Black Powder War
Chapter 7

LAURENCE OCCUPIED HIS evening with writing a fresh letter, this one still more impassioned and addressed directly to the Grand Vezir. He was only able to dispatch it by the cost of two pieces of silver instead of one: the boy servant had grown conscious of the strength of his position, and kept his hand outstretched firmly when Laurence put the first piece into his palm, staring silent but expectantly until Laurence at last set another down; an impudence Laurence was powerless to answer otherwise.
The letter brought no answer that night; but in the morning, at first he thought he had at last won some reply, for a tall and impressive man came walking briskly and with energy into their courtyard shortly past first light, trailed by several of the black eunuch guards. He created something of a noise, and then came out to the gardens where Laurence was sitting with Temeraire and laboring over yet another letter.
The newcomer was plainly a military officer of some rank; an aviator, by his long sweeping coat of leather gorgeously embroidered around the borders, and by the short-trimmed hair that set the Turkish aviators apart from their turbaned fellows; and a gifted one, by the sparkling jeweled chelengk upon his chest, a singular mark of honor among the Turks, rarely bestowed, which Laurence recognized from its having been granted Lord Nelson after the victory of the Nile.
The officer mentioned Bezaid's name, which made Laurence suspect him the Kazilik male's captain, but his French was not good, and at first Laurence thought he was speaking over-loud to try and make himself understood. He went on at length, his words tumbling together, and turned to address the watching dragons noisily also.
"But I have not said anything that is not the truth," Temeraire said, indignantly, and Laurence, still puzzling out the words he had managed to pick out of the flood, realized the officer was deeply, furiously agitated, and his spitting words rather a sign of high temper than inarticulate speech.
The officer actually shook his fist in Temeraire's teeth and said to Laurence violently, in French, "He tells more lies, and - " Here he dragged his hand across his throat, a gesture requiring no translation. Having finished this incoherent speech, he turned and stormed out of the garden; and in his wake a handful of the dragons sheepishly leapt into the air and flew away: plainly they were not under any orders to guard Temeraire at all.
"Temeraire," Laurence said, in the following silence, "what have you been saying to them?"
"I have only been telling them about property," Temeraire said, "and how they ought to be paid, and not need to go to war unless they wish it, but might do more work such as they are doing upon the harbor, or some other sort of labor, which might be more interesting, and then they could earn money for jewels and food, and go about the city as they liked - "
"Oh, good God," Laurence said, with a groan; he could imagine very well how these communications would have been viewed by a Turkish officer whose dragon expressed a desire not to go into battle and to take up some other profession which Temeraire might have suggested from his experience in China, such as poetry or nursemaiding. "Pray send the rest of them away, at once; or I dare say every officer of the Turkish corps in reach will come and rail at us in turn."
"I do not care if they do," Temeraire said obstinately. "If he had stayed, I should have had a great deal to say to him. If he cared for his dragon, he would want him treated well, and to have liberty."
"You cannot be proselytizing now," Laurence said. "Temeraire, we are guests here, and very nearly supplicants; they can deny us the eggs and make all our work to come here quite useless, and surely you see that they are putting obstacles enough in our path, without we give them any further cause to be difficult. We must rather conciliate the good-will of our hosts than offend them."
"Why ought we conciliate the men at the dragons' expense?" Temeraire said. "The eggs are theirs, after all, and indeed, I do not see why we are not negotiating with them, rather."
"They do not tend their own eggs, or manage their hatching; you know they have left the eggs to their captains, and given over their handling," Laurence said. "Else I should be delighted to address them; they could scarcely be less reasonable than our hosts," he added with some frustration. "But as matters stand, we are at the mercy of the Turks, and not their dragons."
Temeraire was silent, though his tail twitching rapidly betrayed his agitation. "But they have never had the opportunity to understand their own condition, nor that there might be a better; they are as ignorant as I myself was, before I saw China, and if they do not learn that much, how would anything ever change?"
"You will accomplish no change solely by making them discontented and offending their captains," Laurence said. "But in any case, our duty to home and to the war effort must come first. A Kazilik alone, on our side of the Channel, may mean the difference between invasion and security, and tip the balance of war; we can hardly weigh any concerns against such a potential advantage."
"But - " He stopped, and scratched at his forehead with the side of his claw. "But how will matters at all be different, once we are at home? If men will be upset at giving dragons liberty, would this not interfere with the war in England, too, and not only by keeping us from the eggs here? Or, if some British dragons did not want to fight anymore, that would hurt the war also."
He peered down with open curiosity at Laurence, waiting an answer; an answer which Laurence could not give, for indeed he felt precisely so, and he could not lie and say otherwise, not in the face of a direct question. He could think of nothing to say which would satisfy Temeraire, and as his silence stretched, Temeraire's ruff slowly drooped down, flattening against his neck, and his tendrils hung limply.
"You do not want me to say these things when we are at home, either," Temeraire said quietly. "Have you only been humoring me? You think it is all foolishness, and we ought not make any demands."
"No, Temeraire," Laurence said, very low. "Not foolishness at all, you have all the right in the world to liberty; but selfish - yes; I must call it so."
Temeraire flinched, and drew his head back a little, bewildered; Laurence looked down at his own tight-wrung hands; there could be no softening of it now, and he must pay for his long delay of the inevitable, at an usurious rate of interest.
"We are at war," he said, "and our case is a desperate one. Against us is ranged a general who has never been defeated, at the head of a country with twice over and more the native resources of our own small British Isles. You know Bonaparte has once massed an invasion force; he can do it again, if only he should subdue the Continent to his satisfaction, and perhaps with more success in a second attempt. In such circumstances, to begin a campaign for private benefit, which should have material risks of injuring the war effort, in my opinion can bear no other name; duty requires we put the concerns of the nation above our own."
"But," Temeraire protested, in a voice as small as could be produced from his deep chest, "but it is not for my own benefit, but for that of all the dragons, that I wish to press for change."
"If the war be lost, what will anything else matter, or whatever progress you have made at the expense of such a loss?" Laurence said. "Bonaparte will tyrannize over all Europe, and no one will have any liberty at all, men or dragons."
Temeraire made no answer; his head drooped over his forelegs, curling in on himself.
"I beg you, my dear, only to have patience," Laurence said after a long and painful moment of silence, aching to see him so downcast; and wishing he might in honesty recall his own words. "I do promise you, we will make a beginning; once we are home in England, we will find friends who will listen to us, and I hope I may have some small influence to call upon also. There are many real advances," he added, a little desperately, "practical improvements, which can be made without any unhappy effect upon the progress of the war; and with these examples to open the way, I am confident you will soon find a happier reception for your more lavish ideas, a better success at the cost only of time."
"But the war must come first," Temeraire said, low.
"Yes," Laurence said, " - forgive me; I would not for the world give you pain."
Temeraire shook his head a little, and leaned over to nuzzle him briefly. "I know, Laurence," he said, and rose up to go and speak to the other dragons, who were still gathered behind them in the garden, watching; and when he had seen them all flit away again, he padded away with head bowed low to curl himself brooding in the shade of the cypress-trees. Laurence went inside and sat watching him through the window-lattice, wondering wretchedly if Temeraire would have been happier, after all, to stay the rest of his days in China.
"You could tell him - " Granby said, but he stopped and shook his head. "No, it won't do," he agreed. "I am damned sorry, Laurence, but I can't see how you can sweeten it. You would not credit the stupid display in Parliament anytime we ask for funds only to keep up a covert or two, or get some better provisions for them; even if we only start building them pavilions, we will have a second war at home on our hands, and that is the least of his notions."
Laurence looked at him. "Will it hurt your chances?" he asked, quietly; these could not be very good in any case, with more than a year so far from home, out from under the eye of the senior officers who decided which lieutenants should be allowed a chance to put a hatchling into harness, not with ten eager men or more to every egg.
"I hope I am not so selfish a dog as to cavil for a reason such as that," Granby said with spirit. "I never knew a fellow to get an egg who was forever worrying about it; pray don't consider it. Damned few fellows who come into the Corps fresh, like me, ever get their step; there are too many dragons who go by inheritance, and the admirals like to have fellows from Corps families. But if I ever have a boy, now I am far enough along I can give him a leg up, or one of my nephews; that is good enough for me, and serving with a prime goer like Temeraire."
But he could not quite keep a wistful note from his voice; of course he would want his own dragon, and Laurence was certain that service as first lieutenant aboard a heavy-weight like Temeraire would ordinarily have meant a very good opportunity. Consideration for Granby was not an argument which could be made to Temeraire himself, of course, being a wholly unfair sort of pressure. On Laurence, however, it weighed heavily; he had been himself the beneficiary of a great deal of influence in his naval service, much of it even earned by merit, and he considered it a point of honor to do properly by his own officers.
He went outside. Temeraire had retreated further within the gardens; when Laurence at last came on him, Temeraire was still sitting curled quietly, his distress betrayed only by the furrows which he had gouged deep in the ground before him. His head was lowered upon his forelegs, and his eyes distant and narrow-slitted; the ruff nearly flat against his neck, sorrowful.
Laurence had no very clear notion of what to say, only wishing desperately to see him less unhappy, and almost willing to lie again if it would not hurt him the more. He stepped closer, and Temeraire lifted his head and looked at him; they neither of them spoke, but he went to Temeraire's side and put his hand on him, and Temeraire made a place in the crook of his foreleg for Laurence to sit.
A dozen nightingales were singing, pent in some nearby aviary; no other sound disturbed them a long while, and then Emily came running through the garden and calling, "Sir, sir," until panting she reached them and said, "Sir, pray come, they want to take Dunne and Hackley and hang them."
Laurence stared, leapt down from Temeraire's arm, and dashed back up the stairs to the court, Temeraire sitting up and putting his head anxiously over the terrace railing: nearly all the crew were out in the arched cloister, figuring in a wild noisy struggle with their own door guards and several other palace eunuchs: men of far greater position, judging by their golden-hilted scimitars and rich garb, and of more powerful mien, bull-necked and plainly not mutes, with furious imprecations flying from their lips as they wrestled slighter aviators to the ground.
Dunne and Hackley were in the thick of it; the two young riflemen were panting and fighting against the grip of the heavy-set men who clutched at them. "What the devil do you all mean by this?" Laurence bellowed, and let his voice carry over their heads; Temeraire added emphasis with his own rumbling growl, and the struggle subsided: the aviators fell back, and the guards stared up at Temeraire with expressions to suggest they would have gone pale if they could. They did not loose their captives, but at least did not attempt at once to drag them away.
"Now then," Laurence said grimly, "what goes toward here; Mr. Dunne?" He and Hackley hung their heads and said nothing, an answer in itself; plainly they had engaged in some sort of skylarking, and disturbed the guards.
"Go and fetch Hasan Mustafa Pasha," Laurence said to one of their own guards, a fellow he recognized, and repeated the name a few times over, the man glancing reluctantly at the others; abruptly one of the stranger eunuchs, a tall and imposing man in a high turban, snow-white against his dark skin and adorned by a sizable ruby set in gold, spoke commandingly to the guard; at this the mute at last nodded and set off down the stairs, hurrying away towards the rest of the palace grounds.
Laurence turned around. "You will answer me, Mr. Dunne, at once."
"Sir, we didn't mean any harm," Dunne said, "we only thought, we thought - " He looked at Hackley, but the other rifleman was dumb and staring, pale under his freckled skin, no help. "We only went up over the roof, sir, and then we thought we might have a look round at the rest of the place, and - and then those fellows started chasing us, and we got over the wall again and ran back here, and tried to get back inside."
"I see," Laurence said, coldly, "and you thought you would do this without application to myself or Mr. Granby, as to the wisdom of this course of action."
Dunne swallowed and let his head fall again. There was an uneasy, uncomfortable silence, a long wait; but not so very long, before Mustafa came around the corner at a rapid clip, the guard leading him, and his face red and mottled with haste and anger. "Sir," Laurence said, forestalling him, "My men without permission left their posts; I regret that they should have caused a disturbance - "
"You must hand them over," Mustafa said. "They shall at once be put to death: they attempted to enter the seraglio."
Laurence said nothing a moment, while Dunne and Hackley hunched themselves still lower and darted their eyes at his face anxiously. "Did they trespass upon the privacy of the women?"
"Sir, we never - " Dunne began.
"Be silent," Laurence said savagely.
Mustafa spoke to the guards; the chief eunuch beckoned forward one of his men, who answered in a voluble flow. "They looked in upon them, and made to them beckoning gestures through the window," Mustafa said, turning back. "More than sufficient insult: it is forbidden that any man but the Sultan should look upon the women of the harem and have intercourse with them; only the eunuchs, otherwise, may speak with them."
Temeraire, listening to this, snorted forcefully enough to blow the fountain-spray into their faces. "That is very silly," he said hotly. "I am not having any of my crew put to death, and anyway I do not see why anyone should be put to death for talking to someone else at all; it is not as though that could hurt anyone."
Mustafa did not try to answer him, but instead turned a narrow measured look on Laurence. "I trust you do not mean to thus defy the Sultan's law, Captain, and give offense; you have, I think, had something to say on the subject of courtesy between our nations before."
"On that subject, sir - " Laurence said, angry at this bald-faced attempt at pressure; and then swallowed the words which leapt to his tongue: such as a pointed remark that Mustafa had been quick enough to come at once on this occasion, though previous entreaties had found him so occupied he could not spare a moment.
Instead he controlled himself, and said after a moment, "Sir, I think perhaps your guard may have from zeal thought more transpired than did in fact occur; I dare say my officers did not see the women at all, but only were calling in hopes of catching sight of them. That is a great folly; and you may be sure," he added, with heavy emphasis, "that they will suffer punishment for it; but to hand them over to death for it, I will not do, not on the word of a witness who has every cause to accuse them of doing rather more than less than they did, from a natural desire of protecting his charges from insult."
Mustafa, frowning, appeared ready to dispute further; Laurence added, "If they had outraged the virtue of any of the women, I would without hesitation deal with them according to your notion of justice; but so uncertain a circumstance, with a single witness to speak against them, must argue for a degree of mercy."
He did not move his hand to the hilt of his sword, nor signal to his men; but as best he could without turning his head, he considered their positions, and the disposal of their baggage, most of which had been stowed away inside the kiosques; if the Turks wished to seize Dunne and Hackley by force, he should have to order the men aboard directly, and leave all behind: if half-a-dozen dragons got into the air before Temeraire was aloft, it would be all up with them.
"Mercy is a great virtue," Mustafa said finally, "and indeed it would be sorrowful to mar relations between our countries by unhappy and false accusations. I am sure," he added, looking at Laurence significantly, "that you would grant an equal presentiment of innocence in any reverse case."
Laurence pressed his lips together. "You may rely upon it," he said, through his teeth, well aware he had committed himself to at least tolerate the inadequacies of the Turkish explanations so long as he had no proof of the reverse. But there was very little choice; he would not see two young officers under his care put to death for kissing their hands to a handful of girls through a window, dearly as he would have liked to wring their necks.
Mustafa's mouth turned up at the corner, and he inclined his head. "I believe we understand one another, Captain; we will leave their correction to you, then, and I trust you will ensure no similar incident occurs: gentleness shown once is mercy, shown twice is folly."
He collected the guards and led them away into the grounds, not without some low and angry protest on their part; there were some sighs of relief as they at last reluctantly went out of sight, and a couple of the other riflemen went so far as to clap Dunne and Hackley on the back: behavior which had at once to be stopped. "That will be enough," Laurence said dangerously. "Mr. Granby, you will note for the log that Mr. Dunne and Mr. Hackley are turned out of the flight crew, and you will put their names in the ground-crew roll."
Laurence had no very good idea whether an aviator might so be turned before the mast, as it were; but his expression did not allow of argument, and he did not receive any, only Granby's quiet, "Yes, sir." A harsh sentence, and it would look ugly upon their records even after they had been restored to their positions, as Laurence meant to do once they had learned a lesson. But he had little other choice, if they were to be punished; he could call no court-martial here, so far from home, and they were too old to be started with a cane. "Mr. Pratt, take these men in irons; Mr. Fellowes, I trust our supply of leather will allow you to prepare a lash."
"Aye, sir," Fellowes said, clearing his throat uncomfortably.
"But Laurence, Laurence," Temeraire said into complete silence, the only one who would have dared intercede. "Mustafa and those guards have gone, you need not flog Dunne and Hackley now - "
"They deserted their posts and willfully risked all the success of our enterprise, all for the satisfaction of the most base and carnal impulses," Laurence said flatly. "No; do not speak further in their defense, Temeraire: any court-martial would hang them for it, and high spirits make no excuse; they knew better."
He saw with some grim approval the young men flinching, and nodded shortly. "Who was on guard when they left?" he asked, surveying the rest of the crew.
Eyes dropped all around; then young Salyer stepped forward and said, "I was, sir," in a trembling voice, which cracked mid-word.
"Did you see them go?" Laurence asked quietly.
"Yes, sir," Salyer whispered.
"Sir," Dunne said hurriedly, "sir, we told him to keep quiet, that it was only for a lark - "
"That will be quite enough, Mr. Dunne," Granby said.
Salyer himself did not make excuses; and he was indeed a boy, only lately made midwingman, though tall and gangly with his adolescent growth. "Mr. Salyer, as you cannot be trusted to keep watch, you are reduced to ensign," Laurence said. "Go and cut a switch from one of those trees, and go to my quarters." Salyer stumbled away hiding his face, which beneath his hand was blotchy red.
To Dunne and Hackley, Laurence turned and said, "Fifty lashes each; and you may call yourselves damned lucky. Mr. Granby, we will assemble in the garden for punishment at the stroke of eleven; see to it the bell is rung."
He went to his kiosque, and when Salyer came gave him ten strokes; it was a paltry count, but the boy had foolishly cut the switch from springy green wood, far more painful and more like to cut the skin, and the boy would be humiliated if he was driven to weeping. "That will do; see you do not forget this," Laurence said, and sent him away, before the trembling gasps had broken into tears.
Then he drew out his best clothes; he still had no better coat than the Chinese garment, but he set Emily to polish his boots fresh, and Dyer to press his neckcloth, while he went out and shaved himself over the small hand-basin. He put on his dress-sword and his best hat, then went out again and found the rest of the crew assembling in their Sunday clothing, and makeshift frames of bare signal-flag shafts thrust deep into the ground. Temeraire hovered anxiously, shifting his weight from side to side, and plowing up the earth.
"I am sorry to ask it of you, Mr. Pratt, but it must be done," Laurence said to the armorer quietly, and Pratt with his big head hung low between his shoulders nodded once. "I will keep the count myself, do you not count aloud."
"Yes, sir," Pratt said.
The sun crept a little higher. All the crew were already assembled and waiting and had been ten minutes and more; but Laurence neither spoke nor moved until Granby cleared his throat and said, "Mr. Digby, ring the bell for eleven, if you please," with great formality; and the eleven strokes tolled away, if softly.
Stripped to the waist and in their oldest breeches, Dunne and Hackley were led up to the poles; they at least did not disgrace themselves, but silently put their shaking hands up to be tied. Pratt was standing unhappily, ten paces back, running the long strap of the whip through his hands, folding it upon itself every few inches. It looked like an old scrap of harness, hopefully softened by use and much of the thickness worn away; better at any rate than new leather.
"Very well," Laurence said; a terrible silence fell, broken only by the crack of the descending lash, the gasps and cries growing slowly fainter, the count going on and on with their bodies slackening in the frames, hanging heavy from their wrists and dripping thin trickles of blood. Temeraire keened unhappily and put his head under his wing.
"I make that fifty, Mr. Pratt," Laurence said; nearer to forty if even so far, but he doubted any of his men had been counting very closely, and he was sick to his heart of the business. He had rarely ordered floggings of more than a dozen strokes, even as a naval captain, and the practice was entirely less common among aviators. For all the gravity of the offense, Dunne and Hackley were still very young; and he blamed himself in no small part that they should have come to run so wild.
Still it had to be done; they had known better, much better, and been reined in scarcely days before; so flagrant a breach, left unchecked, would have wholly ruined them. Granby had not been so far off, in Macao, to worry about the effect of their long travels on the young officers; the long idleness of their sea-journey followed by their more recent excess of adventure was no substitute for the steady pressure of ordinary day-to-day discipline, in a covert; it was not enough for a soldier to be brave. Laurence was not sorry to see a strong impression from the punishment on the faces of the other officers, particularly the young men, that at least this small good might come of the unhappy incident.
Dunne and Hackley were cut down, and carried not unkindly back up to the larger kiosque, and laid in a screened-off corner upon a pair of cots which Keynes had prepared; they lay on their faces still gasping softly in half-consciousness, while he with a tight mouth sopped away the blood from their backs, and gave them each a quarter-glass of laudanum to drink.
"How do they do?" Laurence asked the dragon-surgeon, later in the evening; they had fallen quiet after the drug, and lain still.
"Well enough," Keynes said shortly. "I am grown used to having them as patients; they had only just risen from their sickbeds - "
"Mr. Keynes," Laurence said quietly.
Keynes looking up at his face fell silent, and turned his attention back to the wounded men. "They are inclined to be a little feverish, but that is nothing wonderful. They are young and strong, the bleeding has stopped nicely; they ought to be on their feet by morning, for a little while in any case."
"Very good," Laurence said, and turned away to find Tharkay standing before him, in the low circle of the candle-light, looking at Dunne and Hackley where they lay; their striped backs were bare, and the weals bright red and purpling along the edges.
Laurence stared, drew in a sharp breath, then with controlled fury said, "Well, sir, and do you return? I wonder you should show your face here again."
Tharkay said, "I hope my absence has not been too great an inconvenience," with calm impudence.
"Only of too short duration," Laurence said. "Take your money and your things and get out of my sight, and I wish you may go to the devil."
"Well," Tharkay said, after a moment, "if you have no further need of my services, I suppose I may as well be on my way; I will give Mr. Maden your apologies, then, and indeed I ought not to have committed you."
"Who is Mr. Maden?" Laurence said, frowning; the name was distantly familiar, and then he slowly reached into his coat and drew out the letter which had come to them in Macao all those long months ago, which Tharkay had brought to him: flaps still marked with seals, and one of those marked with a solid M. "You are speaking of the gentleman who engaged you to bring us our orders?" he asked sharply.
"I am," Tharkay said. "He is a banker here in the city, and Mr. Arbuthnot desired him to find a reliable messenger for the letter; alas, only I was to be had." There was a little mocking quality to his voice. "He invites you to dine; will you come?"