Naomi Novik - Tongues of Serpents

He was a little surprised to find MacArthur willing to hand his reins to the groom, and dismount to walk with him. “I hear you had a little difficulty in the town to-day,” MacArthur said. “—I am very sorry it should have happened.

“You must know, Mr. Laurence, we have had a light hand on the rein here; a light hand, and it has answered beautifully, beyond all reasonable hopes. Our colony does not show to advantage, you may perhaps think, coming from London; but I wonder what you would think if you had been here in our first few years. I came in the year ’ninety; will you credit it, that there were not a thousand acres under cultivation, and no supply? We nearly starved, one and all, three times.”

He stopped and held out a hand, which trembled a little. “They have been so, since that first winter,” he said, and resumed walking.

“Your perseverance is to be admired,” Laurence said, “and that of your fellows.”

“If nothing else, that for certain sure,” MacArthur said. “But it has not been by chance, or any easy road, that we have found success; only through the foresight of wise leadership and the strength of determined men. This is a country for a determined man, Mr. Laurence. I came here a lieutenant, with not a lick of property to my name; now I have ten thousand acres. I do not brag,” he added. “Any man can do here what I have done. This is a fine country.”

There was an emphasis on any man , which Laurence found distasteful in the extreme; he read the slinking bribery in MacArthur’s pretty speech as easily as he had in Bligh’s whispers of pardon, and he pressed his lips together and stretched his pace.

MacArthur perceived his mistake, perhaps; he increased his own to match and said, to shift the subject, “But what does Government send us? You have been a Navy officer yourself, Mr. Laurence; you have had the dregs of the prison-hulks pressed into service; you know what I am speaking of. Such men are not formed for respectability. They can only be used, and managed, and to do it requires rum and the lash—it is the very understanding of the service. I am afraid it has made us all a little coarse here, however; we are ill-served by the proportion of our numbers. I wonder how you would have liked a crew of a hundred, five and ninety of them gaol-birds, and not five able seamen to your name.”

“Sir, you are correct in this much: I have had a little difficulty, earlier in the day,” Laurence said, pausing in the road; his ribs ached sharply in his side, “so I will be frank; you might have had conversation of myself, or of Captain Riley or Captain Granby, as it pleased you, these last three weeks, for the courtesy of a request. May I ask you to be a little more brief?”

“Your reproach is a just one,” MacArthur said, “and I will not tire you further to-night; if you will do me the kindness of returning my visit in the morning at the barracks?”

“Forgive me,” Laurence said dryly, “but I find I am not presently inclined to pay calls in this society; as yet I find the courtesies beyond my grasp.”

“Then perhaps I may pay you another call,” MacArthur suggested, if with slightly pressed lips, and to this Laurence could only incline his head.

“I cannot look forward to the visit with any pleasure,” Laurence said, “but if he comes, we ought to receive him.”

“So long as he is not insulting, and does not try to put you in a quarry, he may come, if he likes,” Temeraire said, making a concession, while privately determining he would keep a very close eye upon this MacArthur person; for his own part, he saw no reason to offer any courtesy at all to someone who was master of a place so wretchedly organized, and acquainted with so many ill-mannered people. Governor Bligh was not a very pleasant person, perhaps, but at least he did not seem to think it in the ordinary course of things for gentlemen to be knocked down in the street in mysterious accidents.

MacArthur did come, shortly after they had breakfasted. He drew up rather abruptly, reaching the top of the hill; Laurence had not yet seen him, but Temeraire had been looking over at the town—sixteen sheep were being driven into a pen, very handsome sheep—and he saw MacArthur pause, and halt, and look as though he might go away again.

Temeraire might have let him do so, and had a quiet morning of reading, but he had not enjoyed his meal and in a peevish humor said, “In my opinion it is quite rude to come into someone’s residence only to stare at them, and turn pale, and go, as if there were something peculiar in them, and not in such absurd behavior. I do not know why you bothered to climb the hill at all, if you are such a great coward; it is not as though you did not know that I was here.”

“Why, in my opinion, you are a great rascal,” MacArthur said, purpling up his neck. “What do you mean by calling me a coward, because I need to catch my breath.”

“Stuff,” Temeraire said roundly, “you were frightened.”

“I do not say that a man hasn’t a right to be taken aback a moment, when he sees a beast the size of a frigate waiting to eat him,” MacArthur said, “but I am damned if I will swallow this; you do not see me running away, do you?”

“I would not eat a person,” Temeraire said, revolted, “and you needn’t be disgusting, even if you do have no manners,” to which Laurence coming around said, “So spake the pot,” rather dryly.

He added, “Will you come and sit down, Mr. MacArthur? I regret I cannot offer you anything better than coffee or chocolate, and I must advise against the coffee,” and Temeraire rather regretfully saw he had missed the opportunity to be rid of this unpleasant visitor.

MacArthur kept turning his head, to look at Temeraire, and remarked, “They don’t look so big, from below,” as he stirred his chocolate so many times it must have grown quite cold. Temeraire was quite fond of chocolate, but he could not have that, either; not properly, without enough milk, and the expense so dear; it was not worth only having the tiniest taste, which only made one want more. He sighed.

“Quite prodigious,” MacArthur repeated, looking at Temeraire again. “He must take a great deal of feeding.”

“We are managing,” Laurence said politely. “The game is conveniently plentiful, and they do not seem to be used to being hunted from aloft.”

Temeraire considered that if MacArthur was here, he might at least be of some use. “Is there anything else to hunt, nearby?” he inquired. “Not of course,” he added untruthfully, “that anyone could complain of kangaroo.”

“I am surprised if you have found any of those in twenty miles as the crow goes,” MacArthur said. “We pretty near et up the lot, in the first few years.”

“Well, we have been getting them around the Nepean River, and in the mountains,” Temeraire said, and MacArthur’s head jerked up from his cup so abruptly that the spoon he had left inside it tipped over and spattered his white breeches with chocolate.

He did not seem to notice that he had made a sad mull of his clothing, but said thoughtfully, “The Blue Mountains? Why, I suppose you can fly all over them, can’t you?”

“We have flown all over them,” Temeraire said, rather despondently, “and there is nothing but kangaroo, and those rabbits that have no ears, which are too small to be worth eating.”

“I would have been glad of a wombat or a dozen often enough, myself,” MacArthur said, “but it is true we do not have proper game in this country, I am sorry to say I know from experience: too lean by half; you cannot keep up to fighting-weight on it, and there is not enough grazing yet for cattle. We have not found a way through the mountains, you know,” he added. “We are quite hemmed in.”