League of Dragons (21 page)

“The old ways of war are done, Captain. You have seen their death-knell,” Napoleon added. “The army which can bring more power to bear upon the battlefield, more quickly, will always be the victor: the weight of metal and of men will carry the day—if their generals are wise. You were at Tsarevo Zaimische?”

“I was,” Laurence said, surprised to hear the Emperor now at last mention anything of the campaign: although in some wise the battle had been his triumph.

“What a morning that was!” Napoleon said. “A little of my own sauce, as they say: to be woken in the first hours of the day to hear of five hundred dragons coming for me. You ought to have had me! But you could not bring your full weight to bear.” His face was illuminated again with vivid satisfaction; he seized upon a scrap of writing paper and a pen, and with a quick hand sketched out the defensive emplacements, his own forces behind their wall of defensive guns and the narrow corridor left; the Russian Army and the Chinese legions spread wide before it. “—You did not do as you ought. If you had committed your forces decisively, you must have overwhelmed us, and secured a complete victory, the destruction of my army. But you permitted caution to rule you,” he finished, flipping the pen from his fingers with a shrug; and Laurence knew well that no one would ever say the same of this man.

Napoleon stood studying his own diagram a moment longer, then abruptly said, “Come, let us go and take the air—you are no delicate courtier; you are a soldier,” and Laurence had no objection to make; indeed agreed heartily, privately hoping for a glimpse of Temeraire somewhere upon the grounds.

The gardens of Fontainebleau had been expanded and transformed into a covert, but not resembling any Western notion of that word. Large and imposing pavilions were made private by stands of young trees and elaborate trellises of vines, fountains playing among them: something from an imagined pastoral landscape, only with dragons instead of sheep. Dragons of every description: smaller feral-looking beasts, heavy-weights in every color and conformation, until Laurence, at first bewildered by the variety, spied down a narrow walk the heavy sinuous curve of a Kazilik dragon, unmistakably marked by the steam-hissing spines.

But the dragon was not Iskierka: the hide considerably more black-green, and Laurence realized only then that these were not all French beasts. These were dragons from every corner of the world: besides the Turkish beast, he caught sight of several not unlike Arkady and his fellow Pamir-dwellers; over there to the north a huddled group of Russian ferals, lean and savage-looking; in a green-marbled pavilion along their way a pair of dragons conversing in broad colonial English. And as they turned back for the house, Laurence saw a dragon he was sure he recognized: Dikeledi, one of the beasts of the Tswana, whom he had last seen sailing for Africa with a transport full of slaves liberated from the Brazilian plantations.

The dragon took notice of him also, peering back curiously, then turned to speak to a man—to Moshueshue, Laurence realized in deepening astonishment; the crown prince of the Tswana, here? Nothing could account for it, but to suppose that Napoleon had somehow gathered all these dragons here, in secret. Questions trembled on Laurence's lips, although constrained: he was an enemy of France. And yet Napoleon had brought them here of his own volition; he had not needed to promenade Laurence about the grounds, inevitably to notice the presence of so many foreign beasts. Laurence asked, therefore, only a little diffidently.

“What secrecy has been necessary?” Napoleon said. “
You,
Captain Laurence, know well the willful ignorance cultivated by my enemies of the lives of dragons. I have made no efforts at concealment: what use, when my couriers have gone throughout the world, and spoken with dragons in every part of it? We could not have expected them all to keep it secret, if we wished to. If you have had no intelligence of our convocation, it is no doing of mine: you see there we have even Russian beasts among us.” He gave a disparaging snort. “Your old men and generals will not have it that dragons are thinking creatures, and throw a few coins at them to keep them contented. What do they know of it, when my couriers land even in their own breeding grounds, and speak to the creatures they have penned up and expect to remain quiescent even in the face of their outright destruction? You may be sure that the pitiable condition of the Russian ferals has not been forgotten
here
—those monstrous wing-chains! I wonder that you can with complacency range yourself with the architects of such cruelty.”

Laurence could not easily answer this charge. He might have said that Napoleon had been little kinder in leaving them to starve and be hunted down, all so that they might wreak havoc among the Russian supply-lines. He might have said that the Russians had been on the point of freeing the ferals. But he could not bring himself to make these arguments. He would have chosen starvation over slavery, himself, and the Russians had been no less calculating in their decision than Napoleon: they had planned to make their ferals into troop-carriers, and that decision had been made only under the duress of Napoleon's own lightning-quick advances. In truth, he had nearly resigned his post and gone when he had learned of the brutalities by which the Russian ferals were kept confined to their breeding grounds: only Kutuzov's assurances that the ferals would be freed, under his and Temeraire's own supervision, had kept them at their post.

“Not with complacency,” Laurence said finally. “But war makes strange bedfellows, sir.”

“By your decision,” Napoleon said sternly, as though chiding a low subordinate. “You know the masters you serve: you cannot expect otherwise under their rule.” Laurence closed his mouth on a reply: he could make none that would be civil, nor politic, to an emperor and a gaoler. Napoleon presently seemed to think better of his tone; he added, “But I will not wound you with reproaches! I know
your
conscience is not of that soft metal, which bends before a wind.”

True to his word, the Emperor instead returned to enlarging upon those plans he had earlier described—which seemed now less grandiose, if he meant to accomplish them by an alliance with all the dragons of the world, direct: an unlikely but not impossible endeavor, Laurence thought. The evils of the condition of dragons in nearly every nation of the West, and the wholly unimproved situation of most ferals, would offer a fertile ground for Napoleon's proposals: if he could afford them, which seemed the greatest bar.

“But now you must pardon me,” Napoleon said, when they had circled back into sight of the palace. “The guards will see you back to the house. You have my word, Captain, that I will see you are given the chance to speak with your dragons soon, and as often, henceforth, as safety can allow—I know well how bitter that separation must be!”

He left them, walking swiftly away down one of the garden paths towards an exceptionally beautiful pavilion of black marble here and there adorned with gold, and set upon the bank of a lake; and as he went a great white dragon head lifted to greet him—Lien's voice musical as she called a greeting in French.

He had
that
weapon, too—and an immensely dangerous one. Laurence had seen too many times for his present satisfaction how the power and grace and swift intelligence of a Celestial united to command the respect of other dragons, particularly if supported by self-interest: how many times and how easily Temeraire had persuaded other dragons to act in concert, and tolerate without resentment his leadership.

“Well, we had better hope they eat him out of all the cattle in France for a month or two, and then go home again,” Granby said, with an equal pessimism. “I don't suppose he
can
talk them all round, but Lord! If he did, it would be a nasty business. Those purple ones near the oak-trees were Nilgiri Cutters out of Madras, or I am a donkey-herder: I dare say
they
would be glad to serve us out—if he would only give them harness, and guns and powder, and a few dozen cannon to back them! But he would have to stretch a long way to find anything that could make a dragon in the Pamirs care a fig for anything that he says in France, without sending them a chest of gold with every command; or in Japan, I suppose,” he added in challenge, to Junichiro, who had accompanied them to their stoop: every outer room in the palace had been altered, to have large wide doors that opened onto the grounds, evidently to permit dragons to share in the life of the house.

Junichiro paused by the door; then he said quietly, “You are mistaken, Captain Granby: he has already made all those beasts a gift which commands both their interest and respect—the cure of the dragon plague.”

“I
T IS INTOLERABLY UNFAIR,”
Temeraire said, feeling all the indignation of having done a good deed at great cost, nobly expecting no reward, only to see another get both the credit of it and the unexpected fortune of the result. “What has Lien done for any of them, or Napoleon;
they
did not find the cure. Oh! When I think of all those hideous messes that Keynes inflicted upon me; even now I cannot but shudder if I get a smell of bananas, sometimes.”

“Napoleon however had the power of passing it on,” Tharkay said. “I imagine there are few threats which dragons can feel so immediately as disease; the gift must have commanded gratitude.”

Temeraire wished to ask—longed to ask—if Laurence was distressed. His only hesitation was fear of the answer. “Still, I do not see why any of them should give Napoleon the credit of the cure. He would not have had it to give, if Laurence and I had not given it to him.”

“Just so,” Tharkay said, in his dry way. “And now you and Captain Laurence are here at the convocation, to be seen in his company; I am sure Napoleon is delighted to be able to present such a portrait of amity to his assembled visitors. The arrangement must have recommended itself to him highly: enough to make it worth letting the Prussian dragons go, and lure you here.”

“So it is all due to you that we are here,” Iskierka said severely, as Temeraire sinkingly let his head drop to the ground. “—I might have known.”

“Surely no-one would suppose we are here of our own volition,” he tried.

“I do not expect Napoleon means to give you any opportunity of explaining the situation to his other guests,” Tharkay said, very loweringly.

Temeraire had anyway to be glad of the visit, because Tharkay could tell him that Laurence and Granby were housed sumptuously in the palace, treated with enormous respect and every attention to their comfort: a little gratifying, at least. Temeraire brought himself finally to ask, “And—is he well?”

Tharkay paused and said, “His health improves daily. His spirits are as well-supported as might be expected,” which was to say, Laurence was very distressed, and Temeraire did not need to trouble himself to find the cause: to be paraded about by Napoleon, so everyone should think he supported the Emperor's designs—knowing that whatever these should be, they would certainly mean nothing good for England.

It
was
intolerable, Temeraire realized, with a kind of terrible blankness—the situation could not be tolerated. He did not need to ask whether Laurence should have preferred to be put in prison, or even hanged, sooner than be used in such a fashion; he knew the answer perfectly well. Indeed, Temeraire was quite certain that if left to himself long enough, Laurence would find a way to arrange something of the sort; it only fell to him to act, before that should become necessary.

“Will they let you come again?” he asked Tharkay, slowly, wondering how to speak: a party of some ten guards had come with him, and stood rudely all the while in ear-shot; Tharkay had said, “I believe these gentlemen would prefer greatly that we should converse in French,” when he had come: they were certainly going to report every word.

“I believe I will be permitted to come again next week,” Tharkay said.

“Very well,” Temeraire said. “Tharkay, will you pray tell Laurence that I beg his pardon, and tell him that I hope he knows how—how highly I value him, and that I should never wish to act in any fashion that would give him cause to doubt my respect and esteem.”

Tharkay paused, looking at him for some long moments, after this speech. “I will certainly assure him, if assurances are required,” he said. “I hope to see you next week, then; although I suppose we must not depend upon it, until the event.”

“Yes, of course,” Temeraire said, so he was tolerably certain Tharkay had understood, as far as it was possible for him to understand.

Then he had gone, escorted away back to the house; their own guards were eating their suppers, far enough away to be inattentive. Temeraire turned to Iskierka. “We cannot wait any longer,” he said. “We must rescue the egg.”

“
I
do not disagree;
I
have been saying so from the beginning,” Iskierka said, swallowing down a haunch of nicely roasted kid with an easy gulp. “I am glad that you are coming round at last. I would have gone and taken it already, but there are too many of those guards. And I could not see how I would go and get Granby, afterwards. Have you thought of something clever? You ought to, since this business is all your doing, anyway.”

“No,” Temeraire said, “I have thought of nothing clever, it is not clever at all; it is only dreadful. We cannot do it: we cannot take the egg without some noise, and they will lay hands on Laurence and Granby at once. There will be no getting at them.”

“What use is there in bleating ‘we cannot wait,' then?” Iskierka demanded, with an irritated jetting of steam.

“That is what I mean,” Temeraire said. “We must take the egg, anyway.”

Iskierka hissed at him, bristling up. “And let them
keep
Granby?”

“Yes,” Temeraire said, almost choking: scarcely able to think of it. Laurence alone in Lien's power, and surely the object of her malice. “Napoleon cannot execute them. Not when he is busily pretending Laurence is his good friend, and quite in amity with him; he cannot harm him at all. It would certainly look very strange to all the dragons here, if he did. So this is our only chance. We must go and take the egg, and—and we must leave Laurence and Granby behind.”

“Temeraire is certainly planning something,” Tharkay said, “but as to the details, I cannot speculate, except that he evidently supposed you might feel slighted.”

“That tells me nothing, unless he means to lose me another ten thousand pounds,” Laurence said grimly.

“Had we better try and stop them?” Granby said. “You know there is no use hoping that cooler minds will prevail, on their end. The madder the notion, the more sure it is to please Iskierka: I would not depend on her to restrain Temeraire from launching a headlong charge on Paris and trying to bring down the Tuileries.”

“I cannot see how you mean to do so,” Tharkay said, “unless by betraying their intentions to our gaolers, which will certainly preclude any future chance of escape. You can either trust them, or halt them forever.”

Placed upon these terms, Laurence found his own decision easy, if no more comfortable. “That trust I can hardly deny him. The egg is no longer in mortal peril, nor are we. I do not think Temeraire suffers in his present situation the same desperation that drove him to those earlier extremes, which brought us to this pass; he may certainly wish to escape, but I do not believe he would enter into some real folly, in pursuit of that aim, which would endanger the egg or our lives. I do not deny he might overestimate his chances, as judged rationally by a more skeptical eye. But I cannot remove his power of taking action, only because I have no means of approving his course.”

“Well, it would be an unhandsome turn to serve him, I don't deny,” Granby said, “but what good can he possibly do while we sit here in the midst of Bonaparte's armies? If I could think of anything at all worth the doing, I should be less concerned about his getting up to something. I will be the first to say it is a wrench, going from Spain to a French prison—however pleasant,” he added, with a reluctant justice almost demanded by their surroundings.

It had not been enough for Napoleon to see them established in a palatial suite of his own home, attended by servants, made comfortable in every particular. The fire now roared so enthusiastically that they had been obliged to open the doors to the garden to avoid stifling; an urn of silver magnificence dazzled from the sideboard, of a capacity sufficient to three men if those three men had nursed the ambition to drown themselves in tea like Clarence in malmsey; and they had but risen from a handsome turbot filleted in wine and a beef roast of melting tenderness, with six removes and a dish of magnificent oysters with which even Laurence's most exacting standards could have found not the least fault. And Chicken Marengo, it had to be admitted, was excellent, even if there was something vaguely unpatriotic in the enjoyment thereof, and of all their present comforts.

Laurence would have refused every such gesture if offered in exchange for the least form of cooperation; he would have welcomed, indeed, a chance of making such a refusal. But he had not been asked for so much as his parole. He could not easily put aside the dinner laid before him and demand to be fed on gruel and water, or housed in a damp cell, without rudeness and absurdity united; and even if he had, an acquiescence to his wishes would have been a worse, as being a greater, favor: the power to direct his own arrangements. There would have been too much of the quixotic guest about it, instead of the resisting prisoner. He could only share in Granby's feelings, when he lamented the battlefield.

“We have been doing some proper work, too,” Granby said, dispiritedly, “and I was beginning to feel I did not have to blush every time I caught Admiral Roland's eye: do you know, after Salamanca, even Wellington sent us a bullock from his own pocket, and a note I dare say I treasure better than a knighthood:
I congratulate you on the disciplined performance of your beast and crew,
and it was even more than half-deserved. Iskierka snorted over it, and wanted me to write back that
she
congratulated
him,
that not so many of his men had run away from the battle as usual, but I assure you she has been listening better than I had ever hoped to see. She has even, from time to time, condescended to give a little thought to her actions beforehand—and now
this,
” and Granby sighed.

Laurence sighed also. As little pleasure as he had found amidst the grim brutality of the Russian campaign, he, too, would have exchanged his place without hesitation for the coldest and most cheerless camp of all the winter. “But I will not accept that nothing remains to us but to sit quiet in prison,” he said, “if only because Napoleon himself evidently sees more for us to do, if only to be displayed as a jewel upon a cushion.”

He looked at the open doors—guarded discreetly but thoroughly by six young, hearty, and exceptionally tall soldiers in the uniforms of the Imperial Guard who stood stoically outside upon the stoop. The senior of these, a fellow named Aurigny, had presented himself earlier: he was not much above twenty-and-five, and there was something cheerful in the lines of his ruddy, wind-weathered face, but he had been serious while in conversation: “I hope, m'sieur, there will be no occasion for our disagreeing with anything you should wish,” a phrase that captured to a nicety his peculiar orders: to guard prisoners, but without giving any offense, save of course the deepest one of removing their liberty. A little absurd, but suggestive that so long as Laurence cut his desires to the cloth of his imprisonment, he should not meet with contradiction. He would not be permitted to go near Temeraire, surely, but—

“If I asked to walk about the grounds, to take the air,” Laurence said after a moment, “the guards would not like to refuse me, I think.”

“Where the dragons can see you?” Tharkay said. “No, I imagine not, when displaying you is indeed the Emperor's aim.”

“Very well,” Laurence said. “I will accept that cost, and exchange it for the opportunity, which I hope that my walking the grounds will allow, to try and have a word with Moshueshue. I hope he will remember me; and though we spoke only a little, and once, he impressed himself upon me in that meeting as a reasonable man, nor have the Tswana shown the least inclination to fall in with France for any other than the most practical reasons. At least he may tell me the purpose of this conclave; he has no reason to conceal it, and afterwards he will have the power of telling the other guests, where I myself cannot, that my presence here is unwilling, and that I do not in the least endorse Napoleon's designs.”