Crucible of Gold

said I will have an egg by you; and I will, too, but first I will have one by Maila: and I am sure you haven’t the least right to be jealous, when you have been shy all these months, all because you are afraid you cannot.”

“I am not jealous, and I am especially not afraid; I do not want to have an egg by you,” Temeraire said, “in the least.”

“That is nonsense,” Iskierka said, “why wouldn’t you? And Granby will be an emperor,” she added, and jetted so much steam in her delight that with the sunlight reflected off the wall-panels of gold, she was wreathed in a wholly undeserved gauzy halo of light.

“This certainly alters the complexion of the situation,” Hammond said thoughtfully, when informed. “I confess I had been concerned regarding what obligations she might have established—what promises might have been made—but if we are quite certain she has so far committed only herself, in her person—”

“And me,” Granby said, sharply.

“Yes, of course,” Hammond said, with a look which said plainly he did not care two pins for that.

Further inquiry determined that Iskierka’s promises had not been quite so scanty as that: she had airily assured Maila of the British gladly sending tens of thousands of men to repopulate the ayllus of many an Incan dragon; with vague hints that the sailors daily on display in the courtyard might themselves be delivered to the dragons of the court. But in doing so she had offered nothing to which Hammond greatly objected; indeed, Laurence thought Hammond would gladly have put the men up on a chopping-block and auctioned them off to the highest bidder.

“Of course their feelings must be consulted in the matter, Captain, but if there are men who wish to make their home in such luxurious circumstances,” Hammond said, “—who wish to serve their country in such a fashion—I can see no real objection. In any case,” he added hastily, “that, I think, is not truly the appeal of Iskierka’s proposal: you see, Captain Laurence, you were correct. For all her delay, the Empress must marry, and if she were to marry Napoleon, she must go to France: a nation torn by revolution and in the midst of war. I think the consideration must weigh with the dragons of her court greatly.”

“Which is as much to say,” Granby said, “that if she marries me, she shan’t be going anywhere; and I am meant to live out my days knocking around a palace. You might ask, Hammond, or at least make a pretense of it.”

“Captain Granby, I beg you do not refine on what we must as yet consider a most remote possibility,” Hammond said, beginning to sidle out of the hall in what could not be called a subtle manner. “Pray excuse me: I will just have a word with Iskierka—” and was gone.

“I think we must soon wish you happy,” Laurence said dryly to Granby, who stood flushed with choler, “with such enthusiastic matchmakers taking your part.”

“There, Captain Granby, sir,” O’Dea said in comforting tones, from where he had been sitting by the communal fire enjoying a tot of rum and very likely some eavesdropping, “sure and there is no harm in marriage, after all: though it all must end in a vale of tears, there’s naught better to be looked for in the ash of this sad and worldly life: why not.”

“Damn your impudence, O’Dea,” Granby said. “Whatever do you know of it?”

“Why, and I’ve buried four wives,” O’Dea said, and raised his glass in the air. “Katherine, Felidia, Willis, and Kate: the loveliest women ever to grace the earth, for to take pity on an old wretch like myself, and may the Good Lord be looking after them even now in his marble halls among the saints; although true enough there’s no certainty of salvation.”

He drained his tot and wheedling the other men at the fire said, “Come, lads: give me another drop if any of you have it to spare, a man needs a little heart in him when he thinks on love long gone.”

“Then there’s enough heart in you to dwell on the wreck of Rome,” Granby said, and stalked away.

That night Granby came to Laurence’s chamber, and knocking quietly asked him to go out. They went together through the courtyard and ascended the terraces that mounted up the hillside, silently; at the summit they looked down upon the broad plaza circled by the blue-gas lamps, and the orange glow of firelight out of the windows of the hall. “I suppose I am a fool; it didn’t occur to me at first any of it could really be true—still less that Hammond could really mean it to happen, and now—” Granby stopped.

“I scarcely know how to counsel you,” Laurence said, troubled; he had been no less reluctant to make himself over to be a pawn in Hammond’s negotiations in China, even if they had ended greatly to his advantage; and the present arrangement should mean a far greater upheaval for Granby.

“It’s worse than that,” Granby said. “Laurence, I can’t marry her. I know I ought to have spoken at once, and not left it so late; but there—it would scarce have made much of a difference, when Iskierka has kept the whole matter under her wing so long to begin with. Anyway, I couldn’t—cannot—tell Hammond. I won’t trust him so; but if I don’t tell him, I don’t know how to—what to—” He cut off the uncharacteristic stammer, and ran his hand down over his jaw, pulling it long and frustrate.

Laurence stared. “Are you already married?” he said, doubtfully.

“Oh! Lord, if only I were,” Granby said. “My sister wanted to settle one of her friends upon me; if only I had let her arrange it! Not even Hammond could ask me to become a bigamist, I suppose. No, Laurence—I—I am an invert.”

“What?” Laurence said, taken aback—the practice was scarcely unknown to him, coming from the Navy; he had known several fine officers addicted to the crime, their failing common knowledge and quietly ignored; but he had always understood it to stem from the lack of opportunity of a more natural congress, which could not be said to be the case for an aviator.

“Well, I don’t know what the cause of it is, but it hasn’t anything to do with opportunity; for me, anyway,” Granby said shortly, and they fell silent.

Laurence did not know what to say. He had never suspected Granby of being even ordinarily unchaste; and belatedly realized that in itself was evidence. “I am very sorry,” he said, after a moment. “—very sorry, indeed,” feeling the expression inadequate to the confession.

“Oh—” Granby shrugged, with one shoulder, “in the ordinary course of things, you know, it scarcely makes a difference. I have never seen the use for an aviator of battening on some girl who like as not cannot say boo to a dragon, and leaving her to sit in an empty house eleven months in twelve for the rest of her life, while you live in a covert with your beast. And for that matter, I had as soon have a little quiet discretion with another officer, as make my way in the ha’penny whorehouses outside the coverts like other fellows do.” He jerked a hand, as if to fling away the notion. “But now—this lunacy—”

“Ah,” Laurence said, braced himself, and asked, “Can you not?” steeling himself against the indelicacy of the question; but after all, on the Navy side he knew of at least Captain Farraway: eleven children, one for every home leave since his marriage, and his pattern-card wife unlikely to have strayed at all much less in so precise a fashion; so plainly it was not impossible as a matter of course—

“I can manage that if I must, I expect,” Granby said. “I would have to try and put myself out to stud to provide for Iskierka soon enough anyway. But once or twice is not the same thing as marriage. She must resent it; the Inca, I mean, and why shan’t she say ‘off with his head’ if she don’t like it?”

“If she should not learn—?” Laurence offered. “Not that I would counsel you to dishonesty,” he added, “but if it is no barrier to your duty to her—”

“It won’t do,” Granby said, bluntly. “Not that I would make a cake of myself, any more than I ever have, but I don’t undertake to be a monk the rest of my days, either. I would try and be discreet; but it is more than I expect that no-one should find out and blab to her: I shouldn’t be just some aviator, that no-one cares about, but the husband of their queen.”

Laurence said slowly, “And yet—she cannot be looking for affection of the ordinary sort which one might hope to find in marriage. For that matter, she must know soon enough if not already that Napoleon has divorced another woman for her, one whom he married for passion; and she herself is a recent widow. Her marriage must be an act of state, rather than a personal gesture; I cannot think she would take it as an injury in the same manner as might a woman entering into the marriage contract under the more ordinary circumstances.”

“Laurence,” Granby cried, with a look of reproach, “I should not have said a word to you of any of this, if I had been set on fire and dragged by wild horses, except that I hadn’t the least notion how to get out of the thing without help; and now you are as much as telling me you think I ought to go through with it.”