Victory of Eagles

“Oh, she has been in harness since before she could walk,” Jane said. “We start them young, ma’am, so they don’t have much to be trained out of; and then she must be up to snuff to take Excidium, when I get too long in the tooth to be scrambling about aloft.”

“Well, I see where you come by it,” Jane said to Laurence, later: most of the dragons and the aviators asleep, and the fire crackling to cover their low conversation, a conversation made easier by several glasses of the wine which had been sent down for their supper, “all that noblesse oblige; but it is not stiffness. I like her. That is prodigious kind of her, to have taken an interest in Emily; does she think her your by-blow?”

So Laurence, who had been hoping devoutly Jane had noticed nothing out of the ordinary, had to admit the wretched muddle. Jane laughed heartily, as he had feared she would; but under the circumstances he found he could not be sorry to have given her a cause for unfeigned pleasure, even one embarrassing to himself. “Whyever did you not set her right?” she said, amused. “No, never mind. I expect she has not said a word about it openly, which you could answer, and you would not broach the subject if hot pokers were put to you. It must be very inconvenient, talking of anything awkward in your family.”

She fell silent then; it evoked too well their own awkward circumstances, and she looked down at her cup and rolled it between her palms. “I do beg your pardon,” Laurence said, after a moment, “with all my heart.”

“Yes,” Jane said, “but you beg it for the wrong things. Charging off alone, without a word, and that appalling letter you left for me, all ‘I could not love thee dear, so much,’ as though you owed me apology as a lover and not as your commander. I blushed to show it to anyone, and of course it had to be handed over. For a week, I could cheerfully have run you through myself, sitting in rooms with them reading out bits of it in insinuating tones, and putting Sanderson over me, damn them.”

“Jane,” he said, “Jane, you must see, I could ask no-one; to have put you in such a position—”

“What position, which you did not put me into, regardless?” Jane said. “They could not have suspected me more if I had really had all the guilty knowledge in the world.”

“If I had spoken, you should have been obliged to stop me,” Laurence said.

“And a good thing too if I had,” Jane said. “One private note to some Frenchman with a little rank, and they would have had the mushroom in hand in a month. Do you think every servant at Loch Laggan is incorruptible, knowing that Bonaparte would pay a million francs for the damned things?” He recoiled inwardly, and she saw it. “No, of course it would not have suited you to have done the whole thing quietly, you and your damned honor.”

“It would not have been any less treason,” Laurence said.

“No, but as you were bent on that in any case, it would have been a good deal less pain,” Jane said, and then she rubbed the back of her hand across her forehead. “No, never mind. I do not mean it. I do not suppose there was any decent way to go about it: all decency was already gone. But damn you anyway, Laurence.”

He felt the justice of her rebuke, and bowed his head over his hands. After a moment she added, “And to crown the whole, you must needs come back and make a martyr of yourself, so now anyone who cares a farthing for your life must watch you hanged; that is, if they do not decide to make a spectacle of it and draw and quarter you in the fine old style. I suppose you would go to it like Harrison, ‘as cheerful as any man could do in that condition.’ Well, I should not be damned cheerful, and neither should anyone else who loved you, and some of them can knock down half of London Town if they should choose.”

“I SHOULD CERTAINLY CHOOSE,” Temeraire said, and thought to himself that he would make a point of speaking again to the Ministry gentleman, or perhaps one of those generals, to make it perfectly plain. “Pray do not worry, Laurence,” he added, “I am sure they will not be so foolish.”

“Men can be very foolish indeed,” Laurence said, “and I must, I do, beg you not to enter into a resolution, which should prevent my being able to face death with equanimity. You should make me a coward, if I must fear that my death should turn you against my country.”

“But I do not at all want you to face death with equanimity,” Temeraire said, “if by that you mean letting them hang you, instead of making a fuss. If that should make you unhappy, so should I be unhappy, if you were killed. It was dreadful, so dreadful, when I thought that you were gone. I did not feel as though I knew myself anymore. I even wanted to kill poor Lloyd, for no reason at all, and I do not ever wish to feel so again.”

Laurence said, “Temeraire, you must know that you shall, inevitably; I have two score years or three perhaps at most, and you ten, to look forward to.”

Temeraire flattened his ruff, unhappily, not wishing even to speak of the matter. “But that at least, will not be anyone’s fault; no one will have taken you.” The distinction was very plain in his mind. Anyway he did not mean to think about something so far-away and misty. Perhaps he might think of some way to prevent it, by then; if dragons might live two hundred years, he did not see why people might not, also.

He turned his head gladly as Moncey came dropping down beside him. “Temeraire, they are hungry over by Nottingham Castle: there were not enough deer for everyone.”

“They may come here and share our breakfast,” Temeraire said, indicating the great pit where Gong Su had made them a great thickened wheat porridge flavored with venison and greens and preserved lemons. It had been ingeniously made waterproof by a thick lining of canvas, and heated by stones which Iskierka had fired, dropped in. “And from now on we will all go shares; you must all admit,” he said to the others, “it is perfectly nice.”

“Nothing as good as a fresh hot buck all to oneself,” Requiescat said, grumbling.

“Well,” Temeraire said, “if you prefer, you may take a single buck or a cow to yourself instead of three days of soup or porridge, because that is how far they may be stretched, Gong Su says.”

He was very happy to turn to such mundane affairs, and to pretend that he and Laurence had finished their conversation, and were again in perfect accord, although it made him feel a little ashamed. He knew Laurence would not interrupt anything which was like work: Laurence did not think much of officers who had conversations or pleased themselves while their duty waited. So it was a good excuse, and as long as Temeraire made himself busy, he could be sure not to be asked to return again to the difficult and unhappy subject.

He was quite resolved that he was not going to let Laurence be killed, no matter what. Laurence would certainly never be happy after being killed, so it did not seem to Temeraire much consolation that he should be a little happier beforehand. And Temeraire was now very sure that the only way to be certain of protecting Laurence, would be to make it plain to their Lordships that something dreadful would happen to them, if they dared to hurt him, so he had no intentions of withdrawing his threat. But he could not help but peer cautiously sidelong to where Laurence was speaking now with Admiral Roland: he looked tired, and although of course he would not let his shoulders slump, there was some quality of unhappiness in the way he stood, and Temeraire’s conscience smote him even while he considered his escape from the discussion with gratitude.

At least Laurence was dressed respectably now: Temeraire felt that there, at least, he had done his duty a little better. He had whispered a quiet word to Lady Allendale, last night, and she had sent down some clothes from the house: a warm thick cloak, and some of Laurence’s old things, which had been given her to keep when Laurence had been put in prison. It was not quite how Temeraire should have liked to see him dressed; but at least he had his sword again, and better boots, and a coat which fitted.