by Naomi Novik
A pistol-crack came jumping-loud from over his shoulder, deafening in his ear; Laurence felt a few hot flecks of burning powder on his chin, and saw a thin thread of smoke rise from his sleeve; a hole stood in the chest of the man on Emily’s left. Mrs. Pemberton stood pale with the smoking pistol in her hands a moment, then she let it fall and reached to raise the other from the pocket of her skirt; Emily, turning, snatched it from her hands and shot another.
“Captain!” a shout came, “Captain Laurence—” and a young man, his personal servant Ferris, came scrambling over the rocks; Forthing was on his heels.
The last attacker looked at the corpses of his fellows and the approaching men; Laurence caught for his arm, but too late. The man turned his blade inwards and throwing himself away fell upon it; when Laurence turned him over with his foot, his eyes beneath the sooty mask were staring blind and dead.
“Good God,” Ferris said panting, coming to a halt; he held a pistol, which he carefully uncocked and put back onto his waist. “You are not hurt, sir, I hope?”
“Nothing to signify,” Laurence said, looking at Emily, who did not show blood anywhere. He was a little torn: surely it ought to have been his own duty to shield her from danger, and yet in the moment he had not the least difficulty classing her with himself as a combatant, and he could not help taking a degree of pride in her skill and courage; she had been as resolute a fighter as he could have wished at his side. “Ma’am, I trust you are well?”
“I must be,” Mrs. Pemberton said, though she had not let a tight grip on Emily’s arm. “I am perfectly untouched; only, very shaken. Emily—”
“It takes you so, the first time,” Emily said to her, consolingly. “Pray don’t give it a thought; that was a very pretty shot. What? Oh! No, I am fine; they didn’t get a touch on me. They scarcely tried: I don’t think they cared a lick about the two of us; they meant to kill the captain.”
“And it will be wonderful, at this rate,” Iskierka said with mean satisfaction, “if these assassins do not get their way, when you are always busy making up to this Imperial flirt of yours, and paying no attention.”
Temeraire would have hissed her down, but he hardly could; wretched guilt silenced him. He ought have been there; no assassin ought ever have been able to get so close to Laurence. “Only,” he said unhappily, “Laurence ought to have been asleep—or at least, safe within the camp; I do not understand how he ever came to be so exposed.”
He clawed the dirt of the clearing; whyever had he gone to sleep without seeing Laurence properly settled? He thought Laurence had only gone to have supper with the other captains; Laurence had told him to rest and be comfortable—surely Temeraire ought have been able to rely on him. Laurence could not have imagined Temeraire would be in the least comfortable, knowing that Laurence was endangering himself.
Iskierka snorted. “It is easy to say, he ought to have been asleep: he wasn’t, he was nearly being stuck with swords,” she said. “I don’t see that you should be blaming him, when you didn’t take the trouble to look out for him properly. You may be sure, Granby,” she added, “if you ever are a prince, I will not begin to neglect you; not that I am very sorry anymore that you are not, since all it would mean is that people were always trying to kill you.”
“Come, dear one, pray don’t stir up Temeraire,” Granby said, coming from the tents. “Temeraire, there’s no harm done: Laurence hasn’t a scratch.”
“He does too have a scratch,” Temeraire said, “—upon his shoulder; and his coat has been ruined. Whatever was he doing so far from the pavilion?”
“You cannot go calling a mere pinprick a scratch,” Granby said, “and I am sure we will put him in the way of a new coat, soon enough. He went out there to have a word with Roland, that’s all.”
But Laurence had not gone out to speak with Emily. “Why, I wasn’t there,” Emily said, when Temeraire asked her later, as they packed for resuming their flight, what had been so urgent as to induce Laurence to go so far upon the outskirts of camp. “I only came upon them later; I suppose he wanted to talk to Alice. Mrs. Pemberton, I mean,” she added.
“What?” Churki said, lifting her head up abruptly from her sniffing over the packs, and ruffling up the feathers of her collar. “What is he doing with Mrs. Pemberton?”
“Lord, I don’t know,” Roland said. “He likes to talk to her, I suppose because she’s a gentlewoman; you know he is ever such a stickler.”
“Hrmmr,” Churki said, frowning, but then she smoothed down her feathers. “Well,” she said to Temeraire, “I do not have a real claim, and I suppose Laurence is older; although I had thought of her for Hammond. But I do not mean to interfere,” she said, as though making a handsome concession.
“Interfere with what?” Temeraire said, in alarm. “Whatever do you mean? I am sure Laurence does not think of her like that, at all—”
“Why should he not?” Churki said. “She is a hearty young woman: she might bear him children for twenty years, if they begin quickly. Certainly they should neither of them wait any longer; a man should begin to have children at twenty, in my opinion, and a woman at sixteen.”
Temeraire stalked away from them and back to the pavilion. “I do not see why she must always be on about Laurence marrying,” he complained in some irritation to Mei, who very kindly put aside the poetry she was reading to comfort his distress. “Laurence has quite enough to do, as it is. He has his crew to oversee, and there is the war, which we must contrive to win; and when that is done, there will be our valley, and I dare say I will find him another fortune, sooner or later, which he will have to manage. I do not see that he at all ought to marry.”
“Well,” Mei said, “if he is not married already, certainly he ought not without the Emperor’s approval, and the choice must be carefully made. There is no call for a prince to marry in haste; concubines may suffice him quite well.”
“Aren’t those a sort of whore?” Temeraire said, doubtfully. “I know Laurence does not hold with visiting those—”
“No, no,” Mei said, “a concubine, bound to him and him alone; surely that woman who travels with you, who is under guard by your young soldier, is one of his?”
Temeraire flattened down his ruff. “No!” he said. “That is Mrs. Pemberton; she is Emily’s chaperone, and why we must needs have brought her along, I am sure I do not in the least know! Laurence hasn’t any concubine, at all.”
“What, none?” Mei said, staring at him with her eyes widening.
“No,” Temeraire said, suddenly wary.
“None!” Mei cried. “Prince Mianning has seven: one has borne him a promising boy of four already, with another child coming soon. However is he to have heirs?”
So Temeraire spent the day’s flight in high dudgeon, speaking to no-one. Why would everyone see Laurence married? He did not see that it was anyone’s concern, other than his own. “You are quite well, Laurence?” he asked, turning his head around. “Are you certain you are not feverish, and warm through?”
“I am perfectly comfortable, I thank you,” Laurence said, tiredly, and fell silent again. They had searched the camp through and searched again, of course, all the rest of the night and in the early hours of the morning, looking for any trace of the assassins—whence they had come, what their purpose, but without a trace at all.
By the end, General Chu had shrugged and said he supposed the men were mere outlaws, having made the attempt only to get at Mrs. Pemberton and Emily. Which was perfect nonsense: Emily was quite a remarkable young officer, but Temeraire did not see that there was anything out of the ordinary about Mrs. Pemberton, nor why anyone should have gone to particular lengths to get at her.
“I must suppose,” Laurence had said to him and to Hammond, after they had given up the futile search, when morning light at last coming had uncovered nothing more of use, “that this is another endeavour of the conservative faction.”
“I will make the argument, sir, if I may,” Hammond had said to Laurence wit
h a somewhat stiff tone, “that this explains their willingness to permit this expedition. To separate you from the Imperial court, exposed to such blatant attempts as these upon your life which their partisans may nevertheless easily explain away, must be sufficient good in their eyes, and preclude the notion that they must have some real complaint to make.
“I suppose,” he added, “that we may expect more of these assaults, when we have reached camp: General Fela is, we know already, one of their partisans; and they must rely on your death, in severing the one formally acknowledged tie between our nations, to remove the impulse to alliance.”
“Then we ought not go any further,” Temeraire had said, in high alarm. “We ought to return at once to the court; and then I will squash Lord Bayan, and that will put a stop to these assassination attempts.”
But Hammond had protested at once, and Laurence shook his head as well. “Prince Mianning has had the right of it: the reward we seek is proportionate to the risk we run,” he said. “An alliance between our nations might well change the course of the war and the fortunes of all Europe, if not the world entire: we cannot give up the chance of it merely for a personal fear. This force alone, if we can bring it to bear smartly, may well make the difference between victory and defeat.”
He had gone to sleep then in his tent having been awake all the night; and now when Temeraire glanced back towards him, Laurence had drifted once more to sleep again. Temeraire wished he had made Laurence promise to keep close to him at all times henceforth, and in particular not to go speak with Mrs. Pemberton again: when Laurence woke, he would discuss it with him, perhaps. He was only not entirely certain how to open the conversation: he shied from the thought that Laurence might object, might dislike the request.
“Temeraire,” Baggy said, calling out to him through cupped hands, “be a good fellow: will you tell me how to say ‘spend the night with me’?”
Temeraire obliged him, but asked, “But why should you need to ask Junichiro that? You are already quartered together.”
“No, no,” Baggy said hurriedly, “I didn’t mean to ask him; I don’t mean to ask anyone; I was only curious.”
“He means to ask one of those soldier-women, I suppose,” Junichiro said, contemptuously, “in defiance of your captain’s orders: a shameful lack of discipline.”
“Oh!” Temeraire said. “I dare say he is right; what are you about?”
“What did he say?” Baggy said, eyeing Junichiro doubtfully.
“That you mean to pester the Chinese soldiers,” Temeraire said, “even though you know very well Laurence has said not to.”
“I don’t!” Baggy said, with a quick furtive look over at Laurence, who yet slept. “Only we are coming up on a city, and I dare say there will be a girl or two about; that is all. And what business is it of yours,” he hissed, to Junichiro.
Temeraire had been drifting himself, with more attention to the air currents than to the landscape; now he looked ahead. There was a blue smudged haze on the horizon, a long narrow blot. “That is Xian,” General Chu said, peering ahead, “and we have all made good time, I see.”
“We all?” Temeraire said, and squinted. There were five small clouds converging upon the city—clouds which might each of them have been a flock of birds. “Baggy, perhaps you might wake Laurence,” he said uncertainly.
Baggy clambered carefully over to rouse Laurence; Junichiro was standing in his own straps, his eyes shaded with one hand, staring. Laurence came awake at once and opened his long spyglass; he gazed through it in silence. “Yes,” Laurence said finally. “Those are dragons. Temeraire, will you ask Chu if those companies are coming to join us?”
They were all nearing the walls of Xian, at almost the same pace; already Temeraire could make out the long banners flying before each of them, and the steady rhythmic beat of the wings: each one a company the size of their own.
“Of course; did the Emperor not command three jalan attend to this task?” Chu answered over his shoulder, absently; he himself was eyeing the companies on their way, critically. “But Commander Li is a couple of niru short, I see. Well, we will recruit them from the city outpost here: it is good for fat guardsmen to get a little exercise.”
That evening, Temeraire looked down from an enormous pavilion, established upon the fortified city wall: two hundred dragons and more sleeping beneath him, many in other pavilions, some draped over the walls, others on the open ground at their base; several of the companies had gone to encamp some distance from the city, and their fires might be seen dotting the low hills. Laurence stood beside him, a hand upon his foreleg, with Forthing near-by and Ferris also; scarcely any man of the aviators had said a word, since the company had assembled.
“I understand from General Chu that we leave early on the morrow, Mr. Forthing,” Laurence said finally. “Pray encourage the men to go to their sleep, if you please, and let us get those camp-followers out of the pavilion; they will never get any rest otherwise.”
“Yes, sir,” Forthing said, touching his hat; he lingered looking for a moment more, and turned away.
“We cannot reach the mountains in less than another week, I suppose,” Temeraire said to Laurence, trying for nonchalance: he felt a little daunted, though he did not like to admit it, by the size of their assembled force. “We must be a little slower, with so—so very many dragons.”
“I imagine so,” Laurence said, soberly. He gave Temeraire’s flank a pat and sought his own bed, and Temeraire settled himself; the only one left awake was Junichiro, who was standing half-hidden against one of the pavilion columns, nearly at the edge, still looking down at the great crowd of dragons. “You had better go to sleep also,” Temeraire said, yawning. “Not that you are doing anything much, but you will have to get up and go aloft, anyway.”
Junichiro said, low, “I have never heard of so many dragons gathered.”
“Well,” Temeraire said, glad to exchange his own private surprise for authority, “of course China is a very large country, and they know dragon-breeding very well here, and dragon-husbandry. There is really nothing very unusual in the size of this force; it is nothing to be amazed at, after all, when there are so many dragons here. I dare say the Emperor could call together an army ten times the size, if he liked.”
Junichiro was quiet again; Temeraire half-shut his eyes and had just begun to drift off comfortably, before Junichiro abruptly asked, “That transport ship we came upon, the large one—how many are there, in Britain?”
“Well, we captured two French, only last year,” Temeraire said, “so I think we are up to twenty; they take a good deal of building.” He yawned again, pointedly, but Junichiro did not take the hint, and only kept standing there; and then Gong Su came climbing up the stairs from the ledge below, and bowed. “I hope I am not intruding, Lung Tien Xiang; I only wished to see that you and His Highness have everything you might require, and that you are satisfied with our preparations, and the humble force under your command.”
Temeraire sighed; he could hear Maximus snoring away behind him, and he was very ready to go to sleep himself. “Yes, there is nothing wanting, thank you very much,” he said politely, however. “I understand we will be leaving very early in the morning? It is very kind of you to look in on us, but I am sure you should be asleep as well: Laurence has already gone to bed.
“And if you have any questions,” Temeraire said to Junichiro, hitting upon the notion to divert him, “I am sure Gong Su can tell you anything you would like to know, about the jalan; I was only just telling him,” Temeraire added, “that of course, this is not an exceptionally large force: that China has so many dragons, that one cannot really be astonished.”
Gong Su looked at Junichiro thoughtfully. “Indeed. If you are interested in such matters,” he said to that young man, “perhaps I will speak with His Highness. There might be a place for you in the service of the crown prince: it may well be that relations with your nation will at some point assume a closer character than at presen
t, and I do not believe we have very many officials with knowledge of your tongue.”
Junichiro paused, then bowed. “I am honored by your consideration, but I cannot think of leaving the service of Captain Laurence.”
“As you wish,” Gong Su said, and made his good nights, retiring formally and disappearing again down the stairs; Temeraire meanwhile had roused up again to eye Junichiro doubtfully.
“I cannot see why you would say such a thing, when you have not the least interest in doing anything, or even learning English: it seems to me you would do very well to stay here and help the crown prince, if he means to make better friends with your country.”
“China is no friend of my country,” Junichiro said flatly, and looking one last time down at the immense dragon-horde below turned and vanished into the back of the pavilion, to bed down amongst the other officers.
They woke early and the aviators breakfasted only lightly; there was nothing but a bit of porridge for them, and water for the dragons. “I cannot conceive how such a force is to be supplied or maintained at all,” Laurence said to Temeraire, as he went up again. “We must surely strip the countryside bare as we go.”
But as they all began to go aloft, several dragons of varying colors in green-and-gold trappings took up positions throughout the flying armada, and raised a strident chant to which the larger dragons all matched their wingbeats: they began at once to set a grueling pace, greater by far than their speed before. Temeraire had not been hard-pressed so far, during all their journey. Even now, of course, he was not at all struggling, but he had to keep his head down and think about every stroke to keep up their speed.
Before the sun had reached its zenith, they had covered a hundred miles of distance, Laurence told him: they were flying nearly fifteen knots. Temeraire would not at all have minded a pause for rest or drink or food, but none was called, and he did not at all mean to be the one to propose it. General Chu himself did not seem to be having any difficulties, and he was a great deal older. Poor Maximus and Kulingile were both of them having a bad time of it, however, and late in the afternoon Berkley raised signal-flags to say he was dropping behind, and would catch them up shortly. He signaled Demane, too, to keep with him; the two huge dragons sank towards the ground. Temeraire privately would not have minded at all stopping to rest with them, if only he could have thought of a way to suggest it, between one wingbeat and the next.