Naomi Novik - League of Dragons

“Well, I am sure Laurence has not been visiting some woman,” Temeraire said uneasily; it did occur to him that Laurence had been attending all these parties, at which he understood there were a great many ladies all in very dazzling gowns; and Laurence did have odd notions about what might be due the reputation of a gentlewoman. “Perhaps you are right; perhaps I ought to inform myself. Roland,” he said, turning to break in on her sword-drill with Baggy, “Roland, you would not happen to know which party Laurence has gone to, this afternoon? You might go after him, and just keep an eye upon him.”

Baggy dropped his sword at once and sat down looking grateful for the respite: he was finally filling out his well-stretched frame little by little, but remained still very lanky.

“I mightn’t at all,” Roland said, with feeling, wiping sweat and strands off her brow; she wore her sandy hair braided in a queue, but a great deal of it had escaped during the practice: her enthusiasm for the exercise was considerably greater than Baggy’s. “I should have to put on a dress. You had better ask Forthing to go after him, or Ferris: he can do the pretty when he has to.”

“Ferris, certainly,” Temeraire said, mindful of the wretched condition of Mr. Forthing’s coat, which he could hardly bear to have seen even within the confines of the covert, much less out in the world, as associated with any officer of his; neither was his appearance at all improved by the large wadding of bandages bound up over the wound in his cheek. “—pray ask him to go at once, if you please.”

“I’ll go!” Baggy volunteered, and scrambled up and away with a flailing of thin limbs and an expression of relief.

Ferris went out in a condition of which any dragon might be proud: in a neat grey coat, freshly sponged down and with a golden stick-pin in the lapel, trousers faultlessly white and boots well-polished. “I will find him, never fret, Temeraire,” Ferris said. “I have enough Russian to ask about, and there aren’t so many aviators about that people won’t remember a flying-coat.”

“And perhaps you might find Grig for me,” Temeraire said to Roland, after Ferris had gone, just in case: if any other dragon had been nosing about Laurence, Grig was sure to know of it.

But Grig did not need to be summoned: he was at that very moment darting into the clearing in a rush. “Temeraire, some of those ferals have returned, that you asked to go west for you; but they have come in over Symerka’s clearing, and he thinks they are trying to get at his treasure.”

“Oh! What treasure has he got to speak of, but three silver plates, dented!” Temeraire said, in some exasperation.

But this paucity in no wise deterred Symerka, who was indeed beating aloft furiously, launching himself at the two cowering ferals, who together could have fit under one of his wings. Temeraire had to roar very loudly to get his attention; so that the entire infantry battalion at the foot of the hill burst out of their tents and began milling around, and a few of them fired guns in panic.

“These are my guests, who have come to bring us intelligence, not to take anything,” Temeraire said to Symerka severely, putting himself in front of the ferals. “You cannot be supposing everyone a thief, and jumping on them without so much as a word.”

“Well, as you are vouching for them,” Symerka said, “I suppose they are all right; but I am sure that one looked towards my plates,” he added, stretching his neck as he flew back and forth before them a few more times, before at last subsiding and returning to his clearing.

“I am sorry you should have had so unfriendly a welcome,” Temeraire said to the ferals: it was their chief come back again, and one other with her, a thin pale-grey creature almost as white as Lien, except with grey eyes instead of red. Temeraire was sorrier yet when the feral chief declared herself quite overset, and in need of restoration after their fright: she could not speak a word until they were fed. The quartermaster refused to be of any use, and in any case the dinner porridge would not be ready for another four hours yet. Roland had to be sent down to the city with a gold coin, and Temeraire then had to see this go down the gullets of his visitors in the form of two handsome round-bellied pigs.

“ Now then,” Temeraire said pointedly, when at last they had licked the last specks of blood from their muzzles.

“First,” the feral chief said, uncowed, “I should like us to be very clear on terms. I suppose you would agree I have had a share in bringing you the message, even if I don’t bring it myself, so long as I introduce you to someone who does?”

“Certainly,” Temeraire said, “and that is quite enough of terms to discuss, until there is such a message, as I suppose you mean that you don’t have it.”

“Well, no,” she said, “not yet: Bistorta here was not ready to believe me, that there was gold in it, and she says it is getting dangerous to go into France.”

“They are all gone mad for this Napoleon down there,” the pale-grey dragon said, in French, when Temeraire inquired of her. “All of them, whether they are harnessed or no. It has come to be so that they will herd you down for questioning as a spy if they do not know you. But your Prussian friends are there, yes, in the breeding grounds outside Moirans-en-Montaigne: I have seen them. It used to be I would take a sheep off their herders now and then, before the patrols grew so unfriendly. But these days, I would not risk going in except for gold, and as I told Molic here, I will believe in gold when I see it in front of my face; although you have certainly given us a handsome meal,” she added, “and so behold, I am ready to be persuaded.” She folded her wings neatly and tucked her head back in an expectant curve.

Temeraire sighed deeply and resigned himself to salting the wound: Roland and Baggy were told off to display the golden plate service once more, and the appreciative sighs of his guests only made him feel, all the more, what he would be losing. But he cheered himself that Bistorta could not say for certain whether Eroica himself were there, nor recall the names of any particular Prussian dragons; she might be entirely mistaken.

“But I will certainly attempt it,” she said, after one last acquisitive squint at the engraving upon the largest platter. “Oh! Will I not! But tell me now what I must say to this fellow Eroica, when I find him.”

“ If you should find him,” Temeraire said, with emphasis, “you shall tell him that Dyhern is quite at liberty, and here with us, and we should like him to rejoin; and also all his comrades. Roland,” he turned his head, “I do not suppose you can learn from Dyhern which other Prussian aviators have been set free? Without telling them why, of course: Laurence is quite right that Dyhern ought not be distressed, when very likely we will not find Eroica after all.”

This list took some time to obtain; the ferals did not object to the delay, nor to eating a substantial share of Temeraire’s dinner when the porridge did at length finally come. “Eating fat, morning and night,” Molic said, with a replete sigh; her belly was noticeably rounded. “It makes you think twice about harness, doesn’t it?”

“No, it does not,” Bistorta said positively. “I mean no offense,” she added, “but it is not for me: following orders from one, who takes orders from another, for the sake of a third. Some of those dragons in France, they have never met this Napoleon at all, yet now they are ready to fight if you so much as hint he is not made of diamonds, all because he has given them a few pavilions and firework-shows. For me, I will stay in the mountains and be free; I would rather sleep in a meadow than beneath a painted roof.”