Naomi Novik - Temeraire 1 - His Majesty's Dragon

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Table of Contents

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Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

II

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

III

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Epilogue

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From the Sketchbook of Sir Edward Howe

Selected extracts from Observations on the Order Draconia in Europe, with Notes on the Oriental

Breeds

Acknowledgments

Praise for His Majesty’s Dragon

Here is an excerpt from the second adventure in the Temeraire series: Throne of Jade

RIDE ALONG WITH THE TEMERAIRE SERIES BY NAOMI NOVIK

Copyright Page

for Charles

sine qua non

Chapter 1

THE DECK OF the French ship was slippery with blood, heaving in the choppy sea; a stroke might as

easily bring down the man making it as the intended target. Laurence did not have time in the heat of the

battle to be surprised at the degree of resistance, but even through the numbing haze of battle-fever and

the confusion of swords and pistol-smoke, he marked the extreme look of anguish on the French

captain’s face as the man shouted encouragement to his men.

It was still there shortly thereafter, when they met on the deck, and the man surrendered his sword, very

reluctantly: at the last moment his hand half-closed about the blade, as if he meant to draw it back.

Laurence looked up to make certain the colors had been struck, then accepted the sword with a mute

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bow; he did not speak French himself, and a more formal exchange would have to wait for the presence

of his third lieutenant, that young man being presently engaged belowdecks in securing the French guns.

With the cessation of hostilities, the remaining Frenchmen were all virtually dropping where they stood;

Laurence noticed that there were fewer of them than he would have expected for a frigate of thirty-six

guns, and that they looked ill and hollow-cheeked.

Many of them lay dead or dying upon the deck; he shook his head at the waste and eyed the French

captain with disapproval: the man should never have offered battle. Aside from the plain fact that the

Reliant would have had the Amitié slightly outgunned and outmanned under the best of circumstances,

the crew had obviously been reduced by disease or hunger. To boot, the sails above them were in a sad

tangle, and that no result of the battle, but of the storm which had passed but this morning; they had

barely managed to bring off a single broadside before the Reliant had closed and boarded. The captain

was obviously deeply overset by the defeat, but he was not a young man to be carried away by his

spirits: he ought to have done better by his men than to bring them into so hopeless an action.

“Mr. Riley,” Laurence said, catching his second lieutenant’s attention, “have our men carry the wounded

below.” He hooked the captain’s sword on his belt; he did not think the man deserved the compliment of

having it returned to him, though ordinarily he would have done so. “And pass the word for Mr. Wells.”

“Very good, sir,” Riley said, turning to issue the necessary orders. Laurence stepped to the railing to

look down and see what damage the hull had taken. She looked reasonably intact, and he had ordered his

own men to avoid shots below the waterline; he thought with satisfaction that there would be no

difficulty in bringing her into port.

His hair had slipped out of his short queue, and now fell into his eyes as he looked over. He impatiently

pushed it out of the way as he turned back, leaving streaks of blood upon his forehead and the sun-

bleached hair; this, with his broad shoulders and his severe look, gave him an unconsciously savage

appearance as he surveyed his prize, very unlike his usual thoughtful expression.

Wells climbed up from below in response to the summons and came to his side. “Sir,” he said, without

waiting to be addressed, “begging your pardon, but Lieutenant Gibbs says there is something queer in

the hold.”

“Oh? I will go and look,” Laurence said. “Pray tell this gentleman,” he indicated the French captain,

“that he must give me his parole, for himself and his men, or they must be confined.”

The French captain did not immediately respond; he looked at his men with a miserable expression.

They would of course do much better if they could be kept spread out through the lower deck, and any

recapture was a practical impossibility under the circumstances; still he hesitated, drooped, and finally

husked, “Je me rends,” with a look still more wretched.

Laurence gave a short nod. “He may go to his cabin,” he told Wells, and turned to step down into the

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hold. “Tom, will you come along? Very good.”

He descended with Riley on his heels, and found his first lieutenant waiting for him. Gibbs’s round face

was still shining with sweat and emotion; he would be taking the prize into port, and as she was a

frigate, he almost certainly would be made post, a captain himself. Laurence was only mildly pleased;

though Gibbs had done his duty reasonably, the man had been imposed on him by the Admiralty and

they had not become intimates. He had wanted Riley in the first lieutenant’s place, and if he had been

given his way, Riley would now be the one getting his step. That was the nature of the service, and he

did not begrudge Gibbs the good fortune; still, he did not rejoice quite so wholeheartedly as he would

have to see Tom get his own ship.

“Very well; what’s all this, then?” Laurence said now; the hands were clustered about an oddly placed

bulkhead towards the stern area of the hold, neglecting the work of cataloguing the captured ship’s

stores.

“Sir, if you will step this way,” Gibbs said. “Make way there,” he ordered, and the hands backed away

from what Laurence now saw was a doorway set inside a wall that had been built across the back of the

hold; recently, for the lumber was markedly lighter than the surrounding planks.

Ducking through the low door, he found himself in a small chamber with a strange appearance. The

walls had been reinforced with actual metal, which must have added a great deal of unnecessary weight

to the ship, and the floor was padded with old sailcloth; in addition, there was a small coal-stove in the

corner, though this was not presently in use. The only object stored within the room was a large crate,

roughly the height of a man’s waist and as wide, and this was made fast to the floor and walls by means

of thick hawsers attached to metal rings.

Laurence could not help feeling the liveliest curiosity, and after a moment’s struggle he yielded to it.

“Mr. Gibbs, I think we shall have a look inside,” he said, stepping out of the way. The top of the crate

was thoroughly nailed down, but eventually yielded to the many willing hands; they pried it off and

lifted out the top layer of packing, and many heads craned forward at the same time to see.

No one spoke, and in silence Laurence stared at the shining curve of eggshell rising out of the heaped

straw; it was scarcely possible to believe. “Pass the word for Mr. Pollitt,” he said at last; his voice

sounded only a little strained. “Mr. Riley, pray be sure those lashings are quite secure.”

Riley did not immediately answer, too busy staring; then he jerked to attention and said, hastily, “Yes,

sir,” and bent to check the bindings.

Laurence stepped closer and gazed down at the egg. There could hardly be any doubt as to its nature,

though he could not say for sure from his own experience. The first amazement passing, he tentatively

reached out and touched the surface, very cautiously: it was smooth and hard to the touch. He withdrew

almost at once, not wanting to risk doing it some harm.

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Mr. Pollitt came down into the hold in his awkward way, clinging to the ladder edges with both hands

and leaving bloody prints upon it; he was no kind of a sailor, having become a naval surgeon only at the

late age of thirty, after some unspecified disappointments on land. He was nevertheless a genial man,

well liked by the crew, even if his hand was not always the steadiest at the operating table. “Yes, sir?” he

said, then saw the egg. “Good Lord above.”

“It is a dragon egg, then?” Laurence said. It required an effort to restrain the triumph in his voice.

“Oh, yes indeed, Captain, the size alone shows that.” Mr. Pollitt had wiped his hands on his apron and

was already brushing more straw away from the top, trying to see the extent. “My, it is quite hardened

already; I wonder what they can have been thinking, so far from land.”

This did not sound very promising. “Hardened?” Laurence said sharply. “What does that mean?”

“Why, that it will hatch soon. I will have to consult my books to be certain, but I believe that Badke’s

Bestiary states with authority that when the shell has fully hardened, hatching will occur within a week.

What a splendid specimen, I must get my measuring cords.”

He bustled away, and Laurence exchanged a glance with Gibbs and Riley, moving closer so they might

speak without being overheard by the lingering gawkers. “At least three weeks from Madeira with a fair

wind, would you say?” Laurence said quietly.

“At best, sir,” Gibbs said, nodding.

“I cannot imagine how they came to be here with it,” Riley said. “What do you mean to do, sir?”

His initial satisfaction turning gradually into dismay as he realized the very difficult situation, Laurence

stared at the egg blankly. Even in the dim lantern light, it shone with the warm luster of marble. “Oh, I

am damned if I know, Tom. But I suppose I will go and return the French captain his sword; it is no

wonder he fought so furiously after all.”

Except of course he did know; there was only one possible solution, unpleasant as it might be to

contemplate. Laurence watched broodingly while the egg was transferred, still in its crate, over to the

Reliant: the only grim man, except for the French officers. He had granted them the liberty of the

quarterdeck, and they watched the slow process glumly from the rail. All around them, smiles wreathed

every sailor’s face, private, gloating smiles, and there was a great deal of jostling among the idle hands,

with many unnecessary cautions and pieces of advice called out to the sweating group of men engaged

in the actual business of the transfer.

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The egg being safely deposited on the deck of the Reliant, Laurence took his own leave of Gibbs. “I will

leave the prisoners with you; there is no sense in giving them a motive for some desperate attempt to

recapture the egg,” he said. “Keep in company, as well as you can. However, if we are separated, we

will rendezvous at Madeira. You have my most hearty congratulations, Captain,” he added, shaking

Gibbs’s hand.

“Thank you, sir, and may I say, I am most sensible—very grateful—” But here Gibbs’s eloquence, never

in great supply, failed him; he gave up and merely stood beaming widely on Laurence and all the world,

full of great goodwill.

The ships had been brought abreast for the transfer of the crate; Laurence did not have to take a boat, but

only sprang across on the up-roll of the swell. Riley and the rest of his officers had already crossed back.

He gave the order to make sail, and went directly below, to wrestle with the problem in privacy.

But no obliging alternative presented itself overnight. The next morning, he bowed to necessity and gave

his orders, and shortly the midshipmen and lieutenants of the ship came crowding into his cabin,

scrubbed and nervous in their best gear; this sort of mass summons was unprecedented, and the cabin

was not quite large enough to hold them all comfortably. Laurence saw anxious looks on many faces,

undoubtedly conscious of some private guilt, curiosity on others; Riley alone looked worried, perhaps

suspecting something of Laurence’s intentions.

Laurence cleared his throat; he was already standing, having ordered his desk and chair removed to

make more room, though he had kept back his inkstand and pen with several sheets of paper, now

resting upon the sill of the stern windows behind him. “Gentlemen,” he said, “you have all heard by now

that we found a dragon egg aboard the prize; Mr. Pollitt has very firmly identified it for us.”

Many smiles and some surreptitious elbowing; the little midshipman Battersea piped up in his treble

voice, “Congratulations, sir!” and a quick pleased rumble went around.

Laurence frowned; he understood their high spirits, and if the circumstances had been only a little

different, he would have shared them. The egg would be worth a thousand times its weight in gold,

brought safely to shore; every man aboard the ship would have shared in the bounty, and as captain he

himself would have taken the largest share of the value.

The Amitié’s logs had been thrown overboard, but her hands had been less discreet than her officers, and

Wells had learned enough from their complaints to explain the delay all too clearly. Fever among the

crew, becalmed in the doldrums for the better part of a month, a leak in her water tanks leaving her on

short water rations, and then at last the gale that they themselves had so recently weathered. It had been

a string of exceptionally bad luck, and Laurence knew the superstitious souls of his men would quail at

the idea that the Reliant was now carrying the egg that had undoubtedly been the cause of it.

He would certainly take care to keep that information from the crew, however; better by far that they not

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know of the long series of disasters which the Amitié had suffered. So after silence fell again, all

Laurence said was simply, “Unfortunately, the prize had a very bad crossing of it. She must have

expected to make landfall nearly a month ago, if not more, and the delay has made the circumstances

surrounding the egg urgent.” There was puzzlement and incomprehension now on most faces, though

looks of concern were beginning to spread, and he finished the matter off by saying, “In short,

gentlemen, it is about to hatch.”

Another low murmur, this time disappointed, and even a few quiet groans; ordinarily he would have

marked the offenders for a mild later rebuke, but as it was, he let them by. They would soon have more

cause to groan. So far they had not yet understood what it meant; they merely made the mental reduction

of the bounty on an unhatched egg to that paid for a feral dragonet, much less valuable.

“Perhaps not all of you are aware,” he said, silencing the whispers with a look, “that England is in a very

dire situation as regards the Aerial Corps. Naturally, our handling is superior, and the Corps can outfly

any other nation of the world, but the French can outbreed us two to one, and it is impossible to deny

that they have better variety in their bloodlines. A properly harnessed dragon is worth at least a first-rate

of one hundred guns to us, even a common Yellow Reaper or a three-ton Winchester, and Mr. Pollitt

believes from the size and color of the egg that this hatchling is a prime specimen, and very likely one of

the rare large breeds.”

“Oh!” said Midshipman Carver, in tones of horror, as he took Laurence’s meaning; he instantly went

crimson as eyes went to him, and shut his mouth tight.

Laurence ignored the interruption; Riley would see Carver’s grog stopped for a week without having to

be told. The exclamation had at least prepared the others. “We must at least make the attempt to harness

the beast,” he said. “I trust, gentlemen, that there is no man here who is not prepared to do his duty for

England. The Corps may not be the sort of life that any of us has been raised to, but the Navy is no

sinecure either, and there is not one of you who does not understand a hard service.”

“Sir,” said Lieutenant Fanshawe anxiously: he was a young man of very good family, the son of an earl.

“Do you mean—that is, shall we all—”

There was an emphasis on that all which made it obviously a selfish suggestion, and Laurence felt

himself go near purple with anger. He snapped, “We all shall, indeed, Mr. Fanshawe, unless there is any

man here who is too much of a coward to make the attempt, and in that case that gentleman may explain

himself to a court-martial when we put in at Madeira.” He sent an angry glare around the room, and no

one else met his eye or offered a protest.

He was all the more infuriated for understanding the sentiment, and for sharing it himself. Certainly no

man not raised to the life could be easy at the prospect of suddenly becoming an aviator, and he loathed

the necessity of asking his officers to face it. It meant, after all, an end to any semblance of ordinary life.

It was not like sailing, where you might hand your ship back to the Navy and be set ashore, often

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whether you liked it or not.

Even in times of peace, a dragon could not be put into dock, nor allowed to wander loose, and to keep a

full-grown beast of twenty tons from doing exactly as it pleased took very nearly the full attention of an

aviator and a crew of assistants besides. They could not really be managed by force, and were finicky

about their handlers; some would not accept management at all, even when new-hatched, and none

would accept it after their first feeding. A feral dragon could be kept in the breeding grounds by the

constant provision of food, mates, and comfortable shelter, but it could not be controlled outside, and it

would not speak with men.

So if a hatchling let you put it into harness, duty forever after tied you to the beast. An aviator could not

easily manage any sort of estate, nor raise a family, nor go into society to any real extent. They lived as

men apart, and largely outside the law, for you could not punish an aviator without losing the use of his

dragon. In peacetime they lived in a sort of wild, outrageous libertinage in small enclaves, generally in

the most remote and inhospitable places in all Britain, where the dragons could be given at least some

freedom. Though the men of the Corps were honored without question for their courage and devotion to

duty, the prospect of entering their ranks could not be appealing to any gentleman raised up in

respectable society.

Yet they sprang from good families, gentlemen’s sons handed over at the age of seven to be raised to the

life, and it would be an impossible insult to the Corps to have anyone other than one of his own officers

attempt the harnessing. And if one had to be asked to take the risk, then all; though if Fanshawe had not

spoken in so unbecoming a way, Laurence would have liked to keep Carver out of it, as he knew the boy

had a poor head for heights, which struck him as a grave impediment for an aviator. But in the

atmosphere created by the pitiful request, it would seem like favoritism, and that would not do.

He took a deep breath, still simmering with anger, and spoke again. “No man here has any training for

the task, and the only fair means of assigning the duty is by lot. Naturally, those gentlemen with family

are excused. Mr. Pollitt,” he said, turning to the surgeon, who had a wife and four children in

Derbyshire, “I hope that you will draw the name for us. Gentlemen, you will each write your name upon

a sheet here, and cast it into this bag.” He suited word to deed, tore off the part of the sheet with his own

name, folded it, and put it into the small sack.

Riley stepped forward at once, and the others followed suit obediently; under Laurence’s cold eye,

Fanshawe flushed and wrote his name with a shaking hand. Carver, on the other hand, wrote bravely,

though with a pale cheek; and at the last Battersea, unlike virtually all the others, was incautious in

tearing the sheet, so that his piece was unusually large; he could be heard murmuring quietly to Carver,

“Would it not be famous to ride a dragon?”

Laurence shook his head a little at the thoughtlessness of youth; yet it might indeed be better were one of

the younger men chosen, for the adjustment would be easier. Still, it would be hard to see one of the

boys sacrificed to the task, and to face the outrage of his family. But the same would be true of any man

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here, including himself.

Though he had done his best not to consider the consequences from a selfish perspective, now that the

fatal moment was at hand he could not entirely suppress his own private fears. One small bit of paper

might mean the wreck of his career, the upheaval of his life, disgrace in his father’s eyes. And, too, there

was Edith Galman to think of; but if he were to begin excusing his men for some half-formed

attachment, not binding, none of them would be left. In any case, he could not imagine excusing himself

from this selection for any reason: this was not something he could ask his men to face, and avoid

himself.

He handed the bag to Mr. Pollitt and made an effort to stand at his ease and appear unconcerned,

clasping his hands loosely behind his back. The surgeon shook the sack in his hand twice, thrust his

hand in without looking, and drew out a small folded sheet. Laurence was ashamed to feel a sensation of

profound relief even before the name was read: the sheet was folded over once more than his own entry

had been.

The emotion lasted only a moment. “Jonathan Carver,” Pollitt said. Fanshawe could be heard letting out

an explosive breath, Battersea sighing, and Laurence bowed his head, silently cursing Fanshawe yet

again; so promising a young officer, and so likely to be useless in the Corps.

“Well; there we have it,” he said; there was nothing else to be done. “Mr. Carver, you are relieved of

regular duty until the hatching; you will instead consult with Mr. Pollitt on the process to follow for the

harnessing.”

“Yes, sir,” the boy responded, a little faintly.

“Dismissed, gentlemen; Mr. Fanshawe, a word with you. Mr. Riley, you have the deck.”

Riley touched his hat, and the others filed out behind him. Fanshawe stood rigid and pale, hands clasped

behind his back, and swallowed; his Adam’s apple was prominent and bobbed visibly. Laurence made

him wait sweating until his steward had restored the cabin furniture, and then seated himself and glared

at him from this position of state, enthroned before the stern windows.

“Now then, I should like you to explain precisely what you meant by that remark earlier, Mr.

Fanshawe,” he said.

“Oh, sir, I didn’t mean anything,” Fanshawe said. “It is only what they say about aviators, sir—” He

stumbled to a stop under the increasingly militant gleam in Laurence’s eye.

“I do not give a damn what they say, Mr. Fanshawe,” he said icily. “England’s aviators are her shield

from the air, as the Navy is by sea, and when you have done half as much as the least of them, you may

offer criticism. You will stand Mr. Carver’s watch and do his work as well as your own, and your grog is

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