Blood of Tyrants (Temeraire)

by Naomi Novik

  And then—and then—but there was no sense in contemplating that future, and all its blank impenetrability, until he had come to it.

  They found a little brackish pool, and drank, in the late afternoon. Junichiro dug up some wild radish, which he recognized as edible, and they gnawed its woody toughness as they walked. A few times they had to hide a little while crouching in brush, to avoid notice from other foragers; once they came upon a well-traveled road, and scurried across it like rabbits making a dash for safety, in a brief empty gap between walking travelers and sedan-chairs and ox-carts. A dragon went by overhead once, but flying fast, not searching; they listened huddled under concealing branches until its wingbeats faded.

  The sun was sinking again, beginning to throw long shadows and wink at them through the branches. Laurence was trudging onwards, mind full of counting and steps, when Junichiro put out a hand to stop him. He lifted his face into the wind; he breathed in salt, and recognized belatedly the distant low crash of waves and voices both, not far off.

  The trees were thinning ahead, approaching a road: a busy road, crowded with travelers and cargo. They crept up to a curve and looking down it saw before them the harbor laid out in a neat half-curve: a small island full of Dutch houses sat divided from the town by a narrow canal, and a great many boats filled the harbor together.

  “Oh,” Junichiro said, stifled, and Laurence followed the line of his gaze: there was a company of men standing off to the side of the road by a sort of tall signpost carved with characters, looking out upon the harbor. He at first did not understand Junichiro’s exclamation, and then he recognized abruptly one of the party, standing to the side, armed: it was Kaneko, and down in a cleared field beside the port he saw Lady Arikawa resting, a grey-green curve of dragon.

  “I thought she would have liked to let us go,” Laurence said to Junichiro.

  Junichiro made an impatient gesture: why would Laurence never understand? “Of course she wishes us to escape,” he said. “But she cannot openly allow it, and my—and the honorable Kaneko would not merely stand by, either: it ought to have been the duty of the magistrate to secure you, but you were held in his house.”

  “Well, we must get around them, somehow,” Laurence said, “and try to get there,” indicating the tiny Dutch settlement. “They will hide us, I hope, even if they choose to ship me back to Europe a prisoner of war. Let us go south a distance, and see if we can get across the road: I would like a better look at the harbor.”

  Junichiro followed him back into the trees, not without a lingering look, regretful, back at his former master.

  Temeraire looked dully down at the sodden scrap: white linen, very fine, with Laurence’s mark plainly upon it; he had bought a dozen shirts like it, in Brazil, to repair his shipwrecked wardrobe, before they set out for China.

  “I am sorry to give you bad news,” Wampanoag was saying, “but I don’t mind saying it is more than I hoped to turn up, whether bad or good. It must have washed up on the shore, I guess.”

  Maximus nudged at his shoulder, gently, a warm butting of his nose; Temeraire was aware of it, he supposed, and grateful distantly. “Did they tell you where they found it?” he asked, formally; he would pursue all inquiry—he would—

  “You’ll forgive my saying so,” Wampanoag said, “but they weren’t inclined to be talkative, after that show you lot put on. No-one could help but take it the wrong way: this whole city is full to the brim of warehouses, every last one of them built of nicely seasoned wood. I suppose if you just turned out this lady here,” he dipped his head towards Iskierka, “the whole place would be burnt to the waterline in a couple of hours, even if you didn’t care to lob over a few cannon-balls at the same time.”

  “Oh,” Temeraire said, after a moment, “I am sorry to have occasioned them any concern. I hope—” He trailed off. He did not hope anything, really; he was only trying to be polite, since there was nothing else to do but try to behave in a civilized fashion, but he could not quite contrive something to say.

  “We hope,” Hammond said, jumping in at once into the breach of silence, when he saw that Temeraire had nothing more, “that you will be so kind as to convey our deepest apologies, to the governor, and to the shogun, for any action on our part which might have given rise to intimations—to false intimations—of hostility, and make plain to his Excellency that the Government of Britain desires nothing more than peace and future tranquility in the relations between our nations. And pray assure them,” he added, “that we will at the earliest possible moment,” and he threw a hard look at Captain Blaise, “be taking our leave of them, with many thanks for their consideration in allowing us to remain so long in pursuit of our repairs, and our lost friend.”

  He carried on the conversation from there, for some time; Wampanoag seemed perfectly willing to listen to him, and to agree to carry more messages back and forth; Temeraire did not pay much attention.

  The rest of the day passed away in useful, numbing minutiae. They had a wind already, as favorable as anyone could want; they had only to wait for the tide. There were the decks to be holystoned again, the sails to be slushed. Temeraire swallowed the medicine when it was brought him, and the physician looked him over again closely. He organized three of the stronger hands to pull down the lower edge of Temeraire’s eye so he might inspect the dark flesh there, a particularly uncomfortable operation, but Temeraire made no objection.

  Wen Shen sniffed, after prodding Temeraire a few more times, and said to Gong Su for translation, to Granby, “All right, he is well enough to fly; so do not let him sit there too long while you are sailing—he must fly a little every day, now, and swimming also cannot do him any harm.”

  So he was better, too, as though that mattered now. He might have been dreadfully ill for all the use he could hope to be, to Laurence. Temeraire felt the stirrings of resentment rising, suddenly, as he lay mute after the inspection—what had Laurence been about, after all, losing himself in such a stupid way? Anyone—anyone at all—might have cut apart the storm-chains. Anyone might have saved them, and the ship, if they had cared to do so—it had not been Laurence’s duty alone, to do it. Laurence ought have let the ship sink, if no-one else had decided to cut the chains, and stayed with Temeraire. They had not been so far from shore. It would have been the work of a few hours to get them to land, and they might have saved all their crew and any number of sailors as well.

  “I would rather have him back, than this whole ship and everything upon it,” he burst out, without caring who heard him; and then Forthing, who was sitting by him, said, “I am very sorry, Temeraire, that he should have been lost—”

  Temeraire snarled at him outright. “You are not sorry,” he spat. “You think you may have your chance, now.”

  Forthing flushed alternately red and very pale, and then said, “I don’t: you’ve made plain enough you’ve no use for me; and I am sorry, because he gave me my first lieutenant’s step, when he might have left me on shore in New South Wales, and most men would have. If I live to get back to a covert, now I am like to have a chance for my own beast; and if I don’t, my son will, when he is older.”

  Temeraire paused: “You have a son?”

  “He is eight now,” Forthing said, “and at Kinloch Laggan.”

  “Oh,” Temeraire said. “Well,” he added, “it does not make me like you any better; having a son is no excuse for looking like a shag-bag, and I dare say it is the opposite—you might consider you are reflecting on him, too, and not just upon me.”

  Forthing stared at him and said, “What?” and looked down at himself.

  “Why will you not buy a shirt?” Temeraire said. “Even if you do not buy a particularly decent one, you might buy something clean; and that coat is nothing like green: not at all. Whoever could wish to acknowledge you as a connection in any way when you look like an untended scare-crow? The hands before the mast have a neater appearance, and I know that Laurence has given you a hint, now and again—”

&nb
sp; He stopped: Laurence rang in his ears, and the hot glow of temper died away beneath his spirits; he sank back low and put his head beneath his wing, as the bosun’s bellowing cry went up, “Make sail! All hands to make sail!”

  Laurence and Junichiro struggled away from the harbor, paralleling the course of the road for a short distance. The sun was lowering, and the traffic thinning out; at last it seemed worth the risk, and they came out of the trees and scrambled to the other side, heads down and shoulders hunched, between parties of travelers nearly lost in twilight; Laurence hoped they would see nothing more than a pair of lumpen beggars.

  They climbed up the far side of the road, through the last thin ranks of trees to the shore: the narrow harbor still stretched out a long way southward to the open sea, and there at her mouth Laurence saw with a shocking, nearly painful sensation, the tremendous immensity of a dragon transport: four masts, the British colors flying stained to red with a last sun-beam, and a great horde of beasts upon her dragondeck tangled in a riot of serpentine colors.

  She was making sail.

  “Oh, God,” Laurence said. “Fire—I must have some fire, at once—gather some kindling!”

  He sprang back down through the trees to the road, all concern for disguise or concealment shed. An ox-cart was trundling along towards him, a lit lantern hung swinging from the seat, and ignoring the outraged bellow of the driver and the cut of his whip, Laurence seized the edge and snatched it away. Another lash stung his back as he threw himself back up the hill, but Laurence cared nothing for that: the light was failing.

  Junichiro had already begun to scrape together a heap of branches and dry leaves, though with an anxious look, and when Laurence bent to set them alight he snatched up another branch and began to turn up the earth in a wide channel around the fire, to keep it from spreading. Laurence worked in nearly a frenzy: the wind was fair to the east, and the tide was going out. She would be gone in half-an-hour, if he did not raise her.

  The fire was climbing, making a pretty blaze; Laurence undid his bundle and stood before the fire with his coat, and flashed the signals desperately: assistance required—assistance required—

  He made them a dozen times over, and then heard an outcry coming from the road; he wheeled and found Junichiro standing pale and stricken before Kaneko, who was regarding him with an expression utterly flat, but for a thin shine of tears standing in his eyes.

  “Kaneko-sama—sensei—” Junichiro said, nearly inaudible, and something else in the tongue, reaching out a pleading hand, and half putting himself between Kaneko and Laurence.

  Kaneko shook his head once, sharply, and simply drew his swords both: answer enough, and Laurence bent and seized his own from the ground, before catching Junichiro by the arm and drawing him gently away. “All that you could do,” he said, “you have done. Go and keep making the signal there. The ship will send an answer, or they will not.”

  “You may surrender,” Kaneko said, over the crackling fire, “if you wish. The shogun has directed you are to be brought to the court. You will be made prisoner, but permitted to live.”

  Laurence looked back at the ocean. The ship was under sail: the lanterns lit, beginning to move away over the water. They thought him lost, surely, and the Japanese could have informed them otherwise: they meant to make him prisoner, not ransom him. He would be held the rest of his days, perhaps, in a foreign prison.

  He turned to Kaneko. “I am under an obligation to Junichiro,” he said, quietly, “who you must know has aided me for love of you. If I surrender myself and am made prisoner in this way, will your honor be satisfied?”

  Kaneko did not look at Junichiro, despite the faint suggestion of a flinch. He shook his head briefly. Laurence nodded and pulled off the thin and badly rent white cotton of his under-robe to free his limbs for movement. Kaneko waited poised and still, the fire now leaping and throwing his shadow up against the trees behind him, until Laurence was ready; then he struck.

  They exchanged the first few blows, testing, and disengaged to circle. Kaneko had an unfamiliar and an elegant style, slashing: a kind of fencing. Laurence watched the two blades warily. He had six inches of reach on Kaneko, and could give him fifty pounds at least: advantages which, Laurence hoped, would be enough to give him a chance despite the handicap of his present condition, halflame and spent. At least he had no need to husband whatever remained of his strength—in ten minutes, surely, assistance would come for Kaneko, and Laurence would be overwhelmed if not slain. Laurence could only hope to gain those minutes, a little more time for a rescue whose likelihood was diminishing with every moment—and which, if it did not come, would strand him here forever.

  There was not the least hesitation in Kaneko’s attack when it came again, flashing, though his victory meant his own death. Laurence met the long blade with his own, steel cracking sparks off steel, and grappled the shorter, gripping Kaneko’s wrist and squeezing with all the force he could exert. His hands were hardened by rope and leather, and Kaneko’s hand purpled; then they were falling—Kaneko had thrown them somehow to the ground. Laurence found his legs tangled, Kaneko nearly pinning him; only through sheer brute force did he manage to break the incomplete hold, and threw them over.

  He had not lost his clenched grip; he smashed Kaneko’s hand against the ground, and the short blade sprang loose. Still half-entrapped, Laurence caught it and flung it away into the trees, and barely managed to deflect Kaneko’s elbow when it came with crushing force towards his throat.

  They broke apart and rolled back to their feet. Laurence had diverted the blow from his throat to his jaw, instead, which ached badly; broken, perhaps. Kaneko did not pause but came at him swiftly, both hands now on the hilt of his blade, with a series of rapid slashing cuts. Laurence parried and retreated, his pains fading into the queer, brief distance which so often accompanied battle. No opening was offered, no chance to shift the direction; Kaneko drove him around the leaping fire until Laurence, in grim desperation, forced the issue: he met Kaneko’s sword with his own and stayed with it as he pushed it back, risking the chance of overbalancing, and threw his full weight against the blade.

  For a moment both swords groaned, held; and then Kaneko’s snapped with a loud crack like musket-fire, and he and Laurence fell to the ground heavily together. Kaneko rolled away swiftly and leapt back to his feet, still holding the jagged remnant of the blade, broken some six inches above the hilt. Laurence staggered up himself. A fine tremor ran up his arms, and he raised his sword only with difficulty; but now he had the advantage. Kaneko could not come into range of a blow without running himself into Laurence’s blade.

  They looked at each other, and Laurence knew Kaneko would in a moment do just as much: he would throw himself across the distance, and attempt another attack, though it meant his certain death. Laurence looked at Junichiro’s despairing face, the boy standing with his own sword drawn and useless: whichever side he might have assisted, he condemned the master he loved.

  And then a sudden roaring above, and Laurence flung himself to one side as Lady Arikawa came down upon the hill, her green drapes flaring and belling about her grey wings, talons coming down to strike: he barely evaded the blow and fetched up against the trees. “Wretched barbarian!” she said, furiously. “Will you cause no end of sorrow and misery? Kaneko, you are not hurt?”

  Kaneko had taken already the first steps in his rush, and himself been nearly knocked flat by the force of her descent; he regained his feet and bowed. “I am not, Lady Arikawa, and the Englishman has fought only honorably—”

  “I do not care!” she said. “Oh! Why did you ever make that dreadful vow; I should tear him to pieces!” She shook out her wings and glared the brilliant green of her eyes at Laurence. “You could not even manage to escape properly,” she said bitterly, “and now what am I to do?”

  “Lady Arikawa, we must deliver him to the governor,” Kaneko said quietly, “and accompany him to the court in Edo, for the judgment of the shogun. The safety of
the nation demands it.” He hesitated and said, reluctantly, “It may be he will be exchanged back to his country-men, after all.”

  He spoke as one who did not believe what he was himself saying, offering a mere sop to feeling; and Lady Arikawa only shook her head and looked away in despair. She was silent a moment, but then she straightened, neck arched proudly over them, and looking coldly down. “I will do my duty,” she said. “I will take you to Edo for judgment; and may the shogun sentence you to a traitor’s death for the evil you have brought on my house!”

  Yelling voices were nearing, through the trees, many men coming into the courtyard; Laurence, rising to his feet, looked around himself bleakly. There was no chance of resistance against so many, and Lady Arikawa reached out a taloned claw towards him.

  Then: a noise too large to call roaring, a great tumult of rage above their heads. The trees upon the hillside behind Laurence were shattering like matchsticks, earth flying up in clouds, and a dragon came down upon that horrifying wreckage: thrice Lady Arikawa’s size, pitch-black and with blue eyes. The noise stopped, and its absence left a dazed and muffling silence; in that hush the dragon bent over them with a savagery of bared teeth and said, in the clearest King’s English, “How dare you! How dare any of you! Oh! I will kill all of you if you have done anything to Laurence!”

  Even Lady Arikawa had drawn back, protective talons curled about Kaneko; and though she might not understand what the dragon had said, his wrath was by no means subtle, nor the threat implicit in his mantling. But she was not lacking in spirit, and drawing herself up said in Chinese, “Those who come as thieves and invaders to our country, and make threats, deserve no considerations of honor.”

  “Laurence is only here because he was lost overboard, saving our ship,” the dragon said, answering her in that tongue, “and if you knew he was here, all along, it is a perfect outrage for you to call us thieves. We have taken but a few trees, and if you want us to pay you for them, we shall: that is nothing in the least to Laurence, whom you have tried to keep from me. I dare say we ought to have gone to war with you. If I had known of it, I should have, and I dare say the Emperor of China would have, too: it is too much to be borne!”