Blood of Tyrants. Naomi Novik
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chosen his own course: he was too much a young enthusiast to be trusted to make that choice clear-headedly. Even granting that the maneuver would spare Kaneko, Laurence could well imagine that gentleman’s feelings on finding his young student had thus immolated himself to spare him; he knew what his own would have been, under similar circumstances.
But there was no answer to be made to Junichiro’s refusing to lie: Laurence indeed could hardly encourage him to do so, when answered in such terms. The only saving grace was knowing the boy an orphan: at least he had not riven him away from family as well as home. Laurence could give him a place aboard ship—if they could either of them get to the ship, which was certainly more likely with Junichiro’s guidance than without it. And if they could not, Laurence knew what his own fate would be; he could hardly imagine that Junichiro’s would be any more merciful.
A low bubbling roar came from the river below, and Laurence looked down the hill from the temple to see the dragon emerge—at least, he thought it was the same dragon, but she had swelled out to nearly thrice her size, so wide that her very hide was stretched to a paler greenish silver. Laurence watched in astonishment as she spouted a great fountaining of water like a cascade that took illumination from the descending sun. The torrent of water continued a long time, the dragon reducing by degrees to her smaller size as she brought it forth.
“What sort of a dragon is she?” Laurence asked Junichiro.
“A river-dragon,” Junichiro said, his tone implying strongly Laurence was a fool who required having the simplest of matters explained. “Like Lord Jinai!” the boy added pointedly, seeing Laurence had not followed.
“She is the same breed as that monster?” Laurence said, incredulous: the scale was so very different he could scarcely credit it.
“She cannot get big until she goes down to the ocean, of course,” Junichiro said.
The water-dragon padded back up the hill towards them, stopping by the temple doorway to shake herself free of droplets again in a fine spray. “Now then,” she said, stepping inside and ducking her great head beneath the lintel: Laurence recognized now the kinship between her appearance and the sea-dragon’s, where her lines would spread out, as she grew in size. “I have refreshed myself, and I am ready to hear more of this Shakespeare.”
Junichiro seated himself at once, as though this remark had the force of a command; Laurence hesitated, then said, “Madam, I beg your pardon: we cannot stay.”
The dragon paused in the act of settling herself and regarded him with blank astonishment; Junichiro stared at him so appalled that Laurence supposed he had committed some enormous solecism. The sensation was discomfiting, but not so far, he was grimly certain, as would be their discovery and inevitable pursuit.
“We are bound for Nagasaki,” he said firmly, “and cannot delay in our journey. I beg your pardon most sincerely if I do not express myself in the accepted mode, from unfamiliarity,” he added. “I assure you I mean no offense.”
The dragon sat for a moment, blinking; she seemed less offended than perplexed. “The river flows to the sea, whatever the wind says about it,” she said, and reached up and rubbed a talon over some of the great swinging tendrils from her forehead, thoughtfully. “You have a long journey ahead,” she said eventually. “Stay the night! In the morning we will go together, down to the Ariake Sea. You will not have so far to go from there.”
Laurence had no notion of the geography, but he could well imagine that a dragon-back ride would speed their journey. He glanced at Junichiro, who wore a peculiar expression of mortification and longing mingled; as though Laurence had brazenly committed a crime, and been rewarded for it instead of condemned. He at least showed no disposition to reject the offer; and to be fair, Laurence did not see how it was to be refused. “Ma’am, I am honored by your condescension,” Laurence said, bowing, and seated himself reluctantly again.
Hammond’s boat rowed back three hours later, swiftly crossing from the harbor. Despite his avowed distrust, Temeraire could not help but watch her approach anxiously. The Potentate was very far from land, for the sake of her draught, and there were a great many small boats going to and fro in the harbor before them, betwixt which Temeraire could make no distinction. Captain Blaise came to the dragondeck and stood watching them for some time with his glass as Hammond’s boat came nearer, and he said to Granby, “Well, it will be hot work, if they do try for us.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Temeraire said, peering down.
“They have loaded up those boats there with tinder,” Granby answered him, shading his eyes to peer at the shore. “They may come out and have a go at setting us afire, we think.”
“What?” Iskierka said, rearing up her head abruptly, her eyes going very wide. “What? How dare they! I will go and fire them, at once!”
“Oh, no, you shan’t,” Granby said firmly. “Not until we have seen what they mean to do; you cannot blame them for having a lookout, when a transport loaded to the brim comes creeping into their harbor.”
When Hammond had been put back aboard—he was so unhandy about coming up the side that Churki would no longer have it, pronouncing it a ludicrous and unnecessary risk, and insisted on reaching down to lift him up herself out of the launch—he did not say anything at all of Laurence, and nothing to reassure about the egg, either.
“The worst news imaginable,” he said. “I had private conversation of Mr. Doeff, who is the commissioner here, and good God! Do you know a ship called the Phaeton?”
“Lost in the Pacific, two years ago,” Captain Blaise said, automatically.
Laurence had thought well of Blaise—had called him a respectable and a sensible man, but in Temeraire’s private opinion he was only a block: not the least imagination or interest as far as Temeraire had been able to discover in nearly the full year of their acquaintance. He was not afraid of dragons, which was the best Temeraire could say of him, and indeed he made a point of taking the air upon the dragondeck every day—after making a punctilious request of the most senior aviator on deck for the liberty—as a sort of gesture to reassure the hands. But his head was full of nothing but the Naval Chronicle; he had no other conversation but the weather, and that was not very much use as he insisted on always saying the prospect was very fair, even when it was plainly coming on to a three-days’ blow.
“Pellew’s second boy had her, if I recall aright, and she was looking in at the Dutch trade last anyone heard of her,” Blaise added now. “Likely she went down in a gale—” and stopped as Hammond shook his head.
“She was sunk here,” he said, “—here, after coming in under false colors, taking hostage two of the Dutch officials who went out to greet her, and threatening to fire the shipping in the harbor if the Japanese did not supply them. Her captain must have been a lunatic,” he added bitterly.
The uproar this produced, Hammond had evidently not expected. He had meant to convey that the Japanese were not in the least pleased with the British, and that they naturally thought the Potentate had come to make a fuss over the sinking of the Phaeton. In this he had succeeded, but was dismayed to discover that Captain Blaise would have liked to confirm all the worst fears the Japanese might have entertained. When Hammond had finished, Blaise walked to and fro along the deck for an hour altogether in great fury, repeating that it was more than a dog could bear, that they should have sunk a British ship and receive no answer, even in the face of all Hammond’s increasingly anxious remonstrations.
He was only at last persuaded to go inside to write a report of it to the Admiralty; Hammond turned at once to the dragondeck, so he might corner Captain Harcourt, who was senior, and try to make repairs by urgently pressing her in turn to disavow any possibility of action.
“Hammond, I haven’t the least wish to start us another war in some hasty fashion,” she said at last, in some irritation, “but no-one can blame Blaise for being distressed, and I am so myself. It is all very well to say her captain was provoking: whose word do you have for that, but this Dutch fellow, whose trade he would have gone