Page 16 (1/2)

Part III

Chapter 16

THE ROOM WAS ABLAZE with candles, old and silver; the guests an equal brilliance of jewels and silks and velvet, their voices rising and falling in steady rhythht be a hectic flush on sohter too quickly suppressed, but no-one surveying the coined that four hundredwas occupied by Napoleon’s ar their conversation

"They say that one could walk across the Seine on the backs of those foreign dragons, so closely were they crammed in upon one another outside Notre Dame," Countess Andreyevna said, in tones of solemn horror more appropriate to the discussion of a funeral than a baptism "We see nohere all this dreadful revolution leads, and what a monster has taken hold of France! He will not content hirandize else: he is a heathen, that is plain to see

"And not seven ," she added, with a flavor of spitefulness "I hope that Bonaparte may be confident of his paternity"

The new Roi de Cusco, as he had been styled, was by now four : he had been christened Napoleon Joseph Pachacuti Yupanqui--by Cardinal Fesch, and quite in accordance with Catholic rites, despite the complaints of the countess

Laurence had not held e The Incan Empress had shown plainly she had as much quick decision in her nature as ever did Bonaparte, and havingall the resources of her own vast Eons had driven the British out of the Incan Empire the very same day, and she had taken ship for France with Bonaparte not three months later, from the reports which had reached Laurence in Brazil

Evidently, Anahuarque had also chosen to anticipate the rites, and thus had Napoleon so quickly gained the heir required to secure the loyalty of the Incan dragons and the future of his dynasty--the only thing whichto further spur his relentless aht be deplored, Laurence had not the least desire to engage in gossip about it Napoleon’s son could as yet do nothing; his ar

Laurence quitted, without athered around the countess in so Has of s was finely tuned: this was nothing of the sort-- of the two There were a handful of aristocrats with soers-on seeking personal advantage; a few staff officers and adjutants, none as high as a general The rest of the company were merely the wealthy or titled or connected to the sanificance

"Ha cut him out of his own conversation with an elderly dandy of a baron with a brusque swiftness of which he would have been ashamed under less dire circumstances, "why the devil are we here?"

He and Te, with Chu and a couple of niru, and joined Shen Shi at the supply depot outside Moscow: enorh heat and cured meat, which she had displayed to theret that my preparations have been so inadequate," she said

They could not in justice be so called; but they were not, however, what one ons: the Russians had been recalcitrant in providing assistance "I a," Hammond said noith some asperity, "to catch someone’s ear: they will not listen to me; not even our own ambassador," he added bitterly, "the wretched old fool! There are a thousand adventurers all over the city, peddling ive them an audience; they have decided I am to be classed with these charlatans

"My only hope," Ha an end to their doubts--that they could scarcely deny the evidence when you had appeared--but I called at the depart, and a staff-officer told o ard down the New Smolensk Road and report for duty to whichever colonel you found first; but if I did not leave, he would lay hands on me and kick me all the way to the door They have not received any report whatsoever, fro Where are the rest of the beasts?"

"That is not a new question, to be asked of the British," atheir corner, and Laurence looked at him startled: an extraordinary intrusion, and the note of rancor as palpable as the thick Prussian accent

"I beg your pardon," Laurence said, grie, a wretched trap between honor and duty; and then there was so familiar about the unpowder smoke in his nose a over fields, tricolor flags billowing; a great dragon lapped in heavy scales alh; and he found he did know thehair and his paunch "Captain Dyhern, I believe?" he said, slowly

They had fought together, briefly, in the disastrous can of the year six Dyhern had been taken prisoner at Jena, he and his dragon Eroica, an i the many victiht to Bonaparte’s service

Dyhern’s face was hard and sour and scarred, thinner than last they hadyears could account for; but they had been allies, once, and had done him no injury of which to be ashaiven what aid they could, even in the er was not personal, but general, then; Laurence looked steadily into his face, and Dyhern after aand does not care to adlad to see you at liberty, sir," Laurence said; he felt no obligation to press for any more satisfaction "I hope it is not--I hope the cause is not an unhappy one" A captain would not ordinarily be paroled or released by the eneal sense Napoleon and Prussia hadtroops nor released the dragons, nor his e: the crown prince of Prussia, who lived yet in Paris under his supposed guardianship

"I escaped prison a year ago," Dyhern said, briefly for what could only have been a long and a dreadful tale "As for Eroica--I know not I have sought hirounds But they did not know of him They sequestered many of our beasts deep in France--some we hear they have persuaded to turn coat and join their ranks: youthose," he added, with a touch of fierce pride "But of anything else--" His hand h to convey that the sue was insufficient even to be put into words

So he was an aviator without a beast, grounded and unable to be of any use, and burdened by the wretched knowledge that if Eroica did live, he was yet kept a prisoner by his fear for Dyhern’s own safety: a cause for bitterness Laurence had hih to ons that Britain had pron of 1806, had only been held back due to the deadly plague which had descended so ons, and would not even when healthy have made any material difference to the disaster

"Yes, perhaps it is true," Dyhern said, with a snort "But it is no wonder if the Tsar and his generals think very little of British promises now, and little of this story, this fantasy, of three hundred dragons from nowhere, fro eight dragons, and call them three hundred"

Laurence shook his head: he did not himself knohere the bulk of the Chinese forces were, nor why they had not yet arrived in Moscow, and in truth he would have felt doubtful himself if he had not already seen once with his own eyes the rapidity of their : with a few seeds of doubt sowed already, particularly ifthe Russians, and the British aer if they could gain no ear

"We had best go and speak with Chu," Laurence said to Haons cannot be far distant noe ht persuade the Russians to send a courier to confirm the approach of at least one cohort, if he can tell us their direction"

There could be no question of their ht be anywhere in a square five hundred round support, even one of their extraordinary size, would be perilously vulnerable to any encounter with a substantial French force ons was not so many that they could afford to lose half of the, and then quietly said to Dyhern, "Captain, if you are not otherwise engaged in the war effort, I hope you will perlad of your assistance: we are short-handed, and my crew have many of them not seen aerial combat" Several of them indeed were former sailors, recruited froiance; his officers were a wretchedly scanty bunch,was brave and coh, but not by any means a star in the firh he deserved the place; besides thens

Dyhern was silent; the lines of resently for a ht of the room; then abruptly he said, "My God! I will not sit by the fire while there is a dragon to fly and fight; yes, I will coo now?"

Laurence would have gladlythem, but Dyhern refused: "I have with me my boots, my coat, and my sword What else do I possess?" He accosted a servant to write a hasty note of apology to his host, begging for his things to be delivered to Hammond’s care at the embassy when it should be convenient "Baron Sarkovsky will understand: his mother was a Prussian, a cousin of ive a ho our necks beneath the Corsican’s boot-heel: even those like myself for who of Prussia had signed with Napoleon had been hu in the extreering in the late air of August, thick even at night, and the h an aureole of pale haze "Napoleon is near Sht be outside the gates of Moscow tomorrow, for all that daiven a single battle He flees and flees, like a rat evading--Oh, it is Davout! Run to the east! Ah! Murat is there! Fly to the south! My God, Napoleon himself! And he faints away like a maiden," with a conteain froh to turn one’s sto fall without a shot fired; and still he flees But Barclay must defend Smolensk; he cannot let it fall: so h a narrow and unpleasantly scented warren of craates of the sained thelu years whose captain, a man nah a good-humored drunkenness: they could not presently fly their usual routes with the French Aron andin harness, and were roused only with difficulty for the flight out to the enca some ten miles and more beyond the city lih at Dyhern’s addition to their party, though he outweighed an elephant handily and could have taken several ers without any real trouble "Well, I suppose you had better lock yourselves on; on’t get there any sooner"

The encah its appearance astonished Dyhern to silence Shen Shi and her escort, eight of the coons and their nu-pits were covered with rough-hewn stone lids, and over these enoronsWells had been sunk up on a hill, near-by, and channels dug to bring the water rolling downstrea, and continuing on towards the cattle pens

Above all this stood the great gauzy pavilion which had been erected once more for Teeneral was napping; as they approached he raised his head, peering narrowly at Dyhern, and before Ha beasts deeneral, finally? Where are his maps? Will he tell me where the enemy is? My army cannot travel any slower than they already are"

Hammond, mouth half-opened, recalled himself and stammered, "Sir, no, this is Captain Dyhern, a Prussian officer, a friend of Captain Laur--that is, I oes, we had come to ask you that very--that is to say, to inquire of you, where your arht be I am afraid the Russians have had no reports, fro--"

He trailed off, in the face of Chu’s stare, and fell silent "Your re because we are not spoiling the territory of our allies? My troops are not undisciplined yearlings"

"I beg your pardon," Hammond said, "but surely by now many of the--of the niru will have joined up, in preparation for the final muster? Even a quarter of a jalan could not escape notice--"

"No," Chu said, "nor travel h this barren and unsettled countryside, before they had to stop to be sure they could feed the the farnize the plain sense of Chu’s reone too far in assigning to the Chinese legions so their wants, by the example he had seen within China itself, where undoubtedly there had been, unseen, supply depots and warehoused goods in the near distance available to the building force "Sir," he said, "do yousome substantial distance fro: indeed a sufficient separation to per four at a time, to make themselves nearly invisible within the vastness of the Russian countryside "It will require four days to muster the full force upon the battlefield: but that," he added in some heat, "must be presently!

"I have already sent the couriers to delay their pace, having seen the inadequacy of our supply here, but they cannot merely halt where they are, nor slow very much: the countryside is too poor We must find the eneain to return"

Hammond cleared his throat and said, "Sir, I a you do not suppose I in the least ements; but perhaps if--perhaps if soht be assembled, and summoned hence--"

Chu lowered his head to stare at him "Why?"

"The Russians think us liars," Laurence said bluntly, when Hammond would have continued to evade "They do not believe that the force is coust "They will certainly believe it when they have three hundred dragons eating every last scrap of wheat in twenty miles around this city, but they will not be very happy, and less so when I will have to send all !"