Наоми Новик – Tongues of Serpents (страница 16)

The work gang had been assembled with equal haste: some dozen convicts, having been promised their liberty in exchange for this one service, were herded with difficulty up to the promontory and thence into Temeraire’s belly-rigging. They were an odd, ill-favoured assortment of men, for the most part thin and leathery, with a peculiar similarity to their faces perhaps born of suffering and their preferred mode of consolation: fine trace works of broken red capillaries about the base of their noses, and eyes shot through with blood.

There were a few men who looked a little more suited to the work which lay ahead: a Jonas Green, who might himself have been cut none-too-neatly out of rock, with bulk in his shoulders and his arms; he alone of the convicts was not drunk when they came up to the promontory. A Robert Maynard was rather more fat than substantial, and no one could have accused him of abstinence, but he had reportedly a little skill at stonemasonry, and his hands showed the evidence: callused hard as iron and large out of all proportion, thick-fingered.

‘You had better not mistake him,’ MacArthur said, handing over the manifest of men. ‘Transported for pickpocketing. He cannot do much harm out in the wilderness, but I would advise you keep your purses close when you are coming back.’

Though they were nearly one and all a little intoxicated, and the hour early enough to yet be dark when they had been marched up to the promontory, the convicts balked at dragon transport, seeing Temeraire’s head swinging towards them through the foggy dimness, and were inclined to withdraw at once.

‘It’s more than you can ask a man,’ one almost fragile, reedy-voiced fellow said: Jack Telly, sad-eyed and disappointed in his face, his stunted person incongruous with the aggression of his protest. ‘I can swing a pick all day and all night, and will too, but I ain’t to be thrown in a dragon’s belly without so much as a by-your-leave.’

The general agreement with this sentiment resisted all logic and was only overcome with sufficient doses of rum and cajolery to leave the men in a more or less stupefied state — not unlike the methods used for transporting cattle, Laurence noted with some resignation, before they could at last be marched aboard. Green alone refused the bribery, with a shake of his head when offered a glass; he was one of the convicts who had only lately been brought over in the Allegiance, and rather climbed aboard with no confidence but a stoic resignation: as though he did not care very greatly if he were to be fed to a dragon.

Forthing saw the loading managed efficiently under Temeraire’s darkling gaze and said, ‘I believe we are ready, Mr. Laurence,’ a little stiffly but without open discourtesy: Granby, Laurence thought, had made him a few pointed remarks, on the subject of his prospects and how likely these were to be advanced through behaviour which should irritate the dragon overseeing the remaining eggs that were all his hope of promotion.

‘The eggs are quite secure?’ Temeraire said, nosing down at his own belly, where they had been snugged-in: he had utterly refused to leave them behind, even in Riley’s care.

‘No: for Bligh is still aboard the ship,’ Temeraire had said, ‘and apart from any other mischief he might do them, if one should hatch, I should not be at all surprised if Bligh should try and take it for himself, since Rankin is not going to oblige him after all. I would not worry ordinarily,’ Temeraire had added, ‘but plainly the sea-voyage has affected the eggs badly: that is the only explanation for Caesar, in my opinion,’ with great disapproval.

‘Pray be sure that the little one is in properly,’ Temeraire added now. ‘It would be quite dreadful if it were to slip out.’

‘The netting is tight, and the padding will not shift,’ Laurence said, pulling against the thick hawsers of the belly-netting with his hand, and leaning his weight against it, without much yielding. ‘And we cannot have any fear of the temperature falling too far. Try away, if you will.’

Temeraire reared himself up on his hindquarters and shook; not with quite the usual vigour, as he had too much care for the eggs, but enough to be sure nothing was ready to tumble free or break loose. ‘All lies well,’ he said.

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