were not real attacks,’ Laurence said. ‘Even that skirmish, though they provoked it. If they had bested us, they could not have stayed to take advantage of it; not upon such small dragons, and not if they wished to get themselves home before they collapsed.’
He had given his men leave to sleep a little on the way back, his own eyes closing once or twice during the flight, too; but that was nothing to seeing Temeraire almost grey with fatigue, and his wings tucked limply against his back.
‘No; they are probing our defences, more aggressively and sooner than I had expected,’ Jane said. ‘I am afraid they have grown suspicious. They chased you into Scotland with neither hide nor wing of another dragon to challenge them. The French are not fool enough to overlook the implications of that, however badly it ended for them. If one of their beasts reach the countryside and flies over the quarantine coverts, the game will be up: they will know they have license to invade.’
‘How have you kept them from growing suspicious this long?’ Laurence said. ‘Surely they must have noted the absence of patrols?’
‘We have managed to disguise the situation so far, by sending the sick on short rounds during clear days when they can be seen from a good distance,’ Jane said. ‘Many of them can still fly, and even fight for a little while, although none of them can stand a long journey. They tire too easily, and they feel the cold more than they should; they complain of aching bones, and the brisk winter has only made matters worse.’
‘If they lie upon the ground, I am not surprised they do not feel well,’ Temeraire said, lifting his head. ‘Of course they feel the cold; I feel it myself on this hard and frozen ground, and I am not at all sick.’
‘Dear fellow,’ Jane said, ‘I would make it summer again if I could; but there is nowhere else for them to sleep.’
‘They must have pavilions,’ Temeraire said.’
‘Pavilions?’ Jane asked.
Laurence went into his small sea-chest and brought out the thick packet which had come with them all the way from China, wrapped many times over with oilcloth and twine. The outer layers were stained almost black, the inner still pale. He unravelled them until he came to the thin fine rice paper inside, illustrating the plans for the dragon-pavilion, then handed the sheets to her.
‘Just see if the Admiralty will pay for such a thing,’ Jane said dryly, but she looked the designs over with a thoughtful more than a critical eye. ‘It is a clever arrangement, and I dare say it would make them a damned sight more comfortable than lying on damp ground. I hear those at Loch Laggan fare better; where they have the heat from the baths underground, and the Longwings quartered in sandpits hold up longer, though they do not like such confinement in the least.’
‘I am sure that if they only had the pavilions and some more appetizing food to eat, they would soon get well. I did not like to eat at all when I had my cold, until the Chinese cooked for me,’ Temeraire said.
‘I second that,’ Laurence agreed. ‘He scarcely ate at all before their intervention. Keynes was of the opinion that the strength of spices compensated, to some part, for his inability to smell or taste with the tongue.’
‘Well, I can certainly find a few guineas here and there for that; and manage to arrange a trial. We have not spent half of what we ordinarily would have on powder,’ Jane said. ‘It will not last for very long, not if we are to feed two hundred dragons spiced meals, and the problem of where I am to find cooks enough to manage it remains, but if we see some improvement from it, we may have some better luck persuading their Lordships to carry the project forward.
Gong Su, the cook Laurence had hired in China, was enlisted to their cause, and over the course of a week had emptied his spice cabinets. He had made vigorous use of his sharpest peppers, much to the intense disapproval of the herdsmen, who were rousted from comfortable and easy posts, that usually required little more than dragging cows from the pen to slaughter, and had now been set to stirring the pungent cauldrons.
The effect of the new cuisine was a marked one: the dragons’ appetites were more startled awake than coaxed, and many of the near somnolent beasts began clamouring with fresh hunger. However, the spices were not easily replaced, and Gong Su shook his head with dissatisfaction over what the Dover merchants could provide, the cost of which was astronomical.
‘Laurence,’ Jane said, having called him to her quarters for dinner, ‘I hope you will forgive me for dealing you a shabby hand: I mean to send you off to plead our case. I would not like to leave Excidium for long now, and I cannot take him over London sneezing as he does. We can manage a couple of patrols here while you are gone, and so Temeraire may rest; he needs to in any case.
‘And thank Heaven, that fellow Barham, who I believe gave you some difficulty, is out. Grenville has the place now. He is not a bad fellow, so far as I can tell; he does not understand the first thing about dragons, but that hardly makes him unique.’
Later that evening, as Jane reached for her wine glass at the end of her bed and settled back against Laurence’s arm, she said, ‘But I should add, privately, that I would not hazard two pins for my chances of persuading him to anything. He yielded to Powys in the end, over my appointment, and can scarcely bear to address a note to me. The truth is, I have made use of his mortification to squeak through half-a-dozen orders for which I have not quite the authority, some of which I am sure he would have objected to, if he could have done so without summoning me. Our chances of agreement are precious small, but we will do a good deal better with you there.’
It did not prove to be the case, however; even Jane would not have been refused admittance. One of the Navy secretaries: a tall, thin, officious fellow, stood before Laurence speaking impatiently, ‘Yes, yes, I have your numbers written in front of me; and you may be sure we have taken note of the higher requisitions of cattle. But have any of them recovered? You say nothing of that. How many can fly now that could not manage it before, and for how long can they sustain it?’
Laurence resentfully felt as if he were inquiring about the improved performance of a ship, after changes of her cordage or sailcloth. ‘The surgeons are of the opinion, that with these measures we can certainly expect to retard the progress of the illness,’ he could not claim that any had recovered. ‘Which alone must be of benefit, and perhaps with the addition of these pavilions—’
The secretary was shaking his head. ‘If they will not improve further, I cannot give you any encouragement on the matter: we must still build shore batteries along the coastline, and if you think dragons expensive, you cannot imagine the cost of the guns.’
‘All the more reason to spend a little more on the dragons we have, to safeguard their remaining strength,’ Laurence said. In frustration he added, ‘And especially, sir, because it is no more than their just deserts for their service; these are sentient creatures, not dumb cavalry horses.’
‘Oh, such romantic notions,’ the secretary said, dismissively. ‘Captain; I regret to inform you that his Lordship is occupied today. We have your report, and you may be sure he will respond to it, when he has time. I can make you an appointment for next week, perhaps.’
Laurence restrained himself from replying to this incivility in a way he felt it deserved; and departed feeling that he had been a far worse messenger than Jane would have been. His spirits were not to be recovered even upon catching a glimpse of Lord Nelson in the courtyard: splendid in his dress uniform and row of peculiar misshapen
