Chapter 20
LAURENCE PAUSED A LONG moment in the empty street, caught by the sight of a swinging, blackened lantern and the shape of steps leading up to a gutted doorway, opening onto the rubble of a house. For a moment he thought it another old memory returning, some flash of the destruction of Portsmouth; then he recognized abruptly the home of Countess Andreyevna, where he had dined his first night in Moscow. Of the palatial house there was nothing left but jagged timbers thrust up into the sky, heaps of tumbled brick and cinders, one corner in the back where a narrow servants’ staircase and a corner of the second floor stood alone, a few feet of space.
“Do you see something?” Tharkay asked quietly. His own face was half-covered; only his eyes looked out above the scarf he had wrapped over his nose and mouth: not too incongruous a costume in the city, for there were yet quantities of dust and ash lingering in the air.
“No,” Laurence said. “No, it is nothing; let us go on.” He put his shoulder back to the yoke of the small cart they were dragging behind them, with its few bags of grain: their safe-passage and the only one required; the French had mastered their own maurauding troops and now were offering urgent and enthusiastic welcome to any of the local peasantry who offered to sell them any food—there being very few such offers; those who made them were meeting with savage reprisals from Russian partisans.
The streets of Moscow bore little resemblance to the thronged narrow lanes which Laurence had seen from aloft, only a month before: now half-deserted, frequented more by rats than men and full of rubble, lined with ruined houses and gardens still choked with ash. Some three-quarters of the city had burned, and if that disaster had denied the French its comforts and supply, Laurence found it hard to accept the price. Little better illustration could be wanted of the cost of Napoleon’s pride.
A troop of grenadiers marched past in good order, though their uniforms were an unholy mess: coats in a dozen different colors, most of them threadbare and patched, boots cracked and wrapped about with string; only their muskets still shone brightly. Their eyes drifted to the cart as they passed, with an interest more than academic; when they turned the corner, one man even detached himself from the end of the column and came back, and pointing at the bags said, “Qu’est-ce que c’est là?”
Without answering him, Tharkay silently presented him with a paper which had been prepared for them by one young Russian aide-de-camp, in that alphabet, and embellished with all the official art which his creativity had permitted; the name Louis-Nicholas Davout was the only legible Latin on the sheet. It was a name to conjure with, for Davout’s harshness with indiscipline was legendary, and reports had reached even the Russian camp of the executions he had ordered for pillaging. The soldier thrust the paper back and assumed an officious mien, saying coolly, “Le Maréchal est avec l’Empereur, en la place Rouge,” and pointed them along another street before hurrying to rejoin his vanished troop.
Tharkay raised an eyebrow to Laurence as he put away the paper: should they take the chance? Laurence hesitated a moment, but nodded. They had intended only a general reconnoiter, to gain a sense of the French strength and the imminence of action—a sense which could not presently be gained, not reliably, from their Russian allies.
Morale in the Russian Army had rebounded and even swelled as the French showed no inclination to foray past Moscow, and steady reports of the disintegration of their supply reached the Russian camp every day—often at the same time as their own supply-waggons arrived from the south, loaded with shipments of bread and boots and uniforms. Even the rank and file now had gradually come to share Barclay’s view: that Napoleon had indeed overreached, and delivered himself and his Grande Armée into as neat a trap as was ever devised for an enemy. Each day meant the death of another hundred of his cavalry-horses, and three days before he had sent away fifteen of his dragons, traveling together to defend themselves against Cossack harrying: their departure had been observed, and had occasioned great cheer amongst the Russians.
But even as the soldiers grew more satisfied, their commanders grew less so. The intrigue at the Russian headquarters had risen to a fiery pitch; despite having managed the singularly effective retreat through the city, General Barclay had at last resigned his command entirely, in indignation at the disrespect he had met from both Kutuzov and Bennigsen, and those two men were at logger-heads themselves.
Kutuzov’s position was an unsettled one: he had been nearly forced on Alexander to begin with, and he had sacrificed Moscow to the enemy. With both Moscow and Petersburg lost, the enemy everywhere west of the Volga and north of Moscow, the Russian nobility had been scattered upon the countryside, many of them cut off from their estates and fearing personal ruin. It was his task not merely to plan the Russian counterattack, when time had done its work, but to keep those nobles and even the Tsar himself placated, and fight off all the loud and urgent cries for an immediate battle.
He was resorting to a kind of outrageous propaganda: mere skirmishes between his men and Murat’s advance guard were magnified into great victories—even if his forces came back with but a single prisoner and having lost several men themselves—and he exaggerated even the already-heartening reports of the French decline, filling his dispatches with such numbers as would have shortly ended with Napoleon sitting in Moscow alone but for a single mule and a barrel of beer.
And he was concerned, above all, with ensuring that the Chinese legions remained with the army. If Napoleon were to once again have the advantage in the air, the French position would by no means be so desperate as it was. They had great magazines of their own at Smolensk, and elsewhere through the south. If they did not need to fear being pounced upon by half-a-dozen niru, Napoleon’s dragons might have been put to supply work, or even to swiftly relocate his army to Smolensk, there to winter and regroup for a fresh campaign in the spring.
Laurence did not wish to abandon Kutuzov in the least, but neither could he feel it at all consistent with the duty he owed the Emperor of China, to strand his borrowed legions in the midst of Russia with inadequate supply during the oncoming winter. October had so far been beautiful, warm and mild; but in the last two days the trees had with startling speed begun to shed their leaves. The Russian countryside was taking on a grey and gloomy character, unrelieved by the enormously tall pine trees looming with their cold dark needles, the increasingly barren birches rattling in the wind.
With the full cooperation of the Russians, Shen Shi had now established depots to the east and west both, which she estimated could carry the legions at their full strength for a month. But there was no reason to expect that Kutuzov would have struck even then: the old general was perfectly willing to permit Napoleon to sit in Moscow as long as he wished. And once they had begun the counterattack, the road back to the Niemen was a long one.
“How much longer will we be required?” Zhao Lien had asked Laurence bluntly, two days before. He could not tell her, and he felt too strongly that he could not trust whatever answer Kutuzov might make him.
“Bonaparte is our best hope, for the campaign to begin,” he had said ruefully to Temeraire that evening. “If he has any sense, he must try and fight his way back to Smolensk sooner than late, and westward on from there swiftly. He cannot long suppose that the Russians will make peace with him now.”
Such a peace would have allowed Napoleon to withdraw without humiliation, surely all that he could now hope for; but that peace was as surely to be denied him. Alexander, with his government-in-exile in Tula, was intensely, savagely delighted by the growing evidence of French discomfiture: he had already written out many long ambitious schemes to Kutuzov and his other generals for retaking Moscow, for the pursuit and destruction of the remnant of the French Army, and indeed even the capture of Napoleon himself.
Kutuzov received these directives placidly, and stayed just where he was. He had done his best to assist Napoleon in deceiving himself about the prospects of peace: he had received a French envoy affably, and agreed to a temporary armistice, but the false negotiations of Vyazma had done much to close that door. Alexander refused to receive such an envoy himself, or to write so much as a note, feeling that he had already stretched his own honor to bear as much as he could. Napoleon’s pride alone could keep him in Moscow—but of that, he had an ample supply. When desperation and the growing certainty of disaster would overcome it, was nearly impossible to tell.
“We could hope for no better opportunity to learn his mind,” Laurence said softly to Tharkay now, in the ruined street; together they dragged the cart onto the main street leading towards the Kremlin.
Here the devastation altered in character: the buildings had been more preserved than not, evidently by the labors of the French dragons; great puddles of dirty water yet stood in the gutters. Yet they had still been looted: scraps of silk and shattered porcelain might be seen on the steps, broken furnishings. How the French supposed they should carry away such an immense store of plunder, Laurence could hardly imagine.
The street itself was better tended; looking west towards the bounds of the city, Laurence could see a troop of dragons laboring to clear away the rubble and men behind them repairing the worst of the damage to the cobblestones: perhaps making ready the road for retreat? He and Tharkay went plodding on with their heads down into the vast square around the onion-domed cathedral which, though blackened with smoke, had also been saved: Laurence saw in some disgust that the building was evidently being used for a stable.
The remains of many smaller wooden buildings still lingered at its base, and resting against the high walls of the Kremlin some forty dragons were drowsing together in heaps, while their crews silently prodded at large cauldrons simmering with their poor thin dinner: they were eating dead horses mostly half-starved or sick, stewed with flour. The dragons looked too weary to be called indolent, slumped in the heavy attitudes of exhaustion.
One more-alert beast stood before the cathedral, beside the great city fountain, while some few peasant women, cringing, took their buckets of water before hurrying away: a heavy-weight Papillon Noir in black with iridescent stripes. “That is Liberté,” he murmured to Tharkay. He had seen the beast once before, during the invasion of England: he was the personal beast of Marshal Murat, and beside it stood the man himself.
The pair were standing beside one of the Russian light-weights, white-grey. Laurence thought for a moment it might be a prisoner, but as he and Tharkay drew their cart a little closer, he saw the poor beast had no harness and was nearly skeletal in appearance, deep concavities between its ribs. It had a bowl of thin soup, which it was licking up with slow, painstaking care, one foreleg curled around the bowl and a wary watchful hostile eye turned up towards Liberté. Its wings were drawn up tight to its body, as though it might at any moment flee.
Murat was evidently waiting to see the Emperor, and following the line of his gaze Laurence saw him: Napoleon was near the Kremlin gates, in his dust-grey coat and flanked by the still-glittering ranks of his escort, the Imperial Guard. Davout was a tall thin figure beside him, and his chief of staff Berthier as well.
A French officer then approached the cart, and they were forced to stop: Laurence engaged the man before he could notice Tharkay’s foreign looks, pulling back the cover to show him the ten sacks of grain, pantomiming numbers with his hands to indicate many more than these were on offer. “Cinq cent?” the Frenchman asked. Laurence nodded, and then held out a hand flat and tapped his palm, asking for an offer; the officer said, “Attends,” and went away to confer with another.
Napoleon looked himself as heavy and morose as the dragons of his army; he seemed to only be giving half his attention to an anxious speech which Berthier was making him, full of gestures and intensity; the Emperor glanced away often at the somnolent dragons, at the few companies of soldiers equally dispirited and yawning against the walls. He knew, of course; surely he knew the hopelessness of his position. He was not a fool. He had his hands clasped behind his back, his chin lowered upon his breast; Berthier gestured, down the square, and following his arm, Laurence saw a nearly medieval train of waggon-carts, already loaded and with their covers lashed down.
Bonaparte stood a moment more, and then gave a short nod; Berthier, after a speaking look of relief exchanged with Davout, hurried away back into the Kremlin. Davout seemed as though he wished to say something; Napoleon jerking a hand forestalled him and turned abruptly away, his face hard, and strode out across the square towards Murat, who rose to meet him.
The French quartermasters were still discussing amongst themselves. Laurence looked at Tharkay and, receiving a nod, hazarded the risk. He strode across the square towards the city fountain, as though to have a drink of water, where he could overhear a little.
Napoleon had put his hand on Liberté’s side, patting the dragon with easy familiarity as he spoke with Murat; the beast nosed at him with pleasure. “Well, brother,” he was saying, with a ghost of a smile, “the last die is thrown, we must stand up from the table! We will have to fight our way back to France, and no rest after that.”
“What else is a soldier for?” Murat said, with a wave of his arm: more generosity than Bonaparte deserved, having pressed them all on towards destruction. “We’ll sleep a long time in the end. Will you want us to give them a bite on the flank before we draw back?”
Fortune did not smile on Laurence’s adventure to so great an extent as to permit him to overhear such invaluable intelligence; Bonaparte only raised his hand a little and wagged it to either side, noncommittal, and jerked his head towards the small Russian dragon, asking Liberté in a deliberate tone of levity, “What is this, your prisoner? A fine battle you must have had!”
“I have not fought her at all,” Liberté said, in some indignation, “even though she tried to steal one of our pigs, when we camped near the breeding grounds; and I carried her here myself.”
“I couldn’t stomach leaving her to starve, poor beast,” Murat said to Napoleon, “and it’s not as though she could do us any real harm. I’ve sent for one of the surgeons. Look at what they do to them.”
The surgeon, a man in a long black frock coat carrying the grim instruments of his trade, still stained with the blood of some recent patient, came past the fountain even as he spoke; Laurence averted his face, quickly, until the man had gone around him. The dragon hissed at the surgeon and snapped as he approached, only to subside when Liberté put his foreleg on her neck and pinned it to the ground. The man climbed carefully upon her back, between the wings.
Laurence could not see, at first, what the surgeon was doing there; the dragon bellowed in pain and tried to thrash, but Liberté held her fast. A few minutes passed, perhaps three, and then the man flung down over the dragon’s side a chain, dripping black blood, with two large barbed hooks on either end still marked with gobbets of flesh: a hobble, simpler but not unlike the one which had held Arkady, when they had found him held prisoner in China. The dragon made a low keening noise, shivering still, but her wings gave a small abortive flutter, as if suddenly freed.
Napoleon made an exclamation of disgust, looking down at the hobble. “And she was not the only one?”
“All of them, in the breeding grounds,” Murat said. “And they look as though they do not get enough food to keep alive a cat; I wonder they get any eggs out of them at all.”
Temeraire could not but fret anxiously at Laurence’s absence, though he had for comfort a splendid dispatch newly arrived from Peking, in which Huang Li had not only reported the egg’s continuing perfect condition, but even, to Temeraire’s delight, enclosed a small illustration of the pavilion in which the egg was housed, at the Summer Palace, showing it attended by four ladies-in-waiting and four Imperial dragons, and being fanned by servants against the late summer’s heat.
“Of course I must keep the original,” Temeraire said to Emily, “but perhaps we might make a copy of it, for Iskierka. Surely one of those aides could knock something up?” He was dictating her a letter to pass along the comforting reassurances he had received, and trying as best he could to describe their own success, giving it better terms than he really felt it deserved. “Do you suppose they have reached the Peninsula by now?” he asked wistfully. It was very hard to think that Iskierka might at this very moment already be with the Corps in Spain, which was evidently winning one brilliant battle after another, and he could report nothing for his own part but one battle, from which they had retreated.
“I don’t think so,” Emily said, with sufficient promptness to suggest that she had thought about the subject before. “They left China in July, just as we did. They might have gone by air from Persia, if they stopped there, and have just been able to reach Gibraltar. But if they have gone round Africa, they cannot be in Spain before Christmas.”
Temeraire did not say, but felt, that this was a small relief: perhaps they would have had another battle before Iskierka did finally have a chance for one of her own. But Emily herself sighed and said, “So it isn’t surprising, that we shouldn’t have had word from them yet,” and looked down at the letter she was writing with a discontented expression, fidgeting with her quill in such a way as to scatter ink across the page.
While she was blotting up the spots, Temeraire said a little anxiously, “I hope you are not changing your mind—I hope you have not thought better of refusing Demane. I am sure that marriage cannot be so wonderful.”
“No,” she said, downcast. “No, at least, not marriage; but—I suppose I am sorry, a little; I wish I’d had him, while I had the chance.”
“Emily,” Mrs. Pemberton said, raising her head from where she sat near-by, working on her sewing. “I must beg you not to say such things.”
“Oh, I know it isn’t my duty; and it should have been a monstrously stupid thing to do,” Emily said, “and so I didn’t. But I shan’t see him for years now, I suppose; if we ever serve together again at all.” She sighed. “And one gets curious,” she added.
“I ought to be turned off without a character,” Mrs. Pemberton said to herself, half under her breath, and then to Emily said, “Even if you must think such things, you needn’t say them, at least not where anyone might hear you. The last thing a young gentleman requires is any encouragement in that direction.”
Temeraire was entirely of like mind with her. He had considered briefly whether perhaps it might be just as well to have Emily marry one of the officers of his own crew, but after some cautious inquiries about the etiquette of the matter, he had determined that this could not really serve to keep her with him when Admiral Roland decided to retire, and it was perfectly likely that she would instead take her own husband away to Excidium with her: so it was not at all to be wished under any circumstances.
He raised his head, alertly, catching some movement through the encampment: Laurence and Tharkay had come back, he saw with much relief, although Laurence’s expression was dreadfully grim, and as he came near, already stripping away his peasant cloak, Temeraire asked anxiously, “Napoleon will not retreat?”
Laurence did not answer at once, only shook his head to say he could not immediately answer, and went into the pavilion, and into his tent; Temeraire in surprise went after him and lowered his head anxiously to peer inside: Laurence was putting on his uniform again, his movements short and sharp, angry. He said to Temeraire briefly, savagely, “They are chaining their dragons in the breeding grounds; they are keeping them hobbled.”
Temeraire did not understand, at first, until Laurence had explained; and then he scarcely could believe it, until he had found Grig again and demanded a confirmation. “Well—well, yes,” Grig said, edging back and looking at him sidelong with some anxiety at Temeraire’s anger, though it was not directed at him. “If one won’t go into harness, they don’t let one fly. Whyever would anyone stay in the breeding grounds, otherwise?”
“It is quite beyond anything,” Temeraire said, furious. “Laurence—”
But at that very moment, the courier arrived from headquarters, breathless, with fresh orders: the clamoring demands for action had at last overcome Kutuzov’s inertia. They were ordered to attack.
Laurence regarded the orders silently, Temeraire peering down beside him. He knew his duty; it was not to liberate the miserable and wretched Russian dragons, nor to tell the Russians how they were to manage their own beasts: it was to secure the defeat of Napoleon and his army, and see them reduced beyond the ability to threaten either a renewed invasion of Britain, or further warmongering upon the Continent. That defeat was now within their grasp.
“But afterwards,” he said to Temeraire, “—afterwards—” He stopped, and then sent for Gong Su and asked him, “Sir, would the Emperor consent to receive these dragons into his Empire?” He gestured to Grig, who looked back with an uncertain expression.
Gong Su looked at Grig with a cool, assessing eye. “He speaks more than one tongue?” he asked. “Will you inquire at what age he acquired them?”
“Well, the dragon-tongue, I learnt that in the breeding grounds before I was hatched,” Grig said, doubtfully, “and as for Russian, and French, I cannot rightly say; I suppose I have just picked them up bit by bit the same way that the others have: one does, hearing them every day.”
As this was by no means characteristic of most dragon breeds, particularly not in the West, Gong Su nodded in some appreciation. He said to Laurence, “Of course I cannot speak with any official weight. But these beasts appear to be of respectable qualities, and moderate size. There is a great hunger for village porters in the countryside. If they did not consider laborer’s work in such small settlements beneath their dignity, then there should be no difficulty in finding employment for them.”
“Will you write and inquire if I may extend an offer of such hospitality?” Laurence asked bluntly; Gong Su bowed.
Laurence nodded and said to Temeraire, “Then afterwards, when we have done, we will go to all the breeding grounds which Grig can lead us to—you will explain to them the conditions of their welcome in China, of their employment there—and those who wish to depart, we will free from their hobbles and take with us on our own return to China.
“And if the Russians do not care to lose all their breeding stock,” he added, low with anger, “they may amend their treatment.”
He knew the condition of the Russian peasantry, very little removed from slavery, was nearly as pitiable as that of the dragons; and yet there was something intolerable in the spectacle of hundreds of beasts so hobbled that they might not even fly as was their nature, but instead were confined to scrabbling in pits; save for those beasts who, cowed by the horror of their circumstances, would consent to be slaves for scraps and at least a little freedom of movement. The sensation was much as though, laboring with all his might upon the rigging of a ship and in her upper decks, keeping company with her crew, Laurence had suddenly seen through an open ladderway the faces of captives chained and looking up at him with accusation, and discovered himself in service upon a slaver.
He and Temeraire flew together to the headquarters, where a ferment of activity was going forward: Bennigsen and his staff were in an ill-suppressed condition of delight, Kutuzov more phlegmatic; he had appointed Bennigsen and Colonel Toll to the command of the operation. Their target would be Murat himself and his corps, encamped not far from Tarutino, who had grown incautious after a month-long informal truce, their patrols slack: a heavy forest near-by offered cover for a surprise attack.
“Ah, Captain,” Kutuzov said, and beckoned him out of the tumult, “come and let us discuss your orders.”
“Sir,” Laurence said, following him into a separate chamber, formerly the private library of the master of the house, “I will carry out your orders, if you continue to desire our assistance; but I must beg permission to speak frankly, as the price of that assistance may no longer be one you willingly accept.”
Kutuzov settled himself comfortably in his chair and waved a hand for permission, his face settling into its habitual slack lines; he listened in silence while Laurence laid out both his objections to the abuse of the Russian ferals, and his intentions towards them. “I hope you will understand, sir, if Temeraire and the other dragons should have that fellow-feeling towards their own kind, which absolutely must have prohibited their making themselves allies of a nation which so maltreated them. This project is the only manner in which I can conceive of reconciling that repugnance with our continued service to you.
“But I am by no means willing to provoke a confrontation between nations, wholly undesirable to either; if you should wish us to depart at once, without engaging in what you may call interference in your affairs, we will do so,” Laurence added, “and I hope you will believe me nevertheless entirely desiring your victory over Bonaparte, in such a case.”
He finished slowly, a little surprised to find Kutuzov still listening to him with an attitude almost of complacency. The old general snorted at his look and said, “Grig is a clever little creature, you know: Captain Rozhkov raised him from the egg.”
While Laurence with a sense of strong indignation digested this, Kutuzov continued, “It is not as though we have not heard of you, Captain Laurence. We have all had a great many arguments, whether your aid would not be too expensive, to begin with.”
“Sir,” Laurence said, now baffled, “I beg your pardon; however should you know me from Adam?”
“If the world had not heard of you, after your adventure at Gdansk,” Kutuzov said, meaning Danzig, where they had rescued the garrison from the wreck of the Prussian campaign, “or after the plague, we should certainly have heard of you after Brazil. Where you go, you leave half the world overturned behind you. You are more dangerous than Bonaparte in your own way, you and that beast of yours.
“It is awkward you should have seen that feral just now, in Moscow, but in the end, it seems it will not make so much difference. The Tsar means us to chase the French all the way to Paris, and I cannot do that without four hundred dragons or more. I must get them out of the breeding grounds somehow.
“So! You will show us how to feed dragons on grain, and I will speak to Arakcheyev,” the Tsar’s chief minister, “and we will cut them loose.”
Laurence almost did not at first quite comprehend Kutuzov’s answer; he had long felt—long known—the many practical advantages offered by a more humane and just treatment of dragons; he had recognized the danger to Britain and any other nation in the stark comparison between the increasing consideration offered to French dragons, and the ill-treatment of their own. He had indeed made these practical matters his argument on many occasions, but he had grown so used to failure, to meeting with only a stolid, blind resistance, that to find not only a tolerant ear but agreement left him more nonplussed than rejection; he did not at once know what to say. “Sir,” Laurence said, and halted, overwhelmed by a perfect reversion of feeling, as though he had faced a mortal enemy, and been offered from his hand a priceless gift; he could cheerfully have embraced the old general with Slavic passion.
He with difficulty tried to express his sentiments; Kutuzov waved them away. “Don’t be too quick to rejoice,” he said. “We can’t cut them loose until we can be sure we can feed them. It hasn’t been so long since the Time of Troubles, you know; half the country would rise up if they saw dragons flying all over unharnessed.” He indicated with one thick finger a painting upon the wall, which depicted a band of pikemen heroically massed and their commander pointing aloft at a looming, snarling dragon, which stood with outspread wings over the broken body of a horse and clutched in one taloned hand a screaming maiden, her trailing white gown a banner stained with blood and her arms outflung in supplication as she cast her eyes up to the heavens.
“Sir,” Laurence said dryly, “permit me to assure you that the most vicious beast in all Russia would not prefer to make its dinner out of a lady of six or seven stone over a horse of one hundred.”
Kutuzov shrugged. “There were not always horses,” he said bluntly.
Laurence was nevertheless able to return to Temeraire with a spirit no longer weighed down with guilt, and share with him the satisfaction not only of having carried their point, but having won it in such a manner as founded the victory on the most solid of ground: that the Russians had freely recognized the necessity of reforming their treatment of their native dragons. “Well,” Temeraire said, “I am very glad to see that they have some real sense, Laurence; Kutuzov must be quite a good fellow, particularly as he means us to attack. And now we can do so wholeheartedly.
“Although,” he added, with a lowering frown, “I cannot like hearing that Grig has been carrying tales of us: whatever did he mean by it, and pretending that he was so wretched, if he is really quite the pet of his captain? I do not know what to make of it at all.”
“You must take it as a compliment,” Tharkay said, “that you are of sufficient importance to have spies set upon you.” He had expressed just such a sentiment on first learning that Gong Su had been all the while an agent of Prince Mianning; Laurence could not partake in those feelings, however, and was not in the least sorry to find the little dragon had prudently taken himself off and vanished into the general mass of the Russian forces.
But it was nevertheless with a gladdened heart that Laurence went to his tent, to clean his guns and sharpen his sword before the engagement, and was surprised to find Junichiro there. “I have neglected you, I find,” Laurence said, in apology: it had not escaped his notice that Junichiro had made extraordinary progress in his study of English, and had furthermore devoted himself with great attention to mastering not only aerial tactics, but learning as much as he could of all others as well: he had seen the boy make persistent overtures to the Russian artillery-officers, in particular, and questioning any he found who could speak at least a little French.
He had in short done all that anyone might have wanted, to make him an officer; but Laurence had realized, too late, that he was by no means a valuable mentor: the Aerial Corps would be more likely to scorn Junichiro than embrace him, for having Laurence’s good word.
“But,” he said, “I will write to Admiral Roland, and see if I can solicit her influence on your behalf—”
“Sir,” Junichiro said quietly, “I beg you do not concern yourself further with this matter: I cannot serve in your Corps.”
Laurence paused, startled, and was even more so when Junichiro added, “I have come to ask your permission to depart; and if you refuse it, I must nevertheless end my service to you, even if by a final means.” Laurence realized with appalled astonishment that Junichiro spoke of ending his own life: that he would die, by his hand, rather than continue with them.
“Good God,” he said, “whatever should make you even contemplate so desperate a course of action? I know of no reason why I should refuse you the right to depart; I might counsel you against it, but you are a free man, and you have made no oath of service to the King: indeed, I am rather indebted to you, than the reverse.”
“Captain,” Junichiro said, “you may feel differently when I have explained, but it would be dishonorable of me to conceal my purpose from you: I intend to go to France.”
“You mean to take service with Bonaparte,” Laurence said, half-disbelieving: although he did now see why Junichiro had thought he would object. It sounded like treachery, and yet the confession made it not so; a true traitor would have gone, silently, slinking away. But if Junichiro truly meant to go to Napoleon now, with so much intimate knowledge of their force, their positions—
“No.” Junichiro shook his head. “I mean to ask him to send an envoy to my country.”
Laurence sat down slowly on the camp-chair, disturbed. “Pray explain yourself.”
“I am masterless,” Junichiro said, “—a criminal and an exile. But it is still my duty to serve the Emperor—my Emperor. It is still my duty to serve Japan. And your nation is not the friend of mine.”
He gestured a little, towards the tent entrance. “Your position in this war is now superior,” he said. “It is likely that you will be victorious, and cement your alliance with China. And long have they coveted dominion over Japan. I have seen the might of their dragons. Soon they will have Western ships, and Western guns. And we must have them, too—and if not from you, it seems we must have them from France.”
“We need not be your enemy, only to be China’s friend,” Laurence said, but Junichiro raised his eyes and looked at him straight-on.
“You require alliance with them,” Junichiro said. “You require their dragons. Whatever you might hope to get from us, you do not need, not in the same way. If they demand that you choose, you will choose them.” He made a short cutting gesture with one hand. “My decision is made. I have only waited so long because I did not wish to depart while your situation was yet uncertain, or bleak: I would not leave you in defeat. If you wish to prevent my leaving, you can. I will not attempt to steal away like a thief in the night. But I will no longer serve Britain.”
Laurence was silent. He knew what Hammond would have said, to the prospect of sending so priceless an ambassador as Junichiro would make straight into Napoleon’s hands: a man not merely versed in the language of Japan but intimately familiar with its customs, and of high birth; a man who despite his exile still had friends among the nobility of that nation, and whose opinions might be privately respected, even if he could not officially be pardoned. It could easily be as much as handing Napoleon a new ally, one who could threaten China’s coasts and British shipping.
“You have sacrificed everything,” Laurence said finally, “home, position, friends; and if not for my sake, to my benefit. I have no right to keep you, and I cannot dispute your conclusions. But my first duty is to see this war won. If you will give me your word of honor, not to reveal any information about our forces or those of the Russians, I cannot stand in your way.”
Junichiro said, “I swear it,” very simply.
Laurence nodded a little; he had no doubt of that promise being kept. “Then I will bid you Godspeed,” he said quietly, “and I hope with all my heart that your fears will not come to pass.”
Junichiro bowed to him deeply, and slipped away; Laurence sat silently in the tent with his sword across his knees, and wondered if they would next meet again as enemies, across a battlefield.
Temeraire was all the more relieved, that Kutuzov’s good sense meant that he could properly continue to fight: he was sure now of their ultimate victory. The strike against Murat’s forces proved a great success, although a great many of the Russian infantry got themselves lost in the woods and did not reach the battlefield in time: but that scarcely mattered, when Shao Ri came back with not only four captured dragons, and all their crews, but a golden eagle still with tatters of a tricorn attached and sixteen guns; and the rest of the infantry had done well for themselves also, having taken nearly two thousand prisoners and twenty guns, and three eagles. One could not compare, of course, for there were so many more of the French infantry that Napoleon was obliged to give them more eagles to carry, and the eagle which Shao Ri had captured was nearly three times the size—perhaps a little closer to twice—and in any case truly splendid. Temeraire had rarely felt so much delight as when Shao Ri lay the captured standards before Laurence and himself, with a low bow: he felt his breast quite bursting with pride and satisfaction.
The mood in the Russian camp was also nearly exaltation, and everyone was pleased, except the generals, who were quarreling again: General Raevsky, whom Laurence thought a great deal of, and who had dined with them on several occasions, even told Laurence he avoided headquarters as much as ever he could. “It is a nest of vipers,” he said, “and they have not yet reorganized the command, even though Barclay is gone.”
But however much they quarreled, at least they had won their first real and clear victory, unquestioned, and in the shadow of this defeat, Napoleon had to begin his own retreat from Moscow at last, quite as humiliated as the most ardent Russian patriot might have desired. Of course, they had only defeated his advance guard, but for the moment it seemed as good as if they had routed his entire army, and Temeraire now looked forward with the most eager anticipation to an opportunity to do just that. The question before them now was which way Napoleon would withdraw, along which road; and only a few days later, Temeraire was woken a little way into the evening by a courier coming: there was fighting in Maloyaroslavets, a little town south of their camp along the Kaluga Road, and Napoleon’s whole army was there.
“Nothing could be better,” he said to Laurence jubilantly. “Now we will properly fall upon him; and perhaps he will be there himself, and we can take him prisoner.”
Of course, they had been obliged to disperse the second jalan back to the east, because Shen Shi felt too uncertain of supply. But Temeraire privately felt that was all the better, because it should mean more of an excuse for him to take part in the battle, directly; however little he wished to disregard General Chu’s last advice to him, he could not help but think he would have quite an awkward time of it explaining, when next he saw Iskierka, if he did not have at least a little fighting himself.
“And we cannot be blamed now, Laurence,” he said, “for Kutuzov has got those aides who can speak Chinese, even if their accents are perfectly dreadful; so I do not see that we must sit about behind the lines. Indeed, they are by far the better placed to do it, since they can speak Chinese and Russian, and I have not worked Russian out yet.”
He had been very careful to avoid doing so: he did not in the least want to be able to go-between any more than he already did.
“So long as we can be of material use,” Laurence said, “I will not scruple to say I share your feelings: and God willing, this battle will see Napoleon’s army broken.”
Laurence had a note from General Raevsky, while the jalan were assembling: Will you carry us? was all the message, and he was glad to return an affirmative answer. Raevsky had ten thousand men in his corps, lately denied the opportunity to partake in the attack upon Murat and all of them filled with passion; they flung themselves aboard the Chinese dragons with a will, as enthusiastic seeking battle as they had been miserable in retreat.
The dragons snatched up the guns, and launched aloft: Temeraire nearly trembling with excitement beneath him and only with difficulty keeping to the pace that Zhao Lien watchfully set, to avoid wearing out her forces under their burden; the Russians began to sing as they flew on, deep young joyful voices, and traded off with the Chinese crews, one after another, all the length of their flight.
“He must have meant to march on Kaluga,” Raevsky said to Laurence, as they flew: that city being presently the main supply base of Kutuzov’s army, and the gateway to the munitions factories of the south. “God favors Russia at last: if Dokhturov had not caught him, he could have done us some more mischief yet.”
The distance was only twenty miles: two hours put them in sight of the town, and the plumes of smoke rising; several of the buildings were burning, and the cannon roared ferociously on both sides. Zhao Lien brought them around wide, to the south behind the Russian advance guard which was ferociously holding the small town against Napoleon’s advance. More prepared this time for the hop-skip of the Chinese landing, Raevsky’s corps were disembarked in not half-an-hour; his sergeants were already bawling for order and forming the men into their regiments as the Chinese dragons lifted off again, to form up aloft.
Temeraire hovered longingly beside Zhao Lien as she sent forth the first jalan through the climbing smoke. Dokhturov had only one aerial regiment of six heavy-weights, and with them two dozen light-weights whom, in defiance of tradition, he had flung into battle to give his men a little cover against the French skirmishing attack. The French dragons, some twenty in number and wearing the emblem of the corps of Eugène de Beauharnais, had been handily outfighting them and dropping bombs upon the Russian troops, who were taking a dismal shelter against a handful of buildings now all of them in flames.