Work Text:
Captain Augustine Little possessed a quiet, unassuming temperament, and in his thirty-one years had not often been moved to extremes of emotion, outside the confines of his sketchbook.
An eighth child and fifth son, he was well used to being talked over before he could even get out a sentence, and had learned to prefer pencils and watercolours over human company, since the former were not generally given to belittling him, interrupting him, or calling him Gussie or the miniscule. His sisters’ governess had regularly sat the girls down for drawing lessons, and as a sweet, blue-eyed and dreamy-faced child, Augustine had been much in demand as a model. They had let him share their pencils and crayons, to which he’d taken like a duck to water, and soon enough he’d been pointing out improvements to their work and finishing the girls' pictures in exchange for sweetmeats.
Bored with the vases and flowers of the schoolroom, he set about copying the handful of paintings in their Shropshire home, before moving on to prospects of the surrounding hills and portraits of his siblings, with even the proud eldest, Charles, eventually deigning to sit still in his colonel’s uniform to have his likeness taken. Augustine’s talent was not lost on his parents, but they were struggling with an encumbered estate: out of the question to send the boy to London, let alone Paris or Rome, for proper training as a painter. Besides, on closer inspection, his works often turned out to be peculiar — too much given to fantastic embellishment, and sometimes downright unsettling. For years, his mother would recount the instance he had made a faithful copy of the ancestor’s portrait in their entrance hall, complete with lace ruff and gold-encrusted doublet, only to then ruin, all but ruin the work, by adding a huge pair of antlers sprouting from the gentleman’s head, and a pastel portrait of his three sisters, lovely at first sight, had shocked everyone when they had discovered the hideously grinning goblins hidden between the folds of the girls’ dresses. Nobody would want to buy something like that, and they had a name to lose — no, Mrs Little would tell her friends, in her family, youngest sons went to the Aerial Corps, and so they had sent dear Augustine, and how much good it had done him!
In the Corps, Little was lucky in having a friendly captain, a relation of his mother's who allowed him time for his sketching as long as he completed his other chores, thereby providing ample incentive for speed and efficiency, and while he retained a general wariness of people — in all his years, he only ever made one close friend, Chenery, when they were midwingmen together — Little attracted no complaints: he was not at all given to brawling, drinking or whoring, but punctual, tidy and reliable; not shy, but no daredevil either — in short, almost a dull fellow, and in due course, his name had been pencilled against a Yellow Reaper’s egg.
Immortalis, when hatched, possessed all his breed’s agreeable and companionable qualities, and all the known shortcomings: a tendency to squall and dive when attacked from above, and a lack of any particular offensive capabilities, meaning they would never fly in the first ranks or lead a formation. Captain Little did not mind. He did not long to die on a field of glory as Charles had done, and had become well used to the idea of being the unremarkable captain of an unremarkable beast, leading him and his paintbox to some pleasant retirement in his native hills.
But then he’d met John Granby.
And then, Captain William Laurence, and then, Iskierka, and all of a sudden, his orderly life had been wrenched upside down.
He had fought in several major engagements. He had ventured to the Cape of Africa. He had watched Chenery court-martialled twice and stood once himself, alongside the rest of his formation, during an investigation for High Treason. He had narrowly avoided discovery by erstwhile neighbours while guiding a horde of ferals across Shropshire in chase of French irregulars, under an order of no quarter. He’d traipsed around the charred ruins of Rio de Janeiro dodging Tswana dragons, and he now stood plum in the middle of China’s Forbidden City, before a court official with a long queue and rustling silk robe, who told him and the other captains of Lily’s formation: “It is only the humblest of guest palaces, but it is the Crown Prince’s great wish for you all to be comfortable. So you and your dragons may make free of his own garden and pavilions, if you so desire, beyond that wall to the North.”
He bowed, deeply, and turned to take his leave.
“He just… apologized for this?” Captain Harcourt said, after a moment, into the baffled silence.
For another instant, nobody made any reply, and Little himself could only shake his head when he caught Granby’s eye, glancing around the quarters assigned them: an elegant set of columned buildings in red and gold with upturned gables ending in carved dragon-heads, the painted ceilings inside glowing a rich green, all facing onto a communal courtyard with rows of stone benches paved with the finest grey sandstone — the very prospect made his fingers itch for his paints. But they had been ruined by saltwater, during the storm that had grounded the Potentate, and in the ensuing sequence of disasters, their replacement had been the very last thing on Little’s mind.
“What I would like to know,” Chenery said next to him, crossing his arms, “is how the heck that Chinaman comes to speak such perfect English.”
“Oh, he is one of the aides I trained up when I was envoy,” Hammond said absently, leafing through some papers. “Prince Mianning must have retained him. They will be spying on us, of course, so mark what you say and do. — I will leave you now, gentlemen, and see how Captain Laurence is getting on with those robes. The Crown Prince has sent for him. It is a great honour, a very promising start to be sure…”
“Great honour indeed… I’d sleep in the pigsty, for a chance at a proper cup of tea,” Captain Berkeley grumbled, scowling at a group of servants armed with trays who had appeared at one of the entrances, beckoning. “With milk! Look, it is more of this thin brew in tiny cups without handles — yes, yes, merci, gracias, obrigado… Hammond? Hammond, how do you say, thank you, I’ve had enough?”
But Hammond was already hurrying away.
“Well, I suppose we can have one… palace to each crew,” Harcourt said, dubiously, when they had walked over to take up cups of the bitter tea. “It’ll be a job to keep the men from looting, with all these riches on broad display." She nodded at a large porcelain vase visible inside one of the rooms, which alone would likely have bought Little’s parents’ small estate, had there been a way to get it to Christie’s. "But there can be no question of quartering them at that covert-pavilion we passed. Their soldiers seem to be most of them women! I suppose we can filch the crews at regular intervals and return any stolen goods we find, but what should come of our mission if one of our crewmen gave offense to one of those soldiers of theirs, I don’t like to imagine. We know nothing of their customs.”
“Certainly a hard adjustment from the Inca realm, for my lot,” Granby muttered, draining his cup. “Augustine? Can you ask Totenham to keep an eye out for that crazy dragon of mine? I cannot leave Laurence at Hammond’s mercy for too long. He’ll be beyond confused with those robes, most of all at himself for knowing how to walk in them… I doubt Iskierka will stir from that pavilion there, where she can keep a watch on Temeraire, but I’d be glad to have word if she does. — Oh, and can I borrow your coat? If I go in wearing Iskierka’s latest creation, the Chinese will think me some order of lunatic.”
Little suppressed a sigh and nodded. He did not mind Granby borrowing from Immortalis’ crew, nor from his own clothes chest, with so many of his officers killed and all baggage lost in the sinking of their transport the Allegiance; and in any case he would be damned to play the jealous mistress in front of the other captains.
But he was not happy, not happy at all.
When it came to Captain Laurence bereft of memory, Granby defaulted back to the role of overzealous lieutenant guarding his every step, to a far greater extent than Little liked. Not from jealousy, no, not of his time nor anything else: steady, loving, honest John had never given him cause for concern in that quarter. There could be ten thousand miles and three oceans between them and he still slept easy at night. But Granby had told Captain Laurence, told him outright, how things stood between them.
It must have seemed the smaller evil, at the time. Aviators were a practical bunch and did not hold with society’s sensibilities. Chenery knew of the liaison, of course, and Little’s own lieutenants, and Harcourt and old Sutton who claimed to have seen everything before, and probably even Berkeley, even though he’d never sprung the question sledgehammer-fashion as was his usual manner, all of which did not concern Little. But Captain Laurence was so very much changed now, all prim and blue again, whatever understanding he’d gained of the ways of aviators leeched away by storm and sea-water. He seemed discomfited by the sight of his own female midwingman, and Little dared not imagine what the consequences might be, if he chanced to remember.
“Augustine!” Chenery’s cheerful voice interrupted him. “Will you be joining us in Catherine’s palace later? We’re having a hand of cards.”
“No, thank you,” Little mumbled.
“What, you’ve been set to nursemaiding Iskierka, again? — Oh, come now, cheer up! Berkeley’s gone along to keep an eye on Laurence, and we all know your John’s seen worse.”
Little shrugged his shoulders and turned away, and Chenery, reading his stance, thankfully left it at that.
Once the crew’s quarters had been arranged, a number of admonishments on decorous behaviour in a foreign country issued, and his lieutenant, Totenham, detailed to watching Iskierka, Captain Little went to his dragon for some peace. He found Immortalis napping in a pavilion, a handful of servants engaged in clearing away platters of roasted bones gnawed clean.
Perhaps he was being foolish, Little thought as he sat down at Immortalis’ side and brought out his water-damaged sketchbook to attempt, miserably, to sketch the elegant garden before him, in gritty black charcoal, the only thing he had to hand. Even if Captain Laurence remembered and took it to be his duty to report them, how should he even accomplish it? The British factors at Canton had better things to do than to ruin a pair of obscure aviators. A letter to England, perhaps, the admiralty courts? Captain Laurence's family was well connected... One thing could lead to another in such cases, and before long, Little's remaining siblings would walk in shame, Mrs Little would no longer be received by the neighbours, and Mr Little's creditors would have yet another reason to deny him... But who would believe a traitor who, on top of all else, had lost his memory?
He scratched away at the page, listlessly. How wretchedly uncharitable to think so of a fellow-captain, of Granby’s best friend and the man whom his own Immortalis, like any other dragon afflicted by the Plague, owed his life…
He stared down at the drawing he’d made: the pavilion’s fragile roof under a dark tempest-sky, besieged, instead of the pleasant feather-clouds above his head. In the old days, Granby would have taken one look and understood the state of his mind.
They had first spoken over drawings, he and Granby, when he’d been a new-made captain and Granby still of Fluitare’s, sneaking up to watch Little sketching the big medieval fireplace at Laggan covert. He must have stood so a while, watching silently, before suddenly remarking he must have a beautiful mind to see all those faded decorations and even the bird that wasn’t there at all. Little had startled, bodily, and jarred his line enough for the phoenix he’d drawn into the ashes to end up something of a sad chicken. But the lanky young lieutenant behind him had spoken without mocking or irony, his sunburnt face all open friendliness, and somehow, Little had felt nothing of the urge to get up and flee that usually seized him when people came too close too quickly.
They’d introduced themselves and spoken a little, revealing that Lieutenant Granby, too, sketched for pleasure. Captain Little had accepted the offer to see his books, quite unthinkingly, regretting it an instant later: what if he should dislike them? He knew himself to be a transparent liar, and although he’d only known Granby for an hour, something quite visceral had recoiled at the notion of either deceiving or else offending so wholly likeable a man. But his anxiety had been unfounded. Granby’s drawings of dragons and fortifications were different from his own, prizing accuracy and military precision where Little sketched in lieu of shouting aloud, but no less skillful, and had given him every cause for unfeigned praise.
Drawing had been a wonderful diversion in those days, an excuse for long lonely flights away from the covert to sketch grouse and deer from life, paint a tumbledown castle, or capture a particularly beautiful sunset. They had first kissed over a ruined watercolour, when Little had been so absorbed in painting that fast-fading sunset that he’d accidentally reached for the cup used for cleaning brushes instead of that with the wine. He'd jumped to his feet and spat out the foul brew in a spluttering spray, cursing aloud, something he never did otherwise, and John had moved lightning-quick to salvage his sketchbook before it could tumble away into a puddle. He'd caught it, but in so doing, he’d smudged the colours beyond repair, his expressive face torn between laughter and ruefulness as he’d handed it back, holding on just a little longer than strictly necessary, and Little had stammered out his own apology, confounded beyond measure by the realization that the open page of John’s own sketchbook lying in the heather was perfectly blank — he’d only had eyes for him.
The vagaries of the service had torn them apart time and again, but each joyous reunion had involved a laying-out of sketches and watercolours of the places and dragons they’d seen and a recollection of the story behind each image, a magnificent spread of Chinese pavilions and the Topkapı palace brushed to the floor when they had first shared a bed, after Granby had made captain. A few months ago, a still-weakened Granby had shown him the drawings he’d made of Cusco, trying to wring humour from his near-betrothal to an empress and the loss of a hand, and Little had held him close and stroked his emaciated cheek, trying not to let his shock at his condition show on his face. For once, they were on campaign together, so he’d be able to ensure Granby rested and stayed out of harm’s way… or so he'd thought.
Little snapped the book shut, and Immortalis roused, with a start.
“What is it? Are we being attacked? — Oh, you have been drawing! May I see?” he asked, eagerly, and, when Little reluctantly opened the page again: “But why, it is all black!”
Little could not help a smile. “I daresay it is hard to do anything else, in charcoal.”
Immortalis bent down to nuzzle at his shoulder, unconvinced. “Augustine? Are you quite well?”
“Yes, thank you. I’ve got all I need,” Little said, meaning the painting tools.
“Oh, but you have not!” Immortalis protested. “Granby is not here, and-“
“Oh, heavens, will you be quiet,” Little muttered, with a look in the direction of the servants who were wheeling away the dishes on a small wagon that seemed designed for the purpose.
“Well, I don’t think Iskierka looks after him at all well,” Immortalis went on, stubbornly.
“No,” Little said, after a moment’s hesitation. “No, I suppose she doesn’t, even if she means well. But there is nothing to be done for it. I cannot speak on the matter. I have no right.”
“But it bothers you.”
“Yes,” Little said, unable to repress the bitterness in his voice. “Of course. It is not right, forever worrying about him being let down by those on whose love and care he ought to be able to rely.” Be that his dragon, or his best friend, he added, to himself.
“I can speak to Iskierka,” Immortalis offered, bravely.
“Good God, no. I don’t think she would take that kindly. In any case, I ought to keep my distance, and I will thank you for doing the same… The Chinese are keeping a close eye on us, and I should not like to be the cause of any disruption to our diplomatic mission.”
Immortalis looked confused. “Is this to do with what you told me back home, about nobody being allowed to know that you and Granby are fond of each other?”
“Ssh, Immortalis! — Yes, precisely.”
“Well, I never understood it,” the dragon grumbled, thumping his tail. “There is no sense in it, as far as I can see.”
“I will thank you for heeding it, regardless,” Little said, darkly.
~
Granby, Berkeley and Hammond returned from the palace under a heavy guard, clothes blackened with powder-smoke.
Little sprang up in Harcourt’s front room where they had all assembled because it allowed the best view of the courtyard. He hardly knew whether to be angry or relieved. “What have you done this time?”
“Us? Nothing,” Granby said, taking a swallow of the rice wine one of the ever-present servant-spies was offering. “Some blasted assassin crept in behind us and sent a bomb trundling towards the Crown Prince! His guard dragons picked him up and carried him away, and Laurence with him — where to, I haven’t the faintest idea. Temeraire went after them in a blaze, so I suppose there’s hope of seeing him back in one piece, but still the Chinese would not give us passage to follow him. — I say, something’s foul about this.”
“Then we must get the dragons under harness and search for Laurence at once,” Warren said, rising.
“We can’t, Micah,” Harcourt said from the window, grimly. A line of soldiers were marching across to take up post in the courtyard. “Look, they’re keeping us confined. Pretty gilded cage this is.”
“We could fight our way out," Chenery said, impetuously. "We managed well enough at Rio!”
“But will we manage in a country hosting the world’s greatest dragon army?” Little said, quietly, earning him an enraged look from Granby. It stung.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Hammond broke in. “Pray settle down! The would-be assassin was captured. All shall be cleared up shortly, I have no doubts of it, and there is nothing to be gained by losing nerve. I shall-“
“Losing nerve?” Granby nearly shouted at him. “Hammond! Laurence was abducted!”
“Taken to a place of safety, more like — that is what Mianning’s servants told me. Now we must wait and hope for the best.”
“The best, to you, being him dead and Temeraire handed to the Chinese for access to a port or two!” Granby scowled. “You would-”
That was enough: Harcourt interposed herself between them and Little pulled Granby away from the scarlet-faced diplomat, into a side room. He’d busied himself by working on his drawing of the garden, earlier, and the open sketchbook still lay next to the other captains’ playing cards, but Granby strode past it without a glance, and to the window to scan the sky.
Little watched him standing there: no fresh marks of injury he could see, no blood dripping to the floor, that was something. But Granby’s frame was still haggard, his eyes tired, and Little did not like the way he clasped his hurt arm to his chest.
“I wish you hadn’t gone,” he said at last, quietly. “John, you’re not well. Is the arm giving you trouble again?”
Granby pulled open the straps that fastened his hook and pulled it off to rub at the macerated skin. “It is nothing, only the weather change," he muttered, absently. "You should have seen him... Laurence, I mean. It is damned painful to watch him bewildered of his own beast, and so awkward to always have to watch what you’re saying. But they worked together so well when that incendiary went off, he and Temeraire — I keep thinking, surely he must remember, any time now…”
“I am not sure that, for him, would be desirable,” Little said. “Nor for us.”
Granby turned around. “What? Really, Augustine, sometimes you can be curiously unfeeling.”
Little crossed his arms. “Unfeeling, because I worry about your ruin and mine?”
“Ruin? At the hands of… Laurence? You’re being ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. You’re seeing things that aren’t there. — Oh! Temeraire is back. I must go.”
A black shadow had darkened the windows, and Granby stormed out without another word.
~
“Christ,” Chenery said. “Do you think it is wise to try and make this alliance after all, and invite them all to Europe? They must realize they could bowl us over in a trice if they chose.”
The plain below them was crammed with tents and swarming with dragons, the large martial red and green beasts that seemed to make up the bulk of the Chinese legions interspersed with smaller dragons busily ferrying supplies. By now, the size of the assembling force outstripped the capacity of even the largest pavilion, and Chenery and Little had been obliged to scale a hill to get a notion of the size of the camp.
“I don’t think they care two pins for Europe,” Little said, darkly. “They think us perfect barbarians. Remember we would not be looking for opium-peddling rebels if it were any different.”
“Hmm,” Chenery said, twisting a blade of grass between his fingers, and, after a moment: “Augustine, is anything wrong? I haven’t seen a pencil in your hands since we left the palace.”
“I just… haven’t got one,” Little said, turning away. “Shall we return to camp? It is growing dark.”
Back in the British formation’s encampment, haphazardly arranged by comparison with the Chinese, he ignored Iskierka’s seething coils, Granby’s tent and his colleagues’ voices around the campfire. He'd meant to tell Immortalis good night and then go to sleep, but when he reached, he found his dragon sitting in that particular stance of high attention that meant he was up to no good.
“Augustine!” Immortalis greeted him.
“Yes?” Little said, apprehensive.
“Those things you were telling me about, that I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone else about,” Immortalis burst out, nearly knotting his tongue. “They don’t hold with that at all here!”
“Immortalis, I don’t think-“ Little began, feeling a blush rising to his cheeks.
“I saw two of the Chinese captains chase each other into that river there!” Immortalis announced, triumphant.
“What?” Little exclaimed, shocked. “Do you mean to say you and the crew have been peeping on the women’s bathing spot? Goodness, this is exactly the sort of thing Harcourt feared. Who was with you? Immortalis, I must have names!”
“Oh, nobody," Immortalis said, drawing back. "It was just myself and Messoria. — And even if I had taken my crew, it’s not like any of us dragons much wear clothes, so I don't understand what the fuss is about that, either,” he added, peeved, before brightening to say: “In any case, there were a great many other Chinese soldiers there at the river, and nobody minded the pair of them in the least.“
“Ah,” Little said, cursing inwardly at seeing the bit back between his dragon’s teeth. “Because those two captain you saw were most likely just friends or comrades playing a jest.”
“I do not think so,” Immortalis said, smartly. “They whispered a good deal and kissed each other just like you and Gra-”
“Now look here, my life, I am not sure I want to hear more,” Little broke in, desperate. “I cannot explain the facts of that particular case, but you must see it is different for women, and most likely again different in their service.” He could not speak from experience or acquaintance, but he’d never seen any members of the fair sex herded before court or thrown into prison, even if he could imagine the disciplining done behind closed doors, by fathers, brothers, husbands.
“I do not see, not at all,” Immortalis said, stubborn and for once utterly oblivious to his captain’s discomfiture. “But why don’t you go and ask them yourself!”
“Christ, I cannot-“ Little began, but his protest was stifled when Immortalis picked him up and bundled him onto his back to fling himself aloft — to Little’s mortification, straight for the Chinese encampment.
Their tents were not arranged in mere rows, but in some order of repeating quadrangle, he realized: eight apiece set up around a central space where the soldiers were engaged in cooking and mending gear. Immortalis nudged his unwilling captain towards one of the campfires, where two of the legionaries sat over a scroll, reading and laughing together, one woman’s arm around the other’s shoulders, playing with her ear. Little was not versed in their uniforms, but he suspected they were indeed captains, from the respect everyone else seemed to accord them.
They looked up at him and Immortalis bewildered, as well they might, but there was no alarm on their faces, no quick jumping apart, no racing hands, no subterfuge. The dragons resting nearby seemed unperturbed, and their crews moved easily around them, regarding Little with more curiosity than fear.
Apologies crowded into Little’s head, innocent explanation — sisters, cousins, childhood friends? — and he was forced to throw them out one by one. The warmth betwen them was familiar, in a painful way, and he could not see the least likeness between them: one young and tall, with a lean hard face; the other slightly older and easy, good-humoured, though her cheek was marred badly with powder-burns.
Little swallowed. “Immortalis,” he muttered. “Enough! Take me back.”
“You ought to speak to them,” Immortalis rumbled, butting his back. “I saw Temeraire’s midwingman talk to them, and they are perfectly friendly.”
How, when I haven’t a word of Chinese, Little would have liked to protest, but Immortalis had planted himself with resolve, unlikely to budge, so he stepped forward, stiffly, and bowed.
They rose, uncertain. Behind the tents, one of their beasts, outweighing Immortalis by orders of magnitude, reared its head with a questioning growl.
“Good evening. I would like to…” Little began, haltingly, and meeting only blank faces, he seized the first thing that offered: “Your… pistol!”
The younger woman had a sword with a finely worked silver hilt, with every look of the family heirloom, that would have been an insult to try and ask for, but the other’s matchlock, worn and old, might do. He attempted, by means of pantomime, to convey his interest in the weapon, bringing out his own to offer for trade. The dragon growled more fiercely when he drew it from his belt, swinging his leonine head over the tent-rows, so Little hastily put it down on the ground between them and took a step back.
The Chinese captains exchanged a glance, and then, the younger bent down to pick up the British service pistol and examine it, with nimble skill and barely suppressed wonder at the well-oiled flintlock mechanism. A smile crossed her companion’s face when she saw it, and the next moment, she had taken her own pistol from her belt and held it out to Little.
He accepted it and hastily turned away. Behind him, they were chattering again, his pistol evidently turned into a gift pressed onto the younger captain to be jokingly refused, and handed back and forth, with playful squabbling.
“Immortalis, let us go,” Little said.
“But-“
“I really do not understand what good you mean by this outrageous behaviour, in a foreign country,” Little hissed. “And now put me up, please.”
“But that thing about having to keep your distance not to endanger the mission,” Immortalis insisted, plainly injured, as he took off, "surely you must now see it is all stuff! You needn’t hide at all, and you may go to Granby straight away, and be happy again! Isn’t that what you want, Augustine?”
“Oh, Mort…” Little said, realization dawning. “I am sorry I allowed you to mislead yourself. No, it is not that.”
“But... then what?” Immortalis asked, baffled.
Little bit his lip, hesitant. But they were well aloft now, with nobody else privy, so he thought he might as well speak. “Dearest, I do not mind the hiding overmuch,” he said. “I am not the sort of man who likes his private life out in the open for public scrutiny. But you see, Granby and I have quarreled. We do not see eye to eye on the duties of a captain, as regards self-preservation... Only a few days ago, a band of plotters made another attempt at Captain Laurence's life, and that has only encouraged Granby in his efforts not to let him from sight... He understands his duty quite a different way than I do, and will not be moved from it. That is all there is to my unhappiness.”
“Oh, Augustine,” Immortalis muttered. “I wish you had told me.”
“Yes. I should have. I am sorry,” Little said, reaching out to stroke his dragon’s neck. “But there is nothing to be done for it. And thanks to you, I can now call myself the proprietor of a very fine Qing pistol, for which I will thank you.”
~
It was not a very loud noise. It did not in the least rise over the general din of their camp, now ensconced between the bleak hills of the rebel province, but Little would have heard it between a hundred clamouring voices: A stifled groan of pain, a few tents away.
He stared down at the sword he’d been polishing, conflicted, but when he heard it again, he rose and walked over, steeling himself.
“It is not just the weather change,” he said, pushing the tent-flap aside.
“…No,” Granby admitted, uncurling slightly to the sound of his voice. He lay on his bedroll and his face was drawn tight with pain, a cold sweat on his forehead. “Augustine, have you… got any left?”
“I will send a runner to Pettiforth for some laudanum,” Little said, curtly.
“No, no, wait… That doesn’t help. Augustine, you know… Your balm?”
Little hesitated. One small part of him wanted to be callous, to strike back. You’re being ridiculous, John. You’re feeling things that aren’t there…
But he could not, not when seeing Granby like this, again: jaws clenched and eyes half-closed, all curled up around the stump of his arm.
It had plagued him very badly when they’d first met again in Brazil, intractable pain in a limb that was no longer even present, and that would not be soothed save for doses of laudanum and brandy to render him insensible. The formation’s surgeons had collectively shaken their heads over it. They had examined him and bled him, probed the stump for fever and rot and, finding none, muttered about a passing malady or some nervous condition. Granby had accepted his faith and maintained a good cheer by day, but Little knew just how wretched his nights had been. He’d lost still more weight, turning yet more gaunt and lined, and for the first terrible week, all Little had been able to do was to order everyone else from the tent and sit with him until it passed.
He’d gotten the balm from an old black woman at Rio. Chenery had tipped him off — he went looking for fun where fun was to be had, and one of his native belles had told him. The healer’s rickety shack had been perched between the charred ruins, stuffed full of snake-skins and Jesuit bark, leaves, nuts and berries, a pantheon of saints next to a bizarrely proportioned African statue, and a stuffed crocodile raining sawdust onto their coats’ sweat-soaked collars as they'd knelt, waiting. The old crone had listened to Little’s account of Granby’s malady, delivered in pantomime supplemented with Chenery’s scraps of Spanish and Portuguese, and finally brought out a small tin of a black balm made from the venom of some jungle-dragon that, she'd told them, would go some way to relieving his condition. She’d handed it over for a gold coin and with a great many warnings: it must not be overused, or the venom would accumulate like arsenic and cause a total insensibility like that of a leper given to dipping limbs in scalding water or losing digits without noticing, something that Granby, in Little's opinion, did not require any more encouragement to do. He had trialled it on a patch of his own arm, before unwittingly poisoning John, and nearly screamed out with an initial blaze of burning pain; but the numbness that followed had lasted nearly a day.
“Augustine,” Granby croaked again. “Your balm — have you got any left?”
“Yes,” Little said, clearing his throat. “Yes. I’ll fetch it, only you lie still.”
He had indeed. He hadn't hesitated when choosing to rescue either that battered tin or his paints from the water rising in his cabin aboard the Potentate, in that split-second before rushing back up to rejoin the frantic efforts to save the ship. He’d cursed that impulse often enough over the last weeks, calling himself a mooncalf and a simpleton. But he did not regret it now, not when he saw the relief on John’s face when he re-entered the tent, not when he saw the burning unction drive tears to his eyes, and not at all when he felt his overwrought muscles unclenching at last, his rapid breaths easing. He stayed there a moment longer, by his side, cradling his head and stroking his hair, while Granby rested against him with his eyes closed, exhausted and grateful.
Perhaps he would listen now, Little thought, and all would be well again. It was plain enough he had overdone it, and driven himself to exhaustion... But he fumbled for words, not at all knowing how to begin, after their last argument. How he wished for his sketchbook: There, see?
“Augustine,” Granby said suddenly, and pushed himself up to rub his eyes with his good hand, before, in all earnestness, looking around for his coat. “You know… Temeraire let something slip, about the treason. I had to tell Laurence all. But I don’t think he understood. He was not ready. I worry for him. He looked like to fling himself off the next cliff any moment! I must-”
Little closed his eyes a moment, trying to master himself. “John,” he said, and rose. “I know you won’t take it from me, but of all things in the world, you must rest. Please try to sleep.”
He did not wait to see how this was received, but turned on his heel and went outside, with quite an effort of will.
He’d been restored to a pencil: Chenery had, somehow, contrived to lay hands on one. Little sat down to sketch the Chinese pistol with it, angrily: simple, brutal lines, refraining from any fancy or embellishment; an instrument, a tool…
A shadow fell over the paper.
He looked up, and could barely restrain himself from starting in the most guilty manner. He straightened up instead.
“Captain Laurence,” he said, formally.
“Captain,” Laurence said. “I would not disturb you, but Temeraire has been gone some time, and I — I have some reason for believing him in some distress. May I presume so far as to ask you to take me up in search of him?”
“Ah,” Little said, and paused, deeply uneasy.
Laurence’s dress was correct as always, and neither his face nor his tone offered any clue, no hint of outrage or accusation, even though his brow was locked in a dark frown. Perhaps he had not remembered all, despite Granby’s incautious narration? I have reason for believing him in some distress... Perhaps that was all he’d come for after all, concern for his missing dragon — a sentiment any aviator understood instinctively, and which called for immediate aid as a matter of principle? Still Little found himself writhing like a fish on the hook, undignified: he did not want to take him up, he did not want to be with the man any longer than he had to, and by some unconscious movement set a pebble of memory rolling to turn into a rock-slide of disaster…
“I beg your pardon,” Captain Laurence said, into the lengthening silence. “I have not the least desire to impose on you; pray consider the request withdrawn.”
“No, no,” Little said, scrambling to his feet: simpleton or mooncalf, he could not help it. “I do beg your pardon. Of course we ought to go and find him.”
~
Immortalis shrilled in pain when the thick wads of bandaging were removed, dark blood welling up afresh, and the surgeon stepped up.
Little stroked his trembling dragon’s neck. “You were very brave, Immortalis,” he said. “Now try and hold still, my life. — What?” he scowled, when someone approached from the side. “Cannot you see I'm busy!”
“Augustine-“ Granby said.
“That pointed peak there, two points to starboard,” he snapped, without looking up, “that’s where he is. I’ve given a report to Harcourt, ask her. — Now!”
He nodded at the surgeon, the iron was clapped down, and Immortalis howled. Some further sequence of probing, sutures, cautery; a string of grim instruments being called for and handed back bloody, and finally the surgeon stepped back from Immortalis’ side, nodding and wiping his hands.
“Flesh wounds, nothing more. He’ll get through,” he grunted, and Little breathed again.
“Thanks God,” someone said behind him, and Little turned to see Granby still standing there, somewhat awkwardly.
He quickly turned back to Immortalis, who was being bandaged afresh. He wanted no comfort, and had no words: seeing his dragon so viciously attacked, torn about like a sparrow in an eagle's claws, had been almost too much to bear, and the terrible, strangling fear that had gripped him in that valley only ebbed away by degrees.
“Augustine, are you hurt?” he heard Granby say.
“No… no, it isn’t my own,” Little said, looking down at his bloodied shirt and breeches, faintly disgusted: he couldn’t help feeling ashamed of not having a scratch, seeing the state of his dragon, and Captain Laurence had been in far worse state, with that sword-wound to the scalp. He had fought well — they had fought well, together, shoulder to shoulder, like comrades. For a moment, all Little’s dark premonitions had been far away, the expression of savagery on Laurence’s face that of any other captain driven to extremes by fear for his beast, the mirror image of what he himself had felt, seeing Immortalis brought down by the Scarlet dragons. It made him all the more wretched for being reduced back to his fears and suspicions now, and to regarding Laurence in light of an alien.
“Go to him,” he told Granby. “But don’t take Iskierka. She would invite suspicion. That Chinese dragon, Mei, spoke of going — she is over there at the cattle pens. If you hurry, you can catch her and ask her to take you to Temeraire.”
“Augustine, are you-“
“I will stay with Immortalis,” he said, and, trying to convince himself: “I am fine.”
Granby gave him a doubtful look, but when he reached out his hand to touch Little’s shoulder, Little jerked away.
~
They brought back the survivor and the dead, from the caves.
Despite his lieutenant’s and surgeon’s assurances, Captain Little could not help a final anxious clamber across Immortalis’ back to make sure all was well, none of the old sutures ripped out and no fresh wounds gaping after the battle with Fela’s traitor beasts. Harcourt would have given them leave to stay behind, but Immortalis had refused to do so, seeing Dulcia and Nitidus and Messoria go, and Lily and Maximus, all blazing behind Iskierka to look for Temeraire when the guard dragons had so very suddenly disappeared. None of the wounds invited concern, however, and Immortalis’ chest was swelled with pride as he crunched through his cow and told everyone who cared to listen how he had first saved Nitidus’ life and then single-handedly defeated another of the Chinese war-dragons, somewhat glossing over the fact that, as Little well knew, their mighty foe had been half-blind and maddened with pain from Lily’s acid.
Little slid down from Immortalis’ back and gave the dragon's nose an affectionate rub, before walking over to see how Chenery and Dulcia had fared. He'd seen her take a raking pass by one of the enemy beasts, and sent over his surgeon, but the man hadn’t returned.
“Mere scratches!” Chenery hollered at him from between his dragon's shoulders, distracted. “Yes, yes, my sweet, be brave! ... There, see? That ghastly thing’s out at last. — God, for all they say of the high and mighty state of dragon husbandry in this country, their skill at violence towards the beasts jolly well compares!” he added, with an indignant glare at the length of hooked lash cut from Dulcia’s side.
“Indeed,” Little said, grimly. He’d seen the terrible barbs set into Arkady’s flesh, the jagged poles used to cut at enemy wings.
Chenery turned, abruptly. “The devil, Gus, what are you still standing there for? Go to Granby, damn you! How long do you mean to carry on so, pouting? It is growing damned ridiculous!”
Little stiffened. Only his best friend was allowed to talk to him so, but still he felt the reproach rather savage, and unmerited at that: Granby would doubtless still be with Laurence and Tharkay, patiently patching gaps of memory without any regard for his own good. He, Little, wouldn’t be missed.
He touched his hat and walked away — not to Iskierka’s clearing, but through the camp in general, without direction. The menacing guard dragons previously surrounding the British tents had disappeared, and for once, nobody seemed to mind his ambling free. The Chinese were likewise busy treating their wounds and counting their losses, the bodies of friend and foe being brought back in nets to be laid out in rows before the general’s big tent. Immortalis had lost two, and Messoria half a dozen; the Chinese what looked like two score and the rebels many more, though that mound of corpses was being piled carelessly and could not easily be counted. Little lingered a moment, transfixed by the gruesome spectacle that, in itself, unfolded a certain morbid beauty, the red and black of the blood against Chu’s rolling banners by the light of the sinking sun. Another dragon darted down to deposit a body at the end of the row, pale limp hands, one of the legs all blood. The dragon drooped to nose at it with a keening sound, and then threw his great red-maned head back with a bellow of grief.
That makes two score exactly, Little thought, bleakly, and would have turned away, when he saw the dead soldier’s face. He blinked. He recognized that powder-scarred cheek, and the next moment was made uncomfortably certain, when another of the Chinese officers came running from between the tents, flinging her flying-cap and gauntlets aside, her long black hair flying loose, to throw herself over the body with an exclamation of pain that needed no translation. With a pang, Little recognized his own pistol on her belt.
He turned to hurry away, hastily, feeling himself a perfect intruder. He’d seen it before, of course, fathers, brothers, lovers slain — life was short, delicate, precious, a fast-fading sunset, a hasty scribble in the tidal sand of time. But the sight afflicted him, inordinately so, and that when he still had her pistol... His mind fixed on that damnable pistol, with a sudden urge: there was no knowing how soon the Chinese forces would be broken up again, and he could not bear the thought of carrying it away with him, trophy-fashion.
He hurried back to his tent to fetch the weapon, but when he returned, the dead had been bundled away, with great efficiency, to large pits at the edge of the encampment, leaving only a few stains on the trampled grass. He looked around dispirited — he had no names, no direction, in this city of a camp. But then he saw the young Chinese captain still standing in the shadow of the general’s tent, half-concealed. He hesitated awhile, but she did not move at all, apparently oblivious to her surroundings, that hard, long face locked in perfect expressionlessness. Little approached her, cautiously. Her chin jerked up when she saw the pistol on the flat of his hands.
“Captain,” he said, quietly, even though he knew she could not understand him. “I do not mean to give offense, but I… am very sorry for your loss.”
She stared at him a moment from red-rimmed eyes, and then mechanically grasped the pistol to tuck into her belt, next to the silver sword, before drawing out his own.
“No, no, you may keep it. — Oh, alright, then.”
She had tossed it at Little's feet with a vengeance before turning away, and for a moment, blank hatred had flashed in her eyes, taking him by surprise. He did not know where it found its root: Hatred of him as a Englishman, as the cause of the campaign that had claimed her lover’s life? Of an unwanted witness to her grief? Of the world in general? He would never know, and it did not matter, he told himself as he too walked back — all that remained was the drawing of the pistol, which might at once be cut out and burnt.
“Augustine!” Granby was hurrying towards him, jubilant. “Augustine! You won’t believe what has happened. Laurence has-“ He interrupted himself. “Oh? What is it? You look wretched.”
“It is nothing,” Little said, keeping his eyes to the ground.
It was nothing — or was it?
Why, then, did he let Granby take him to his tent, sit him down, and put a cup of grog into his hands? Why, then, did he drink it up without protest as Granby opened his sketchbook to page through, the stormy sky, the bleak technical lines of the pistol, turning to look at him with the liveliest concern? Why, then, did he let Granby pull him close, whispering: “Are you still angry? Come now, life is too short for this nonsense…” And why, then, could he not think of a reply until they were on the tent’s floor together, naked and spent, when he stared down at the stump of Granby’s arm, his still-thinned frame, the scars on his chest and limbs, those very many near-misses, and the words broke out of him choked with tears he felt only remotely ashamed of: “John, you must take better care of yourself. I request it, I demand it, I cannot do this otherwise! It is not that I could not bear to lose you, but... but not through recklessness, I beg!"
Granby looked at him startled. “Why, Augustine, I have been entirely reasonable today! I didn’t put myself forward in the slightest, nor did I enter the caves, and you must see I have put my foot down with Iskierka… You cannot still be worrying about Laurence? — Oh, heavens, I forgot to tell you: on that, I may put your mind at ease!” He raised his good hand to brush a stray lock behind Little's ear and smiled at him, brightly, before saying, as though it were something to be grateful for: “You know, Laurence has got all his memory back.”
~
The music drifted from somewhere deep inside the palace, an unfamiliar kind, unmelodious to Little’s ears. Immortalis, dripping, stopped spell-bound and craned his head after it, eyes lidded appreciatively.
“Augustine,” he inquired. “Pray what is that instrument, that makes such a wonderful sound?”
“I don't know, dearest,” Little shrugged, “though I imagine it will be some manner of strings,” and then Nitidus set to his pumping again and he had to jump onto one of the stone benches to save his boots from the bold stream gushing from the roof and straight onto his dragon’s back. “Oh, what an ungodly flood: we will be lucky if we are not all carried away,” he cursed, though without real hardness: he was struggling not to grin at the sight of the frolicking dragons. He heard a door closing, and Granby’s voice. “John,” he called, “we will need Iskierka to toast their rumps before we get them back under harness, or we will all be flying wet!”
He turned, and paused. Granby stood there, with Captain Laurence next to him.
In the rush and bustle of their decamping back to the capital, Little had successfully avoided facing him directly, for all Granby’s reassurances. But there seemed to be no putting it off any longer.
He reached down to help Granby up, and then Laurence, who positioned himself a step away from them, plainly awkward.
Little kept his eyes on the flooded courtyard, the bathing dragons, that fragile happiness, and tried to focus on every single breath of air.
“I had better take my leave of you now, gentlemen; you will have a difficult time enough getting away, I think,” Laurence said, into the strained silence, and turning his way, Little saw him proffer his hand, with what looked a perfectly honest smile. “My most sincere regards, and good fortune, to you both.”
His handshake was firm, and Granby he embraced entirely, jokingly even: “And for Heaven’s sake, John, have a care for that other arm.”
Hear, hear, Little thought, even as he heard Granby reply, ruefully: “Trust me! Though I can’t very well complain. I did say that I would have given an arm to have Iskierka a little more biddable, so if I have been taken at my word, that is not the fault of Fortune. So at least this time, you may indeed hope to be shot of me: I have Iskierka’s word she will go quietly to the Potentate, and no more haring off madly.”
“I am sorry for the pains she has put you to,” Laurence said, “and I will refrain from expressing the sentiment to her, but for my own part, I must be grateful to her: I cannot think what we should have done, these last two years, without you both. Godspeed!”
With that, he nodded at them once again and then turned away, to balance across the benches to where Harcourt and Chenery where splashing their dragons. Little looked after him, quietly amazed.
“Now what did I tell you?” Granby muttered, with a grin that bordered on smugness, but when Little opened his mouth for an indignant reply, he raised his hand, hastily. “No — no, wait, do not take it so. I want to talk to you, in private. Can we step into Iskierka’s pavilion?”
“Immortalis?” Little called. “Are you coming?”
“Oh, pray go ahead, I’ll listen for a short while longer,” Immortalis said, still enraptured with the music — it might indeed prove difficult to get him away, Little thought.
“As you wish," he said, "but don’t stay too long, or you’ll catch cold.”
The pearling notes could still be heard in the pavilion where Iskierka slept, wreathed in steam.
“So,” Little said when they had climbed the steps and contemplated the sleeping Kazilik for a while. “You wish to mock me now?”
“No,” Granby said, turning to look him straight in the eye, “I wish to apologize to you. I’ve treated you wretchedly unkind, neglecting you and taking you for granted and making a mockery of your fears. I knew just how much of an ass I’d been when I saw your pictures, all two of them, in what, four months, and yet I was too stupid to even... — oh, hell, Augustine, come to think of it, I am surprised you didn’t send me packing! Will you ever forgive me?”
Little returned the gaze. “There is nothing to forgive,” he said, slowly. “I never chose to love you, nor can you choose to be loved by me. And it is not like I could, or ever would, choose to un-love you merely because it should no longer be convenient. But, John, I stand by my word: I wish you would make it a little easier to love you, and not continually fling yourself into the most reckless dangers!”
“Yes, yes, and I shall try — I will try, and you must make sure I do, in the Peninsula! But choice or no, you must know I love you,” Granby blurted out, flushed to the roots even under his sunburn, “and that I mean to make amends for being such a scrub! Augustine, will you — will you take this?”
He reached into his coat’s gold-frogged pocket, to bring out a small flat box and put it into Little’s hands.
Little hesitated a moment, but then he opened it, catching his breath.
“Watercolours?” he exclaimed. “From… from Paris?” He stared incredulously at the label inside the lid, above the beautiful, neat, glorious double row of pigments, of the very finest quality.
Granby grinned, happy as a boy. “Courtesy of ambassador De Guignes, via Mrs Pemberton,” he said. “Laurence asked me to give her a pair of pistols to practise with, and she insisted I take something in return, so I chose this. — She was given it aboard the Triomphe, that French transport I was telling you about.”
“How long have you had them?” Little muttered, running an appreciative finger across Rouge de Venise, Gomme Gutte, Cendre Bleue. He'd never dreamed of owning anything so fine.
“Oh, too long,” Granby muttered. “You should have had them straight away, of course, only it never seemed quite the right moment. — Anyways,” he added, brightening, “we shall still come across plenty of interesting sights to try them out, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Little said, “yes, and I look forward to it greatly. But first of all, I shall paint you.”
“Me? As you wish. But not in the French fashion, I trust?”
“No,” Little scoffed. “I have no wish to put myself before some tribunal after all, for breach of common decency. You shall sit for me with all your gold braid and trimmings, for what they're worth, and that shall be your punishment.”
“Ow,” Granby said. “Well, I suppose I’ve earned it. May I have a kiss now, then, for comfort?”
Little looked around, and then back at him, smiling as he put the paints aside. “Yes. Yes, you may.”