Victory of Eagles (26 page)

Admiral Roland snorted. “Well, whether she has had much work or not, I am confident this is the best

explanation for how he has laid hands on a hundred spare dragons, in so little time; he hasn’t taken a

single beast off his eastern borders at all. And that means he can afford to spend a few dozen of them to

harry our foot, on the march.”

Laurence nodded, and Temeraire saw the danger plainly: with the infantry walking to Scotland, they

would be an easy target on the road for aerial assault; and going at their creeping pace of twenty miles a

day would be in striking range of dragons headquartered at London for a week.

“The unharnessed beasts can less easily be taken by boarding, if Bonaparte should manage to put

together some clever little strike,” she went on, “so it would be just as well to make Temeraire’s regiment

the guard; and let him hash this out with Wellesley, before we have a mutiny on our hands: I haven’t the

right to promise them anything, and you may be sure if I did their Lordships wouldn’t abide by it. And if

you do secure them any pay,” she added dryly, “pray be sure it comes to the harnessed dragons, too: I

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am sure Excidium would not say no to a little treasure of his own.”

“It seems a great bother to me, to be flying
back,
” Armatius grumbled, when Temeraire had brought

back the news: he did not much like always carrying Gentius around, but he was the least maneuverable

of the heavy-weights, save Requiescat, so it fell to him nearly all the time.

“At least you do not need to carry a gun, too, in this direction,” Temeraire said, “and flying slower we

will be able to find more food. Anyway, we are going to go arrange for our pay, which is like treasure

that is given you every month without your having to work for it, so you cannot complain.”

Except the harnessed dragons sharing the park with them, who were disgruntled at not being allowed to

come along and get some pay themselves. “Well, I
am
going back with you,” Iskierka announced, and

would not be dissuaded, no matter what Granby said; and to Temeraire’s deep disgust Admiral Roland

finally said, “No, it is just as well, Granby: she will only fuss, lying about in Scotland or going on patrol.”

But despite this setback, it was in any case satisfying to be flying back south, even though they were not

to stay, because it felt to Temeraire a little as though they were reclaiming their territory; or at least

refusing to acknowledge it was not theirs anymore. He still did not like to fall back all the way to

Scotland, no matter how much more secure it should be, for regrouping; but if they must do it, at least

they should not have run there directly from the battlefield, with the French dragons on their heels all the

way: and perhaps they would even have a little fighting, if the French tried to attack the infantry on the

march.

WEEDON WAS VISIBLEaloft from a long way: the walls of the depot were built of thick grey blocks

of granite, with tall narrow turrets at each corner reaching far into the air, bristling with pepper guns.

Around the walls, enormous stands of long halberds and arrow-headed spears had been planted on the

ground in lines, so a great company of men might sleep safe from aerial assault, and the remnants of the

infantry and cavalry were bivouacked among them. It did not look at all comfortable to attack, and

thanks to the defenses, Temeraire had to lead everyone else to land all the way on the far side of the

camp.

Wellesley came the long distance out to speak to them with no good grace, especially as he had to walk

most of the way. “What the devil are you doing here? You ought to be nearly to Scotland by now, and

half my cavalry are in fits.”

“We are here to protect you,” Temeraire said, injured, “and also to talk to you about pay, and our

rights, since we did not win treasure.”

“Why, damn you, you can wait to bring the lawyers into it until after we have run the French out,”

Wellesley said. “Good God, you may be sure Bonaparte does not have to argue his way through every

battle.”

“If you would like to be compared to him,” Temeraire said, “then Bonaparte has also made a

marketplace in Paris, for his dragons, and built them pavilions, and
he
is not penning them up in breeding

grounds, either, if they do not like to be there—”

Laurence laid a hand on Temeraire’s leg, and Temeraire swallowed the rest of his remarks; it was

difficult to remember that one must be respectful to a senior officer, even if the senior officer was

unpleasant in return, and to have to think carefully about what one said, instead of laying everything out

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plainly, even if it was perfectly obvious and fair.

“Sir,” Laurence said, “we have been ordered to cover your retreat,” and handed Wellesley the note

from Admiral Roland: a brief scrawl in her bad handwriting, which Temeraire could not quite read from

overhead.

Wellesley scowled through the explanation, and then he crumpled the note and pitched it away; one of

his aides hastily retrieved it out of the mud behind his back, to be sure it did not lie about to be picked

up. “That woman is more to be relied on than half the general staff; it is a damned embarrassment. So this

Chinese beast is managing Bonaparte’s dragons for him? How did he get the creature to obey him in the

first place? He was not there for her hatching.”

“She is snobbish, so I suppose she liked that he is an emperor,” Temeraire said, “and that he should

make it easy for her to be nasty to me: she is a very unpleasant sort of dragon.”

“I think perhaps you dislike her too greatly to be just, Temeraire,” Laurence said, and to Wellesley said,

“Sir, she had lately lost her companion before coming to France, and being bereft was perhaps more

vulnerable to a kindness which ordinarily pride would have armored her against. But Bonaparte has not

won her by any trick, but with a high degree of real affection, and certainly all the outward shows of

respect; and he has materially altered the conditions for dragons under his rule, for the better.”

“So anyone can manage a dragon, then, if you bribe the creature properly, and cosset it like a woman,”

Wellesley said.

Temeraire laid his ruff back. He did not think he was unjust to Lien at all, himself; but he did see that of

course, Laurence’s explanation was the more important one, for their own case, and even Lien was not

just helping Napoleon because he had given her a few presents. Not that Temeraire would have said no,

to a diamond as handsome as the one she had been wearing at the Battle of Jena; but that was
after
she

had decided to help. “It is not bribery or cosseting, if you pay someone what they deserve, and if they do

not like to help you otherwise.”

“It is a good two thousand pounds to feed a beast your size for a year,” Wellesley said. “Do you expect

more?”

“Then give
me
the two thousand pounds,” Temeraire said, “and I will undertake to feed myself, and put

aside some of the rest, as I like.”

“Hah,” Wellesley said, “and when you gamble it away, and are starving, and you steal a cow to eat, then

what is to be done with you?”

“Of course I would not gamble with treasure,” Temeraire said repressively. “If I wanted to take

someone else’s treasure, I would fight them; and if I did not want to fight them, then I would not want to

take it with a game anyway, because if I did win, then of course they would want to fight to get it back

afterwards.”

“And I suppose every other dragon has as much sense?” Wellesley said.

“If you prefer, sir,” Laurence said, “you may pay them their board and a wage above it; the form matters

little. The question at hand is, whether you will agree they have a right to pay, and to all the same rights

and liberties under which any man serves.”

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“Why the devil ask me?” Wellesley said. “Go speak to Dalrymple, if you like. I have no authority to

make commitments on behalf of the Government.”

Laurence said, “Sir, you are likely to be appointed to the command, and to just that authority; we both

know that their Lordships are not likely to overrule, in the broad strokes, what commitments you feel

necessary to make to secure so critical a victory, nor even question them greatly, if those commitments

should deliver to the effort a substantial force of dragons, which otherwise have no inclination to remain

and to serve.”

Wellesley tapped his boot again, and said nothing for a moment, looking at Laurence. “I can give you my

word it will be considered, shall we say,” he offered, “and I can promise your beast the two thousand

pounds per annum directly, as he is so sure he may be trusted. And we need hear nothing more of your

own—difficulties.”

“Hah,” Minnow said, putting her head over Temeraire’s shoulder. “Just so: they
are
offering you

something, only for you and your captain.”

Wellesley started back: he had evidently not noticed Minnow sitting quietly on Temeraire’s back,

listening in.

“Yes, but I am not going to take it,” Temeraire said, and lowered his head more closely, so Wellesley

had to look at him directly. “I do not choose to wait, and rely on generosity: I know perfectly well how

generous their Lordships are. If you would like our help now, then you may say how much it is worth to

you, also now. And if it is not as much as
I
think it worth, I will tell the others so, and they will leave, I

expect. I will stay myself for Laurence, but I will not keep the others for my own personal sake. And it is

not very handsome of you to propose anything so insulting, either,” he added reproachfully, lifting his

head back away, “when you know I cannot fight you over it, because you are too small.”

“Do you know, you are the most damned peculiar pair of traitors I have ever heard of,” Wellesley said

to Laurence. “Are you trying to get yourself into
Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
?”

Temeraire snorted angrily: Laurence had read him bits of that book, and it was all about people who had

died in especially unpleasant ways. But Laurence only said, “Sir, there are abundant proofs for any man,

by now, that any nation which gives its dragons liberty and brings them into the life of the state, winning

their loyalty direct and not merely by intermediaries, must profit by it to so great an extent that no enemy

which does not follow the same course can long hope to mount an aerial force to compete with them. If

you do not care to learn from the example of China—”

One of the young officers on Wellesley’s staff, who had walked out with him, made a rude noise. “You

need not sniff, either,” Temeraire said. “China may not have so many guns as here, but there are

thousands of dragons in the army.”

“Thousands indeed,” Wellesley said, skeptically.

“Six thousand two hundred and eighty-eight, my mother told me,” Temeraire said. No one said anything

a moment, and he supposed it might seem odd to be so precise, so he explained, “Because that is a lucky

number—of course they have more dragons who can fight, but those dragons are not officially in the

army.”

“And if,” Laurence said to Wellesley, “the population of France is not so great as that of China, if they

should even achieve the same proportion of dragons to men and arable land, using the same techniques

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of husbandry which you may be sure Lien has conveyed to Bonaparte, their nation will shortly be able to

field a military force of a thousand. Would you care to face that in five years, with the Corps at its present

rate of growth?”

“Damn you, I am not in a mood to be lectured at with figures, as though I were in a boardroom in

Whitehall,” Wellesley said. “Very well. Your beasts will have their keep, and above that, the same wages

as any other man in service under the Navy Board—”

“A shilling a day will keep a seaman’s wife and children, and let him carouse on shore a little when he

comes into port; it will not do as much for a dragon,” Laurence said.

“And we don’t want little coins we must keep track of, either, and cannot hold on to,” Minnow put in.

“A proper mess that would be.”

Temeraire nodded. “No, and what we really want is to be able to go where we like.
That
is what I want

promised, also: if we may go where we like, and do any work that is offered to us, then even should

Government offer us unfair wages, we will work for someone else instead. And the same for harnessed

dragons, too,” he added.

“Any work that is offered to you?” Wellesley said. “By all means. As for going where you like—”

He and Laurence wrangled a long time, in low voices, over sums and coverts, and how much ought to

be paid to a heavy-weight, over a courier, and so on. Temeraire listened carefully, but he did not know

all the places which Laurence named, where coverts ought to be, and also he was not quite certain about

the money. His breastplate, he knew, was worth nearly ten thousand pounds, but shillings and pence

were new. They were interrupted at last only by the arrival of a breathless courier from the main camp, to

inform them that the last stragglers from the battlefield had been regrouped, and were ready to begin the

march to the north.

“I have no more time for this,” Wellesley said. “Twenty coverts, on the Bath Road and the Great North