…
They had been waiting for just over seven hours by the turn of the glass, but without a sun in the sky, and with only a single lantern to give them light, it was far too easy to lose one's sense of time in the stifling gloom.
Laurence had already paced twice, thrice, four times around the edges of the dark encampment, exchanging quiet words with his crew, half to keep himself busy and half because he knew that to lay down and try to sleep would be an even greater torment. The sandstorm winds had been howling over the Urseeri desert for what felt like eternity, whistling in a thousand shrill and plaintive voices, so that not one of the Inysh party had been able to snatch so much as a wink of sleep. And besides the Navy officers, there was Long Tian Xiang, self-appointed draconic representative of the Empire of the Twelve Lakes to the Queen of Inys, whose shifting, sinuous bulk took up most of the space inside the tent. Laurence's crew had been obliged to take up positions by the tough canvas walls, which rippled continuously – now filling with air, now deflating, as if with living breath: an arrangement that served only to make them all more nervous.
Nobody had taken well to the arid desert climate, but it was Long Tian Xiang who even now suffered the most from lack of water. Eastern sea-dragons responded far less well to heat exposure than their fire-breathing Western counterparts. Digby and his fellow midship-officers had covered him as best they could in rain tarp to prevent dehydration, but there remained a distressed expression in those half-lidded eyes which did not sit well with Laurence. Six months ago he had been thoroughly convinced that all dragons were wyrms, and all wyrms servants of the Nameless One; now he now found it difficult to believe that anyone could not grow fond of the creature, having spoken with him for more than five minutes.
Taking care not to trip over anyone in the dark, he made his way across the tent and laid his bare hand on the dragon's snout.
"Are you well?" he asked quietly, for once not blundering over the mode of address; Easterners referred to dragons always with "great" or "shining" before the name, but Long Tian Xiang had assured him that he did not mind it if they skipped that formality – and anyway, he behaved too much like an enthusiastic youth for anyone to feel comfortable calling him sir.
"Perfectly well," said the dragon, with a despondent little sigh, "only this wretched sand has gotten under my scales, and itches horribly. Cannot Roland and Dyer brush me down, as they did after we fought the brigands?"
"That would require us to remove the tarp," Laurence said slowly; he was unsure if he should be receiving this as an order, an urgent request or a suggestion to be taken or refused. "Perhaps it would be best to leave it on for the moment, so that whatever humidity it may have retained does not escape?"
"Yes," Long Tian Xiang said glumly, "I suppose so," and laid his enormous snout upon the ground again.
Laurence felt a pang of sympathy. "I am sorry that we have not made better time," he said, resisting the urge to stroke the smooth, scaled muzzle. "You must be exceedingly uncomfortable."
"Oh, I know I ought not complain – it is only that I did not think the desert could be so wide, and so dry! I have never been away from water for so long; I feel as though I am withering."
"I will ask Roland and Dyer to brush you down as soon as we can leave the tent," Laurence promised. But his conscience bade him seek some more concrete assurance of the ambassador's comfort, and so he forced himself to turn and address the dusty figure that sat leaning against Long Tian Xiang's flank, politely pretending not to listen. "Are we very far from the next oasis, Mr. Tharkay?"
There was a pause before a reply came out of the darkness. "We still have a four days' march ahead of us. When the storm relents, your cook may slaughter one of the camels, and perhaps the great Long Tian Xiang will consent to be doused in its blood for a little relief."
"That is a good idea," said Long Tian Xiang, perking up at this prospect. "Do you suppose the oasis will be large enough to bathe in?"
"For a dragon? You ought to be able to submerge yourself, if it has not shrunk over the years. But I beg you will not oblige me to make that a promise. No one, to my knowledge, has ever tried to fit a full-grown dragon into forty metres squared of water."
Laurence frowned. "At the beginning of this venture, Mr. Tharkay, you assured us that there would be water enough to safeguard the ambassador's crossing. Was that not a promise?"
"Enough to drink, yes," Tharkay said mildly. "Enough for a luxurious bath, however, no. Lacastrine dragons can survive without submerging for a minimum of six weeks at a time, provided they can sate their thirst. The emperor would hardly have sanctioned our going overland if that were not the case. And as much as I would like us to have a more comfortable journey, I am not in the habit of making false guarantees."
"No, indeed." Only the habit of vanishing without warning, of leaving us, at your mercy, alone in the wild Urseer. Laurence did not say these things, but he could have sworn, by the half-visible gleam of Tharkay's eyes in the dark, that they were perfectly audible nonetheless. "I am glad to hear you say so. It is difficult to trust those who do."
It was as near a veiled warning as he was willing to go; yet Tharkay only laughed softly to himself, as if at a private joke.
"What is funny?" Long Tian Xiang inquired.
"Captain Laurence has certain doubts about our voyage, I am afraid," said Tharkay, withdrawing a knife and whetstone from beneath the folds of his coat. "But he will not avow them."
"Why not?"
"It would not be polite. Everyone has their own particular notion of what constitutes good manners, and you will find Captain Laurence quite the paragon of Inysh courtesy. Are you familiar with the Six Virtues?"
"The religion of Virtudom," Long Tian Xiang said eagerly, before Laurence could think of a response to this wily impudence. "It is founded on the legend of Saint Galian Berethnet, who they say slew the Nameless One, and his Holy Retinue, each of whom embodies one of the different virtues of knighthood – justice, courage, temperance, generosity, courtesy, and fellowship."
"Just so. And every child of Virtudom must choose one of these knights for their patron. I am sure you have seen the brooches worn by the good Captain's crew," Tharkay went on, and punctuating each with the metallic scrape of the whetstone along the knife's serrated edge, "a clock for temperance, a shield for courage, joined hands for fellowship, wheat for generosity, twin cups for justice –"
"– and a book for courtesy," finished Long Tian Xiang. "That is the one Laurence wears. But I do not see why having chosen the Knight of Courtesy should prohibit him from speaking his mind; surely it could only benefit our mission to address his concerns straightaway?"
"Perhaps. Perhaps not," Tharkay said absently, without looking up. "We must leave that to his discretion."
Laurence's jaw went taut. This was not the first time he had suffered to hear such remarks from Tharkay, which were infuriating precisely because they were so perfectly inoffensive. But he had not been made post for losing his temper at every clever goading. Keeping one hand on Long Tian Xiang's scaled cheek, he said coolly, "You yourself chose courtesy for your patron virtue, sir, if I am not mistaken."
"I did," Tharkay said. "Although perhaps not for the same honourable reasons."
"Oh, truly?" said Long Tian Xiang; for a hundred-year-old creature with jaws big enough for oxen, he could sound remarkably like an upper-class matron fishing for tidbits of gossip over tea. "Why did you fix on courtesy, then, and not one of the others? I did not know one could have dishonourable reasons for choosing a patron virtue – but I do not mean to pry, of course," he added, neatly contradicting himself.
Tharkay paused as if to give the matter serious consideration, and Laurence found himself hesitating, torn between his curiosity and his desire to quit the conversation; he had observed the brooch on Tharkay's coat a dozen times over during their journey, and the longer they travelled together, the more convinced he became that this was another piece of understated mockery – though who was being mocked and why, he could not guess. Besides which, he would go mad if he had to spend another night puzzling through Tharkay's cryptic, nettling comments, and tormenting himself with all the clever ripostes he could have made but did not think of when the moment was right.
"You are aware, I believe," Tharkay said at last, "of the circumstances under which the Reliant delivered the Inysh ambassador to His Majesty the Undying Emperor?"
"I think so," said Long Tian Xiang. "Queen Sabran of Inys has only recently abolished the decree condemning every country not under the banner of Virtudom, in favour of opening a dialogue with the East. That is why Laurence was commissioned to escort him there and back – which I suppose he would have done, if Hammond had not got permission to stay and establish the embassy. I am glad Mother permitted me to travel back with you in his stead, even if it is overland – there is so much of the world I have not seen, and so much to learn from it! I do not see why Queen Sabran could not have perceived this error earlier, and corrected it, or even one of her predecessors; we might have begun negotiating much sooner."
"Quite right. The Inysh will not deign to collaborate with heretics on an individual basis, even if their queen now sets a different example. I cannot pass for an Inyshman," Tharkay said dryly, "but I can buy myself safe passage through Virtudom at the price of a small badge, which no one questions so long as I occasionally make reference to the Saint and the Six Virtues."
"A small badge and a lie," Laurence said in a low voice.
"Lies are cheap, Captain. Cheaper, certainly, than changing my name, which gives me away immediately, and which I am too proud or too sentimental to give up for good."
"Oh! certainly," said Long Tian Xiang, "you cannot renounce your name; that would dishonour your family. But Tharkay, you have not answered my question. Why courtesy?"
Tharkay said, "Why not courtesy?"
"Well, it is only that it seems rather … well …" Long Tian Xiang appeared to cast about for an inoffensive way to express himself, before giving up and saying under his breath, "mundane. Not at all heroic or extraordinary."
"Ah," said Tharkay, "but it is the mundane things we most often take for granted. After all, to be polite is of far greater importance than to be generous or just; would you not agree, Captain?"
"I would not," Laurence said stiffly. He knew, he knew Tharkay was deliberately provoking him, but if the Duchess of Justice herself were to ask him for proof, he would have none to give. "No one virtue is more important than the others. They must be held in balance, else courage, without temperance, becomes folly – and justice, without generosity, becomes –" He stopped, racking his brains for an appropriate word.
"Ruthlessness?" Tharkay offered.
Laurence flushed. "Yes, precisely."
"And what becomes of courtesy, if it is not tempered by candour?"
"I should say rather that candour must be tempered by courtesy."
"They ought to balance each other, Captain, unless I have mistaken your earlier point. I should be grateful if you would oblige me with your informed opinion; I am, after all, only an ignorant convert, with much to learn from virtuous creatures such as yourself – for you know it goes against a heretic's nature to take for granted what he was taught in childhood."
Laurence felt his grip on his own temper slipping by the moment. Oblique incivilities he could tolerate, but he would not suffer Tharkay's making sport of him like this. Very well! When one's opponent made a weapon of courtesy, the only antidote, the only possible defense, was a forthright attitude and a plain refusal to play these games. He would not stoop to the same level of passive taunts and veiled contempt. "Certainly," he said coldly. "Courtesy, without candour, becomes artifice. To be courteous only out of obligation, or out of a desire to open doors for oneself in society – that is very near hypocrisy."
"By that measure," said Tharkay, sweeping the whetstone over the knife again, "one might denounce nine-tenths of all human society for being deceivers and hypocrites." When Laurence did not reply, he added, as if in afterthought, "But not yourself, I suppose?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"If I may be so bold, Captain, surely you are not yourself insensible to the necessity of observing all the etiquettes and forms of polite society, without which one is written off as a rude barbarian and a lost cause. What can we call that but an obligation of survival?"
"I am not insensible, no; but etiquette is not in itself meaningless. I choose to be courteous because I wish to treat others with kindness and dignity, as is their due, not to preserve myself in the eyes of society."
"And this duty is more important to you than courage or justice."
"I am not equal to promising to be just or courageous for the rest of my days – although I hope I have not yet proved to be a coward. I am not myself in the business of making false guarantees. But I believe …" Laurence paused, and went on quietly, "I believe that while courage, and justice, and all the rest, are what we owe to ourselves, courtesy is what we owe to our fellows – whether they are human or not," he added, looking into the nearest of Long Tian Xiang's keen blue eyes. "One might say the same of generosity, of course, but that would require a selfless and accommodating nature, which I do not possess."
There was a prolonged silence as sandstorm winds beat against the walls of the tent. Long Tian Xiang shifted uncomfortably and shook out one foreclaw after the other, causing a small waterfall of sand to land on the ground and bury Laurence halfway to his knees.
"Well," Tharkay said lightly, "for my part, I do not believe that courtesy requires any genuine fellow-feeling; it is a dressing and a mode of behaviour, no more. Indeed, it has always seemed to me the least hypocritical of the Six Virtues."
Laurence would sooner have expected it to start raining than for Tharkay to volunteer anything about himself, and so it took him a moment to digest this, gather his wits and finally demand, outraged, "How so, sir?"
"Come now, Captain. What about Virtudom has been at all generous or temperate for the past thousand years? Their legal system, perhaps, which once put children as young as twelve to the stake? Or their foreign policy, which prohibited association of any kind with heretic nations? How many generations did it take for Her Majesty to remember the Knight of Fellowship and realize that perhaps there was something worth preserving outside her own borders?"
"Sir –"
"One has only to open a book of Inysh history," Tharkay went on blithely, "to find that Virtudom did not concern itself overmuch with its own virtues until about six months ago – except courtesy, which has dictated Inysh life, at least, quite stridently as far as anyone can remember."
"Sir," Laurence snapped, "you go too far –" and closed his mouth, for there was too much justice in what Tharkay said, even if it was suffused with mockery. Indeed, six months ago honour would have demanded that he defend his faith and his country, but Queen Sabran had issued a decree that forbade the religious persecution of any one person or nation, and which by default legitimized criticism of Virtudom's thousand-year dogma. He was no longer bound to defend a practice he did not believe in. And after the battle on the Abyss – after travelling to the Empire of the Twelve Lakes and meeting Long Tian Xiang, who was as far from a fire-breathing wyrm as an orange from a pear – Laurence could not think but that all of Virtudom had been wrong about what constituted heresy at all.
"But it is not undeserved," he finished quietly, after a moment's pause.
In the thinning darkness, Tharkay's expression of faint surprise was nearly visible; then his features smoothed over again, like a slate wiped clean. "You are generous, Captain," he said, with the barest edge of an ironic smile. "Perhaps you chose the wrong patron knight, after all."
"And you are bold to speak so, Mr. Tharkay; you might have chosen courage, yourself."
"Ah, courage! Too lofty for me by half, I daresay."
"By no means. You acquitted yourself well when the brigands attacked our camp, and no coward would traverse the Urseeri desert alone, as you have done." Laurence had meant to repay Tharkay for his sarcastic remarks, but to his own surprise, the words came out sincere. He did not quite admire the man, no; it would be extraordinarily unwise to admire someone he could not trust. But he liked to give credit where credit was due, and taking proper measure of Tharkay's character might well save their mission, if the desert did not kill them all first.
Tharkay lowered the knife and whetstone until they rested on his thighs. "You are too kind, sir," he said, looking up at Laurence. "But such frankness as we have exhibited to one another thus far is surely against the tenets of our patron knight. Pray let us not say things we do not mean."
"I was being perfectly candid, Mr. Tharkay."
"Of course."
"And I would ask you to do me the same courtesy, at least so far as it pertains to our journey west."
Tharkay inclined his head. "I am sure no one could, in good conscience, refuse so reasonable a request, and indeed I would be ashamed not to follow the example of a true Inysh gentleman such as yourself." He rose, dusting off his coat and trousers. "The storm is abating, I think. I will go and check in on the camels."
He brushed past without another word; Laurence, having politely stepped aside, watched him sketch a bow to Long Tian Xiang and make his way across the tent to where the entrance flaps were pinned down by wooden pegs.
"Well, that was certainly very interesting," observed Long Tian Xiang, "only I do not believe Tharkay ever answered my question."
But he did, Laurence thought, watching their guide wrap cloth around his neck and mouth. A hush had begun to fall over the tent as its occupants fell asleep one by one, lulled at last by the dwindling sandstorm winds. Lieutenant Lucas had stuffed her pack beneath her head for a pillow, and Roland curled up near her in a heap. Granby was slumped against one of the tent poles where he had been sitting with a few fellow topmen; they were all of them heavy-eyed and nodding over their chests, leaning against one another like drunken men on the street. Now with a hat pulled down over his head, Tharkay glanced over his shoulder at Laurence before turning up his collar and ducking out through the tent flaps.
"You may sleep by me, if you like," Long Tian Xiang said to Laurence, with an air of great magnanimity. "I am very warm, and though I do not know how to dream-weave just yet, I am sure it would be much more pleasant than one of those bedrolls."
"I thank you," Laurence said, stifling a yawn. "But I cannot sleep just yet. I should like to wait until Mr. Tharkay comes back, so that I may ask him how the camels are getting on, and how long we have yet to remain inside the tent."
"Well, we do not know how long he will be," Long Tian Xiang pointed out, "and you seem quite exhausted. I have a better idea: when he returns, he can sleep by your side, like Granby with his fellows over there, and you will thus be able to keep an eye on him for as long as you would like."
Laurence was so tired, he must have misheard. "I … do not quite take your meaning."
"It is much quieter now," Long Tian Xiang said vaguely, his eyes beginning to close. "Perhaps I will take just a little nap."
Silence crept through the tent like an ink blot through paper. Laurence, resigned, sat and tilted his head back against the smooth, scaled flank, and for a while he stared at the tent flap across the encampment, waiting for it to pull back and unveil Tharkay's dusty, cloth-wrapped figure. But it only twitched and rippled in the last gusts of the storm, and he fell asleep before he could determine why, exactly, he should feel so uneasy.
…