Empire of Ivory (30 page)

Demane showed them the trick of catching the plentiful

local pheasants, by driving them towards a waiting

collaborator with a net, and these, roasted quickly on a

spit and rounded out with ship's biscuit, made the company

a dinner pleasant enough: the birds not the least gamy,

having fed evidently only on the local grass-seeds and

berries.

Now the dragons had curled around the borders of their

camp; protection enough to ward off any nightly dangers;

the crews had arranged themselves for sleep on beds of

crumpled brush, coats used haphazardly for pillows, or were

playing at dice and cards in distant corners, murmuring

their wagers and occasionally a cry of victory or despair.

The boys, who had been eating like wolves, and already

looked rather better fleshed, were stretched upon the

ground at Mrs. Erasmus's feet. She had persuaded them to

put on some loose duck trousers, sewn by girls from the

mission; her husband was methodically laying out for them

on the ground, one at a time, stiff picture-cards showing

objects to be identified in their language, and rewarding

them with doled-out sweetmeats while she noted down the

answers in her log-book.

Warren prodded the fire with a long branch, idly, and

Laurence felt at last that they were near enough alone to

satisfy discretion; that he might speak, however awkwardly.

"No; I did not know about the child," Warren said, with not

the least discomfiture at the inquiry, but gloomily. "It is

a bad business: God forbid she should come to a bad pass

here; that little runner of yours is the only girl we have,

and she is no wise ready to make a captain, even if Lily

would have her. And what the devil we should do for

Excidium if she did, I would like to know; the admiral

cannot be running about having another child now, with

Bonaparte on the other side of the Channel, ready to toss

his glove across at any minute.

"I damned well hope you have been taking precautions? But I

am sure Roland knows her business," Warren added, without

waiting for reply; just as well, as Laurence had never been

asked a question he would have less liked to answer; all

the more as it had abruptly and appallingly illuminated

certain curious habits of Jane's, which he had never

brought himself to inquire into, and her regular

consultations of the calendar.

"Oh, pray don't take me wrong," Warren said,

misunderstanding Laurence's fixed expression. "I don't mean

to carp in the least; accidents will happen, and Harcourt

has had every excuse for distraction. Bad enough for us,

these last months, but what the devil was ever to become of

her? Half-pay would keep body and soul together, but money

don't make a woman respectable. That is why I asked you,

before, about the fellow; I thought, if Lily died, they

might make a match of it."

"She has no family?" Laurence asked.

"None left, none to speak of. She is old Jack Harcourt's

daughter-he was a lieutenant on Fluitare. He cut straps in

the year two, damned shame; but at least he knew she'd been

tapped for Lily, by then," Warren said. "Her mother was a

girl down Plymouth way, near the covert there. She went off

in a fever when Catherine was scarce old enough to crawl,

and no relations to take her in: that is how she was thrown

on the Corps."

Laurence said, "Then, under the present circumstances-I

know it is damned officious, but if she has no one else,

ought one not speak to him? Of the child, I mean," he added

awkwardly.

"Why, what is there for him to do?" Warren said. "If it is

a girl, God willing, the Corps needs her with both hands;

and if it is a boy, he could go to sea instead, I suppose;

but whatever for? It can only hurt him there, to be a byblow, and meanwhile a captain's son in the Corps is pretty

sure to get a dragon, if he has any merit of his own."

"But that is what I mean," Laurence said, puzzled to find

himself so misunderstood. "There is no reason the child

must be illegitimate; they might easily be married at

once."

"Oh, oh," Warren said, dawning wonder, confusion. "Why,

Laurence, no; there's no sense in it, you must see that. If

she had been grounded, it might have answered; but thank

God, no need to think of that anymore, or anything like,"

and he jerked his chin gladly at the tightly lidded box

which held the fruits of their day's labors, to be carried

back to Capetown in the morning: Lily would certainly be

the next recipient. "A comfortable wife she would make him,

with orders to follow and a dragon to look after; I dare

say they would not see one another one year in six, him

posted to one side of the world and she to the other, ha!"

Laurence was little satisfied to find his sentiments so

unaffectedly laughed at, but more so for the uncomfortable

sensation that there was some rational cause for so

dismissive an answer; and he was forced to go to sleep with

his resolution yet unformed.

Chapter 9

"MR. KEYNES," CATHERINE said, cutting through the raised

voices, "perhaps you will be so good as to explain to us

what alternative you prefer, to Mr. Dorset's suggestion."

Experience had improved on their rate of return, a little,

and Nitidus had carried their spoils back to Capetown

daily; so they returned, after a tired and dusty week, to

find Lily dosed, Messoria and Immortalis also, and a small

and putrid heap of mushrooms yet remaining. Of these, two

had been preserved in oil, two in spirits of wine, two only

wrapped in paper and oilcloth, and the lot boxed neatly up

with the receipt for the cure. They would be sent back to

England by the Fiona, which had been held back this long

for their report: she would go with the tide.

But there was no sentiment of triumph at their dinner back,

only muted satisfaction; at best the results of all their

hunting would not do for more than three dragons; six if

the surgeons back in Dover took the risk of halving the

dose, or used it on smaller beasts, and that only if all

three methods preserved whatever virtue the mushrooms held;

Dorset would have liked to dry some, also, but there were

not enough of them for this final experiment.

"Well, we are not going to do any better, not unless we

hire an army of men and hounds; and where to get them, you

may tell me and much obliged," Warren said, holding the

bottle in one hand as he drained his glass in the other, so

he might refill the tumbler straight away. "Nemachaen is a

clever little beast," meaning the dog, who had acquired

this grandiose name after the lion, courtesy of some of the

younger ensigns presently being subjected to a haphazard

education in the classics, "but there is only so much

blasted forest we can hack through in a day, to find one

mushroom or two at a time when we need scores of the

things."

"We must have more hunters," Laurence said, but they were

rather in danger of losing those they had; the agreed-on

week having passed, Demane gave signs of wishing for

himself and Sipho to be returned to their home village with

their reward. Laurence with many unpleasant pangs of

conscience had refused to immediately understand his signs,

and instead had taken him to see the pen near the castle,

where the cow had been set aside: a large, handsome milch

cow, placid, with her six-months' calf browsing the grass

beside her; the boy ducked through the fence slats and

slipped in to touch her soft brown side with cautious,

almost wary delight. He looked at the calf, and back at

Laurence, a question in his face; Laurence nodded to say

they would give him the other, too. Demane came out,

protests silenced by this species of bribery, and Laurence

went away feeling that he had behaved himself like a

desperate scrub; he hoped very much the boys did not have

family to be made anxious for them, although he had rather

gained the impression they were orphaned, and at the very

least neglected.

"Too slow," Dorset said, very decidedly despite his

stammer. "Too slow, by half. All the searching in the

world-we will only help to stamp it out. It has been the

target of systematic eradication; we cannot hope to find

much nearby. Who knows how long, how many years, the

herdsmen have been digging it up. We must go away, farther

away, where it may yet grow in quantity-"

"Perfect speculation," Keynes snapped, "on which to

recommend the pursuit of wild chances. How much distance

will satisfy you? I dare say all the continent has been

used for herding, at some time or another. To risk the

formation, dragons scarcely risen from their sickbeds, and

go deep into feral territory, on such a hope? The height of

folly-"

The argument rose, grew warm, surged across the table;

Dorset's stammer grew more violent so he was scarcely

comprehensible, and Gaiters and Waley, Maximus's and Lily's

surgeons, were ranged with Keynes against him; until at

last Catherine had silenced all of them, standing up to

make her demand with her hands planted on the cloth.

"I do not quarrel with your concern," she added, more

quietly, "but we did not come here to find a cure only for

ourselves. You have heard the latest dispatches; nine more

dead since March, and by now more gone, when we could not

spare any of them in the least." She looked at Keynes

steadily. "Is there any hope?"

He was silent, displeased, and only with a surly lowering

look allowed there to be some chance of a better harvest,

farther away; she nodded and said, "Then we will endure the

risk, and be glad that our own dragons are well enough to

do so."

There was no question, yet, of sending Maximus, who had

only lately begun to try at flying again: with a deal of

flapping and kicking up dust, often ending only in an

exhausted collapse; he could not quite manage the launching

spring, which was necessary to get him aloft, although once

in the air could remain for some time. Keynes shook his

head and felt at his paunchy sides.

"The weight is coming back unevenly. You are doing your

exercises?" he demanded; Maximus protested that he was.

"Well, if we cannot get you in the air, we must find you

room to walk," Keynes said, and so Maximus had been set to

making a circuit of the town, back and forth several times

daily: the only stretch of cleared ground large enough for

him, as he could not go far up the mountain-slopes without

pulling them down in small avalanches.

No-one was very happy with this solution: ridiculous to

have a dragon the size of a frigate ambling about like a

lap-dog on an airing, and Maximus complained of the hard

ground, and the pebbles which introduced themselves into

his talons. "I do not notice them at first," he said

unhappily, while Berkley's runners struggled with hoofpicks and knives and tongs to pry them out from under the

hard, callused hide around the base of the claws, "not

until they are quite far down, and then I cannot easily say

how very unpleasant it becomes."

"Why do you not swim, instead?" Temeraire said. "The water

is very pleasant here, and perhaps you might catch a

whale," which suggestion brightened Maximus remarkably, and

infuriated the fishermen, particularly the owners of the

larger boats; they came in a body to protest.

"I am damned sorry to put you out," Berkley said to them.

"You may come with me, and tell him yourselves you do not

like it."

Maximus continued his outings, in peace, and might be seen

daily paddling about the harbor. Sadly the whales and

dolphins and seals, too clever by half, stayed well-clear

of him, much to his disappointment: he did not much like

tunny or sharks, the latter of which occasionally beat

themselves against his limbs in confused fits perhaps

provoked by some traces of blood or flesh from his latest

repast: on one occasion he brought back one of these to

show, a monster some nineteen feet in length, weighing

close on two tons, with its angry snoutish face full of

teeth. He had lifted the shark straight out of the water

whole, and when he laid it down on the parade grounds

before them, it abruptly went into a paroxysm of thrashing:

knocking over Dyer, two ensigns, and one of the Marines,

snapping and gnashing furiously at the air, before Dulcia

managed to pin it to the ground with her foretalons.

Messoria and Immortalis, both older beasts, were perfectly

happy to lie in the parade grounds and sleep in the sun,

after their short daily flights for exercise; but Lily,

having stopped coughing, shortly displayed that same

restless energy which had overcome Dulcia, and began to

insist on activity. But if she were to go flying anywhere,

she must go far abroad, where a stray lingering sneeze or

cough would not spray anyone below; Keynes, quite ignoring