Empire of Ivory

LAURENCE WROTE TO Jane, the merest word; no apology could suffice, and he would not insult her, by asking her to sympathize, adding only:



...and I wish to make clear, that I have in no wise made my thoughts known to, nor received Aid of, my officers, my crew, or any man; and, neither deserving nor soliciting any excuse for my own Part, do heartily entreat that all blame attaching to these my actions should be laid at my door alone, and not upon those who cannot even be charged, as might on similar occasions be merited, with culpable blindness, my Resolve having been formed bare minutes before setting ink to this Page, and will upon its enclosure be immediately carried out.



I will not trespass further upon the Patience which I fear I have already tried past all hope of endurance, and beg you only to believe me, in despite of the present Circumstances,



Yr obdt Svt, &c.



He folded it over twice, sealed it with especial care, and laid it flat upon his neatly made cot, the address faced upwards; and left his small quarters, walking between the narrow rows of snoring men to go outside again. "You may be dismissed, Mr. Portis," he said to the officer of the watch, who was nodding at the edge of the clearing. "I will take Temeraire up for a turn; we will not have a quiet flight again in some time."



"Very good, sir," Portis said, barely concealing a bloodshot yawn, and did not stay to be persuaded further: not quite drunk, but his gait a little shambling as he went back to the barracks-house.



It was not nine. In an hour, at most two, Laurence supposed, they should be missed; he relied on scruple to forbid Ferris's opening the letter, addressed to Jane, until he began to suffer a greater degree of anxiety, which might save another hour; but then the pursuit would be furious. There were some five couriers in the covert sleeping now; more by Parliament; some of the fastest flyers in all Britain. They had not only to outrun them to Loch Laggan, but after to the coast: every covert, every shore battery from Dover to Edinburgh would be roused to bar their passage.



Temeraire was waiting, ruff pricked, agitated and crouched small to conceal it. He put Laurence upon his neck, and launched quickly; London falling away, a collection of lamps and lanterns and the bitter smoke of ten thousand chimneys, ships' lights moving gently down the Thames, and only the rushing hollow sound of wind. Laurence shut his eyes, until they had grown accustomed, then looked at his compass to give Temeraire the direction: four hundred miles, north by north-west, into the dark.



It was strange to be all alone on Temeraire's back again, not merely for a pleasure-flight; the ordinary round of duty did not often allow it. Unburdened but by the triviality of Laurence's weight and the barest harness, Temeraire stretched himself and drove high aloft, to the margins where the air grew thin; pale clouds passing beneath them over the dark ground, fellow sailors in the air. His ruff was flattened down, and the wind came whistling hard over his back, cold at these heights even in the midst of August; Laurence drew his leather coat more snugly close, and put his hands beneath his arms. Temeraire was going very fast; his wings beating a full, cupped stroke, and the world beneath blurred when Laurence looked over his shoulder.



Close towards dawn, Laurence saw to the distant west faintly an eerie glow which illuminated the curve of the earth, as if the sun meant to rise the wrong way round; a color broken, now and again, by belching smoke: Manchester, and its mills, he guessed, so they had gone some hundred and sixty miles, in less than seven hours. Twenty knots, twenty-five.



A little after dawn, Temeraire stooped, without a word, and came to ground at the shores of a small lake to drink deeply, his head thrust partway beneath the water, with the gulps traveling convulsively down his throat; he stopped, and panted, and drank some more. "Oh, no; I am not tired; not very tired, only I was so thirsty," he said a little thickly, turning his head back: despite his brave words he shook himself all over, and blinked away a dazed expression before he asked, in a more normal tone, "Shall I set you down a moment?"



"No; I am very well," Laurence said; he had his grog-flask with him, and in his pocket a little biscuit, which he had not touched. He wanted nothing; his stomach was closed. "You are making a good time, my dear."



"Yes, I know," Temeraire said complacently. "Oh! It is more pleasant than anything, to go so quickly, in pleasant weather, only the two of us; I should like it above all, if only," he added, looking round sorrowfully, "I did not fear that you were unhappy, dear Laurence."



Laurence would have liked to reassure him; he could not. They had passed over Nottinghamshire during the night; they might have passed over his home, his father's house. He rubbed his hand upon the neck-scales, and said quietly, "We had better be off; we are more visible, in the day."



Temeraire drooped, and did not answer, but launched himself aloft again.



They came in over Loch Laggan after seven hours more, at the dinner-hour; Temeraire without even the pretense of courtesy or warning dived directly into the feeding grounds, and not waiting for the herdsmen seized two surprised cows out of the pen: his descent too swift even for them to bellow. Alighting with them on the ledge which overlooked the training flights, he crammed them one after another down his throat, not pausing even to swallow all the first before he began upon the second. He gave a relieved sigh, afterwards, and belched replete; then daintily began to lick clean his talons before he made a guilty start: they were observed.



Celeritas was lying in the waning sun, upon the ledge, his eyes half-lidded. He looked aged, as he had not during their training, so long ago and yet scarcely three years gone; the luster of his pale jade-colored markings had faded, as cloth washed in too-hot water, and the yellow darkened to a bronzey tone. He coughed a little hoarsely. "You have put on some length, I see."



"Yes, I am as long as Maximus," Temeraire said, "or anyway, not much shorter; and also I am a Celestial," he added smugly: they had left off their training under the pressure of the last threat of invasion, in the year four, at the time unaware of Temeraire's real breed or his particular curious ability of the divine wind and thinking him instead an Imperial: still a most valuable breed, but not as vanishingly rare.



"So I had heard," Celeritas said. "Why are you here?"



"Oh," Temeraire said. "Well - "



Laurence let himself down and stepped forward. "I beg your pardon, sir; we are here from London, for some of the mushrooms: may I ask where they are kept?" They had resolved on this brazen frontal assault, as offering the best chance of success; even if Temeraire might look daunted now.



Celeritas snorted. "They are nursing the things like eggs: downstairs, in the baths," he said. "You will find Captain Wexler at table, I believe; he is commander of the fort now," and turned to Temeraire inquisitively, while Temeraire went hunching steadily down. Laurence did not like to leave him alone, to face all the pain of lying in the face of the friendly, unwary curiosity of his old training master, but there was no time: Celeritas would soon begin to wonder, at the absence of their crew, and the most hardened liar could scarcely have concealed this treachery for long.



It was strange to walk the corridors again, now familiar instead of alien; the cheerful roar of the communal dining-tables, which he could hear around the corners, like the blurred continuous noise of a distant cataract: welcoming, and yet closed to him utterly; he felt himself already set apart. There were no servants in the halls, likely all of them busy with the dinner service, but for one small lad running by with a stack of clean napkins, who did not give him a second glance.



Laurence did not go to Captain Wexler: his excuse could not withstand the absence of orders, of any real explanation; instead he went directly to the narrow, humid stairway which led down to the baths, and in the dressing room put off swiftly his boots, his coat, flung down upon the shelves with his sword laid down beside them; his trousers and shirt he left on, and taking with him a towel went into the great tiled steam room. He could see dimly a few somnolent forms drowsing, but in the clouds no faces could be easily made out, and he moved on with quick purpose; no one spoke to him, until he had nearly reached the far door, then a fellow lying with a towel over his face lifted it off. Laurence did not know him: an older lieutenant perhaps, or a younger captain, with a thick bristling mustache dripping water off its corners. "Beg pardon," he said.



"Yes?" Laurence said, stiffening.



"Be a good fellow and shut the door quick, if you mean to go through," the man said, and putting himself down covered his face again.



Laurence did not understand, until he had opened the door to the large bathing-room beyond and the thick miasmic stench of the mushrooms assaulted him, mingled with the pungent smell of a dragon-midden. He pulled the door to behind him quickly, and put his hand over his face, breathing deep through his mouth. The room was deserted, nearly; the dragon eggs sat gleaming wetly in their niches, safe behind the wrought-iron fence along the back of the room, and beneath them on the floor great tubs of black fertile soil, speckled reddish brown with dragon waste for fertilizer, and mushrooms like round buttons poking from the dirt.



There were two young Marines, undoubtedly without much seniority, standing guard: very unhappy, and nearly red enough in the face to match their coats from the room's intense heat; their white trousers were stained with lines of running dye. They looked at Laurence rather hopefully as, if nothing else, a distraction; he nodded to them and said, "I am come from Dover, for more of the mushrooms; pray bring out one of those tubs."



They looked dubious, and hesitated; the older ventured, "Sir, we aren't supposed to, unless the commander says so, himself."



"Then I beg your pardon for the irregularity; my orders said nothing of the sort," Laurence said. "Be so kind as to send and confirm them, with him, if you please; I will wait here," he said to the younger soldier, who did not stay to be invited again, much to the poorly stifled outrage of the older man: but he had the key, hanging from the chain on his belt, so he could not be allowed to go.



Laurence waited as the metal door swung to again; waited; the ship turning slowly through the wind, her broadside coming to bear, the enemy's stern in sight; the clang sounded, as a bell, and he struck the Marine a heavy blow, just below the ear, as the man gazed scowling after his fellow.



The man fell staggering to one knee, his face turning up in surprise, his mouth opening; Laurence struck him again, hard, his knuckles bursting and leaving smears of blood along the Marine's cheekbone and jaw; the soldier fell heavily and was still. Laurence found that he was breathing raggedly. He had to steady his hands before he could unlatch the key.



The tubs were of varied sizes, half-barrels of wood filled with dirt, most of them large and unwieldy; Laurence seized the smallest, and threw over it the towel he had brought, hot and damp already only from the moist air of the baths. He went out by the far door, walking quickly through the rest of the circuit, back to the dressing rooms: still deserted, but dinner would by now be far advanced, and men left the tables as they pleased. He could expect interruption at any moment; sooner if the Marine were more inclined to be dutiful than dawdling, and reached the commander. Laurence flung on his boots and coat haphazardly over his wet things, and went up the stairs with the tub balanced on his shoulder, his other hand gripping tight to the rail: not recklessly; he did not mean to do this much, and fail. He burst out into the hall, and went hurriedly around a corner to straighten his clothes: if he were not so plainly disordered, he would not make a spectacle enough to draw conscious attention, he hoped, despite the odd burden of the tub. The stench was not wholly muffled by the covering linen, but it wafted behind him rather than before.



The noise of the dining hall was indeed already less; he heard voices, nearer, in the corridors; and passed a pair of servants laden down with dirty dishes. Looking down another corridor which crossed his own, he saw a couple of young midwingmen go racing across from one door to the next, shouting like boys, gleefully; in another moment he heard more running footsteps, boots falling heavily, fresh shouting: but the tone was very different.



He abandoned circumspection and ran, clumsy with the tub and shifting it every moment, until he burst out onto the ledge. Celeritas looked over at him with his dark green eyes perplexed and doubtful; Temeraire said in a sudden rush, "Pray forgive me, it is all a hum, we are taking them to France so all the dragons there do not die, and tell them Laurence did not like to do it, at all, only I insisted upon it," not a pause for breath or punctuation, and snatching Laurence with the tub up in his talons, he flung himself away into the air.



They went rushing away bare moments before five men charged out after them; bells were ringing madly, and Temeraire had not settled Laurence back upon his neck before the beacon-fire went alight and dragons came pouring out of the castle grounds like smoke.



"Are you safe?" Temeraire cried.



"Go, go at once," Laurence shouted for an answer, lashing harness-straps around the tub to hold it down before him, and Temeraire whipped himself straight and flew, flew; the pursuit was hot upon them. Not dragons whom Laurence knew: there was one gangly-looking Anglewing, nearly in the lead, and a few Winchesters gaining on them: not to much purpose, but perhaps able to interfere a little with their flight, and delay them for the others. Temeraire said, "Laurence, I must go higher; are you warm enough?"



He was soaked through, and chilled to the skin already by their flight, despite the overhanging sun. "Yes," he said, and pulled his coat closer about him. A bank of clouds pressed down upon the crowns of the mountains, and Temeraire pushed into them, the clinging mist springing up in fat droplets on the buckles, the waxed and oiled leather of the harness, Temeraire's glossy scales. The dragons chasing called to one another, roaring, and plunged in after them, distant obscure shadows in the fog, their voices echoing and muffled at odd alternate turns, so he was scaling upwards through a strange and formless landscape without direction, haunted by their ghostly images.



He burst clear just short of a towering white mountain-face, stark against the open blue, and Temeraire roared as he came: a hammer-blow against the solid-packed ice and snow; Laurence clung to the harness, shivering involuntarily, as Temeraire pulled up nearly vertical, climbing along the face of the mountain, and the pursuit came chasing out of the clouds only to recoil from the thundering, rolling, steady roar of avalanche, coming down upon them like a week's snowstorm compressed into a heartbeat: the Winchesters all squalling alarmed, and scattering away from it like a flock of sparrows.



"South, due south," Laurence said, calling forward to Temeraire, pointing him the way as they came over the peak and broke away, losing the more distant followers. But Laurence could see the beacons going up already down the long line to the coast: the beacons which ordinarily would have warned of invasion, instead now carrying the warning in the other direction and ahead of them. Every covert, every dragon would be alert, even without knowing what was the matter precisely, and would try to stop them in their flight. They could not fly in any direction which would bring them upon a covert, and see them headed off and caught between two forces; their only hope for an escape lay along the more sparsely guarded North Sea coast, short of Edinburgh. Yet they had also to be near enough to make it across to the Continent; with Temeraire already tired.



Night would come, soon; three hours more would give them the safety of dark. Three hours; Laurence wiped his face against his sleeve, and huddled down.



Temeraire came at last exhausted to ground, in darkness, six hours later; his pace had slackened, little by little, the slow measured flap of his wings like a timepiece winding down, until Laurence looking over had seen not a single flickering light; not a shepherd's bonfire, not a torch, as far as his sight could reach, and said at last, "Down, my dear; you must have some rest."



He thought they were in Scotland still, or perhaps Northumberland; he was not certain. They were well south of Edinburgh and Glasgow, somewhere in a shallow valley; he could hear water trickling nearby, but they were too tired to go find it. He ate all his biscuit, ravenous suddenly, and took the last of his grog, huddled up against the curve of Temeraire's neck: it sprawled out untidily from his body, his draggled wings; he slept as he had landed.



Laurence stripped to the skin, and laid his wet things out on Temeraire's side, to let the native heat of the dragon's body do what it might to dry them; then rolled himself in his coat to sleep. The wind was cool enough, among the mountains, to keep the chill upon his skin. Temeraire gave a low rumbling murmur, somewhere in his belly, and twitched; there was distantly a hurried rustling, a clatter of frightened small hooves; but Temeraire did not wake.



The next he knew it was morning, and Temeraire was feasting red-mouthed upon a deer, with another lying dead beside it; he swallowed down his meal and looked at Laurence anxiously. "It is quite nice raw, too, and I can tear it up for you small; or perhaps you can use your sword?" he suggested.



"No; I pray you eat it all. I have not been at hard labor as have you: I can stand to be parted from my dinner a little longer," Laurence said, getting up to scrub his face in the small trickling creek, some ten paces only from where they had collapsed, and to put back on his clothes. Temeraire had attempted to spread them out upon a warm sunny rock, with his claws: they were not very damp anymore, but a little mauled about; at least the tears did not show much, under the long coat.



After Temeraire had finished his breakfast, Laurence sketched out the line of the North Sea coastline, and the Continent. "We cannot risk going much south of York," Laurence said. "Once past the mountains the country is too settled; we will be seen at once by day and perhaps by night also. We must make for the mountains on the coast near Scarborough, pass there the night, and make Holland our final mark across the sea: the country there is unsettled enough I hope we need not fear immediate challenge. Then along the coastline to France; and we shall hope they do not shoot us down without a word."



He put his tattered shirt upon a stick, in the end, to make a ragged flag of parley; and waved it mightily against the side of Temeraire's neck, while they came in over Dunkirk. Beneath them in the harbor, nevertheless, a frantic alarum set up aboard the French ships, when they saw Temeraire coming, to show that the fame of his sinking of the Valerie had spread this far, and many useless attempts were made, at firing cannon at him, although he was considerably too high aloft to be in range.



The French dragons came charging in a determined cloud: already some of them were coughing, and they were none of them in a mood to converse, until Temeraire roared out like thunder in their faces, and took them all aback, then loudly said, "arret! Je ne vous ai pas attaque il faut que vous m'ecouter: nous sommes venus pour vous apporter du medicament."



As the first handful were mulling this over, flying circles around them, another party came flying fresh from the covert roaring their own defiance; the two groups grew rapidly more confused, captains shouting at one another over their speaking-trumpets, until at last signals were issued, and they were escorted to the ground by a wary honor-guard, six dragons on either side and more preceding them and behind. When they had been brought down, in a wide and pleasant meadow, there was a good deal of shuffling and edging back, not frightened but wary, and anxious murmurs from the dragons as their officers descended.



Laurence unstrapped the tub, and unlatched his own carabiners: men were already swarming up the sides of Temeraire's harness, and there were pistols leveled at him before he stood. "You will surrender," a young lieutenant said, narrow-eyed and thickly accented.



"We already have," Laurence said tiredly, and held out to him the wooden tub; the young man looked at it, perplexed, wincing away from the stench. "They are to cure the cough," Laurence said, "la grippe, des dragonnes," and pointed to one of the coughing dragons.



It was taken from him with much suspicion, but passed down, if not as the priceless treasure it was, at least with some degree of care. The tub vanished from his sight, at any rate, and so beyond his concern; a great sinking weariness was spreading through him, and he fumbled with more awkwardness even than usual at the harness-straps, climbing down, until he slipped and fell the last five feet to the ground.



"Laurence," Temeraire cried urgently, leaning towards him; another French officer sprang forward and seizing Laurence by the arm dragged him up and put the muzzle of a pistol, cold and gritty with powder-grains, to his neck.



"I am well," Laurence said, restraining with an effort a cough; he did not wish to jar the pistol. "I am well, Temeraire, you do not need to - "



He was permitted to say no more; there were many hands upon him, and the officers gathering tight around him like a knot; he was half-carried across the meadow towards the tense and waiting line of French dragons, a prisoner, and Temeraire made a low wordless cry of protest as he was dragged away.