Victory of Eagles

“They won’t have better houses for us there,” she said. “Whatever you can bring us, we’ll thank you for, Captain, and we will manage; they didn’t find all there was to find.” She did not say, aloud, that they had now fewer mouths to feed.

The Yellow Reapers were a while in returning, and came back with an air of grim satisfaction, bloodstained, carrying also some dead cattle and deer.

“I will venture a little farther,” Laurence said. “We will not encamp yet, but we will raid farther south, as far as we can fly in and out again in a day.”

“Just as well,” Little said, low. “Let them look over their shoulders, everywhere in England,” to a murmur of agreement. The French had thus reconciled them all to their mission; few of the captains anymore looked askance at their attacks, or urged quarter. Laurence heard it without satisfaction.

“I am sure I can fly a little quicker, if I try,” Maximus put in; they held their conferences out in the air, so the dragons might listen in.

Some four days later, summoned by another column of smoke, they found and destroyed another raiding party at Wollaton. Flying back from the battlefield, with the corpses left behind dark and crimson on the snow, Laurence saw one after another the blackened husks of houses he knew, familiar. Great houses were burning everywhere, ideal targets: their cellars full of wine and brandy, their pantries laden for winter. The Galman estate yet stood, but deserted, with a ragpicker’s wares strewn all over the courtyard: curtains and carpets, torn and trodden into mud, and more hanging out of the shattered windows. The stables were burnt to the ground, and the old lily-pond, where he had used to walk with Edith, choked upon the bloated corpse of a horse, torn at the haunches where dogs had got to it.

He knew he must expect to find Wollaton Hall itself burnt, and only hope his family had managed to flee in time. He was steeled for it, he thought; at least he could contemplate the possibility without a feeling of anything more than a calm and distant regret. Then they came over the lake, and Wollaton Hall stood upon the crest of its hill, untouched, with light in the windows and neat thin trails of smoke only from the chimneys; gilt and golden, and deer bounding away urgently.

They landed in the park; the dragons went to hunt. Laurence climbed a ridge and stood looking at the house with a sense almost of unreality: twilight was deepening as he watched, and in the muted light the edges of the house blurred. “Well, it is good luck,” Harcourt said to him, uncertainly.

“You will pardon me,” he said. “I will not be long,” and he walked across the lawn towards the house. The hedge-rows were trimmed, and the walks had been swept of snow; there was a murmur of noise and life, louder as he came to the house, until standing in the formal gardens he might look in through the glass at the candle-lit ballroom, full of people, standing and sitting and lying, on pallets and on camp-beds: cottagers he recognized, others from the village.

“Here now, what are you about? You may come to the front, if you’re wanting something,” someone said to Laurence, making him start: a young gardener, scowling and holding a rake as though he would do something with it.

“I am William Laurence,” he said. “Is Lady Allendale here?”

She came out to him, wrapped in a cloak against the chill: wool only, and not her furs. “Will, my dear,” she said, “are you well? Have you come alone—”

“We are encamped in the park, to hunt only,” Laurence said. “We leave again as soon as the dragons are fed: are you well? And my father?”

“As well as anyone could expect, with all this upheaval,” she said. “He knows a little of what has happened: he knows you are with the Corps again,” she added, anxiously.

He said nothing; there was nothing to be proud of, in the service he was giving. “I am glad to find you unmolested,” he said after a moment; strangely reluctant. “We came over the village—I hope Lord and Lady Galman are well.”

Lady Allendale, too, hesitated. “Yes, they stay with us.”

He paused again, and reaching into his coat brought out the ring, in the small envelope of paper he had folded around it. “I wish that I had not—I am sorry to bear ill-tidings,” he said. “Mr. Woolvey was killed, in London—I have kept it to send to Edith, when that might be possible. If her parents might—”

“Yes, we had word,” she said, low and unhappy, and took it from him; she curled her hand around the envelope, and her face looked drawn.

“He died well,” Laurence said, “if that can be said; he died bravely, at least, in service to the Crown.”

She nodded, and they stood silently; a little snow yet was falling, white flecks upon her dark cloak. “Tell me,” he said, finally.

“An officer came, and gave us the Emperor’s compliments, and assurances that we would never be harmed,” she said. “None of the raiding parties have come here; even lately, when they are pillaging everywhere—”

“Yes,” Laurence said, stopping her. “I understand,” and understood also his own dread; of course. Bonaparte had managed to pay him for his treason, after all.

“We can shelter a great many more,” she said quietly, after a moment. “Our stores, also, are untouched, if there are any you would like to send to us.”

“If you can send a cart to Wollaton,” he said, “they were struck this morning, and have wounded.”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “Can you not stay the night?”

With an effort, he kept himself from recoiling, and only touched his hat. “I must beg your pardon; we have some hours yet to fly tonight,” he said, and bowed, and turned; the lights of the house glittered on the snow as he walked away.

TEMERAIRE HAD GOT THREE DEER, despite their springiness, and felt rather pleased with the world until Laurence came back from the house, pale, and refused his share of di

Laurence paused, and looked over his shoulder. Temeraire looked, too, and thought the house looked very like a jewel itself; the pale yellow stone glowed with light, warm and inviting, coming out of so many windows in so interesting a variety of shapes; all the dozens of intricate towers and ornaments in perfect order.

“I will never come here again,” Laurence said, and pulled himself up the harness. “Let us be away.”

It was all of a piece; Laurence was not himself at all, and Temeraire was increasingly certain they would never make matters right this way. They had taken no prizes whatsoever all their long weeks of raiding: the French soldiers had nothing but the food they had stolen, not even a ca

What battles they did have were over very quickly. Perscitia had devised a method of tearing up tall yew-trees, with bushy tops and smooth long trunks, and dragging their crowns along the ground during a diving rush. It was most convenient: the soldiers could simply be swept away by the dozens, and the branches sheltered one from the musket-fire; so there was no risk at all. The chief difficulty was to keep the men from scattering, and it felt rather unpleasant and odd to be chasing anyone so very small who would just as soon have run away; even if, as Messoria explained, they would only regroup and go stealing again. It was not the sort of fighting Temeraire had looked for, even though everyone else seemed to approve.

“Where is the rest of the army, I should damn well like to know! But at least you fellows are showing the Frogs what-for,” one stout elderly gentleman said, thumping his stick on the floor for emphasis. They had stopped a raiding party outside a village in Derbyshire, and the children were brought out to see them all. A few of the older boys, very bold, came ru