His Majesty's Dragon

Epilogue

“LAURENCE, BE A good fellow and bring me a glass of wine,” Jane Roland said, all but falling into the chair beside his, without the slightest care for the ruin she was making of her skirts. “Two sets is more than enough dancing for me; I am not getting up from this table again until I leave.”

“Should you prefer to go at once?” he asked, rising. “I am happy to take you.”

“If you mean I am so ungainly in a dress that you think I cannot walk a quarter of a mile over even ground without falling down, you may say so, and then I will knock you on the head with this charming reticule,” she said, with her deep laugh. “I have not got myself up in this fashion to waste it by running away so soon. Excidium and I will be back at Dover in a week, and then Lord knows how long it will be before I have another chance to see a ball, much less one supposedly in our honor.”

“I will fetch and carry with you, Laurence. If they are not going to feed us anything more than these French tidbits, I am going to get more of them,” Chenery said, getting up from his chair as well.

“Hear, hear,” Berkley said. “Bring the platter.”

They were parted at the tables by the crush of the crowd, which was growing extreme as the hour drew on; London society was still nearly delirious with joy over the joint victories at Trafalgar and Dover, and temporarily as happy to enthuse over the aviators as it had been to disdain them before. His coat and bars won him enough smiles and gestures of precedence that Laurence managed to acquire the glass of wine without great difficulty. Reluctantly he gave up the notion of taking a cigar for himself; it would have been the height of rudeness to indulge while Jane and Harcourt could not. He took a second glass instead; he imagined someone at the table would care for it.

Both his hands thus occupied, he was happily not forced to do more than bow slightly when he was addressed on his way back to the table. “Captain Laurence,” Miss Montagu said, smiling with a great deal more friendliness than she had shown him in his parents’ house; she looked disappointed to not be able to give him her hand. “How splendid it is to see you again; it has been ages since we were all together at Wollaton Hall. How is dear Temeraire? My heart was in my throat when I heard of the news; I was sure you should be in the thick of the battle, and so of course it was.”

“He is very well, thank you,” Laurence said, as politely as he could manage; dear Temeraire rankled extremely. But he was not going to be openly rude to a woman he had met as one of his parents’ guests, even if his father had not yet been softened by society’s new approbation; there was no sense in aggravating the quarrel and perhaps needlessly making his mother’s situation more difficult.

“May I present you to Lord Winsdale?” she said, turning to her companion. “This is Captain Laurence; Lord Allendale’s son, you know,” she added, in an undertone that Laurence could barely hear.

“Certainly, certainly,” Winsdale said, offering a very slight nod, what he appeared to think a piece of great condescension. “Quite the man of the hour, Laurence; you are to be highly commended. We must all count ourselves fortunate that you were able to acquire the animal for England.”

“You are too kind to say so, Winsdale,” Laurence said, deliberately forward to the same degree. “You must excuse me; this wine will grow too warm shortly.”

Miss Montagu could hardly miss the shortness of his tone now; she looked angry for a moment, then said, with great sweetness, “Of course! Perhaps you are going to see Miss Galman, and can bear her my greetings? Oh, but how absurd of me; I must say Mrs. Woolvey, now, and she is not in town any longer, is she?”

He regarded her with dislike; he wondered at the combination of perception and spite that had enabled her to ferret out the former connection between himself and Edith. “No, I believe she and her husband are presently touring the lake country,” he said, and bowed himself away, deeply grateful that she had not had the opportunity of surprising him with the news.

His mother had given him intelligence of the match in a letter sent only shortly after the battle, and reaching him still at Dover; she had written, after conveying the news of the engagement, “I hope what I write does not give you too much pain; I know you have long admired her, and indeed I have always considered her charming, although I cannot think highly of her judgment in this matter.”

The true blow had fallen long before the letter came; news of Edith’s marriage to another man could not be unexpected, and he had been able to reassure his mother with perfect sincerity. Indeed, he could not fault Edith’s judgment: in retrospect he saw how very disastrous the match would have been, on both sides; he could not have spared her so much as a thought for the last nine months or more. There was no reason Woolvey should not make Edith a perfectly good husband. He himself certainly could not have, and he thought that he would truly be able to wish her happy, if he saw her again.

But he was still irritated by Miss Montagu’s insinuations, and his face had evidently set into somewhat forbidding lines; as he came back to the table, Jane took the glasses from him and said, “You were long enough about it; was someone pestering you? Do not pay them any mind; take a turn outside, and see how Temeraire is enjoying himself: that will put you in a better frame of mind.”

The notion appealed immensely. “I think I will, if you will pardon me,” he said, with a bow to the company.

“Look in on Maximus for me, see if he wants any more dinner,” Berkley called after him.

“And Lily!” Harcourt said, then looked guiltily about to see if any of the guests at the nearby tables had overheard: naturally the company did not realize that the women with the aviators were themselves captains, and assumed them rather wives, though Jane’s scarred face had earned several startled looks, which she ignored with perfect ease.

Laurence left the table to their noisy and spirited discussion, making his way outdoors. The ancient covert near London had long ago been encroached upon by the city and given up by the Corps, save for use by couriers, but for the occasion it had been briefly reclaimed, and a great pavilion established at the northern edge where the headquarters had once stood.

By the aviators’ request, the musicians had been set at the very edge of the pavilion, where the dragons could gather around outside to listen. The musicians had been at first somewhat distressed by the notion and inclined to edge their chairs away, but as the evening wore on and the dragons proved a more appreciative audience than the noisy crowd of society, their fear was gradually overcome by their vanity. Laurence came out to find the first violinist having abandoned the orchestra entirely and playing snatches of various airs in a rather didactic manner for the dragons, demonstrating the work of different composers.

Maximus and Lily were among the interested group, listening with fascination and asking a great many questions. Laurence saw after a moment, with some surprise, that Temeraire was instead curled up in a small clearing beyond the others, off to the side and talking with a gentleman whose face Laurence could not see.

He skirted the group and approached, calling Temeraire’s name softly; the man turned, hearing him. With a start of pleasant surprise, Laurence recognized Sir Edward Howe, and hurried forward to greet him.

“I am very happy indeed to see you, sir,” Laurence said, shaking his hand. “I had not heard that you were back in London, although I made a point of inquiring after you when we first arrived.”

“I was in Ireland when the news reached me; I have only just come to London,” Sir Edward said, and Laurence only then noticed that he was still in traveling-clothes, and his boots were dust-stained. “I hope you will forgive me; I presumed on our acquaintance to come despite the lack of a formal invitation, in hopes of speaking with you at once. When I saw the crowd inside, I thought it best to come and stay with Temeraire until you appeared rather than try to seek you within.”

“Indeed, I am in your debt for putting yourself to so much trouble,” Laurence said. “I confess I have been very anxious to speak with you ever since discovering Temeraire’s ability, which I expect is the news which has brought you. All he can tell us is that the sensation is the same as that of roaring; we cannot account for how mere sound might produce so extraordinary an effect, and none of us have ever heard of anything like.”

“No, you would not have,” Sir Edward said. “Laurence—” He stopped and glanced at the crowd of dragons between them and the pavilion, all now rumbling in approval at the close of the first performance. “Might we speak somewhere in more privacy?”

“We can always go to my own clearing, if you would like to be somewhere quieter,” Temeraire said. “I am happy to carry you both, and it will not take me a moment to fly there.”

“Perhaps that would be best, if you have no objection?” Sir Edward asked Laurence, and Temeraire brought them over carefully in his foreclaws, setting them down in the deserted clearing before settling himself comfortably. “I must beg your pardon for putting you to such trouble, and interrupting your evening,” Sir Edward said.

“Sir, I assure you I am very happy to have it interrupted in this cause,” Laurence said. “Pray have no concern on that score.” He was impatient to learn what Sir Edward might know; a concern over Temeraire’s safety from some possible agent of Napoleon’s lingered with him, perhaps even increased by the victory.

“I will keep you in suspense no longer,” Sir Edward said. “Although I do not in the least pretend to understand the mechanical principles by which Temeraire’s ability operates, the effects are described in literature, and so I may identify it for you: the Chinese, and the Japanese, for that matter, call it by the name divine wind. This tells you little beyond what you already know from example, I am afraid, but the true importance lies in this: it is an ability unique to one breed and one breed alone—the Celestial.”

The name hung in silence for long moments; Laurence did not immediately know what to think. Temeraire looked between them uncertainly. “Is that very different from an Imperial?” he asked. “Are they not both Chinese breeds?”

“Very different indeed,” Sir Edward answered him. “Imperial dragons are rare enough; but the Celestials are given only to the Emperors themselves, or their nearest kin. I should be surprised if there were more than a few score in all the world.”

“The Emperors themselves,” Laurence repeated, in wonder and slowly growing comprehension. “You will not have heard this, sir, but we took a French spy at the covert in Dover shortly before the battle: he revealed to us that Temeraire’s egg was meant not merely for France, but for Bonaparte himself.”

Sir Edward nodded. “I am not surprised to hear as much. The Senate voted Bonaparte the crown in May before last; the time of your encounter with the French vessel suggests the Chinese gave him the egg as soon as they learned. I cannot imagine why they should have made him such a gift; they have given no other signs of allying themselves with France, but the timing is too exact for any other explanation.”

“And if they had some notion of when to expect the hatching, that might well explain the mode of transport as well,” Laurence finished for him. “Seven months from China to France, around Cape Horn: the French could hardly have hoped to manage it except with a fast frigate, regardless of the risk.”

“Laurence,” Sir Edward said with pronounced unhappiness, “I must heartily beg your forgiveness for having so misled you. I cannot even plead the excuse of ignorance: I have read descriptions of Celestials, and seen many drawings of them. It simply never occurred to me that the ruff and tendrils might not develop save with maturity; in body and wing-shape they are identical to the Imperials.”

“I beg you not to refine upon it, sir; no forgiveness is called for, in the least,” Laurence said. “It could scarcely have made much difference to his training, and in the event, we have learned of his ability in very good time.” He smiled up at Temeraire, and stroked the sleek foreleg beside him, while Temeraire snorted in happy agreement. “So, my dear, you are a Celestial; I should not be surprised at all. No wonder Bonaparte was in such a taking to lose you.”

“I imagine he will continue angry,” Sir Edward said. “And what is worse, we may have the Chinese on our necks over it, when they learn; they are prickly to an extreme, where the Emperor’s standing may be said to be concerned, and I do not doubt they will be annoyed to see a British serving officer in possession of their treasure.”

“I do not see how it concerns either Napoleon or them in the least,” Temeraire said, bristling. “I am no longer in the shell, and I do not care if Laurence is not an emperor. We defeated Napoleon in battle and made him fly away even though he is one; I cannot see that there is anything particularly nice about the title.”

“Never fret, my dear; they have no grounds on which to make objection,” Laurence said. “We did not take you from a Chinese vessel, arguably a neutral, but from a French man-of-war; they chose to hand your egg to our enemy, and you were wholly lawful prize.”

“I am glad to hear it,” Sir Edward said, though he looked doubtful. “They may still choose to be quarrelsome about it; their regard for the laws of other nations is very small, and vanishes entirely where it conflicts with their own notions of proper behavior. Pray have you any notion of how they stand with respect to us?”

“They could make a pretty loud noise, I suppose,” Laurence said uncertainly. “I know they have no navy to speak of, but one hears a great deal of their dragons. I will bring the news to Admiral Lenton, though, and I am sure he will know better than I do how to meet any possible difference of opinion with them over the matter.”

A rushing sound of wings came overhead, and the ground shook with impact: Maximus had come flying back to his own clearing, only a short distance away; Laurence could see his red-gold hide visible through the trees. Several smaller dragons flew past overhead also, going back to their own resting places: the ball was evidently breaking up, and Laurence realized from the low-burning lanterns that the hour had grown late.

“You must be tired from your journey,” he said, turning back to Sir Edward. “I am once again deeply obliged to you, sir, for bringing me this intelligence. May I ask you, as a further favor, to join me for dinner tomorrow? I do not wish to keep you standing about in this cold, but I confess I have a great many questions on the subject I should like to put to you, and I would be happy to learn anything more you know of Celestials.”

“It will be my pleasure,” Sir Edward said, and bowed to both of them. “No, I thank you; I can find my own way out,” he said, when Laurence would have accompanied him. “I grew up in London, and would often come wandering about here as a boy, dreaming of dragons; I dare say I know the place better than do you, if you have only been here a few days.” He bade them farewell, having arranged the appointment.

Laurence had meant to stay the night at a nearby hotel where Captain Roland had taken a room, but he found he was disinclined to leave Temeraire; instead he searched out some old blankets in the stable being used by the ground crew, and made himself a somewhat dusty nest in Temeraire’s arms, his coat rolled up to serve as a pillow. He would make his apologies in the morning; Jane would understand.

“Laurence, what is China like?” Temeraire asked idly, after they had settled down together, his wings sheltering them from the wintry air.

“I have never been, my dear; only to India,” he said. “But I understand it is very splendid; it is the oldest nation in the world, you know; it even predates Rome. And certainly their dragons are the finest in the world,” he added, and saw Temeraire preen with satisfaction.

“Well, perhaps we may visit, when the war is over and we have won. I would like to meet another Celestial someday,” Temeraire said. “But as for their sending me to Napoleon, that is great nonsense; I am never going to let anyone take you from me.”

“Nor I, my dear,” Laurence said, smiling, despite all the complications which he knew might arise if China did object. In his heart he shared the simplicity of Temeraire’s view of the matter, and he fell asleep almost at once in the security of the slow, deep rushing of Temeraire’s heartbeat, so very much like the endless sound of the sea.