Empire of Ivory (10 page)

lifting up his head. "Of course they feel the cold; I feel

it myself, when the ground is so hard and frozen, and I am

not sick at all."

"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 said, and Laurence went into his small

sea-chest and brought out to her the thick packet which had

come with them all the way from China, wrapped many times

over with oilcloth and twine, the outer layers stained

nearly black, the inner still pale, until he came to the

thin fine rice paper inside, with the plans for the dragon

pavilion laid out upon them.

"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 do hear

the ones at Loch Laggan do better, where they have the heat

from the baths underground, and the Longwings who are

quartered in the sand-pits have held up better, though they

do not like it in the least."

"I am sure that if only they had the pavilions, and some

more appetizing food to eat, they would soon get better; I

did not like to eat at all, when I had my cold, until the

Chinese cooked for me," Temeraire said.

"I will second that," Laurence said. "He scarcely ate at

all before; Keynes was of the opinion the strength of

spices compensated, to some part, for the inability to

smell or taste."

"Well, for that, any rate, I can squeeze out a few guineas

here and there and manage a trial; we have certainly not

been spending half of what we ordinarily would in powder,"

Jane said. "It will not do for very long, not if we are to

feed two hundred dragons spiced meals, and where I am to

get cooks to manage it I have no idea, but if we see some

improvement, we may have some better luck in persuading

their Lordships to carry the project forward."

Chapter 4

GONG SU WAS ENLISTED in the cause, and all but emptied his

spice cabinets, making especially vigorous use of his

sharpest peppers; much to the intense disapproval of the

herdsmen, who were rousted from a post usually requiring

little more than dragging cows from pen to slaughter, and

set to stirring pungent cauldrons. The effect was a marked

one, the dragons' appetites more startled awake than

coaxed, and many of the nearly somnolent beasts began

clamoring with fresh hunger. The spices were not easily

replaced, however, and Gong Su shook his head with

dissatisfaction over what the Dover merchants could

provide; the cost even of this astronomical.

"Laurence," Jane said, having called him to her quarters

for dinner, "I hope you will forgive me for serving you a

shabby trick: I mean to send you to plead our case.

I do 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 make it a

rest for Temeraire: he needs one in any case. What? No,

thank Heaven, that fellow Barham who gave you so much

difficulty is out. Grenville has the place now; not a bad

fellow, so far as I can tell; if he does not understand the

least thing about dragons, that hardly makes him unique."

"And I will say, privately, in your ear," she added, later

that evening, reaching over for the glass of wine by the

bed and settling back against his arm; Laurence lying back

thoroughly breathless with his eyes half-closed, the sweat

still standing on his shoulders, "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, but he

can scarcely bear to address a note to me; and the truth is

I have made use of his mortification to squeak through

half-a-dozen orders I have not quite the authority for,

which I am sure he would have liked to object to, if he

could do so without summoning me. Our chances are precious

small to begin, and we will do a good deal better with you

there."

It did not prove the case, however; because Jane, at least,

could scarcely have been refused admittance by one of the

secretaries of the Navy: a tall, thin, officious fellow,

who said impatiently, "Yes, yes, I have your numbers

written in front of me; and in any case you may be sure we

have taken note of the higher requisitions of cattle. But

have any of them recovered? You say nothing of it. How many

can fly now that could not before, and how long?"-as if,

Laurence felt resentfully, he were inquiring about the

improved performance of a ship, given changes in her

cordage or sailcloth.

"The surgeons are of the opinion, that with these measures

we can hope to greatly retard the further progress of the

illness," Laurence said; he could not claim that any had

recovered. "Which alone must be of material benefit, and

perhaps with these pavilions also-"

The secretary was shaking his head. "If they will do no

better than now, I cannot give you any encouragement: we

must still build these shore batteries all along the

coastline, and if you imagine dragons are expensive, you

have not seen the cost of guns."

"All the more reason to care for the dragons we have, and

spend a little more to safeguard their remaining strength,"

Laurence said. His frustration added, "And especially so,

sir, that it is no more than their just deserts from us,

for their service; these are thinking creatures, not

cavalry-horses."

"Oh; romantical notions," the secretary said, dismissive.

"Very well, Captain; I regret to inform you his Lordship is

occupied to-day. We have your report; you may be sure he

will reply to it, when he has time. I can give you an

appointment next week, perhaps."

Laurence with difficulty restrained himself from replying

to this incivility as he felt it deserved; and went out

feeling he had been a far worse messenger than Jane herself

would have been. His spirits were not to be recovered even

by the treat of catching a glimpse of the lately created

Duke of Nelson in the courtyard: that gentleman splendid in

his dress uniform and his peculiar row of misshapen medals.

They had been half-melted to the skin at Trafalgar, when a

pass by the Spanish fire-breather there had caught his

flagship, and his life nearly despaired of from the

dreadful burns. 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.

A crowd had collected at a respectful distance to overhear,

placed so that Laurence had to push his way out to the

street through them, making apologies muttered as softly as

he could; he might have stayed to listen, himself, another

time. At present he had to make his way through the

streets, a thick dark slurry of half-frozen ice and muck

chilling his boots, back to the London covert, where

Temeraire was waiting anxiously to receive the unhappy

news.

"But surely there must be some means of reaching him,"

Temeraire said. "I cannot bear that our friends should all

grow worse, when we have so easy a remedy at hand."

"We will have to manage on what we can afford within the

current bounds, and stretch that little out," Laurence

said. "But some effect may be produced by the searing of

the meat alone, or stewing; let us not despair, my dear,

but hope that Gong Su's ingenuity may yet find some

answer."

"I do not suppose this Grenville eats raw beef every night,

with the hide still on, and no salt; and then goes to sleep

on the ground," Temeraire said resentfully. "I should like

to see him try it a week and then refuse us." His tail was

lashing dangerously at the already-denuded tree-tops around

the edge of the clearing.

Laurence did not suppose it, either: and it occurred to him

that the First Lord might very likely dine from home. He

called to Emily for paper, and wrote quickly several notes;

the season was not yet begun, but he had a dozen

acquaintances likely to be already in town in advance of

the opening of Parliament, besides his family. "There is

very little chance I will be able to catch him," he warned

Temeraire, to forestall raising hopes only to be dashed,

"and still less that he will listen to me, if I do."

He could not wish whole-heartedly for success, either; he

did not think he could easily sustain his temper, in his

present mood, against still more of the casual and

unthinking insult he was likely to meet in his aviator's

coat, and 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 gunroom of

the Leander, long since made post and now a member himself,

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: a blind obstinacy on the part of two of the

coach drivers, neither willing to give way, had locked the

narrow lane into an impasse so that no one else could move.

Laurence was glad to have resorted to an old-fashioned

sedan-chair, even if he had done so for the practical

difficulties in getting a horse-drawn carriage anywhere

near the covert. He reached the steps un-spattered, and if

his coat was green, at least it was new, and properly cut;

his linen was beyond reproach, and his knee-breeches and

stockings crisply white, so he felt he need not blush for

his appearance.

He gave in his card and was presented to his hostess, a

lady he had met in person 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 giving him her hand. "Lord Wrightley, this is

Captain William Laurence, Lord Allendale's son."

A gentleman just lately entered was standing beside Lord

Wrightley, still speaking with him; he startled at

overhearing the introduction, and turning insisted on being

presented to Laurence as a Mr. Broughton, from the Foreign

Office.

Broughton at once seized on Laurence's hand with great

enthusiasm. "Captain Laurence, you must permit me to

congratulate you," he said. "Or Your Highness, as I suppose

we must address you now, ha ha!" and Laurence's hurried, "I

beg you will not-" went thoroughly ignored as Lady

Wrightley, astonished as she might justly be, demanded an

explanation. "Why, you have a prince of China at 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,

and tell one another of it only 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 despair. "It was all Mr. Hammond's doing-a mere

formality-" too late: Broughton was already regaling Lady

Wrightley and half-a-dozen other interested parties with a

representation both colorful and highly inaccurate of

Laurence's adoption by the emperor, which had been nothing

more in truth than a means of saving face. The Chinese had

required the excuse to give their official imprimatur to

Laurence serving as companion to a Celestial dragon, a

privilege reserved, among them, solely for the Imperial

family, and Laurence was quite sure the Chinese had happily

forgotten his existence the moment he had departed: he had

not entertained the least notion of trading upon the

adoption now he was got home.

As the brangle of carriages outside had stifled the flow of

newcomers, there was a lull in the party, still in its

early hours, which made everyone very willing to hear the

exotic story; if in any case its success would not have

been guaranteed by the fairy-tale coloration which it had

acquired. Laurence thus found himself the interested

subject of much attention, and Lady Wrightley herself was

by no means unwilling to claim Laurence's attendance as a

coup rather than a favor done an old friend.

He would have liked to go, at once; but Grenville had not

yet come, and so he clenched his teeth and bore the

embarrassment of being presented around the room. "No, I am

by no means in the line of succession," he said, over and

over, privately thinking he would like to see the reaction