Blood of Tyrants (35 page)

Granby hesitated a moment and then said, “I haven’t anything to say, Laurence. I was damned glad the French had the cure, and
so was any aviator worth his salt, in my opinion. They asked me, you know, if I’d had a part in it; they asked all of us, and all I could tell them was you wouldn’t have taken any help, and I wouldn’t have thought of it. And that’s too paltry for words. Anyway,” he added, “you wouldn’t have, either; Temeraire came up with the notion.”

“Yes,” Laurence said.

“I don’t deny it was ugly,” Granby said, “and I dare say it has given you a sad turn now, but—but do recall, we have all come about. Boney would have got his hands on the cure sooner or later anyway, and he would have come over anyway. And he’d be in England still if Temeraire hadn’t brought half the dragons out of the breeding grounds and to the war with him. You’ve your pardon, now, and you’re restored to the list.”

“A pardon cannot restore a man’s reputation,” Laurence said, “and still less his honor, if lost.” He was silent, and then said, “I suppose I was pardoned for Temeraire—that the Corps should continue to have the use of him.”

“Well,” Granby said.

Laurence nodded. He wondered bleakly if such a motive had kept him by Temeraire’s side; if he had clung to his post to save himself from hanging. But even as he had the thought, some instinct rejected it. He finished the glass and put it aside. “I beg your pardon,” he said quietly, “I cannot suppose I concealed my feelings from Temeraire at all well, and he was distressed already. I must go and speak with him.”

Temeraire huddled in his pavilion, as wretched as ever he had been; it seemed to him disaster followed directly on disaster. First their shipwreck; Laurence’s peculiar brain-fever; the assassination attempts which so nearly had succeeded; then the discovery of the opium, which might ruin everything—might prevent an alliance and leave them at a standstill. Mei had been very stiff and withdrawn,
since then. She said she had accepted Temeraire’s assurances that
he
had known nothing of the smuggling, and neither had Laurence, but she had not wanted to try again for the egg since then; and all the other dragons in the encampment kept a cold distance.

But all that paled before this. Temeraire could not conceive how Laurence had forgotten the treason—the treason, which had so deeply wounded him. It seemed wretchedly unfair. If only Temeraire had known, he would never, never have said a word; how gladly he would have joined Laurence in forgetting, and Laurence need never have known anything about it ever again.

And if Laurence had forgotten the treason, surely he had forgotten everything else, as well. He had forgotten about the loss of his fortune. Temeraire would have to confess
that
to him, all over again; he would have to explain to Laurence that he had lost him ten thousand pounds, and that loss Temeraire had not repaired. Laurence would have all the pain of it afresh, and Temeraire should have to face all his justified blame. Temeraire huddled his head beneath his wing and tried not to think of it.

Forthing had tried to speak with him, half-an-hour ago; Temeraire had paid him no attention. He returned now with Ferris, who came by Temeraire’s head and said quietly, “Come, Temeraire; it will come out all right, you will see. The captain will come round. Will you eat something, or would you like Sipho to read to you?” He turned his head and called out the pavilion’s side, “Sipho! Will you bring that book over here, of poesy?” and added, “What you need is some distraction—”

“How can you speak of distraction to me?” Temeraire said, lifting his head up. “If I had paid better attention—if I had properly understood—oh! I am distracted, far worse than I ought to be. Where is Laurence?” He reared up his head, and tried to see him. Laurence had walked away across the camp, and his eyes—his eyes had looked half-blind—

“He is with Captain Granby,” Forthing said. “He will be all right, Temeraire; it’s all that knock on the head he took—”

“It is not!” Temeraire said. “I dare say he
wished
to forget, and whyever would he not wish to? I have lost him his fortune, and his rank, and his ship, and his wife—”

“What?” Ferris said. “Whenever was the captain married?”

“Never!” Temeraire said. “That is what I mean; and everyone
will
have it that nothing could be more splendid than marriage, and he has put it aside for my sake—that, and everything else, and he regrets it so that he has forgotten all of it, so he needn’t think of it.”

“Lord, Temeraire!” Forthing said. “You can’t suppose he has chosen to drop a hand of years out of his head.”

Temeraire turned his narrowed gaze sharp on Ferris. “Would
you
not, if you could?” he demanded. “Ferris! Would
you
not rather be shot of me? If you had anywhere else to go? It was my fault you were dismissed the service—”

Ferris flushed and said shortly, “I shouldn’t reproach you or the captain for any of it, if only you had asked me to take a part. I should have been happier hanged for such a cause than dismissed for a cowardly liar.”

“Oh,” Temeraire said. “But—but I am very glad you are
not
hanged,” he added awkwardly, “and I dare say if you had helped, you should have been, so I cannot be sorry for that.” His ruff drooped against his neck.

They were all silent a moment; Forthing stared at the ground, and Ferris, his cheeks still hot, looked away from the pavilion. Sipho came trotting in with the large scroll of poetry, and paused to eye them all doubtfully.

“I do not want it,” Temeraire said. “Pray take it away. I must
do
something,” he added, and heaved himself to his feet. “I will go flying, over that burnt town—I will see if I cannot find some trace of the rebels—”

“Wait!” Forthing said. “There’s no call for you to go venture yourself like that, and not in this mood, if you please. Let me go and fetch the captain—”

“No,”
Temeraire said, fiercely; he could not bear to speak with Laurence at the moment, not when so many dreadful things might
possibly be said. Whatever Ferris might feel, whatever Laurence himself
had
felt, before he had lost his memory, too plainly he did not feel those same things any longer. Laurence did not remember anything, and would be happier not remembering. What if Laurence were to come back and indeed tell him they should part? “No. I am going straightaway.”

He walked out of the pavilion; Ferris caught with a desperate leap at his foreleg, and scrambling went up the side to get hold of the breastplate chain, which Laurence ordinarily used to latch himself upon Temeraire’s back. “I am coming with you,” Ferris said. “Sipho, will you go and—”

“Oh!” Temeraire said, and caught Sipho and Forthing and put them up onto his back as well. “You will
all
come with me, and not run tattling; I do not see any reason that anyone ought go and tell Laurence. If we do not find anything, there is no reason at all.”

“A flight won’t hurt him,” Ferris said to Forthing in an undertone.

“I can’t like it in the least,” Forthing said, hissing back. “Half this camp is ready to leap on us and tear us to pieces for the least excuse, and if we did find some rebels, they’d like to do the same. We oughtn’t let him go anywhere away, and without a word to anyone.”

“These fellows are hunting the rebels, aren’t they?” Ferris said. “If there were anything to be found at that town, they would have found it by now. We’ll go for a flight there and back, and then likely enough he’ll come down and let Sipho read to him awhile.”

“I don’t think they have been looking very hard,” Sipho said unexpectedly, in his still-high voice, “when they think we are guilty, and want us to be,” which gave Forthing and Ferris both pause; Sipho added, “I don’t mind going to have a look, either, and seeing some more of this country. But I don’t think Demane will like it if I go off without him for a long while,” in rather cheerful tones: he did not have a very great distaste for upsetting his brother, who was somewhat given to a smothering and anxious degree of affection.

“Well, I am going, and so are you,” Temeraire said, “so latch on your carabiners,” and he delayed only a moment longer before he threw himself aloft. Privately, his thoughts were urgently turning, even as he beat up and turning flew away from the encampment. Surely it was not himself, but Laurence who required distraction; Laurence ought above all things be distracted from thinking of his losses. Perhaps General Fela’s men had missed something, some sign—perhaps he
would
find some trace of the rebels. If only Temeraire returned in some victorious accomplishment, perhaps having smashed a rebel army or at least discovered one, Laurence could hardly reply to it with chiding, with a desire to part from him.

The destroyed village, when he reached it, no longer smoldered; the last of the fires had gone out. The opium had been taken away, and the streets cleared; now it was merely abandoned to time. There was no trace, so far as Temeraire could see, of rebels. There were no weapons scattered, and when he flew in widening circles around, the old worn road bore few signs of any traffic at all: the stones were overgrown with grass.

But Temeraire paid no mind to Ferris and Forthing already importuning him to go back to camp; he did not mean to swallow defeat so easily. “After all,” he said, “the rebels would not keep their opium in a village they did not come to, now and again; and if they have not come by road, I suppose they must have dragons as well.”

“If they have, all the more reason we ought go back to camp and not encounter them on our own,” Ferris said.

“Well, we do not know for certain that they do,” Temeraire said hastily. He was already aloft again and hovering, looking around at the nearby mountains, trying to decide where he might have liked to perch, if he had been coming to and from the village, or wished to observe it unseen. “What do you think of that mountain, over there—the one with the double ridge. I suppose anyone might have hidden between the two.”

Ferris had a glass in his belt, and he took it out and looked as Temeraire flew towards the ridge. “He isn’t wrong,” he said to Forthing, and passed him the glass; but Sipho was the only one who was of any real use, for as Temeraire flew along the ridge he said, “Is that a trail, over there?” pointing downwards.

It
was
a trail: with at one end a clearing full of gnawed bones, and fresh claw-marks on the rock. “We must get back to camp,” Forthing said. “Temeraire, you must see—”

“Why, those could be anyone’s markings,” Temeraire said, outwardly dismissive; inside his heart leapt with excitement. By the signs there had not been very many dragons, perhaps even only one, and not very large; he was sure he could win out over one, or even a few. “We cannot merely waste everyone’s time. If you like, you may wait here, and I will go and have a look.”

“Give over,” Ferris said to Forthing, grimly. “He’s looking for a fight. Have you anything to make a light with, or some noise? Blast this notion of not having Celestials in harness; we ought to have half-a-dozen flares to hand.”

Forthing had his pistols. “Whatever are you doing?” Temeraire said in irritation, looking round, as he shot them off one after another into the air. “If there
is
anyone, you will warn them off.”

“I hope I do, before you run yourself into their teeth,” Forthing returned, and he fired again. He was sitting on Temeraire’s back directly between his wing-blades, where Temeraire could not conveniently reach around to stop him.

Temeraire snorted in irritation, and beat on quicker following the trail, and coming round had to pull up hard as it descended abruptly between two jagged rising walls of stone. He caught an updraft and threw himself up along the wall and caught onto the summit so that he might take a quick look over, unsuspected from below—he did not at all mean to be foolishly reckless, whatever Forthing and Ferris might think.

And then “Oh,” Temeraire said, in astonishment, and pulled himself up higher to peer over the ridge and into the valley below. “Arkady? Whatever are you doing here?”

•  •  •

Arkady stood in the midst of a small encampment otherwise hastily and very recently abandoned: tents left pitched and a fire-pit still smoking; ragged bundles of supplies everywhere and one bleating sheep staked out at the far end of a gully.

“Why am I here?” Arkady said. “I am looking for
you
, and see what it has got me.” He did present an appearance very unlike himself, drooping and his grey hide dull and grimed with dust.

Temeraire landed beside him, baffled extremely. The last he had seen Arkady, they had parted on the shores of Britain, not long before Temeraire had embarked on his transportation and taken ship with Laurence for New South Wales. Arkady and his feral band of dragons had been persuaded to take up service with the Aerial Corps in exchange for a regular payment of cattle; but they were natives of the Pamirs, nearly two thousand miles west of China. If he had decided to throw over the Corps, Temeraire could not imagine why he would have come here; and in any case, he was still under harness.

Under harness, and something else: “Whatever is that thing upon your back?” Temeraire said, nosing at it cautiously. Temeraire had never seen its like: iron bars linked together in a long chain, the ends of two bars pierced through Arkady’s wings, and others dangling down to Arkady’s back—and then Temeraire drew his head back in horrified disgust: the ends were barbed spikes, and they had been planted into Arkady’s flesh.

“They put it upon me,” Arkady said, “so I cannot fly; it is dreadful if I even move my wings a little. Take it off me at once!” And he leaned against Temeraire miserably.

Forthing and Ferris had already leapt cautiously from Temeraire’s back to his, to inspect the chains. “I don’t dare touch that,” Forthing said to Ferris, “do you? We want a surgeon, double-quick: I dare say we could spoil him for ever flying again, if we took it out wrong.”

Ferris was looking with grim disgust at the bindings also. “We
ought try and get the links open, if we can,” he said. “Then at least he won’t be forever pulling on it.”