there is something too convenient in the arrival of this message, just when the Allegiance has been damaged, and you are sure to be chafing at your enforced delay.’
‘Well, I make no secret I had as lief go myself, for all this nay-saying and gloom,’ Granby said, as they walked back to their residence: the crew had already begun the mad scramble of preparation, and haphazard bundles were beginning to be piled upon the beach. ‘So it may be dangerous; we are not nursemaids to a colicky baby, after all. Dragons are made to fly, and another nine months of this sitting about on deck and on shore will be the ruin of his fighting-edge.’
‘And of half the boys, if they have not been spoilt already,’ Laurence said grimly, observing the antics of the younger officers, who were not entirely reconciled to being so abruptly put back to work, and engaging in more boisterous behaviour than he liked to see from men on duty.
‘Allen,’ Granby called sharply, ‘mind your damned harness-straps, unless you want to be started with them.’ The hapless young ensign had not properly buckled on his flying-harness, and the long carabiner straps were dragging on the ground behind him, bidding fair to trip him and any other crewman who crossed his path.
The ground-crew master Fellowes and his harness-men were still labouring over the flying rig, not yet repaired after the fire: a good many straps stiff and hard with salt, or rotted or burnt through, which needed replacing; too, several buckles had twisted and curled from the heat, and the armourer Pratt panted over his makeshift forge on shore as he pounded them straight and flat once more.
‘A moment, and I will see,’ Temeraire said, when they had put it on him to try, and leapt aloft in a stinging cloud of sand. He flew a small circuit and landed, directing the crew, ‘Pray tighten the left shoulder-strap a little, and lengthen the crupper,’ but after some dozen small adjustments he pronounced himself satisfied with the whole.
They laid it aside while he had his dinner: an enormous horned cow spit-roasted and dressed with heaps of green and scarlet peppers with blackened skins, and also a great mound of mushrooms, which he had acquired a taste for in Capetown; meanwhile Laurence sent his men to dinner and rowed over to the Allegiance to have a final meal with Riley, convivial though quiet; they did not drink very much, and afterwards Laurence gave him a last few letters for his mother and for Jane Roland, the official post having already been exchanged.
‘Godspeed,’ Riley said, seeing him down the side; the sun was low and nearly hidden behind the buildings of the town as Laurence was rowed back to shore. Temeraire had nibbled the last of the bones clean, and the men were coming out of the house. ‘All lies well,’ Temeraire said, when they had rigged him out once more, and then the crew climbed aboard, latching their individual harnesses onto Temeraire’s with their locking carabiners.
Tharkay, his hat buttoned on with a strap under the chin, climbed easily up and tucked himself away near Laurence, close to the base of Temeraire’s neck; the eagle, hooded, was in a small cage strapped against his chest. Abruptly from the Allegiance came the sudden thunder of cannon-fire: a formal salute, and Temeraire roared out gladly in answer while the flag-signal broke out from the mainmast: fair wind. With a quick bunching of muscle and sinew, a deep hollow rushing intake of breath beneath the skin, all the chambers of air swelling out wide, Temeraire was aloft, and the port and the city went rolling away beneath him.
They went quickly, very quickly; Temeraire delighting in the chance to stretch his wings for once with no slower companions to hold him back. Though Laurence was at first a little cautious, Temeraire showed no sign of overexertion, no heat in the muscles of his shoulders, and after the first few days Laurence let him choose the pace as he wished. Baffled and curious officials came hurrying out to meet them whenever they came down for some food near a town of sufficient size, and Laurence was forced on more than one occasion to put on the heavy golden dragon-robes, the Emperor’s gift, to make their questions and demands for paperwork subside into a great deal of formal bowing and scraping: though at least he did not need to feel improperly dressed, as in his makeshift green coat. Where possible they began to avoid settlements, instead buying Temeraire’s meals directly from the herdsmen out in the fields, and sleeping nightly in isolated temples, wayside pavilions, and once an abandoned military outpost with the roof long fallen in but the walls still half-standing: they stretched a canopy made of their lashed-together tents over the remnants, and built their fire with the old shattered beams for tinder.
‘North, along the Wudang range, to Luoyang,’ Tharkay said. He had proven a quiet and uncommunicative companion, directing their course most often with a silent pointing finger, tapping on the compass mounted upon Temeraire’s harness, and leaving it to Laurence to pass the directions on to Temeraire. But that night he sketched at Laurence’s request a path in the dirt as they sat outside by the fire, while Temeraire peered down interestedly ‘And then we turn west, towards the old capital, towards Xian.’ The foreign names meant nothing to Laurence, every city spelled seven different ways on his seven different maps, which Tharkay had eyed sidelong and disdained to consult. But Laurence could follow their progress by the sun and the stars, rising daily in their changed places as Temeraire’s flight ate up the miles.
Towns and villages one after another, the children running along the ground underneath Temeraire’s racing shadow, waving and calling in high indistinct voices until they fell behind; rivers snaking below them and the old sullen mountains rising on their left, stained green with moss and girt with reluctant clouds unable to break free from the peaks. Dragons passing by avoided them, respectfully descending to lower ranks of the air to give way to Temeraire, except once one of the greyhound-sleek Jade Dragons, the imperial couriers who flew at heights too cold and thin for other breeds, dived down with a cheerful greeting, flitting around Temeraire’s head like a hummingbird, and as quickly darted up and away again.
As they continued north, the nights ceased to be so stiflingly hot and became instead pleasantly warm and domestic; hunting plentiful and easy even when they did not come across one of the vast nomadic herds, and good forage for the rest of them. With less than a day’s flight left to Xian, they broke their travelling early and encamped by a small lake: three handsome deer were set to roasting for their dinner and Temeraire’s, the men meanwhile nibbling on biscuit and some fresh fruit brought them by a local farmer. Granby sat Roland and Dyer down to practice their penmanship by the firelight while Laurence attempted to make out their attempts at trigonometry. These, having been carried out mid-air and with the slates subject to all the force of the wind, posed quite a serious challenge, but he was glad to see at least their calculations no longer produced hypotenuses shorter than the other sides of their triangles.
Temeraire, relieved of his harness, plunged at once into the lake: mountain streams rolled down to feed it from all sides, and its floor was lined with smooth tumbled stones; it was a little shallow now on the cusp of August, but he managed to throw water over his back, and he frolicked and squirmed over the pebbles with great enthusiasm. ‘That is very refreshing; but surely it must be time to eat now?’ he said as he climbed out, and looked meaningfully at the roasting deer; but the cooks waved their enormous spit-hooks at him threateningly, not yet satisfied with their work.
He sighed a little and shook out his wings, spattering them all with a brief shower that made the fire hiss, and settled himself down upon the shore next to Laurence. ‘I am very glad we did not wait and go by sea; how lovely it is to fly straight, as quickly as one likes, for miles and miles,’ he said, yawning.
Laurence looked down; certainly there was no such flying in England: a week such as the last would have seen them from one end of the isles to the other and back. ‘Did you have a pleasant bathe?’ he asked, changing the subject.
‘Oh, yes; those rocks were very nice,’ Temeraire said, wistfully, ‘although it was
