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

It took several hours to settle the dragons down and get them unpacked and fed; fortunately the covert was a very large one, covering perhaps one hundred acres when including the cattle pastures, and there was no difficulty about finding a comfortably large clearing for Temeraire. Temeraire was wavering between excitement at having seen his first battle and deep anxiety for Lily’s sake; for once he ate only indifferently, and Laurence finally told the crew to take away the remainder of the carcasses. ‘We can hunt in the morning, there is no need to force yourself to eat,’ he said.

‘Thank you; I truly do not feel very hungry at the moment,’ Temeraire said, settling down his head. He was quiet while they cleaned him, until the crewmen had gone and left him alone with Laurence. His eyes were closed to slits, and for a moment Laurence wondered if he had fallen asleep, then he opened them a little more and asked softly, ‘Laurence, is it always so, after a battle?’

Laurence did not need to ask what he meant; Temeraire’s weariness and sorrow were apparent. It was hard to know how to answer; he wanted so very much to reassure. Yet he himself was still tense and angry, and while the sensation was familiar, its lingering was not. He had been in many actions, no less deadly or dangerous, but this one had differed in the crucial respect: when the enemy took aim at his charge, they were threatening not his ship, but his dragon, already the dearest creature to him in the world. Nor could he contemplate injury to Lily or Maximus or any of the members of the formation with any sort of detachment; they might not be his own Temeraire, but they were full comrades-in-arms as well. It was not at all the same, and the surprise attack had caught him unprepared in his mind.

‘It is often difficult afterwards, I am afraid, particularly when a friend has been injured, or perhaps killed,’ he said finally. ‘I will say that I find this action especially hard to bear; there was nothing to be gained, for our part, and we did not seek it out.’

‘Yes, that is true,’ Temeraire said, his ruff drooping low upon his neck. ‘It would be better if I could think we had all fought so hard, and Lily had been hurt, for some purpose. But they only came to hurt us, so we did not even protect anyone.’

‘That is not true at all; you protected Lily,’ Laurence said. ‘And consider: the French made a very clever and skilful attack, taking us wholly by surprise, with a force equal to our own in numbers and superior in experience, and we defeated it and drove them off. That is something to be proud of, is it not?’

‘I suppose that is true,’ Temeraire said; his shoulders settled as he relaxed. ‘If only Lily will be all right,’ he added.

‘Let us hope so; be sure that all that can be done for her will be,’ Laurence said, stroking his nose. ‘Come now, you must be tired. Will you not try and sleep? Shall I read to you a little?’

‘I do not think I can sleep,’ Temeraire said. ‘But I would like you to read to me, and I will lie quietly and rest.’ He yawned as soon as he had finished saying this, and was asleep before Laurence had even taken the book out. The weather had finally turned, and the warm, even breaths rising from his nostrils made small puffs of fog in the crisp air.

Leaving him to sleep, Laurence walked quickly back to the covert headquarters; the path through the dragon-fields was lit with hanging lanterns, and in any case he could see the windows up ahead. An easterly wind was carrying the salt air in from the harbour, mingled with the coppery smell of the warm dragons, already familiar and hardly noticed. He had a warm room on the second floor, with a window that looked out onto the back gardens, and his baggage had already been unpacked. He looked at the wrinkled clothes ruefully; evidently the servants at the covert had no more notion of packing than the aviators themselves did.

There was a great noise of raised voices as he came into the senior officers’ dining-room, despite the late hour; the other captains of the formation were assembled at the long table where their own meal was going largely untouched.

‘Is there any word about Lily?’ he asked, taking the empty chair between Berkley and Dulcia’s captain, Chenery; Captain Harcourt and Immortalis’s Captain Little were the only ones not present.

‘He cut her to the bone, the great coward, but that is all we know,’ Chenery said. ‘They are still sewing her up, and she hasn’t taken anything to eat.’

Laurence knew that was a bad sign; an injured dragon would usually become ravenous, unless they were in very great pain. ‘Maximus and Messoria?’ he asked, looking at Berkley and Sutton.

‘Ate well, and fast asleep,’ Berkley said; his usually placid face was drawn and haggard, and he had a streak of dark blood running across his forehead into his bristly hair. ‘That was damned quick of you today, Laurence; we’d have lost her.’

‘Not quick enough,’ Laurence said quietly, forestalling the murmur of agreement; he had not the least desire to be praised for this day’s work, though he was proud of what Temeraire had done.

‘Quicker than the rest of us,’ Sutton said, draining his glass; from the looks of his cheeks and nose, it was not his first. ‘They caught us properly flat-footed, damned Frogs. What the devil they were doing to have a patrol there, I would like to know.’

‘The route from Laggan to Dover isn’t much of a secret, Sutton,’ Little said, coming to the table; they dragged chairs about to make room for him at their end of the table. ‘Immortalis is settled and eating, by the by; speaking of which, please give me that chicken here.’ He wrenched off a leg with his hands and tore into it hungrily.

Looking at him, Laurence felt the first stirrings of appetite; the other captains seemed to feel the same way, and for the next ten minutes there was silence while they passed the plates around and concentrated on their food; they had none of them eaten since a hasty breakfast before dawn at the covert near Middlesbrough. The wine was not very good, but Laurence drank several glasses anyway.

‘I expect they’ve been lurking about between Felixstowe and Dover, just waiting to get a drop on us,’ Little said after a while, wiping his mouth and continuing his earlier thought. ‘By God, if you ever catch me taking Immortalis that way again; overland it is for us from now on, unless we’re looking for a fight.’

‘Right you are,’ Chenery said, with heartfelt agreement. ‘Hello, Choiseul; pull up a chair.’ He shuffled over a little more, and the Royalist captain joined them.

‘Gentlemen, I am very happy to say that Lily has begun to eat; I have just come from Captain Harcourt,’ he said, and raised a glass. ‘To their health, may I propose?’

‘Hear, hear,’ Sutton said, refilling his own glass; they all joined in the toast, and there was a general sigh of relief.

‘Here you all are, then; eating, I hope? Good, very good.’ Admiral Lenton had come up to join them; he was the commander-in-chief of the Channel Division, and thus all those dragons at the Dover covert. ‘No, don’t be fools, don’t get up,’ he said impatiently, as Laurence and Choiseul began to rise, and the others belatedly followed. ‘After the day you’ve had, for Heaven’s sake. Here, pass that bottle over, Sutton. So, you all know that Lily is eating? Yes, the surgeons hope she will be flying short distances in a couple of weeks, and in the meantime you have at least nicely mauled a couple of their heavy-combat beasts. A toast to your formation, gentlemen.’

Laurence was at last beginning to feel his tension and distress ease; knowing Lily and the others were out of danger was a great relief, and the wine had loosened the tight knot in his throat. The others seemed to feel much the same way, and conversation grew slow and fragmented; they were all much inclined to nod over their cups.

‘I am quite certain that the Grand Chevalier was Triumphalis,’ Choiseul was telling Admiral Lenton quietly. ‘I have seen him before; he is one of France’s most dangerous fighters. He was certainly at the Dijon covert, near the Rhine, when Praecursoris and I left Austria, and I must represent to you, sir, that it bears out all my worst fears: Bonaparte would not have brought him here if he were not wholly confident of victory against Austria, and I am sure more of the French dragons are on their way to assist Villeneuve.’

‘I was inclined to agree with you before, Captain; now I am sure of it,’ Lenton said. ‘But for the moment, all we can do is hope Mortiferus reaches Nelson before the French dragons reach Villeneuve, and that he can do the job; we cannot spare Excidium if we do not have Lily. I would not be surprised if that were what they intended by this strike; it is the clever sort of way that damned Corsican thinks.’

Laurence could not help thinking of the Reliant, perhaps even now under the threat of a full-scale French aerial attack, and the other ships of the great fleet currently blockading Cadiz. So many of his friends and acquaintances; even if the French dragons did not arrive first, there would be a great naval battle to be fought, and how many would be lost without his ever hearing another word from them? He had not devoted much time to correspondence in the last busy months; now he regretted the neglect deeply.

‘Have we had any dispatches from the blockade at Cadiz?’ he asked. ‘Have they seen any action?’

‘Not that I have heard of,’ Lenton said. ‘Oh, that’s right, you’re our fellow from the Navy, aren’t you? Well, I will be starting those of you with un injured beasts on patrolling over the Channel fleet anyway while the others recover; you can touch down for a bit by the flagship and hear the news. They’ll be damned glad to see you; we haven’t been able to spare anyone long enough to bring them the post in a month.’

‘Will you want us tomorrow, then?’ Chenery asked, stifling a yawn, not entirely successfully.

‘No, I can spare you a day. See to your dragons, and enjoy the rest while it lasts,’ Lenton said, with a sharp, braying laugh. ‘I’ll be having you rousted out of bed at dawn the day after.’

Temeraire slept very heavily and late the next morning, leaving Laurence to occupy himself for some hours after breakfast. He met Berkley at the table, and walked back with him to see Maximus. The Regal Copper was still eating, a procession of fresh-slaughtered sheep going down his gullet one after another, and he only rumbled a wordless, mouth-full greeting as they came to the clearing.

Berkley brought out a bottle of rather terrible wine, and drank most of it himself while Laurence sipped at his glass to be polite, while they told over the battle again with diagrams scratched in the dirt and pebbles representing the dragons. ‘We would do very well to add a light-flyer, a Greyling if one can be spared, to fly lookout above the formation,’ Berkley said, sitting back heavily upon a rock. ‘It is all our big dragons being young; when the big ones panic in that way, the little ones will have a start even if they know better.’

Laurence nodded. ‘Although I hope this misadventure will at least have given them some experience in dealing with the fright,’ he said. ‘In any event, the French cannot count on having such ideal circumstances often; without the cloud cover they should never have managed it.’

‘Gentlemen; are you looking over the plan of yesterday?’ Choiseul had been walking past towards the headquarters; he joined them and crouched down beside the diagram. ‘I am very sorry to have been away at the beginning.’ His coat was dusty and his neckcloth was stained badly with sweat: he looked as though he had not shifted his clothes since yesterday, and a thin tracery of red veins stood out in the whites of his eyes; he rubbed his face as he looked down.

‘Have you been up all night?’ Laurence asked.

Choiseul shook his head. ‘No, but I took it in turns with Catherine – with Harcourt – to sleep a little, by Lily; she would not rest otherwise.’ He shut his eyes in an enormous yawn, and nearly fell over. ‘Merci,’ he said, grateful for Laurence’s steadying hand, and pushed himself slowly to his feet. ‘I will leave you; I must get Catherine some food.’

‘Pray go and get some rest,’ Laurence said. ‘I will bring her something; Temeraire is asleep, and I am at liberty.’

Harcourt herself was wide awake, pale with anxiety but steady now, giving orders to the crew and feeding Lily with chunks of still-steaming beef from her own hand, a constant stream of en couragement coming from her lips. Laurence had brought her some bread with bacon; she would have taken the sandwich in her bloody hands, unwilling to interrupt, but he managed to coax her away long enough to wash a little and eat while a crewman took her place. Lily kept eating, with one golden eye resting on Harcourt for reassurance.

Choiseul came back before Harcourt had quite finished, his neckcloth and coat gone and a servant following with a pot of coffee, strong and hot. ‘Your lieutenant is looking for you, Laurence; Temeraire begins to stir,’ he said, sitting down again heavily beside her. ‘I cannot manage to sleep; the coffee has done me well.’

‘Thank you, Jean-Paul, if you are not too tired, I would be very grateful for your company,’ she said, already drinking her second cup. ‘Pray have no hesitation, Laurence, I am sure Temeraire must be anxious. I am obliged to you for coming.’

Laurence bowed to them both, though he had a sense of awkwardness for the first occasion since he had grown used to Harcourt. She was leaning with no appearance of consciousness against Choiseul’s shoulder, and he was looking down at her with undisguised warmth; she was quite young, after all, and Laurence could not help feeling the absence of any suitable chaperone.

He consoled himself that nothing could happen with Lily and the crew present, even if they had not both been so obviously done-in; in any case, he could hardly stay under the circumstances, and he hurried away to Temeraire’s clearing.

The rest of the day he spent gratefully in idleness, seated comfortably in his usual place in the crook of Temeraire’s foreleg and writing letters; he had formed an extensive correspondence while at sea, with all the long hours to fill, and now many of his acquaintances were owed responses. His mother, too, had managed to write him several hasty and short letters, evidently kept from his father’s knowledge; at least they were not franked, so Laurence was obliged to pay to receive them.

Having gorged himself to compensate for his lack of appetite the night before, Temeraire then listened to the letters Laurence was writing and dictated his own contributions, sending greetings to Lady Allendale, and to Riley. ‘And do ask Captain Riley to give my best wishes to the crew of the Reliant,’ he said. ‘It seems so very long ago, Laurence, does it not? I have not had fish in months now.’

Laurence smiled at this measure of time. ‘A great deal has happened, certainly; it is strange to think it has not even been a year,’ he said, sealing the envelope and writing the direction. ‘I only hope they are all well.’ It was the last, and he laid it upon the substantial pile with satisfaction; he was a great deal easier in his conscience now. ‘Roland,’ he called, and she came running up from where the cadets were playing a game of jacks. ‘Go take this to the dispatch post,’ he said, handing her the stack.

‘Sir,’ she said, a little nervously, accepting the letters, ‘when I am done, might I have liberty for the evening?’

He was startled by the request; several of the ensigns and midwingmen had put in for liberty, and had it granted, that they might visit the city, but the idea of a ten-year-old cadet wandering about Dover alone was absurd, even if she were not a girl. ‘Would this be for yourself alone, or will you be going with one of the others?’ he asked, thinking she might have been invited to join one of the older officers in a respectable excursion.

‘No, sir, only for me,’ she said; she looked so very hopeful that Laurence thought for a moment of granting it and taking her himself, but he could not like to leave Temeraire alone to brood over the previous day.