Throne of Jade t-2

by Naomi Novik

  Temeraire had lifted his head from his nap at the noise. “Laurence, it is Volly,” he called down from the dragondeck. “He has seen us, he is coming this way.” Following this announcement, he roared out a greeting that made nearly every man jump and rattled the masts; several of the sailors looked darkly towards him, though none ventured a complaint.

  Temeraire shifted himself about to make room, and some fifteen minutes later the little Greyling courier dropped down onto the deck, furling his broad grey-and-white-streaked wings. “Temrer!” he said, and butted Temeraire happily with his head. “Cow?”

  “No, Volly, but we can fetch you a sheep,” Temeraire said indulgently. “Has he been hurt?” he asked James; the little dragon sounded queerly nasal.

  Volly’s captain, Langford James, slid down. “Hello, Laurence, there you are. We have been looking for you up and down the coast,” he said, reaching out to take Laurence’s hand. “No need to fret, Temeraire; he has only caught this blasted cold going about Dover. Half the dragons are moaning and sniffling about: they are the greatest children imaginable. But he will be right as rain in a week or two.”

  More rather than less alarmed by these reassurances, Temeraire edged a little distance away from Volly; he did not look particularly eager to experience his first illness. Laurence nodded; the letter he had had from Jane Roland had mentioned the sickness in passing. “I hope you have not strained him on our account, coming so far. Shall I send for my surgeon?” he offered.

  “No, thank you; he has been doctored enough. It’ll be another week before he forgets the medicine he swallowed and forgives me for slipping it into his dinner,” James said, waving away the request. “Any road, we have not come so very far; we have been down here flying the southern route the last two weeks, and it is a damned sight warmer here than in jolly old England, you know. Volly’s hardly shy about letting me know if he don’t care to fly, either, so as long as he doesn’t speak up, I’ll keep him in the air.” He petted the little dragon, who bumped his nose against James’s hand, and then lowered his head directly to sleep.

  “What news is there?” Laurence asked, shuffling through the post that James had handed over: his responsibility rather than Riley’s, as it had been brought by dragon-courier. “Has there been any change on the Continent? We heard news of Austerlitz at Cape Coast. Are we recalled? Ferris, see these to Lord Purbeck, and the rest among our crew,” he added, handing the other letters off: for himself he had a dispatch, and a couple of letters, though he politely tucked them into his jacket rather than looking at them at once.

  “No to both, more’s the pity, but at least we can make the trip a little easier for you; we have taken the Dutch colony at Capetown,” James said. “Seized it last month, so you can break your journey there.”

  The news leapt from one end of the deck to the other with speed fueled by the enthusiasm of men who had been long brooding over the grim news of Napoleon’s latest success, and the Allegiance was instantly afire with patriotic cheers; no further conversation was possible until some measure of calm had been restored. The post did some work to this effect, Purbeck and Ferris handing it out among the respective crews, and gradually the noise collected into smaller pockets, many of the other men deep into their letters.

  Laurence sent for a table and chairs to be brought up to the dragondeck, inviting Riley and Hammond to join them and hear the news. James was happy to give them a more detailed account of the capture than was contained in the brief dispatch: he had been a courier from the age of fourteen, and had a turn for the dramatic; though in this case he had little material to work from. “I’m sorry it doesn’t make a better story; it was not really a fight, you know,” he said apologetically. “We had the Highlanders there, and the Dutch only some mercenaries; they ran away before we even reached the town. The governor had to surrender; the people are still a little uneasy, but General Baird is leaving local affairs to them, and they have not kicked up much of a fuss.”

  “Well, it will certainly make resupply easier,” Riley said. “We need not stop in St. Helena, either; and that will be a savings of as much as two weeks. It is very welcome news indeed.”

  “Will you stay for dinner?” Laurence asked James. “Or must you be going straightaway?”

  Volly abruptly sneezed behind him, a loud and startling noise. “Ick,” the little dragon said, waking himself up out of his sleep, and rubbed his nose against his foreleg in distaste, trying to scrape the mucus from his snout.

  “Oh, stop that, filthy wretch,” James said, getting up; he took a large white linen square from his harness bags and wiped Volly clean with the weary air of long practice. “I suppose we will stay the night,” he said after, contemplating Volly. “No need to press him, now that I have found you in time, and you can write any letters you like me to take on: we are homeward bound after we leave you.”

  …so my poor Lily, like Excidium and Mortiferus, has been banished from her comfortable clearing to the Sand Pits, for when she sneezes, she cannot help but spit some of the acid, the muscles involved in this reflex (so the surgeons tell me) being the very same. They all three are very disgusted with their situation, as the sand cannot be got rid of from day to day, and they scratch themselves like Dogs trying to cast off fleas no matter how they bathe.

  Maximus is in deep disgrace, for he began sneezing first, and all the other dragons like to have someone to blame for their Misery; however he bears it well, or as Berkley tells me to write, “Does not give a Tinker’s Dam for the lot of them and whines all the day, except when busy stuffing his gullet; has not hurt his appetite in the least.”

  We all do very well otherwise, and all send their love; the dragons also, and bid you convey their greetings and affection to Temeraire. They indeed miss him badly, though I am sorry to have to tell you that we have lately discovered one ignoble cause for their pining, which is plain Greed. Evidently he had taught them how to pry open the Feeding Pen, and close it again after, so they were able to help themselves whenever they liked without anyone the wiser—their Guilty Secret discovered only after note was taken that the Herds were oddly diminished, and the dragons of our formation overfed, whereupon being questioned they confessed the Whole.

  I must stop, for we have Patrol, and Volatilus goes south in the morning. All our prayers for your safe Journey and quick return.

  Etc.,

  Catherine Harcourt

  “What is this I hear from Harcourt of your teaching the dragons to steal from the pen?” Laurence demanded, looking up from his letter; he was taking the hour before dinner to read his mail, and compose replies.

  Temeraire started up with so very revealing an expression that his guilt could be in no doubt. “That is not true, I did not teach anyone to steal,” he said. “The herdsmen at Dover are very lazy, and do not always come in the morning, so we have to wait and wait at the pen, and the herds are meant for us, anyway; it cannot be called stealing.”

  “I suppose I ought to have suspected something when you stopped complaining of them being always late,” Laurence said. “But how on earth did you manage it?”

  “The gate is perfectly simple,” Temeraire said. “There is only a bar across the fence, which one can lift very easily, and then it swings open; Nitidus could do it best, for his forehands are the smallest. Though it is difficult to keep the animals inside the pen, and the first time I learned how to open it, they all ran away,” he added. “Maximus and I had to chase after them for hours and hours—it was not funny, at all,” he said, ruffled, sitting back on his haunches and contemplating Laurence with great indignation.

  “I beg your pardon,” Laurence said, after he had regained his breath. “I truly beg your pardon, it was only the notion of you, and Maximus, and the sheep—oh dear,” Laurence said, and dissolved again, try as he might to contain himself: astonished stares from his crew, and Temeraire haughtily offended.

  “Is there any other news in the letter?” Temeraire asked, coolly, when Laurence had finally
done.

  “Not news, but all the dragons have sent you greetings and their love,” Laurence said, now conciliatory. “You may console yourself that they are all sick, and if you were there you certainly would be also,” he added, seeing Temeraire inclined to droop when reminded of his friends.

  “I would not care if I were sick, if I were home. Anyway, I am sure to catch it from Volly,” Temeraire said gloomily, glancing over: the little Greyling was snuffling thickly in his sleep, bubbles of mucus swelling and shrinking over his nostrils as he breathed, and a small puddle of saliva had collected beneath his half-open mouth.

  Laurence could not in honesty hold out much hope to the contrary, so he shifted the subject. “Have you any messages? I will go below now and write my replies, so James can carry them back: the last chance of sending a word by courier we will have for a long time, I am afraid, for ours do not go to the Far East except for some truly urgent matter.”

  “Only to send my love,” Temeraire said, “and to tell Captain Harcourt and also Admiral Lenton it was not stealing in the least. Oh, and also, tell Maximus and Lily about the poem written by the dragon, for that was very interesting, and perhaps they will like to hear of it. And also about my learning to climb aboard the ship, and that we have crossed the equator, and about Neptune and Badger-Bag.”

  “Enough, enough; you will have me writing a novel,” Laurence said, rising easily: thankfully his leg had at last put itself right, and he was no longer forced to limp about the deck like an old man. He stroked Temeraire’s side. “Shall we come and sit with you while we have our port?”

  Temeraire snorted and nudged him affectionately with his nose. “Thank you, Laurence; that would be pleasant, and I would like to hear any news James has of the others, besides what is in your letters.”

  The replies finished at the stroke of three, Laurence and his guests dined in unusual comfort: ordinarily, Laurence kept to his habit of formal decorum, and Granby and his own officers followed his lead, while Riley and his subordinates did so of their own accord and naval custom; they one and all sweltered through every meal under thick broadcloth and their snugly tied neckcloths. But James had a born aviator’s disregard for propriety coupled with the assurance of a man who had been a captain, even if only of a single-man courier, since the age of fourteen. With hardly a pause, he discarded his outer garments on coming below, saying, “Good God, it is close in here; you must stifle, Laurence.”

  Laurence was not sorry to follow his example, which he would have done regardless out of a desire not to make him feel out of place. Granby immediately followed suit, and after a brief surprise, Riley and Hammond matched them, though Lord Purbeck kept his coat and his expression fixed, clearly disapproving. The dinner went cheerfully enough, though at Laurence’s request, James reserved his own news until they were comfortably ensconced on the dragondeck with their cigars and port, where Temeraire could hear, and with his body provide a bulwark against the rest of the crew’s eavesdropping. Laurence dismissed the aviators down to the forecastle, this leaving only Sun Kai, as usual taking the air in the reserved corner of the dragondeck, close enough to overhear what should be quite meaningless to him.

  James had much to tell them of formation movements: nearly all the dragons of the Mediterranean division had been reassigned to the Channel, Laetificat and Excursius and their respective formations to provide a thoroughly impenetrable opposition should Bonaparte once again attempt invasion through the air, emboldened by his success on the Continent.

  “Not much left to stop them from trying for Gibraltar, though, with all this shifting about,” Riley said. “And we must keep watch over Toulon: we may have taken twenty prizes at Trafalgar, but now Bonaparte has every forest in Europe at his disposal, he can build more ships. I hope the Ministry have a care for it.”

  “Oh, Hell,” James said, sitting up with a thump; his chair had been tilted rather precariously backwards as he reclined with his feet on the rail. “I am being a dunce; I suppose you haven’t heard about Mr. Pitt.”

  “He is not still ill?” Hammond said anxiously.

  “Not ill in the least,” James said. “Dead, this last fortnight and more. The news killed him, they say; he took his bed after we heard of the armistice, and never got out of it again.”

  “God rest his soul,” Riley said.

  “Amen,” Laurence said, deeply shocked. Pitt had not been an old man; younger than his father, certainly.

  “Who is Mr. Pitt?” Temeraire inquired, and Laurence paused to explain to him the post of Prime Minister.

  “James, have you any word on who will form the new government?” he asked, already wondering what this might mean for himself and Temeraire, if the new Minister felt China ought to be dealt with differently, in either more conciliatory or more belligerent manner.

  “No, I was off before more than the bare word had reached us,” James said. “I promise if anything has changed when I get back, I will do my best and bring you the news at Capetown. But,” he added, “they send us down here less than once in a sixmonth, ordinarily, so I shouldn’t hope for it. The landing sites are too uncertain, and we have lost couriers without a trace here before, trying to go overland or even just spend a night on shore.”

  James set off again the next morning, waving at them from Volly’s back until the little grey-white dragon disappeared entirely into the thready, low-hanging clouds. Laurence had managed to pen a brief reply to Harcourt as well as appending to his already-begun letters for his mother and Jane, and the courier had carried them all away: the last word they would receive from him for months, almost certainly.

  There was little time for melancholy: he was at once called below, to consult with Liu Bao on the appropriate substitute for some sort of monkey organ which was ordinarily used in a dish. Having suggested lamb kidneys, Laurence was instantly solicited for assistance with another task, and the rest of the week passed in increasingly frantic preparations, the galley going day and night at full steam, until the dragondeck grew so warm that even Temeraire began to feel it a little excessive. The Chinese servants also set to clearing the ship of vermin; a hopeless task, but one in which they persevered. They came up to the deck sometimes five or six times in a day to fling the bodies of rats overboard into the sea, while the midshipmen looked on in outrage, these ordinarily serving, late in a voyage, as part of their own meals.

  Laurence had not the least idea what to expect from the occasion, but was careful to dress with especial formality, borrowing Riley’s steward Jethson to valet him: his best shirt, starched and ironed; silk stockings and knee-breeches instead of trousers with his polished Hessian boots; his dress coat, bottle-green, with gold bars on the shoulders, and his decorations: the gold medal of the Nile, where he had been a naval lieutenant, on its broad blue ribbon, and the silver pin voted recently to the captains of the Dover battle.

  He was very glad to have taken so many pains when he entered the Chinese quarters: passing through the door, he had to duck beneath a sweep of heavy red cloth and found the room so richly draped with hangings it might have been taken for a grand pavilion on land, except for the steady motion of the ship beneath their feet. The table was laid with delicate porcelain, each piece of different color, many edged with gold and silver; and the lacquered eating sticks which Laurence had been dreading all week were at every place.

  Yongxing was already seated at the head of the table, in imposing state and wearing his most formal robes, in the deep golden silk embroidered with dragons in blue and black thread. Laurence was seated close enough to see that there were small chips of gemstones for the dragons’ eyes and talons, and in the very center of the front, covering the chest, was a single dragon-figure larger than the rest, embroidered in pure white silk, with chips of rubies for its eyes and five outstretched talons on each foot.

  Somehow they were all crammed in, down to little Roland and Dyer, the younger officers fairly squashed together at their separate table and their faces already shining and pi
nk in the heat. The servants began pouring the wine directly everyone was seated, others coming in from the galley to lay down great platters along the length of the tables: cold sliced meats, interspersed with an assortment of dark yellow nuts, preserved cherries, and prawns with their heads and dangling forelegs intact.

  Yongxing took up his cup for the first toast and all hurried to drink with him; the rice wine was served warm, and went down with dangerous ease. This was evidently the signal for a general beginning; the Chinese started in on the platters, and the younger men at least had little hesitation in following suit. Laurence was embarrassed to see, when he glanced over, that Roland and Dyer were having not the least difficulty with their chopsticks and were already round-cheeked from stuffing food into their mouths.

  He himself had only just managed to get a piece of the beef to his mouth by dint of puncturing it with one of his sticks; the meat had a smoky, not unpleasant quality. No sooner had he swallowed than Yongxing raised the cup for another toast, and he had to drink again; this succession repeated itself several times more, until he was uncomfortably warm, his head nearly swimming.

  Growing slowly braver with the sticks, he risked a prawn, though the other officers about him were avoiding them; the sauce made them slippery and awkward to manage. It wobbled precariously, the beady black eyes bobbing at him; he followed the Chinese example and bit it off just behind the attached head. At once he groped for the cup again, breathing deeply through his nose: the sauce was shockingly hot, and broke a fresh sweat out upon his forehead, the drops trickling down the side of his jaw into his collar. Liu Bao laughed uproariously at his expression and poured him more wine, leaning across the table and thumping him approvingly on the shoulder.