at the Victualing Board are a pack of unhanged scoundrels, and I am happy to put them in their place; good day to you. Would you credit it, Laurence,’ Jane said, as Wapping closed the door behind himself, ‘the wretches are not content that the poor creatures eat scarcely enough to feed a bird, but they must send us diseased stock and scrawny too?
‘But this is not any way to welcome you home.’ She caught him by the shoulders and kissed him soundly on both cheeks. ‘You are a damned sight. Whatever has happened to your coat? Will you have a glass of wine?’ She poured for them both without waiting his answer and he took the drink it in a sort of appalled blankness. ‘I have all your letters, so I have a tolerable notion what you have been doing; you must forgive me my silence, Laurence. I found it easier to write nothing than to leave out the only matter of any importance.’
‘No. That is, yes, of course,’ he said, and sat down with her at the fire. Her coat had been thrown over the arm of her chair, and now that he looked, he could see the admiral’s fourth bar on the shoulders; and the front, which was now magnificently frogged with braid. Her face, too, was altered but not for the better: she had lost a stone of weight at least, and her dark hair, cropped short, was shot with grey.
‘Well, I am sorry to be such a ruin,’ she said ruefully, and laughed away his apologies. ‘No, we are all of us decaying, Laurence, there is no denying it. You have seen poor Lenton, I suppose. He held up like a hero for three weeks after she died, but then we found him on the floor of his bedroom in an apoplexy. For a week he could not speak without slurring his words. He came along a good ways afterwards, but he is still only a shade of himself.’
‘I am deeply sorry for it,’ Laurence said, ‘though I drink to your promotion,’ and by a Herculean effort he managed it without a stutter.
‘I thank you, dear fellow,’ she said. ‘I would be full of pride, I suppose, if matters were otherwise, and if it were not one annoyance after another. We glide along tolerably well when left to our own devices, but I must consistently deal with those doltish creatures from the Admiralty. They are told, before they come, and told again, and still they will simper at me, and coo, as if I had not been a-dragonback before they were out of dresses; and then they simply stare when I dress them down for behaving like kiss-my-hand squires.’
‘I suppose they find it a difficult adjustment,’ Laurence said, with private sympathy. ‘I wonder the Admiralty should have—’ He paused, sensing that he was treading on obscure and dangerous ground. One could not very well quarrel with the pursuit, by whatever means necessary, of reconciling Longwings – perhaps Britain’s most deadly breed – to service with the corps. The beasts would accept only female handlers, and some must be offered to them. Laurence regretted the necessity that thrust gently born women out of their rightful society and into harm’s way, but at least they were raised to it. And occasionally, they had chance perforce to act as formation-leaders, transmitting manoeuvres to their wings. But an admiralty was a far cry from flag rank, and she was in command of the largest covert in Britain, and perhaps the most critical at that.
‘They certainly did not like to give it to me, but they had precious little choice,’ Jane said. ‘Portland would not come from Gibraltar; Laetificat is not fit enough for the sea-voyage. So, it was Sanderson or I. He is making a cake of himself over the business; he goes off into corners and weeps like a woman, as though that would help anything. A veteran of nine fleet actions, if you would credit it!’ She ran her hand through her disordered crop and sighed. ‘Never mind, you are not to listen to me, Laurence, I am simply impatient; and his Animosia does poorly.’
‘And Excidium?’ Laurence ventured.
‘Excidium is a tough old bird, and he knows how to husband his strength: he has the sense to eat, even though he has no appetite. He will muddle along a good while yet. And you know, he has close on a century of service; many his age have already rid themselves of the whole business and retired to the breeding grounds.’ She smiled; it was not whole-hearted. ‘There; I have been brave. Let us move on to pleasanter things. I hear you have brought me twenty dragons, and by God do I have a use for them. Let us go and see them.’
‘She is a handful and a half,’ Granby admitted softly, as they considered the coiled serpentine length of Iskierka’s body, faint threads of steam issuing from the many needle-like spikes upon her body, ‘and I didn’t ride herd on her, sir, I am sorry.’
Iskierka had already established herself to her own satisfaction, if no one else’s, by clawing out a deep pit in the clearing next to Temeraire’s where she had been housed, and then filling it with ash acquired from the demise of some two dozen young trees, the largest she could manage at present. She had unceremoniously uprooted and burnt them inside her pit, then added a collection of boulders to the powdery grey mixture, which she fired to a moderate glow before falling asleep in her heated nest. The bonfire and its lingering smoulder were visible for some distance, even from the farmhouses nearest the covert; and after only a few hours, her arrival had produced several complaints and a great deal of alarm.
‘Oh, you have done enough keeping her harnessed out in the countryside, and without a head of cattle to your name,’ Jane said, giving the drowsing Iskierka’s side a pat. ‘They may bleat to me all they like, she’s a fire-breather and you may be sure the Navy will cheer your name when they hear we have our own at last. Well done; well done indeed, and I am happy to confirm you in your rank, Captain Granby. Should you like to do the honours, Laurence?’
Most of Laurence’s crew had already been employed in Iskierka’s clearing, beating out the stray embers which flew from her pit and threatened to ignite all the entire covert if left unchecked. Ash-dusty and tired as they all were, they had stayed, lingering consciously without the need of any announcement. They lined up on one muttered word from young Lieutenant Ferris to watch Laurence pin a second pair of gold bars upon Granby’s shoulders.
‘Gentlemen,’ Jane said, when Laurence had done, and they gave a cheek-flushed Granby three huzzahs, whole-hearted if a little subdued, and Ferris and Riggs stepped over to shake him by the hand.
‘We will see about assigning you a crew, though it is early days with her yet,’ Jane said, after the ceremony had dispersed, and they proceeded on to make her acquainted with the ferals. ‘I have no shortage of men now, more’s the pity. Feed her twice daily, see if we cannot make up for any growth she may have been shorted, and whenever she is awake I will start you on Longwing manoeuvres. I don’t know if she can scorch herself, as they can with their own acid, but we needn’t find out by trial.’
Granby nodded; he seemed not the least nonplussed at answering to her. Neither did Tharkay, who had been persuaded to stay on at least a little longer, as one of the few of them with any influence upon the ferals at all. He rather looked mostly amused, in his secretive way, once past the inquiring glance which he had first cast at Laurence: as Jane had insisted upon being taken to the new-come dragons at once, there had been no chance for Laurence to give Tharkay a private caution in advance of their meeting. He did not reveal any surprise, however, but only made her a polite bow, and performed the introductions calmly.
Arkady and his band had made no little less confusion of their own clearings than Iskierka, preferring to knock down all the trees between them and cluster together in a great heap. The chill of the December air did not trouble them, used as they were to the vastly colder regions of the Pamirs, but they spoke disapprovingly of the dampness, and on discovering the senior officer of the covert before them, at once demanded an accounting of their promised cows, from her: one apiece daily, was the offer by which they had been lured into service.
‘They make the argument that if they do not eat their share of cows upon a given day, that they are still owed the cattle, and may call the credit in at a future time,’ Tharkay explained, igniting Jane’s deep laugh.
‘Tell
