me five minutes together the first time,” she said reasonably. “So I did not want to have it all to do again. Then the waiter came by and I thought that would be easier, and anyway more like something a girl ought to do.”

  Still a little pale with the notion, Laurence bade them goodnight, and took Temeraire off to his rest. He slept once again in the small tent by his side, even though he thought Temeraire was well over his distress, and was rewarded in the morning by being woken early, Temeraire peering into the tent with one great eye and inquiring if perhaps Laurence would like to go to Dover and arrange for the concert today.

  “I would like to sleep until a civilized hour, but as that is evidently not to be, perhaps I will ask leave of Lenton to go,” Laurence said, yawning as he crawled from the tent. “May I have my breakfast first?”