Blood of Tyrants (41 page)

Iskierka finished her own re-inspection of the dais, and drew her head back to snort with satisfaction. “That is well enough, I suppose,” she said. “I hope you will make a point to those fellows, Temeraire, that they will answer for it, if anything should go badly. You may be sure
I
will not listen to anyone telling me that I cannot squash this fellow, or that fellow, if anyone should hurt the egg; I will certainly come back and answer it.”

Temeraire had already expressed similar sentiments to the handlers, very delicately, a few dozen times; but he did agree, of course, that on this point he could not repeat himself too often. He had a final reminding word with Huang Li, the minister who would oversee the egg’s protection and nurturing; that gentleman took it very kindly, and assured Temeraire that everything would go well.

“We will send you dispatches every week,” Huang Li said, “with a report upon the egg’s progress, until it is hatched.”

“Oh!” Temeraire said, with delight. “That would be of all things wonderful. But do you suppose those will reach me, in Britain?”

“The Emperor has commanded it,” Huang Li said, which was indeed heartening.

Iskierka nodded in satisfaction when Temeraire had translated this for her. “That is just as well,” she said. “I want to be quite sure they are taking proper care of
my
egg,” with a pointed stress on the possessive, and throwing a smugly superior look towards Mei before she pranced across the room to Granby’s side.

Temeraire went to Mei to make his own farewells; they were leaving in the morning. “I am sorry we did not manage an egg together,” he said, “but I am very glad to have seen you again, Mei. I hope you can forgive me,” he added, “for the opium; I promise we will put a stop to it somehow, even if the Government does not like to. Laurence and I will make them give over.”

Laurence and Mianning were speaking quietly together, near the dais. Laurence had been permitted to keep his sword, and a second one, a shorter blade, now sat upon his other hip; he wore a splendid set of new robes, in red satin, the gift of the Emperor himself. Temeraire rested his eyes upon him in tremendous satisfaction. If only he could persuade Laurence to wear them always, or at least on special occasions.

“I hope it will be so,” Mei said, “and yes, I do believe you, Xiang, that you did not know. In any case,” she added, “the crown prince means to send me there, in the company of the minister Ruan Yuan. We will soon begin to search the ships when they come in to Guangzhou, and burn the opium when we find it.”

Temeraire was well aware this new policy would not be received with equanimity by the British Government, and the East India Company, but with a guilty glance over his shoulder, he decided he did not wish to spoil the parting, and he would just forbear to mention it to anyone else, except perhaps to Laurence once they were already on their way. After all, if the East India Company
wished to complain, they might stop the opium coming, themselves. If there
were
no opium upon the ships, there would be nothing to burn.

Mei leaned out and rubbed her head against his, affectionately. “And perhaps you will return and we can try again, when you have won this war of yours. This egg might not breed true Celestial, after all, although we must hope for the best.”

Temeraire flattened his ruff a little; he was quite sure the egg would hatch splendidly, regardless: one needed only look at its magnificently pearlescent shell and exquisitely proportional dimensions to see that it was something out of the ordinary. “I am sure that all will be well,” he said, dignified, “and the egg will make a most notable companion for the prince.”

“Oh! Yes, of course,” Mei said hastily. “Only, one does not wish to see the true Celestial line disappear; another line may equal, but not surpass it.”

Temeraire thawed;
that
he could accept. “If my honor and duty permit me, I would be very happy to return,” he said, with only a little loftiness.

He would be, too, he thought, and sighed a little, looking around the gorgeously appointed hall, the comfortably high rafters, as he went back to Laurence. “You must admit, Laurence,” he said, “that they do things very properly, here; no-one can complain of the hospitality, or the arrangements.”

“I do not deny it in the least, my dear,” Laurence said, resting a hand upon his flank. “And I will once again make you my promise we shall return, if fortune permits it; but you could not wish us to remain now, in these circumstances.”

“No, certainly not,” Temeraire said. “It is the outside of enough, for Napoleon to be beginning another war, and only just after he stole the Incan Empress, and caused so much trouble for us in Brazil.”

•  •  •

They had undertaken the return to Peking in a blazing rush, as swiftly as dragons could go; but even so the weeks seemed to Laurence to melt away and run through their fingers. By now, they were all dreadfully aware, Napoleon might already have crossed the Niemen; if the Russians had chosen to give battle, the fate of Europe might already have been decided.

The speed of the Jade Dragon couriers, within China, depended on their intricate system of relays; traveling so far as Moscow was no easy matter, and they labored without intelligence. They could only muster with all possible speed and go, hoping. Laurence had wondered how swiftly the assembled
jalan
could be brought back north from the mountains, but Chu had shaken his head in some bemusement even to be asked. “There is no sense bringing those soldiers all that way,” he said. “Those
niru
will go back to their usual stations; we will muster up fresh as we fly north. You Westerners seem to insist on thinking of dragons as though we were infantry. Telling ten thousand where to go is very difficult. Telling three hundred is not! Now,
feeding
them, that is another matter.”

Tharkay had not wholly recovered, but he had preferred to come with them than to remain behind for his convalescence. Laurence now stopped into his bedchamber in the palace, returning from the ceremony of handing over the egg. They had made use of the sickroom, which gave out upon the courtyard, to spread a great many maps upon the floor and consult upon the quickest route towards Russia’s borders.

Gong Su and General Chu had come three mornings ago to look these over, bringing with them a nondescript middle-weight dragon, one of the common blue sort, who was distinguished however by a silver headdress featuring two cabochon amethysts nearly the size of her own eyes, and who was introduced to them as Lung Shen Shi.

They looked over the maps, the dragons’ heads thrust through the open wall; withdrawing, Shen Shi had shaken her head doubtfully as though casting off water; the movement set the silver jingling.
“I suppose we cannot rely on them to have any proper depots?” she asked Chu. “We must rely entirely on forage?”

“I am sure the Tsar will be pleased to put his resources at your disposal,” Hammond began.

“Herds of cattle, I suppose,” Chu said, with a snort. “We cannot rely upon them.”

She nodded her head. “In such circumstances as these, Honored General,” she said to Chu, “I regret most deeply that supply will be somewhat difficult to assure.”

Chu grunted. “How many dragons will this Napoleon have?”

“No more than a hundred?” Laurence said. “He can scarcely muster and supply a force larger than that which he brought across the Channel to England, so much nearer to home.”

“That is something, at any rate.” Chu said, not very enthusiastic. “Well, I hope he is not as clever as all of you seem to think.”

“I had not thought, sir, that you thought so highly of our Western tactics,” Laurence said, a little dryly, but wondering truly; he himself would not have given much for Napoleon’s chances in the air against the Chinese legions, so outnumbered and in hostile territory.

“I am not worried about the fighting,” Chu said, “when we have any. I am worried about time. I do not like to think what it will be if we have not defeated him before the harvest season. As the Emperor has commanded, however, so it must be.” He heaved himself up. “There is no time to lose, but I suppose you will not want to go until you have seen the egg safely conveyed,” he added to Temeraire. “We had better go the day after that, then. I will send on the word to the
jalan
-commanders, and we will rendezvous at Moscow.”

“And I myself must leave at the earliest possible moment,” Shen Shi said. “I ought to have been there six months ago, to assure proper supply.”

Gong Su nodded and turning to Hammond said, “Mr. Hammond, will it be convenient for you to leave at once?”

“Oh,” Hammond said, dismally. “I thought I—that is, I had expected, in the new circumstances of amity between our nations—surely I ought remain, as our standing ambassador—” He looked around as though for rescue. He had spoken with much enthusiasm of the opportunity of promoting the fragile new alliance, of cementing closer ties with Britain; and Laurence suspected he would be equally enthusiastic to be done with flying from one corner of the earth to another.

But Gong Su said gently and implacably, “The crown prince desires me to serve as the envoy of the court to His Imperial Majesty the Tsar, and relies upon you to provide the necessary introductions.”

“Perhaps a letter—” Hammond said, half-desperately: he had already written three of these, in French and English both, and sent them on ahead by courier to Moscow, to inform the Tsar of the approaching windfall of dragons.

But he could scarcely deny that a single envoy appearing, in the company of several unharnessed dragons and claiming to be from the Emperor of China, should find it difficult to gain the confidence of the Tsar; and Gong Su pointed out he himself had not the advantage of the French language, nor could he rely upon finding an English interlocutor at the Russian court. “No, yes, of course, your point is well taken, only—” Hammond said, until at last with an unhappy look he had gone away to gather what few things he could assemble before being swept away: amongst these Churki, who shook her head disapprovingly at the prospect of the war herself.

“Three thousand miles to cross before we even come to the battle?” she said. “I do not deny the Chinese managed things very nicely on this last journey: I do not know that I have ever seen a neater job of supply. But that was in
their
country, with all the arrangements and storehouses they have laid up. It is unwise to fly so deep into a strange country without making arrangements in advance. But,” she added, “in any case, Hammond, yes, it will be for
the best if we go on ahead with this advance party. If I do not like the look of things, we will be closer to Britain, at least.”

Her pleasure at the prospect of returning to Britain had very little to do with having absorbed Hammond’s loyalties. He had in desperation, to prevent her trying to keep him back at her own mother’s estate in the Incan Empire, explained his unwillingness to be severed from contact with his family. This being large and numerous, and by Incan tradition Churki’s right to claim under her own protection, had changed her mind entirely; she spoke of them already in a possessive light at regular intervals, and had made Hammond teach her the names of all his nieces and nephews.

Hammond had given over trying to detach her, by now; he merely threw her a look of anxiety, and said to the rest of them as he made his hasty farewells, “Gentlemen, I trust I will see you in Moscow, not very long from now,” a little grimly, as if he
hoped
, rather than promised, to be there.

“Hammond,” Captain Harcourt said abruptly, “I beg your pardon, but I don’t think you will see all of us.” Laurence looked at her in surprise; he saw the other captains turn to look at her as well. “I have read over our orders, and they are clear enough: we are to get help to the Russians. But we have done that; I don’t think our formation will make a particle of difference with three hundred Chinese dragons there, and we
will
make a good deal of difference in the Peninsula.”

She turned to the other officers. “As soon as we have seen the egg safe delivered, gentlemen, I am taking the formation back to the
Potentate
, and we are going to make the best time we can for Portugal.”

She spoke with decision; she was senior, as Lily headed the formation, and the right was hers. In any case Laurence could not quarrel with her judgment. In company with the Chinese legions, the formation could only be incidental, accompanying a force already more powerful than anything they would face in the air. In the Peninsula, they would represent very likely a substantial alteration
in the balance of power. He could see at a glance, in Berkley’s face and Sutton’s, the immediate agreement, the eagerness almost at once to be gone where they might do so much good, and rejoin their own ranks; Laurence himself was hard-pressed to regard their prospects without envy.

“You must go with them,” Laurence said to Demane, later that same evening, and found as he spoke that he knew Demane would not wish to go; that he knew, remembered, that Demane would not wish to be parted from Emily Roland. “I trust,” he added, when Demane drew a breath, “that you do not propose to offer me an argument against your departure that would be as ungentlemanly as it would be ill-advised, when she has refused your offer.”

Demane hesitated, and Laurence softened his tone a little. “No better chance is likely to offer itself to establish your career and see your rank confirmed properly: away from the Ministry and political concerns, on a battlefield, under Admiral Roland’s command and Wellington’s. Resolve to win their confidence, to behave as an officer and a gentleman, and you may hope to be treated as one: there are not so many heavy-weights on a scale as Kulingile that the Corps can easily let you go begging.

“And you could hardly hope for a better encomium in the eyes of the one whose good opinion you most desire,” Laurence added, “than Admiral Roland’s approval—nor should Excidium’s feelings towards Kulingile be of small concern to you.”

Demane was silenced by these last arguments more than the rest, Laurence was regretfully aware; but the point was won. Temeraire had then to be reconciled to being parted from Sipho, obstinately refusing to grant Demane’s greater claim to his brother’s company. “For after all,” Temeraire objected, “it is not as though Demane is going anywhere that he should need someone who can read Chinese, and whatever else has he for Sipho to do, but hang aboard Kulingile’s back, and perhaps be shot by some French soldier? I cannot like it in the least.”