Crucible of Gold

Laurence, sorry, said, “I would say, rather, that I do not know how to advise you,” but in truth, he could not claim Granby’s confession had successfully overcome his uncomfortable consciousness of the advantages of the match—or more to the point the deadly disadvantages of the alternative. It only increased in great measure the pitiability of Granby’s situation, without making Laurence able to feel in earnest that it was not Granby’s duty to allow the arrangement to go forward, if it might be achieved. “This alone does not seem to me a greater bar to your marriage than must be all the other obstacles: the difference in your station, and the uncertainty of the local politics; the ruin which it must make of your career—”

Here Laurence trailed off: for he himself had ruined his career, to carry out what he felt his duty; and Granby, who had looked away, knew it: Laurence’s own actions spoke too loudly of the choice he himself would make.

“It is not, of course, your duty,” Laurence said.

“I beg you consider whether it is not your duty,” Hammond said, when they had come back into the hall: he had been lying in wait for them, or very nearly, at the door. “Of course there is no question of imposing the match upon you unwilling,” he added, “none at all—”

If this were true on Hammond’s part, a large assumption, it was certainly not true on Iskierka’s; she dismissed Granby’s protests one and all, even the last desperate attempt, when he corralled her in private, out of earshot of everyone else but Laurence. “Of course I know that you are not fond of women, in that way,” she said. “I am not stupid; I know that you and Captain Little were—”

“Oh, for the Lord’s sake, will you not be quiet,” Granby cried, scarlet, and looked sidelong at Laurence in misery.

“Well, why did you speak of it, then?” Iskierka said reasonably. “I did not raise the subject: Immortalis told me we mustn’t do so, although I don’t see why; it is not as though I would allow anyone to arrest you, no matter what. But here it cannot signify—Anahuarque does not want you to be in love with her, only to make eggs, and be Emperor. I will ask Maila if you like, to be sure there will be no difficulty about it, but there shan’t be.”

Granby made plain to her that he did not like, in the least; but between her relentless determination and Hammond’s coaxing, he was chivvied along in a manner which could only inspire sympathy, rather as watching a stag harried by a pack of hungry wolves. He was at length persuaded into allowing himself to be formally presented to the Empress as a suitor, in a ceremony of Maila and Iskierka’s joint devising.

“Which, Captain Granby, if it achieve no other good, Maila tells us will induce them to allow me into her presence,” Hammond said, “which must at least advance my ability to negotiate to our advantage—”

“And to my disadvantage,” Granby said to Laurence, with more grim resignation than real protest; and he said, “I don’t suppose any of us have a clean neckcloth between us? I must at least try and not look like a scarecrow, I guess.”

Temeraire could not feel that Laurence had taken a proper view of the situation. While of course no-one could like the Sapa Inca to marry Napoleon, it seemed to him quite unreasonable that poor Granby should be sacrificed to avert it, especially as he disliked it so. Someone else might marry the Empress, since after all she did not care and only wished for fire-breathing eggs from Iskierka, in what anyone of sense would call a great lack of judgment. Iskierka might stay with Maila, since she liked to—no-one very much wanted her, anyway—and Granby might rejoin Temeraire’s own crew.

He had hinted at the idea to Granby—not in a direct way, for Iskierka was sure to be unreasonable about it, and after all Temeraire did not mean to be rude—or to behave as though he wished to steal Granby; he did not. Only it seemed hard that Iskierka should be permitted to take Granby away from Temeraire in the first place, and make him wretched, and keep him forever in this far-away country, however much gold they did seem to have lying about everywhere.

But despite the gold, Granby had indeed said dismally, “I would give a great deal this moment to still be a first lieutenant, and nothing to worry about except whether I should ever get my hands upon an egg: what my mother will say when she hears of this, I don’t like to think.”

Which response, Temeraire felt, quite justified pursuing his notion of an alternative. “I suppose you would like to stay here, and marry the Sapa Inca, and be an Emperor?” he inquired of Forthing, experimentally.

“Catch me,” Forthing said, snorting.

Temeraire sighed; he would have been just as happy to leave Forthing behind, as not. But he had to admit it would not be a reasonable exchange. Indeed, he had been forced twice this week to check Forthing pretty sharply: he had gone far overboard, in his attempts to prepare for this absurd and unnecessary ceremony of presentation.

“The Empress has not thought anything wrong in Granby’s clothing so far,” Temeraire said, “and if his boots are worn-out, he has those sandals, so I am sure you need not go to such lengths and spend so much leather on making new ones.

“And neither do you,” he added reproachfully to Ferris: who had just returned from the market at the outskirts of the city, with two alpacas laden with beautifully woven green cloth: he evidently thought to use this to make new coats for all the aviators who should be participating in the ceremony. “Where have the funds come, for all of this? For we have had none, before now.”

“Oh—well—” Ferris said, evasively, “—there are those stones, which Maila gave Iskierka.”

“She has not traded them for your getting ordinary cloth,” Temeraire said, with increasing suspicion, and swung his head around to count the sailors where they lay in the courtyard drowsing: he was sorry to say it, but he did not entirely put it past either Forthing or even Ferris to have allowed one of the men to sneak away to another dragon, in exchange for more bribery; a practice which Temeraire did not mean to continue. Laurence disapproved, for one thing, and aside from that, while the sailors were not very good, and he did not consider them his crew, exactly, certainly he was responsible for them.

He saw now that it must be a very poor sort of dragon who would only concern himself with one person; of course Laurence outweighed in importance all the rest; and his officers and crew after, when he had got a ground crew again; but that did not need to be the limit. Temeraire saw no reason he might not undertake to look after more men than he could carry at one time, if Curicuillor and her offspring did as much; and indeed one might say that Temeraire’s own uncle was responsible for all China, in a way, as he was the Emperor’s dragon.

In any case, Laurence had been working on the crew’s discipline, and they were rather better, especially now that Handes was gone: they grumbled a little, but did their work, and when Ferris had put them to the new supply of fabric, they even proved able to turn out perfectly serviceable coats, after one remaining threadbare garment had been sacrificed to make pattern-pieces from. So Temeraire did not mean to let them be traded away, particularly in such a cause; and he kept a close and watchful eye on all of them.

“And one of them is missing,” he said wrathfully, the next morning, “Crickton, and where has he gone, I should like to know at once, pray,” and it transpired that Crickton had grown enamored of a serving-girl who lived in the estate of the governor of the eastern province.

“He hasn’t gone,” Ferris said to Laurence, hurriedly, when Temeraire had called him to account, “he is only visiting her, for a little while; I didn’t think there could be any harm in it.”

“Oh?” Laurence said, grimly.

“Well,” Ferris said, “it is hard on the fellows, when there are no ladies on the town, as it were; and I gather, sir, it is hard on the women hereabouts, also, for they cannot get married outside their own ayllu without a great deal of trouble, in negotiations—”

Crickton had evidently been trying several nights to sneak away, to visit the lady—on the basis of little more encouragement than smiles, from the doorway of the great hall where she lived—and had been caught in the act by Ferris. “And I represented to him, sir, that it could not be his duty to go away in such a manner; he proposed that he should only have a visit with her, and return; and the steward of the estate thought fit to send us a thank-you —”

“For his providing stud services,” Laurence said flatly, and Ferris looked at first abashed, and then shrugged wide.