Naomi Novik - Victory of Eagles

Riley came aboard late, and grim, and alone, with the tide already making a noise against her sides; he did not come to greet Laurence, of course, but neither did he say anything to the two captains, or to Tharkay, technically at least his guest. He went instead directly to his cabin, and came out only to weigh anchor and make sail; before sequestering himself again. Purbeck knew his work, and managed despite the very awkward crew to get them out of the harbor, with only the least direction; and then the black waters of the Channel were slipping away behind them.

TEMERAIRE PUT HIS HEAD over the side and studied the waves, as they went, and said to Laurence, “I only wish I knew how she did it; I might practice, to work it out?” But Laurence with some energy dissuaded him, although Temeraire protested he would only make the waves go away from the ship; even so, Laurence did not think Riley or the sailors would like it.

Temeraire sighed, and settled himself again; it was bad enough to be facing so long a sea-journey again, when all his friends were building pavilions, and soon to have pay: it was worse yet to be sent to such a strange and unfriendly country, which had no dragons at all. He was sure if it were at all nice, some dragons would have gone there before; so it must be wholly dreadful, and he was particularly anxious for the eggs. Not that he would let anything happen to them, of course, but it was a heavy responsibility, and none of them even his own. It did not seem very fair.

“Will it be very long?” he asked Laurence, the next morning, already feeling rather discouraged by the monotony of the horizon; he was gloomily unsurprised to hear they should be sailing for seven months, or longer.

“We must put in at Gibraltar and then at St. Helena,” Laurence said, “as we cannot put in at the Cape anymore; and then likely again at New Amsterdam.”

“And you are sure we might not just as well go to China?” Temeraire asked. “We might fly there overland—” But Laurence did not wish to do it.

“I do not mean to be a martyr,” he said, “but the law must be the law for everyone; and it has bent for me a great deal already, and for you; however grudgingly. Though our actions were just, I cannot easily forget that others, who had a claim on our loyalty and our service, have suffered by them, and that our enemies thereby have profited. We have left behind England safer than she was, and free, thank God; I need not reproach myself for that. But I would yet gladly do what honorable work I might find, in her service, to repay the debt I owe, even if I may only do it indirect.”

Temeraire would have objected strongly if anyone else had suggested that Laurence owed any more than he had given; but he could not very well quarrel with Laurence himself on the subject, if he had liked to, when he owed Laurence a debt, too. Only, he wished they were not going so very far. Already the days had begun to drag intolerably.

“Wing, two points off the larboard stern,” the lookout cried, and Temeraire roused hopefully: perhaps it would be a battle; or perhaps Volly, coming to call them back to England; or Maximus and Lily, come to bear him company, so they should all go together.

“But it is none of them; it is Iskierka,” he said, disgruntledly, when she had come close enough he could see the thin cloud of steam trailing her; she was flying a little sluggishly and tired, and she thumped down upon the dragondeck in much disarray: she did not have even her full harness on, and none of her crew, only Granby latched on to her neck-strap.

“What are you doing here?” Temeraire demanded, while she thirstily drank up two barrels of his water.

She settled herself more comfortably, looping her massive coils in a very inconvenient way, half-sprawling over the deck and some of them dangling over the sides, so that Temeraire could not help but notice that in reaching her full length she had grown longer than he was, himself. “I am coming with you.”

“No, you are not,” Temeraire said. “ We are transported, you are not; you had better go back at once.”

“Well, I cannot,” she said. “I am too tired to fly back now, and by tomorrow morning it will be too far; so we may as well go on.”

“I do not see what you want to come for, anyway,” Temeraire said.

“I told you that you might give me an egg, when we had won,” Iskierka said, “so I have come to keep my promise.”

“But I do not want to give you an egg, at all!” Temeraire said. “I do not want you aboard the ship, either: you take too much room, and you are damp.”

“I do not take any more room than you; at least, not much more,” Iskierka said, to add insult to injury, “and I am warmer; so you needn’t quarrel.”

“And,” Temeraire said, “you are disobeying orders again, I am sure of it: Granby would never let you come.”

“Oh, well,” she said, “one cannot always be obeying orders. When will we be there?”

“IT IS THIS DRATTED EGG,” Granby said to Laurence. “She is set on it having fire, and the divine wind; I have tried and tried to tell her it don’t work so, but she will not listen, and now here we are.”

“You may take her off at Gibraltar,” Laurence suggested.

“Oh, yes, if she will choose to go,” Granby said, and sat down upon an emptied cask of water, limp with defeat.

Iskierka, having been given a pig to eat, had already in satisfied complacence gone to sleep; her steadily issuing cloud of vapor went spilling over the bow and trailing away along either side of the ship, as though to illustrate their steady pace, farther away from England. Temeraire had pushed her mostly to one half the dragondeck, as best he could, and now sat coiled up and disgruntled, with his ruff flattened against his neck.

“You may be glad of the company, before we have crossed the line,” Laurence said, by way of comfort.

“I will not, even if I am very bored; any more than I would be glad of a typhoon,” Temeraire said, broodingly. “And I am sure she will be a bad influence upon the eggs.”

Laurence looked at Iskierka, and at Granby, who was presently drowning his sorrow in a glass of rum; Tharkay had come on deck and prudently caught one of the runners, to send for a bottle. “At least you need not fear for their safety,” he suggested.

“Unless she should set the ship on fire,” Temeraire said; a good deal too loudly for the comfort of any sailor in ear-shot, which might have omitted those two decks below, or in the stern.

“Then I am afraid you must study philosophy,” Laurence said, “and learn to bear the misfortune. I hope the arrangement is at least preferable to the breeding grounds.”

“Oh! Anything might be better than that, and still be dreadful,” Temeraire said, and with a sigh settled his head down forward. “Pray, Laurence; let us have the Principia Mathematica, as there is nothing better?”

“Again?” Laurence said, but sent Emily down for the book. She returned scowling, at the state of his quarters, but with a shake of his head he dissuaded her from any word to Temeraire. “Where shall I begin?” he asked, but he did not immediately hear the answer, as he looked down and put his hands on the book: his fingers caught on the delicate pages, and traced the embossed lines of the heavy cover, leather stamped with gilt. The same book under his hands, the salt wind in his face, Temeraire at his side; nothing changed outwardly, and yet in his essentials he felt as wholly altered as if he had been reborn, since the last time he had set foot upon the deck of a ship: a tide coming in, high and fast, which had swept clean the sand.

“Laurence?” Temeraire said. “Would you prefer another?”

“No, my dear,” Laurence said. “I do very well.”