Victory of Eagles. Naomi Novik

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       Chapter Four

      Overnight, icicles had grown upon the overhang of the cave, a row of glittering teeth, and now as the sun struck they steadily dripped themselves away upon the stone, an uneven pattering without rhythm or sense. Temeraire opened his eyes once in a while, dully to watch them shrink; then he closed his eyes and put his head down. No one had proposed his removal, or disturbed him.

      A scrabbling of claws made him look up; a small dragon had landed on the ledge, and Lloyd was sliding down from its back. ‘Come now then,’ Lloyd said, tramping in, his boots ringing and smearing field-muck on the clean stone. ‘Come now, old boy, why such a fuss, today? We have a lovely visitor waiting. A nice fat bullock will set you up—’

      Temeraire had never wanted to kill anyone, except of course anyone who tried to hurt Laurence; he liked to fight well enough, as it was exciting, but he had never thought that he would like to kill anyone just for himself. Only, in this moment it seemed to him he would much rather that than have Lloyd before him, speaking so, when Laurence was dead.

      ‘Be silent,’ he said, and when Lloyd continued without a pause.

      ‘—the very best put aside for you special, tonight—’

      Temeraire stretched out his neck and put his head directly before Lloyd and said, low, ‘My captain is dead.’

      That at least meant something to Lloyd: he went white, stopped talking and held himself very still; Temeraire watched him closely. It was almost disappointing. If only Lloyd would say something else dreadful, or do something foul as he always did; if only—but Laurence would not like it— Laurence would not have liked it—Temeraire took a long hissing breath, and drew his head back, curling in upon himself again, and Lloyd sagged in relief.

      ‘Why there's been some mistake,’ he said, after a moment, his voice only a few shades less hearty. ‘I've heard nothing of the sort, old boy, word would've been sent me—’

      His words made Temeraire angry all over again, but differently now: the sharp strange feeling was dulled, and he felt quite tired, wishing only for Lloyd to be gone.

      ‘I dare say you would tell me he was alive, even if he had been hanged at Tyburn,’ he said, bitterly, ‘as long as it made me eat, and mate, and listen to you. Well, I will not. I have borne it; I would have borne anything, only to keep Laurence alive, but I will bear it no longer. I will eat when I like, and not otherwise, and I will not mate with anyone unless I choose to.’ He looked at the little dragon who had brought Lloyd and said, ‘Now take him away, if you please; and tell the others that I do not want him brought again without asking first.’

      The little dragon bobbed his head nervously and picked up the startled and protesting Lloyd to carry him down again. Temeraire closed his eyes and coiled himself again; the drip of the icicles his only company.

      A few hours later, Perscitia and Moncey landed on the cave ledge with a studied air of insouciance, carrying two fresh-killed cows. They brought them inside, and laid them in front of him. ‘I am not hungry,’ Temeraire said sharply.

      ‘Oh, we only told Lloyd they was for you so he would let us have extra,’ Moncey said cheerfully. ‘You don't mind if we eat them here?’ and he tore into the first one. Temeraire's tail twitched, entirely without volition, at the hot juicy smell of the blood, and when Perscitia nudged the second cow towards him, he took it in his jaws without really meaning to. In a few swallows it was gone, and what they had left of the first followed swiftly.

      He flew down for another, and even a fourth; he did not have to think or feel while he ate. A small flock of the more diminutive dragons clustered together on the edge of the feeding grounds watching him anxiously, and when he looked for yet another cow, a couple of them rose up to herd one towards him. But none of them spoke to Temeraire. When he had finished, he flew for a long distance along the river and settled down to drink only where he might be quite alone again. He felt sore in all his joints, as if he had flown hard in sleeting weather for a long, long time.

      He washed, as well as he could manage alone, and went back to his cave to think. Perscitia came up to see him, to present an interesting mathematical problem, but he only glanced at it and said, ‘No. Help me find Moncey; I want to know what has been happening with the war.’

      ‘Why, I don't know,’ Moncey said, surprised, when they had tracked him down, lazing in a meadow on the mountainside with some of the other Winchesters and small ferals. They had been playing a bit of a game, where they tossed branches upon the ground and tried to pick up as many as they could without dropping any. ‘It's nothing to do with us, you know, not here. The Frenchy dragons СКАЧАТЬ