Naomi Novik - Temeraire 2 - Throne Of Jade

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Throne of Jade
Throne of Jade
Naomi Novik
Contents
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Part II
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
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Throne of Jade
Chapter 10
Part III
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Selected extracts from “A Brief Discourse upon the Oriental Breeds,...
In memory of Chawa Nowik,
in hopes that someday I’ll be ready to write her book
Acknowledgments
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Throne of Jade
A SECOND NOVEL POSES a fresh set of challenges and alarms, and I am especially grateful to my
editors, Betsy Mitchell of Del Rey, and Jane Johnson and Emma Coode of HarperCollins UK, for their
insights and excellent advice. I also owe many thanks to my team of beta readers on this one for all their
help and encouragement: Holly Benton, Francesca Coppa, Dana Dupont, Doris Egan, Diana Fox,
Vanessa Len, Shelley Mitchell, Georgina Paterson, Sara Rosenbaum, L. Salom, Micole Sudberg,
Rebecca Tushnet, and Cho We Zen.
Many thanks to my sterling agent, Cynthia Manson, for all her help and guidance; and to my family for
all their continuing advice and support and enthusiasm. And I’m lucky beyond measure in my very best
and in-house reader, my husband, Charles.
And I want to say a special thanks to Dominic Harman, who has been doing one brilliant cover after
another for both the American and British editions; it’s a thrill beyond measure to see my dragons given
life in his art.
Chapter 1
THE DAY WAS unseasonably warm for November, but in some misguided deference to the Chinese
embassy, the fire in the Admiralty boardroom had been heaped excessively high, and Laurence was
standing directly before it. He had dressed with especial care, in his best uniform, and all throughout the
long and unbearable interview the lining of his thick bottle-green broadcloth coat had been growing
steadily more sodden with sweat.
Over the doorway, behind Lord Barham, the official indicator with its compass arrow showed the
direction of the wind over the Channel: in the north-northeast today, fair for France; very likely even
now some ships of the Channel Fleet were standing in to have a look at Napoleon’s harbors. His
shoulders held at attention, Laurence fixed his eyes upon the broad metal disk and tried to keep himself
distracted with such speculation; he did not trust himself to meet the cold, unfriendly gaze fixed upon
him.
Barham stopped speaking and coughed again into his fist; the elaborate phrases he had prepared sat not
at all in his sailor’s mouth, and at the end of every awkward, halting line, he stopped and darted a look
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Throne of Jade
over at the Chinese with a nervous agitation that approached obsequity. It was not a very creditable
performance, but under ordinary circumstances, Laurence would have felt a degree of sympathy for
Barham’s position: some sort of formal message had been anticipated, even perhaps an envoy, but no
one had ever imagined that the Emperor of China would send his own brother halfway around the world.
Prince Yongxing could, with a word, set their two nations at war; and there was besides something
inherently awful in his presence: the impervious silence with which he met Barham’s every remark; the
overwhelming splendor of his dark yellow robes, embroidered thickly with dragons; the slow and
relentless tapping of his long, jewel-encrusted fingernail against the arm of his chair. He did not even
look at Barham: he only stared directly across the table at Laurence, grim and thin-lipped.
His retinue was so large they filled the boardroom to the corners, a dozen guards all sweltering and
dazed in their quilted armor and as many servants besides, most with nothing to do, only attendants of
one sort or another, all of them standing along the far wall of the room and trying to stir the air with
broad-paneled fans. One man, evidently a translator, stood behind the prince, murmuring when
Yongxing lifted a hand, generally after one of Barham’s more involved periods.
Two other official envoys sat to Yongxing’s either side. These men had been presented to Laurence only
perfunctorily, and they had neither of them said a word, though the younger, called Sun Kai, had been
watching all the proceedings, impassively, and following the translator’s words with quiet attention. The
elder, a big, round-bellied man with a tufted grey beard, had gradually been overcome by the heat: his
head had sunk forward onto his chest, mouth half open for air, and his hand was barely even moving his
fan towards his face. They were robed in dark blue silk, almost as elaborately as the prince himself, and
together they made an imposing façade: certainly no such embassy had ever been seen in the West.
A far more practiced diplomat than Barham might have been pardoned for succumbing to some degree
of servility, but Laurence was scarcely in any mood to be forgiving; though he was nearly more furious
with himself, at having hoped for anything better. He had come expecting to plead his case, and
privately in his heart he had even imagined a reprieve; instead he had been scolded in terms he would
have scrupled to use to a raw lieutenant, and all in front of a foreign prince and his retinue, assembled
like a tribunal to hear his crimes. Still he held his tongue as long as he could manage, but when Barham
at last came about to saying, with an air of great condescension, “Naturally, Captain, we have it in mind
that you shall be put to another hatchling, afterwards,” Laurence had reached his limit.
“No, sir,” he said, breaking in. “I am sorry, but no: I will not do it, and as for another post, I must beg to
be excused.”
Sitting beside Barham, Admiral Powys of the Aerial Corps had remained quite silent through the course
of the meeting; now he only shook his head, without any appearance of surprise, and folded his hands
together over his ample belly. Barham gave him a furious look and said to Laurence, “Perhaps I am not
clear, Captain; this is not a request. You have been given your orders, you will carry them out.”
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Throne of Jade
“I will be hanged first,” Laurence said flatly, past caring that he was speaking in such terms to the First
Lord of the Admiralty: the death of his career if he had still been a naval officer, and it could scarcely do
him any good even as an aviator. Yet if they meant to send Temeraire away, back to China, his career as
an aviator was finished: he would never accept a position with any other dragon. None other would ever
compare, to Laurence’s mind, and he would not subject a hatchling to being second-best when there
were men in the Corps lined up six-deep for the chance.
Yongxing did not say anything, but his lips tightened; his attendants shifted and murmured amongst
themselves in their own language. Laurence did not think he was imagining the hint of disdain in their
tone, directed less at himself than at Barham; and the First Lord evidently shared the impression, his face
growing mottled and choleric with the effort of preserving the appearance of calm. “By God, Laurence;
if you imagine you can stand here in the middle of Whitehall and mutiny, you are wrong; I think perhaps
you are forgetting that your first duty is to your country and your King, not to this dragon of yours.”
“No, sir; it is you who are forgetting. It was for duty I put Temeraire into harness, sacrificing my naval
rank, with no knowledge then that he was any breed truly out of the ordinary, much less a Celestial,”
Laurence said. “And for duty I took him through a difficult training and into a hard and dangerous
service; for duty I have taken him into battle, and asked him to hazard his life and happiness. I will not
answer such loyal service with lies and deceit.”
“Enough noise, there,” Barham said. “Anyone would think you were being asked to hand over your
firstborn. I am sorry if you have made such a pet of the creature you cannot bear to lose him—”
“Temeraire is neither my pet nor my property, sir,” Laurence snapped. “He has served England and the
King as much as I have, or you yourself, and now, because he does not choose to go back to China, you
stand there and ask me to lie to him. I cannot imagine what claim to honor I should have if I agreed to it.
Indeed,” he added, unable to restrain himself, “I wonder that you should even have made the proposal; I
wonder at it greatly.”
“Oh, your soul to the devil, Laurence,” Barham said, losing his last veneer of formality; he had been a
serving sea-officer for years before joining the Government, and he was still very little a politician when
his temper was up. “He is a Chinese dragon, it stands to reason he will like China better; in any case, he
belongs to them, and there is an end to it. The name of thief is a very unpleasant one, and His Majesty’s
Government does not propose to invite it.”
“I know how I am to take that, I suppose.” If Laurence had not already been half-broiled, he would have
flushed. “And I utterly reject the accusation, sir. These gentlemen do not deny they had given the egg to
France; we seized it from a French man-of-war; the ship and the egg were condemned as lawful prize
out of hand in the Admiralty courts, as you very well know. By no possible understanding does
Temeraire belong to them; if they were so anxious about letting a Celestial out of their hands, they ought
not have given him away in the shell.”
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ThroneofJadeThroneofJadeNaomiNovikContentsPartIChapter1Chapter2Chapter3Chapter4Chapter5PartIIChapter6Chapter7Chapter8Chapter9file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Novik,%20Naomi%20-%20Temeraire%2002%20-%20Thro e%20Of%20Jade.html(1of233)22-12-200616:07:57ThroneofJadeChapter10PartIIIChapter11Chapter12Chapter13Ch...

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