Black Powder War Page 0,46

us: someone in this damned city must know what has happened to the ambassador's staff; not all of them can have gone away."

"We might; if we had anything to bribe them with," Laurence said. "We are wretchedly short, John; I dare say they would sniff at what I can afford. I doubt it would see us out of the palace, when it would mean their positions if not their heads."

"Then we might have Temeraire knock down a wall to let us out; at least that might draw some notice," Granby said, not entirely joking, and flung himself down onto the nearest couch.

"Mr. Tharkay, do you translate for me again," Laurence said, and went to address the guards once more; though at first they had tolerated their guest-prisoners with good humor, they were now grown visibly annoyed, this being the sixth time Laurence had accosted them over the course of the day. "Pray tell them we require some more oil for the lamps, and candles," Laurence said to Tharkay, "also perhaps some soap, and other toilet articles," improvising some small requests.

These presently, as he had hoped, brought one of the young pages they had seen from afar, to fetch and carry for them; the boy was sufficiently impressed at the offer of a silver coin to agree to convey a message to Mustafa. Having first sent him off to bring the candles and sundry, to forestall any suspicion on the part of the guards, Laurence sat down with pen and paper to compose as severe a formal letter as he could manage, which he hoped would convey to that smiling gentleman that he did not mean to sit quietly in this bower.

"I am not sure what you mean by the beginning of the third paragraph," Temeraire said doubtfully, when Laurence read over the letter, written in French, to him.

"'Whatever your design may be, in leaving unanswered all the questions which - '" Laurence began.

"Oh," Temeraire said, "I think you want conception instead of dessin. Also, Laurence, I do not think you want to say you are his obedient domestique."

"Thank you, my dear," Laurence said, correcting the words, and guessing at the spelling of heuroo, before he folded up the missive and handed it over to the boy, who had now returned with a basket of candles and of small cakes of soap, heavily perfumed.

"I only hope he will not throw it in the fire," Granby said, after the boy had trotted away, coin clutched in one fist, not very discreetly. "Or I suppose Mustafa might hurl it in himself."

"We will not hear anything tonight, regardless," Laurence said. "We had better sleep while we can. If we get no answer, we will have to think of making a dash for Malta tomorrow. They do not have much of a shore battery here, and I dare say they will answer us very differently if we come back with a first-rate and a couple of frigates behind us."

"Laurence," Temeraire called from outside, rousing him from a thick, too-real dream of sailing; Laurence sat up and rubbed his wet face: a change in the wind had carried the fountain-spray onto him during the night.

"Yes," he answered, and went to wash in the fountain, still half-asleep; he went down into the gardens, nodding civilly to the yawning guards, and Temeraire nudged at him with interest.

"That is a nice smell," he said, diverted, and Laurence realized he had washed with the perfumed soap.

"I will have to scrub it off later," he said, dismayed. "Are you hungry?"

"I would not mind something to eat," Temeraire said, "but I must tell you something: I have been talking to Bezaid and Sherazde, and they say their egg will hatch very soon."

"Who?" Laurence said, puzzled, then stared at the pair of Kazilik dragons, who blinked their glossy eyes at him in return, with mild interest. "Temeraire," he said, slowly, "do you mean that we are to have their egg?"

"Yes, and two others, but those have not started to harden," Temeraire said. "I think," he added. "They only know a little French, and a little of the dragon-language, but they have been telling me words in Turkish."

Laurence paid this no attention, too staggered by the news; very nearly since any organized sort of dragon-breeding had begun, Britain had been trying to acquire a line of fire-breathers. A few of the Flamme-de-Gloire had been brought over after Agincourt, but the last had died out scarcely a century later, and since then there had been