Empire of Ivory. Naomi Novik
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‘Cheap at double the price,’ Jane said the next day, when he came to give the morning report, for once uneventful. The ferals were more zealous than ever, and rather disappointed not to find more enemies. ‘They come along handsomely, just as we had hoped.’ But she spoke wearily.
Laurence poured her a small glass of brandy and brought it to her at the window, where she stood looking out at the ferals cavorting in mid-air over their clearing. ‘Thank you, I will.’ She took the glass, but did not drink at once. ‘Conterrenis has gone,’ she said abruptly. ‘The first Longwing we have lost; it was a bloody business.’ She sat down heavily. ‘He took a bad chill and suffered a haemorrhage in his lungs, so the surgeons tell me. At any rate, he could not stop coughing, and so his acid came and came; it began to build up on his spurs and sear his skin. It laid his jaw bare to the bone.’ She paused. ‘Gardenley shot him this morning.’
Laurence took the chair beside her, feeling wholly inadequate to the task of providing any comfort. After a little while she drank the brandy and set down her glass, and they turned back to the maps to discuss the next day’s patrolling.
He left her, ashamed now of dreading the party, now only a few days’ hence, and determined to put himself forward with no regard for his own mortification; for even the smallest chance of improving’ the conditions of the sick dragons.
… and I hope you will permit me to suggest, Wilberforce had written, that any Oriental touch to your wardrobe, even a little one, which might at a glance set you apart, would be most useful. I am happy to report that we have engaged some Chinese to serve, by offering a good sum in the ports, where occasionally a few of them may be found having taken service on an East Indiaman. They are not properly trained, of course, but they will only be carrying dishes to and from the kitchens, and we have instructed them most severely to show no alarm in the presence of the dragon, which I hope they have understood. However, I do have some anxiety as to their comprehension of what faces them, and should you have enough liberty to come early, hope that we may try their fortitude.
Laurence stifled his sighs, sent his Chinese coat to his tailors for refurbishment, and asked Jane her permission to go early. The Chinese servants did indeed cause a great commotion on their arrival, but only by abandoning their work and running to prostrate themselves before Temeraire, almost throwing themselves beneath his feet in their efforts to make the show of respect that they considered a Celestial’s due. The British workmen who were engaged in the final decoration of the covert were not nearly so complaisant, and vanished one and all, leaving the great panels of embroidered silk, ordered at vast expense, hanging askew from the tree branches and dragging upon the earth.
Wilberforce exclaimed in dismay as he came to greet Laurence; but Temeraire issued instructions to the Chinese servants, who set to work with great energy, and with the assistance of the crew the covert was a handsome sight in time to receive the guests. Brass lamps were tied onto branches to stand in place of Chinese paper lanterns, and small coal-stoves placed at intervals along the tables.
‘We may bring the business off, if it does not snow,’ Lord Allendale said, pessimistically, arriving early to inspect the arrangements. ‘It is a great pity your mother could not be here,’ he added, ‘but the child has not yet come, and she does not like to leave Elizabeth in her confinement,’ referring to the wife of Laurence’s eldest brother, soon to present him with his fifth child.
The night stayed clear, if cold, and the guests began to arrive in cautious dribs and drabs, keeping well away from Temeraire, who was ensconced in his clearing at the far end of the long tables, and peering at him not very surreptitiously through their opera glasses. Laurence’s officers were meanwhile standing by him, stiff and equally terrified in their best clothes: all new, fortunately, and Laurence was rewarded for the trouble he had taken in directing his officers to the better tailors in Dover, for the repairs which all their wardrobes required after their long stay abroad, by seeing them in well fitting coats and trousers.
Emily was the only one of them truly pleased, as she had acquired her first silk gown for the occasion; and if she tripped upon the hem a little she did not seem to mind. She was rather exultant over her kid gloves and string of pearls, which Jane had bestowed upon her. ‘It is late enough in all conscience for her to be learning how to manage skirts,’ Jane said. ‘Do not fret, Laurence. I promise you no one will be suspicious. I have made a cake of myself in public a dozen times, and no one has ever thought me an aviator for it. But if it gives you any comfort, you may tell them that she is your niece.’
‘I will do no such thing; my father will be there, and I assure you he is thoroughly aware of all his grandchildren,’ Laurence said. His father would immediately conclude Emily to be his own natural-born child, should he make such a claim. He privately decided that he would keep Emily close by Temeraire’s side, where she would be little seen; he had no doubt that his guests would keep a good distance away, whatever persuasion Mr. Wilberforce intended to apply.
That persuasion, however, took the most undesirable form. Mr. Wilberforce spotted Emily and said, ‘Come; behold this young girl who thinks nothing of standing within reach of the dragon. Even if you can permit yourself, madam, to be outdone by trained aviators, I hope you will not allow a child to outstrip you?’
With a sinking heart Laurence observed his father turning to cast an astonished eye on Emily, confirming his worst fears. Lord Allendale did not scruple, either, to approach and interrogate her. Emily, perfectly innocent of malice, answered him in her clear girlish voice, ‘Oh, I have lessons every day, sir, from the Captain, although it is Temeraire who gives me my mathematics, now, as Captain Laurence does not like arithmetic. But I would rather practice fencing,’ she added candidly, looking a little uncertain when she found herself laughed over and pronounced a dear by the pair of ladies who had been persuaded to venture close to the great table, by her example.
‘A masterful stroke, Captain,’ Wilberforce murmured softly. ‘Wherever did you find her?’ He did not wait for an answer as he then accosted a party of gentlemen who had risked coming closer, and continued to work upon them in the same fashion; embellishing his persuasions with if Lady So-and-So had been brave enough to approach Temeraire, surely they could not show themselves hesitant.
Temeraire was very interested in all of the guests, particularly admiring the more bejewelled ladies, and managed by accident to please the Marchioness of Carstoke, a lady of advanced years whose bosom was concealed only by a vulgar array of emeralds set in gold, by informing her that she looked a good deal more like a monarch, in his estimation, than did the Queen of Prussia, whom he had only seen in travelling clothes.
Several gentlemen challenged him to perform simple sums, a challenge to which he blinked a little, and having given them the answers, enquired whether this was the sort of game normally played at parties, and whether he ought to offer them a mathematical problem in return.
‘Dyer, pray bring me my sand-table,’ he said, and when this was agreed. Using his claw he sketched out a small diagram for the purpose of posing them a question on the Pythagorean theorem, which proved sufficient to baffle most of the gentlemen, whose own mathematical skill did not extend past the card tables.
‘But it is a very simple exercise,’ Temeraire insisted in some confusion, wondering aloud to Laurence if he had missed some sort of joke. At last a member of the Royal Society on a quest to observe certain aspects of Celestial anatomy, was able to provide the answer.
When Temeraire had spoken to the servants in Chinese, conversed in fluent French with several of the guests and failed to eat or crush anyone, fascination began at last to trump fear and draw more of the company towards him. Soon Laurence found himself quite neglected and of considerably less interest; a circumstance which would have delighted him, if only it had not left him to make awkward conversation with his father, who inquired stiltedly about Emily’s mother. He posed questions which if evaded would only have made Laurence seem more guilty, and yet whose perfectly truthful answers, that Emily was the natural-born daughter of Jane Roland, a gentlewoman living in Dover, and that he had taken charge of her education, still left entirely the wrong impression. And Laurence