Blood of Tyrants (19 page)

With four heavy-weights and a Longwing aboard, such a policy must surely have kept the command in a state of peculiar confusion: all the more so that the captain of the largest beast, an immense golden creature called Kulingile, was scarcely more than a boy, and not British at all but from Africa; Laurence could hardly imagine how he had been appointed to his post. “Well, he wasn’t,” Granby said, “Demane is from Capetown, you took him and his brother up when—” He halted abruptly, biting his lip. “You took them up,” he continued awkwardly, leaving an ominous gap behind him, “as your runners, and he picked up the beast when no-one else would have it: came out of the shell deformed, and not the size of a lamb.”

In any case, despite his size Kulingile did not seem inclined to assert his precedence particularly; and even after what little time Laurence had spent on deck amongst them so far, he could scarcely help noticing that the other beasts seemed inclined to give way to Temeraire, if to anyone. Laurence realized grimly he might well himself be the senior officer, by such a measure, and his injury all the more potentially disastrous: better in some way had he been wholly incapacitated, than presenting this peculiar mix of competence and confusion.

But he did not press Granby further for explanation. To have worked through an accounting of eight years all together would have been difficult enough, but it was still worse to acquire piecemeal details, and see the awkward hesitation on Granby’s face as he tried to explain first one and then another chain of events, yet without conveying any information likely to cause distress, entangling the narrative at every turn. He faltered too often, and with a look almost pleading, as though he hoped Laurence would suddenly be recalled to himself: even while that same hope, privately but deeply held, quietly died away in Laurence’s own breast.

“So far as the command is concerned, then, I will defer to you, Captain Granby, at present,” he said, cutting short the attempt, “and I trust you will feel not the least hesitation at correcting me in any failure to carry out my necessary duties. For the rest, my health has scarcely had a chance to recover, after the exertions of my escape; let us hope that in returning, it may restore my memory with it.”

It was an empty sop, which he did not himself believe, though Granby seized upon it with eager relief and Hammond chimed in with eager agreement, although Mr. Pettiforth murmured quietly to himself, “Not at all likely—I wonder whether further degeneration ought to be expected, if anything. I must keep a journal of the progression—”

Laurence saw them out. He was glad to be left alone again in his cabin, though housed amongst things he did not recognize: even his sea-chest was unfamiliar to him, new and rough-hewn, a cheap construction which must have been bought in desperation and which should shortly have to be replaced; a green creeping stain was already to be seen growing upon the underside. The chest was full of books, though he had never been a great reader:
Principia Mathematica
so well-worn the corners of the pages were smooth where he evidently liked to turn them. There were only two pieces of correspondence: one letter from his mother, another, with the direction very badly scribbled and nearly unreadable, from the Peninsula: from a fellow-officer, then.

“Well,” he said aloud, “I might be dead, or in a prison,” and threw them back into his writing-desk, next to the log-book, which he also had not opened. He was resolved not to succumb to despair. He had the use of his limbs, and his reason; he had lost less than many another man in the service.

He belted his sword back on, went up to the dragondeck, and found Temeraire rousing from an exhausted sleep and looking for him. Hammond was there before him, trying to keep Temeraire’s attention, and explaining in a loud voice, which could surely be
heard across all the ship, “It is of the utmost importance that Captain Laurence be spared any unnecessary shock, which might further injure his weakened mind—I beg you to attend me, Temeraire! I assure you that we have every reason to expect his memory to return shortly, if you will only have a care not to—”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Temeraire said, looking at him not at all. “Laurence!” he called, a ringing eager note in his resonant voice, which might be felt even through the deck: his ruff was standing up in a manner which somehow suggested to Laurence his excitement. “Laurence, how much more yourself you look: you must be better, I am sure,” he said, when Laurence had mounted to the deck. There was an anxious question in the words, however. Temeraire had been lately injured himself, Laurence gathered, by some mishap in the rescue of the ship; and his spirits had been badly beset by the belief of Laurence’s own death.

It seemed absurd to think of so terrible a creature as fragile in any way. The head bending towards him was nearly the size of a horse, the teeth standing in the jaws larger than his hand, serrated along their back edges and hard ivory. Strangely Laurence felt no fear, no instinct of alarm, though it seemed to him any rational man ought to; he had seen, only last night, what appalling devastation might be wrought by this beast.

But even without fear, it was difficult to think of Temeraire as vulnerable—and yet perhaps not so difficult: a first-rate off a lee-shore, and his the duty to keep her off the rocks. Laurence still did not wholly understand how he had come to harness the beast, to become an aviator; he did not know what might have impelled him to do such a thing. But for the moment, it would have to be enough to know that he
had
done so: that he had given up his naval rank, his ship, and all his hard-won prospects. No need to wonder, either, what had become of Edith Galman. She had surely wed another, a man who could offer her a respectable home and name. Laurence was determined to be glad of it; she deserved as much and more.

Duty remained: his country’s need stood above his own concerns.
“I am much better, indeed,” he said. “I beg you have no concern for me. How is your own health?”

“Oh!” Temeraire said, “I am perfectly well,
now;
I
have
been a little ill, but that is quite done with; I am quite recovered. Laurence,” he added urgently, leaning his massive head down to the deck, and peering at him with one anxious slitted eye, “of course you know that I would have come for you at once—I would not have permitted anything to interfere—if it had not been for the egg. I am so dreadfully sorry.”

The rest of the afternoon was consumed in displaying this prize for him: the dragon insisted on Laurence’s being taken below, on the crate and all its careful packing being undone to display the egg. It might have been made of gold and diamonds for the degree of passionate interest which Temeraire gave it, and not only he: the fire-breather, evidently the dam, roused herself and watched with equal attention, so that Laurence could scarcely make out the unremarkable shell for having one enormous eye peering in at either porthole, blocking the light.

He was invited to touch the shell, with great care and an open palm: a tender softness not unlike the head of his nine-day-old nephew, when that child had been laid carefully in his hands by a watchful mother. Having returned to the dragondeck and being pressed for his opinion, he used very much the same expressions as on that occasion. “A remarkable egg,” he said, “perfectly hearty, and the size prodigious: I congratulate you both extremely, and I am sure it will do very well; extraordinarily well.” He meant his compliments wholeheartedly: he could well imagine the worth to England of such a cross-breed. His effusions could not have satisfied Temeraire, however, if they had been ten times as enthusiastic, until Laurence gradually came to realize that half of the dragon’s anxiety was to be sure that Laurence did not blame him, for not having come to his rescue.

“You could scarcely have found me, if you had tried,” Laurence said. “I do not think I had been on shore half-an-hour before I was taken up.”

“I would have contrived, somehow,” Temeraire said. “I found you in Africa, after all, when—oh; I am not meant to speak of that, am I? But in any case, Laurence, so long as you are satisfied—so long as you do not suppose I would have allowed any lesser cause to weigh with me.”

Laurence was
not
entirely satisfied: the lesser causes had evidently included abandoning the ship, their mission, and perhaps even setting off a war with Japan: all for his sake, and here was Temeraire making apology to him for
not
doing any of these things. He began to feel there was an almost dreadful responsibility inherent in the rôle, a rôle for which nothing had prepared him, and which he felt wholly unsuited to carry out. The distance between this and a ship’s command seemed a vast yawning gulf.

But he could not chide the dragon for his affection; particularly not when Temeraire had been under so great a strain, its evidence marked in the dull hide and the weary look in the dragon’s eyes: his eyelids were heavy again already. Laurence lay his hand against Temeraire’s warm breathing hide, its peculiar combination of resilience and softness at once familiar and not so. “I have been restored to you in defiance of all expectation and without, I hope, any evil consequence to our mission; we must both be satisfied with that outcome, and I beg you believe me so.”

Temeraire sighed deeply, and lowered his head to his forelegs. “I am very glad to hear you say so,” he said. “I was sure, Laurence, that you would not think it right of me to leave the egg—that you would tell me, if you were here, that it was my own responsibility, and I could not leave it to others no matter how much I might wish to go looking for you, not when the egg was not perfectly safe. I was quite sure, but oh! It was dreadful nonetheless, and I did fear that perhaps I had judged wrongly.”

“You did not, at all,” Laurence said, with a good deal of relief: so a dragon need not be insensate to duty at all. And then he was at a loss: what ought he do else, for the beast? Should he order aerial exercises? He did not see the other dragons engaged in such work, and indeed it might have been a provocation to the Japanese,
to do so in harbor; besides this, he knew nothing of what his duties should be.

He looked for one of the ship’s boys: a small creature was darting by him on the dragondeck, head full of yellow curls and in a patched green coat. When Laurence caught him by the shoulder, the boy looked up and said in a piping voice, “Aye, Captain?”

“Light along to my cabin and fetch my log-book, if you please,” Laurence said, and pausing added, “And tell me your name again.”

“Gerry, sir,” the little boy said, giving him a peculiar look; Laurence sighed inwardly and made a note he should have to get all the names given him, at least. He thought he would read it over, and learn the daily routine thereby; perhaps he might thus advise himself.

“What a splendid notion,” Temeraire said, unexpectedly, raising his head; his eyes had brightened. “Of course that must help your memory return more swiftly. Although I must tell you,” the dragon added, “the log-book has not been very interesting at all. It has been nothing but fish and wind, these six months, before we ran into that storm. We have not seen a battle anywhere, since we had to run from the Inca, and that was ages ago.”

He was regretful. Laurence’s own thought: the Inca? And hard on that, it belatedly dawned upon him that the dragon himself, unlike a horse, or even a recalcitrant landsman pressed into service, might be relied upon to tell him of their work. “Temeraire,” he said, “do you know the names of the rest of your crew?”

“Of course,” Temeraire said. “You have always told me it is the duty of any good officer to know all the names of his officers and his crew.”

“So it is,” Laurence said grimly. “Pray will you tell me them, one after another?”

“He is already much better,” Temeraire said to Maximus, anxiously, hoping for confirmation. “I know it is quite odd, when he
does not remember someone’s name, or a thing which happened in front of him, and quite lately; but you cannot say he is not better.”

“Of course he is better,” Maximus said reassuringly, lifting his dripping jaws from his share of the cod stew. “I dare say he will remember all the rest of it in a week or so, Temeraire; no need to fuss.”

But Laurence was so very strange—so very stiff and awkward; it was not only that he had lost a great deal of his memory, which was bad enough and very inconvenient, but he did not seem to know Temeraire, either, or any of the other aviators, for that matter. He had spent nearly all the last two days closeted with Hammond, and had said very little to anyone. “But I am sure he will improve, once he has had a rest, and we are under way,” Temeraire said to himself, uncertainly.

There was some little difficulty over their departure: Temeraire did not understand, himself; he saw no reason why they should not have sailed out directly they had Laurence again, and he would have liked to: what if the Japanese should have taken it into their heads to snatch Laurence back? And it was no use Hammond’s trying to tell him they had no reason to do such a thing; they had kept him back in the first place, after all. And as for Lord Jinai—that was the name of the particularly rude sea-dragon—if he liked to stop them, he was very welcome to try. Temeraire felt himself quite equal to answering him, with Iskierka, and Kulingile, and all the formation at his backs; not to mention the guns of the
Potentate
.

But Hammond had objected to
that
, also; and so a great deal of communication had gone back and forth, passed through the Dutch commissioner, who evidently did not like Napoleon at all and persisted in considering himself a neutral party to the war. “And through us,” said Wampanoag, having come over to share a bite, “which, I don’t mind saying, has done some good: they have decided to give you a proper dinner, to say farewell politely, and see you on your way.”

“That,” said Temeraire somewhat baffled, “is quite absurd:
they would have been perfectly welcome to give us dinner, anytime they liked.”

“They might give us more than one, too,” Maximus put in somewhat wistfully: the cod had vanished.

“Why, it’s not the dinner that matters, of course,” Wampanoag said. “It is the timing of the thing: if you sail out before they have given you permission, then they will have lost face; if they should give permission and you shouldn’t go, they will have lost face. And you shouldn’t like it any better if they should try and stop you, or try and chase you, either way. This way, everything will be quite clear.”