Tongues of Serpents: A Novel of Temeraire

by Naomi Novik

  In this mood, he was by no means prepared to be accosted on the track back up to the promontory by a gentleman on horseback, of aquiline face and by the standards of the colony elegantly dressed, who leaned from his horse and demanded, “Am I speaking with Mr. Laurence?”

  “You have the advantage of me,” Laurence said, a little rudely in his own turn; but he was not inclined to regret his curtness when the man said, “I am John MacArthur; I should like a word.”

  There was little question he was the architect of the entire rebellion; and though he had arranged to be appointed Colonial Secretary, he had so far not even given Riley the courtesy of a call. “You choose odd circumstances for your request, sir,” Laurence said, “and I do not propose to stand speaking in the dust of the street. You are welcome to accompany me to the covert, if you like; although I would advise you to leave your horse.”

  He was a little surprised to find MacArthur willing to hand his reins to the groom, and dismount to walk with him. “I hear you had a little difficulty in the town to-day,” MacArthur said. “—I am very sorry it should have happened.

  “You must know, Mr. Laurence, we have had a light hand on the rein here; a light hand, and it has answered beautifully, beyond all reasonable hopes. Our colony does not show to advantage, you may perhaps think, coming from London; but I wonder what you would think if you had been here in our first few years. I came in the year ’ninety; will you credit it, that there were not a thousand acres under cultivation, and no supply? We nearly starved, one and all, three times.”

  He stopped and held out a hand, which trembled a little. “They have been so, since that first winter,” he said, and resumed walking.

  “Your perseverance is to be admired,” Laurence said, “and that of your fellows.”

  “If nothing else, that for certain sure,” MacArthur said. “But it has not been by chance, or any easy road, that we have found success; only through the foresight of wise leadership and the strength of determined men. This is a country for a determined man, Mr. Laurence. I came here a lieutenant, with not a lick of property to my name; now I have ten thousand acres. I do not brag,” he added. “Any man can do here what I have done. This is a fine country.”

  There was an emphasis on any man, which Laurence found distasteful in the extreme; he read the slinking bribery in MacArthur’s pretty speech as easily as he had in Bligh’s whispers of pardon, and he pressed his lips together and stretched his pace.

  MacArthur perceived his mistake, perhaps; he increased his own to match and said, to shift the subject, “But what does Government send us? You have been a Navy officer yourself, Mr. Laurence; you have had the dregs of the prison-hulks pressed into service; you know what I am speaking of. Such men are not formed for respectability. They can only be used, and managed, and to do it requires rum and the lash—it is the very understanding of the service. I am afraid it has made us all a little coarse here, however; we are ill-served by the proportion of our numbers. I wonder how you would have liked a crew of a hundred, five and ninety of them gaol-birds, and not five able seamen to your name.”

  “Sir, you are correct in this much: I have had a little difficulty, earlier in the day,” Laurence said, pausing in the road; his ribs ached sharply in his side, “so I will be frank; you might have had conversation of myself, or of Captain Riley or Captain Granby, as it pleased you, these last three weeks, for the courtesy of a request. May I ask you to be a little more brief?”

  “Your reproach is a just one,” MacArthur said, “and I will not tire you further to-night; if you will do me the kindness of returning my visit in the morning at the barracks?”

  “Forgive me,” Laurence said dryly, “but I find I am not presently inclined to pay calls in this society; as yet I find the courtesies beyond my grasp.”

  “Then perhaps I may pay you another call,” MacArthur suggested, if with slightly pressed lips, and to this Laurence could only incline his head.

  “I cannot look forward to the visit with any pleasure,” Laurence said, “but if he comes, we ought to receive him.”

  “So long as he is not insulting, and does not try to put you in a quarry, he may come, if he likes,” Temeraire said, making a concession, while privately determining he would keep a very close eye upon this MacArthur person; for his own part, he saw no reason to offer any courtesy at all to someone who was master of a place so wretchedly organized, and acquainted with so many ill-mannered people. Governor Bligh was not a very pleasant person, perhaps, but at least he did not seem to think it in the ordinary course of things for gentlemen to be knocked down in the street in mysterious accidents.

  MacArthur did come, shortly after they had breakfasted. He drew up rather abruptly, reaching the top of the hill; Laurence had not yet seen him, but Temeraire had been looking over at the town—sixteen sheep were being driven into a pen, very handsome sheep—and he saw MacArthur pause, and halt, and look as though he might go away again.

  Temeraire might have let him do so, and had a quiet morning of reading, but he had not enjoyed his meal and in a peevish humor said, “In my opinion it is quite rude to come into someone’s residence only to stare at them, and turn pale, and go, as if there were something peculiar in them, and not in such absurd behavior. I do not know why you bothered to climb the hill at all, if you are such a great coward; it is not as though you did not know that I was here.”

  “Why, in my opinion, you are a great rascal,” MacArthur said, purpling up his neck. “What do you mean by calling me a coward, because I need to catch my breath.”

  “Stuff,” Temeraire said roundly, “you were frightened.”

  “I do not say that a man hasn’t a right to be taken aback a moment, when he sees a beast the size of a frigate waiting to eat him,” MacArthur said, “but I am damned if I will swallow this; you do not see me running away, do you?”

  “I would not eat a person,” Temeraire said, revolted, “and you needn’t be disgusting, even if you do have no manners,” to which Laurence coming around said, “So spake the pot,” rather dryly.

  He added, “Will you come and sit down, Mr. MacArthur? I regret I cannot offer you anything better than coffee or chocolate, and I must advise against the coffee,” and Temeraire rather regretfully saw he had missed the opportunity to be rid of this unpleasant visitor.

  MacArthur kept turning his head, to look at Temeraire, and remarked, “They don’t look so big, from below,” as he stirred his chocolate so many times it must have grown quite cold. Temeraire was quite fond of chocolate, but he could not have that, either; not properly, without enough milk, and the expense so dear; it was not worth only having the tiniest taste, which only made one want more. He sighed.

  “Quite prodigious,” MacArthur repeated, looking at Temeraire again. “He must take a great deal of feeding.”

  “We are managing,” Laurence said politely. “The game is conveniently plentiful, and they do not seem to be used to being hunted from aloft.”

  Temeraire considered that if MacArthur was here, he might at least be of some use. “Is there anything else to hunt, nearby?” he inquired. “Not of course,” he added untruthfully, “that anyone could complain of kangaroo.”

  “I am surprised if you have found any of those in twenty miles as the crow goes,” MacArthur said. “We pretty near et up the lot, in the first few years.”

  “Well, we have been getting them around the Nepean River, and in the mountains,” Temeraire said, and MacArthur’s head jerked up from his cup so abruptly that the spoon he had left inside it tipped over and spattered his white breeches with chocolate.

  He did not seem to notice that he had made a sad mull of his clothing, but said thoughtfully, “The Blue Mountains? Why, I suppose you can fly all over them, can’t you?”

  “We have flown all over them,” Temeraire said, rather despondently, “and there is nothing but kangaroo, and those rabbits that have no ears, which are too small to be worth eating.”

  “I would have been glad of
a wombat or a dozen often enough, myself,” MacArthur said, “but it is true we do not have proper game in this country, I am sorry to say I know from experience: too lean by half; you cannot keep up to fighting-weight on it, and there is not enough grazing yet for cattle. We have not found a way through the mountains, you know,” he added. “We are quite hemmed in.”

  “It is a pity no-one has tried keeping elephants,” Temeraire said.

  “Ha ha, keeping elephants, very good,” MacArthur said, as if this were some sort of a joke. “Do elephants make good eating?”

  “Excellently good,” Temeraire said. “I have not had an elephant since we were in Africa: I do not think I have tasted anything quite so good as a properly cooked elephant; outside of China, that is,” he added loyally, “where I do not think they can raise them. But it seems as though this would be perfectly good country for them: it is certainly as hot as ever it was in Africa, where they raised them. Anyway we will need more food for the hatchlings, soon.”

  “Well, I have brought sheep, but I did not much think of bringing over elephants,” MacArthur said, looking at the three eggs with an altered expression. “How much would a dragon eat, do you suppose, in the way of cattle?”

  “Maximus will eat two cows when he can get them, in a day,” Temeraire said, “but I do not think that is very healthy; I would not eat more than one, unless of course I have been fighting, or flying far; or if I were very particularly hungry.”

  “Two cows a day, and soon to be five of you?” MacArthur said. “The Lord safe preserve us.”

  “If this has brought you to a better understanding of the necessity of addressing the situation, sir,” Laurence said, rather pointedly Temeraire thought, “I must be grateful for your visit; we have had very little cooperation heretofore in making our arrangements from Major Johnston.”

  MacArthur put down his chocolate-cup. “I was speaking last night, I think,” he said, “of what a man can make of himself, in this country; it is a subject dear to my heart, and I hope I did not ramble on it too long. It is a hard thing, you will understand, Mr. Laurence, to see a country like this: begging for hands, for the plowshare and the till, and no-one to work it but an army of the worst slackabouts born of woman lying about, complaining if they are given less than their day’s half-gallon of rum, and they would take it at ten in the morning, if they could get it.

  “In the Corps, we may not be very pretty, but we know how to work; I believe the Aerial Corps, too, might be given such a character by some,” MacArthur went on. “And we know how to make men work. Whatever has been built in this country, we ha’e built it, and to have a—perhaps I had better hold my tongue; I think you have been shipmates with Governor Bligh?”

  “I would not say we were shipmates,” Temeraire put in; he did not care to be saddled with such a relationship. “He came aboard our ship, but no-one much wanted him; only one must be polite.”

  Laurence looked a bit rueful, and MacArthur, smiling, said, “Well, I won’t say anything against the gentleman, only perhaps he was no too fond of our ways. The which,” he added, “certainly can be improved upon, Mr. Laurence, I do not deny it; but no man likes to be corrected by come-lately.”

  “When come-lately is sent by the King,” Laurence said, “one may dislike, and yet endure.”

  “Very good sense; but good sense has limits, sir, limits,” MacArthur said, “where it comes up hard against honor: some things a man of courage cannot bear, and damn the consequences.”

  Laurence did not say anything; Laurence was quite silent. After a moment, MacArthur added, “I do not mean to make you excuses: I have sent my eldest on to England, though I could spare him ill, and he must make my case to their Lordships. But I will tell you, I do not tremble, sir, for fear of the answer; I sleep the night through.”

  Temeraire became conscious gradually, while he spoke, of being poked; Emily was at his side, tugging energetically on his wing-tip. “Temeraire!” she hissed up to him. “I oughtn’t go right up with that fellow there, he is sure to see I am a girl; but we must tell the captain, there is a ship come from England—”

  “I see her!” Temeraire answered, looking over into the harbor: a trim, handsome little frigate of perhaps twenty-four guns: she was drawn up not far from the Allegiance, riding easily at anchor. “Laurence,” he said, leaning over, “there is a ship come from England, Roland says: it is the Beatrice, I think.”

  MacArthur stopped speaking, abruptly.

  Emily tugged again. “That is not the news,” she said, impatient. “Captain Rankin is on it.”

  “Oh! whyever should he have come?” Temeraire said, his ruff pricking up. “Is he a convict?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned his head to the other side. “And Roland says that Rankin is here, on the ship: that dreadful fellow from Loch Laggan. You may certainly put him in a quarry,” he added to MacArthur. “I cannot think of anyone who deserves it more, the way he treated poor Levitas.”

  “Oh, why won’t you listen,” Roland cried. “He ain’t a convict at all; he has come for one of the eggs.”

  Chapter 3

  “OWING TO THE MODE of our last communication, it is quite impossible Mr. Laurence and I should have any intercourse. —I hope I may not be thought difficult,” Rankin said, his crisp and aristocratic vowels carrying quite clearly, over the deck of the Allegiance; his transport the Beatrice had already gone away again, with no more news for the colony: she had left only two months after the Allegiance herself, and the news of the rebellion had not yet reached Government. “But it is generally accepted, I believe, that the dragondeck is reserved for officers of the Corps; and if the gentleman is quartered towards the stern, I see no reason why any inconvenient scenes should arise.”

  “I see no reason why I shouldn’t push his nose in for him,” Granby said, under his breath, joining Laurence on the leeward side of the quarterdeck, where passengers were ordinarily allowed liberty. “The worst of it,” he added, “is I can’t see any way clear to refusing him: the orders are plain black on white, he is to be put to Wringe’s egg. What a damned waste.”

  Laurence nodded a little; he, too, had had a letter, if not in an official capacity.… though nothing would I like better than if he should get himself sunk in the Ocean on his way to you, Jane had written.

  … but his damnd Family have been squalling at their Lordships for nigh on Five Years now, and he had the infernal Bad Luck—mine, that is—of finding himself in Scotland, lately, when we were so overset: went up with one of the Ferals out of Arkady’s pack, saw a little fighting, and mannaged to get himself wounded again.

  So I must give him a Beast, or at least a Chance of one, and Someone must put up with him thereafter; as I am about to have twenty-six hatchlings to feed and likely enough a War in Spain, I don’t scruple to say, Better You Than Me.

  This last was emphatically full of capitals, and underlined.

  I have made the Excuse, that this is the first Egg we have had out of the Ferals, and his having Experience of them in the field, should be an Advantage in its Training.

  I was tolrably transparent, I think, but a Title does wonderful things, Laurence: I should have contrivved one much sooner if I had known its Use. Gentlemen who swore at me like fishwives sixmonth ago are become sweet as milk, all because the Regent has signed some scrap of paper for me, and nod their Heads and say Yes, Very Good, when before they would have argued to Doomsday if I should say, It is coming on to rain. Also it is a great benefit they none of them know whether to say Milady or Sir, and as soon as they have arrived at a Decision, they change it again. I only hope they may not make me a Duchess to make themselves easy by saying Your Grace; it would not suit half so well.

  I am very obligd to your Mother, by the bye: she wrote, when she saw my name had come out in Debrett’s—as J. Roland, very discreet—and had me to a nice, sociable little Dinner, with every Cabinet Minister she could contrive to lay hands on, I gather: all very shocked, as they had brought their Wives, but they co
uld not say so much as Boo with Her Ladyship at the foot of the Table as if Butter would not Melt in her mouth, and the Ladies did not mind inn the Least, when they understood I was an Officer, and not some Vauxhall Comedienne. I found them sensible Creatures all of them, and I think perhaps I have got quite the wrong Notion about them, as a Class; I expect I ought to be cultivating them. I don’t mind Society half so much if I may wear Trousers, and they were very kind, and left me their Cards.

  We are trundling along well enough otherwise and getting back into some Order: feeding dragons on Mash and Mutton Stew is a damn’d site cheaper, Thank God, if the older ones do complain; Excidium is all Sighs and loud Reminiscences of fresh Cattle, and Temeraire’s name is not much lov’d among them, for having given us the Technique.

  I will say a word in your Ear for him: I am uneasy about this Business in Spain. Bonaparte ain’t a Fool, and why he should wreck a dozen cities, on the southern Coast, fresh from the ruin of his Invasion, I cannot understand. Mulgrave thinks he means to take Spain and to stop us from supplying them from the Sea, but for that, he ought to be burning them in Portugal, instead.

  If Temeraire should think it some Stratagem of Lien’s, I would be glad to know of it, even late as the Intelligence must come: it is very strange to think, Laurence, that I cannot hope for an Answer in under ten Months and a year and a half the more likely. Now we have lost the Capetown port to those African fellows, the couriers cannot even go to India, and meet your letter halfway.

  For Consolation, if you should find yourself overcome with Passion and happen to accidentally drop Rankin down a Cliff, or by some Mischance run him through, at least I will not hear of it for as long, and anyway you are already transportd, which I must call a great Convenience for Murder. But I do not mean to Hint, although it is a great Pity to waste an Egg upon him, even one of our poor unwanted Stepchildren.