Victory of Eagles (28 page)

claws and raking up dust and furrowed earth with it.

Laurence was grateful for the established habit of the conversation, if a little guilty, for it allowed him to

practice a degree of deceit: he knew under ordinary circumstances, he would not in this same situation

go, however much he might wish to. If he were captured, Temeraire would be prisoner, and in their

already dire straits the risk could not be run, not for so slim a chance as they faced to bring out Granby

and Iskierka.

The circumstances were not ordinary. Laurence was a man already dead in law. He could not value

preserving his own life very high; and so long as he were killed instead of captured in the attempt, which

he had some right to hope might be arranged, Temeraire would not be lost to Britain: he had made the

agreement with Wellesley, and now was bound directly, not only through Laurence himself.

And there was no-one else to go. Iskierka had been the only one of their motley company with a proper

crew, and all of them had been captured with her: lieutenants, midwingmen, even her ground crew all

aboard. All that were left now were Laurence’s small handful of crew, and for senior officers only Dunne

and Wickley, former midwingmen of Laurence’s crew who had acquired enough of the ferals’ language

to be useful as translators. A handful of other officers had been similarly placed with the ferals for a gift

with languages more than any other quality; most of them were young, very young: nearer fourteen than

twenty, and not to be sent on an expedition little better than a dice-throw.

Tharkay shook his head at the lot of them, and said to Laurence, “Better if we go alone.”

Tharkay had taken a commission with the Corps, at least for the moment; but this was not something

which any service could require. “You are not obliged—” Laurence began.

“No,” Tharkay agreed civilly, with one raised brow, and Laurence bowed and left it there.

Laurence exchanged his bottle-green coat for Blythe’s leather smock, with its pockets large enough to

conceal a multitude of sins: two pistols and a good knife, and one of Blythe’s hammers. Tharkay gave

him a handful of dirt to apply to his face, already rubbing more into his own hands and beneath his nails.

Dunne watched their preparations at a distance, sidelong and hesitating, with occasional glances at the

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other officers; but he did not say anything. It was not cowardice. He had made sufficient proof of his

courage, in previous service, that Laurence did not doubt it now. Dunne’s reluctance had a source less

palatable: plainly he did not wish to serve with Laurence again. There could be no harm to Dunne’s

career from such cooperation here—some, indeed, might occur if he chose not to go and Laurence did

not return—so the objection was one of principle.

Laurence bent his head over the fresh loading of his pistols, and did not see more of Dunne’s struggle

than he had to; the sense of disapproval did not weigh upon him so greatly, now. He felt himself a righted

ship, heaved off her beam-ends and into a course dangerous but for the immediate distance clear, even if

there was a lee-shore off his bows and impenetrable murk ahead. He might be dashed on rocks, if the

wind turned against him, but at least for the moment he knew what must needs be done, and he was free

to do it.

They were ready in less than ten minutes, and would have gone at once, but Gong Su came and offered

them a makeshift plate of bark with two small skewers upon it, tiny hearts and livers, still steaming from a

makeshift butchering, and raw. Laurence regarded it with dismay. “A little of the divine wind inside,”

Gong Su explained: they had come from the birds which Temeraire had inadvertently slain. “That makes

good fortune.”

Laurence was not superstitious, but he ate; they could hardly refuse any advantage whatsoever. Tharkay

took his own dose, pulled up the hood of his cloak over his face, and they went out to the road.

“THEY MAY ALREADYhave sent Granby to France, of course,” Tharkay said to him, in Chinese,

while they sat in the back of a drover’s cart.

“I hope not risk the Navy,” Laurence said, fumbling in his turn through the difficult language, which he

knew he made nearly unintelligible, despite Temeraire’s many despairing attempts to correct his

pronunciation. It at least gave them a privacy nearly impossible to breach, even by the hungry curiosity of

the drover, who for a couple of quiet shillings had agreed to take them along to market with the cattle the

man hoped to sell before they should be confiscated.

Tharkay nodded. If Napoleon were sure enough of his grip on London, or at least on enough of it to

establish a prison, he might choose rather to be safe, and keep his valuable captive penned within it

instead of risking Granby’s death in a crossing under fire, and the resulting frenzy of a Kazilik unleashed

upon his forces. They could hope for at least a brief delay while the question was considered, during

which Granby would be held nearby. They had to hope: otherwise there was no chance at all.

The last two crawling miles to the city were infuriating, when they had flown fifty this morning in what

seemed less time, and the outskirts of London sounded already like a province of France. Tens of

thousands of soldiers were busy making encampments, calling to one another and to the dragons who

were helping them dig ditches and move stones and even widen roads, and those local shopboys more

industrious than patriotic were running up and down the lanes of the camp, plying food and more

commonly drink in high carrying voices and awkward, badly accented bits of French: “Une frank,

monser” and “s’il voo plait,” but they were already improving.

“He is not shy of permanent alterations,” Tharkay said, indicating with a jerk of his chin the buildings

which were being put up: large stones were being laid into the ground and pressed down by dragons, to

make a raised platform once mortar had been poured over and between them, and logs sunk at the

corners. There were no walls to the shelters, but as they came nearer the city Laurence saw one already

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finished and in use: dragons sleeping on three sides, and soldiers crammed into the sheltered space

between them. They would sleep warm despite the coming winter; warmer than the British soldiers

would. The work bore all the hallmarks of a long occupation; Napoleon was not planning any immediate

campaign, Laurence realized grimly, but rather to entrench himself, and to let time and use dull the

intolerable into the everyday.

The lowing cows plodded along after the cart, driven on by the drover’s boys, the sour grassy smell and

the dust of the road rising up thick around them. Their shillings and tried patience did at least buy them an

easy entry into the city: the French sergeant on duty on the Aldersgate road brightened at the sight of the

cattle and waved them in with only a cursory question or two for the farmer and his companions, pointing

them towards Smithfield and the slaughterhouses. Laurence and Tharkay stayed in the cart a little longer,

until it had turned a corner towards the marketplace, the herd and the boys momentarily out of sight, then

Tharkay touched Laurence’s elbow, and quick and unannounced they slipped from the back of the cart

and into a narrow alleyway.

Newgate Prison was their target. A few coins at a pub bought Laurence a healthy dose of gossip and

rumor, most of it worthless and irrelevant, but for the information that Bonaparte was staying in

Kensington Palace, and “that unnatural white beast of his lying in Hyde Park like some overgrown eel,

with those horrid red eyes,” and much shuddering all around.

Tharkay had better fortune, if so it could be called: some prisoners were indeed being kept at the prison,

but there had been no new arrivals to-day: not that anyone had seen, and without prompting they had

mentioned Iskierka’s appearance in particular. She had been seen in Hyde Park also, and eating two

cows and setting the entire city ablaze, if some of the reports were to be believed; but one

street-sweeper at least swore that no British aviators or crew had been brought to Newgate that day.

“In consolation,” Tharkay said, “neither have they been shipped to the coast. No large dragons have

gone, since she came in, and certainly he has not been sending anyone by boat.”

“He might have Granby in Kensington Palace,” Laurence said after a moment.

“It would be very convenient for us, certainly,” Tharkay said, dryly.

“It sounds like folly, I know,” Laurence said, “but if I may be pardoned for forming an opinion on the

grounds of one meeting, I would say that Bonaparte is unreasonably fond of seduction, to the point that

he likes to believe he has a chance of persuasion where rationally anyone would see there is none. He will

never miss a chance for a grand gesture, if he thinks he might coax Granby into service.”

Tharkay listened and shrugged. “We may as well take the chance; the trail is cold otherwise.”

It was dark by the time they reached the outskirts of Mayfair. Here and there the life of the city

continued, at a muted tone, alehouses spilling warmth and the smell of fresh beer onto the dirty cobbles,

and firelight gleamed from behind closed shutters, those who had not fled the city, whether from

unwillingness or from inability. In the fashionable section, Laurence took the lead from Tharkay—these

streets he knew well, going past his father’s house and those of his friends and political acquaintance, of

men Laurence had known in the Navy, all of them shuttered and dark. Laurence did not hesitate: he had

expected silence, abandoned houses, perhaps even wreckage and looting; he moved on steadily and did

not look to see what damage might have been done, until he came into Dover Street, and was at last

surprised: to find it crammed with carriages, ten linkmen standing at the door of one great town-house,

fine young ladies and their chaperones, British gentlemen, French officers all going up the stairs and a

great bustling noise of music and laughter and dish-clattering spilling down.

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He stopped in the street, appalled, and had to be drawn back from the lights by Tharkay. “We will not

get past that soon,” Tharkay said. Laurence did not immediately answer, too choked with anger. He had

never been a visitor in the house, but thought it was let to a member from Liverpool, a man who might

have voted with his father on occasion. Laurence mastered himself and drew Tharkay along the street a

few doors to another house still occupied, but quietly so: a few subdued lights gleaming out from between

shutters, not a party to welcome the conquerors. Waiting by the gate they might pass for footmen or

grooms, and be dismissed from notice; with any luck the owner and his family were already abed.

They stood nearly an hour, stamping a little to warm their feet, and drawing back against the sides of the

house now and then as another carriage reached the door to disgorge its passengers. Every minute

brought a fresh cause for indignation: the smell of hot beef, a burst of singing in French, a lady waltzing

with a French officer past the open balcony doors. The carriages thinned out only a little over the course

of their wait: a sad crush, with the King fled to Scotland and thousands of British soldiers dead and

prisoner.

And then a troop of horses came down the street: Old Guard, in their tall hats and pomp, shouting to

clear the way and muscling the remaining carriage-horses aside with cool indifference to the protests of

their drivers, making room for the great coach to come rolling along through the crush: an eagle painted in

gold upon the door. It drew up before the house, and through the ranks of guards lined up the stairs,

Laurence saw Napoleon emerge from the carriage and mount up to the house: in trousers and Hessian

boots and a long leather coat more suited to mid-air than a drawing room, though splendid with gold

braid and buttons, and dyed richly black. Another man was beside him, one of the Marshals: Murat,

Laurence thought, the Emperor’s brother-in-law; they went up the stairs together, and applause

welcomed them inside.

“Disgusting,” a man said, nearby, low, and Laurence started and looked around: while he had been

watching the spectacle, two gentlemen had descended a carriage at the very door of the house where he

stood. They were presently between him and Tharkay, who had drawn back a little into the shadow of

the house. “Do you know, I heard Lady Hamilton was going to attend?”

“Her and half the other women of quality left in the city,” the second gentleman answered him, a voice

vaguely familiar. “You there,” the man raised his voice to address Laurence, “what do you mean, loitering

on the street gawking as though you were at a play? They don’t need any damned encouragement,” and

Laurence in sinking sense of disaster recognized him: Bertram Woolvey, a distant acquaintance and the

son of a friend of Lord Allendale’s.

Woolvey had married Edith Galman, if any better cause were needed for lack of love between him and

Laurence, but they had never been friends even before that event. Woolvey was a gamester and a

spendthrift, with the one saving grace that he could afford to be, and their circles had always been very

different: Laurence knew nothing good of him besides his choice of a wife. And now Woolvey was