Crucible of Gold. Naomi Novik

stammered over it, and Laurence listened with skepticism: what he had learned over the course of those months of captivity, most of it spent in a prison-cave, he had conveyed in his reports, and he found it difficult to believe that his small experience of the Tswana should have rendered him an acceptable ambassador in the eyes of their Lordships.

      To this Hammond said, “I believe—that is to say, I have heard—that his Grace of Wellington thought it not inadvisable—”

      “If Wellington maintains any sentiments towards myself or Temeraire past the liveliest impatience, I should be astonished to hear it,” Laurence said.

      “Well,” Hammond said, “rather, as I understand it—a certain suggestion—”

      Hammond tried for a little longer to dress it up: but when at last he came out with a description which Laurence could swallow, it seemed Wellington had expressed the opinion that if anyone might be hoped to have success at talking sense into a band of uncontrollable dragons, it should be the two of them; as long as someone was sent along to be sure they did not in the process give away three-quarters of the colony.

      “I am sure we should be splendid ambassadors,” Temeraire put in, peering down at Laurence hopefully, “however uncomplimentary Wellington may have been about it. Not that I was not quite angry with the Tswana at the time, for after all they had no right to take you, but one must make allowances for their people being taken for slaves, and I am sure the Tswana can be reasonable. Indeed, I do not see why we might not satisfy them at once, by returning those who were stolen.”

      “Ah,” Hammond said awkwardly, “yes, well—of course, the interests of our allies must be considered—the difficulty of tracing particular individuals—and naturally the position of the Government vis-à-vis the, the property rights of—”

      “Oh! Property rights! That is perfectly absurd to say,” Temeraire said. “If I should take a cow to eat, even if no-one was watching it, you should call it stealing; and if I should give it away to Kulingile for some opals, you would not say that he had any property rights, I am sure, particularly if he knew perfectly well that it was not my own cow at the time.”

      Hammond began to take on again the harried look familiar from several occasions of their first mission together, to China, and Laurence was unable to resist, with a certain dour amusement, some speculation whether Hammond would not quickly regret having allowed time to soften his impressions of those past difficulties—and to add a roseate glow to the final triumph—and having volunteered himself as the man intended to keep a leash upon them in this proposed endeavor.

      For his own part, Laurence was entirely sure that the number of slaves who would be returned in such a programme as Temeraire proposed would not satisfy the Tswana. Even if the Portuguese were willing to hand over their slaves honestly, they could not raise up the dead devoured by the cruel labor of their mines and plantations, and by the hopelessness of their captivity. Nor could he conceive of making himself in any way the agent of slave-owners, which Hammond had ought to have known, if not from acquaintance with Laurence himself, then from the reputation of his father: Lord Allendale had long been a passionate advocate for abolition.

      “But nothing of the sort is conceived, I assure you,” Hammond protested. “Indeed, I will go so far as to say that the Portuguese are quite prepared—under the circumstances, a certain readiness to compromise—” He halted, before making any outright promises, and added, “but in any case, you should not at all be their agent, but ours.”

      “And our interest in the matter?” Laurence said.

      “The establishment of peace,” Hammond said, “which surely you cannot dispute to be desirable.”

      “Peace is not unpleasant, or nearly so boring as one might expect,” Temeraire said, with a faintly wistful note that gave him the lie, “but I do not see why you should be particularly interested in peace in Brazil; if you thought it so splendid you might make peace with Napoleon, in Europe, first: not that I at all wish to promote such a thing,” he added hastily, “at least, not while Lien is lording it over in France: I hope we shall never be at peace with her.”

      “Ah,” Hammond said, fumbling, and then stopped, visibly irresolute before saying, “Sir, if I may rely upon your discretion—the utmost secrecy—”

      “I am sure you may,” Temeraire said with interest, pricking forward his ruff as he leaned in; Hammond looked still more uncertain, as a large dragon’s notion of confidential whispering might be heard a good ten yards away.

      “So far as it is in our power, you may,” Laurence said, “and for what we cannot control, you may rely, sir, on your news being of only scant interest locally, and unlikely of being carried on in any manner which should render it worth relying upon, to any hostile agent.”

      That, at least, was very true: there was commerce to and from Port Jackson, but there was not a man laboring in the valley who might reasonably expect to leave this country again; where poverty and perpetual inebriation did not bar them, the law would, and they were as trapped here as Laurence had thought himself and Temeraire to be. Britain was another world; the war a distant fairy-story; none of them would care, if they overheard.

      “Then I will be so bold as to reveal to you,” Hammond said, “Napoleon has overreached, with the failure of his invasion, and now the jaws of a trap are laid open for him at last: we will shortly be landing our own troops in Portugal. We mean to bleed him from the south, while the Russians and the Prussians come at him from the east; and Wellington is confident of our eventual victory.”

      Audacious in its very extremity: Laurence could only imagine the slog of this proposed war, their troops clawing one inch at a time slowly up the Peninsula through Portugal, through Spain, through the Pyrenees at last to France. Napoleon had indeed suffered dreadful losses in Britain, and left behind an army of prisoners in making his own escape, but whether those losses had been sufficient to leave him vulnerable to final defeat in a grinding campaign, Laurence was not nearly so certain.

      “But there can be no hope of victory at all, without a foothold established,” he said.

      “Yes,” Hammond said. “We must have Portugal. And if the Prince Regent should have to flee Brazil and return, with Napoleon already occupying Spain—”

      “You doubt their continued willingness to permit our passage,” Laurence said.

      Hammond nodded. “We must have Portugal,” he repeated.

      Temeraire had scarcely understood at first what Hammond was about; it did not seem reasonable to him that anything so momentous should be attended with so little ceremony or notice, but he recalled that just so had it happened to begin with that Laurence had lost his rank. Temeraire had known nothing of it, until one afternoon someone was calling him Mr. Laurence, and the golden bars had gone; and now here they appeared again as swiftly, a lovely gleam in Hammond’s palm.

      Laurence was silent, when Hammond had finished expounding on the mission; Temeraire looked at him anxiously. “It does not seem to me there is anything very unpleasant in what Hammond is asking,” he ventured. He could not—naturally he did not wish Laurence to accept his commission back, if it only meant being ordered to do something dreadful, which they should have to refuse, and then have the same unpleasantness of being called traitors all over again; but it was very hard to have such a chance extended and then snatched away.

      “You must be tired, sir, after your journey,” Laurence said to Hammond. “If you would care to refresh yourself, my hut is at your disposal, and there is clean water to hand here above the falls; Mr. Shipley will, I hope, be so good as to show you the way,” beckoning to that fellow.

      “Oh—oh, certainly,” Hammond said, and went away, though he looked over his shoulder more than once, despite the rough ground, as if to read Laurence’s thoughts off his face.

      “Of course you shall not do anything you would dislike, Laurence,” Temeraire said, when Hammond had gone away, and left them in privacy, “only, it does not seem to me there is anything to object to