“I thank you, dear fellow,” she said. “I would be et up with pride, I suppose, if matters were otherwise, and if it were not one annoyance after another. We glide along tolerably well when left to our own devices, but I must deal with these idiotish creatures from the admiralty. They are told, before they come, and told again, and still they will simper at me, and coo, as if I had not been a-dragonback before they were out of dresses, and then they stare if I dress them down for behaving like kiss-my-hand squires.”
“I suppose they find it a difficult adjustment,” Laurence said, with private sympathy. “I wonder the Admiralty should have—” and belatedly he paused, feeling he was treading on obscure and dangerous ground. One could not very well quarrel with pursuing whatever means necessary to reconcile Longwings, perhaps Britain’s most deadly breed, to service, and as the beasts would accept none but female handlers, some must be offered them; Laurence was sorry for the necessity that would thrust a gently born woman out of her rightful society and into harm’s way, but at least they were raised up to it. And where necessary, they had perforce to act as formation-leaders, transmitting the maneuvers to their wings; but this was a far cry from flag rank, not to say commanding the largest covert in Britain, and perhaps the most critical.
“They certainly did not like to give it to me, but they had precious little choice,” Jane said. “Portland would not come from Gibraltar; Laetificat is not up to the sea-voyage anymore. So it was me or Sanderson, and he is making a cake of himself over the business; goes off into corners and weeps like a woman, as though that would help anything: a veteran of nine fleet actions, if you would credit it.” Then she ran her hand through her disordered crop and sighed. “Never mind, you are not to listen to me, Laurence; I am impatient, and his Animosia does poorly.”
“And Excidium?” Laurence ventured.
“Excidium is a tough old bird, and he knows how to husband his strength: has the sense to eat, even though he has no appetite. He will muddle along a good while yet, and you know, he has close on a century of service; many his age have already shot themselves of the whole business and retired to the breeding grounds.” She smiled; it was not whole-hearted. “There; I have been brave. Let us to pleasanter things: you have brought me twenty dragons, and by God do I have a use for them. Let us go and see them.”
“She is a handful and a half,” Granby admitted lowly, as they considered the coiled serpentine length of Iskierka’s body, faint threads of steam issuing from the many needle-like spikes upon her body, “and I haven’t ridden herd on her, sir, I am sorry.”
Iskierka had already established herself to her own satisfaction, if no one else’s, by clawing out a deep pit in the clearing next to Temeraire’s where she had been housed, then filling it with ash: this acquired from some two dozen young trees which she had unceremoniously uprooted and burnt up inside her pit. She had then added to the powdery grey mixture a collection of boulders, which she fired to a moderate glow before going to sleep, comfortably, in her heated nest. The bonfire and its lingering smolder were visible for some distance, even to the farmhouses nearest the covert, and a few hours past her arrival had already produced several complaints and a great deal of alarm.
“Oh, you have done enough keeping her harnessed out in the countryside, without a head of cattle to your name,” Jane said, giving the drowsing Iskierka’s side a pat. “They may bleat to me all they like, for a fire-breather, and you may be sure the Navy will cheer your name when they hear we have our own at last. Well done; well done indeed, and I am happy to confirm you in your rank, Captain Granby. Should you like to do the honors, Laurence?”
Most of Laurence’s crew had already been employed in Iskierka’s clearing, in beating out the stray embers which flew out of her pit and threatened to ignite all the covert if left unchecked. Ash-dusty and tired as they all were, they had none of them gone away, lingering consciously without the need of any announcement, and now lined up on a muttered word from young Lieutenant Ferris to watch Laurence pin the second pair of gold bars upon Granby’s shoulders.
“Gentlemen,” Jane said, when Laurence had done, and they gave a cheek-flushed Granby three huzzahs, whole-hearted if a little subdued, and Ferris and Riggs stepped over to shake him by the hand.
“We will see about assigning you a crew, though it is early days yet with her,” Jane said, after the ceremony had dispersed, and they proceeded on to make her acquainted with the ferals. “I have no shortage of men now, more’s the pity. Feed her twice daily, see if we cannot make up for any growth she may have been shorted, and whenever she is awake I will start you on Longwing maneuvers. I don’t know if she can scorch herself, as they can with their own acid, but we needn’t find out by trial.”
Granby nodded; he seemed not the least nonplussed at answering to her. Neither did Tharkay, who had been persuaded to stay on at least a little longer, as one of the few of them with any influence upon the ferals at all. He rather looked mostly amused, in his secretive way, once past the inquiring glance which he had first cast at Laurence: as Jane had insisted upon being taken to the newcome dragons at once, there had been no chance for Laurence to give Tharkay a private caution in advance of their meeting. He did not reveal any surprise, however, but only made her a polite bow, and performed the introductions quite calmly.
Arkady and his band had made very little less confusion of their own clearings than Iskierka, preferring to knock down all the trees between and cluster together in a great heap. The chill of the December air did not trouble them, used as they were to the vastly colder regions of the Pamirs, but they spoke disapprovingly of the dampness, and on understanding that here before them was the senior officer of the covert, at once demanded from her an accounting of the promised cows, one apiece daily, by which they had been lured into service.
“They make the position that if they do not happen to eat the cows upon a given day, still they are owed the cattle, which they may call in at a future time,” Tharkay explained, provoking Jane’s deep laugh.
“Tell them they shall have as much as they like to eat on any occasion, and if they are too suspicious for that to satisfy them, we shall make them a tally: they may each of them take one of these logs they have knocked about over to the feeding pens, and mark it when they take a cow,” Jane said, more merry than offended at being met with such negotiations. “Pray ask will they agree to a rate of exchange, two hogs for a cow, or two sheep, should we bring in some variety?”
The ferals put their heads together and muttered and hissed and whistled amongst themselves, in a cacophony made private only by the obscurity of their language, and finally Arkady turned back and professed himself willing to settle on the trade agreement, except that he insisted goats should be three to a cow, they having some contempt for that animal, more easily obtained in their former homeland and likely there to be scrawny.
Jane bowed to him to seal the arrangement, and he bobbed his head back, his expression deeply satisfied, and rendered all the more piratical by the red splash of mongrel color which covered one of his eyes and spilled down his neck. “They are a gang of ruffians and make no mistake,” Jane said, as she led them back towards her offices, “but I have no doubt of their flying, at any rate: with that sort of wiry muscle they will go in circles around anything in their weight-class, or over it, and I am happy to stuff their bellies for them.”