Naomi Novik - Blood of Tyrants

They had not. Junichiro returned only a little while later with a servant trailing him, who set down on the floor just inside the room the bundle of clothing. And when the door had closed, and Laurence held the salt-stained and ruined clothes, he found the buttons, still firmly sewn on, were gold; and so, too, were the long narrow bars athwart each shoulder where the epaulettes had ought to be—

—and the coat itself was an aviator’s green.

The first order of business was plainly to get the ship afloat again: a ship sitting on rocks was of no use to anyone. “But shan’t the ocean get in, once those are underwater?” Lily said, her head tilted to examine the gaping holes where the rocks had pierced the hull and yet stood within, keeping the Potentate fixed upon the shoals.

“Oh! by no means,” Temeraire said. “They will patch it, with some timber and oakum, I believe; or perhaps with something else, it makes not a particle of difference. That is not our affair: that is for the sailors to worry about.”

He spoke with impatience, which he was aware Lily did not deserve, but he could not quite help himself. It was so very hard to stay here, especially when he was forced to overhear the officers, who insisted on speaking to one another in the certainty of Laurence’s death; even Granby, of whom Temeraire would have expected better, had only said to Hammond, “For Heaven’s sake, Hammond, let him think as he likes. It will take him dreadfully, when he does believe it.”

“Well, I am not going to believe it, so there,” Temeraire said, to himself; but it certainly did not improve his already-great anxiety to be away, searching for Laurence; and neither did Churki sitting there like a great unhelpful lump and wagging her head seriously and saying, “This is what comes of putting all your heart in just one person! Hammond, I should have mentioned before, I hope you are thinking of marriage, and do not fear that I am inclined to be unreasonable. As long as she is young enough to have a great many children, I will be very pleased, whatever your choice.”

Temeraire snorted: Churki might be considerably older, and very experienced from her service with the Incan army, but what did she know of it, anyway. He was quite done considering her opinion as particularly worthwhile; at least, on this subject.

But he very badly wished to go look for Laurence, anyway: and after all, there was no egg yet; there might not be an egg for days, and until there was an egg, it was none of his business but Iskierka’s, whatever she might say. And he would have gone, indeed—if only he could have persuaded himself that this explanation would hold the least weight with Laurence.

But Temeraire could just see himself trying to tell Laurence that he had left an egg on a ship swinging about on some rocks, with no-one to look after it but Iskierka. And not just any egg, but his very own egg and Iskierka’s: a Celestial and Kazilik cross, which Granby had said that very afternoon, to Captain Blaise, was likely worth more than the crown jewels of Britain—Temeraire had never seen these, but he was sure they must be impressive—and they must have a great deal of straw and a warm room set aside for it, if he pleased.

“But the ship is not in any real danger, at present,” Temeraire argued, to an imagined Laurence, “and after all if it did sink, we are close enough to fly to shore. And it is not only Iskierka to watch over it: there are Maximus and Lily, too, who would not let anything happen to the egg; and the rest of our formation, and Kulingile and Churki, besides. Really it would be extraordinary if anything should go wrong—”

But the vision of Laurence was unpersuaded, and only looked at him with gentle reproof: it was not their responsibility; it was his, and not to be pushed off onto someone else. Temeraire’s ruff drooped as he lost the argument with himself once again.

“Anyway,” he said to Lily now, out loud, with apology in his tone, “I am sure they will manage that part of the business perfectly well: so pray let us think how we are to get her off the rocks, instead.”

He had hoped, at first, that they might simply be able to lift the ship with all of them working together, but the ship’s master Mr. Ness had categorically made this impossible as a matter of weight. When he had worked the figures large enough to see clearly, Temeraire had been forced to admit as much: why on earth anyone had put five hundred tons of pig iron and another four hundred of shingle at the very bottom of the Potentate ’s hold was quite a mystery to him, and he could not in the least work out how she stayed afloat ordinarily, but lifting her straight up by even an inch would certainly be beyond their power.

“If only we might rig a pulley!” he added again, but his best ingenuity had failed at contriving any way to establish a pulley in mid-air, above the ship, out in the middle of the ocean. “Or a lever—”

“Well, what about a lever?” Maximus said, gingerly sitting back on his haunches on the shoals, giving over his own attempts to inspect the holes: the ocean was too rough to see them from any distance. “That is only a stick, put underneath and pushed, ain’t it?” and Temeraire paused. He had been stopped, by the size of the ship, but perhaps—

“Where the devil are we to get a lever big enough to move her?” Mr. Ness called down at them, in exasperation. “Why, it should have to be taller than Babel.”

“We do not want one lever,” Temeraire said, with a sudden burst of inspiration. “We want three: one for me, and Maximus, and Kulingile, all to push on at once; and we will get trees from the shore to make them.”

Laurence would have given a great deal for a pair of boots. He contented himself, in the meantime, by working out a way of lacing the sandals more closely to his feet with the unraveled remnants of his woolen stockings, braided to make thin ropes. The coat he made into a bundle with his trousers: at least in the native clothing, he hoped he would not be utterly conspicuous at a glance, when he had tied a rag over his hair.

The bundle he left in the corner of the room when the servants came with the evening meal, and despite the reawakening of his sense of taste, he forced himself to eat even the fermented fish with its sour, vinegared rice; he could not anticipate another meal, any time soon. When it was cleared away, and the noises of the house began to die away along with the light filtering in through the rice-paper walls, Laurence debated with himself the merits of going after the sword. All practicality argued against it. He could not be sure the sword would yet be in Kaneko’s office, nor that the chamber would be unguarded; if he did retrieve it, the blade should then have to be concealed somehow, or draw unwanted attention. A sword wrapped in a bundle of clothing would be of little use if he were confronted unexpectedly by a few pursuers; and only if he were taken so might he hope to escape.

“Well,” Laurence said, standing, “I may as well have a look: if it does not come easy to hand, I may always withdraw.” He felt awkward, uneasy in the decision: irrational, when so many sensible arguments stood against it. He could not have said why; some inarticulate feeling only revolted. He did not want to leave the sword.

He mentally told himself to wake at four bells of the middle watch, and slept until the deep of the night, rousing from another strange and unpleasant dream: great chains tangled around his wrists, dragging him through deep water. He took his bundle, slung over a shoulder by his belt, and stepped cautiously out into the hallway: the soft matting did not betray him as he walked, barefoot to keep the slap of the sandals from making any noise.