I DO NOT SEE what is wrong with it," Iskierka said, still nibbling upon the charred beef bones of her dinner. "They are stealing the cows for their dragons, it is not our fault if their dragons are too lazy to come and get the cows themselves."
"It is not wrong," Temeraire said, dissatisfied, "precisely."
"Not very sporting, though," Gentius said. "They did not even have a gun."
"The village did not have a gun, either, or even muskets," Lily said, "so it was not very sporting of those soldiers, in the first place."
"Anyway," Iskierka added, with an air of smug virtue, "we must obey our orders."
Temeraire did not argue further. It was not that he minded for himself, anyway, very much, although it had not been a very interesting battle: they had dived, the soldiers had fired a few shots, and then they had all run away into the woods, if they were not dead; it had lasted scarcely five minutes, and nothing to show for it. Except of course the cows, but those they mostly had to give back.
He was not going to say so, of course, but he rather felt Iskierka was right. If the soldiers had not wanted to be attacked, they ought not have been going about in other people's territory, taking their food and much more than they could eat themselves. Only, he was a little worried, because it seemed the sort of thing that Laurence might have minded, and he felt instinctively there was something strange, that Laurence did not seem to care.
The villagers certainly had been very grateful. "Two months to spring. We would have starved, or near enow; thank ye, sir," the village headman said, the half-burned cottage quite forgiven, as the others came nervously out to look over their cattle and their goods, and make their own anxious courtesies.
A few young men from Maximus's ground crew had driven back those cows which had not been killed or panicked to death in the fighting; Gladius and Chalcedony had carried back the two large carts of grain, also, and the villagers had sent word back along the road, to those others pillaged, to come and share what there was left to have.
But Laurence did not seem pleased by their many thanks, either; he only nodded, and said, "Send word also that if you should see or hear of any French movements, you are to light a beacon: smoke, or a bonfire at night, and we will come for it if we see."
Gong Su had taken those cows which had been killed; enough for all the dragons to have a little fresh roast beef, and then a share of soup and bones and meat mixed with vegetables and grain, for all the crew and everyone in the village besides. The atmosphere was celebratory, and all the more when the villagers brought out a concealed store of honey wine. Temeraire had even enjoyed a cupful poured into his mouth, so he might close his jaws on it and keep the crisp fragrant smell on his tongue.
Laurence had not eaten very much, and now he came away from the village and the celebration, back to Temeraire's side; but only to get out his maps again and study the roads.
Temeraire drew a deep breath, watching him, and said valiantly, "Laurence - Laurence, I have been thinking. Perhaps you might sell my talon-sheaths. I do not mean just now," he added, hurriedly, "but, when the war is over - "
"Why?" Laurence said, a good deal more absently than Temeraire felt such an offer merited. "Are you tired of them?"
"No, of course not, who could become tired of them?" Temeraire said, and then paused; he was not sure how he might explain, without betraying his knowledge of the loss which Laurence had concealed, surely because it wounded him greatly. "I only thought," he tried, "that perhaps you might like to have some more capital, as you have given me so much of it yourself."
"I have no need of capital," Laurence said, "and you had better keep them, against future need. I thank you for the offer; it was handsomely made," he added, which ought to have been a tremendous relief, but Temeraire found that instead he was only unhappier, for having tried his most desperate notion and found it of no use. Laurence had not seemed even a little moved by the prospect of having so splendid a treasure for his own; the gratitude had been only formal.
He put his head down upon his forelegs and watched Laurence a little longer; Laurence had a lamp, and in the light, he looked a little odd - he was not quite clean-shaven, Temeraire realized, and there was some dried blood upon his jaw, which he had not taken off. His hair was tied roughly back, and grown long. But he did not seem to care for any of it; all his attention was for the map, and the figures he was studying.
"May I not help you, Laurence?" Temeraire asked at last, rather hopelessly, for lack of any other idea.
Laurence paused over the papers, then put one sheet out with the lamp upon it. "Is it large enough for you to see? - it is the tax roll for the last year. I expect the French will first plunder the wealthier estates and villages, so we will look for them there."
"Yes, I can read it," Temeraire said; it was only a little difficult, if he squinted. "Shall I tell you all the richest ones, in order?"
AS THEY PUSHED GRADUALLY SOUTHWARD, the raiding parties grew steadily larger and more desperate: no longer small bands, out to forage for themselves as much as for the beasts, but urgent support for dragons headquartered now at small outposts and encampments throughout the heart of England, to distribute the burden of their feeding. If the cattle did not arrive daily, the dragons would soon go hungry; and some number of them would have to be transferred elsewhere, southwards, even perhaps back to France.
Already the disruption of the foraging was having an effect. Without the smaller parties bringing in regular provender, the soldiers had more effort to keep themselves fed, as well as the dragons, and this made them all the more ruthless. Villages and farms and estates were now stripped to the bone and often torn apart in the search for hidden stores; or even to no end but wanton destruction: some vicious urge in the soldiers, brought on by too much license to ruin what they found. If any villagers sought to protect their homes and livelihoods, they were as often murdered or abused, or at best left to starve with a house burning behind them.
These brutalities soon roused the countryside from a sullen, small resistance, which would gladly have thrashed French soldiers making boastful remarks in a pub or passed news of them to British parties, while concealing food from them all alike, to open hatred. No-one fled from the dragons now when they landed, but marched out their cattle to feed them, and daily the plumes of beacon-fires rose. The little feral dragons of the Pennines, who lived wild and ordinarily raided farms for their meals, had been recruited by hunger and Temeraire's persuasion to collect the far-flung intelligence: they darted from one beacon to another, where the townspeople provided them with a sheep or goat, and in return they carried the information back to Laurence's encampment, daily edging farther south. Laurence thought it likely he knew more of the movements of the French than their own generals did, and he daily sent long letters back to Jane and to Wellesley.
A little blue feral came darting into camp, an evening in Cumbria, while they sat mostly dull and quiet, sharpening bayonets or drinking watered whiskey at their small fires, and in an incongruously deep voice announced, "The French are coming this way, with guns, and twelve dragons."
"Leave the camp," Laurence said, standing, and put back on his sword. "No, everything; we need the time more than the supply. Leave the fires burning. All aloft, gentlemen, at once," he said sharply, while everyone yet hesitated a moment, and spurred them into action.
"But, Laurence," Temeraire murmured, as he climbed aboard, "why do we not stay and fight them? It is our first chance of a real battle, and perhaps they will even have eagles - "
"There is no honor to be won in a battle between thieves," Laurence said flatly, taking the maps which Demane held out to him, and skimmed them over. "Divide into parties of no more than three, and take separate routes, all of you; we rendezvous at Cross Fell," he called, and they lifted one and all away.
They were too agile a band to be easily tracked or caught, with a thousand eyes in every direction looking out danger for them, and three more such attempts failed as thoroughly to find anything more than their abandoned fires and cooking pits. Rewards, offered in vast sums, were scornfully ignored, and in frustration the French grew savage and turned instead to reprisals against any they suspected of providing intelligence or comfort, which made nearly all the citizenry. At Howick Hall, perhaps two weeks into their raiding, they caught a large company, busy pillaging not only the cattle and the food, but carrying out also paintings, and china plate, and great silver candelabra, while the house burned slowly down around them, and their officers laughed and drank wine from the cellars in the courtyard.
The dragon-shadows falling over them silenced their merriment, and hurriedly two dozen muskets were raised up. Temeraire hovering over them roared out at the house, and nearly the whole front wall, flickering with flame, slid down in a heap and buried half the soldiers with it, leaving the building for a moment like a child's doll-house, opened for viewing, with more of the looters staring out at them.
Then the roof, groaning in complaint, gave way, and the great house folded in upon itself, walls crumbling into brick, slates clattering and spilling down upon the lawn still smoking. The horses and cows stampeded madly away, and the remaining soldiers fled in the other direction, leaving a great pirate-heap of goods in an oxcart, pitiful next to the smoldering ruins.
The village, in the shelter of the house, had also been struck; the men having tried to resist had been slaughtered nearly one and all. The women and children had taken shelter in the church, which had not given them much protection: the soldiers had come in and outraged some of the young women, and murdered the vicar, a man of eighty, when he had feebly tried to intercede.
"We ought to hunt down the rest of them," one young midshipman said, "every last one," and there was no disagreement. Laurence felt only weary.
"Berkley," he said, "have your men clear the village, and let the dragons bury the dead. Sutton, Little, take the other Reapers, and bring over what you can from the house: they will need more supply, here. Or we can take you to Craster," he offered, to the matron who had got the survivors into some order.
"They won't have better houses for us there," she said. "Whatever you can bring us, we'll thank you for, Captain, and we will manage; they didn't find all there was to find." She did not say, aloud, that they had now fewer mouths to feed.
The Yellow Reapers were a while in returning, and came back with an air of grim satisfaction, bloodstained, carrying also some dead cattle and deer.
"I will venture a little farther," Laurence said. "We will not encamp yet, but we will raid farther south, as far as we can fly in and out again in a day."
"Just as well," Little said, low. "Let them look over their shoulders, everywhere in England," to a murmur of agreement. The French had thus reconciled them all to their mission; few of the captains anymore looked askance at their attacks, or urged quarter. Laurence heard it without satisfaction.
"I am sure I can fly a little quicker, if I try," Maximus put in; they held their conferences out in the air, so the dragons might listen in.
Some four days later, summoned by another column of smoke, they found and destroyed another raiding party at Wollaton. Flying back from the battlefield, with the corpses left behind dark and crimson on the snow, Laurence saw one after another the blackened husks of houses he knew, familiar. Great houses were burning everywhere, ideal targets: their cellars full of wine and brandy, their pantries laden for winter. The Galman estate yet stood, but deserted, with a ragpicker's wares strewn all over the courtyard: curtains and carpets, torn and trodden into mud, and more hanging out of the shattered windows. The stables were burnt to the ground, and the old lily-pond, where he had used to walk with Edith, choked upon the bloated corpse of a horse, torn at the haunches where dogs had got to it.
He knew he must expect to find Wollaton Hall itself burnt, and only hope his family had managed to flee in time. He was steeled for it, he thought; at least he could contemplate the possibility without a feeling of anything more than a calm and distant regret. Then they came over the lake, and Wollaton Hall stood upon the crest of its hill, untouched, with light in the windows and neat thin trails of smoke only from the chimneys; gilt and golden, and deer bounding away urgently.
They landed in the park; the dragons went to hunt. Laurence climbed a ridge and stood looking at the house with a sense almost of unreality: twilight was deepening as he watched, and in the muted light the edges of the house blurred. "Well, it is good luck," Harcourt said to him, uncertainly.
"You will pardon me," he said. "I will not be long," and he walked across the lawn towards the house. The hedge-rows were trimmed, and the walks had been swept of snow; there was a murmur of noise and life, louder as he came to the house, until standing in the formal gardens he might look in through the glass at the candle-lit ballroom, full of people, standing and sitting and lying, on pallets and on camp-beds: cottagers he recognized, others from the village.
"Here now, what are you about? You may come to the front, if you're wanting something," someone said to Laurence, making him start: a young gardener, scowling and holding a rake as though he would do something with it.
"I am William Laurence," he said. "Is Lady Allendale here?"
She came out to him, wrapped in a cloak against the chill: wool only, and not her furs. "Will, my dear," she said, "are you well? Have you come alone - "
"We are encamped in the park, to hunt only," Laurence said. "We leave again as soon as the dragons are fed: are you well? And my father?"
"As well as anyone could expect, with all this upheaval," she said. "He knows a little of what has happened: he knows you are with the Corps again," she added, anxiously.
He said nothing; there was nothing to be proud of, in the service he was giving. "I am glad to find you unmolested," he said after a moment; strangely reluctant. "We came over the village - I hope Lord and Lady Galman are well."
Lady Allendale, too, hesitated. "Yes, they stay with us."
He paused again, and reaching into his coat brought out the ring, in the small envelope of paper he had folded around it. "I wish that I had not - I am sorry to bear ill-tidings," he said. "Mr. Woolvey was killed, in London - I have kept it to send to Edith, when that might be possible. If her parents might - "
"Yes, we had word," she said, low and unhappy, and took it from him; she curled her hand around the envelope, and her face looked drawn.
"He died well," Laurence said, "if that can be said; he died bravely, at least, in service to the Crown."
She nodded, and they stood silently; a little snow yet was falling, white flecks upon her dark cloak. "Tell me," he said, finally.
"An officer came, and gave us the Emperor's compliments, and assurances that we would never be harmed," she said. "None of the raiding parties have come here; even lately, when they are pillaging everywhere - "
"Yes," Laurence said, stopping her. "I understand," and understood also his own dread; of course. Bonaparte had managed to pay him for his treason, after all.
"We can shelter a great many more," she said quietly, after a moment. "Our stores, also, are untouched, if there are any you would like to send to us."