Victory of Eagles (27 page)

Road, where they can go to sleep and be fed. As for pavilions, they can build the damned things

themselves with their own shillings: set themselves up like admirals, if they like. And after this, they had

damned well better keep in line.”

“Sir,” Laurence said, and made a bow: to Wellesley’s back; the general had already turned and walked

away.

LAURENCE FOUND HIMSELFalmost at once the center of a large and interested audience of

dragons, all pressing in and jostling for room to hear him, as soon as he had begun to try and explain to

Temeraire and Minnow the system of coinage.

“So ten pounds will buy a cow?” Minnow said intently, “and a pound and a shilling is a bit of gold?”

“If it is twenty shillings to a pound, and twenty-four shillings a day,” Temeraire said thoughtfully, “then

that is nearly four hundred pounds a year for a heavy-weight—” performing calculations in his head,

which produced a buzz of satisfaction among the other dragons.

“But where is it?” Iskierka demanded. “I did not come back to just hear numbers; what sort of treasure

is that?”

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Temeraire snapped at her a little. “It is
reliable
treasure,” he said. “Not all of us want to be always

running around picking quarrels and making difficulties, like you, all to grab more and more: this is for

everyone every day who does their duty, like proper soldiers, and it is fair.”

The other dragons were generally of his mind, if Iskierka continued to sulk, and agreed they were

satisfied with their lot. But Laurence himself felt not a little disgusted, on having stooped to such

back-room negotiations, at such a moment: maneuvering for personal interest, while Bonaparte marched

into London and the French followed on their heels, felt more like treason to him than any of the acts for

which he had been charged. “We must see to your dinners,” he said, more out of an urgent wish to put an

end to the gloating noise. “The Army will march at first light, and we must be ready.”

In the morning, when the dragons had breakfasted and gone aloft, the first regiments were already out on

the road, their pace sluggish enough that Requiescat remarked, near dinner-time, “Now, this is what I call

a pleasant flight, no fussing or hurry.” Temeraire only sighed.

“We might go over to them and offer to carry them, at least a little way, as many as could climb aboard

us?” he suggested to Laurence. “I am sure they could go faster.”

“Not without orders,” Laurence said; he could well imagine Wellesley’s reaction, or Dalrymple’s, if the

dragons should begin to fly towards the ranks, and likely panic some of the men and cavalry-beasts into

running, after all the difficulty in forming them back into their regiments.

“It is only so dull: we might fly to to-night’s rendezvous and back again three times over, before they

have got there,” Temeraire said, “and some of us more than that. What if Requiescat and a few of the

others should stay pacing them, and we go ahead—or perhaps,” he added, ruff coming up with

enthusiasm, “we might go
back,
and see if we cannot pay Napoleon back a little, for everything which he

has done.” He peered back over his shoulder, to see how this was received.

“It is not your place even to propose such a thing, anymore,” Laurence said. “You have accepted a

commission; you are obliged to preserve discipline, not to undermine it—” Hearing himself thus

condemned from his own mouth, Laurence abruptly stopped; he did not know how to speak to

Temeraire of duty anymore, without being a hypocrite.

“I suppose,” Temeraire said, regretfully. “It is not always so pleasant to be an officer. And I am sure

Iskierka will complain, all night, and say more cutting things about going slowly, and running away, and

not getting treasure.” He snorted, and looked, and then said doubtfully, “Where
is
Iskierka?”

She had been flying sullenly to their rear all the morning, amusing herself by occasional wild darts into the

heavy low clouds above, where her flames made gold and crimson and purple flashes through the white

and grey, like a sunset in mid-morning. But Laurence did not remember her doing it the last two hours

and more. Arkady was gone also, with a handful of the other ferals, and when questioned, Wringe had a

guilty twist to her neck, even while she professed surprise and confusion.

Temeraire did not miss it, either. “But how am I to make Wringe tell me where they have gone?” he

asked Laurence, and batted her reaching talons away from a bleating sheep. He had brought them down

in a broad meadow, the better to interrogate the remaining ferals, and the other dragons were driving the

luckless resident herd in towards them all, so they should make a meal while they worked out what

Iskierka and the others had done. “No, you may not eat, until you have told me: they have made a great

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deal of trouble for all of us.”

“I call that hard,” Requiescat said, mumbling around a sheep. “It ain’t as though we will not outstrip

those redcoats anyhow, and nobody minds a snack, either.”

“You may find it less pleasant when we have had to fly thirty miles back to catch Iskierka up, and then

sixty on to the rendezvous,” Laurence said grimly; and that the very best outcome they could hope for.

“Hum,” Requiescat said, licking his chops thoughtfully, “that’s so, but I don’t see as we have to go

finding her at all. She and those fellows know where the rendezvous is as well as anyone, and they have

some men and their compasses with them, if they should get themselves lost like hatchlings. We can just

go on and let them catch us up.”

“They must know we would miss them, after they have been gone so long,” Temeraire said, “so I expect

that they have got themselves into a fight, and are probably all dying somewhere full of French bullets.”

He did not sound as though he would be very sorry to find as much the case.

Wringe squirmed as Temeraire pointedly translated this for her, but still said nothing. “Temeraire,”

Laurence said, low, “it is not only foolishness on her part; this is a challenge to your authority.”

“Oh!” Temeraire said, and, having told Wringe as much, he added, “so now you
will
tell me, or else,”

and when she continued mute, he drew a great expanding breath and roared out, over her head.

“Payom zhe reng!”
Wringe said, flattening herself to the ground, and everyone jumped. A gentle

pattering like rain came from the trees in the path of Temeraire’s roar, old acorns shaken loose into the

dead leaves, and a few small birds dropping stone-dead. Gong Su promptly went in after them while

Wringe muttered her confession: the miscreants had gone back towards London with a notion of taking

some of Napoleon’s army by surprise, winning either treasure or accolades. There had been no very

well-formed goal; they had gone looking for a fight as much as for any practical reward.

“We ought to go on and leave them to catch up,” Temeraire said, panting a little, still ruffled and angry,

“just as Requiescat says, except then I dare say she will come back with two eagles or something like,

and there will be no living with her at all.”

Laurence did not like to ill-wish aloud, but if Iskierka had so overridden Granby as to make herself a

deserter, she was unlikely to be guided in any other respect of sense, and he thought Temeraire’s earlier

expectation was the more likely to be met.

But Temeraire brightened after a moment and added, “Anyway, I do not suppose anyone can blame us

for going after her, to fetch her back, Laurence? After all, she is very important; or so everyone says.”

The roads beneath them were empty as they flew back towards London, warily and quick. The haze of

dust which the British soldiers raised had already settled, and no sign of French pursuit. No-one much

was to be seen out of doors, except farmers and herdsmen at their husbandry: cattle and crops cared

nothing for Napoleon or politics, and implacably demanded all the same attention. But even these few

men kept their heads low, and hurried through their work as much as could be done; by late afternoon

the countryside seemed nearly deserted, with the sun yearning impatiently to its rest.

“We ought to see her miles off, if she is showing away as she always does,” Temeraire was saying

ungraciously, as they flew, and then he pricked up his ruff: a small speck in the distance, coming closer,

had emerged from the clouds and begun to resolve itself into wings.

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It was Gherni: a much-battered Gherni, panting with the speed of her flight, and her face mazed with a

trickle of blood she ineffectually tried to rub off against her shoulder, now and again, only smearing it

about into a brick-red film overlaid on her blue hide. Tharkay was with her, and he leapt down to

Temeraire’s back from hers mid-flight, like a boarder, but tethered by a long double strap of thick

leather. He unclipped it from his own waist as soon as he had landed and latched on to Temeraire’s

harness; Gherni caught up the snapping-free loose end, which jangled loudly with small clapper bells, and

wrapped it around her own forearm a few times.

“What is that?” Temeraire said, with interest, craning his head to see.

“I had it made in Istanbul, my last journey,” Tharkay said, and to Laurence said, “Iskierka has been

taken.”

He led them to Arkady and the other deserters, huddled and licking their wounds in the shelter of a tall

hill that shielded them from the road, casting an afternoon shadow long enough to conceal them from

cursory observation from aloft. The red-patched feral roused when Temeraire came in to land, and

mantled his wings defensively.

“That is enough, you shan’t bristle at
me,
” Temeraire said. “You knew very well you were behaving like

a—” He paused, for consideration. “—like a scrub, or else you shouldn’t have sneaked, and if you have

been served out as you deserved, it is no-one’s fault but your own. You had better to be sorry and

promise not to do it again, than hiss.”

“They broke away a little before noon,” Tharkay told Laurence, as they squatted down and scraped

clean a patch of dirt, for him to sketch out the action. “Well-managed: they had been going into the

clouds all morning, and making a noise with their singing, so by the time we realized they had turned us

around you were all far out of ear-shot. Granby’s gunners shot off a few flares, but it was a hopeless

effort.

“From there our luck was as evil as it might have been: two hours flying towards London without any

challenge, so we were on Bonaparte’s doorstep by the time we came on any other beasts; and then it

was Davout’s advance guard out gathering cattle: two Grand Chevaliers and another half-a-dozen

heavy-weights. Of course all of them went directly for her; I think I saw sixty men jump for her back at

once. Arkady grew remarkably less deaf to me, after that, and we managed to get away; but the French

already had Granby trussed like a chicken on one of the Chevaliers and were racing him away as fast as

they could go, with Iskierka flinging herself madly after them.”

“I knew I ought never have let her have Granby,” Temeraire said stormily. “Now look how she has lost

him, and not even in a real battle. We ought to get him back and leave her to them, and good riddance.”

Laurence exchanged a glance with Tharkay: it was by no means good riddance to lose their one

fire-breather to the French, no matter how recalcitrant. “Did you see where they went?” Laurence asked,

low.

“Straight for London,” Tharkay said.

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Chapter 10

I
AM AN OFFICER NOW,though,” Temeraire said, “so I do not see why I must wait.”

“You might be a general, and it will not make you any smaller,” Laurence said. “A twenty-ton dragon

must give over trying to sneak, and that is our only hope at all of getting Granby out.”

“But what if
you
should be captured,” Temeraire said, “and then I would be just as bad as Iskierka: it is

my duty to keep you safe.”

They had fought very nearly this same battle before, however, in Istanbul, and his protests were rather

an expression of unhappiness than fresh and determined objections. “We have not time to quarrel;

Granby’s very life if not his liberty may depend on quick action,” Laurence said gently, and Temeraire

sank to his belly with his ruff pinned back, threshing the matted straw of the meadow uneasily with his