Victory of Eagles (25 page)

the wretched muddle. Jane laughed heartily, as he had feared she would; but under the circumstances he

found he could not be sorry to have given her a cause for unfeigned pleasure, even one embarrassing to

himself. “Whyever did you not set her right?” she said, amused. “No, never mind. I expect she has not

said a word about it openly, which you could answer, and you would not broach the subject if hot

pokers were put to you. It must be very inconvenient, talking of anything awkward in your family.”

She fell silent then; it evoked too well their own awkward circumstances, and she looked down at her

cup and rolled it between her palms. “I do beg your pardon,” Laurence said, after a moment, “with all my

heart.”

“Yes,” Jane said, “but you beg it for the wrong things. Charging off alone, without a word, and that

appalling letter you left for me, all ‘I could not love thee dear, so much,’ as though you owed me apology

as a lover and not as your commander. I blushed to show it to anyone, and of course it had to be handed

over. For a week, I could cheerfully have run you through myself, sitting in rooms with them reading out

bits of it in insinuating tones, and putting Sanderson over me, damn them.”

“Jane,” he said, “Jane, you must see, I could ask no-one; to have put you in such a position—”

“What position, which you did not put me into, regardless?” Jane said. “They could not have suspected

me more if I had really had all the guilty knowledge in the world.”

“If I had spoken, you should have been obliged to stop me,” Laurence said.

“And a good thing too if I had,” Jane said. “One private note to some Frenchman with a little rank, and

they would have had the mushroom in hand in a month. Do you think every servant at Loch Laggan is

incorruptible, knowing that Bonaparte would pay a million francs for the damned things?” He recoiled

inwardly, and she saw it. “No, of course it would not have suited you to have done the whole thing

quietly, you and your damned honor.”

“It would not have been any less treason,” Laurence said.

“No, but as you were bent on
that
in any case, it would have been a good deal less pain,” Jane said,

and then she rubbed the back of her hand across her forehead. “No, never mind. I do not mean it. I do

not suppose there was any decent way to go about it: all decency was already gone. But damn you

anyway, Laurence.”

He felt the justice of her rebuke, and bowed his head over his hands. After a moment she added, “And

to crown the whole, you must needs come back and make a martyr of yourself, so now anyone who

cares a farthing for your life must watch you hanged; that is, if they do not decide to make a spectacle of

it and draw and quarter you in the fine old style. I suppose you would go to it like Harrison, ‘as cheerful

as any man could do in that condition.’ Well, I should not be damned cheerful, and neither should anyone

else who loved you, and some of them can knock down half of London Town if they should choose.”

Page 87

“I SHOULD CERTAINLY CHOOSE,”Temeraire said, and thought to himself that he would make a

point of speaking again to the Ministry gentleman, or perhaps one of those generals, to make it perfectly

plain. “Pray do not worry, Laurence,” he added, “I am sure they will not be so foolish.”

“Men can be very foolish indeed,” Laurence said, “and I must, I do, beg you not to enter into a

resolution, which should prevent my being able to face death with equanimity. You should make me a

coward, if I must fear that my death should turn you against my country.”

“But I do not at all want you to face death with equanimity,” Temeraire said, “if by that you mean letting

them hang you, instead of making a fuss. If that should make you unhappy, so should I be unhappy, if you

were killed. It was dreadful, so dreadful, when I thought that you were gone. I did not feel as though I

knew myself anymore. I even wanted to kill poor Lloyd, for no reason at all, and I do not ever wish to

feel so again.”

Laurence said, “Temeraire, you must know that you shall, inevitably; I have two score years or three

perhaps at most, and you ten, to look forward to.”

Temeraire flattened his ruff, unhappily, not wishing even to speak of the matter. “But that at least, will not

be anyone’s fault; no one will have
taken
you.” The distinction was very plain in his mind. Anyway he did

not mean to think about something so far-away and misty. Perhaps he might think of some way to

prevent it, by then; if dragons might live two hundred years, he did not see why people might not, also.

He turned his head gladly as Moncey came dropping down beside him. “Temeraire, they are hungry

over by Nottingham Castle: there were not enough deer for everyone.”

“They may come here and share our breakfast,” Temeraire said, indicating the great pit where Gong Su

had made them a great thickened wheat porridge flavored with venison and greens and preserved

lemons. It had been ingeniously made waterproof by a thick lining of canvas, and heated by stones which

Iskierka had fired, dropped in. “And from now on we will all go shares; you must all admit,” he said to

the others, “it is perfectly nice.”

“Nothing as good as a fresh hot buck all to oneself,” Requiescat said, grumbling.

“Well,” Temeraire said, “if you prefer, you may take a single buck or a cow to yourself instead of three

days of soup or porridge, because that is how far they may be stretched, Gong Su says.”

He was very happy to turn to such mundane affairs, and to pretend that he and Laurence had finished

their conversation, and were again in perfect accord, although it made him feel a little ashamed. He knew

Laurence would not interrupt anything which was like work: Laurence did not think much of officers who

had conversations or pleased themselves while their duty waited. So it was a good excuse, and as long as

Temeraire made himself busy, he could be sure not to be asked to return again to the difficult and

unhappy subject.

He was quite resolved that he was not going to let Laurence be killed, no matter what. Laurence would

certainly never be happy
after
being killed, so it did not seem to Temeraire much consolation that he

should be a little happier beforehand. And Temeraire was now very sure that the only way to be certain

of protecting Laurence, would be to make it plain to their Lordships that something dreadful would

happen to
them,
if they dared to hurt him, so he had no intentions of withdrawing his threat. But he could

not help but peer cautiously sidelong to where Laurence was speaking now with Admiral Roland: he

looked tired, and although of course he would not let his shoulders slump, there was some quality of

Page 88

unhappiness in the way he stood, and Temeraire’s conscience smote him even while he considered his

escape from the discussion with gratitude.

At least Laurence was dressed respectably now: Temeraire felt that there, at least, he had done his duty

a little better. He had whispered a quiet word to Lady Allendale, last night, and she had sent down some

clothes from the house: a warm thick cloak, and some of Laurence’s old things, which had been given her

to keep when Laurence had been put in prison. It was not quite how Temeraire should have
liked
to see

him dressed; but at least he had his sword again, and better boots, and a coat which fitted.

Then Palliatia landed, with four more Yellow Reapers, and a couple of Grey Coppers, hungry, and

punished him by making his subterfuge quite real. They fell upon the porridge, were noisy and

quarrelsome while eating, and when it was all gone she said belligerently, “And where will we eat

tomorrow? No treasure and no food either; what of all your fine promises now?”

He was rather taken aback to be so challenged, and said, “You needn’t snap at me, because we have

lost a battle. After all, if Napoleon were so easy to beat, he would not have any treasure worth taking.

So you must expect some difficulties, and I call it poor-spirited to begin to complain only because you

were not clever enough to find yourself enough dinner last night.”

“Oh, you did not talk of difficulties before,” she said, “and you did not seem to think so much of

Napoleon either. If he has so much treasure, then it stands to reason he must be
very
difficult to beat,

and perhaps we are not going to win at all.”

“And if we do,” a Grey Copper named Rictus said pointedly, raising his head out of the porridge-pit, “I

expect there will be no pavilions anyway, or treasure, not for us, or leastways not for those of us who

haven’t got our captains again, and a place in the Corps waiting for us any time we like. No, it’ll be back

to the breeding grounds with us, and if we are only to end up as we began, I don’t see why we are going

about getting ourselves shot, and clawed, and flying across all Creation hungry.”

There was a low scattered murmur of agreement, and worse, several other dragons raising their heads,

in some interest, to see how he would answer. Temeraire sat up angrily. “I am not a sneak, and if you like

to call me one, you may say so at once, and plainly, instead of creeping about implying it.”

“Well, what
do
you mean to do, when we have won?” Ballista said, having listened in so far. “Rictus

isn’t wrong to say that you needn’t worry about the rest of us anymore: you are not unharnessed

anymore, even if you haven’t much of a crew to speak of.”

Temeraire flattened his ruff at this last remark. After all, he had Gong Su back now, and Dorset—even if

Dorset was not quite so desirable as Keynes—and of course Emily and Demane and Sipho, and

Fellowes and Blythe, and even Allen, so he had a perfectly respectable number, which in any case had

nothing to do with the matter. “You had a crew before, and might have one again, yourself, and so might

any of us,” he pointed out, “so the question is not whether one is in harness, but whether one may choose

to be, or not, and if it is only a choice between being in harness or being in the breeding grounds, that is

not enough of a choice at all, when the breeding grounds are so boring; and that is the case even if one is

in harness for the moment.”

“Yes, but,” Ballista said, and then paused until Majestatis, lying next to her, said bluntly, “Look, old

worm, we are all doing what you say, so what if they should offer you something you want, if only you

keep us quiet and fighting with the rest of the harnessed fellows? We all know they want to hang your

captain—what if they should offer you his life?”

Page 89

Temeraire paused in his turn. “Well, I am not going to let them hang Laurence no matter what,” he said,

with a hasty glance to be sure he had not been overheard, “but I do see: they might offer me a very large

pavilion, or a great deal of gold.” He rubbed a talon back and forth over his forehead, thoughtfully. “It

would not be fair,” he said at last, “if I took
anything
that should be for me only, when I should be

getting it not for my own work but for all of ours: we are all sharing. So perhaps,” he added, “one of you

had better come along, when I go and talk to the generals again: one of the little ones who can go all

about and let everyone know what it is they will give us.”

“I will come along,” Minnow said. “I have never been harnessed, and I don’t look to be ever, so no-one

can say I am inclined to go soft on them. Anyway I would like to see a general, I never have.”

Temeraire stretched his head over to ask Laurence and Admiral Roland who was presently in command,

and where they might be; which he thought quite a straightforward question. “Well, it isn’t,” Admiral

Roland answered him. “It is still Dalrymple for the moment, I suppose. But he is likely to be replaced as

soon as we get to Scotland and Government have a chance to take him out of harm’s way: our harm, that

is. If there is a lick of sense among them it shall be Wellesley in his place, but we ought not put our hopes

so high.”

“But then who am I to talk to?” Temeraire said. “I do not like to say so, but the others are not quite

happy—after all our hard work, we have lost, and got no treasure, and they would like to know what use

it is to keep on. Not,” he added hastily, in case Laurence or Admiral Roland should think that he was a

poor officer, “that we have no discipline, but after all, they are not harnessed, so they wonder why we

are helping so much.”

Laurence was silent a moment, and then he said, “We may as well speak to Wellesley: it cannot much

matter who we have made arrangements with, if the war is lost.”

Admiral Roland nodded and said, “I will tell you: now we have got the guns out of the way, I meant to

send some of us back anyway, to cover the infantry when they come out of Weedon. It is too close to

London, and Bonaparte has too many dragons by half. I think I have worked out where he is getting

them from,” she added. “He is using unharnessed beasts, too, pulled out of his own breeding grounds: I

dare say that Celestial of his can talk them out of their caves as well as Temeraire can ours.”

“I do not see that she needed go to any special effort,” Temeraire said, with feeling, “when Napoleon is

doing everything nice, and giving his dragons pavilions and treasure, too, I expect: I am sure no-one is

complaining to
her.
”