“Tell me where the men are to be found and where you want them landed, and I will contrive,” she said, “with what dragons are on patrol, in flying distance.”
“Well enough.” He gave her a curt nod. “Rowley, get her the list of garrisons,” he said, over his shoulder. “Tell me, what sort of supply do you imagine Bonaparte needs?”
“For the beasts? A hundred bullocks a day,” Jane said. “More if he is heavy on fighting-weight beasts, and they are working for their supper. He is managing it, though: has foragers out, of course; and we have fewer dragons south of the mountains to eat up the supply.”
He nodded. “Very good. I must get to Edinburgh, and get the rest of this army into order—”
“Wellesley,” Jane said, “before you go, you will pardon me for saying: I can put the men wherever you need them; but I can’t make Bonaparte come and meet you there. He is pretty well dug in at London, now, and come spring we are going to begin to have some trouble with supply ourselves. Scotland’s herds can’t support this number of dragons forever: we will be eating into the breeding stock.”
He shot her a hard look. “You will oblige me,” he said, “by not mentioning that particular difficulty in front of their Lordships. Damn, but I miss Castlereagh!”
She snorted. “I don’t need a lecture on managing politicos who don’t know a damned thing about my business.”
“No, I imagine not,” Wellesley said, grudgingly. “Well, bring me the army, and let me worry how to get the Corsican out of London.”
Returning to the courtyard, Laurence found Temeraire in glad convocation with Maximus and Lily, also freshly returned from the coast: the two had unceremoniously displaced several disgruntled Yellow Reapers and a much-offended Ballista to claim places on the warm stones beside him.
“Yes, the egg is hatched,” Lily was saying, “but it is not much use to anyone: only lies there and squalls all day, and I do not like the way it smells, not,” she added loyally, “that any of that is Catherine’s fault: I am sure that awful sailor is to blame. I ought never have let him marry her, and now she cannot even make him divorce her.”
Harcourt was standing by them, with Berkley, but Laurence did not hesitate to approach, even inwardly: too weary and too soiled to dread anymore yet another awkward meeting. Catherine did not say anything at all, however, but gave him a handshake which he thought she would have liked to make heartier than her strength could presently manage. She looked fragile as an eggshell and nearly as white, so her pale red hair stood luridly against her skin, and the blued rings beneath her eyes. She had still the little thickness at the middle she had gained in her pregnancy, but her arms were thin of muscle and of strength: she ought to have been resting.
She caught his eye, and said sharply, “Pray let me not hear lectures; Lily cannot be spared at a time like this. He tried to land another sixty thousand men, did you hear?”
“I did, and I congratulate you on the victory,” Laurence said: he did not have a right to speak, in any case, as Riley might. “And on your son,” he added.
“Oh; yes,” she said, despondently. “Thank you.”
The French embassy was leaving: a small sheltering tent in domed shape was put up on the Papillon Noir’s back, and Talleyrand was handed into it, clambering cautiously and slowly into his place; but Murat went up like an aviator to the life born, and latched himself on at the neck. The Papillon made a great show of shaking out his dappled iridescent wings and showing off a small but flashy medallion on his breast to the other dragons, as he was boarded, and he called cheerfully, “Good-bye! I hope you come and visit me, any time you like, in London or in Paris,” before he leapt aloft.
Arkady made a rude noise, after him, and nosed his own dinner-plate medal, which Jane had awarded him a year ago by way of incentive for patrolling. “Yes, and good riddance,” Temeraire said, looking after the vanishing French dragon with a cold eye. “I am sure it is all a hum, and he hasn’t any rubies or gold chains at all.”
Laurence was as glad to see them gone, but they left behind a long shadow, which would not be lifted save by a victory that seemed at the moment distant and unlikely. The terms Bonaparte had offered now would be generous by comparison, if he managed to maintain his occupation until the spring. One by one the outposts throughout England would be starved out, or pounded into surrender; then he would turn the besieging troops upon the port cities, and begin to cut off supply for the Navy. Meanwhile his dragons would be eating up British cattle, while their own beasts began to go hungry, and the melting snows would open up all the mountain passes to easy avenue of attack by his infantry. He had only to stay easy, enjoying the comforts of London, and wait.
“We are going out again on patrol to-night, along the North Sea,” Maximus said to Temeraire. “Are you with us, this next run?”
“Patrolling,” Temeraire said, with a sigh, “but yes, of course we shall go together; shall we not, Laurence? And at least,” he added, “it is better than ferrying.”
“You may have other duties, to your regiment,” Laurence said.
It was no easy matter to organize the whole company of unharnessed dragons into patrols. Temeraire insisted the Yellow Reapers should be allowed to all go together, as they seemed to prefer, even though by the general rule they would have been used for balance in mixed groups; and Arkady’s ferals, on the other hand, he divided up among many bands, even though they could not speak a word to the other dragons. “Yes, but they do not need to speak out loud to understand enough for patrols,” Temeraire said, “and otherwise they will fly off adventuring, especially,” he added darkly, “if Iskierka is let anywhere near them.”
“She is a good deal improved, though,” Granby said to Laurence and Tharkay, over dinner snatched one night, while they were all encamped near Newcastle. A little way back from the fire, Temeraire and Iskierka were squabbling at volume, and Arkady throwing in his occasional piece. “She makes as much noise,” Granby added hurriedly, “but she has turned perfectly obliging: has flown all the patrols as neat as a pattern-card, and no haring off after prizes at all, or a word of complaint; for as much, I would gladly be captured five times over.”
Laurence looked down at the fire; he yet felt too strongly, what Granby’s capture had cost: he had heard nothing of Edith, though he had stooped so far as to beg Jane to make inquiry of the intelligence-officers. Spy reports came in by the dozens each day from London, but the arrest—even the execution—of a solitary British gentlewoman might be too insignificant to mention.
Tharkay said to Granby, “I would not for the world diminish your satisfaction, but perfectly obliging invites caution: a smaller improvement might be more secure. No creature in the habit of freedom is easily persuaded to adopt discipline,” he added, giving a gobbet of meat to the kestrel, who observed their roasting rabbit with a cocked and eager eye.
“I am, too, disciplined,” Iskierka said, overhearing. “I will not run off at all; and I am very happy to carry more,” meaning cattle: they were each carrying half-a-load of supply along with their crew, Jane’s compromise between transport and patrol. Half-a-load was enough for a party of even middle-weight dragons to move a full company with their officers, or to bring in supply for themselves, without weighting the dragons too much to fight; their own party was presently coming up along the North Sea coast, and gathering what supply they could find. Iskierka was already responsible for the transport of a dozen large black hogs, presently penned up outside the camp and squealing occasionally through their drunken haze; they had been dosed with the easiest drug to supply, strong liquor, and smelled powerfully of spirits.