Blood of Tyrants (27 page)

He sat down upon the bed, troubled suddenly: and yet that seemed untrue. Temeraire’s anger and their misunderstanding had this real and understandable root: where Laurence had not contemplated remaining, Temeraire had for his part not contemplated separation; he had viewed their connection as indissoluble. In such a case, Laurence realized, he indeed did have the power to compel—he had the power to say, I will go, whether you will or no; and it seemed perforce would Temeraire go as well.

That was a strange and even disturbing power to possess over so great a creature: one which demanded a respect that Laurence was unhappily conscious he had not shown, just now. When in an hour’s time he heard wingbeats returning, and Temeraire settled himself into the courtyard again, Laurence went out to him, ignoring the head curled pointedly beneath its wing. “I hope you will
forgive me,” he said, to the dark grey translucence of the membrane, which hid the great blue eye from his view.

“I hope you will forgive me,” he said, “and accept my assurances that I would not for the world have wounded you: I see I have not understood how matters stood between us, and that we may only be stationed together, as it were. I can only beg your pardon and assure you that I stand ready to be persuaded, on the subject.”

Temeraire made him no answer, but there was a shift of the wing-joint, and beneath the membrane as it spread out, Laurence could dimly make out a large narrow-slitted eye watching him.

“I cannot—I cannot pretend,” he added, “that I feel I ought easily be swayed to see it our joint duty to remain here, taken all in all, in the present circumstances. I do not doubt you in the least that, on a prior occasion, I should have been willing to remain; I can only suppose that the circumstances of the war must have been considerably different, at the time. But I will do my best to consider the matter, if you wish to—”

The wing lifted away. “No,” Temeraire said, shortly, “no; I do not see any sense in it. Pray forget I mentioned it,” and he thrust his head back beneath the wing, and was silent again.

Laurence hesitated, torn, and at last gave way and went inside the house again. He did not immediately attempt to sleep: his mind was in an excess of disorder. The guilt of having caused pain to one deserving only consideration at his hands mingled with unanswered disquiet. He wondered if he had been wrong now; or if he had been wrong before: had he spoilt Temeraire? Temeraire was a high-spirited creature, with a remarkable intellect; Laurence could not deny that he took great pleasure in his company, and in the camaraderie that had endured even his loss of memory. Had he indulged that pleasure, and Temeraire’s spirits, at the cost of discipline—at the cost, perhaps, of character?

A dreadful notion, and yet—Temeraire was so certain they should not be missed by the Admiralty; Granby also. It seemed a
settled matter with them, scarcely to be questioned. If that were simply a matter of old men preferring more docile breeds, the sort of political caution that saw dull and predictable officers advanced over brilliant ones, Laurence might not have cause to blame himself: God knew he did not find the Admiralty faultless. But if there were something else—

Laurence looked out at Temeraire, who had not stirred out from under his wing. He could not think how he might question Temeraire on the subject, not after this unhappy misunderstanding; he could not make Temeraire feel still more wretched, perhaps without just cause. So he said nothing, while he thought what he might say; and he had still said nothing when a knock upon the door of his chamber interrupted his considerations, and Hammond without invitation thrust his head within, most anxiously. “Captain, I beg your pardon, we must intrude,” he said, and opened the door for a messenger in pale green livery who followed him into the courtyard, and prostrating himself with a quick efficiency presented a letter bearing elaborate seals. Laurence took it up and opened it, and found therein a brief missive from the Emperor himself—a piece of enormous condescension which he supposed had been merited by the assassination attempt.

It contained wishes for his good health, an expression of outrage at the recent events, and concluded with a mild hope of seeing him, at some time. “His Majesty is most generous,” Laurence said to the still-prostrate and waiting messenger, who seemed to be waiting for some immediate answer; but this did not satisfy him: or, at least, it did not make him rise. “Hammond, will you pray tell me how I am to answer this?” He held out the note.

Hammond read the letter through more swiftly than Laurence had managed to puzzle it out, and paled. “Good Heavens,” he said, “we must go at once: and I suppose we have not the first thing for you to wear.”

•  •  •

The Emperor did not look well: a heavy-set man and jowled, fatigue was writ upon his face; he breathed stentoriously and sweat gathered upon his thin mustaches and glistened to the sides of his chin and upon his forehead. Laurence began to realize what particular urgency had driven the conservative party to strike at Prince Mianning so blatantly: they foresaw him coming shortly to the throne. But the Emperor’s ill-health did not place bounds on his temper; his expression was set in grim lines and a glitter of anger that revealed itself plainly when the formalities had been quickly dispensed with.

He was not enthroned in state, but received Laurence in a courtyard with his own Celestial, Temeraire’s uncle Chu, coiled watchful and heavy along a raised dais behind a chair that was a simple and comfortable affair of wood. Temeraire had been permitted to accompany them only so far as the outer court of the pavilion; Laurence had been conscious of that anxious gaze upon his back as they had been ushered away into the inner halls of the palace, and thence to the great central court.

Laurence was not the sole guest; Mianning and Lord Bayan both had preceded him and were seated before the throne. Mianning was the nearer; Laurence followed Hammond’s hissed whisper to seat himself at a distance between the two, and they all three faced the Emperor as if defendants at a trial. Nor was the simile inapt: with the flick of a hand the Emperor dismissed nearly all his attendants, save the well-armed and watchful guards; Hammond, too, was forced to go trailing reluctantly away, leaving Laurence to rely upon nothing but his own uninformed and lately doubtful wits. There was at first no difficulty, however, no call for decision; he had merely to sit and be thundered at in company.

“I scarcely know who to blame the more,” the Emperor said, “for this upheaval of the Imperial court and therefore of the state, its mirror; for whatsoever evil begins here, it will show itself reflected tenfold throughout the nation! What madness should have permitted any man to lay a plot within their hearts upon my chosen
heir and my adopted son? What reckless actions, in pursuing foreign involvement and disregarding the sage wisdom of centuries and respect for tradition, should have driven otherwise loyal servants of the court into such madness?”

Laurence wished badly for Hammond, adrift and struggling to pierce the veil of the Emperor’s terms; but despite his inexperience he felt he understood this much: whatever the Emperor might choose to say officially, he knew in private all that had transpired. He surely knew: the cold rage in his eyes, beneath which Bayan flattened his head, was not merely that of a ruler jealous of disruption in his palace, but that of a father. He knew Mianning’s intentions; he knew of Bayan’s assault; what power struggle here transpired, he permitted, to some extent.

But only to some extent: and evidently that extent had been exceeded; he meant to rope them in one and all. Laurence felt cold anxiety settle stone-like in his belly: he did not need Hammond to tell him deadly shoals lurked beneath these waters, and he had neither pilot nor chart nor even soundings to tell him where they lay. One misstep and he might ruin all their hopes as effectively as Bayan might have wished to do. Laurence resolved to shut his mouth and say nothing, so far as he might; he would offer nothing but the meekest response. Mianning should have to speak for their side, if at all.

“I will hear your explanations,” the Emperor said, concluding his tirade, and slumping angry back into his throne; he held a hand out and a cup bedewed with cold was placed within it. He drank heavily and put it aside.

Mianning prostrated himself, and quietly said, “My honored Imperial father, my trespasses against the wisdom of my elders would be unforgivable, save if by respecting that wisdom I should neglect my greater duty to the nation: surely it is my obligation to plant and tend the seed for a future harvest of peace and prosperity, that the fortune of Heaven will continue to smile upon our land. Though in summer the winter storms seem far away to those who
must labor on the present harvest, they are coming nonetheless; and one whose shoulders do not yet bow over the sweep of his scythe may look towards the West, and see them approaching from afar.”

Bayan said, “And in looking afar, mislead himself that the distant clouds he sees, which soon will disperse of their own accord, are grave dangers; and worse yet, in chasing a defense against them will forget what nearer danger threatens, and let the crow plunder his fields.”

“This can only be the argument of all men who will not raise up their eyes at all,” Mianning said. “For these clouds have lingered now long years, and the storm grows ever larger.”

He made a quick gesture, and two servants scurrying unrolled a great map of the world over the floor: not entirely accurate as to shape, with China outsize and the other continents somewhat awry, but plain enough to recognize. “My father, already the Emperor of France, Napoleon, has stretched forth his hand to make alliance with mighty nations across the sea.” France itself and all Europe were stained a dark green color; so, too, the Incan Empire and Africa: they stood like dark blots against the pale canvas. “His appetite knows no bounds, and already once have the evils of this foreign conflict crossed our borders, bringing the pestilence which struck at the ranks of our dragons, the breath of our nation. If not for your own foresight in having secured my brother’s service with the bonds of filial devotion, and his courage on that occasion,” he gestured to Laurence, who could only wonder what he had done to merit such an encomium, “who can say how many would have perished?”

“And yet what worse sickness, what worse miasma,” Bayan said, “could enter our nation but the poison which their ships carry unchecked into Guangzhou? How many lives and souls have they destroyed with the crushed seed of the poppy, which makes men drown themselves by their own hand? Thrice have you commanded a reduction in this evil trade; thrice have they obeyed only with sullen
reluctance, like disobedient children, and then stealthily permitted it to resurge. And it is the British, those to whom you have in your generous love given most license, who do the most evil in this regard by far. They are poisoners, and liars, and should all be banished from our shores.

“And, Dread Lord,” he added, and Laurence glancing saw him press his forehead to the ground again, “I pray you forgive my humble words: I wish to offer no disrespect to the crown prince—”

Mianning’s shoulders were stiffening, and the Emperor’s eyes narrowed; Laurence had one moment to realize,
Now we come to it
, and then Bayan concluded, “—but I have received a report of General Fela, whom you charged with repressing the remnants of the White Lotus rebellion, and ensuring they did not flourish to regrow, that he has seen the British bringing those evil traitors aid, in the form of this evil drug.”

“By God,” Laurence said, too outraged to restrain himself, “—that is an outright lie.”

He at once regretted having uttered a word, however justified; Mianning threw him a short unreadable glance, and the Emperor’s eyes turned towards him. Laurence only at the final moment remembered to drop his own gaze, but he was caught: plainly he was now expected to speak. He saw from his lowered eyes Mianning flick his fingers towards the ground, and belatedly made another prostration himself, however reluctant. As he had dug himself a hole, he could only jump into it without complaining.

“Your Majesty,” Laurence said, speaking to the ground, “I must beg to be excused from speaking on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, for which I have insufficient authority; but I have not the least hesitation in most heartily repudiating the scurrilous accusation which Lord Bayan has made against my country which, if true, would be injurious not merely to her honor but to her sense, and which should defy all rational consideration. We have come here for no lesser cause than alliance against Napoleon. How could it profit us in any manner to create turmoil and distress within your
borders, which should make you less able to aid us, even were we not the guilty culprits?”

He halted there, hoping at least he had not made matters worse; neither Mianning nor Bayan spoke immediately, which, Laurence rather dismally suspected, meant that he had spoken so far out of turn they had neither of them been prepared to respond to an outburst of the sort. The Emperor gave no sign of his own thoughts yet; but he left the field to them, and after a moment Lord Bayan bent forward and said, “Your Majesty’s adopted son, who to do him credit has shown all the instinct of proper filial respect—”

The instinct only: Laurence supposed this was meant to hint at the deficiencies of his training and education in the same. “—all the instinct of proper filial respect,” Bayan went on, “would scarcely be the confidant of those of his country-men intent upon such dishonorable behavior: even within a band of thieves one man of good character may be found.”

“But not to deceive himself that his fellows are themselves honest men,” Mianning said, “unless we are to believe him a fool.”

They feinted back and forth a little further along these lines, it seemed to Laurence very much like two fencers feeling out their way onto unfamiliar ground, trying to ascertain which of them should take the better advantage from it, in which direction and what manner they wished to press the attack. And then abruptly Bayan made his lunge, adding, “And if nothing else, what he has said is surely true: China can ill afford to involve herself in the disputes of a foreign nation while strife rends the state from within.”