Blood of Tyrants. Naomi Novik
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land.
The brown dragon’s harness was odd indeed, as it came into closer view: it was indeed made up of almost pouches of some ordinary fabric, brown wool perhaps, and these were overlaid upon and attached to a fine mesh which covered him nearly from the base of his neck to his tail almost like a shirt, made up of many thin chains—chains of gold, Temeraire realized with a real start, as the sun caught upon them, and so many! although almost entirely concealed by the dull fabric.
“But why would anyone wear gold chains in such a way, where you can hardly tell they are golden,” he whispered doubtfully to Iskierka; they certainly would not be very handy, in a fight.
They could not discuss it: the dragon landed with an easy flip upon the deck before them, and settled himself in the waiting opened place, while Nitidus landed on Temeraire’s back and made himself comfortable.
“Hello,” Temeraire said, inclining his head. “How do you do? I am Temeraire, and also Lung Tien Xiang; and I am very pleased to make your acquaintance: thank you very much for coming.”
“Well, it’s kind of you to ask me,” the brown dragon said, in perfectly good English although broadly accented. “And I am John Wampanoag, of Salem, Massachusetts, at your service,” and he bowed his own head politely as well.
Temeraire said, a little uncertainly, “But surely that is not in Holland?” He was not perfectly sure of the geography of that nation, but there had been a great many places around Capetown, which had possessed Dutch names, and that did not sound in the least like any of them.
“Why, no,” the dragon said, “I am American, you know. That is my ship, the Lacewing,” and gave a flip of his tail in the direction of the Dutch vessel. “She is only under Dutch colors because we have been hired to bring in a cargo, since you have that Bonaparte fellow making hay of things in Europe.”
“Oh, I see,” Temeraire said, although he did not, at all: Bonaparte had conquered the Dutch, he was quite sure. “But is he not their emperor?” he inquired.
The American dragon shrugged. “The fellow in charge here don’t like to think him so,” he said, “and he is the one who can sell my cargo for me and get me my copper for the return road, so I guess what he says is good enough for me.”
“Your cargo,” Temeraire said, a little perplexed, “and your ship—do you mean to say, she is your prize?”
“Prize?” Wampanoag said. “No; I paid to have her built, and I bought the wool cloth and the other trade goods in her belly. Well,” he amended, “if you like to be precise, my firm did so: she is a venture of Devereux, Pickman, and Wampanoag: but as Devereux is in India, at present, and Pickman is back at Salem minding the store, you may as well call her mine.”
Temeraire was staggered, and looked at the rather small and nondescript dragon with new respect: he was well aware that to outfit a ship, even quite a little one, was a very serious undertaking—thousands and thousands of pounds, at the least, and Wampanoag spoke of laying out the money for it as a matter-of-course, and buying cargo besides. “I do not suppose,” he ventured, “—would it be quite rude of me to inquire, where you got the funds?”
“From other ventures,” Wampanoag said. “I have been to the South Seas half-a-dozen times, and to India; we do a pretty brisk business in tea, I can tell you.”
“Yes, but where did you get the money for the first one,” Temeraire clarified, rather urgently. “—your capital, I suppose I mean.”
He did not wish to be distracted from his original purpose for long, but he felt he could scarcely overlook such an opportunity as Wampanoag had just unexpectedly presented, of finding a way to restore Laurence’s fortunes. A gauzy and splendid vision hung before him: Laurence rescued, Laurence back aboard the ship with him, on the way to China again, and very offhand, very casually, when they were alone on deck with the ocean slipping by Temeraire would say, “By the way, Laurence: I have brought you back your ten thousand pounds which I lost you, and I hope you will put them into the Funds, straightaway.”
Of course it could be done with prize-taking—Temeraire knew that, and Iskierka was forever nagging after finding some, but Laurence did not really approve of that. A prize taken legitimately, in the course of one’s duty, he thought was very well; hunting after prizes for their own sake he frowned upon. Laurence would not be satisfied, if he were to ask where Temeraire had got the funds—and he would ask, Temeraire was glumly certain—should he hear, as answer, by taking prizes. And Temeraire had forfeited his own share of the perfectly correct prizes which he and his company had taken during the invasion of Britain, when he had been transported away with Laurence; those had all gone to building pavilions, back in Britain.
“I had a good bit from the tribe, when we formed the firm, which I have since bought out; but of course they would not go in with me until I showed I could raise some funds of my own,” Wampanoag said. “I began with doing some cross-country carrier work, for other firms, and when I had shown I was a steady fellow and was not going to go haring off with someone’s cargo, good old Devereux gave me my chance and hired me to be agent on one of his Indiamen, with two points of interest. When I had realized my share from that journey, the tribe went in with me, and Devereux’s third son, and Pickman, to outfit our first ship; and we have done pretty well for ourselves since.”
“Cross-country,” Temeraire said, latching on to the first part of this nearly incomprehensible narrative, “—across your own country?”
“From Boston to the Kwaikiutl, on the West Coast,” Wampanoag confirmed. “It’s a good deal cheaper, you know, to carry things dragon-back instead of sailing all the way round.” Then he sat back and looked at Temeraire with a tipped head. “I beg your pardon, am I being a dullard? Are you looking for work? There’s not quite so much call for heavy-weights in shipping, as the cost of your feed is difficult to make back; but there is a particularly fine timber, on the West Coast, which I have been thinking might make it profitable to get a big fellow aboard.”
“Why,” Temeraire said, brightening, “that is very kind of you: how long a flight is it?”
“Not above a month,” Wampanoag said, “once you are in Kwaikutl lands: that is three months’ sailing, from here.”
“Oh,” Temeraire said, “I do not suppose I can: we cannot leave the war for four months. And then we should have to get back,” he added, and sighed a small sigh; he ought have known that it could be no easy matter to build up a fortune, or else everyone would have done it already before now.
“But anyone can do this?” Dulcia ventured, from Maximus’s back: they had all been listening raptly.
“If you know your book-keeping, so you cannot be cheated; and will do steady work,” Wampanoag said, “and if you don’t mind an empty belly now and again, and you are steady about avoiding fights and trouble and fuss, and showing away,” rapidly diminishing the luster of the enterprise as he went on.
“An empty belly?” Maximus said, and snorted. “That is not for me: anyway we do very well, Temeraire. We do have pay now, you know, and it stacks up quite agreeably, when you ask to see it in coin.”
“No—yes—I suppose,” Temeraire said, though regretfully. “Still it is very generous of you to offer,” he added to Wampanoag, “and I am very flattered, I am sure: will you stay to tea, if you please?” He saw with great relief that Gong Su was coming back up to the dragondeck with several of the galley cooks, the ship’s boys carrying handsome brass bowls polished to a shine and steaming cauldrons of food, and upon a rack dripping over porridge the roasted goat, with what smelled like some fish liver in sauce to give it some interest.
“Thank’ee, I don’t mind if I do,” Wampanoag said. “If I am not putting you out: I can see you are crowded a bit,” a sad understatement: Maximus was curled over all of the deck where Temeraire was not, and all the others heaped atop them both, whenever they were not aloft or swimming.
“We do very well, pray do not think anything