by Naomi Novik
“Temeraire,” Laurence said, while the servants leapt without further instruction into a rush about them, bringing out a great porcelain bowl of deep red for Temeraire, and a small ironwork table and chair for himself, with a cup and saucer to match, and kettles full of steaming and fragrant tea. “—Temeraire,” he repeated, unsure how to broach the subject: would a dragon even care anything for the Admiralty, for what men and government should think of him?
“No, of course I do not give two sous for the Admiralty, or the Government,” Temeraire said, straightaway answering all Laurence’s worst fears. “How could anyone, who has known anything of their folly? Why, Laurence, you know that perfectly well.
“I suppose you do not remember this,” he added, “but Perscitia writes me they have still not made all the pavilions, which Wellington promised us during the war; but they are also upset if ever a dragon should chance to sleep by the road, on the way from London to Edinburgh, and perhaps eat a pig left wandering loose. But that is perfectly stupid: if there is no pavilion, and no provender, then how else is one to make a long flight? And nevertheless they complain.
“As far as I can tell, there is no-one in it who is worth two pins; well, except for you, Hammond,” Temeraire added, as that gentleman entered in haste. “You are not a bad sort of fellow; but if you should attempt to do anything scaly underhand, such as tell me I ought to remain here to replace Chuan, I shall be very cross with you.”
Laurence was thwarted in pressing his inquiry by Hammond’s arrival, that gentleman in some disarray, his formal robes far from neatly pressed and showing sharp folded creases in the silk; his hair was disordered. “No, no, not at all,” Hammond said. “I assure you, nothing could be further from my wishes. We cannot afford to lose you. The tie is too valuable to sacrifice, save of course in utter extremis. Without your connection, Captain Laurence’s adoption may be too easily disavowed, and it is that bond which forms the foundation of all our negotiations.
“Naturally we must make some gesture, some effort; but I have had a hint, I believe, from Gong Su; with your permission, of course, I should propose Temeraire’s favoring them with an egg. As I understand it,” Hammond added, “your engaging in relations with an Imperial dragon would be the ordinary way of arranging such things.”
• • •
“I should like to know,” Iskierka said, with a hiss of steam and a roiling eye, “what is wrong with our egg. If an egg of yours were wanted, why should anyone look further than that?”
They were being served their dinner in Temeraire’s courtyard: a truly splendid dinner, of stewed oxheads and bowls of live eels, seasoned expertly with pepper and vinegar, which unfortunately Maximus did not seem to much enjoy, nor Immortalis and Messoria; they poked a little anxiously at the squirming masses and then nudged the bowls aside, although they were pleased enough with the oxheads, so tender the meat fell off the bones and with the skull cracked open so one might take them into one’s mouth and suck upon them for the excellent brains.
“I am afraid,” Temeraire said, a little loftily, “that they do not think much of fire-breathers, here in China—and in any case,” he added, “it is a matter of certain particular superior qualities, which belong to the Celestial breed only, and distinguish us from all others, which must be present in the next Emperor’s dragon.”
“Dear one,” Granby said to her, “we don’t at all want to give them your egg: we want to take it back with us, to Britain, and see it in the hands of some proper captain of the Corps.”
“I do not see any reason why it should not stay here and belong to the Emperor of China,” Iskierka said stormily. “No reason at all; it is ten thousand miles back to Britain, and who is to say we will not run into some trouble along the way—someone might steal the egg, or it might be cracked. Of course my egg would be very valuable, in the war,” she added, “but I do not believe in taking foolhardy risks—”
Granby choked heavily upon his own dinner, coughing, and had to be rescued with a steady thumping upon his back, and several glasses of wine.
Iskierka was in no better mood even after their meal had ended with a marvelous shaved ice, flavored with a syrup of plums and studded with the same, imparting delightful tiny bursts of flavor upon the tongue when one happened across them in a swallow. However, she did not hesitate to eat all her share and then some.
“That is something like, I will admit,” Maximus said, licking out his enormous silver bowl, “but I don’t suppose you could ask them for us, Temeraire, what they have done with the rest of those cows? I haven’t any objection to those cow’s heads, very tasty, but I would be glad of a side of beef, or perhaps two,” he added, with a slantwise look at Kulingile—who had at last stopped getting longer, but had only just yesterday sprouted the beginnings of a pair of horns, much to everyone’s bafflement: neither the Chequered Nettle nor the Parnassian, his progenitors, possessed any similar adornments.
“I wouldn’t mind one, either, if they are just lying about somewhere,” Kulingile said, raising his own head; and stifling his own remonstrations, Temeraire addressed the servants and conveyed the request. It was met with some confusion and a great deal of delay; when the beef was at last delivered two hours later, it was presented in the form of a false cow, the meat having been roasted, stuffed with grains and dried fruit, tied up with string, put into a wrapping of dough, and propped up on legs made of sticks; the head was a separate lump of meat, adorned with horns made of bread. Maximus sighed but ate it anyway, particularly after Kulingile had devoured his own share in a few bites.
As the servants began to bring out the bowls for tea, one came to Temeraire’s side and murmured that a visitor had come and sought admittance. “Oh!” Temeraire cried. “Lung Qin Mei! Pray ask her to join us at once: how delighted I shall be to see her again,” and he looked himself over anxiously. If only there were time to send Roland for his talon-sheaths, and if only they had a little black enamel paint—
Mei landed gracefully in the courtyard, though they were crowded and there was little space—but then, she did everything gracefully. Temeraire straightened himself up to meet her, abruptly conscious that he was now more cut-about than when last she had seen him; there was that very nasty scar upon his breast, where the barbed ball had taken him, before the sinking of the Valérie, and he had not filled back out from the long dismay of the sea-voyage and Laurence’s disappearance. He had not had much appetite, of late, and it was difficult to be always competing shipboard with Maximus and Kulingile; one felt a little awkward taking anything more than one urgently needed, with the two of them casting mournful looks at their own share.
Iskierka said rudely, “I do not see why she is come; who wants her, anyway?” when Temeraire presented Mei to the company, but naturally Temeraire did not translate this remark. Iskierka drew herself up and raked Mei with a cold eye. “So that is an Imperial? Skinny, if you ask me; I dare say she could not go eye-to-eye with a Copacati. I don’t see she has any scars at all.”
“Mei,” Temeraire said coldly, “is a great scholar, and took highest honors in the Imperial examinations.”
“Oh!” Iskierka said, dismissive, “say nothing more! She does not fight at all; I see. I hope you have a splendid time talking over books together while you are making this egg of yours: I hope it don’t leave you any more out of frame than you already are. Granby, I should like a flight before bed: pray let us go aloft, and then we shall go have a look in at my egg,” she added, “and I take your point entirely; we shouldn’t want to leave it in this country, where they don’t value courage as they ought.”
Temeraire was ruffled to indignation by this speech, and would surely have made a particularly sharp rejoinder if Iskierka had not gone away directly. The others were more polite to Mei, and looked with respectful interest on her jewels—this evening a collar-like delicate netting of pearls and silver wire, brilliant in the lamp-light against her dark blue scales. Although Temeraire writhed a little inwardly to see Maximus loo
k up from the indelicate gnawing of a leg bone between two teeth and greet her with a mere joggle of the head, scarcely even a nod, saying jocularly, “How d’ye do,” before going back to rattling the bone around in his mouth in what seemed to Temeraire a particularly noisy way.
And then Berkley would say, coarsely, “Put down that leg, you mannerless gobbler: we had better be going along and let the two of them have at their business. Laurence, will you come and have a hand of whist?” which even if Temeraire did not translate it for Mei had too obvious an effect: the dragons and all their captains getting hurriedly up and leaving the tea-bowls half-full, rudely. Even Laurence rose and, speaking softly with Berkley, made to climb aboard Maximus’s back.
Temeraire would rather Laurence had not left, either; he did not see why Laurence should go anywhere. He caught Lily as they departed and whispered, “Lily, you will keep a lookout for Laurence, will you not? Pray do not let him wander off, or be assassinated; or lose any more of his memory.”
“Of course,” Lily answered, stoutly. “I will make sure he stays with Catherine and Berkley, and do not let Iskierka trouble you. I am sure you will make a perfectly splendid egg with this Imperial.”
“Lily, I do not look too wretchedly scarred, do I?” Temeraire asked.
“No,” Lily said, with a quick critical look. “—no; and you will fill out again very soon, with good eating. She must know you have come from a long way.”
This was not terribly reassuring, but there was nothing to be done for it; the others were all leaping into the air: it was only Temeraire and Mei left in the courtyard. The servants laid out fresh bowls and poured the tea again.
Then they withdrew as well, to the hallway where they might hear a call; with a desperate leap into the ensuing silence Temeraire said to Mei, “How well you look—those jewels are particularly becoming.”
“You are very kind,” Mei said, and then to his horror and dismay added, in quite respectable English, “I am glad to see you so well, Lung Tien Xiang: too many times has the moon turned since we last saw one another beneath the boughs of the peach-trees, in the Summer Palace.”
“Why,” Temeraire said, wretchedly, “you have learnt English.”
“Yes,” Mei said, and with her usual tact added, “but I still cannot follow it very well, if someone speaks quickly: I have not had enough chance to practice.”
“I must have words with Iskierka,” Temeraire said. “I will have words with her; oh! I am so very sorry, Mei, that she should have been so rude. I only wish you hadn’t known of it.”
Mei ruffled out her wings a little, but did not pretend any longer that she did not know exactly what he meant. “I do not take any notice of it,” she said. “She must be very attached to you, I suppose: I do not fault her for that. One cannot expect civilized manners from barbarians.”
“She is not very attached to me, in the least,” Temeraire said. “She is only attached to showing away, and annoyed she cannot do it so well as usually.” He fell silent; he was not sure how to approach the matter. Diffidently he added, “I imagine—I expect Hammond has told you—” and then paused helplessly; this was not the breeding grounds of Pen y Fan in Wales, where everyone treated the matter with an easy coarseness, and everyone understood what they were about and merely wished to have the matter over with as quickly and easily as they might.
He had never expected to regret anything of those conditions, anything of being treated as a dumb bestial creature good for nothing else, but at the moment, if old Lloyd had appeared from nowhere to say, “Here now, why don’t the two of you share a nice cow, and then have yourselves a splendid time,” and Mei had acquiesced, Temeraire might almost have managed gratitude. If only Laurence had stayed: Temeraire might have introduced him to Mei, and they might have conversed awhile; they might have been quite comfortable and easy, and the subject of eggs might have been allowed to rise naturally, in the flow of conversation. But that seemed quite impossible now: Temeraire found himself adrift and speechless.
Mei took pity upon him, and said gently, “I have not spoken to Mr. Hammond; I have come at the request of the crown prince. But I will be frank with you, dear friend: your minister’s thoughts have run along behind his, it seems, for I have come to ask if you would consider doing me the very great honor of permitting me to attempt to bear a Celestial egg to you.”
Temeraire felt rather heaped with coals of fire by this gracious speech, and made haste to convey to Mei his own willingness, and gratitude. He hesitated to go too far, in expressing the latter; after all, though he might be cut-about, he had come by his wounds honorably; and he was a Celestial: he did not want to abandon his dignity. Nothing could be less pleasing, he thought, to Mei; he did not want her to feel that she condescended. But he felt he could say, and did, “Nothing should give me greater pleasure than to make the attempt, if you were willing. I am very honored that His Imperial Highness would look to myself, to sire a companion for his reign.”
And then he heaved a sigh of relief, to have escaped the rocky shoals and come safe to harbor; now they could be easy together. He asked her if she had read any English books. “I hope you will let me make you a present of some,” he added, “if you haven’t many here: I do not suppose you have had a chance of seeing the Principia Mathematica? It is of all books my favorite,” and they passed a very pleasant hour discussing the poetry which Temeraire’s mother, Qian, had lately sent him.
“Mei,” Temeraire ventured, “pray tell me, if I might ask—is there not—is there a reason that Qian should not have had another egg?”
Mei said quietly, “The physicians think it inadvisable: she suffered greatly in bearing the twin eggs, last time, and in Imperials, where such a birth has happened once, it oft occurs a second time; the Empress does not wish Qian to risk her health.”
“Oh,” Temeraire said, sadly. “I am very sorry, I am sure; and my uncle?”
Mei shook her head. “A dozen attempts have come to nothing,” she said. “We have been breeding a great deal amongst ourselves,” she added, “—we Imperials, that is, in hopes of another Celestial arising, but without success. I assure you, Xiang, no-one will think any less of you, should we fail: it is well known that Celestials often cannot produce issue.”
Temeraire was glad of an excuse to preen a little; he coughed, and gave Mei to understand he was not in the least concerned, at all. “For Iskierka, you see, has had my egg,” he said. “That is why she is making such a fuss: she does not care to see it passed over, for yours.”
He trailed off, a little puzzled, by the expression of open surprise upon Mei’s face: she stared at him unblinking a moment and then said, in cautious tones, “Is it—perhaps the egg is yet in the shell?”
“Yes,” Temeraire said. “It is in our quarters, under guard, of course.”
Mei hesitated even longer and then said, “Is it not possible the egg should be—the gold dragon’s, perhaps, the very large one? There are many young males in your company—”
“What?” Temeraire said, taken aback. “Why, no; Iskierka particularly wanted my egg; it is not as though just anyone’s would have done for her. She followed me to New South Wales to get it, and threw over an Incan royal dragon for me,” he added, a little wounded that Mei should not think him worthy of such dedicated effort.
“I beg your pardon very much,” Mei said, bowing her head deeply in a courtesy, her wings spread a little. “I would not for the world give offense; only it is not to be heard of, that a Celestial might get an egg on anyone but an Imperial. I have always heard it described as impossible. The divine wind is a great burden, which often defies the powers of the body to support it.”
A little mollified by this explanation, Temeraire forbore to stay offended, and when they had finished their tea, he and Mei repaired to the gardens, to walk awhile, and at length to enjoy a little sport before going on with the breeding: Mei might not be a fighting-dragon, Temeraire silently told Iskierka in his head, with some hauteur, but she was c
ertainly very lithe and agile, and no-one could have complained of the experience.
Afterwards, a little out of breath, they ambled together to the courtyard again and had a refreshing second helping of shaved ice. “We must see the crown prince safely to the throne,” Mei said soberly, when the servants had retreated again. “I know your heart is divided, Xiang, and I am grateful already for what you have given; but I will not conceal from you that I fear deeply for the sake of the nation. The death of Chuan was a grievious crime against the throne, and yet those responsible dare name themselves defenders of the law and of right thinking. What can it portend if such twisted people should gain control over the Celestial Throne? And they will let nothing stand in their way; they have shown as much time and time again.”
“Mei, surely the Emperor must do something to Lord Bayan,” Temeraire said. “Why, I would have slain him myself, if only Laurence and the prince had told me what mischief he had been about; and I would not have let anyone stop me, either.”
“It is not enough to cut off the serpent’s head,” Mei answered. “This one grows another, and another after that. There are too many now who refuse to think of the future. They think only of what will enrich them—what will make them comfortable—what will guard their precedence and their estates. They wish to keep China preserved in glass, and if it could be done, they would not be wrong! I have seen a little of the rest of the world, through your eyes, and I do not think there is anything to compare.
“But so of course the world will be envious, and come knocking at our door. I have seen your monstrous ship in Tien-sing harbor; I have seen men felled by guns. We also must have ships, and more guns, and cannon. Our army must be renewed in strength, and the banners must be brought back to their old strength and discipline.”
She spoke passionately, the tips of her wings nearly trembling with urgency, and leaning towards him rested her neck across his shoulders, coiling loosely about him. “I fear greatly, Xiang,” she said, low, “even if I should bear this egg, if that will be enough. So many things can happen to an egg! They may persuade the Emperor to grant it to one of the other princes; or they may try—they may try—”