Empire of Ivory (51 page)

of the last threat of invasion, in the year four, at the

time unaware of Temeraire's real breed or his particular

curious ability of the divine wind and thinking him instead

an Imperial: still a most valuable breed, but not as

vanishingly rare.

"So I had heard," Celeritas said. "Why are you here?"

"Oh," Temeraire said. "Well-"

Laurence let himself down and stepped forward. "I beg your

pardon, sir; we are here from London, for some of the

mushrooms: may I ask where they are kept?" They had

resolved on this brazen frontal assault, as offering the

best chance of success; even if Temeraire might look

daunted now.

Celeritas snorted. "They are nursing the things like eggs:

downstairs, in the baths," he said. "You will find Captain

Wexler at table, I believe; he is commander of the fort

now," and turned to Temeraire inquisitively, while

Temeraire went hunching steadily down. Laurence did not

like to leave him alone, to face all the pain of lying in

the face of the friendly, unwary curiosity of his old

training master, but there was no time: Celeritas would

soon begin to wonder, at the absence of their crew, and the

most hardened liar could scarcely have concealed this

treachery for long.

It was strange to walk the corridors again, now familiar

instead of alien; the cheerful roar of the communal diningtables, which he could hear around the corners, like the

blurred continuous noise of a distant cataract: welcoming,

and yet closed to him utterly; he felt himself already set

apart. There were no servants in the halls, likely all of

them busy with the dinner service, but for one small lad

running by with a stack of clean napkins, who did not give

him a second glance.

Laurence did not go to Captain Wexler: his excuse could not

withstand the absence of orders, of any real explanation;

instead he went directly to the narrow, humid stairway

which led down to the baths, and in the dressing room put

off swiftly his boots, his coat, flung down upon the

shelves with his sword laid down beside them; his trousers

and shirt he left on, and taking with him a towel went into

the great tiled steam room. He could see dimly a few

somnolent forms drowsing, but in the clouds no faces could

be easily made out, and he moved on with quick purpose; no

one spoke to him, until he had nearly reached the far door,

then a fellow lying with a towel over his face lifted it

off. Laurence did not know him: an older lieutenant

perhaps, or a younger captain, with a thick bristling

mustache dripping water off its corners. "Beg pardon," he

said.

"Yes?" Laurence said, stiffening.

"Be a good fellow and shut the door quick, if you mean to

go through," the man said, and putting himself down covered

his face again.

Laurence did not understand, until he had opened the door

to the large bathing-room beyond and the thick miasmic

stench of the mushrooms assaulted him, mingled with the

pungent smell of a dragon-midden. He pulled the door to

behind him quickly, and put his hand over his face,

breathing deep through his mouth. The room was deserted,

nearly; the dragon eggs sat gleaming wetly in their niches,

safe behind the wrought-iron fence along the back of the

room, and beneath them on the floor great tubs of black

fertile soil, speckled reddish brown with dragon waste for

fertilizer, and mushrooms like round buttons poking from

the dirt.

There were two young Marines, undoubtedly without much

seniority, standing guard: very unhappy, and nearly red

enough in the face to match their coats from the room's

intense heat; their white trousers were stained with lines

of running dye. They looked at Laurence rather hopefully

as, if nothing else, a distraction; he nodded to them and

said, "I am come from Dover, for more of the mushrooms;

pray bring out one of those tubs."

They looked dubious, and hesitated; the older ventured,

"Sir, we aren't supposed to, unless the commander says so,

himself."

"Then I beg your pardon for the irregularity; my orders

said nothing of the sort," Laurence said. "Be so kind as to

send and confirm them, with him, if you please; I will wait

here," he said to the younger soldier, who did not stay to

be invited again, much to the poorly stifled outrage of the

older man: but he had the key, hanging from the chain on

his belt, so he could not be allowed to go.

Laurence waited as the metal door swung to again; waited;

the ship turning slowly through the wind, her broadside

coming to bear, the enemy's stern in sight; the clang

sounded, as a bell, and he struck the Marine a heavy blow,

just below the ear, as the man gazed scowling after his

fellow.

The man fell staggering to one knee, his face turning up in

surprise, his mouth opening; Laurence struck him again,

hard, his knuckles bursting and leaving smears of blood

along the Marine's cheekbone and jaw; the soldier fell

heavily and was still. Laurence found that he was breathing

raggedly. He had to steady his hands before he could

unlatch the key.

The tubs were of varied sizes, half-barrels of wood filled

with dirt, most of them large and unwieldy; Laurence seized

the smallest, and threw over it the towel he had brought,

hot and damp already only from the moist air of the baths.

He went out by the far door, walking quickly through the

rest of the circuit, back to the dressing rooms: still

deserted, but dinner would by now be far advanced, and men

left the tables as they pleased. He could expect

interruption at any moment; sooner if the Marine were more

inclined to be dutiful than dawdling, and reached the

commander. Laurence flung on his boots and coat haphazardly

over his wet things, and went up the stairs with the tub

balanced on his shoulder, his other hand gripping tight to

the rail: not recklessly; he did not mean to do this much,

and fail. He burst out into the hall, and went hurriedly

around a corner to straighten his clothes: if he were not

so plainly disordered, he would not make a spectacle enough

to draw conscious attention, he hoped, despite the odd

burden of the tub. The stench was not wholly muffled by the

covering linen, but it wafted behind him rather than

before.

The noise of the dining hall was indeed already less; he

heard voices, nearer, in the corridors; and passed a pair

of servants laden down with dirty dishes. Looking down

another corridor which crossed his own, he saw a couple of

young midwingmen go racing across from one door to the

next, shouting like boys, gleefully; in another moment he

heard more running footsteps, boots falling heavily, fresh

shouting: but the tone was very different.

He abandoned circumspection and ran, clumsy with the tub

and shifting it every moment, until he burst out onto the

ledge. Celeritas looked over at him with his dark green

eyes perplexed and doubtful; Temeraire said in a sudden

rush, "Pray forgive me, it is all a hum, we are taking them

to France so all the dragons there do not die, and tell

them Laurence did not like to do it, at all, only I

insisted upon it," not a pause for breath or punctuation,

and snatching Laurence with the tub up in his talons, he

flung himself away into the air.

They went rushing away bare moments before five men charged

out after them; bells were ringing madly, and Temeraire had

not settled Laurence back upon his neck before the beaconfire went alight and dragons came pouring out of the castle

grounds like smoke.

"Are you safe?" Temeraire cried.

"Go, go at once," Laurence shouted for an answer, lashing

harness-straps around the tub to hold it down before him,

and Temeraire whipped himself straight and flew, flew; the

pursuit was hot upon them. Not dragons whom Laurence knew:

there was one gangly-looking Anglewing, nearly in the lead,

and a few Winchesters gaining on them: not to much purpose,

but perhaps able to interfere a little with their flight,

and delay them for the others. Temeraire said, "Laurence, I

must go higher; are you warm enough?"

He was soaked through, and chilled to the skin already by

their flight, despite the overhanging sun. "Yes," he said,

and pulled his coat closer about him. A bank of clouds

pressed down upon the crowns of the mountains, and

Temeraire pushed into them, the clinging mist springing up

in fat droplets on the buckles, the waxed and oiled leather

of the harness, Temeraire's glossy scales. The dragons

chasing called to one another, roaring, and plunged in

after them, distant obscure shadows in the fog, their

voices echoing and muffled at odd alternate turns, so he

was scaling upwards through a strange and formless

landscape without direction, haunted by their ghostly

images.

He burst clear just short of a towering white mountainface, stark against the open blue, and Temeraire roared as

he came: a hammer-blow against the solid-packed ice and

snow; Laurence clung to the harness, shivering

involuntarily, as Temeraire pulled up nearly vertical,

climbing along the face of the mountain, and the pursuit

came chasing out of the clouds only to recoil from the

thundering, rolling, steady roar of avalanche, coming down

upon them like a week's snowstorm compressed into a

heartbeat: the Winchesters all squalling alarmed, and

scattering away from it like a flock of sparrows.

"South, due south," Laurence said, calling forward to

Temeraire, pointing him the way as they came over the peak

and broke away, losing the more distant followers. But

Laurence could see the beacons going up already down the

long line to the coast: the beacons which ordinarily would

have warned of invasion, instead now carrying the warning

in the other direction and ahead of them. Every covert,

every dragon would be alert, even without knowing what was

the matter precisely, and would try to stop them in their

flight. They could not fly in any direction which would

bring them upon a covert, and see them headed off and

caught between two forces; their only hope for an escape

lay along the more sparsely guarded North Sea coast, short

of Edinburgh. Yet they had also to be near enough to make

it across to the Continent; with Temeraire already tired.

Night would come, soon; three hours more would give them

the safety of dark. Three hours; Laurence wiped his face

against his sleeve, and huddled down.

Temeraire came at last exhausted to ground, in darkness,

six hours later; his pace had slackened, little by little,

the slow measured flap of his wings like a timepiece

winding down, until Laurence looking over had seen not a

single flickering light; not a shepherd's bonfire, not a

torch, as far as his sight could reach, and said at last,

"Down, my dear; you must have some rest."

He thought they were in Scotland still, or perhaps

Northumberland; he was not certain. They were well south of

Edinburgh and Glasgow, somewhere in a shallow valley; he

could hear water trickling nearby, but they were too tired

to go find it. He ate all his biscuit, ravenous suddenly,

and took the last of his grog, huddled up against the curve

of Temeraire's neck: it sprawled out untidily from his

body, his draggled wings; he slept as he had landed.

Laurence stripped to the skin, and laid his wet things out

on Temeraire's side, to let the native heat of the dragon's

body do what it might to dry them; then rolled himself in

his coat to sleep. The wind was cool enough, among the

mountains, to keep the chill upon his skin. Temeraire gave

a low rumbling murmur, somewhere in his belly, and

twitched; there was distantly a hurried rustling, a clatter

of frightened small hooves; but Temeraire did not wake.

The next he knew it was morning, and Temeraire was feasting

red-mouthed upon a deer, with another lying dead beside it;

he swallowed down his meal and looked at Laurence

anxiously. "It is quite nice raw, too, and I can tear it up

for you small; or perhaps you can use your sword?" he

suggested.

"No; I pray you eat it all. I have not been at hard labor

as have you: I can stand to be parted from my dinner a

little longer," Laurence said, getting up to scrub his face

in the small trickling creek, some ten paces only from

where they had collapsed, and to put back on his clothes.

Temeraire had attempted to spread them out upon a warm

sunny rock, with his claws: they were not very damp

anymore, but a little mauled about; at least the tears did

not show much, under the long coat.

After Temeraire had finished his breakfast, Laurence

sketched out the line of the North Sea coastline, and the

Continent. "We cannot risk going much south of York,"

Laurence said. "Once past the mountains the country is too