several hours, and Laurence would certainly not have stayed in the water, but would have struck right out for land, sensibly—and had gone back to the ship to consult maps to determine where best to find Laurence, and organize a better rescue.
It had not occurred to him that anyone would be so ridiculous as to throw some business of politics in his way: this nonsense of Japan being closed to foreign shipping, and unreasonably intolerant of visitors. Of course Hammond might be counted on to try offering him objections on such flimsy grounds, but Temeraire would have thought better of Granby and Captain Harcourt to lend themselves to it, or any of the other dragons’ captains.
Temeraire was trying to be just: he did not hold it against anyone, much, that they had not noticed Laurence missing in the great confusion—although he had been trying to save the entire ship, and others had not been in quite so crucial a position; someone else might have looked sooner—“But I do not think it unreasonably selfish of me,” he said, “that now the others should keep on without me, until I have found Laurence. And I will certainly go at once.”
The storm was gone and the winds had died down, and Maximus and Kulingile could take it in turn to keep the ship from being smashed upon the shoals: Kulingile was aloft even now, doing his turn alone, and the ship was perfectly well. It did not signify if a few waves came over the side; sailors had to be prepared to get a little wet, now and again.
“I do not even mean to be gone very long,” Temeraire said. “I am only asking to take perhaps twenty men, or thirty, and fly to the nearest shore and begin a search: certainly we will find him very soon. Particularly if we should make inquiries amongst the populace.”
“We must do nothing of the sort,” Hammond said, leaning over the rail and mopping his brow with his handkerchief: the weather was pleasantly hot now under the direct sun, which they had not seen for several days. “Nagasaki is the only harbor of Japan even open to any Western trade: the law utterly forbids the entry of any foreigners into the country, and if they should find Captain Laurence thrown up on their shore—” He stopped talking with a choking cough, as Granby stumbled with the swell on the shuddering deck, and knocked him in the side.
“If they do not want any foreigners about, they should be all the happier for us to find Laurence, and depart,” Temeraire said, feeling himself on eminently solid ground. “And after all, we can tell them we do not want to be here, either: we are only on our way to China, and if we had not run into that dreadful squall we should not have troubled them in the least.”
“Perhaps instead you might proceed at once to Nagasaki,” Gong Su said; he did not quail when Temeraire turned a cold glittering eye upon him, although he did add, “I beg your forgiveness for speaking of a course of action which is distasteful to you, but no good can come from failing to follow the proper forms of intercourse. I am sure that an inquiry laid with the harbormaster, with the proper respect, is most likely to yield the fruit which we all desire: the prince’s safe return.”
“Not much chance of that, certain sure,” O’Dea muttered, from where he was sitting not far away, wrapped in an oilskin and huddled up to Iskierka’s side for the warmth, pretending to be worming a rope usefully when really he was only listening. “Cruel, I call it, to keep up his hopes: the ocean keeps what she takes.”
“Thank you, O’Dea, that is enough,” Granby said sharply.
“It is enough,” Temeraire said. “You need not silence him, when he is only saying what you all think. Well, I do not care. I am not going to Nagasaki; I am not going to China; I am not going anywhere without Laurence, and I am certainly not going to only sit here and wait.”
“No, of course you aren’t,” Granby said under his breath.
“Oh, yes, you are!” said Iskierka cracking open an eye, now of all times. She had slept nearly the entire storm away fastened down in the most comfortable place, between Maximus and Kulingile, with Temeraire curled round and Lily, Messoria, and Immortalis all heaped on top; during the crisis, she had done absolutely nothing but huddle on an exposed rock and watch, grumblingly, while the rest of them had worked. And now the ship was more secure, she had slung herself, very inconveniently for everyone else, around the base of the mizzenmast to keep sleeping all the day.
“I am not, in the least!” Temeraire said to her, with strong indignation: if she were to tell him Laurence was dead, he would clout her across the nose. “Laurence is not dead.”
“I don’t see why he should be dead,” Iskierka said, “what has that to do with anything? But you are not going haring off into the countryside when we are stuck here on these rocks, and anything at all might happen to the ship.”
Temeraire thought this ridiculous. The storm was over, and the Potentate had not sunk yet; she would not sink now. “Whyever ought I stay here, when Laurence is lost somewhere in Japan?”
“Because I am going to have the egg tomorrow,” Iskierka said, then paused and tilted her head thoughtfully, “or perhaps to-day: I want something to eat, and then we shall see.”
“The egg?” Granby said, staring at her. “What egg? What—do you mean to tell me the two of you blighted fiends have been—”
“Well, of course,” Iskierka said. “How else could we have made an egg? Although,” she added to Temeraire, “it has been a great deal more trouble for me, so once it is out, I think it is only fair you should look after it: anyway you are not going anywhere, until it is quite safe.”
Another full day passed in sleep and eating restored Laurence to nearly all the outward semblances of comfort, and robbed him more with every passing minute of the inward: he could not conceive of any course which should have deposited him so unceremoniously on the highways of Japan. He could not even be grateful to find himself equipped, apparently by the hand of deity, with the Chinese language to hand: he would have preferred to have been made mute, and known in the confines of his own mind whence he came, even if he could not have communicated that knowledge to his captors.
And captors they certainly were: his request for transport to Nagasaki remained notably unanswered. He had learnt a little more of his situation from Junichiro, who had despite his earlier flash of resentment continued to wait upon him punctiliously. His host’s name was Kaneko Hiromasa; his exact rank Laurence could not entirely work out, but he was at the least a reasonably wealthy man of some position, if judged by the size of his house and the number of servants, and engaged on important affairs by the quantity of papers in his study. A country-gentleman, managing his own estates, or perhaps even an official of some sort. Regardless of his rank, however, it was increasingly plain he did not view Laurence as a mere subject of charity, to be fed and washed and sent on his way.
Laurence had not been able to marshal his resources to pursue the matter on the previous day. Confusion and illness had overcome him, and he had spent nearly all the day asleep, stretched his full length upon the bare mats of the floor, rousing only for dinner. But in the morning he awakened feeling himself again, in body at least; and when the servants came with breakfast, he made plain he wished to speak with Kaneko once again. The ordinary maids did not speak Chinese, but when he had repeated their master’s name, they went away, and brought Junichiro back with them.
That young man came to the chamber door and stood outside, his face hard and remote. “My master is presently occupied,” he said. “Permit me to address your needs.” His voice was flat, and he did not look Laurence in the face. There
