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temeraire gave a low growl of anger as he saw fire catch the sails of one of the frigates, instantly putting on another burst of speed to go after accendare; he had been hatched on deck, spent the first three weeks of his life at sea: the affection remained. laurence urged him on with word and touch, full of the same anger. intent on the pursuit and watching for other dragons who might be close enough to offer her support, laurence was startled out of his single-minded focus unpleasantly: croyn, one of the topmen, fell onto him before rolling away and off temeraire's back, mouth round and open, hands reaching; his carabiner straps had been severed.
he missed the harness, his hands slipping over temeraire's smooth hide; laurence snatched at him, uselessly: the boy was falling, arms flailing at the empty air, down a quarter of a mile and gone into the water: only a small splash; he did not resurface. another man went down just after him, one of the boarders, but already dead even as he tumbled slack-limbed through the air. laurence loosened his own straps and stood, turning around as he drew his pistols. seven boarders were still aboard, fighting very hard. one with lieutenant's bars on his shoulders was only a few paces away, engaged closely with quarle, the second of the midwingmen who had been set to guard laurence.
even as laurence got to his feet, the lieutenant knocked aside quarle's arm with his sword and drove a vicious-looking long knife into his side left-handed. quarle dropped his own sword and put his hands around the hilt, sinking, coughing blood. laurence had a wide-open shot, but just behind the lieutenant, one of the boarders had driven martin to his knees: the midwingman's neck was bare to the man's cutlass.
laurence leveled his pistol and fired: the boarder fell backwards with a hole in his chest spurting, and martin heaved himself back to his feet. before laurence could take fresh aim and set off the other, the lieutenant took the risk of slashing his own straps and leapt over quarle's body, catching laurence's arm both for support and to push the pistol aside. it was an extraordinary maneuver, whether for bravery or recklessness; "bravo," laurence said, involuntarily. the frenchman looked at him startled, and then smiled, incongruously boyish in his blood-streaked face, before he brought his sword up.
laurence had an unfair advantage, of course; he was useless dead, for a dragon whose captain had been killed would turn with utmost savagery on the enemy: uncontrolled but very dangerous nonetheless. the frenchman needed him prisoner, not killed, and that made him overly cautious, while laurence could freely aim for a killing blow and strike as best as ever he could.
but that was not very well, currently. it was an odd battle; they were upon the narrow base of temeraire's neck, so closely engaged that laurence was not at a disadvantage from the tall lieutenant's greater reach, but that same condition let the frenchman keep his grip on laurence, without which he would certainly have slipped off. they were more pushing at one another than truly sword-fighting; their blades hardly ever parted more than an inch or two before coming together again, and laurence began to think the contest would only be ended if one or the other of them fell.
laurence risked a step; it let him turn them both slightly, so he could see the rest of the struggle over the lieutenant's shoulder. martin and ferris were both still standing, and several of the riflemen, but they were outnumbered, and if even a couple more of the boarders managed to get past, it would be very awkward for laurence indeed. several of the bellmen were trying to come up from below, but the boarders had detached a couple of men to fend them off: as laurence watched, johnson was stabbed through and fell.
"vive l'empereur," the lieutenant shouted to his men encouragingly, looking also; he took heart from the favorable position and struck again, aiming for laurence's leg. laurence deflected the blow: his sword rang oddly with the impact, though, and he realized with an unpleasant shock that he was fighting with his dress-sword, worn to the admiralty the day before: he had never had a chance to exchange it.
he began to fight more narrowly, trying not to meet the frenchman's sword anywhere below the midpoint of his sword: he did not want to lose his entire blade if it were going to snap. another sharp blow, at his right arm: he blocked it as well, but this time five inches of steel did indeed snap off, scoring a thin line across his jaw before it tumbled away, red-gold in the reflected firelight.
the frenchman had seen the weakness of the blade now, and was trying to batter it into pieces. another crack and more of the blade went: laurence was fighting with only six inches of steel now, with the paste brilliants on the silver-plated hilt sparkling at him mockingly, ridiculous. he clenched his jaw; he was not going to surrender and see temeraire ordered to france: he would be damned first. if he jumped over the side, calling, there was some hope temeraire might catch him; if not, then at least he would not be responsible for delivering temeraire into napoleon's hands after all.
then a shout: granby came swarming up the rear tail-strap without benefit of carabiners, locked himself back on and lunged for the man guarding the left side of the belly-strap. the man fell dead, and six bellmen almost at once burst into the tops: the remaining boarders drew into a tight knot, but in a moment they would have to surrender or be killed. martin had turned and was already clambering over quarle's body, freed by the relief from below, and his sword was ready.
"ah, voici un joli gachis," the lieutenant said in tones of despair, looking also, and he made a last gallant attempt, binding laurence's hilt with his own blade, and using the length as a lever: he managed to pry it out of laurence's hand with a great heave, but just as he did he staggered, surprised, and blood came out of his nose. he fell forward into laurence's arms, senseless: young digby was standing rather wobblingly behind him, holding the round-shot on the measuring cord; he had crept along from his lookout's post on temeraire's shoulder, and struck the frenchman on the head.
"well done," laurence said, after he had worked out what had happened; the boy flushed up proudly. "mr. martin, heave this fellow below to the infirmary, will you?" laurence handed the frenchman's limp form over. "he fought quite like a lion."
"very good, sir." martin's mouth kept moving, he was saying something more, but a roar from above was drowning out his voice: it was the last thing laurence heard.
the low and dangerous rumble of temeraire's growl, just above him, penetrated the smothering unconsciousness. laurence tried to move, to look around him, but the light stabbed painfully at his eyes, and his leg did not want to answer at all; groping blindly down along his thigh, he found it entangled with the leather straps of his harness, and felt a wet trickle of blood where one of the buckles had torn through his breeches and into his skin.
he thought for a moment perhaps they had been captured; but the voices he heard were english, and then he recognized barham, shouting, and granby saying fiercely, "no, sir, no farther, not one damned step. temeraire, if those men make ready, you may knock them down."
laurence struggled to sit up, and then suddenly there were anxious hands supporting him. "steady, sir, are you all right?" it was young digby, pressing a dripping water-bag into his hands. laurence wetted his lips, but he did not dare to swallow; his stomach was roiling. "help me stand," he said, hoarsely, trying to squint his eyes open a little.
"no, sir, you mustn't," digby whispered urgently. "you have had a nasty knock on the head, and those fellows, they have come to arrest you. granby said we had to keep you out of sight and wait for the admiral."
he was lying behind the protective curl of temeraire's foreleg, with the hard-packed dirt of the clearing underneath him; digby and allen, the forward lookouts, were crouched down on either side of him. small rivulets of dark blood were running down temeraire's leg to stain the ground black, not far away. "he is wounded," laurence said sharply, trying to get up again.
"mr. keynes is gone for bandages, sir; a p??cheur hit us across the shoulders, but it is only a few scratches," digby said, holding him back; which attempt was successful, because laurence could not make his wrenched leg even bend, much less carry any weight. "you are not to get up, sir, baylesworth is getting a stretcher."
"enough of this, help me rise," laurence said, sharply; lenton could not possibly come quickly, so soon after a battle, and he did not mean to lie about letting matters get worse. he made digby and allen help him rise and limp out from the concealment, the two ensigns struggling under his weight.
barham was there with a dozen marines, these not the inexperienced boys of his escort in london but hard-bitten soldiers, older men, and they had brought with them a pepper-gun: only a small, short-barreled one, but at this range they hardly needed better. barham was almost purple in the face, quarreling with granby at the side of the clearing; when he caught sight of laurence his eyes went narrow. "there you are; did you think you could hide here, like a coward? stand down that animal, at once; sergeant, go there and take him."
"you are not to come anywhere near laurence, at all," temeraire snarled at the soldiers, before laurence could make any reply, and raised one deadly clawed foreleg, ready to strike. the blood streaking his shoulders and neck made him look truly savage, and his great ruff was standing up stiffly around his head.
the men flinched a little, but the sergeant said, stolidly, "run out that gun, corporal," and gestured to the rest of them to raise up their muskets.
in alarm, laurence called out to him hoarsely, "temeraire, stop; for god's sake settle," but it was useless; temeraire was in a red-eyed rage, and did not take any notice. even if the musketry did not cause him serious injury, the pepper-gun would surely blind and madden him even further, and he could easily be driven into a truly uncontrolled frenzy, terrible both to himself and to others.
the trees to the west of them shook suddenly, and abruptly maximus's enormous head and shoulders came rising up out of the growth; he flung his head back yawning tremendously, exposing rows of serrated teeth, and shook himself all over. "is the battle not over? what is all the noise?"
"you there!" barham shouted at the big regal copper, pointing at temeraire. "hold down that dragon!"
like all regal coppers, maximus was badly farsighted; to see into the clearing, he was forced to rear up onto his haunches to gain enough distance. he was twice temeraire's size by weight and twenty feet more in length now; his wings, half-outspread for balance, threw a long shadow ahead of him, and with the sun behind him they glowed redly, veins standing out in the translucent skin.
looming over them all, he drew his head back on his neck and peered into the clearing. "why do you need to be held down?" he asked temeraire, interestedly.
"i do not need to be held down!" temeraire said, almost spitting in his anger, ruff quivering; the blood was running more freely down his shoulders. "those men want to take laurence from me, and put him in prison, and execute him, and i will not let them, ever, and i do not care if laurence tells me not to squash you," he added, fiercely, to lord barham.
"good god," laurence said, low and appalled; it had not occurred to him the real nature of temeraire's fear. but the only time temeraire had ever seen an arrest, the man taken had been a traitor, executed shortly thereafter before the eyes of the man's own dragon. the experience had left temeraire and all the young dragons of the covert crushed with sympathetic misery for days; it was no wonder if he was panicked now.
granby took advantage of the unwitting distraction maximus had provided and made a quick, impulsive gesture to the other officers of temeraire's crew: ferris and evans jumped to follow him, riggs and his riflemen scrambling after, and in a moment they were all ranged defensively in front of temeraire, raising pistols and rifles. it was all bravado, their guns spent from the battle, but that did not in any way reduce the significance. laurence shut his eyes in dismay. granby and all his men had just flung themselves into the stew-pot with him, by such direct disobedience; indeed there was increasingly every justification to call this a mutiny.
the muskets facing them did not waver, though; the marines were still hurrying to finish loading the gun, tamping down one of the big round pepper-balls with a small wad. "make ready!" the corporal said. laurence could not think what to do; if he ordered temeraire to knock down the gun, they would be attacking fellow-soldiers, men only doing their duty: unforgivable, even to his own mind, and only a little less unthinkable than standing by while they injured temeraire, or his own men.
"what the devil do you all mean here?" keynes, the dragon-surgeon assigned to temeraire's care, had just come back into the clearing, two staggering assistants behind him laden down with fresh white bandages and thin silk thread for stitching. he shoved his way through the startled marines, his well-salted hair and blood-spattered coat giving him a badge of authority they did not choose to defy, and snatched the slow-match out of the hands of the man standing by the pepper-gun.
he flung it to the ground and stamped it out, and glared all around, sparing neither barham and the marines nor granby and his men, impartially furious. "he is fresh from the field; have you all taken leave of your senses? you cannot be stirring up dragons like this after a battle; in half a minute we will have the rest of the covert looking in, and not just that great busybody there," he added, pointing at maximus.
indeed more dragons had already lifted their heads up above the tree cover, trying to crane their heads over to see what was going on, making a great noise of cracking branches; the ground even trembled underfoot when the abashed maximus dropped lower, back down to his haunches, in an attempt to make his curiosity less obvious. barham uneasily looked around at the many inquisitive spectators: dragons ordinarily ate directly after a battle, and many of them had gore dripping from their jaws, bones cracking audibly as they chewed.
keynes did not give him time to recover. "out, out at once, the lot of you; i cannot be operating in the middle of this circus, and as for you," he snapped at laurence, "lie down again at once; i gave orders you were to be taken straight to the surgeons. christ only knows what you are doing to that leg, hopping about on it. where is baylesworth with that stretcher?"
barham, wavering, was caught by this. "laurence is damned well under arrest, and i have a mind to clap the rest of you mutinous dogs into irons also," he began, only to have keynes wheel on him in turn.
"you can arrest him in the morning, after that leg has been seen to, and his dragon. of all the blackguardly, unchristian notions, storming in on wounded men and beasts - " keynes was literally shaking his fist in barham's face; an alarming prospect, thanks to the wickedly hooked ten-inch tenaculum clenched in his fingers, and the moral force of his argument was very great: barham stepped back, involuntarily. the marines gratefully took it as a signal, beginning to drag the gun back out of the clearing with them, and barham, baffled and deserted, was forced to give way.
the delay thus won lasted only a short while. the surgeons scratched their heads over laurence's leg; the bone was not broken, despite the breathtaking pain when they roughly palpated the limb, and there was no visible wound, save the great mottled bruises covering nearly every scrap of skin. his head ached fiercely also, but there was little they could do but offer him laudanum, which he refused, and order him to keep his weight off the leg: advice as practical as it was unnecessary, since he could not stand for any length of time without suffering a collapse.
meanwhile, temeraire's own wounds, thankfully minor, were sewed up, and with much coaxing laurence persuaded him to eat a little, despite his agitation. by morning, it was plain temeraire was healing well, with no sign of wound-fever, and there was no excuse for further delay; a formal summons had come from admiral lenton, ordering laurence to report to the covert headquarters. he had to be carried in an elbow-chair, leaving behind him an uneasy and restive temeraire. "if you do not come back by tomorrow morning, i will come and find you," he vowed, and would not be dissuaded.
laurence could do little in honesty to reassure him: there was every likelihood he was to be arrested, if lenton had not managed some miracle of persuasion, and after these multiple offenses a court-martial might very well impose a death-sentence. ordinarily an aviator would not be hanged for anything less than outright treason. but barham would surely have him up before a board of navy officers, who would be far more severe, and consideration for preserving the dragon's service would not enter into their deliberations: temeraire was already lost to england, as a fighting-dragon, by the demands of the chinese.
it was by no means an easy or a comfortable situation, and still worse was the knowledge that he had imperiled his men; granby would have to answer for his defiance, and the other lieutenants also, evans and ferris and riggs; any or all of them might be dismissed the service: a terrible fate for an aviator, raised in the ranks from early childhood. even those midwingmen who never passed for lieutenant were not usually sent away; some work would be found for them, in the breeding grounds or in the coverts, that they might remain in the society of their fellows.
though his leg had improved some little way overnight, laurence was still pale and sweating even from the short walk he risked taking up the front stairs of the building. the pain was increasing sharply, dizzying, and he was forced to stop and catch his breath before he went into the small office.
"good heaven; i thought you had been let go by the surgeons. sit down, laurence, before you fall down; take this," lenton said, ignoring barham's scowl of impatience, and put a glass of brandy into laurence's hand.
"thank you, sir; you are not mistaken, i have been released," laurence said, and only sipped once for politeness's sake; his head was already clouded badly enough.
"that is enough; he is not here to be coddled," barham said. "never in my life have i seen such outrageous behavior, and from an officer - by god, laurence, i have never taken pleasure in a hanging, but on this occasion i would call it good riddance. but lenton swears to me your beast will become unmanageable; though how we should tell the difference i can hardly say."
lenton's lips tightened at this disdainful tone; laurence could only imagine the humiliating lengths to which he had been forced in order to impress this understanding on barham. though lenton was an admiral, and fresh from another great victory, even that meant very little in any larger sphere; barham could offend him with impunity, where any admiral in the navy would have had political influence and friends enough to require more respectful handling.
"you are to be dismissed the service, that is beyond question," barham continued. "but off to china the animal must go, and for that, i am sorry to say, we require your cooperation. find some way to persuade him, and we will leave the matter there; any more of this recalcitrance, and i am damned if i will not hang you after all; yes, and have the animal shot, and be damned to those chinamen also."
this last very nearly brought laurence out of his chair, despite his injury; only lenton's hand on his shoulder, pressing down firmly, held him in place. "sir, you go too far," lenton said. "we have never shot dragons in england for anything less than man-eating, and we are not going to start now; i would have a real mutiny on my hands."
barham scowled, and muttered something not quite intelligible under his breath about lack of discipline; which was a fine thing coming from a man whom laurence well knew had served during the great naval mutinies of '97, when half the fleet had risen up. "well, let us hope it does not come to any such thing. there is a transport in ordinary in harbor at spithead, the allegiance; she can be made ready for sea in a week. how then are we to get the animal aboard, since he is choosing to be balky?"
laurence could not bring himself to answer; a week was a horribly short time, and for a moment he even wildly allowed himself to consider the prospect of flight. temeraire could easily reach the continent from dover, and there were places in the forests of the german states where even now feral dragons lived; though only small breeds.
"it will require some consideration," lenton said. "i will not scruple to say, sir, that the whole affair has been mismanaged from the beginning. the dragon has been badly stirred-up, now, and it is no joke to coax a dragon to do something he does not like to begin with."
"enough excuses, lenton; quite enough," barham began, and then a tapping came on the door; they all looked in surprise as a rather pale-looking midwingman opened the door and said, "sir, sir - " only to hastily clear out of the way: the chinese soldiers looked as though they would have trampled straight over him, clearing a path for prince yongxing into the room.
they were all of them so startled they forgot at first to rise, and laurence was still struggling to get up to his feet when yongxing had already come into the room. the attendants hurried to pull a chair - lord barham's chair - over for the prince; but yongxing waved it aside, forcing the rest of them to keep on their feet. lenton unobtrusively put a hand under laurence's arm, giving him a little support, but the room still tilted and spun around him, the blaze of yongxing's bright-colored robes stabbing at his eyes.
"i see this is the way in which you show your respect for the son of heaven," yongxing said, addressing barham. "once again you have thrown lung tien xiang into battle; now you hold secret councils, and plot how you may yet keep the fruits of your thievery."
though barham had been damning the chinese five minutes before, now he went pale and stammered, "sir, your highness, not in the least - " but yongxing was not slowed even a little.
"i have gone through this covert, as you call these animal pens," he said. "it is not surprising, when one considers your barbaric methods, that lung tien xiang should have formed this misguided attachment. naturally he does not wish to be separated from the companion who is responsible for what little comfort he has been given." he turned to laurence, and looked him up and down disdainfully. "you have taken advantage of his youth and inexperience; but this will not be tolerated. we will hear no further excuses for these delays. once he has been restored to his home and his proper place, he will soon learn better than to value company so far beneath him."
"your highness, you are mistaken; we have every intention to cooperate with you," lenton said bluntly, while barham was still struggling for more polished phrases. "but temeraire will not leave laurence, and i am sure you know well that a dragon cannot be sent, but only led."
yongxing said icily, "then plainly captain laurence must come also; or will you now attempt to convince us that he cannot be sent?"
they all stared, in blank confusion; laurence hardly dared believe he understood properly, and then barham blurted, "good god, if you want laurence, you may damned well have him, and welcome."
the rest of the meeting passed in a haze for laurence, the tangle of confusion and immense relief leaving him badly distracted. his head still spun, and he answered to remarks somewhat randomly until lenton finally intervened once more, sending him up to bed. he kept himself awake only long enough to send a quick note to temeraire by way of the maid, and fell straightaway into a thick, unrefreshing sleep.
he clawed his way out of it the next morning, having slept fourteen hours. captain roland was drowsing by his bedside, head tipped against the chair back, mouth open; as he stirred, she woke and rubbed her face, yawning. "well, laurence, are you awake? you have been giving us all a fright and no mistake. emily came to me because poor temeraire was fretting himself to pieces: whyever did you send him such a note?"
laurence tried desperately to remember what he had written: impossible; it was wholly gone, and he could remember very little of the previous day at all, though the central, the essential point was quite fixed in his mind. "roland, i have not the faintest idea what i said. does temeraire know that i am going with him?"
"well, now he does, since lenton told me after i came looking for you, but he certainly did not find it in here," she said, and gave him a piece of paper.
it was in his own hand, and with his signature, but wholly unfamiliar, and nonsensical:
temeraire -
never fear; i am going; the son of heaven will not tolerate delays, and barham gives me leave. allegiance will carry us! pray eat something.
- l.
laurence stared at it in some distress, wondering how he had come to write so. "i do not remember a word of it; but wait, no; allegiance is the name of the transport, and prince yongxing referred to the emperor as the son of heaven, though why i should have repeated such a blasphemous thing i have no idea." he handed her the note. "my wits must have been wandering. pray throw it in the fire; go and tell temeraire that i am quite well now, and will be with him again soon. can you ring for someone to valet me? i need to dress."
"you look as though you ought to stay just where you are," roland said. "no: lie quiet awhile. there is no great hurry at present, as far as i understand, and i know this fellow barham wants to speak with you; also lenton. i will go and tell temeraire you have not died or grown a second head, and have emily jog back and forth between you if you have messages."
laurence yielded to her persuasions; indeed he did not truly feel up to rising, and if barham wanted to speak with him again, he thought he would need to conserve what strength he had. however, in the event, he was spared: lenton came alone instead.
"well, laurence, you are in for a hellishly long trip, i am afraid, and i hope you do not have a bad time of it," he said, drawing up a chair. "my transport ran into a three-days' gale going to india, back in the nineties; rain freezing as it fell, so the dragons could not fly above it for some relief. poor obversaria was ill the entire time. nothing less pleasant than a sea-sick dragon, for them or you."
laurence had never commanded a dragon transport, but the image was a vivid one. "i am glad to say, sir, that temeraire has never had the slightest difficulty, and indeed he enjoys sea-travel greatly."
"we will see how he likes it if you meet a hurricane," lenton said, shaking his head. "not that i expect either of you have any objections, under the circumstances."
"no, not in the least," laurence said, heartfelt. he supposed it was merely a jump from frying-pan to fire, but he was grateful enough even for the slower roasting: the journey would last for many months, and there was room for hope: any number of things might happen before they reached china.
lenton nodded. "well, you are looking moderately ghastly, so let me be brief. i have managed to persuade barham that the best thing to do is pack you off bag and baggage, in this case your crew; some of your officers would be in for a good bit of unpleasantness, otherwise, and we had best get you on your way before he thinks better of it."
yet another relief, scarcely looked for. "sir," laurence said, "i must tell you how deeply indebted i am - "
"no, nonsense; do not thank me." lenton brushed his sparse grey hair back from his forehead, and abruptly said, "i am damned sorry about all this, laurence. i would have run mad a good deal sooner, in your place; brutally done, all of it."
laurence hardly knew what to say; he had not expected anything like sympathy, and he did not feel he deserved it. after a moment, lenton went on, more briskly. "i am sorry not to give you a longer time to recover, but then you will not have much to do aboard ship but rest. barham has promised them the allegiance will sail in a week's time; though from what i gather, he will be hard put to find a captain for -->>