Crucible of Gold

here, now; and I suppose the meat cannot be good anymore, as we did not preserve it.”

“I don’t want the meat; I want the blubber,” Iskierka said, and insisted she did not care that the blubber would surely have taken on all the flavor of the spoiled meat; which Temeraire did not understand in the least, until she came back again at the end of the next day, stinking and sooty and triumphant, and fell upon her share of the provisions which the town now daily made them.

“Granby has asked for you twice,” Temeraire said, reproachfully, and flattened back his ruff, “and you might sit downwind; what have you been doing?”

“I have been rendering down the whale,” Iskierka said, tearing at her sheep, “for some of those traders: one of the sailors showed me how to go about it, and now I am rich again; and I am going to buy Granby a golden hook.”

“One might think she would be above trickery,” Temeraire said to Laurence, “not, of course, that I begrudge Granby anything at all; but it was my whale: mine and Kulingile’s, and she might have said so if she knew we might get gold for it.”

He could not stifle resentment when he saw the result, and had to watch as Granby came down from his sickbed at last several days later, to be presented by Shipley—whom Iskierka had recruited as her deputy in the matter and was all smiles in a fine suit of black cloth, bowing as he held out the box—with the truly splendid hook: shining gold on black velvet.

“It will be too soft for use, you know,” Granby said, when he could speak again, “so we will have to put it by for special occasions—”

“Not at all,” Iskierka said, “for I thought of that; and so they have made it out of steel, really: it is only gold on the outside; the rest of the funds went for the diamonds.”

“Yes; I see,” Granby said, staring at the shining faceted gems which gleamed all around the base of the hook in even rows.

“Put it on, at once,” Iskierka said, audibly hissing steam in her excitement, and then Granby put down the lid of the box and said, “No.”

Temeraire raised his sullen head, blinking, to watch as Granby said, “No. I am done with this, Iskierka, do you hear me? I am done with being dragged about, and made into what a lunatic might call a fashion-plate, and married off—”

“But you are not married, at all—” Iskierka protested.

“No fault of yours if I am not,” Granby said, which was very true, “and I dare say if I let you go on as you have been, you will try again, soon enough as you have found some princess or duchess or other lying about—” Iskierka twitched in what Temeraire could only call a guilty fashion. “—and I shan’t put up with it anymore: you aren’t fresh out of the shell any longer, and we are going to have a little more sense. Or you may take your leave of me, and find a captain who will swallow all your starts, and let you do just as you like—”

“Never, never!” Iskierka said, bristling wildly. “Oh! How can you be so cruel, when you must see very well that I am only thinking of you.”

“What you mean is, thinking of how you can show me off to your best advantage,” Granby said bluntly, “which isn’t the same thing, at all.”

Iskierka coiled on herself uneasily. Temeraire felt a smart of anxiety for his own part: but, he told himself, it was not at all the same thing, to wish Laurence to be recognized for his own abundant merits; and after all he did not insist on Laurence’s wearing his robes, but only proposed it, now and again, when it seemed to him most appropriate, and when Laurence’s natural modesty should from time to time require a push to overcome.

“Well, I mean to think only of you,” Iskierka said in her defense, “and surely you must like to have splendid things, and have everyone see how particularly important you are—”

“The most splendid thing I am ever like to have,” Granby said, “is a Kazilik dragon, dear one. All I have ever wanted is to call myself a captain, in His Majesty’s Corps, and if you should manage to make me into a lord or an emperor or a rajah, I shouldn’t know in the least what to do with myself.”

Iskierka grumbled deep in her throat, but said grudgingly, “Well, if you very much dislike the idea of being a prince, I suppose I will give it up; but you do want a hook—”

“I should be very glad of a serviceable hook, of good steel, with no gewgaws to catch a blade upon in battle,” Granby said firmly, “and as for the rest of the money, we will put it to provisioning, as the whale was caught for all our benefit,” which Temeraire brightened at, as repairing the injustice of Iskierka’s selfishness. “And if you should ever take another prize in future,” Granby concluded, “we will put it into the Funds.”

“What are those?” Iskierka said.

“Oh—stocks and so forth,” Granby said vaguely, “investments; I dare say when we have come to England I can find a man of business to manage them. I should much rather have the money in the five per cents than wear it in my sleeve.”

So when they left, two days later, they left at last decently equipped again: trousers for all the aviators, and boots—if these did not fit exactly right, they were still closer to proper uniform than before—and at least a shirt for every man. Temeraire rejoiced in four rifles, acquired triumphantly by Roland through an intense bout of haggling, and still more that he had proper riflemen again: Laurence had plucked up Baggy to take one, swearing the boy in as an ensign, and Ferris had one as well. And by Laurence’s order, the spare gunpowder was poured out and stored in small powder-horns, which might even be used as incendiaries in need.

The harness was repaired also; when at last it was buckled on again, and the men had climbed aboard in an orderly fashion almost like a proper ground crew, Temeraire breathed deep in satisfaction. “All lies well; and how wonderful to feel myself properly rigged out again, Laurence,” he said, looking over his shoulder as Laurence settled himself into place.

“Yes; I will be glad not to feel so wretchedly useless, when next we are in battle,” Laurence answered, with satisfaction of his own; and Temeraire noted with pleasure that he and all the crew had carabiners again, which should be far more reliable in keeping them safely aboard.

“I ought to ride with Temeraire,” Hammond said, trying to sidle past Churki, who was insisting on his riding on her back, alone; she had nothing but a light neck-strap for harness that he might use to secure himself. “If we should encounter any of the Tswana, in the air, I ought to be on hand—”

“We will all keep in company,” Churki said, “and Temeraire is a fighting-dragon: you are not a soldier, and therefore should not be aboard a beast who must go into battle if it offers. I can much better keep you safe as an ambassador ought to be.”

He yielded without much grace, but consoled himself with a handful of coca leaves: he had found a fresh supply, and they had quite restored him to health. “Pray do keep in mind,” he called to Temeraire, “that if we should meet the Tswana, you must wait for me to bespeak them: we cannot have any more of this excess of independence.”

“I call that unfair,” Temeraire said to Laurence as they went aloft, “when it is not my fault that our negotiations in Pusantinsuyo did not work; I did not try and marry Granby to the Empress.”

Mrs. Pemberton joined Hammond on Churki: offered the opportunity to stay and await a ship for England, she had refused. “No, Captain, although I thank you for the offer,” she said. “But I should consider myself poor- spirited indeed not to see my charge through to the end: it is only now, after all, that we have arrived at our original destination.”

They made their approach to Rio directly from the north, cutting across a great swath of jungle; and as they drew near they began to be flying over broad cleared estates, green and full of peacefully grazing cattle. “I think perhaps we cannot have heard truthfully, about the destruction,” Temeraire said, swallowing another bite of delicious beef, when they had stopped short of the city to eat well and restore themselves. “Everything seems in order to me here, and we are very close to the sea again.”

But “There is no-one tending the herds,” Laurence said quietly, and asked him to circle around south, so they might approach the city unnoticed, sheltered from view by the Corcovado hill. That next afternoon they came at last into sight of the beautiful harbor of which Laurence had spoken so often, and all the city laid out below.

“Good God,” Hammond said; they were all silent. In the harbor, a great dragon transport even larger than the lost Allegiance was riding at anchor, and a host of smaller vessels around her: six light frigates, bristling with guns. The tricolor snapped gaily from their masts.

All the rest of the city was a ruin of shattered houses and deserted streets, blackened by fire, with perhaps a