Empire of Ivory (21 page)

a very doubtful eye.

"But I suppose," Temeraire continued, "that we might try

beginning without the assumption, or the contrary one-" and

they put their heads together over Temeraire's sand-table,

and began to work out their own geometry, discarding those

principles which seemed to them incorrect, and made a game

of developing the theory; which entertained them a good

deal more than most amusements Laurence had ever seen

dragons engage in, with those listening applauding

particularly inventive notions as if they were

performances.

Shortly it became quite an all-encompassing project,

engaging the attention of the officers as well as the

dragons; the scant handful of aviators with good penmanship

Laurence was soon forced to press into service, for the

dragons began to expand upon their cherished theory quicker

than he alone could take their dictation, partly out of an

intellectual curiosity, and partly because they very much

liked the physical representation of their work, which they

insisted on having separately copied out one for each of

them, and treated in much the same way that Temeraire

treated his much-beloved jewels.

"I will make you a handsome edition of it, bound up like

that nice book which you see Laurence reads from," Laurence

found Catherine saying to Lily, shortly, "if only you will

eat something more every day: here, a few more bites of

this tunny," a bribery which succeeded where almost all

else had failed.

"Well, perhaps a little more," Lily said, with a heroic

air, adding, "and may it have gold hinges, too, like that

one?"

All this society Laurence might have enjoyed, though a

little ashamed to find himself preferring what he could not

in justice call anything but a very ramshackle way of going

on. But for all their courage and good humor, improved by

the interest of the sea-voyage, the dragons still coughed

their lungs away little by little. What would have

otherwise seemed a pleasure-cruise carried on under a

ceaseless pall, where each morning the aviators came on the

deck and put their crews to work washing away the

bloodstained relics of the night's misery, and each night

lay in their cabins trying to sleep to the rattling wet

accompaniment of the slow, weary hacking above. All their

noise and gaiety had a forced and hectic edge, defiance of

fear as much as real pleasure: fiddling as Rome burned.

The sentiment was not confined to the aviators, either.

Riley might have had other excuses besides the political

for preferring not to have Reverend Erasmus aboard, for the

ship was already loaded besides him with a large number of

passengers, most of them forced upon Riley by influence

with the Admiralty, and well-found in the article of

luggage. Some number departed at Madeira, to take other

ship for the West Indies or Halifax from there, but others

were bound for the Cape as settlers, and still others going

on to India: an uneasy migration driven, Laurence was

forced to suspect, little though he liked to think so ill

of perfect strangers, by a dread of invasion.

He had some evidence for his suspicion; the passengers,

when he chanced to overhear them speaking as they took the

air on the windward side of the quarterdeck, spoke

wistfully amongst themselves of the airy chances of peace,

and pronounced Bonaparte's name with fear. There was little

direct communication, separated as the dragondeck was, nor

did the passengers make much effort to become friendly, but

on a few occasions, Reverend Erasmus joined Laurence for

dinner. Erasmus did not carry tales, of course, but asked,

"Captain, is it your opinion that invasion is a settled

certainty?" with a curiosity which to Laurence spoke of its

being a topic much discussed among the passengers with whom

they ordinarily dined.

"I must call it settled that Bonaparte would like to try,"

Laurence said, "and being a tyrant he may do as he likes

with his own army. But if he is so outrageously bold as to

make a second attempt where the first failed so thoroughly,

I have every confidence he will be pushed off once again,"

a patriotic exaggeration; but he had no notion of

disparaging their chances publicly.

"I am glad to hear you say so," Erasmus said, and added

after a moment thoughtfully, "It must be a confirmation of

the doctrine of original sin, I think, that all the noble

promise of liberty and brotherhood which the revolution in

France first brought up to light should have so quickly

been drowned by blood and treasure. Man begins in

corruption, and cannot achieve grace striving only for

victory over the injustices of the world, without striving

also for God, and obeying His commandments."

Laurence a little awkwardly offered Erasmus the dish of

stewed plums, in lieu of an agreement which should have

felt dishonest; he was uneasily aware that he had not heard

services for the better part of a year; barring the Sunday

services on board, where Mr. Britten, the ship's official

chaplain, droned through his sermon with a notable lack of

either inspiration or sobriety: and for those, Laurence had

often to sit beside Temeraire, to keep him from

interrupting.

"Do you suppose, sir," Laurence ventured instead to ask,

"that dragons are subject to original sin?" This question

had from time to time preyed upon him; he had quite failed

to interest Temeraire in the Bible. Scripture rather

induced the dragon to pursue such thoroughly blasphemous

lines of questioning that Laurence had very soon given it

up entirely, from a superstitious feeling that this would

only invite greater disaster.

Erasmus considered, and gave it as his opinion that they

were not, "For surely the Bible would mention it, if any

had eaten of the fruit besides Adam and Eve; and though

resembling the serpent in some particulars, the Lord said

unto the serpent that upon its belly it should go, whereas

dragons are as creatures of the air, and cannot be

considered under the same interdiction," he added

convincingly, so it was with a heart lightened that

Laurence could return to the deck that evening, to once

again try and persuade Temeraire to take a little more to

eat.

Though Temeraire had not taken sick, he grew limp and faded

in sympathy with the other dragons' illness, and, ashamed

of his appetite when his companions could not share in it,

began to disdain his food. Laurence coaxed and cajoled with

little effect, until Gong Su came up to him on deck and in

flowery Chinese of which Laurence understood one word in

six, but Temeraire certainly followed entire, offered his

resignation in shame that his cooking was no longer

acceptable. He dwelt at elaborate length upon the stain on

his honor and that of his teacher and his family, which he

would never be able to repair, and declared his intentions

to somehow return home at the nearest opportunity, so that

he might remove himself from the scene of failure.

"But it is very good, I promise, only I am not hungry just

now," Temeraire protested, which Gong Su refused to credit

as anything but a polite excuse, and added, "Good cooking

ought to make you hungry, even if you are not!"

"But I am, only-" Temeraire finally admitted, and looked

sadly at his sleeping companions, and sighed when Laurence

gently said, "My dear, you do them no good by starving

yourself, and indeed some harm; you must be at your full

strength and healthy when we reach the Cape."

"Yes, but it feels quite wrong, to be eating and eating

when everyone else has stopped and gone to sleep; it feels

as though I am sneaking food, behind their backs, which

they do not know about," Temeraire said, a perplexing way

of viewing the situation, as he had never shown the least

compunction about out-eating his companions while they were

awake, or jealously guarding his own meals from the

attention of other dragons. But after this admission, they

gave him his food in smaller portions throughout the day,

while the other dragons were wakeful; and Temeraire

exhibited no more very extreme reluctance, even though the

others still refused any more food themselves.

But he was not happy with their situation, any more than

was Laurence; and grew still less so as they traveled

southward, Riley's caution keeping them near the shore.

They did not put in at Cape Coast, or at Louanda or

Benguela; and from a distance these ports looked gaily

enough, full of white sails clustering together. But there

was reminder enough at hand of their grim commerce, the

ocean being full of sharks that came eagerly leaping to the

ship's wake, trained like dogs by the common passage of

slave-ships to and from those harbors.

"What city is that?" Mrs. Erasmus asked him abruptly. She

had come to take the air with her daughters, who were

parading themselves decorously back and forth under a

shared parasol, for once unattended by their mother.

"Benguela," Laurence said, surprised to be addressed; in

nearly two months of sailing she had never spoken to him

direct before. She was never forward on any occasion, but

rather in the habit of keeping her head bowed and her voice

low; her English still heavily accented with Portuguese

when she used it at all. He knew from Erasmus that she had

gained her manumission only a little while before her

marriage; not through the indulgence of her master but by

his ill-fortune. That gentleman, a landowner from Brazil,

had gone on business to France, passenger on a merchant

ship taken in the Atlantic; she and his other slaves had

been made free, when the prize had been brought in to

Portsmouth.

She was drawn up very tall and straight, both her hands

gripping the rail, though she had excellent sea-legs and

scarcely needed the support; and she stood a long time

looking there, even after the little girls had grown tired

of their promenade and abandoned both parasol and decorum

to go scrambling over the ropes with Emily and Dyer.

A great many slave-ships went to Brazil from Benguela,

Laurence recalled; he did not ask her, but offered her

instead his arm to go below again, when at last she turned

away, and some refreshment. She refused both, with only a

shake of her head, and called her children back to order

with a quick low word; they left off their game, abashed,

and she took them down below.

Past Benguela there were no more slave ports, at least;

both from the hostility of the natives to the trade, and

the inhospitable coastline, but the oppressive atmosphere

on board was no less. Together Laurence and Temeraire often

went aloft to escape, flying in closer to shore than Riley

would risk the Allegiance and pacing her from there, so

they might watch the African coastline wear away: here

impenetrably forested, here spilling yellow rock and yellow

sand into the ocean, here the shore crammed with lazy

seals; then the long stretch of endless orange desert,

bound regularly in thick banks of fog, which made the

sailors wary. Almost hourly the officer of the watch called

for them to take soundings of the ocean floor, voices

muffled and oddly far-away in the mist. Very occasionally a

few black men might be glimpsed on shore, observing them in

turn with wary attention; but for the most part there was

only silence, watchful silence, except for the shrieking of

birds.

"Laurence, surely we can reach Capetown from here, quicker

than the ship can go," Temeraire said at last, grown weary

of the oppressive atmosphere. They were still nearly a

month's sailing from that port, however, and the country

too dangerous to risk a long overland passage. The interior

of the continent was notoriously impenetrable and savage,

and had without a trace swallowed whole parties of men;

more than one courier-dragon tempted off the coastal route

had likewise vanished. But the suggestion appealed, with

its prospects of quitting sooner the unhappy conditions of

the voyage, and advancing more quickly the crucial research

which was their purpose.

Laurence persuaded himself that he should not be derelict

in going on early, once they should be near enough to make

the flight one which might be accomplished in a day, if a

strenuous one. With this incentive, Temeraire was easily

induced to eat properly and go for long and uninteresting

circular flights around the ship, to build up his strength;

and no one else raised objection to their departure. "If

you are quite sure you will reach in safety," Catherine

said, with only the most obligatory reluctance; none of the

aviators could help but share the urgent desire to have the

work begun, now they were so close.

"You shall of course do as you please," Riley said, when