His Majesty's Dragon (Temeraire #1) - Page 4

II

Chapter 4

"NO, THROW YOUR chest out deeper, like so." Laetificat stood up on her haunches and demonstrated, the enormous barrel of her red-and-gold belly expanding as she breathed in.

Temeraire mimicked the motion; his expansion was less visually dramatic, as he lacked the vivid markings of the female Regal Copper and was of course less than a fifth of her size as yet, but this time he managed a much louder roar. "Oh, there," he said, pleased, dropping back down to four legs. The cows were all running around their pen in manic terror.

"Much better," Laetificat said, and nudged Temeraire's back approvingly. "Practice every time you eat; it will help along your lung capacity."

"I suppose it is hardly news to you how badly we need him, given how our affairs stand," Portland said, turning to Laurence; the two of them were standing by the side of the field, out of range of the mess the dragons were about to make. "Most of Bonaparte's dragons are stationed along the Rhine, and of course he has been busy in Italy; that and our naval blockades are all that is keeping him from invasion. But if he gets matters arranged to his satisfaction on the Continent and frees up a few aerial divisions, we can say hail and farewell to the blockade at Toulon; we simply do not have enough dragons of our own here in the Med to protect Nelson's fleet. He will have to withdraw, and then Villeneuve will go straight for the Channel."

Laurence nodded grimly; he had been reading the news of Bonaparte's movements with great alarm since the Reliant had put into port. "I know Nelson has been trying to lure the French fleet out to battle, but Villeneuve is not a fool, even if he is no seaman. An aerial bombardment is the only hope of getting him out of his safe harbor."

"Which means there is no hope, not with the forces we can bring to it at present," Portland said. "The Home Division has a couple of Longwings, and they might be able to do it; but they cannot be spared. Bonaparte would jump on the Channel Fleet at once."

"Ordinary bombing would not do?"

"Not precise enough at long range, and they have poisoned shrapnel guns at Toulon. No aviator worth a shilling would take his beast close to the fortifications." Portland shook his head. "No, but there is a young Longwing in training, and if Temeraire will be kind enough to hurry up and grow, then perhaps together they might shortly be able to take the place of Excidium or Mortiferus at the Channel, and even one of those two might be sufficient at Toulon."

"I am sure he will do everything in his power to oblige you," Laurence said, glancing over; the dragon in question was on his second cow. "And I may say that I will do the same. I know I am not the man you wished in this place, nor can I argue with the reasoning that would prefer an experienced aviator in so critical a role. But I hope that naval experience will not prove wholly useless in this arena."

Portland sighed and looked down at the ground. "Oh, hell," he said. It was an odd response to make, but Portland looked anxious, not angry, and after a moment he added, "There is just no getting around it; you are not an aviator. If it were simply a question of skill or knowledge, that would mean difficulties enough, but – " He stopped.

Laurence did not think, from the tone, that Portland meant to question his courage. The man had been more amiable this morning; so far, it seemed to Laurence that aviators simply took clannishness to an extreme, and once having admitted a fellow into their circle, their cold manners fell away. So he took no offense, and said, "Sir, I can hardly imagine where else you believe the difficulty might lie."

"No, you cannot," Portland said, uncommunicatively. "Well, and I am not going to borrow trouble; they may decide to send you somewhere else entirely, not to Loch Laggan. But I am running ahead of myself: the real point is that you and Temeraire must get to England for your training soonest; once you are there, Aerial Command can best decide how to deal with you."

"But can he reach England from here, with no place to stop along the way?" Laurence asked, diverted by concern for Temeraire. "It must be more than a thousand miles; he has never flown further than from one end of the island to the other."

"Closer to two thousand, and no; we would never risk him so," Portland said. "There is a transport coming over from Nova Scotia; a couple of dragons joined our division from it three days ago, so we have its position pretty well fixed, and I think it is less than a hundred miles away. We will escort you to it; if Temeraire gets tired, Laetificat can support him for long enough to give him a breather."

Laurence was relieved to hear the proposed plan, but the conversation made him aware how very unpleasant his circumstances would be until his ignorance was mended. If Portland had waved off his fears, Laurence would have had no way of judging the matter for himself. Even a hundred miles was a good distance; it would take them three hours or more in the air. But that at least he felt confident they could manage; they had flown the length of the island three times just the other day, while visiting Sir Edward, and Temeraire had not seemed tired in the least.

"When do you propose leaving?" he asked.

"The sooner, the better; the transport is headed away from us, after all," Portland said. "Can you be ready in half an hour?"

Laurence stared. "I suppose I can, if I have most of my things sent back to the Reliant for transport," he said dubiously.

"Why would you?" Portland said. "Laet can carry anything you have; we shan't weigh Temeraire down."

"No, I only mean that my things are not packed," Laurence said. "I am used to waiting for the tide; I see I will have to be a little more beforehand with the world from now on."

Portland still looked puzzled, and when he came into Laurence's room twenty minutes later he stared openly at the sea-chest that Laurence had turned to this new purpose. There had hardly been time to fill half of it; Laurence paused in the act of putting in a couple of blankets to take up the empty space at the top. "Is something wrong?" he asked, looking down; the chest was not so large that he thought it would give Laetificat any difficulty.

"No wonder you needed the time; do you always pack so carefully?" Portland said. "Could you not just throw the rest of your things into a few bags? We can strap them on easily enough."

Laurence swallowed his first response; he no longer needed to wonder why the aviators looked, to a man, rumpled in their dress; he had imagined it due to some advanced technique of flying. "No, thank you; Fernao will take my other things to the Reliant, and I can manage perfectly well with what I have here," he said, putting the blankets in; he strapped them down and made all fast, then locked the chest. "There; I am at your service now."

Portland called in a couple of his midwingmen to carry the chest; Laurence followed them outside, and was witness, for the first time, to the operation of a full aerial crew. Temeraire and he both watched with interest from the side as Laetificat stood patiently under the swarming ensigns, who ran up and down her sides as easily as they hung below her belly or climbed upon her back. The boys were raising up two canvas enclosures, one above and one below; these were like small, lopsided tents, framed with many thin and flexible strips of metal. The front panels which formed the bulk of the tent were long and sloped, evidently to present as little resistance to the wind as possible, and the sides and back were made of netting.

The ensigns all looked to be below the age of twelve; the midwingmen ranged more widely, just as aboard a ship, and now four older ones came staggering with the weight of a heavy leather-wrapped chain they dragged in front of Laetificat. The dragon lifted it herself and laid it over her withers, just in front of the tent, and the ensigns hurried to secure it to the rest of the harness with many straps and smaller chains.

Using this strap, they then slung a sort of hammock made of chain links beneath Laetificat's belly. Laurence saw his own chest tossed inside along with a collection of other bags and parcels; he winced at the haphazard way in which the baggage was stowed, and was doubly grateful that he had been careful in his packing: he was confident they might turn his chest completely about a dozen times without casting his things into disarray.

A large pad of leather and wool, perhaps the thickness of a man's arm, was laid on top of all, then the hammock's edges were drawn up and hooked to the harness as widely as possible, spreading the weight of the contents and pressing them close to the dragon's belly. Laurence felt a sense of dissatisfaction with the proceedings; he privately thought he would have to find a better arrangement for Temeraire, when the time came.

However, the process had one significant advantage over naval preparations: from beginning to end it took fifteen minutes, and then they were looking at a dragon in full light-duty rig. Laetificat reared up on her legs, shook out her wings, and beat them half a dozen times; the wind was strong enough to nearly stagger Laurence, but the assembled baggage did not shift noticeably.

"All lies well," Laetificat said, dropping back down to all fours; the ground shook with the impact.

"Lookouts aboard," Portland said; four ensigns climbed on and took up positions at the shoulders and hips, above and below, hooking themselves on to the harness. "Topmen and bellmen." Now two groups of eight midwingmen climbed up, one going into the tent above, the other below: Laurence was startled to perceive how large the enclosures really were; they seemed small only by virtue of comparison with Laetificat's immense size.

The crews were followed in turn by the twelve riflemen, who had been checking and arming their guns while the others rigged out the gear. Laurence noticed Lieutenant Dayes leading them, and frowned; he had forgotten about the fellow in the rush. Dayes had offered no apology; now most likely they would not see one another for a long time. Perhaps it was for the best; Laurence was not sure that he could have accepted the apology, after hearing Temeraire's story, and as it was impossible to call the fellow out, the situation would have been uncomfortable to say the least.

The riflemen having boarded, Portland walked a complete circuit around and beneath the dragon. "Very good; ground crew aboard." The handful of men remaining climbed into the belly-rigging and strapped themselves in; only then did Portland himself ascend, Laetificat lifting him up directly. He repeated his inspection on the top, maneuvering around on the harness with as much ease as any of the little ensigns, and finally came to his position at the base of the dragon's neck. "I believe we are ready; Captain Laurence?"

Laurence belatedly realized he was still standing on the ground; he had been too interested in the process to mount up himself. He turned, but before he could clamber onto the harness, Temeraire reached out carefully and put him aboard, mimicking Laetificat's action. Laurence grinned privately and patted the dragon's neck. "Thank you, Temeraire," he said, strapping himself in; Portland had pronounced his improvised harness adequate for the journey, although with a disapproving air. "Sir, we are ready," he called to Portland.

"Proceed, then; smallest goes aloft first," Portland said. "We will take the lead once in the air."

Laurence nodded; Temeraire gathered himself and leapt, and the world fell away beneath them.

Aerial Command was situated in the countryside just south-east of Chatham, close enough to London to permit daily consultation with the Admiralty and the War Office; it had been an easy hour's flight from Dover, with the rolling green fields he knew so well spread out below like a checkerboard, and London a suggestion of towers in the distance, purple and indistinct.

Although the dispatches had long preceded him to England and he must have been expected, Laurence was not called to the office until the next morning. Even then he was kept waiting outside Admiral Powys's office for nearly two hours. At last the door opened; stepping inside, he could not help glancing curiously from Admiral Powys to Admiral Bowden, who was sitting to the right of the desk. The precise words had not been intelligible out in the hall, but he could not have avoided overhearing the loud voices, and Bowden was still red-faced and frowning.

"Yes, Captain Laurence, do come in," Powys said, waving him in with a fat-fingered hand. "How splendid Temeraire looks; I saw him eating this morning: already close on nine tons, I should say. You are to be most highly commended. And you fed him solely on fish the first two weeks, and also while on the transport? Remarkable, remarkable indeed; we must consider amending the general diet."

"Yes, yes; this is beside the point," Bowden said impatiently.

Powys frowned at Bowden, then continued, perhaps a little too heartily, "In any case, he is certainly ready to begin training, and of course we must do our best to bring you up to the mark as well. Of course we have confirmed you in your rank; as a handler, you would be made captain anyway. But you will have a great deal to do; ten years' training is not to be made up in a day."

Laurence bowed. "Sir, Temeraire and I are both at your service," he said, but with reserve; he perceived in both men the same odd constraint about his training that Portland had displayed. Many possible explanations for that constraint had occurred to Laurence during the two weeks aboard the transport, most of them unpleasant. A boy of seven, taken from his home before his character had been truly formed, might easily be forced to accept treatment which a grown man would never endure, and yet of course the aviators themselves would consider it necessary, having gone through it themselves; Laurence could think of no other cause that would make them all so evasive about the subject.

His heart sank further as Powys said, "Now then; we must send you to Loch Laggan," for it was the place Portland had mentioned, and been so anxious about. "There is no denying that it is the best place for you," Powys went on. "We cannot waste a moment in making you both ready for duty, and I would not be surprised if Temeraire were up to heavy-combat weight by the end of the summer."

"Sir, I beg your pardon, but I have never heard of the place, and I gather it is in Scotland?" Laurence asked; he hoped to draw Powys out.

"Yes, in Inverness-shire; it is one of our largest coverts, and certainly the best for intensive training," Powys said. "Lieutenant Greene outside will show you the way, and mark a covert along the route for you to spend the night; I am sure you will have no difficulty in reaching the place."

It was clearly a dismissal, and Laurence knew he could not make any further inquiry. In any event, he had a more pressing request. "I will speak to him, sir," he said. "But if you have no objection, I would be glad to stop the night at my family home in Nottinghamshire; there is room enough for Temeraire, and deer for him to eat." His parents would be in town at this time of year, but the Galmans often stayed in the country, and there might be some chance of seeing Edith, if only briefly.

"Oh, certainly, by all means," Powys said. "I am sorry I cannot give you a longer furlough; you have certainly deserved it, but I do not think we can spare the time: a week might make all the difference in the world."

"Thank you, sir, I perfectly understand," Laurence said, and so bowed and departed.

Armed by Lieutenant Greene with an excellent map showing the route, Laurence began his preparations at once. He had taken some time in Dover to acquire a collection of light bandboxes; he thought that their cylindrical shape might better lie against Temeraire's body, and now he transferred his belongings into them. He knew he made an unusual sight, carrying a dozen boxes more suitable for ladies' hats out to Temeraire, but when he had strapped them down against Temeraire's belly and seen how little they added to his profile, he could not help feeling somewhat smug.

"They are quite comfortable; I do not notice them at all," Temeraire assured him, rearing up on his back legs and flapping to make certain they were well seated, just as Laetificat had done back in Madeira. "Can we not get one of those tents? It would be much more comfortable for you to ride out of the wind."

"I have no idea how to put it up, though, my dear," Laurence said, smiling at the concern. "But I will do well enough; with this leather coat they have given me, I will be quite warm."

"It must wait until you have your proper harness, in any case; the tents require locking carabiners. Nearly ready to go, then, Laurence?" Bowden had come upon them and interjected himself into the conversation without any notice. He joined Laurence standing before Temeraire's chest and stooped a little to examine the bandboxes. "Hm, I see you are bent on turning all our customs upside down to suit yourself."

"No, sir, I hope not," Laurence said, keeping his temper; it could not serve to alienate the man, for he was one of the senior commanders of the Corps, and might well have a say in what postings Temeraire received. "But my sea-chest was awkward for him to bear, and these seemed the best replacement I could manage on short notice."

"They may do," Bowden said, straightening up. "I hope you have as easy a time putting aside the rest of your naval thinking as your sea-chest, Laurence; you must be an aviator now."

"I am an aviator, sir, and willingly so," Laurence said. "But I cannot pretend that I intend to put aside the habits and mode of thinking formed over a lifetime; whether I intended it or no, I doubt it would even be possible."

Bowden fortunately took this without anger, but he shook his head. "No, it would not. And so I told – well. I have come to make something clear: you will oblige me by refraining from discussing, with those not in the Corps, any aspects of your training. His Majesty sees fit to give us our heads to achieve the best performance of our duty; we do not care to entertain the opinions of outsiders. Do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly," Laurence said grimly; the peculiar command bore out all his worst suspicions. But if none of them would come out and make themselves plain, he could hardly make an objection; it was infuriating. "Sir," he said, making up his mind to try again to draw out the truth, "if you would be so good as to tell me what makes the covert in Scotland more suitable than this for my training, I would be grateful to know what to expect."

"You have been ordered to go there; that makes it the only suitable place," Bowden said sharply. Yet then he seemed to relent, for he added, in a less harsh tone, "Laggan's training master is especially adept at bringing inexperienced handlers along quickly."

"Inexperienced?" Laurence said, blankly. "I thought an aviator had to come into the service at the age of seven; surely you do not mean that there are boys already handling dragons at that age."

"No, of course not," Bowden said. "But you are not the first handler to come from outside the ranks, or without as much training as we might care for. Occasionally a hatchling will have a fit of distemper, and we must take anyone we can get it to accept." He gave a sudden snorting laugh. "Dragons are strange creatures, and there is no understanding them; some of them even take a liking to sea-officers." He slapped Temeraire's side, and left as abruptly as he had come; without a word of parting, but in apparently better humor, and leaving Laurence hardly less perplexed than before.

The flight to Nottinghamshire took several hours, and afforded him more leisure than he liked to consider what awaited him in Scotland. He did not like to imagine what Bowden and Powys and Portland all expected him to disapprove so heartily, and he still less liked to try to imagine what he should do if he found the situation unbearable.

He had only once had a truly unhappy experience in his naval service: as a freshly made lieutenant of seventeen he had been assigned to the Shorewise, under Captain Barstowe, an older man and a relic of an older Navy, where officers had not been required to be gentlemen as well. Barstowe was the illegitimate son of a merchant of only moderate wealth and a woman of only moderate character; he had gone to sea as a boy in his father's ships and been pressed into the Navy as a foremast hand. He had displayed great courage in battle and a keen head for mathematics, which had won him promotion first to master's-mate, then to lieutenant, and even by a stroke of luck to post-rank, but he had never lost any of the coarseness of his background.

What was worse, Barstowe had been conscious of his own lack of social graces, and resentful of those who, in his mind, made him feel that lack. It was not an unmerited resentment: there were many officers who looked askance and murmured at him; but he had seen in Laurence's easy and pleasing manners a deliberate insult, and he had been merciless in punishing Laurence for them. Barstowe's death of pneumonia three months into the voyage had possibly saved Laurence's own life, and at the least had freed him from an endless daze of standing double or triple watches, a diet of ship's biscuit and water, and the perils of leading a gun-crew composed of the worst and most unhandy men aboard.

Laurence still had an instinctive horror when he thought of the experience; he was not in the least prepared to be ruled over by another such man, and in Bowden's ominous words about the Corps taking anyone a hatchling would accept, he read a hint that his trainer or perhaps his fellow trainees would be of such a stamp. And while Laurence was not a boy of seventeen anymore, nor in so powerless a position, he now had Temeraire to consider, and their shared duty.

His hands tightened on the reins involuntarily, and Temeraire looked around. "Are you well, Laurence?" he asked. "You have been so quiet."

"Forgive me, I have only been woolgathering," Laurence said, patting Temeraire's neck. "It is nothing. Are you tiring at all? Should you like to stop and rest awhile?"

"No, I am not tired, but you are not telling the truth: I can hear you are unhappy," Temeraire said anxiously. "Is it not good that we are going to begin training? Or are you missing your ship?"

"I find I am become transparent before you," Laurence said ruefully. "I am not missing my ship at all, no, but I will admit I am a little concerned about our training. Powys and Bowden were very odd about the whole thing, and I am not sure what sort of reception we will meet in Scotland, or how we shall like it."

"If we do not care for it, surely we can just go away again?" Temeraire said.

"It is not so easy; we are not at liberty, you know," Laurence said. "I am a King's officer, and you are a King's dragon; we cannot do as we please."

"I have never met the King; I am not his property, like a sheep," Temeraire said. "If I belong to anyone, it is you, and you to me. I am not going to stay in Scotland if you are unhappy there."

"Oh dear," Laurence said; this was not the first time Temeraire had showed a distressing tendency to independent thought, and it seemed to only be increasing as he grew older and started to spend more of his time awake. Laurence was not himself particularly interested in political philosophy, and he found it sadly puzzling to have to work out explanations for what to him seemed natural and obvious. "It is not ownership, exactly; but we owe him our loyalty. Besides," he added, "we would have a hard time of it keeping you fed, were the Crown not paying for your board."

"Cows are very nice, but I do not mind eating fish," Temeraire said. "Perhaps we could get a large ship, like the transport, and go back to sea."

Laurence laughed at the image. "Shall I turn pirate king and go raiding in the West Indies, and fill a covert with gold from Spanish merchant ships for you?" He stroked Temeraire's neck.

"That sounds exciting," Temeraire said, his imagination clearly caught. "Can we not?"

"No, we are born too late; there are no real pirates anymore," Laurence said. "The Spanish burned the last pirate band out of Tortuga last century; now there are only a few independent ships or dragon-crews, at most, and those always in danger of being brought down. And you would not truly like it, fighting only for greed; it is not the same as doing one's duty for King and country, knowing that you are protecting England."

"Does it need protecting?" Temeraire asked, looking down. "It seems all quiet, as far as I can see."

"Yes, because it is our business and the Navy's to keep it so," Laurence said. "If we did not do our work, the French could come across the Channel; they are there, not very far to the east, and Bonaparte has an army of a hundred thousand men waiting to come across the moment we let him. That is why we must do our duty; it is like the sailors on the Reliant, who cannot always be doing just as they like, or the ship will not sail."

In response to this, Temeraire hummed in thought, deep in his belly; Laurence could feel the sound reverberating through his own body. Temeraire's pace slowed a little; he glided for a while and then beat back up into the air in a spiral before leveling out again, very much like a fellow pacing back and forth. He looked around again. "Laurence, I have been thinking: if we must go to Loch Laggan, then there is no decision to be made at present; and because we do not know what may be wrong there, we cannot think of something to do now. So you should not worry until we have arrived and seen how matters stand."

"My dear, this is excellent advice, and I will try to follow it," Laurence said, adding, "but I am not certain that I can; it is difficult not to think of."

"You could tell me again about the Armada, and how Sir Francis Drake and Conflagratia destroyed the Spanish fleet," Temeraire suggested.

"Again?" Laurence said. "Very well; although I will begin to doubt your memory at this rate."

"I remember it perfectly," Temeraire said with dignity. "But I like to hear you tell it."

What with Temeraire making him repeat favorite sections and asking questions about the dragons and ships which Laurence thought even a scholar could not have answered, the rest of the flight passed without giving him leisure to worry any further. Evening was far advanced by the time they finally closed in upon his family's home at Wollaton Hall, and in the twilight all the many windows glowed.

Temeraire circled over the house a few times out of curiosity, his pupils open very wide; Laurence, peering down himself, made a count of lit windows and realized that the house could not be empty; he had assumed it would be, the London Season being still in full train, but it was now too late to seek another berth for Temeraire. "Temeraire, there ought to be an empty paddock behind the barns, to the south-east there; can you see it?"

"Yes, there is a fence around it," Temeraire said, looking. "Shall I land there?"

"Yes, thank you; I am afraid I must ask you to stay there, for the horses would certainly have fits if you came anywhere near the stables."

When Temeraire had landed, Laurence climbed down and stroked his warm nose. "I will arrange for you to have something to eat as soon as I have spoken with my parents, if they are indeed home, but that may take some time," he said apologetically.

"You need not bring me food tonight; I ate well before we left, and I am sleepy. I will eat some of those deer over there in the morning," Temeraire said, settling himself down and curling his tail around his legs. "You should stay inside; it is colder here than Madeira was, and I do not want you to fall sick."

"There is something very curious about a six-week-old creature playing nursemaid," Laurence said, amused; yet even as he spoke, he could hardly believe Temeraire was so young. Temeraire had seemed in most respects mature straight out of the shell, and ever since hatching he had been drinking up knowledge of the world with such enthusiasm that the gaps in his understanding were vanishing with astonishing speed. Laurence no longer thought of him as a creature for whom he was responsible, but rather as an intimate friend, already the dearest in his life, and one to be depended upon without question. The training lost a little of its dread for Laurence as he looked up at the already-drowsing Temeraire, and Barstowe he put aside in his memory as a bugbear. Surely there could be nothing ahead which they could not face together.

But his family he would have to face alone. Coming to the house from the stable side, he could see that his first impression from the air had been correct: the drawing room was brightly lit, and many of the bedrooms had candlelight in them. It was certainly a house party, despite the time of year.

He sent a footman to let his father know he was home, and went up to his room by the back stairs to change. He would have liked a bath, but he thought he had to go down at once to be civil; anything else might smack of avoidance. He settled for washing his face and hands in the basin; he had brought his evening rig, fortunately. He looked strange to himself in the mirror, wearing the new bottle-green coat of the Corps with the gold bars upon the shoulders in place of epaulettes; it had been bought in Dover, having been partly made for another man and adjusted hastily while Laurence waited, but it fit well enough.

More than a dozen people were assembled in the drawing room, besides his parents; the idle conversation died down when he entered, then resumed in hushed voices and followed him through the room. His mother came to meet him; her face was composed but a little fixed in its expression, and he could feel her tension as he bent to kiss her cheek. "I am sorry to descend on you unannounced in this fashion," he said. "I did not expect to find anyone at home; I am only here for the night, and bound fo