Tongues of Serpents. Naomi Novik

are interested in outfitting privateers, to strike at the French trade in the Pacific.’

      ‘Yes?’ Laurence said politely, wondering how this should apply to his situation. What service those merchant lords might require, in this still-small port, Laurence could not understand, though it explained at least why Tharkay had come, and then he realized, starting back a little in his chair, that Tharkay meant this as a suggestion.

      ‘I could scarcely fit Temeraire on a privateer,’ he said, wondering a little that Tharkay could imagine it done: it was not as though he had not seen Temeraire.

      ‘Without having broached the subject with the gentlemen in question,’ Tharkay said, ‘I will nevertheless go so far as to assure you that the practicalities would be managed, if you were willing. Ships can be built to carry dragons, where interest exists; and a dragon who can sink any vessel afloat must command interest.’

      He spoke with certainty; and Laurence could take his point. A dragon could never ordinarily be obtained for such a purpose; as yet they were the exclusive province of the state. They and the first-rates and transports which could bear a dragon were devoted to blockade duty, and to naval warfare, not to the quick and stinging pursuit of the enemy’s shipping. Temeraire would be unopposed, and a privateer so armed would be virtually at liberty to take any ship which it encountered.

      Laurence did not know how to answer. There was nothing dishonourable in privateering, nothing dishonourable in the least. He had known several men formerly of the Navy embark on the enterprise and had not diminished in respect for them at all.

      ‘I doubt the government would deny you a letter of marque,’ Tharkay said.

      ‘No,’ Laurence said. It would surely suit their Lordships admirably. Temeraire wreaking a wholesale destruction among French shipping would be a great improvement over Temeraire sitting idly in New South Wales, with none of the risks attendant on bringing him back to the front and once again into the company of other impressionable beasts, which he might lure into sedition.

      ‘I will not urge it on you,’ Tharkay said. ‘If you should care for the introduction, however, I would be at your service.’

      ‘But that sounds quite splendid,’ Temeraire said, with real enthusiasm, when Laurence had laid the proposal before him in only the barest terms. ‘I am sure we should take any number of prizes; Iskierka should have nothing on it. How long do you suppose it would be, for them to build us a ship?’

      Laurence only with difficulty persuaded him to consider it as anything other than a settled thing; Temeraire was already inclined to be making plans for the use of his future wealth. ‘You could not wish to remain here, instead?’ Temeraire said. ‘Not, of course, that I mean to suggest there is anything wrong here,’ he added unconvincingly.

      The mornings and late evenings were now the only, and scarcely, bearable times of day, and they had begun to stretch them with early rising and late nights; the sun was only just up over the harbour, spilling a broad swath of light across the water running into all the bays of the harbour, making them glow out brilliantly white against the dark curve of the land rising away, blackish-green and silent. Temeraire had not eaten in two days: the stretch was not markedly unhealthy, given his inaction, but Laurence feared it was due largely to a secret disdain for his food, the regrettable consequence of Temeraire having grown fussy in his tastes, a grave danger for a military man — and there Laurence was forced again to the recollection that they were neither of them military, any longer.

      Even so, there was an advantage to a stronger stomach: he himself, subject to shipboard provisions during the most ravenous years of his life, could subsist on weeviled biscuit and salt pork indefinitely; even though he had not often had to endure those conditions. Temeraire had too early in his life developed a finicky palate; and Gong Su had done what was in his power, but he had made quite clear one could not turn a lean, scrub-fed game animal, half bone and sinew and anatomical oddities, into a fat and nicely marbled piece of beef; Laurence was considering if his finances could stretch to the provision of some cattle, at least for a treat.

      ‘There is Caesar’s breakfast,’ Temeraire said, with a sigh, as the mournful lowing of a cow came towards them from the bottom of the hill; but when it was brought up, by an only slightly less reluctant youth, he delivered it not to Caesar but to them, stammering compliments of Mr. MacArthur, and for Laurence there was an invitation card, asking him to supper.

      ‘I wonder he should make such a gesture,’ Laurence said, rather taken aback: it was one thing for MacArthur to bring himself to the covert, however irregularly organized, in an official outpost — but quite another to invite Laurence to his home in mixed company likely overseen by his wife. ‘I wonder at it indeed; unless,’ he added, low, ‘he has had some intelligence of Rankin’s interest in Bligh’s case: that might make sufficient motive even for this.’

      ‘Umm,’ Temeraire said indistinctly, nibbling around a substantial thigh-bone his attention fixed notably on Gong Su’s enthusiastic preparations: the cow had been butchered, and was going into the earth with what greenstuffs had passed muster and some cracked wheat; even Caesar had peeled open an eye and was looking over with covert interest.

      The hour was fixed sufficiently late that they could wait until the heat of the day had passed and travel at the beginning of twilight; Temeraire, having made a splendid meal, carried him aloft into the softening but yet unbroken blue: no clouds, yet again, all the day. What would have made an hour’s journey on horse, across rough country, was an easy ten minutes flight dragonback, and there was a wide fallow field open near the house, where Temeraire could set down.

      ‘Pray thank him for my cow,’ Temeraire said, contentedly settling himself to nap. ‘It was very handsome of him, and I do not think he is a coward anymore, after all.’

      Laurence crossed the field to the house, and paused to knock the dirt from his boots before he stepped into the lane: he had worn trousers, and Hessians, more suitable to flying; but in concession to the invitation, he had made an effort with his cravat, and put on his better coat. A groom came out, and looked about confused for Laurence’s horse before pointing him to the door: the house was comfortable but not especially grand, built practically and made for work, but there was an elegance and taste in the arrangements.

      He was shown into the salon, and a company heavily slanted: only four women to seven men, most of those in officers’ uniforms; one of the women rose, as Mr. MacArthur came to join him, and he presented her to Laurence as his wife, Elizabeth.

      ‘I hope you will forgive the informality of our society, Mr. Laurence,’ she said, when he had bowed over her hand. ‘We are grown sadly careless in this wild country, and the heat crushes all aspirations to stiffness. I hope you did not have a very tiring ride.’

      ‘Not at all; Temeraire brought me,’ Laurence said. ‘He is in your southwest field; I trust it no inconvenience.’

      ‘Why, none,’ she said, though her eyes had widened, and one of the officers said, ‘Do you mean you have that monster sitting out in the yard?’

      ‘That monster’s sharpest weapon is his tongue,’ MacArthur said. ‘I am pretty well cut to ribbons yet: did the cow sweeten him at all?’

      ‘As much as you might like, sir,’ Laurence said, dryly. ‘You have quite hit on the point of weakness.’

      The supper was, for all the ulterior motives likely to have been its inspiration, a comfortable and civilized affair: Laurence had not quite known what to expect, from the colonial society, but Mrs. MacArthur was plainly a woman of some character, and though indeed never striving for a formality which both the climate and the situation of the colony would have rendered tiresome and a little absurd, she directed the style of their gathering nevertheless. She could not have a balanced table, so she served the meal in two courses, inviting her guests to refresh themselves in between with a little walking in the gardens, illuminated with lamps, and rearranging the seating on their return to partner the ladies afresh.

      The meal was thoughtfully suited to the weather as well: a cool soup of fresh cucumber and mint, meat served in jellied aspic, beef very thinly carved