Naomi Novik - Empire of Ivory

The proposals subsided. “My Lords, you are already aware, that I see no grounds to quarrel with Admiral Roland’s figures,” Nelson said, “if I am perhaps, not so pessimistic of our chances to succeed, where the attempts of a previous century had failed. But even half such a force cannot be easily mustered, and certainly not unobserved; nor could it be transported from any civilized port, to any province of Africa, without the knowledge of the Navy, and indeed without its complaisance in the matter: I will stand surety for it.

“If we cannot retake the Cape, therefore, or reestablish a foothold upon the continent, we may nevertheless satisfy ourselves that no other nation may do so. France, certainly, cannot aspire to it. I will not say that Napoleon may not conquer anyplace in the world from Calais to Peking, so long as he can walk to it; but if he must put to sea, he is at our mercy.

“Indeed,” he added, “I will go further. Without in any way ceasing to lament the dreadful loss we have suffered, in property and lives, from the savagery of this unprovoked assault, I will as a question of strategy declare myself heartily content to exchange all the convenience of our possession of the Cape, for the lack of any need to defend that position, henceforth. We have spoken before, gentlemen, in these halls, of all the expense and difficulty of improving the fortifications and patrolling the vast coastline against French incursion: an expense and difficulty which will now be borne instead by our erstwhile enemies.”

Laurence was by no means disposed to argue with him, but he could not comprehend at first, why the Admiralty should have feared such an incursion at all. The French had never shown the least ambition to seize the Cape, which if a valuable port in general was unnecessary to them, holding as they did the Île de France, off the eastern coast of Africa, and certainly a difficult nut to crack; they had enough to do to hold what maritime possessions they already had.

Mulgrave pulled at his nose a little, without comment. “Admiral Roland,” he said at last reluctantly, as if he did not like to pronounce her title, “what is our present strength at the Channel, if you please?”

“From Falmouth to Middlesbrough, eighty-three I put at fighting strength,” she said, “and another twenty who could rise to the occasion. Seventeen of those heavy-weight, and three Longwings, besides the Kazilik and the Celestial. At Loch Laggan we have another fourteen, hatchlings, in training but old enough to bring up; and more, of course, along the North Sea coast. We would be hard-put to feed them, for an action of more than a day, but they would make a good relief.”

“What is your estimation of our chances, should he make another attempt to invade by means of airships, such as he used at the battle of Dover?” Nelson asked.

“If he don’t mind leaving half of them on the ocean floor, he might be able to land the rest, but I shouldn’t recommend it him,” Jane said. “The militia will set them on fire as quick as they can come in past us. No; I asked for a year, and it has not been so long, but the cure makes up for all that, and having back Lily and Temeraire in fighting trim: the French cannot come by air.”

“Yes, the cure,” Nelson said. “It is I trust secured? There is no chance it might be stolen? I believe I heard of an incident—”

“Why, I beg you will not blame the poor fellow,” Jane said. “He is a lad of fourteen, and his Winchester was in a bad way. There were some sorry rumors, I am afraid to say, that there was not enough of the cure to go about, because we began a little slowly, to see how small the dose might be kept before we ran around pouring it down their gullets. There was no harm done, and he confessed it all himself, quite rightly, when I put it to all the captains. We put a guard on the supply, afterwards, to keep anyone else from temptation, and no one has gone poking about.”

“But if another attempt should be made?” Nelson said. “Might the guard be easily increased, and perhaps some fortification arranged?”

“After feeding every blessed dragon in Britain and the colonies on the stuff, there is precious little of it left to steal, if anyone should want to,” Jane said, “except what the gentlemen of the Royal Society have managed to persuade to take root up at Loch Laggan; and as for that, if anyone likes to try and take it from the middle of a covert, they are welcome.”

“Very good; so, gentlemen,” Nelson said, turning to the other commissioners, “you see that as a result of these events, deplorable as they may be in themselves, we may now be quite certain in our control of the cure: at least as certain as our own efforts could have made us.”

“I beg your pardon,” Laurence said, making sense at last he thought of the preoccupation, and with dismay, “is there reason to believe the disease has been communicated to the Continent? Are the French dragons taken ill?”

“We hope so,” Nelson said, “although we yet lack confirmation upon the point; but the spy-courier, the Plein-Vite whom we captured, was sent over to them two days ago, and we hope any day to receive word that they have been inoculated with the disease.”

“The only damned silver lining to the bloody mess,” Gambier said, to a general murmur of agreement. “It will be some reparation to see the Corsican’s face, when his own beasts are all coughing blood.”

“Sir,” Laurence managed; beside him Catherine was sickly-wan with horror, the back of her hand pressed to her mouth. “Sir, I must protest against—” He felt as though he were choking. He remembered little Sauvignon, who had kept Temeraire company that long dreadful week when they thought all hope was lost; when Laurence had expected to see his dragon coughing blood, at any moment.

“I should damned well hope so,” Jane said, standing up. “This is why you had her sent to Eastbourne, I suppose, and none of closing the quarantine-grounds at all; a splendid creeping business. Will we be driving a plague-ship into their harbor, next, pray tell me, or poisoning their convoys of grain? Like a parcel of damned scrubs—”

Musgrave, straightening outraged in his chair, snapped, “Ma’am, you are out of order,” and Admiral Gambier said, “This is what comes of—”

“Why damn you, Gambier, come around here and say so,” she said, putting her hand to her sword, and the room devolved very quickly to shouting and scorn, so even the Marines outside the door put in their heads timidly.

“You cannot mean to do this,” Laurence said. “Your Grace, you have met Temeraire, spoken to him; you cannot imagine they are not thinking creatures, beasts to be put to the slaughter—”

Palmerston said, “Tenderhearted womanish folly—” seconded by Gambier, and Ward; “—the enemy,” Nelson said, over the noise, trying to reply, “and we must seize the opportunity which has been offered us, to level the distinction between our aerial forces and theirs—”

The sly, underhanded way it had all been managed, proved well enough that the commissioners had expected opposition, and chosen to avoid it; they were not more ready to be harangued after the fact, and when Jane had shortly grown a little louder, they had reached the limits of their tolerance. “—and this,” Jane was shouting, “is how I am told, days past the event; when the stupidest scuttling crab might conceive that, as soon as Bonaparte knows what has happened, as soon as he sees his beasts growing sick, he will come across at once; at once, if he is not a gawping fool—and you drag me here to Dover, with two Longwings and our Celestial, and the damned Channel hanging open like Rotten Row—” when Musgrave rising beckoned to the guards, to stand open the door.