Victory of Eagles (35 page)

invaded England and made so much trouble for everyone, and who let Lien do as she liked.

“Oh, I will go at once,” Roland said, with relief, and left; Demane said, “I will go too,” and went after

her.

“But who is going to check my work,” Sipho called after them unhappily.

LAURENCE HAD NOT GONEfarther than the great hall of the citadel: many officers were standing in

scattered clumps, talking in low voices that the great vaulted ceiling blended with echoes into hollow

unintelligible murmur, and he hesitated in the entryway a moment: few faces he knew, and fewer he chose

to impose himself upon; then he saw Riley, in a corner of the room.

Riley wore a look half-dazed with exhaustion, and he said wholly tactlessly, “Hello, Laurence, I thought

you were in prison,” in a tone more puzzled than condemnatory. “I have a son,” he added.

“Give you joy,” Laurence said, and shook his hand, ignoring the rest of the remark: Riley gave it full

willingly to be shaken, and gave no sign he noticed the omission. “Is Catherine well?”

“I haven’t the faintest notion,” Riley said. “The lot of them took off like a shot for the coast three days

ago, and she insisted she could not be spared, if you will credit it: thank God we had already found a

wet-nurse from the village, or I dare say she would have gone anyway, and let the child starve. Do you

know, they must be fed every two hours?”

He did not know why the dragons had gone or where; what little attention he had to spare from the new

child was devoted to the
Allegiance:
he had left her in dry-dock in Plymouth, recovering from their

voyage to Africa, and with Bonaparte and his army now between him and the port, he fretted about her

fate. “I am sure the Navy will keep him out of Plymouth,” he said, “I am sure of it; but if he should

somehow
get a hold on the whole south, then—”

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“Sir,” Emily said, and Laurence looked down; she was panting at his elbow, and Demane beside her.

“Sir, Temeraire sent me—very well, us—to tell you: that French dragon in the courtyard is preaching

sedition, and trying to bribe everyone to go over to the Emperor, with pavilions and jewels and such: he

can speak English.”

“Where is the envoy?” Laurence asked Riley. “Do you know who they have sent?”

“Talleyrand,” Riley said.

The conference was under way upstairs, in the little-used library chamber; Wellesley had gone to join the

discussion, directly on their arrival, and he was, Laurence thought, the best hope of finding a senior

officer who would appreciate the threat. But the room was barred off by guards and aides, among them

ten Frenchmen in uniform like cavalry officers but altered for flying with long coats made of leather and

heavy gloves in their belts. Laurence did not know how he might get word inside, until he caught sight of

Rowley and called to him.

Rowley’s personal disdain had not subsided, but he had just seen a month shortened to two weeks, on

dragon-back, and though unsmiling he heard Laurence out, and said shortly, “Very well; come with me,”

and took him into the room by the side door.

Talleyrand had not come alone: he sat along one side of a long table, laid on for the occasion, with a

Marshal sitting beside him: Murat, Bonaparte’s brother-in-law. An odd pair: Talleyrand’s long

aristocratic face under his thinning fair hair almost washed out and pale next to Murat, who had thick

curly hair and bright blue eyes in a face ruddy with weather and work, above a powerful frame: in his

person every inch the soldier. Murat’s clothing was of almost absurd splendor, seen close up: a coat of

black leather with gold embroidery and gold buttons, over snowy stock and shirt, with gloves of black

leather and gold on the table beside him; Talleyrand’s of an elegance more quiet and correct.

Opposite them sat half-a-dozen ministers, in nothing like the same state, all of them marked with the long

and hasty retreat from London, and the discomfort they must have felt at being, effectively, in a military

camp: Perceval, the Prime Minister, looked especially drawn and unhappy. His Ministry was a shaky and

doubtful matter to begin with, a collection of lesser evils and men he had cajoled into their posts: his

predecessor Lord Portland’s government had collapsed under the weight of the disaster in Africa, and

the old man had refused to try and build another. Canning, the last Foreign Secretary, had tried for the

post himself and, failing, had both refused to join the new Ministry himself, and blocked the Secretary of

War Lord Castlereagh’s joining it: leaving Perceval to make do with Lord Bathurst and Lord Liverpool;

good men, but now more than any other time he needed the most gifted there might be, and though Lord

Bathurst had been sympathetic to the cause of abolition, Laurence could not but acknowledge he was not

the man anyone would choose to have sitting across from Talleyrand at the negotiating table.

Lord Mulgrave, the First Lord of the Admiralty, had preserved his post; Dalrymple sat with him, an old

fat soldier, and neither of them looking a match for the Marshal. The weight of power and energy and

composure was all on one side of the table: all the refinement and sophistication of the
Ancien Régime

married to the brutal strength of the Empire. Wellesley only, sitting at the other end beside Lord

Liverpool, did not look half-defeated; and he instead was in a glittering temper: his jaw set coldly.

Rowley bent to whisper in his ear; Wellesley looked at Laurence and then leaned forward and

interrupted the conversation going on in French to say, “What the devil is this? You come here under

cover of a flag of truce, and meanwhile your dragon is in the courtyard trying to bribe our beasts with

trinkets?”

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Murat exclaimed at the accusation, and said, “I am sure there has been some misunderstanding. Liberté

has much enthusiasm, but he would never mean to so offend—”

“I am sure General Wellesley does not mean any insult.” Lord Eldon jumped in with apologies. “Surely

Your Highness”—Bonaparte was fond of making his family princes—“must be familiar with the frank

address of soldiers—”

Talleyrand watched all the discussion with half-lidded eyes, which flicked to Laurence a moment. He

leaned back to one of his aides with a quick curled finger for a whispered consultation; then when the first

exchange had died down, intervened to say, “Perhaps Marshal Murat and I will go and have words with

Liberté, to ensure there is no more confusion: we have been speaking long, and a little rest, a little time,

would do well for all of us.” He pushed himself awkwardly to his feet, bringing the rest out of their chairs,

and leaning a little towards Perceval said, “I hope we will have an opportunity to speak again; this

evening?”

Bowing precedence to Murat, he let the Marshal leave the room, and limping out after him paused at the

door to turn to Laurence and say, in a clear carrying voice, “Allow me to express again the thanks of His

Imperial Majesty’s government, Monsieur Laurence; and to assure you that you have a claim on the

gratitude of France which the Emperor has not forgotten.”

The graceful words cut him worse than knives. It was a pain dealt incidentally, Laurence was bitterly

sure: Talleyrand had aimed rather at the ministers at the table, to discredit any report which Laurence

might be bringing them. “Your government, monsieur,” Laurence said, “owes me nothing; I did not act for

their sake.”

Talleyrand only smiled gently, and half-bowed again before he left the room.

“By God, the impudence,” Wellesley said savagely, scarcely waiting until the door had shut, and in no

low voice. “That arrogant pig—son of an innkeeper and a whore, and married to another;
that,
to be

King of Britain—”

“They have made no such suggestion,” Lord Eldon began; he was Lord Chancellor, having risen to the

peerage as a notable lawyer, and thence to the Tory government for his steadfast opposition to Catholic

emancipation.

“Do you imagine any of that upstart parvenu’s circle mean to be content with something as

mealy-mouthed as governorship?” Wellesley said. “Give him six months, and it will be King Murat, as

soon as he has taken the Army and the Navy to pieces.”

“No, the terms are unacceptable,” Perceval said, without great conviction. “But these are a beginning

position—”

“They are an insult from first to last,” Wellesley said, “and ought to be rejected out of hand.”

“One of his proposals, at least,” another minister interjected, “gentlemen, I beg we consider, on its own

merits, apart from any other: may I urge that a swift decision indeed be taken to send Their Majesties to

Halifax, with all haste and all necessary considerations for their security?”

“Defeatist nonsense,” Wellesley snapped. “Bonaparte is not coming anywhere near Scotland before

spring, no matter what we do.”

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“All our scouts report his soldiers are all over the north of England already.”

“Foraging,” Wellesley said, “in small parties. We have two dozen outposts and garrisoned castles

between London and Edinburgh, and he cannot march his army past them.”

“Surely the least risk ought not be run. Bonaparte went from Berlin to Warsaw on the eve of winter—”

“Because half the garrison commanders threw up their arms and surrendered at nothing more than a

fanfare at their gates. I have more faith in our officers than
that.
”

“The King is not a young man,” Perceval said, breaking into the increasing heat of Wellesley’s exchange

with the minister, “nor in the best of health—”

“No-one proposes he should expose himself upon the battlefield,” Wellesley said, “but he can still

address the troops.”

Perceval paused, and heavily, quietly said, “The King is not in the best of health.”

No-one spoke a moment; then someone said to Wellesley, in a conciliating tone, “If the Prince of Wales

stays; or Prince William, and the King goes—”

Wellesley shrugged it away, a tight angry motion. “If you are determined to send him away, send him;

and if you mean to give away his throne, too, make a parcel of it with whatever else these snakes are

asking for, and let them preach sedition to the troops direct; why not?”

“Come, General Wellesley, this is surely overreaction—”

“If you believe for an instant they did not know perfectly well what the beast was about—”

“I hope we are not going to be distracted by some notion that Talleyrand, if not Bonaparte himself,

seriously concocted a plan of subterfuge to be carried out by one dragon among others,” Eldon said. “I

have heard the idle chatter of the beasts; let us not read into it conscious and deliberate intent—”

“Sir,” Laurence said, and bore the looks which he received for having the temerity to interject, “perhaps

you are not aware that dragons learn their tongue in the shell, and do not ordinarily acquire another; it

cannot be by coincidence that they brought a beast which could speak English, and easily communicate

anything to our own.”

“So let them be fed a second time, and it will drive any seditious thoughts out of their heads, if any

managed to get in,” Eldon said. “What else could Bonaparte possibly offer the creatures anyway?”

“Respect, if nothing else,” Laurence said. “If you cannot see the neglect and disdain with which they

have been treated has left them open to the meanest approach, the least offer of courtesy and reward—”

“That is enough from you, Laurence,” Lord Mulgrave said icily. “You have done more good for

Bonaparte than Talleyrand and Murat and any ten yammering dragons could achieve here, if we gave

them every opportunity in the world.”

Laurence flinched, and hoped he did not show it. Mulgrave had approved the fatal plan to send the sick

dragon to France, in the first place; he had led the inquiry where Laurence had learned of it by accident;

he had chosen the men for the court-martial, and personally overseen it, with deep venom.

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“A man may be a wild enthusiast even without being a traitor,” Mulgrave said, “and you are both; if you

have been allowed to live a little longer, by counsel other than mine, you are certainly the last man on

whom anyone of sense would rely.”

Wellesley said sharply, “
This
is the distraction; and I dare say if Talleyrand could listen in he would

congratulate himself on its success. Sir,” he said to Perceval, “throw him out, I beg of you, and Murat

with him. Every minute that flag of parley sits before the eyes of the army, you cut a little more of the

heart out of my men. We ought to be speaking of the counterattack, not debating terms of surrender: that

is what these are, however you like to dress them up.”

“General Wellesley, you and General Dalrymple will forgive my bluntness,” Lord Liverpool said,

breaking in, “but unpleasant as these terms are, we may find them preferable to the ones he offers us in

March.—I hope my remarks are taken as no reflection upon the Army. It is a plain fact that Bonaparte

has beaten every army that ever took the field against him, the Russians, the Austrians, the Prussians, the

Turks, and we ourselves. It seems to me we might well agree to whatever he wants, so long as the Army

and the Navy are preserved a little while, and the King is safe; anything that will get him out of London

and back to Paris. Then we can manage Murat—”