Victory of Eagles

It was this showy fire-breathing, which was not anything particularly extraordinary: anyone could set things on fire, if only you had a little bit to start with. Temeraire sighed, but anyway she was not of much use: she had already been let off carrying people, because it was difficult for many people to sit upon her with all her spikes jetting off steam as they did. So he had to put up with her; and then of course Maximus and Lily had to be asked, although to Temeraire’s startled dismay, Laurence tried to speak against the choice.

“But it would be very unhandsome of me not to invite them for some real fighting, when I may,” Temeraire protested, looking over his shoulder, lest Maximus and Lily should overhear, and be offended. Fortunately, Maximus was solidly asleep and snoring, under a blanket of nine Winchesters and little ferals, and Lily was presently encamped outside the far wall of the citadel just below Captain Harcourt’s window, jealously: Catherine was gone inside to see to the baby.

“Harcourt is not well, I find,” Laurence said.

“Yes,” Temeraire said, “Lily thinks so, too, and that is as much a reason to ask her as any: she is quite sure Catherine must do better to go south, and have some real fighting, than all this flying back and forth in the wet. She takes cold so easily now, and ought not be so long aloft.”

“Berkley don’t take cold easily, because he is so fat,” Maximus said sleepily, cracking open an eye, “but I would also like to go and fight.”

So that was settled, but for the rest, Temeraire scratched his head a little. “Gentius may as well come with us, without counting against our tally,” he said at last, “because it is not as though he can carry anyone or patrol: he is only staying here in Loch Laggan and sleeping. And we shall have Armatius to carry him. That would do very well for heavy-weights. I do not think I ought to take Majestatis or Ballista, for they are so very handy at managing the others, and I am not quite sure that everyone would mind so well, carrying the soldiers back and forth, if they were to leave also; and Requiescat, because no-one who is not a heavy-weight will argue with him, even if he must be told what orders to give.”

He was a little puzzled how to leave them behind without giving offense, however, until he hit on the notion of giving them rank instead. “You do not suppose Wellesley can mind?” he asked Laurence.

“It is a capital scheme,” Admiral Roland said in amusement, when Laurence had inquired of her. “Your militia had better be shifted under command of the Corps in any case, so we will make you a commodore instead of a colonel, and your officers shall be captains; although it will be damned difficult to manage epaulettes for them.”

“Oh, epaulettes,” Temeraire said, eagerly. A party of seamstresses had been recruited from the local villages around Loch Laggan to help sew carrying-harnesses, for the transport of the soldiers, and they were now induced to make up rosettes out of some of the leftover silk and leather. The results were not very like real epaulettes, nearer instead to enormous mop-heads of the brightest colors, with a little cloth of gold at the knotted center for some flash, and a great many ties to attach them to a bit of harness. But no-one minded that, in the least.

“I call that handsome,” Requiescat said, admiring the bright green knot upon his shoulder from every direction, craning his head nearly upside down, and even Majestatis did not quite manage to affect his usual degree of amused disdain and kept glancing back sidelong at his own: it was in red, to go against his cream-and-black, and looked almost as fine, Temeraire thought, as his own pale blue matched set: he of course had needed two.

“Yes, and if anyone should be particularly clever at helping you to manage, you may make them lieutenants, and they may have a smaller one,” Temeraire said. “So that is all settled,” he added to Laurence, “and for the rest, let us take some Yellow Reapers. Messoria and Immortalis, of course, because they are our wing-mates, and also the two best of our unharnessed, and that will do very well, because I also want Perscitia: she is very clever, and,” he confided, “if I leave her here she will offend someone, I am afraid. Anyway, we may need to manage some artillery.”

The Reapers quarrelled it out amongst themselves, and finally settled that Chalcedony and Gladius should come, and Cantarella should take charge of the rest staying behind, and have an epaulette. Moncey got one for command of the couriers—it was nearly as large as his head but pleased him very well—and Mi

So there was no quarrelling or ill-feeling at all in the end, which Temeraire felt a credit to his arrangements. “We are a very handsome company, are we not?” Temeraire asked Laurence, hoping to find him satisfied. “It is a pity about Iskierka, but no-one could quarrel with our choices, otherwise, I am sure.”

“Yes,” Laurence said.

“I have only been thinking,” Temeraire said, with a sidelong look; he hoped it would not seem selfish, “that it would be just as well, if we got back the rest of our crew: not that we are not perfectly comfortable as we are,” he added, “but a few more bellmen to manage some bombs, and it might be convenient to have Winston back, to help Fellowes—”

“Those who wished to return have done so,” Laurence said. “I ca

“Oh,” Temeraire said. “But—” and stopped. It had not occurred to him that the crew had chosen not to come back: that they had rather be elsewhere, on another dragon, and with another captain. It seemed very strange to him, when he was now a commodore, and must surely have been more impressive, if anything. He wondered if perhaps Laurence was mistaken, or only shy of asking for them: perhaps they did not even know that he and Laurence were free. “But surely Martin, at least, or Ferris, would come,” he said.

Laurence was very still a moment, and then he said, “Ferris has been dismissed the service,” only because, it seemed, the admirals imagined that Ferris had been of some help, even though he had done nothing at all.

“But then where is he?” Temeraire asked. If Ferris were not with some other dragon, it stood to reason he would rather be with them; but Laurence said with finality, “Any communication from me must be wholly unwelcome.”

Temeraire did not press him further, but privately he thought that perhaps he would write to Ferris: if he could get Emily or Sipho, perhaps, to take down a letter for him, and find out Ferris’s direction; and then a dragon he knew a little from Dover, Orchestia, landed in the courtyard. She was back from a patrol, and his own midwingman Martin was with her crew, his bright yellow hair standing out against his green coat.

“Mr. Martin,” Temeraire called out, seeing him go by, thinking perhaps to ask him over; and see if he knew, that Temeraire had been made commodore; and whether he was quite sure he would not prefer to go with them, on their own particular mission—

Martin started a little, at being named, and looked over; but then he turned his back and walked on into the citadel with the rest of Orchestia’s crew—not even a word, or a gesture, and he had always been so very friendly.

“Temeraire,” Laurence said, “you will oblige me very greatly if you will make no such gesture again.”

“No, I will not,” Temeraire said, much subdued; it was not only that Martin had ignored them: he had done it so very openly, as though he wanted everyone else to know he meant to do it. There was something particularly unpleasant to it: anyone might not feel like conversation, of course, but this was showing away how little he wanted it with them, in particular. “But,” Temeraire said to Laurence, slowly, “does that mean he does not approve, that we took over the cure? Surely he would not have wished to see all those dragons dead—”