by Naomi Novik
She rumbled low and thoughtfully. “Why are there so few dragons, that you must ask your most valued to fight?”
“We are a small nation, nothing like your own,” Laurence said. “Only a handful of smaller wild breeds were native to the British Isles, when the Romans came and began to tame them. Since then, by cross-breeding our lines have multiplied, and thanks to careful tending of our cattle herds, we have been able to increase our numbers, but still we cannot support nearly so many as you here possess.”
She lowered her head and regarded him keenly. “And among the French, how are dragons treated?”
Instinctively Laurence was certain British treatment of dragons was superior and more generous than that of any other Western nation; but he was unhappily aware he would have considered it also superior to China’s, if he had not come and already seen plainly otherwise. A month before, he could easily have spoken with pride of how British dragons were cared for. Like all of them, Temeraire had been fed and housed on raw meat and in bare clearings, with constant training and little entertainment. Laurence thought he might as well brag of raising children in a pigsty to the Queen, as speak of such conditions to this elegant dragon in her flower-decked palace. If the French were no better, they were hardly worse; and he would have thought very little of anyone who covered the faults in his own service by blackening another’s.
“In ordinary course, the practices in France are much the same as ours, I believe,” he said at last. “I do not know what promises were made you, in Temeraire’s particular case, but I can tell you that Emperor Napoleon himself is a military man: even as we left England he was in the field, and any dragon who was his companion would hardly remain behind while he went to war.”
“You are yourself descended from kings, I understand,” Qian said unexpectedly, and turning her head spoke to one of the servants, who hurried forward with a long rice-paper scroll and unrolled it upon the table: with amazement, Laurence saw it was a copy, in a much finer hand and larger, of the familial chart which he had drawn so long ago at the New Year banquet. “This is correct?” she inquired, seeing him so startled.
It had never occurred to him that the information would come to her ears, nor that she would find it of interest. But he at once swallowed any reluctance: he would puff off his consequence to her day and night if it would win her approval. “My family is indeed an old one, and proud; you see I myself have gone into service in the Corps, and count it an honor,” he said, though guilt pricked at him; certainly no one in the circles of his birth would have called it as much.
Qian nodded, apparently satisfied, and sipped again at her tea while the servant carried the chart away again. Laurence cast about for something else to say. “If I may be so bold, I think I may with confidence say on behalf of my Government that we would gladly agree to whatever conditions the French accepted, on your first sending Temeraire’s egg to them.”
“Many considerations besides remain” was all she said in response to this overture, however.
Temeraire and the two Imperials were already coming back from their walk, Temeraire having evidently set a rather hurried pace; at the same time, the white dragon came walking past as she returned to her own quarters with Yongxing now by her side, speaking with her in a low voice, one hand affectionately resting upon her side. She walked slowly, so he could keep pace, and also the several attendants trailing reluctantly after burdened with large scrolls and several books: still the Imperials held well back and waited to let them pass before coming back into the pavilion.
“Qian, why is she that color?” Temeraire asked, peeking back out at Lien after she had gone by. “She looks so very strange.”
“Who can understand the workings of Heaven?” Qian said repressively. “Do not be disrespectful. Lien is a great scholar; she was chuang-yuan, many years ago, though she did not need to submit to the examinations at all, being a Celestial, and also she is your elder cousin. She was sired by Chu, who was hatched of Xian, as was I.”
“Oh,” Temeraire said, abashed. More timidly he asked, “Who was my sire?”
“Lung Qin Gao,” Qian said, and twitched her tail; she looked rather pleased by the recollection. “He is an Imperial dragon, and is at present in the south in Hangzhou: his companion is a prince of the third rank, and they are visiting the West Lake.”
Laurence was startled to learn Celestials could so breed true with Imperials: but on his tentative inquiry Qian confirmed as much. “That is how our line continues. We cannot breed among ourselves,” she said, and added, quite unconscious of how she was staggering him, “There are only myself and Lien now, who are female, and besides Grandfather and Chu, there are only Chuan and Ming and Zhi, and we are all cousins at most.”
“Only eight of them, altogether?” Hammond stared and sat down blankly: as well he might.
“I don’t see how they can possibly continue on like that forever,” Granby said. “Are they so mad to keep them only for the Emperors, that they’ll risk losing the whole line?”
“Evidently from time to time a pair of Imperials will give birth to a Celestial,” Laurence said, between bites; he was sitting down at last to his painfully late dinner, in his bedroom: seven o’clock and full darkness outside, and he had swelled himself near to bursting with tea in an effort to stave off hunger over the visit which had stretched to many hours. “That is how the oldest fellow there now was born; and he is sire to the lot of them, going back four or five generations.”
“I cannot make it out in the least,” Hammond said, paying no attention to the rest of the conversation. “Eight Celestials; why on earth would they ever have given him away? Surely, at least for breeding—I cannot, I cannot credit it; Bonaparte cannot have impressed them so, not secondhand and from a continent away. There must be something else, something which I have not grasped. Gentlemen, you will excuse me,” he added, distractedly, and rose and left them alone. Laurence finished his meal without much appetite and set down his chopsticks.
“She did not say no to our keeping him, at any rate,” Granby said into the silence, but dismally.
Laurence said, after a moment, more to quell his own inner voices, “I could not be so selfish to even try and deny him the pleasure of making the better acquaintance of his own kindred, or learning about his native land.”
“It is all stuff and nonsense in the end, Laurence,” Granby said, trying to comfort him. “A dragon won’t be parted from his captain for all the gems in Araby, and all the calves in Christendom, too, for that matter.”
Laurence rose and went to the window. Temeraire had curled up for the night upon the heated courtyard stones once again. The moon had risen, and he was very beautiful to look at in the silver light, with the blossom-heavy trees on either side hanging low above him and a dappled reflection in the pond, all his scales gleaming.
“That is true; a dragon will endure a great deal sooner than be parted from his captain. It does not follow that a decent man would ask it of him,” Laurence said, very low, and let the curtain fall.
Chapter 14
TEMERAIRE HIMSELF WAS quiet the day after their visit. Laurence went out to sit with him, and gazed at him with anxiety; but he did not know how to broach the subject of what distressed him, nor what to say. If Temeraire was grown discontented with his lot in England, and wished to stay, there was nothing to be done. Hammond would hardly argue, so long as he was able to complete his negotiations; he cared a good deal more for establishing a permanent embassy and winning some sort of treaty than for getting Temeraire home. Laurence was by no means inclined to force the issue early.
Qian had told Temeraire, on their departure, to make himself free of the palace, but the same invitation had not been extended to Laurence. Temeraire did not ask permission to go, but he looked wistfully into the distance, and paced the courtyard in circles, and refused Laurence’s offer to read together. At last growing sick of himself, Laurence said, “Would you wish to go and see Qian again? I am sure she would welcom
e your visit.”
“She did not ask you,” Temeraire said, but his wings fanned halfway out, irresolute.
“There can be no offense intended in a mother liking to see her offspring privately,” Laurence said, and this excuse was sufficient; Temeraire very nearly glowed with pleasure and set off at once. He returned only late that evening, jubilant and full of plans to return.
“They have started teaching me to write,” he said. “I have already learned twenty-five characters today; shall I show you?”
“By all means,” Laurence answered, and not only to humor him; grimly he set himself to studying the symbols Temeraire laid down, and copying them down as best he could with a quill instead of a brush while Temeraire pronounced them for his benefit, though he looked rather doubtful at Laurence’s attempts to reproduce the sounds. He did not make much progress, but the effort alone made Temeraire so very happy that he could not begrudge it, and concealed the intense strain which he had suffered under the entire seeming endless day.
Infuriatingly, however, Laurence had to contend not only with his own feelings, but with Hammond on the subject as well. “One visit, in your company, could serve as reassurance and give her the opportunity of making your acquaintance,” the diplomat said. “But this continued solitary visiting cannot be allowed. If he comes to prefer China and agrees of his own volition to stay, we will lose any hope of success: they will pack us off at once.”
“That is enough, sir,” Laurence said angrily. “I have no intention of insulting Temeraire by suggesting that his natural wish to become acquainted with his kind in any way represents a lack of fidelity.”
Hammond pressed the point, and the conversation grew heated; at last Laurence concluded by saying, “If I must make this plain, so be it: I do not consider myself as under your command. I have been given no instructions to that effect, and your attempt to assert an authority without official foundation is entirely improper.”
Their relations had already been tolerably cool; now they became frigid, and Hammond did not come to have dinner with Laurence and his officers that night. The next day, however, he came early into the pavilion, before Temeraire had left on his visit, accompanied by Prince Yongxing. “His Highness has been kind enough to come and see how we do; I am sure you will join me in welcoming him,” he said, with rather hard emphasis on the last words, and Laurence rather reluctantly rose to make his most formal leg.
“You are very kind, sir; as you see you find us very comfortable,” he said, with stiff politeness, and wary; he still did not trust Yongxing’s intentions in the least.
Yongxing inclined his head a very little, equally stiff and unsmiling, and then turned and beckoned to a young boy following him: no more than thirteen years of age, wearing wholly nondescript garments of the usual indigo-dyed cotton. Glancing up at him, the boy nodded and walked past Laurence, directly up to Temeraire, and made a formal greeting: he raised his hands up in front of himself, fingers wrapped over one another, and inclined his head, saying something in Chinese at the same time. Temeraire looked a little puzzled, and Hammond interjected hastily, “Tell him yes, for Heaven’s sake.”
“Oh,” said Temeraire, uncertainly, but said something to the boy, evidently affirmative. Laurence was startled to see the boy climb up onto Temeraire’s foreleg, and arrange himself there. Yongxing’s face was as always difficult to read, but there was a suggestion of satisfaction to his mouth; then he said, “We will go inside and take tea,” and turned away.
“Be sure not to let him fall,” Hammond added hastily to Temeraire, with an anxious look at the boy, who was sitting cross-legged, with great poise, and seemed as likely to fall off as a Buddha statue to climb off its pediment.
“Roland,” Laurence called; she and Dyer had been working their trigonometry in the back corner. “Pray see if he would like some refreshment.”
She nodded and went to talk to the boy in her broken Chinese while Laurence followed the other men across the courtyard and into the residence. Already the servants had hastily rearranged the furniture: a single draped chair for Yongxing, with a footstool, and armless chairs placed at right angles to it for Laurence and Hammond. They brought the tea with great ceremony and attention, and throughout the process Yongxing remained perfectly silent. Nor did he speak once the servants had at last withdrawn, but sipped at his tea, very slowly.
Hammond at length broke the silence with polite thanks for the comfort of their residence, and the attentions which they had received. “The tour of the city, in particular, was a great kindness; may I ask, sir, if it was your doing?”
Yongxing said, “It was the Emperor’s wish. Perhaps, Captain,” he added, “you were favorably impressed?”
It was very little a question, and Laurence said, shortly, “I was, sir; your city is remarkable.” Yongxing smiled, a small dry twist of the lips, and did not say anything more, but then he scarcely needed to; Laurence looked away, all the memory of the coverts in England and the bitter contrast fresh in his mind.
They sat in dumb-show a while longer; Hammond ventured again, “May I inquire as to the Emperor’s health? We are most eager, sir, as you can imagine, to pay the King’s respects to His Imperial Majesty, and to convey the letters which I bear.”
“The Emperor is in Chengde,” Yongxing said dismissively. “He will not return to Peking soon; you will have to be patient.”
Laurence was increasingly angry. Yongxing’s attempt to insinuate the boy into Temeraire’s company was as blatant as any of the previous attempts to separate the two of them, and yet now Hammond was making not the least objection, and still trying to make polite conversation in the face of insulting rudeness. Pointedly, Laurence said, “Your Highness’s companion seems a very likely young man; may I inquire if he is your son?”
Yongxing frowned at the question and said only, “No,” coldly.
Hammond, sensing Laurence’s impatience, hastily intervened before Laurence could say anything more. “We are of course only too happy to attend the Emperor’s convenience; but I hope we may be granted some additional liberty, if the wait is likely to be long; at least as much as has been given the French ambassador. I am sure, sir, you have not forgotten their murderous attack upon us, at the outset of our journey, and I hope you will allow me to say, once again, that the interests of our nations march far more closely together than yours with theirs.”
Unchecked by any reply, Hammond went on; he spoke passionately and at length about the dangers of Napoleon’s domination of Europe, the stifling of the trade which should otherwise bring great wealth to China, and the threat of an insatiable conqueror spreading his empire ever wider—perhaps, he added, ending on their very doorstep, “For Napoleon has already made one attempt, sir, to come at us in India, and he makes no secret that his ambition is to exceed Alexander. If he should ever be successful, you must realize his rapacity will not be satisfied there.”
The idea that Napoleon should subdue Europe, conquer the Russian and the Ottoman Empires both, cross the Himalayas, establish himself in India, and still have energy left to wage war on China, was to Laurence a piece of exaggeration that would hardly convince anyone; and as for trade, he knew that argument carried no weight at all with Yongxing, who had so fervently spoken of China’s self-sufficiency. Nevertheless the prince did not interrupt Hammond at all from beginning to end, listened to the entire long speech frowning, and then at the end of it, when Hammond concluded with a renewed plea to be granted the same freedoms as De Guignes, Yongxing received it in silence, sat a long time, and then said only, “You have as much liberty as he does; anything more would be unsuitable.”
“Sir,” Hammond said, “perhaps you are unaware that we have not been permitted to leave the island, nor to communicate with any official even by letter.”
“Neither is he permitted,” Yongxing said. “It is not proper for foreigners to wander through Peking, disrupting the affairs of the magistrates and the ministers: they have much to occupy them.”
Hammond was left baffled by this reply, confusion writ plain on his face, and Laurence, for his part, had sat through enough; plainly Yongxing meant nothing but to waste their time, while the boy flattered and fawned over Temeraire. As the child was not his own son, Yongxing had surely chosen him from his relations especially for great charm of personality and instructed him to be as insinuating as ever he might. Laurence did not truly fear that Temeraire would take a preference to the boy, but he had no intention of sitting here playing the fool for the benefit of Yongxing’s scheming.
“We cannot be leaving the children unattended this way,” he said abruptly. “You will excuse me, sir,” and rose from the table already bowing.
As Laurence had suspected, Yongxing had no desire to sit and make conversation with Hammond except to provide the boy an open field, and he rose also to take his leave of them. They returned all together to the courtyard, where Laurence found, to his private satisfaction, that the boy had climbed down from Temeraire’s arm and was engaged in a game of jacks with Roland and Dyer, all of them munching on ship’s biscuit, and Temeraire had wandered out to the pier, to enjoy the breeze coming off the lake.
Yongxing spoke sharply, and the boy sprang up with a guilty expression; Roland and Dyer looked equally abashed, with glances towards their abandoned books. “We thought it was only polite to be hospitable,” Roland said hurriedly, looking to see how Laurence would take this.
“I hope he has enjoyed the visit,” Laurence said, mildly, to their relief. “Back to your work, now.” They hurried back to their books, and, the boy called to heel, Yongxing swept away with a dissatisfied mien, exchanging a few words with Hammond in Chinese; Laurence gladly watched him go.