Empire of Ivory
‘I suppose,’ Lady Seymour said, with a tight, angry smile, ‘that we might also starve our children, to accustom them to privation, and force them to sleep in a pigsty, so they might learn to endure filth and cold.’
What little other conversation had gone forward, now was completely extinguished. Spots of colour stood high on Lady Catherine’s cheeks. Lord Seymour snored prudently by the fire, his eyes shut, and poor Lieutenant Ferris had retreated into the opposite corner of the room and was staring fixedly out the window into the pitch-dark grounds, where nothing was to be seen.
Laurence, sorry to have blundered into an long-standing quarrel, attempted to make peace, and said, ‘I hope you will permit me to say that I have found the Corps to be undeserving of the character it has been given. I believe it to be no more dangerous or distasteful day to day, than any other branch of the military; I can, from my own experience, say that our sailors face as much hard duty as the aviators, and I am sure that Captain Ferris and Colonel Prayle will attest to the privations of their respective services,’ he raised his glass to those gentlemen.
‘Hear, hear,’ Prayle said, coming to his aid, jovially, ‘aviators cannot claim all the hard luck. We fellows also deserve our fair share of your sympathy. But you may be sure that they will always possess the latest news of the war; Captain Laurence, you must know better than any of us, what is occurring on the Continent. Tell us, is Bonaparte preparing for invasion again, now that he has packed the Russians off home?’
‘Pray do not speak of that monster,’ Mrs. Brantham spoke up. ‘I am sure I have never heard anything half so dreadful as what he has done to the Queen of Prussia by taking both her sons away to Paris!’
At this, Lady Seymour, still flushed, spoke out, ‘Poor woman, she must be in agony. What mother’s heart could bear it! Mine would break to pieces, I know.’
‘I am sorry to hear that,’ Laurence said, to Mrs. Brantham, breaking the awkward silence that followed. ‘They are very brave children.’
‘Henry tells me you have had the honour of meeting them, during your service, Captain Laurence, and the Queen too,’ Lady Catherine said. ‘I am sure you must agree, that however much her heart should break, she would never encourage her sons to be cowards, and hide behind her skirts.’
He could say nothing to this without prolonging the squabble, so simply gave her a bow. Lady Seymour was looking out the window, fanning herself with short jerky strokes. The conversation limped on a little longer, and as soon as he felt he could politely excuse himself, he did, on the grounds of their early departure.
He was shown to a very handsome room, which held signs of a hasty rearrangement; a comb by the washbasin suggested that it had been otherwise occupied until perhaps that very evening. Laurence shook his head at this fresh sign of over-solicitousness, and was sorry for the guest who had been inconvenienced on his account.
Before a full quarter of an hour had passed, Lieutenant Ferris knocked timidly on his door, and when admitted tried to express his regrets without precisely apologizing, as he could scarcely do. ‘I only wish she would not feel it so. I suppose it is because I did not want to go at the time, and she cannot forget that I wept,’ he said, fidgeting with the curtain uneasily. He was looking out the window to avoid meeting Laurence’s eyes. ‘But that was only fear of leaving home, as any child would experience; I am not sorry for it now, at all, and I would not give up the Corps for anything.’
He soon made his goodnights and escaped again, leaving Laurence to ruefully consider that the cold, open hostility of his father might yet be preferable to a welcome so anxious and smothering.
One of the footmen tapped at the door to offer valet services to Laurence, directly after Ferris had gone; but he had nothing to do. Laurence had grown so used to doing everything for himself, that his coat was already off, and his boots in the corner, although he was glad enough to send them away for blacking.
He had not long been abed before he was disturbed again, by a great barking clamour from the kennels and the mad shrilling of horses. He went to the window and saw lights coming on in the distant stables, and heard a thin faint whistling somewhere aloft, carrying clearly from a distance. ‘Bring my boots at once, if you please; and instruct the household to remain within,’ Laurence told the footman, who had responded hurriedly to his ring.
He went down in some disarray, tying his neck cloth with a flare in his hand. ‘Clear away, there,’ he called loudly to the servants who had gathered in the open court before the house. ‘Clear away: the dragons will need room to land.’
This intelligence emptied the courtyard. Ferris was already hurrying out, carrying his own signal-flare and a candle. He knelt down to ignite the blue light, which hissed into the air and burst high above them. The night was clear, and the moon only a thin slice; at once the whistling came again, louder: it was Gherni’s high ringing voice. She descended in a rustle of wings.
‘Henry, is that your dragon? Where do you all sit?’ asked Captain Ferris, coming down the stairs cautiously. Gherni, whose head did not reach the second storey windows, would have indeed been hard-pressed to carry more than four or five men. While no dragon could be described as charming, her blue-and-white china complexion was rather elegant, and the darkness softened the edges of her claws and teeth into a less threatening shape. Laurence was heartened to see that a few of the party, still more or less dressed, had gathered on the stoop to see her.
She cocked her head at Captain Ferris’ questions and said something in the dragon tongue that was quite incomprehensible, then sat up on her hind legs and called out a piercing answer to a cry that only she had heard.
Temeraire’s more resonant voice soon became audible, and he landed on the wide lawn behind Gherni. The lamps gleamed on his thousands of glossy obsidian scales, and his shivering wings kicked up a spray of dust and small pebbles that rattled against the walls like small-shot. He curved his great serpentine neck, so that his head was well clear of the roof. ‘Pray hurry, Laurence,’ he said. ‘A courier came to tell us that there is a Fleur-de-Nuit bothering the ships off Boulogne. I have sent Arkady and the others to chase him away, but I do not trust them to mind themselves without me there.’
‘No indeed,’ Laurence said, turning only to shake Captain Ferris’s hand; but there was no sign of him, or of any living souls but Ferris and Gherni. The doors had been shut tight, and the windows all were shuttered.
* * *
‘Well, we are in for it, make no mistake,’ Jane said, having received Laurence’s report in Temeraire’s clearing. They had fought the first skirmish off Weymouth, with the nuisance of chasing away the Fleur-de-Nuit, and then another alarm had roused them after just a few hours of snatched sleep; and quite unnecessarily so, for they arrived on the edge of dawn only to catch sight of a single French courier vanishing off over the horizon, chased by the orange gouts of cannon-fire from the fearsome shore battery, which had lately been established at Plymouth.
‘They were not real attacks,’ Laurence said. ‘Even that skirmish, though they provoked it. If they had bested us, they could not have stayed to take advantage of it; not upon such small dragons, and not if they wished to get themselves home before they collapsed.’
He had given his men leave to sleep a little on the way back, his own eyes closing once or twice during the flight, too; but that was nothing to seeing Temeraire almost grey with fatigue, and his wings tucked limply against his back.
‘No; they are probing our defences, more aggressively and sooner than I had expected,’ Jane said. ‘I am afraid they have grown suspicious. They chased you into Scotland with neither hide nor wing of another dragon to challenge them. The French are not fool enough to overlook the implications of that, however badly it ended for them. If one of their beasts reach the countryside and flies over the quarantine coverts, the game will be up: they will know they have license to invade.’
‘How have you kept them from growing suspicious this long?’ Laurence said. ‘Surely they must have noted the absence of patrols?’
‘We have managed to disguise the situation so far, by sending the sick on short rounds during clear days when they can be seen from a good distance,’ Jane said. ‘Many of them can still fly, and even fight for a little while, although none of them can stand a long journey. They tire too easily, and they feel the cold more than they should; they complain of aching bones, and the brisk winter has only made matters worse.’
‘If they lie upon the ground, I am not surprised they do not feel well,’ Temeraire said, lifting his head. ‘Of course they feel the cold; I feel it myself on this hard and frozen ground, and I am not at all sick.’
‘Dear fellow,’ Jane said, ‘I would make it summer again if I could; but there is nowhere else for them to sleep.’
‘They must have pavilions,’ Temeraire said.’
‘Pavilions?’ Jane asked.
Laurence went into his small sea-chest and brought out the thick packet which had come with them all the way from China, wrapped many times over with oilcloth and twine. The outer layers were stained almost black, the inner still pale. He unravelled them until he came to the thin fine rice paper inside, illustrating the plans for the dragon-pavilion, then handed the sheets to her.
‘Just see if the Admiralty will pay for such a thing,’ Jane said dryly, but she looked the designs over with a thoughtful more than a critical eye. ‘It is a clever arrangement, and I dare say it would make them a damned sight more comfortable than lying on damp ground. I hear those at Loch Laggan fare better; where they have the heat from the baths underground, and the Longwings quartered in sandpits hold up longer, though they do not like such confinement in the least.’
‘I am sure that if they only had the pavilions and some more appetizing food to eat, they would soon get well. I did not like to eat at all when I had my cold, until the Chinese cooked for me,’ Temeraire said.
‘I second that,’ Laurence agreed. ‘He scarcely ate at all before their intervention. Keynes was of the opinion that the strength of spices compensated, to some part, for his inability to smell or taste with the tongue.’
‘Well, I can certainly find a few guineas here and there for that; and manage to arrange a trial. We have not spent half of what we ordinarily would have on powder,’ Jane said. ‘It will not last for very long, not if we are to feed two hundred dragons spiced meals, and the problem of where I am to find cooks enough to manage it remains, but if we see some improvement from it, we may have some better luck persuading their Lordships to carry the project forward.
Chapter Four
Gong Su, the cook Laurence had hired in China, was enlisted to their cause, and over the course of a week had emptied his spice cabinets. He had made vigorous use of his sharpest peppers, much to the intense disapproval of the herdsmen, who were rousted from comfortable and easy posts, that usually required little more than dragging cows from the pen to slaughter, and had now been set to stirring the pungent cauldrons.
The effect of the new cuisine was a marked one: the dragons’ appetites were more startled awake than coaxed, and many of the near somnolent beasts began clamouring with fresh hunger. However, the spices were not easily replaced, and Gong Su shook his head with dissatisfaction over what the Dover merchants could provide, the cost of which was astronomical.
‘Laurence,’ Jane said, having called him to her quarters for dinner, ‘I hope you will forgive me for dealing you a shabby hand: I mean to send you off to plead our case. I would not like to leave Excidium for long now, and I cannot take him over London sneezing as he does. We can manage a couple of patrols here while you are gone, and so Temeraire may rest; he needs to in any case.
‘And thank Heaven, that fellow Barham, who I believe gave you some difficulty, is out. Grenville has the place now. He is not a bad fellow, so far as I can tell; he does not understand the first thing about dragons, but that hardly makes him unique.’
Later that evening, as Jane reached for her wine glass at the end of her bed and settled back against Laurence’s arm, she said, ‘But I should add, privately, that I would not hazard two pins for my chances of persuading him to anything. He yielded to Powys in the end, over my appointment, and can scarcely bear to address a note to me. The truth is, I have made use of his mortification to squeak through half-a-dozen orders for which I have not quite the authority, some of which I am sure he would have objected to, if he could have done so without summoning me. Our chances of agreement are precious small, but we will do a good deal better with you there.’
It did not prove to be the case, however; even Jane would not have been refused admittance. One of the Navy secretaries: a tall, thin, officious fellow, stood before Laurence speaking impatiently, ‘Yes, yes, I have your numbers written in front of me; and you may be sure we have taken note of the higher requisitions of cattle. But have any of them recovered? You say nothing of that. How many can fly now that could not manage it before, and for how long can they sustain it?’
Laurence resentfully felt as if he were inquiring about the improved performance of a ship, after changes of her cordage or sailcloth. ‘The surgeons are of the opinion, that with these measures we can certainly expect to retard the progress of the illness,’ he could not claim that any had recovered. ‘Which alone must be of benefit, and perhaps with the addition of these pavilions—’
The secretary was shaking his head. ‘If they will not improve further, I cannot give you any encouragement on the matter: we must still build shore batteries along the coastline, and if you think dragons expensive, you cannot imagine the cost of the guns.’
‘All the more reason to spend a little more on the dragons we have, to safeguard their remaining strength,’ Laurence said. In frustration he added, ‘And especially, sir, because it is no more than their just deserts for their service; these are sentient creatures, not dumb cavalry horses.’
‘Oh, such romantic notions,’ the secretary said, dismissively. ‘Captain; I regret to inform you that his Lordship is occupied today. We have your report, and you may be sure he will respond to it, when he has time. I can make you an appointment for next week, perhaps.’
Laurence restrained himself from replying to this incivility in a way he felt it deserved; and departed feeling that he had been a far worse messenger than Jane would have been. His spirits were not to be recovered even upon catching a glimpse of Lord Nelson in the courtyard: splendid in his dress uniform and row of peculiar misshapen medals. They had been partially melted to his skin at Trafalgar, when a pass by a Spanish fire-breather during the battle had caught his flagship, and his life had nearly despaired of from the dreadful burns he received. Laurence was glad to see him so recovered: a line of pink scarred skin was visible upon his jaw, running down his throat into the high collar of his coat; but this did not deter him from talking energetically with, or rather to, a small group of attentive officers, his one arm gesturing wildly.
A crowd had collected at a respectful distance to overhear, and Laurence had to push his way into the street through them, making his muttered apologies as softly as he could; at any other time he might have stayed to listen with them. At present he had to make his way through the streets, thick dark slurry of half-frozen ice and muck chilling his boots, back to the London covert, where Temeraire waited anxiously to receive the news.
‘But surely there must be some means of persuading him,’ Temeraire said. ‘I cannot bear that our friends should be allowed to grow worse, when we have so easy a remedy at hand.’
‘We will have to manage on what we can afford, and stretch that little out,’ Laurence said. ‘Some effect may be produced by simply the searing of the meat, or by stewing it; let us not despair, my dear, but hope that Gong Su’s ingenuity may yet find some answer.”
‘I do not suppose Grenville eats raw beef every night, with the hide still on it, and with no salt added, or that he goes to sleep on the cold ground,’ Temeraire said, resentfully. ‘I should like to see him try it for a week and then try to refuse us.’ His tail lashed dangerously at the already denuded treetops around the edge of the clearing.
Laurence agreed, and then it occurred to him that Grenville was likely to dine from home. He called Emily to fetch him some paper, and wrote several notes in quick succession. The season was not yet begun, but he had a dozen acquaintances besides his family that were likely to be in town for the opening of Parliament. ‘There is very little chance I will be able to catch him,’ he warned Temeraire, to forestall the raising of his hopes, ‘and even less that he will listen to me, if I do.’
He could not wish whole-heartedly for success in locating the man, either; he did not think he could restrain his temper in his present mood, against the further onslaught of casual insults that he was likely to face wearing his aviator’s coat. Indeed, any social occasion promised to be rather a punishment than a pleasure, but an hour before dinner, he received a reply from an old shipmate from the Leander, who had long since made post and was now a member himself, and who expected to meet Grenville that night at Lady Wrightley’s ball: that lady being one of his mother’s intimates.
There was a sad and absurd crush of carriages outside the great house, and a blind obstinacy on the part of two coach drivers who were not willing to give way to each other, narrowing the lane to an impasse so that no one else could move either. Laurence was glad to have resorted to an old fashioned sedan chair, even if he had done so simply due to the impossibility of hiring a horse-drawn carriage anywhere near the covert. He reached the steps unsplattered. Even if his coat were green, at least it was new and properly cut; his linen was beyond reproach and his knee breeches and stockings were a crisp white, so he felt he need not blush for his appearance.
He offered his card and was presented to his hostess, a lady he had met only once before, at one of his mother’s dinners. ‘Pray, how does your mother? I suppose she has gone to the country?’ Lady Wrightley said, perfunctorily extending her hand. ‘Lord Wrightley, this is Captain William Laurence, Lord Allendale’s son.’
A gentleman just lately entered stood beside Lord Wrightley, still speaking with him; he startled at the introduction, and insisted on being presented to Laurence as a Mr. Broughton, from the Foreign Office.
Broughton seized Laurence’s hand with great enthusiasm. ‘Captain Laurence, you must permit me to congratulate you,’ he said. ‘Or should I say, Your Highness, as I suppose we must address you now, ha ha!’
Laurence’s hurried, ‘I beg you will not—’ was thoroughly ignored as an astonished Lady Wrightley demanded an explanation.
‘Why, you have a prince of China attending your party, I will have you know, ma’am. The most complete stroke, Captain, the most complete stroke imaginable. We have had it all from Hammond: his letter has been worn to rags in our offices, and we go about wreathed in delight; we tell others of it just to have the pleasure of saying it over again. How Bonaparte must be gnashing his teeth!’
‘It was nothing to do with me, sir, I assure you,’ Laurence said with growing despair. ‘It was all Mr. Hammond’s doing – a mere formality—’ But he spoke too late, for Broughton was already regaling Lady Wrightley and half-a-dozen other interested parties with a account both colourful and highly inaccurate of Laurence’s adoption, which in truth had been nothing more than a means of saving-face. The Chinese had required the excuse in order to give Laurence their official imprimatur to serve as companion to a Celestial dragon, a privilege reserved solely for the Imperial family. He was quite sure that the Chinese had forgotten his existence the very moment he had departed: he had not entertained the least notion of trading upon the adoption at home.
The brangle of carriages outside had stifled the flow of newcomers causing a lull in the party, still in its early hours, which made everyone more willing to hear the exotic story, although its success had already been guaranteed by the fairy-tale colouration that it had acquired. And so, Laurence found himself the subject of much attention. Lady Wrightley was by no means embarrassed to pronounce Laurence’s attendance a coup rather than a favour done for an old friend.
He would have liked to go at once, but Grenville had not yet arrived, and so he clenched his teeth and bore the indignity of being presented around the room. ‘No, I am afraid I am not ranked in the line of succession,’ he said, over and over, privately thinking that he would like to see the reaction of the Chinese to such a suggestion; they had implied that he was an unlettered savage on more than occasion.
He had not expected to dance; society was perennially uncertain on the subject of the aviators’ respectability, and he did not mean to blight some lady’s reputation, nor open himself to the unpleasant experience of being fended off by a chaperone. But just before the first dance commenced, his hostess presented him deliberately to one of her guests, as an eligible partner. Miss Lucas was perhaps in her second or third season; a plump attractive girl, still delighted with the frivolity of a ball, and full of easy, cheerful conversation.
‘How well you dance!’ she exclaimed, after they had traversed the floor together, with rather more surprise than was complimentary. She asked a great many questions about the Chinese court, which he could not answer: the ladies had been kept thoroughly sequestered from their view. He entertained her a little instead with the description of a theatrical performance, but as he had been stabbed shortly after it ended, his memory proved somewhat imperfect, and naturally it had been carried out in Chinese.
Miss Lucas, in turn, told him a great deal about her family in Hertfordshire, and her tribulations with the harp, expressing the hope of one day playing for him, and then mentioned her next youngest sister who was due to be presented next season. She was nineteen, he surmised; and was struck abruptly when the realisation that Catherine Harcourt had been already Lily’s captain and had flown that year in the Battle of Dover at this age, struck him. He looked at the smiling muslin-clad girl with a hollow feeling, and then looked away. He had written two letters each to Harcourt and to Berkley, on Temeraire’s behalf and his own; but no answer had come. He knew nothing of how they, or their dragons, fared.
He politely returned the lady to her mother; but, having proved himself to be a satisfactory partner, was then forced to submit with to one set after another, until at last, near eleven o’clock, Grenville arrived with a small party of gentlemen.
‘I am expected in Dover tomorrow, sir, or would not trouble you here,’ Laurence said grimly after approaching him. He loathed the necessity of such an encroachment, and did not know whether he could have steeled himself to it, had he not been introduced to Grenville many years before,
‘Laurence, yes,’ Grenville said, vaguely, looking like he wished to move on swiftly. He was no great politician: his brother was the prime minister, and he had been made a lord out of loyalty, and not for his brilliance or even his ambition. He listened without enthusiasm to Laurence’s proposals; detailed carefully for the benefit of their interested audience, who had to remain in ignorance of the epidemic: once the general public was in possession of such information, there could be no concealing it from the enemy.