Blood of Tyrants (34 page)

“More than a little, of both danger and use, ma’am, I must protest,” Laurence said. “But I am glad if you are well.”

She drew a breath and sighed, then looked away across the camp. “May I confess something to you, Captain?” she said. “I hope it will not make you very angry, but I should like to clear the air, on my side—I should like to be quite frank.”

Laurence paused and set down his cup upon his knee. “By all means; I hope you need never even ask, to speak so,” he said.

“I was shocked, very shocked, when I first understood Emily’s position,” Mrs. Pemberton said, “when I first knew she was an officer.
I thought it the most outrageous thing I had ever heard, to see a mere girl imposed upon in such a manner, from childhood; and I must admit, sir, I thought—I assumed—she was surely imposed upon in the other manner, as well.”

“I cannot reproach you,” Laurence said grimly. “What else is anyone to imagine, who knows a little of the world?”

She nodded. “If she had given me the least encouragement, I should have taken her away with me at the first opportunity—the first ship we met—and laid suit in court to see her respectably established,” she said. “I was quite ready to name you a villain, and all the Corps with you.”

Laurence looked at her in surprise, and some respect; he could not fault her impulse, even if he knew it could hardly have found a less willing object. “
That
encouragement,” he said, “I know very well you did not receive.”

“No,” she said. “She quite abused me for an idiot.”

She laughed and exchanged a rueful glance with Laurence, who could well imagine the nature of Emily’s reaction, and her scornful answer; she had griped to him often enough, in only the last month, about being saddled with a chaperone at all.

“And now instead I must say I do increasingly see the justice of her complaint,” Mrs. Pemberton said, “though I would be sorry to lose my post; I cannot see that I am of the least use to her.”

She fell silent, and after a pause quietly added, “I dare say I would not at all like to be an aviator. But there is nothing quite so unpleasant as to find oneself so wholly dependent on another’s protection, in such dreadfully visceral circumstances. I would cheerfully have exchanged a life of hard service to be able in that moment to defend myself.”

Laurence offered her his handkerchief; she waved it away, and drew out her own to press to her eyes briefly. “I beg your pardon,” she said, “and I am done with being a watering-pot. I will have Emily teach me to fence, if I can learn; and oh! I am sorry now I sold my husband’s guns after he died, for I would be happy indeed to have a pair of pistols of my own.”

“I should be happy to be of service to you in the matter,” Laurence said, “when we next have the opportunity.”

“Thank you, Captain,” she said. “I would be grateful.”

He took his leave of her to return to his own tent, pausing when he saw Temeraire standing watching him, his tail lashing in so uncontrolled a manner as to threaten the supports of his pavilion. “Is there something wrong?” Laurence asked him, in some concern; Granby had given him to understand that the danger he had been under was likely to provoke some long repercussions of watchfulness and anxiety, but Temeraire could hardly suppose him to be in danger from a conversation with Mrs. Pemberton.

“Oh!” Temeraire burst out. “Do you
wish
me to stay in China, then, and let you go away from me, so you
may
be married, and have as many children as you like, and a house again?”

Laurence stared, astonished and bewildered. “What?” he said.

Temeraire was nearly trembling with resentment and indignation, which Laurence could scarcely understand. “
Her
,” Temeraire said. “Whyever are you always speaking with her, and going to her tent? And why has her tent been moved so close to your own?”

“Do you mean Mrs. Pemberton?” Laurence said, in no diminished confusion. “She is under my protection, and was lately abused by ruffians—” He stopped, helplessly: he had not expected to find jealousy in a dragon, and still less so much imagination. “Do you—I beg your pardon, have you any reason for supposing I mean to marry her?” he asked, in sudden alarm. “Had I—before my loss of memory, had I—had I made her any promises, or expressed to you any intentions, in that quarter—”

“Oh! None at all,” Temeraire said, “but what does that signify, when you are so dreadfully altered, and everyone thinks you should marry; even Mei does, even if she does not call it marriage. She thinks you ought take a concubine, and
ten
of them at that.”

“I may confidently promise you to do no such thing,” Laurence said, much relieved and beginning to be half-amused, “and I have not the least notion why anyone should concern themselves with my marriage, save myself and my nearest relations.”

Temeraire calmed a little; at least his tail settled slowly to the ground. “And you do
not
want to marry her?” he said.

Laurence looked round; it was an outrageous subject for conversation, and Temeraire’s voice could not be called discreet. “Pray let us go inside,” he said, “if you wish to speak any further on the subject,” and went as far to the back of the pavilion as he could, and seated himself on the cushions there. Temeraire sat before him coiled tightly, and curled his tail around his limbs, still radiating wary distress.

“I should begin,” Laurence said cautiously, unsure
how
to begin, “by asking you whether you object to the lady in particular, or to the—to the event, in a general way?”

“I do not see anything particularly remarkable about Mrs. Pemberton at all,” Temeraire answered, “which should make her in the least suitable for you. After all, you are a prince of China, and my captain, and you have been in a great many battles. Whatever has
she
done, to brag of? But I do not at all mean to be rude,” he said, in succession to this piece of outrageous rudeness. “I should not like it in the least if you were to marry anyone else, either.”

“Pray explain to me a little further,” Laurence said, wondering if it would console Temeraire to be assured of his own ineligibility; few gentlewomen would contemplate throwing themselves away upon an aviator. “I would by no means distress you, but I had not been aware of any objections you might have, nor that my marriage—not that I contemplate any such step at present—should be any bar to my continuing to serve. So far as I knew, while aviators make poor material for an eligible woman, we are not barred from establishing a home, and—and I beg your pardon, but Roland has given me to understand that providing you an heir is rather in the nature of my duty.”

“Well,
I
have never wanted an heir,” Temeraire said, snorting. “I should certainly never wish to replace you with another, no matter the circumstances. I understand Excidium feels differently about the matter, and I do not at all mean to criticize, but that is
his
business.
For my part, I do not see why I ought to be expected to like it if you should be married, only because it means that someday, if you should die, there might be another person I might like. It is all very airy and unreasonable, it seems to me, and I do not care for it at all.”

“Well,” Laurence said, “if it will relieve your mind, I will promise you not to marry without seeking your consent: I must consider your feelings as engaged in the matter as those of my family, and I can conceive of few circumstances in which I would proceed over any objections you might express.”

He hesitated, then; he could conceive of one: namely, an obligation which could not be escaped. “Temeraire,” he said, “before I can make you such a promise, however, I must ask you whether I should be obliged by decency to—that is—” He drew a deep breath and bluntly asked, “Do I owe Admiral Roland an offer? Is she—is Miss Roland my daughter?”

“Why no, she is not, at all,” Temeraire said, in surprise. “Her father is some aviator in the North: we have never met him, and I do not think Emily has seen him over three times in her life. Whyever would you suppose she were your daughter?”

“You have relieved me greatly,” Laurence said, but the relief was short-lived. Temeraire went on, “After all, Admiral Roland has only been your lover since the year five, and Emily was nine when you met; how could the two of you have made her? But it doesn’t signify,” Temeraire added in tones of reproach, “for you have already asked her, and she wouldn’t have you, because she was your commander.”

So Laurence hardly knew whether to laugh or be mortified: it seemed his life the last eight years had been a succession of scandals and outrages, which he ought have blushed to think of. To have intrigued with an unmarried gentlewoman, and a fellow-officer no less—

But Temeraire, perceiving his distress, misread the cause; he said in a small voice, “Why, Laurence—do you
wish
so to be married?
I knew that you were quite unhappy that Miss Galman would not have you, after—after I was hatched.”

“Did I offer for her, then?” Laurence said, glad that at least he had been decent enough to give
her
the opportunity to refuse him.

“—yes,” Temeraire said, with a hitch. “So—so I suppose you do wish to be married, whatever you have said.” He fell silent, and then with a very evident summoning of all his resources said in determined tones, “Well, then I suppose, if Mrs. Pemberton will be sensible and not wish you always to be leaving me to go and be with her, and will not expect you
always
to be having children, and if she will not mind coming back to live in our valley, in New South Wales, after we have won the war—”

“I beg your pardon!” Laurence said, raising his voice to stem this torrent of conditions. “Temeraire, I have not the least desire to be married to Mrs. Pemberton, I assure you. And when should we have been living in New South Wales? There can hardly be any call for dragons, there.”

“—when we were transported,” Temeraire said in surprise, “Oh,” he added, “I suppose you do not remember
that
, either? Laurence, it is very inconvenient you should recall nothing at all.”

L
AURENCE COULD SEE
G
RANBY
speaking softly with Harcourt and Berkley; they had trailed him to the edge of the escarpment and stood now at a distance together, all of them looking at him warily as though they imagined he might fling himself over, and as though they would have been sorry for it if he had. Even though he was a traitor—a convicted traitor. Even though he had carried aid and comfort to the French, deliberately, of his own free will, and undermined thereby a stroke which might have averted the invasion of Britain.

An appalling stroke, one which would have meant the slow and dreadful death of a thousand dragons or more, a deliberate plague-bearing—but notwithstanding this, a stroke which had been commanded by his officers, by his Government, and through them by his King. He had betrayed them all, and the invasion of his country might be laid at his door.

“Laurence,” Granby said, low, coming to his side, “—pray will you come back to my tent? Temeraire is frayed like a torn rag already, and he’ll be worse the longer you stand out here. He is watching you.”

Laurence did not answer; he could scarcely yet form thoughts in his own head. The worst of the matter was to be unable to recall what should have shaped his choice: he had committed no mere act of passion. He had acted with deliberation. He had also been pardoned,
Temeraire had urgently told him, pardoned and even restored to the list of officers; but Laurence felt that he would have given up that pardon, given anything, only to
feel
again the sentiments that had driven him to such an extremity.

But he did not; he did not remember, and only now understood that he did not know himself any longer. He did not know how he ought to feel. Temeraire had evidently driven him to the act; a court-martial had condemned him; the Government had pardoned him. But none of these facts could tell Laurence whether he had condemned himself, or ought to, and whether he should long since have separated himself from Temeraire as ought a sailor shut his ears to the Sirens.

Granby gently took his arm, and Laurence after a moment let himself be drawn away. They walked slowly back across the encampment, past the watchful, suspicious looks of the red dragons. Laurence did not look towards Temeraire’s pavilion, but ducked into Granby’s tent; there he took the glass of strong rice liquor Granby offered him and swallowed it straightaway.

“I’m damned sorry,” Granby said, sitting on a chest. “We ought have found some other way to break the news to you, whatever Pettiforth and Hammond said; we must have known you could not go forever, not learning of it. I suppose we have all been telling ourselves you would remember, surely, any day now.” He leaned over with the bottle, and filled Laurence’s glass again.

Laurence took another hot, too-bitter swallow. “I think I can scarcely blame myself,” he said, low, “if having forgotten, I did not wish to remember
this
.” He downed the rest of the glass and asked abruptly, “I beg your pardon: may I ask your opinion of the act; of the—” He stopped; he did not put a word to it. He did not know what name to give it; he did not know why Granby should consider his feelings, in the least, nor tolerate his company, in the face of it. But he desperately wished to know.