Наоми Новик – Black Powder War (страница 10)
Each morning Laurence and Temeraire took Tharkay aloft and scouted some little distance ahead of the camel-train for the best path, though always a shimmering haze distorted the horizon, limiting their view; the Tianshan range to the south seemed to float above the blurred mirage, as though the blue jutting mountains were divided from the earth, upon another plane entirely.
‘How lonely it is,’ Temeraire said, though he liked the flying: the heat of the sun seemed to make him especially buoyant, perhaps acting in some peculiar way upon the air-sacs which enabled dragons to fly, and he needed little effort to keep aloft.
He and Laurence would often pause during the day together: Laurence would read to him, or Temeraire recite him attempts at poetry, which he had acquired a taste for in Peking, it being there considered a more appropriate occupation for Celestials than warfare; when the sun dipped lower they would take to the air to catch up the rest of the convoy, following the plaintive sound of the camel bells through the dusk.
‘Sir,’ Granby said, jogging to meet Laurence as they descended, ‘one of those fellows is missing, the cook.’
They went aloft again at once, searching, but there was no sign of the poor devil; the wind was a busy house-keeper, sweeping up the camel-tracks almost as quickly as they had been made, and to be lost for ten minutes was as good as for eternity. Temeraire flew low, listening for the jingle of camel-bells, fruitlessly; night was coming on quickly, and the lengthening shadows of the dunes blurred together into a uniform darkness. ‘I cannot see anything more, Laurence,’ Temeraire said sadly: the stars were coming out, and there was only a thin sliver of moon.
‘We will look again tomorrow,’ Laurence said to comfort him, but with little real hope; they set down again by the tents, and Laurence shook his head silently as he climbed down into the waiting circle of the camp; he gladly took a cup of the thick tea and warmed his chilled hands and feet at the low wavering campfire.
‘The camel is a worse loss,’ Tharkay said, turning away with a shrug, brutal but truthful: Jing Chao had endeared himself to no one. Even Gong Su, his countryman and longest acquaintance, heaved only one sigh; and then led Temeraire around to the waiting roast camel, today cooked in a fire pit with tea-leaves, an attempt at changing the flavour.
The few oasis towns they passed through were narrow places in spirit, less unfriendly than perplexed by strangers: the marketplaces lazy and slow, men in black skull-caps smoking and drinking spiced tea in the shade and watching them curiously; Tharkay exchanged a few words now and again, in Chinese and in other tongues. The streets were not in good repair, mostly drifted over with sand and cut by deep channels pitted with the ancient marks of nail-studded wagon wheels. They bought bags of almonds and dried fruit, sweet pressed apricots and grapes, filled their water-bags at the clean deep wells, and continued on their way.
The camels began moaning early in the night, the first sign of warning; when the watch came to fetch Laurence, the constellations were already being swallowed up by the low oncoming cloud.
‘Let Temeraire drink and eat; this may last some time,’ Tharkay said: a couple of the ground crewmen pried off the cover from two of the flat-sided wooden butts and brushed the damp, cooling sawdust away from the swollen leather bags inside, then Temeraire lowered his head so they might pour out the mixture of water and ice into his mouth: having had nearly a week’s practice, he did not spill a drop, but closed his jaws tight before raising his head up again to swallow. The unburdened camel rolled its eyes and fought at being separated from its fellows, to no avail; Pratt and his mate, both of them big men, dragged it around behind the tents; Gong Su drew a knife across its neck, deftly catching the spurting blood in a bowl; and Temeraire unenthusiastically fell-to: he was getting tired of camel.
There were still some fifteen left to get under cover, and Granby marshalled the midwingmen and the ensigns while the ground crewmen anchored the tents more securely; already the layer of loose fine sand was whipping across the surface of the dunes and stinging their hands and faces, though they put up their collars and wrapped their neckcloths over their mouths and noses. The thick fur-lined tents, which they had been so glad to have during the cold nights, now grew stifling hot as they struggled and pushed and crowded in the camels, and even the thinner leather pavilion which they got up to shield Temeraire and themselves was smotheringly close.
And then the sandstorm was upon them: a hissing furious assault, nothing like the sound of rain, falling without surcease against the leather tent wall. It could not be ignored; the noise rose and fell in unpredictable bursts, from shrieks to whispers and back again, so they could only take brief unrestful snatches of sleep; and faces grew bruised with fatigue around them. They did not risk many lanterns inside the tent; when the sun set Laurence sat by Temeraire’s head in a darkness almost complete, listening to the wind howl.
‘Some call the karaburan the work of evil spirits,’ Tharkay said out of the dark; he was cutting some leather for fresh jesses for the eagle, presently subdued in its cage, head hunched invisibly into its shoulders. ‘You can hear their voices, if you listen,’ and indeed one could make out low and plaintive cries on the wind, like murmurs in a foreign tongue.
‘I cannot understand them,’ Temeraire said, listening with interest rather than dread; evil spirits did not alarm him. ‘What language is that?’
‘No tongue of men or dragons,’ Tharkay said seriously: the ensigns were listening, the older men only pretending not to, and Roland and Dyer had crept close, eyes stretched wide. ‘Those who listen too long grow confused and lose their way: they are never found again, except as bones scoured clean to warn other travellers away.’
‘Hm,’ Temeraire said sceptically. ‘I would like to see the demon that could eat
Tharkay’s mouth twitched. ‘That is why they have not dared to bother us; dragons of your size are not often seen in the desert.’ The men huddled rather closer to Temeraire, and no one spoke of going outside.
‘Have you heard of dragons having their own languages?’ Temeraire asked Tharkay a little later, softly; most of the men were drifting, half-asleep. ‘I have always thought we learnt them from men only.’
‘The Durzagh tongue is a language of dragons,’ Tharkay said. ‘There are sounds in it men cannot make: your voices more easily mimic ours than the reverse.’
‘Oh! Will you teach me?’ Temeraire asked, eagerly; Celestials, unlike most dragons, kept the ability to easily acquire new tongues past their hatching and infancy.
‘It is of little use,’ Tharkay said. ‘It is only spoken in the mountains: in the Pamirs, and the Karakoram.’
‘I do not mind that,’ Temeraire said. ‘It will be so very useful when we are back in England. Laurence, the Government cannot say we are just animals if we have invented our own language,’ he added, looking to him for confirmation.
‘No one with any sense would say it regardless,’ Laurence began, to be interrupted by Tharkay’s short snorting laugh.
‘On the contrary,’ he said. ‘They are more likely to think you an animal for speaking a tongue other than English; or at least a creature unworthy of notice: you would do better to cultivate an elevated tone,’ and his voice changed quite on the final words, taking on the drawling style favoured by the too-fashionable set for a moment.
‘That is a very strange way of speaking,’ Temeraire said dubiously, after he had tried it, repeating over the phrase a few times. ‘It seems very peculiar to me that it should make any difference how one says the words, and it must be a great deal of trouble to learn how to say them all over again. Can one hire a translator to say things properly?’
‘Yes; they are called lawyers,’ Tharkay said, and laughed softly to himself.
‘I would certainly not recommend you to imitate this particular style,’ Laurence said dryly, while Tharkay recovered from his amusement. ‘At best you might only impress some fellow on Bond Street, if he did not run away to begin with.’
‘Very true; you had much better take Captain Laurence as your model,’ Tharkay said, inclining his head. ‘Just how a gentleman ought to speak; I am sure any official would agree.’
His expression was not visible in the shadows, but Laurence felt as though he were being obscurely mocked, perhaps without malice, but irritating to him nonetheless. ‘I see you have made a study of the subject, Mr. Tharkay,’ he said a little coldly. Tharkay shrugged.
‘Necessity was a thorough teacher, if a hard one,’ he said. ‘I found men eager enough to deny me my rights, without providing them so convenient an excuse to dismiss me. You may find it slow going,’ he added to Temeraire, ‘if you mean to assert your own: men with powers and privileges rarely like to share them.’