The Temeraire Series Books 1-3: Temeraire, Throne of Jade, Black Powder War

After perhaps three hours Maximus began to fall off the pace, his great wings beating more slowly and his head drooping; Berkley took him back in, and Temeraire was left all alone, still going around. The rest of the formation came spiralling down to land in the courtyard, and Laurence saw the dragons nodding to Maximus, inclining their heads respectfully. At this distance he could not make out any words, but it was clear they were all conversing easily among themselves while their captains milled about and Celeritas gathered them together to review their performance. Temeraire saw them as well, and sighed a little, though he said nothing; Laurence leaned forward and stroked his neck, and silently vowed to bring him back the most elegant jewels he could find in the whole of Edinburgh, if he had to draw out half his capital to do so.

Laurence came out into the courtyard early the next morning to say farewell to Temeraire before his trip with Rankin. He stopped short as he emerged from the hall: Levitas was being put under gear by a small ground crew, with Rankin at his head reading a newspaper and paying little attention to the proceedings. ‘Hello, Laurence,’ the little dragon said to him happily. ‘Look, this is my captain, he has come! And we are flying to Edinburgh today.’

‘Have you been talking with him?’ Rankin said to Laurence, glancing up. ‘I see you were not exaggerating, and that you do indeed enjoy dragon society; I hope you will not find yourself tiring of it. You will be taking Laurence along with myself today; you must make an effort to show him a good pace,’ he told Levitas.

‘Oh, I will, I promise,’ Levitas said at once, bobbing his head anxiously.

Laurence made some civil answer and walked quickly to Temeraire’s side to cover his confusion; he did not know what to do. There was no possible way to avoid the journey now without being truly insulting; but he felt almost ill. Over the last few days he had seen more evidence than he liked of Levitas’s unhappiness and neglect: the little dragon watched anxiously for a handler who did not come, and if he or his harness had been given more than a cursory wipe, it was because Laurence had encouraged the cadets to see to him, and asked Hollin to continue attending to his harness. To find Rankin the one responsible for such neglect was bitterly disappointing; to see Levitas behaving with such servility and gratitude for the least cold attention was painful.

Perceived through the lens of his neglect of his dragon, Rankin’s remarks on dragons took on a character of disdain that could only be strange and unpleasant in an aviator; and his isolation from his fellow officers also, rather than an indication of nice taste. Every other aviator had introduced himself with his dragon’s name ready to his lips; Rankin alone had considered his family name of more importance, and left Laurence to find out only by accident that Levitas was assigned to him. But Laurence had not seen through any of this, and now he found he had, in the most unguarded sort of way, encouraged the acquaintance of a man he could never respect.

He petted Temeraire and made him some re assurances meant mostly for his own comfort. ‘Is anything wrong, Laurence?’ Temeraire said, nosing at him gently with concern. ‘You do not seem well.’

‘No, I am perfectly well, I assure you,’ he said, making an effort to sound normal. ‘You are quite certain you do not mind my going?’ he asked, with a faint hope.

‘Not at all, and you will be back by evening, will you not?’ Temeraire asked. ‘Now that we have finished Duncan, I was hoping perhaps you could read me something more about mathematics; I thought it was very interesting how you explained that you could tell where you are, when you have been sailing for a long time, only through knowing the time and some equations.’

Laurence had been very glad to leave behind mathematics after having forced the basics of trigonometry into his head. ‘Certainly, if you like,’ he said, trying to keep dismay out of his voice. ‘But I thought perhaps you would enjoy something about Chinese dragons?’

‘Oh, yes, that would be splendid too; we could read that next,’ Temeraire said. ‘It is very nice how many books there are, indeed; and on so many subjects.’

If it would give Temeraire something to think about and keep him from becoming distressed, Laurence was prepared to go as far as to bring his Latin up to snuff and read him Principia Mathematica in the original; so he only sighed privately. ‘Very well, then I leave you in the hands of the ground crew; I see them coming now.’

Hollin was leading the party; the young crewman had attended so well to Temeraire’s harness and seen to Levitas with such good will that Laurence had spoken of him to Celeritas, and asked to have him assigned to lead Temeraire’s ground crew. Laurence was pleased to see the request had been granted; because this step was evidently a promotion of some significance, there had been some uncertainty about the matter. He nodded to the young man. ‘Mr. Hollin, will you be so good as to present me to these other men?’ he asked.

When he had been given all their names and repeated them silently over to fix them in his memory, he deliberately met their eyes in turn and said firmly, ‘I am sure Temeraire will give you no difficulty, but I trust you will make a point of consulting his comfort as you make the adjustment s. Temeraire, please have no hesitation about informing these men if you notice the least discomfort or restriction upon your movement.’

Levitas’s case had provided him with evidence that some crewmen might neglect their assigned dragon’s gear if a captain was not watchful, and in deed anything else was hardly to be expected. Though he had no fear of Hollin’s neglecting his work, Laurence meant to put the other men on notice that he would not tolerate any such neglect where Temeraire was concerned; if such severity fixed his reputation as a hard captain, so be it. Perhaps in comparison to other aviators he was; he would not neglect what he considered his duty for the sake of being liked.

A murmur of, ‘Very good,’ and ‘Right you are,’ came in response; he was able to ignore the raised eyebrows and exchanged glances. ‘Carry on, then,’ he said with a final nod, and turned away with no small reluctance to join Rankin.

All his pleasure in the expedition was gone; it was distasteful in the extreme to stand by while Rankin snapped at Levitas and ordered him to hunch down uncomfortably for them to board. Laurence climbed up as quickly as he could, and did his best to sit where his weight would give Levitas the least difficulty.

The flight was quick, at least; Levitas was very swift, and the ground rolled away at a tremendous pace. He was glad to find the speed of their passage made conversation nearly impossible, and he was able to give brief answers to the few remarks Rankin ventured to shout. They landed less than two hours after they had left, at the great walled covert which spread out beneath the watchful looming eye of Edinburgh Castle.

‘Stay here quietly; I do not want to hear that you have been pestering the crew when I return,’ Rankin said sharply to Levitas, after dismounting; he threw the reins of his harness around a post, as if Levitas was a horse to be tethered. ‘You can eat when we return to Loch Laggan.’

‘I do not want to bother them, and I can wait to eat, but I am a little thirsty,’ Levitas said in a small voice. ‘I tried to fly as fast as I could,’ he added.

‘It was very fast indeed, Levitas, and I am grateful to you. Of course you must have something to drink,’ Laurence said; this was as much as he could bear. ‘You there,’ he called to the ground crewmen lounging around the edges of the clearing; none of them had stirred when Levitas had landed. ‘Bring a trough of clean water at once, and see to his harness while you are about it.’

The men looked a little surprised, but they set to work under Laurence’s hard eye. Rankin did not make any objection, although as they climbed up the stairs away from the covert and onto the streets of the city he said, ‘I see you are a little tender-hearted towards them. I am hardly surprised, as that is the common mode among aviators, but I must tell you that I find discipline answers far better than the sort of coddling more often seen. Levitas for instance must always be ready for a long and dangerous flight; it is good for him to be used to going without.’

Laurence felt all the awkwardness of his situation; he was here as Rankin’s guest, and he would have to fly back with the man in the evening. Nevertheless, he could not restrain himself from saying, ‘I will not deny having the warmest sentiments towards dragons as a whole; in my experience thus far I have found them uniformly appealing and worthy of nothing but respect. However, I must disagree with you very strongly that providing ordinary and reasonable care in any way constitutes coddling, and I have always found that deprivation and hardship, when necessary, can be better endured by men who have not been subjected to them previously for no cause.’

‘Oh, dragons are not men, you know; but I will not argue with you,’ Rankin said easily. Perversely it made Laurence even angrier; if Rankin had been willing to defend his philosophy, it could have been a sincere if wrongheaded position. But clearly it was not; Rankin was only consulting his own ease, and these remarks were merely excuses for the neglect he performed.

Fortunately they were at the crossroads where their paths were to diverge. Laurence did not have to endure Rankin’s company any longer, as the man had to go on rounds to the military offices in the city; they had agreed to meet back at the covert before their departure, and he escaped gladly.

He wandered around the city for the next hour without direction or purpose, solely to clear his mind and temper. There was no obvious way to ameliorate Levitas’s situation, and Rankin was clearly inured to disapproval: Laurence now recalled Berkley’s silence, Harcourt’s evident discomfort, the avoidance of the other aviators in general, and Celeritas’s disapproval. It was unpleasant to think that by showing such an evident partiality for Rankin’s company, he had given himself the character of approving the man’s behaviour.

Here was something for which he had rightly earned the cold looks of the other officers. It was of no use to say he had not known: he ought to have known. Instead of putting himself to the trouble of learning the ways of his new comrades-in-arms, he had been happy enough to throw himself into the company of one they avoided and looked at askance. He could hardly excuse himself by saying he had not consulted or trusted their general judgment.

He calmed himself only with difficulty. He could not easily undo the damage he had done in a few unthinking days, but he could and would alter his behaviour henceforth. By putting forth the dedication and effort that was only Temeraire’s due in any case, he could prove that he neither approved nor intended to practice any sort of neglect. By courtesy and attention to those aviators with whom he would be training, like Berkley and the other captains of the formation, he could show that he did not hold himself above his company. These small measures would take a great deal of time to repair his reputation, but they were all he could do. The best he could do was resolve upon them at once, and prepare to endure however long it would take.

Having finally drawn himself from his self-recrimination, he now took his bearings and hurried on to the offices of the Royal Bank. His usual bankers were Drummonds, in London, but on learning that he was to be stationed at Loch Laggan, he had written to his prize-agent to direct the funds from the capture of the Amitié here. As soon as he had given his name, he at once saw that the instructions had been received and obeyed; for he was instantly conducted to a private office and greeted with particular warmth.

The banker, a Mr. Donnellson, was happy to inform him, on his inquiry, that the prize-money for the Amitié had included a bounty for Temeraire equal to the value that would have been placed on an unhatched egg of the same breed. ‘Not that a number could easily be settled upon, as I understand it, for we have no notion of what the French paid for it, but at length it was held equal to a Regal Copper egg in value, and I am happy to say that your two-eighths share of the entire prize comes to nearly fourteen thousand pounds,’ he finished, and struck Laurence dumb.

Having recovered over a glass of excellent brandy, Laurence soon perceived the self-serving efforts of Admiral Croft behind this extraordinary assessment. But he hardly objected; after a brief discussion which ended in his authorizing the Bank to invest perhaps half of the money into the Funds for him, he shook Mr. Donnellson’s hand with enthusiasm and took away a handful of banknotes and gold, along with a generously offered letter which he might show to merchants to establish his credit. The news restored his spirits to some extent, and he soothed them further by purchasing a great many books and examining several different pieces of valuable jewellery, and imagining Temeraire’s happiness at receiving them both.

He settled finally upon a broad pendant of platinum almost like a breastplate, set with sapphires around a single enormous pearl; the piece was designed to fasten about the dragon’s neck with a chain that could be extended as Temeraire grew. The price was enough to make him swallow, but he recklessly signed the cheque regardless, and then waited while a boy ran to certify the amount with the bank so he could immediately bear away the well-wrapped piece, with some difficulty due to its weight.

From there he went straight back to the covert, even though there was another hour to the appointed meeting time. Levitas was lying un attended in the same dusty landing ground, his tail curled around himself; he looked tired and lonely. There was a small herd of sheep kept penned in the covert; Laurence ordered one killed and brought for him, then sat with the dragon and talked to him quietly until Rankin returned.

The flight back was a little slower than the one out, and Rankin spoke coldly to Levitas when they landed. Past the point of caring if it seemed rude, Laurence interrupted with praise and patted Levitas. It was little enough, and he felt miserable to see the little dragon huddled silently in a corner of the courtyard after Rankin had gone inside. But Aerial Command had given Levitas to Rankin; Laurence had no authority to correct the man, who was senior to him.

Temeraire’s new harness was neatly assembled upon a couple of benches by the side of the courtyard, the broad neck-brace marked with his name in silver rivets. Temeraire himself was sitting outside again, looking over the quiet lake valley that was gradually fading into shadow as the late-afternoon sun sank in the west, his eyes thoughtful and a little sad. Laurence went to his side at once, carrying the heavy packages.

Temeraire’s joy in the pendant was so great as to rescue Laurence’s mood as well as his own. The silver metal looked dazzling against his black hide, and once it was on he tilted the piece up with a forehand to look at the great pearl in enormous satisfaction, his pupils widening tremendously so he could better examine it. ‘And I do so like pearls, Laurence,’ he said, nuzzling at him gratefully. ‘It is very beautiful; but was it not dreadfully expensive?’

‘It is worth every penny to see you looking so handsome,’ Laurence said, meaning that it was worth every penny to see him so happy. ‘The prize-money for the Amitié has come in, so I am well in pocket, my dear. Indeed, it is quite your due, you know, for the better part of it comes from the bounty for our having taken your egg from the French.’

‘Well, that was none of my doing, although I am very glad it happened,’ Temeraire said. ‘I am sure I could not have liked any French captain half so much as you. Oh, Laurence, I am so very happy, and none of the others have anything nearly so nice.’ He cuddled himself around Laurence with a deep sigh of satisfaction.

Laurence climbed into the crook of one foreleg and sat there petting him and enjoying his continued quiet gloating over the pendant. Of course, if the French ship had not been so delayed and then captured, some French aviator would have had Temeraire by now; Laurence had previously given little thought to what might have been. Likely the man was somewhere cursing his luck; the French certainly would have learned that the egg had been captured by now, even if they did not know that it had hatched an Imperial, or that Temeraire had been successfully harnessed.

He looked up at his preening dragon and felt the rest of his sorrow and anxiety leave him; whatever else happened, he could hardly complain of the turn fate had served him, in comparison with that poor fellow. ‘I have brought you some books as well,’ he said. ‘Shall I begin on Newton for you? I have found a translation of his book on the principles of mathematics, although I will warn you at once that I am wholly unlikely to be able to make sense of what I read for you; I am no great hand at mathematics beyond what my tutors got into my head for sailing.’

‘Please do,’ Temeraire said, looking away from his new treasure for a moment. ‘I am sure we will be able to puzzle it out together, whatever it is.’

Chapter Seven (#ulink_b717a7ee-b84f-50c1-a0dd-89ba273d8ef3)

Laurence rose a little early the next morning and breakfasted alone, to have a little time before the training would begin. He had examined the new harness carefully last night, looking over each neat stitch and testing all the solid rings; Temeraire had also assured him that the new gear was very comfortable, and that the crewmen had been very attentive to his wishes. He felt some gesture was due, and so having made some calculations in his head, he now walked out to the workshops.

Hollin was already up and working in his stall, and he stepped out at once on catching sight of Laurence. ‘Morning to you, sir; I hope there is nothing wrong with the harness?’ the young man asked.

‘No; on the contrary, I commend you and your colleagues highly,’ Laurence said. ‘It looks splendidly, and Temeraire tells me he is very happy in it; thank you. Kindly tell the others for me that I will be having an additional half-crown for each man disbursed with their pay.’

‘Why, that is very kind of you, sir,’ Hollin said, looking pleased but not terribly surprised; Laurence was very glad to see his reaction. An extra ration of rum or grog was of course not a desirable reward to men who could buy liquor easily from the village below, and soldiers and aviators were paid better than sailors, so he had puzzled over an appropriate amount: he wanted to reward their diligence, but he did not want to seem as though he were trying to purchase the men’s loyalty.

‘I also wish to commend you personally,’ Laurence added, more relaxed now. ‘Levitas’s harness looks in much better order, and he seems more comfortable. I am obliged to you: I know it was not your duty.’

‘Oh! Nothing to it,’ Hollin said, smiling broadly now. ‘The little fellow was made so happy, I was right glad to have done it. I’ll give him a look over now and again to make sure he’s staying in good order. Seems to me he’s a little lonely,’ he added.

Laurence would never go so far as to criticize another officer to a crewman; he contented himself with saying merely, ‘I think he was certainly grateful for the attention, and if you should have the time, I would be glad of it.’

It was the last moment that he had time to spare concern for Levitas, or anything beyond the tasks immediately before him. Celeritas had satisfied himself that he understood Temeraire’s flying capabilities, and now that Temeraire had his fine new harness, their training began in earnest. From the beginning, Laurence was staggering straight to bed after supper, and having to be woken by the servants at the first light of morning; he could barely muster any sort of conversation at the dinner table, and he spent every free moment either dozing with Temeraire in the sun or soaking in the heat of the baths.