“As you are disposed to think me a liar and an unscrupulous schemer, I see very little purpose in denying I should do any such thing,” Hammond said angrily, coloring up.
He departed instantly, leaving Laurence still angry but ashamed and conscious of having been unfair; he would himself have called it grounds for a challenge. By the next morning, when from the pavilion he saw Yongxing going away with the boy, having evidently cut short the visit on being denied access to Temeraire, his guilt was sharp enough that he made some attempt to apologize, with little success: Hammond would have none of it.
“Whether he took offense at your refusing to join us, or whether you were correct about his aims, can make no difference now,” he said, very coldly. “If you will excuse me, I have letters to write,” and so quitted the room.
Laurence gave it up and instead went to say farewell to Temeraire, only to have his guilt and unhappiness both renewed at seeing in Temeraire’s manner an almost furtive excitement, a very great eagerness to be gone. Hammond was hardly wrong: the idle flattery of a child was nothing to the danger of the company of Qian and the Imperial dragons, no matter how devious Yongxing’s motives or how sincere Qian’s; there was only less honest excuse for complaining of her.
Temeraire would be gone for hours, but the house being small and the chambers separated mainly by screens of rice paper, Hammond’s angry presence was nearly palpable inside, so Laurence stayed in the pavilion after he had gone, attending to his correspondence: unnecessarily, as it was now five months since he had received any letters, and little of any interest had occurred since the welcoming dinner party, now two weeks old; he was not disposed to write of the quarrel with Hammond.
He dozed off over the writing, and woke rather abruptly, nearly knocking heads with Sun Kai, who was bending over him and shaking him. “Captain Laurence, you must wake up,” Sun Kai was saying.
Laurence said automatically, “I beg your pardon; what is the matter?” and then stared: Sun Kai had spoken in quite excellent English, with an accent more reminiscent of Italian than Chinese. “Good Lord, have you been able to speak English all this time?” he demanded, his mind leaping to every occasion on which Sun Kai had stood on the dragondeck, privy to all their conversations, and now revealed as having understood every word.
“There is no time at present for explanations,” Sun Kai said. “You must come with me at once: men are coming here to kill you, and all your companions also.”
It was near on five o’clock in the afternoon, and the lake and trees, framed in the pavilion doors, were golden in the setting light; birds were speaking occasionally from up in the rafters where they nested. The remark, delivered in perfectly calm tones, was so ludicrous Laurence did not at first understand it, and then stood up in outrage. “I am not going anywhere in response to such a threat, with so little explanation,” he said, and raised his voice. “Granby!”
“Everything all right, sir?” Blythe had been occupying himself in the neighboring courtyard on some busy-work, and now poked his head in, even as Granby came running.
“Mr. Granby, we are evidently to expect an attack,” Laurence said. “As this house does not admit of much security, we will take the small pavilion to the south, with the interior pond. Establish a lookout, and let us have fresh locks in all the pistols.”
“Very good,” Granby said, and dashed away again; Blythe, in his customary silence, picked up the cutlasses he had been sharpening and offered Laurence one before wrapping up the others and carrying them with his whetstone to the pavilion.
Sun Kai shook his head. “This is great foolishness,” he said, following after Laurence. “The very largest gang of hunhun are coming from the city. I have a boat waiting just here, and there is time yet for you and all your men to get your things and come away.”
Laurence inspected the pavilion entryway; as he had remembered, the pillars were made of stone rather than wood, and nearly two feet in diameter, very sturdy, and the walls of a smooth grey brick under their layer of red paint. The roof was of wood, which was a pity, but he thought the glazed tile would not catch fire easily. “Blythe, will you see if you can arrange some elevation for Lieutenant Riggs and his riflemen out of those stones in the garden? Pray assist him, Willoughby; thank you.”
Turning around, he said to Sun Kai, “Sir, you have not said where you would take me, nor who these assassins are, nor whence they have been sent; still less have you given us any reason to trust you. You have certainly deceived us so far as your knowledge of our language. Why you should so abruptly reverse yourself, I have no idea, and after the treatment which we have received, I am in no humor to put myself into your hands.”
Hammond came with the other men, looking confused, and came to join Laurence, greeting Sun Kai in Chinese. “May I inquire what is happening?” he asked stiffly.
“Sun Kai has told me to expect another attempt at assassination,” Laurence said. “See if you can get anything more clear from him; in the meantime, I must assume we are shortly to come under attack, and make arrangements. He can speak perfect English,” he added. “You need not resort to Chinese.” He left Sun Kai with a visibly startled Hammond, and joined Riggs and Granby at the entryway.
“If we could knock a couple of holes in this front wall, we could shoot down at any of them coming,” Riggs said, tapping the brick. “Otherwise, sir, we’re best off laying down a barricade mid-room, and shooting as they come in; but then we can’t have fellows with swords at the entryway.”
“Lay and man the barricade,” Laurence said. “Mr. Granby, block as much of this entryway as you can, so they cannot come in more than three or four abreast if you can manage it. We will form up the rest of the men to either side of the opening, well clear of the field of fire, and hold the door with pistols and cutlasses between volleys while Mr. Riggs and his fellows reload.”
Granby and Riggs both nodded. “Right you are,” Riggs said. “We have a couple of spare rifles along, sir; we could use you at the barricade.”
This was rather transparent, and Laurence treated it with the contempt which it deserved. “Use them for second shots as you can; we cannot waste the guns in the hands of any man who is not a trained rifleman.”
Keynes came in almost staggering under a basket of sheets, with three of the elaborate porcelain vases from their residence laid on top. “You are not my usual kind of patients,” he said, “but I can bandage and splint you, at any rate. I will be in the back by the pond. And I have brought these to carry water in,” he added, sardonic, jerking his chin at the vases. “I suppose they would bring fifty pounds each in auction, so let that be an encouragement not to drop them.”
“Roland, Dyer; which of you is the better hand at reloading?” Laurence asked. “Very well; you will both help Mr. Riggs for the first three volleys, then Dyer, you are to help Mr. Keynes, and run back and forth with the water jugs as that duty permits.”
“Laurence,” Granby said in an undertone, when the others had gone, “I don’t see any sign of all those guards anywhere, and they have always been used to patrol at this hour; they must have been called away by someone.”
Laurence nodded silently and waved him back to work. “Mr. Hammond, you will pray go behind the barricade,” he said, as the diplomat came to his side, Sun Kai with him.
“Captain Laurence, I beg you to listen to me,” Hammond said urgently. “We had much better go with Sun Kai at once. These attackers he expects are young bannermen, members of the Tartar tribes, who from poverty and lack of occupation have gone into a sort of local brigandage, and there may be a great many of them.”