Tongues of Serpents

Rankin hesitated, visibly torn, and then said, ‘I believe there are some dairy farms on his estates — several hundred head among them, I imagine.’

‘Good, good,’ the dragonet said, approvingly. ‘Well, let us have a look at this harness, and as long as you are busy being polite, you might give me a taste while I am thinking it over; I do like your hair,’ it added; Temeraire did have to admit Rankin’s was of a particularly appealing shade of yellow which looked a little like gold in the sunlight, ‘and your coat, although that fellow has nicer buttons,’ meaning Granby, ‘but I suppose you can have some like that put on?’

‘But you do not want him, at all!’ Temeraire said. ‘He is an extremely unpleasant person, and neglected Levitas dreadfully, although Levitas was forever trying to please him, and then Levitas died, and it was all his doing.’

‘Yes, so you have said, over and over, while I was getting ready to come out; and all I have to say is, this Levitas fellow sounds a right bore,’ the dragonet said, ‘and I shall like to have a captain who is the son of an earl, and rich, too; I don’t aim to be eating kangaroo day-in and day-out, thank you; or hurrying about catching prizes for myself, either. But that,’ he added, looking at the harness which Rankin was with a slightly uncertain air proffering, ‘is not nice enough by half: those buckles are dirty, it looks to me.’

‘They are certainly dirty,’ Temeraire put in urgently, ‘and so was Levitas’s harness, all the while: quite covered with dirt, and Rankin would not even let him bathe.’

‘This is only a temporary harness,’ Rankin said, adding tentatively, ‘and I shall have a nicer made for you, chased with gold,’ in what Temeraire felt was a quite shameful bargaining sort of manner.

‘Ah, now that sounds more like,’ the dragonet said.

‘And I shall give you a name, straightaway,’ Rankin added, with more firmness. ‘We shall call you Serenitus—‘

‘I have been thinking Conquistador, myself,’ the dragonet interrupted him, ‘or perhaps Caesar; only as I understand it, the conquistadors came out of it with a good deal more gold.’

‘No one is going to call you Caesar,’ Temeraire said, revolted. ‘You are only going to be a middleweight, anyway, if you are that big: Wringe is not even as big as a Reaper.’

‘You never know,’ the dragonet said unfazed. ‘It is better to be prepared. I think Caesar will suit me very well, now I think about it a little more.’

‘Well, I wash my hands of it all,’ Temeraire said to Laurence, afterwards, more than a little aggravated watching Caesar, ‘Oh! How ridiculous — eating a second sheep!’ Rankin had sent out for it, after Caesar had eaten all the first one, down to the scraps, and suggested with a very transparent air that perhaps eating quite a lot while he was fresh-hatched would help him to grow bigger. ‘And I do not believe that at all,’ he added.

‘Well, my dear, they seem to me admirably suited,’ Laurence said dryly. ‘Only I am damned if I know what we are to do now.’

Chapter Four

‘Laurence, I hope you will forgive me,’ Granby said, low, while across the way Caesar continued his depredations upon the livestock which Rankin had evidently intended for his first week of feedings. ‘I didn’t mean to say a word, unless he should manage to harness the beast; but he has, and there is no way around it — you must let me go-between, and make up the quarrel.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Laurence said, doubtfully, certain he had misunderstood; but Granby shook his head and said, ‘I know it’s not what you are used to; but pray don’t be stiff-necked about it: there can’t be two captains in a covert at dagger-ends forever and anon, and you can’t fight him; so it must be made up, whatever you think of the blighted wretch,’ he added, rather failing at conciliation.

It was by no means what Laurence was used to; the thought of offering Rankin anything so like apology, for an act which had been richly merited by his behaviour, and which Laurence would gladly have drawn swords to justify, appalled more than he could easily bear.

‘You needn’t think of it that way,’ Granby said, ‘for it’s only that you have the heavier beast, you know: that is the rule. It’s for you to make the first gesture; he can’t, without looking shy.’

Laurence could not be so easily reconciled, despite all the obvious sense in this policy, to a gesture which to him partook of the worst part of both withdrawal and deceit. ‘For I do not withdraw, John; I cannot withdraw in the least. It would be rankest falsehood for me to pretend in any way to regret my actions, or any offence which was given by them; and under the circumstances, such a withdrawal must bear a character of self-interest which I must despise.’

‘Lord, I am not saying you must truckle to the fellow!’ Granby said, with a look half affection and half exasperation. ‘Nothing of the sort; you only need to let me go forward, and have a word with him, and then you shan’t speak of it again, either of you: that is all. No one will think any less of you: the contrary, for it would be rotten for the dragonet, you know. If you are giving his captain the go-by, it must make a quarrel between him and Temeraire, too, and you can’t say that is fair.’

This argument had too much justice for Laurence to ignore; he managed barely to make himself nod, once, by way of granting permission, and looked the other way when Rankin joined Granby’s table that night, in a small hostelry, for the dinner which should honour his promotion. Granby cast a worried look at him, sidelong, and said to Rankin, in tones of slightly excessive heartiness, ‘I am afraid Caesar means to lead you something of a merry chase, sir; a most determined beast.’

Granby, who had more knowledge of the management of a determined if not obstreperous beast than any ten men, might have been pardoned for some degree of private satisfaction in this remark. ‘If it is any consolation,’ he had said to Laurence, earlier, rather more frankly, ‘the little beast is his just deserts, anyway: how I will laugh to see him dragged hither and yon, protesting all he likes that Caesar must obey. That creature won’t take being shot off in a corner and left to rot.’

Laurence could not wholly take amusement in any part of the circumstances which forced him to endure Rankin’s company; but he did not deny a certain grim satisfaction, which became incredulous when Rankin answered, coolly, ‘You are very mistaken, Captain Granby; I anticipate nothing of the sort.

‘That there has been some mismanagement of the egg, I cannot dispute,’ Rankin added, ‘nor that his hatching did not give cause for concerns such as you have described: but I have been most heartened since those first moments to find Caesar a most complaisant creature by nature. Indeed, it is not too far to say I think him a most remarkable beast, quite out of the common way in intelligence and in tractability.’

Laurence forgot his feelings in bemusement and Granby looked equally at a loss for response, when so far as they had seen, Caesar had spent the afternoon demonstrating only an insistent gluttony. Perhaps Rankin chose to deceive himself, rather than think himself overmatched, Laurence wondered; but Rankin added, with a self-satisfaction that seemed past mere wishful thinking, ‘I have already begun instructing him on better principles, and I have every hope of shaping him into the attentive and obedient beast which must be the ambition of every aviator. Already he begins to partake of my sentiments and understanding as he ought, and to value my opinion over all others.’

‘Well,’ Granby said doubtfully, then, ‘Mr. Forthing, the bottle stands by you,’ and the conversation limped away into a fresh direction; but in the morning Laurence was astonished to find Rankin at the promontory, with a book, to attend Caesar’s breakfast. He seated himself at Caesar’s side and began to read to the dragonet as the beast ate: an aviation manual of some sort, Laurence collected from what he overheard, although the language was very peculiar.

‘Oh, he has never dug up that antique thing,’ Granby said, with disgust, and added, ‘It is from the Tudor age, I think; all about how to manage a dragon. We read it in school, but I cannot think of anyone who gives it a thought anymore.’

Caesar listened very attentively, however, while he gnawed on a bone, and said earnestly, ‘My dear captain, I cannot disagree at all, it seems very sensible indeed; pray do you think I ought to try and manage another sheep? I take it quite to heart, what the book says about the importance of early feeding. If it accords with your judgment, of course: I am wholly willing to be guided by your superior experience; but I must say I find I am so much better able to attend when I am quite full.’

‘This,’ Iskierka said, ‘is what comes of worrying about hatchlings.’

Temeraire did not think that was very just: he had not worried about Caesar for very long, certainly, and at the present moment he would not have given one scrap of liver for all Caesar’s health and happiness; not, of course, that Caesar seemed to be in any short supply of either. In one week he had eaten nine sheep, an entire cow, a tunny, and even three kangaroos, after Rankin had been forced to reconsider the speed at which he was depleting his funds.

That would have been quite enough to make him intolerable, particularly the smacking, gloating way in which he took his gluttonous meals, but apart from these offensive habits, he would strut, and wake one up out of a pleasant drowse in the midday heat by singing out loudly, ‘Oh, my captain is coming to see me,’ and he would with very great satisfaction inform Rankin that he was looking very fine, that day, and make a pointed note of every bit of gold or decoration which he wore.

The one consolation which Temeraire had promised himself, Rankin’s certain neglect, which should also ensure his absence, did not materialize: instead Rankin was forever coming, and so Temeraire did not only have to endure Caesar, but Rankin also, and hear his irritating voice all the day, reading out from this absurd book full of nonsense about how one ought to never ask questions of one’s captain, and spend all one’s time practising formation-manoeuvres.

‘I cannot understand in the least,’ Temeraire complained, ‘why when he had the very nicest of dragons, he was never to be seen; and now one cannot be rid of him. I have even hinted a little that he might take himself off, in the afternoons when it is so very hot and one wishes only to sleep, but he will never go.’

‘I imagine he had a better chance of society more to his liking, in Britain,’ Laurence said. ‘He was a courier-captain on light duty, and might easily visit friends of his social order; he has never been a particular favourite, among other aviators.’

‘No, I am sure he has not,’ Temeraire said, disgustedly.

Meanwhile there was no end of trouble to be seen, because the company Rankin did keep, aside from Caesar, was Governor Bligh, whom Temeraire had now classed a thoroughly unpleasant sort of person: not surprising when one considered he was part of Government. Bligh certainly had some notion that when Caesar was a little more grown, Rankin would help put him back in his post; Temeraire had even overheard Rankin discussing the matter with Caesar.

‘Oh, certainly,’ Caesar said, ‘I will always be happy to oblige you, my dear captain; and Governor Bligh. It is of the first importance that our colony—’ Our colony, Temeraire fumed silently, ‘—should have the finest leadership.

‘I understand,’ he added, ‘that governors have quite a great deal of power; is that not so? They may give grants of land?’

Rankin paused and said, ‘Yes; unclaimed land is in the governor’s gift.’

‘Just so, just so,’ Caesar said. ‘I understand it takes a great deal of land to raise cattle, and sheep; I am sure Governor Bligh must be well aware of it.’

‘A clever beast,’ Laurence said dryly, when Temeraire with indignation had repeated this exchange to him. ‘I am afraid, my dear, we may find ourselves quite at a stand.’

‘Laurence,’ Temeraire said, shocked, ‘Laurence, surely you do not imagine he could beat me. If ever he tried to cause us any difficulty—’

‘If you were ever to come on to blows,’ Laurence said, ‘we should already be well in the soup; such a conflict must at all costs be avoided. Even in defeat, he might easily do you a terrible injury, and to run such a risk, for the reward only of making yourself more an outlaw and terrifying to the local populace, cannot be a rational choice. Consider that every week now brings us closer to word from England, and I trust the establishment of a new order.’

‘Which,’ Temeraire said, ‘is likely to be just as bad as Bligh, I expect.’

‘So long as we are not responsible for either its establishment or its destruction,’ Laurence said grimly, ‘and neither its hated enemy nor its cosseted ally, our situation can only be improved.’

‘I do not see very well how,’ Temeraire said, brooding over the matter; he was not quite certain he saw it the same way, ‘if we must stay here for some time…?’ He paused, interrogatively.

Laurence did not immediately answer. ‘I am afraid so,’ he said, at last, quietly, ‘The waste of your abilities is very nearly criminal, my dear, and Jane will do her best by us, of course; but with matters as they are among the unharnessed beasts in England, and such reports as Bligh is already likely to make of us, I must not counsel you to hope for a quick recall.’

Temeraire could not fail to see that Laurence was quite downcast by his own words. ‘Why, I am sure it will be perfectly pleasant to remain a while,’ Temeraire said, stoutly, making sure to tuck his wings to his sides in a complaisant sort of way. ‘Only if we are to remain,’ he did not allow any disappointment to colour his words, ‘then it seems to me that Caesar is right on this one point: we ought have better leadership, who can arrange it so we can have proper food, and everything nice — perhaps even a pavilion, with some shade and water, against all this heat. We might even build some roads as wide as in China, and put the pavilions directly in the town; just like a properly civilized country.’

‘We cannot hope to promote such a project, however desirable, without the support of civil authority; you cannot force the change wholesale,’ Laurence said; he paused and added, low, ‘We might make such a bargain, with Bligh, I expect; he cannot be insensible of your much greater strength, and he knows he requires at least our complaisance, even if he has Rankin’s aid.’

‘But Laurence, I do not like Bligh at all,’ Temeraire said. ‘I have quite settled it that he is a bounder: he will say anything, and do anything, and be friendly to anyone, only to be back as governor; but I do not think it is because he wishes so much to do anything pleasant or nice for anyone.’

‘No, he wishes only to be vindicated, I believe,’ Laurence answered, ‘and revenged. Not without cause,’ he added, ‘but—’ He stopped and shook his head. ‘There would be a species of tyranny in it, when they have ruled so long and without argument from the citizenry.’

Temeraire brooded on further afterwards, that afternoon, while Caesar discussed enthusiastically with Rankin plans for an elaborate cattle farm, quite exploding Temeraire’s hopes of napping. He was beginning to understand strongly the sentiment that beggars could not be choosers. No one would ever have chosen to be trapped here; but now he must make the best of it, for himself and for Laurence. Temeraire dismally recognized that he had solaced himself, by thinking that Iskierka was only a wretched pirate, really, and her excesses for Granby in poor taste, which Laurence would not have liked, anyway. But now here was Rankin, too, also wearing gold buttons, and he was a captain still, as Laurence ought have been. There was no thinking two ways about it: Temeraire had not taken proper care of him; he had quite mismanaged the situation.

‘Demane,’ Temeraire said, lifting his head, and speaking in the Xhosa language, so Rankin could not sneak and overhear, nor Caesar; Demane looked up from where he was figuring out sums with Roland, or rather, giving his sums to Sipho to figure out for him, while he instead cleaned yet another old flintlock; he had acquired another four in the town, lately. ‘Demane, do you remember that fellow who was here the other day, MacArthur? Will you go into town and find out where he lives; and take him a message?’

‘I cannot but feel I have — I am — mismanaging the situation,’ Laurence said sombrely, tapping his hand restlessly upon the table until he noticed his own fidgeting, which even then required an effort to cease.

From wishing only to have the decision taken out of his own hands, Laurence now found he did not think he could be easy in his mind to watch the colony’s leaders deposed and, as he increasingly thought Bligh’s intention, executed without even awaiting word from England. ‘But if Rankin should move in his support, I cannot avoid the decision: either we must stand by or intervene. I hope,’ he added ruefully, ‘that I am not so petty as to have more sympathy for Johnston and MacArthur, and the less for Bligh, only because Rankin has ranged himself alongside him.’

‘You might have a worse reason,’ Tharkay said. ‘At least you cannot call the decision self-interested; his restoration would be more to your advantage.’

‘Not unless it is by my own doing,’ Laurence said, ‘which I cannot reconcile with a sense of justice; and I doubt even that would serve,’ he added, pessimism sharp in his mouth. ‘Even to act must rouse fresh suspicions; we are damned in either direction, when all they want of us is quiet obedience.’

‘If you will pardon my saying so,’ Tharkay said, ‘you will never satisfy them on that point: the last thing you or Temeraire will ever give anyone is quiet obedience. Have you considered it might be better not to try?’

Laurence would have liked to protest this remark: he believed in the discipline of the service, and still felt himself at heart a serving officer; if he had been forced beyond the bounds of proper submission to authority, it had been most unwillingly. But denial froze in his throat; that excuse was worth precisely the value that their Lordships would have put upon it, which was none.

Tharkay left him to wrestle with it a moment, then added, ‘There are alternatives, if you wished to consider them.’

‘To sit here on the far side of the world, seeing Temeraire wholly wasted on the business of breeding, and condemned to tedium and the absence of all society?’ Laurence said, tiredly. ‘We might, I suppose, do some work for the colony: ferry goods, and assist with the construction of roads—’

‘You might go to sea,’ Tharkay said, and Laurence looked at him in surprise. ‘No, I am not speaking fancifully. You remember, perhaps, Avram Maden?’

Laurence nodded, a little surprised: he had not heard the merchant’s name from Tharkay since they had left Istanbul, nor that of Maden’s daughter; and Laurence had himself avoided any mention of either for fear of giving pain. ‘I must consider myself yet in his debt; I hope he does well. He did not come under any suspicion, after our escape?’

‘No; I believe we made a sufficiently dramatic exit to satisfy the Turks without their seeking for conspirators.’ Tharkay paused, and then his mouth twisted a little. ‘He has been lately presented with his first grandson,’ he added.

‘Ah,’ Laurence said, and reached over to fill Tharkay’s glass.

Tharkay raised it to him silently and drank. A minute passed, then leaving the subject with nothing more said, he abruptly said, ‘I am engaged to perform a service for the directors of the East India Company, at his request; and as I understand it, several of those gentlemen are interested in outfitting privateers, to strike at the French trade in the Pacific.’

‘Yes?’ Laurence said politely, wondering how this should apply to his situation. What service those merchant lords might require, in this still-small port, Laurence could not understand, though it explained at least why Tharkay had come, and then he realized, starting back a little in his chair, that Tharkay meant this as a suggestion.

‘I could scarcely fit Temeraire on a privateer,’ he said, wondering a little that Tharkay could imagine it done: it was not as though he had not seen Temeraire.

‘Without having broached the subject with the gentlemen in question,’ Tharkay said, ‘I will nevertheless go so far as to assure you that the practicalities would be managed, if you were willing. Ships can be built to carry dragons, where interest exists; and a dragon who can sink any vessel afloat must command interest.’

He spoke with certainty; and Laurence could take his point. A dragon could never ordinarily be obtained for such a purpose; as yet they were the exclusive province of the state. They and the first-rates and transports which could bear a dragon were devoted to blockade duty, and to naval warfare, not to the quick and stinging pursuit of the enemy’s shipping. Temeraire would be unopposed, and a privateer so armed would be virtually at liberty to take any ship which it encountered.

Laurence did not know how to answer. There was nothing dishonourable in privateering, nothing dishonourable in the least. He had known several men formerly of the Navy embark on the enterprise and had not diminished in respect for them at all.

‘I doubt the government would deny you a letter of marque,’ Tharkay said.

‘No,’ Laurence said. It would surely suit their Lordships admirably. Temeraire wreaking a wholesale destruction among French shipping would be a great improvement over Temeraire sitting idly in New South Wales, with none of the risks attendant on bringing him back to the front and once again into the company of other impressionable beasts, which he might lure into sedition.

‘I will not urge it on you,’ Tharkay said. ‘If you should care for the introduction, however, I would be at your service.’

‘But that sounds quite splendid,’ Temeraire said, with real enthusiasm, when Laurence had laid the proposal before him in only the barest terms. ‘I am sure we should take any number of prizes; Iskierka should have nothing on it. How long do you suppose it would be, for them to build us a ship?’

Laurence only with difficulty persuaded him to consider it as anything other than a settled thing; Temeraire was already inclined to be making plans for the use of his future wealth. ‘You could not wish to remain here, instead?’ Temeraire said. ‘Not, of course, that I mean to suggest there is anything wrong here,’ he added unconvincingly.

The mornings and late evenings were now the only, and scarcely, bearable times of day, and they had begun to stretch them with early rising and late nights; the sun was only just up over the harbour, spilling a broad swath of light across the water running into all the bays of the harbour, making them glow out brilliantly white against the dark curve of the land rising away, blackish-green and silent. Temeraire had not eaten in two days: the stretch was not markedly unhealthy, given his inaction, but Laurence feared it was due largely to a secret disdain for his food, the regrettable consequence of Temeraire having grown fussy in his tastes, a grave danger for a military man — and there Laurence was forced again to the recollection that they were neither of them military, any longer.

Even so, there was an advantage to a stronger stomach: he himself, subject to shipboard provisions during the most ravenous years of his life, could subsist on weeviled biscuit and salt pork indefinitely; even though he had not often had to endure those conditions. Temeraire had too early in his life developed a finicky palate; and Gong Su had done what was in his power, but he had made quite clear one could not turn a lean, scrub-fed game animal, half bone and sinew and anatomical oddities, into a fat and nicely marbled piece of beef; Laurence was considering if his finances could stretch to the provision of some cattle, at least for a treat.