Qin Mei, a charming Imperial dragon, had been Temeraire’s intimate companion in Peking; Laurence had feared since their departure that Temeraire might privately be pining for her. But this sudden mention seemed a non sequitur, nor did Temeraire seem very love-lorn in his tone. Then Granby said, ‘Oh, dear,’ and stood up to call across the camp, ‘Mr. Ferris! Mr. Ferris, tell those boys to pour out that water, and go and fetch some from the stream instead, if you please.’
‘Temeraire!’ Laurence said, scarlet with comprehension.
‘Yes?’ Temeraire looked at him, puzzled. ‘Well, do you not find it more pleasant to be with Jane, than to—’
Laurence stood up hastily, saying, ‘Mr. Granby, pray call the men to dinner now,’ and pretended not to hear the unsteady stifled mirth in Granby’s voice as he said, ‘Yes, sir,’ and dashed away.
Xian was an ancient city, the former capital of the nation and full of the memory of glory, the thin scattering of carts and travellers lonely on the wide and weed-choked roads leading in to the city; they flew over high moated walls of grey brick, pagoda towers standing dark and empty, only a few guards in their uniforms and a couple of lazy scarlet dragons yawning. From above, the streets quartered the city into chessboard squares, marked with temples of a dozen descriptions, incongruous minarets cheek by jowl with the sharp-pointed pagoda roofs. Narrow poplars and old, old pines with fragile wisps of green needles lined the avenues, and they were received in a marble square before the main pagoda by the magistrate of the city, officials assembled and bowing in their robes: news of their approach was outrunning them, likely on the wings of the Jade Dragon courier. They were feasted on the banks of the Wei river in an old pavilion overlooking rustling wheat fields, on hot milky soup and skewers of mutton, three sheep roasted together on a spit for Temeraire, and the magistrate ceremonially broke sprigs of willow in farewell as they left: wishes for a safe return.
Two days later they slept near Tianshui in caves hollowed from red rock, full of silent unsmiling Buddhas, hands and faces reaching out from the walls, garments draped in eternal folds of stone, and rain falling outside beyond the grotto openings. Monumental figures peered after them through the continuing mist as they flew onward, tracking the river or its tributaries now into the heart of the mountain range, narrow winding passes not much wider than Temeraire’s wingspan. He delighted in flying through these at great speed, stretching himself to the limit, his wing-tips nearly brushing at the awkward saplings that jutted out sideways from the slopes, until one morning a freakish start of wind came suddenly whistling through the narrow pass, catching Temeraire’s wings on the upswing, and nearly flung him against the rock face.
He squawked ungracefully, and managed with a desperate snaking twist to turn round in mid-air and catch himself on his legs against the nearly vertical slope. The loose shale and rock at once gave way, the little scrubby growth of green saplings and grass inadequate to stabilize the ground beneath his weight; ‘Get your wings in!’ Granby yelled, through his speaking-trumpet: Temeraire by instinct was trying to beat away into the air again, and only hastening the collapse. Pulling his wings tight, he managed a clawing and flailing scramble down the loose slope, and landed awkwardly athwart the stream bed, his sides heaving.
‘Order the men to make camp,’ Laurence said quickly to Granby, unhooking his carabiner rings, and scrambled down in a series of half-controlled drops, barely grasping the harness with his fingers before letting himself down another twenty feet, hurrying to Temeraire’s head. He was drooping, the tendrils and ruff all quivering with his too-quick panting, and his legs were trembling, but he held himself up while the poor bell-men and the ground crew let themselves off staggering, all of them half-choking and caked with the grey dirt thrown up in the frantic descent.
Though they had scarcely gone an hour, everyone was glad to stop and rest, the men throwing themselves down upon the dusty yellow grass-banks even as Temeraire himself did. ‘You are sure it does not pain you anywhere?’ Laurence asked anxiously, while Keynes clambered muttering over Temeraire’s shoulders, inspecting the wing-joints.
‘No, I am well,’ Temeraire said, looking more embarrassed than injured, though he was glad to bathe his feet in the stream, and hold them out to be scrubbed clean, some of the dirt and pebbles having crept under the hard ridge of skin around the talons. Afterwards he closed his eyes and put his head down for a nap, and showed no inclination to go anywhere at all; ‘I ate well yesterday; I am not very hungry,’ he answered, when Laurence suggested they might go hunting, saying he preferred to sleep. But a few hours later Tharkay reappeared – if it could be called reappearing, when his initial absence had gone quite unnoticed – and offered him a dozen fat rabbits which he had taken with the eagle. Ordinarily they would hardly have made a few bites for him, but the Chinese cooks stretched them out by stewing them with salt pork fat, turnips, and some fresh greens, and Temeraire made a sufficiently enthusiastic meal out of them, bones and all, to give the lie to his supposed lack of hunger.
He was a little shy even the next morning, rearing up on his haunches and tasting the air with his tongue as high up as he could stretch his head, trying to get a sense of the wind. Then there was a little something wrong with the harness, somehow not easy for him to describe, which required several lengthy adjustments; then he was thirsty, and the water had become overnight too muddy to drink, so they had to pile up stones for a makeshift dam to form a deeper pool. Laurence began to wonder if perhaps he had done badly not to insist they go aloft again directly after the accident; but abruptly Temeraire said, ‘Very well, let us go,’ and launched himself the moment everyone was aboard.
The tension across his shoulders, quite palpable from where Laurence sat, faded after a little while in the air, but still Temeraire went with more caution now, flying slowly while they remained in the mountains. Three days passed before they met and crossed over the Yellow River, so choked with silt it seemed less a waterway than a channel of moving earth, ochre and brown, with thick clods of grass growing out onto the surface of the water from the verdant banks. They had to purchase a bundle of raw silk from a passing river barge to strain the water through before it could be drunk, and their tea had a harsh and clayey taste even so.
‘I never thought I would be so glad to see a desert, but I could kiss the sand,’ Granby said, a few days later: the river was long behind them and the mountains had abruptly yielded that afternoon to foothills and scrubby plateau. The brown desert was visible from their camp on the outskirts of Wuwei. ‘I suppose you could drop all of Europe into this country and never find it again.’
‘These maps are thoroughly wrong,’ Laurence agreed, as he noted down in his log once more the date, and his guess as to miles traversed, which according to the charts would have put them nearly in Moscow. ‘Mr. Tharkay,’ he said, as the guide joined them at the fire, ‘I hope you will accompany me tomorrow to buy the camels?’
‘We are not yet at the Taklamakan,’ Tharkay said. ‘This is the Gobi; we do not need the camels yet. We will only be skirting its edges; there will be water enough. I suppose it would be as well to buy some meat for the next few days, however,’ he added, unconscious of the dismay he was giving them.
‘One desert ought to be enough for any journey,’ Granby said. ‘At this rate we will be in Istanbul for Christmas; if then.’
Tharkay raised an eyebrow. ‘We have covered better than a thousand miles in two weeks of travelling; surely you cannot be dissatisfied with the pace.’ He ducked into the supply-tent, to look over their stores.
‘Fast enough, to be sure, but little good that does everyone waiting for us at home,’ Granby said, bitterly; he flushed a little at Laurence’s surprised look and said, ‘I am sorry to be such a bear; it is only, my mother lives in Newcastle upon Tyne, and my brothers.’
The town was nearly midway between the covert at Edinburgh and the smaller at Middlesbrough, and provided the best part of
