Наоми Новик – Empire of Ivory (страница 17)

‘Oh! It is not true!’ Iskierka said. ‘I can follow orders as well as anyone, it is only that no one will give me any good ones. I am told only to sit, and not to fight, and to eat three times a day; I do not want any more stupid cows!’ she added, smoulderingly. The ferals, after having this translated for them by their own handful of officers, set up a low squabbling murmur of disbelief.

‘It is not simply the pleasant orders we must follow, but the tiresome as well,’ Jane said, when the noise had died down. ‘Do you suppose Captain Granby likes to sit in this clearing, forever waiting for you to grow more settled? Perhaps he would rather go back to service with Temeraire, and enjoy some fighting.’

Iskierka’s eyes stretched platter-wide, and her spikes hissed like a furnace. In an instant she had thrown a pair of jealous coils around Granby, which bade fair to boil him like a lobster in steam. ‘He would not! You would not, at all, would you?’ she appealed. ‘I will fight just as well as Temeraire, I promise; and I will even obey the stupidest orders, at least, if I may have some pleasant ones also,’ she qualified hastily.

‘I am sure she will mind better in future, sir,’ Granby managed coughing, his hair was already soaking, and plastered against his forehead and neck. ‘Pray don’t fret; I would never leave you, only I am getting wet,’ he added, plaintively.

‘Hm,’ Jane said, with frowning consideration. ‘Since Granby speaks for you, I suppose we will give you your chance.’ she said, at last, ‘You may even have your first orders, Captain, if she will let you come for them, and stand still for her harness.’

Iskierka immediately let him loose and stretched herself out for the ground-crew, only craning her neck a little to see the red-sealed and yellow-tasselled packet, which communicated their instruction in very ornate and important language, to do nothing more than run a quick, hour long patrol down to Guernsey and back. ‘And you may take her by that old heap of rubble at Castle Cornet, where the gunpowder blew up the tower. Tell her it is a French outpost, and that she may flame it from aloft,’ Jane added to Granby, in a soft tone, not meant for Iskierka’s ears.

Iskierka’s harness was a great deal of trouble to arrange as her spines were arranged quite randomly, and the frequent issuing of steam made her hide slick. An improvised collection of short straps and many buckles, had been constructed and were wretchedly easy to tangle, so she could not entirely be blamed for growing tired of the process. But the promise of action and the interested crowd made her more patient this time; and at some length she was properly rigged out. Granby said, with relief, ‘There, it is quite secure. Now, see if you can shake any of it loose, dear one.’

She writhed and beat her wings, twisting herself this way and that to inspect the harness. ‘You are supposed to say, ‘all lies well,’ if you are comfortable,’ Temeraire whispered loudly to her, after she had been engaged in this sport for several minutes.

‘Oh, I see,’ she said, and settling again announced, ‘All lies well. Now, we shall go?’

In this way she was at least a little reformed, though no one could have called her obliging, and she invariably stretched her patrols further afield than Granby would have them; in hope of meeting an enemy more challenging than an old fort and a couple of innocent birds. ‘But at least she will take a little training, and is eating properly, which I call victory enough, for now,’ Granby said. ‘And after all, as much as she frightens us, she’ll give the Frogs a worse scare. Laurence, can you believe, we talked to the fellows up at Castle Cornet, and they set up a bit of sail for her at aim at, and she can set it alight from eighty yards away. That’s twice the range of a Flamme-de-Gloire, and she can go at it for five minutes straight! I don’t understand how she gets her breath while she does it.’

They’d had considerable trouble keeping her out of direct combat, for the French continued their harassment and scouting of the coast with ever-increasing aggression. Jane used the sick dragons more frequently for basic patrols to spare Temeraire and the ferals, who instead waited for most of the day on the cliff tops for the warning flare to go up, or listening with ears pricked for the report of a signal-gun, before dashing frantically to meet another incursion.

In the space of two weeks, Temeraire had four skirmishes with small groups, and once Arkady and a few of his band, sent on patrol by themselves while Temeraire snatched a few more hours of sleep, barely managed to turn back a Pou-de-Ciel who had daringly tried to slip past the shore-batteries at Dover, less than a mile away from having a clear view of the quarantine-grounds.

The ferals returned from their narrow victory naturally delighted with themselves, and Jane with quick cleverness took the opportunity to present to Arkady, with full ceremony, a long length of chain with a large dinner-platter inscribed with his name for a medal; almost worthless, being made only of brass, but polished to a fine golden shine. Arkady was rendered speechless as it was fastened about his neck; but for only a moment, after which he erupted into a torrent of carolling joy, and insisted that every single one of his fellows inspect his prize; even Temeraire did not escape this fate. He bristled and withdrew with indignity to his own clearing to polish his breastplate vigorously.

‘You cannot compare them.’ Laurence said, cautiously, ‘It is only a trinket, to make him complacent, and encourage them in their efforts.’

‘Oh, certainly.’ Temeraire said, haughtily. ‘Mine is much nicer; I would not want anything so common as brass.’ After a moment he added, muttering, ‘But his is very large.’

‘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.