FIC: Without Answer
Title: Without Answer
Author: sahiya
Pairing/Rating: Jane/Laurence, PG-13
Length: 4500 words
Disclaimer: Not mine! They all belong to Naomi Novik and Del Rey.
Summary: Excidium was eight weeks dead when Laurence returned.
Author's Notes: People probably saw this back when I posted it to the_covert and temeraire_fans in August, but I was going back and re-tagging all my fics tonight (procrastinating? moi?) and thought I'd post it here, since that is what the comm is for, after all. Thanks very much to fuzzyboo03 and antennapedia for beta reading.
This was obviously written before the release of Empire of Ivory and based purely on my own speculation.
Without Answer
Excidium was eight weeks dead when Laurence returned.
Out of strange coincidence, Jane found herself engaged in writing him a letter at the moment he appeared in the doorway of her rooms at Dover. But then again, perhaps the coincidence was not so strange; she had written him many letters, none of which had she any hope of sending. She did not indulge herself such as a matter of course, but the day the first dragon began coughing blood - one of the couriers, it had been, a little Greyling - and they had all realized far too late the awful truth of their situation, Jane had seated herself at her desk and written an account of events. There was barely anything personal in it at all, save that it began Dear William.
Now, she had a stack of letters in her trunk that described in the baldest possible terms everything that had happened since then: each dragon fallen sick at Dover and the ones they had news of from other coverts, each dragon dead, and as well, the course of Excidium’s illness till that cold, clear day when his labored, painful breathing had eased at last.
His death was not in any way unexpected, but Jane had thought he had another day, perhaps two; though that could hardly be called a reprieve and it was God’s own mercy that released him from his suffering. She had stood the night watch, keeping vigil until dawn light stretched down into the covert and across the heaving backs of the sick dragons, when she had fallen into light sleep, leaning against his feverish body. Her lieutenant woke her when they realized he would not draw breath again.
I abhor any sort of weakness in myself, she wrote now, especially that which might be attributed to my sex. But for all that, Laurence, I wish very much that you would
Here she paused. She wished he might come home; and yet, at the same time, she did not, she could not, because with Laurence must come Emily, and with Emily, questions to which Jane had no answers.
Thus, it was with a certain relief as well as a certain dread that she glanced up to see Laurence in her doorway. He appeared rather disheveled, his neck-cloth askew, his clothing stained and travel-worn - highly unusual for her perennially trim and proper former Naval officer. He said nothing; after a moment Jane was forced to look away, for she could not bear the stark sympathy in his eyes.
She turned her letter over so that the writing was not visible. She had never expected, nor indeed wanted, that he should ever see any of them.
“Jane -” he began, tentatively.
“Is Emily well?” she asked; it was merely something to say to forestall the inevitable, but it occurred to her quite suddenly that she had not the faintest idea what she might do if Emily were not. She had been thus far too mired in worry as to what must become of them to even consider the possibility, but of course it was a long journey, undoubtedly rife with dangers; what if Laurence had come not to give condolences, but rather to deliver his own terrible news?
She held herself very still, awaiting his answer, but for his part, he seemed relieved at the question. “Yes,” he said. “Very well. She conducted herself admirably.”
Jane let out a long breath. “Good, that is very good. And Temeraire?”
“Also well.”
“And -”
“Jane,” Laurence said in a tone that brooked no argument. It was a tone Jane knew well, having one of her own: a captain’s tones, the voice of command. Jane had not used her own in some months, of course; she wondered if it would fade with disuse. She fell silent, and looked away.
“Jane,” he repeated, stepping into the room for the first time, though she had not invited him: an unthinkable breach of etiquette for him. “I am so very sorry. I cannot conceive -”
“No,” she said hollowly, “you cannot.” But that was not fair; he had come close enough to losing Temeraire, as she well knew, which loss would have devastated him. She was forced to relent. “I must beg your forgiveness, Laurence. You’ve been so long gone, and I . . .” She stood, and then did not know quite what to do with herself. The notion of embracing him felt oddly embarrassing, indecorous. “I should have liked to give you a better welcome,” she finished at last.
He did not answer her for nearly a minute. She watched him consider and discard several replies, in his careful, courteous way. At last he said, “Emily does not know. That is,” he added, “I have not told her, nor has anyone else to my knowledge. But she may well have realized.”
“Yes.” Jane drew a deep breath. “Yes, I should - I must tell Emily.” Daunting and terrible as the task was, at the very least it was something to do, a direction and a purpose.
She went to the door, caught the attention of a passing servant, and bade him find Emily and send her up. She closed the door and turned to find herself in unexpected proximity to Laurence. She wanted to step away, but she did not; rather, she tilted her head back to see him properly - she had scarcely looked him in the eye since he had arrived - and said, “If you were to stay, I would be glad of it.”
“Then stay I shall.” He touched her then for the first time, a mere hand on her wrist, and she allowed it, though she felt as though she might come undone completely in the face of too much affection. In spite of her reservations, she found herself leaning towards him until her head rested against his chest, his large hands upon her back. He smelled of dirt and sweat from the road; it made her want to weep for all she had lost as she had not done since the day Excidium died and she cried alone in these very rooms, far from the gaze of her crew and the other captains.
She did not weep; though she was certain he’d not have thought less of her if she had, she would have thought less of herself. Rather, she gathered herself inward to speak past the painful constriction in her throat. “Emily . . . carried out her duties well?”
“Yes. Very well. She will make a fine -” Laurence stopped. “I am sorry,” he said in a strangled voice following a moment of mortified silence.
“I quite understand,” Jane replied, closing her eyes. “And she may yet with another Longwing, a hatchling. But with so many captains now left unpartnered . . . well, the competition will be fierce for some time, as you might imagine.”
“Has there been talk, then, of putting you to a hatching?”
“Yes.” Jane opened her eyes once more. She could see through the window from where they stood, though all that was visible were the tops of the trees, still winter bare, and a broad swathe of gray sky. “But I think not. The notion of beginning again with a hatchling . . . I want no other dragon than Excidium.”
“But perhaps, when some time has passed -”
“Did you not feel the same?” she answered sharply, pulling away to look up at him. “When you thought you had lost Temeraire, did you not say the same, that you would rather be hanged than begin anew with a hatchling? Did you believe your feelings would change with time then, Laurence?”
He bowed his head. “No, Jane, I did not. I must beg your pardon.”
She at once felt ashamed of herself. This was none of it his fault, least of all that he now found himself with the only fully trained and healthy dragon in all England. Her apology was forestalled, however, by a knock at the door. She stepped away to compose herself, while he went to sit on her trunk, leaving the two chairs free for Jane and Emily. She opened the door, and found herself facing her daughter for the first time in nigh on two years.
Emily barely resembled the girl Jane had said farewell to; she had grown so she was much the same height as Jane, and her shape had altered - all in quite expected ways, but no less startling for that. Jane wondered rather sadly what changes her daughter perceived in her; she expected that she bore the same signs as the other captains who had lost dragons: aged and grieving, tired and empty.
“Emily,” Jane said, stepping forward to embrace her. “Welcome home.”
“Thank you, Mother,” Emily replied, and allowed Jane to draw her over to sit. She nodded respectfully to Laurence. “Everything is well with Temeraire, sir,” she said. “He was eating when I left, though he bade me ask you if he might not bathe later.”
Laurence nodded. “Thank you, Emily. I shall see to him shortly.”
She nodded, and looked back toward Jane, who could not bring herself to say what she must. “Mother,” Emily said at last, reaching for Jane’s hand, “you needn’t tell me. Excidium is dead, isn’t he?”
“Yes, dearest,” Jane sighed; cowardly though she knew it was, she felt relieved beyond words that she did not have to say it herself.
Emily merely nodded and lowered her gaze to their joined hands. “I thought he must be, when I heard what happened. I am so very sorry, Mother.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and then accepted the handkerchief Laurence unobtrusively offered her, the only outward signs of her own grief; her voice never cracked, but remained steady throughout.
“As am I,” Jane said quietly, and then did not know what else she might say. Emily had never known a time when she had not been Excidium’s future captain. Indeed, on the day of her daughter’s birth at the covert in Edinburgh, Jane had risen from her bed and taken Emily to meet Excidium for the first time. Jane was Excidium’s third captain, but she had not inherited him; Excidium had never before seen a baby, and had looked upon Emily with obvious doubtfulness, plainly unwilling to believe that the fussing, red-faced infant, approximately the size of one of his incisors, would ever command his crew. Jane felt her breath catch in her throat at the memory of the unexpected happiness that had swallowed her whole as she had reclined, still weak and exhausted from the birth, against Excidium’s foreleg and cradled Emily to her breast.
From that moment, Emily’s future had been as certain as ever it could be. Now, if Emily were to ask Jane what would become of her, of them, Jane simply did not know what she might say.
But Emily did not ask. When she spoke once more it was to say, “Was there a funeral?”
“Yes,” Jane said. “It was quite lovely.” One of many and shorter than it might have been under other circumstances, but it had soothed her all the same, even through the shock of her loss.
“Is he buried here then? At the covert? Might I visit him?”
They had been forced to burn the bodies. They had no space for so many dragons dead at once; burned, they required no more ground than a man. Jane swallowed and nodded. “As often as you like. I’ll take you tomorrow, if you may be spared from your duties.”
Emily glanced toward Laurence, who nodded. “Yes, thank you,” she said, and then hesitated, biting her lip. “Then I’m not to - that is, I mustn’t resign as Temeraire’s runner?” Before Laurence could answer, she turned to Jane and added, her brown eyes impossibly wide and bright, “Will we be forced to leave?”
“No,” Jane said, managing, she dearly hoped, a firm tone. “Have no fear of that. There will always be Longwings in the Corps, and therefore always a need for you. And when you are older,” she added, as she could see the question forming on Emily’s lips, “you may very well be put to a hatchling.”
“A hatchling,” Emily repeated. “But, Mother, do you not wish - that is, might it not be better - for you - if you were to have a new dragon? Will they not give you one?”
Jane sighed and stroked a hand over her daughter’s hair, grown long and unruly during her journey. “There are so few now, dearest, and for me no dragon could ever compare to Excidium. They should go to other captains, who will not judge them against someone else and, I fear, find them always wanting.” She cleared her throat and, attempting a lighter tone, said, “I must confess, I haven’t much notion of my own future, but pray do not concern yourself.”
Emily frowned, and Jane realized that all her efforts to conceal her true feelings and thoughts from her daughter had been for naught. Emily had so changed in her time away; Jane had made provisions to care for and reassure a girl who no longer existed. She looked away from her daughter’s steady, knowing gaze, discomfited.
Laurence took his leave shortly thereafter to see to Temeraire. It being rather late already, Jane had supper brought to her rooms for herself and Emily. The servants lit the candles on the table and in the sconces, and they ate together while the shadows in the room lengthened. They spoke no more of Excidium, to Jane’s relief and guilt; they would speak of him again, and soon, but for the moment she was content that Emily regale her with outlandish tales of China, where dragons walked the streets and lived like men.
Emily belonged in the Corps, Jane told herself privately. In many ways that thought was a burden lifted, and yet . . . Jane forced herself to put aside all notions she might once have had of taking her daughter with her when she left, as eventually she must. Whatever assurance Jane had made Emily before, she had thought that the uncertainty that lay before her might be less trying, or at least less frightening, if they were to face it together. Now she realized that it could never be so.
“Are you well, Mother?” Emily asked.
Jane realized she had said nothing in several minutes. “Only tired, that is all. Pray do not worry.”
It was clear that Emily did worry as she took her leave a few minutes later to the find the rest of Temeraire’s crew and her bed. She lingered, embraced Jane, and departed at last, casting glances over her shoulder. Jane wished to reassure her somehow, but she could only think to tell her that she and her grief had been alone together for eight weeks now, and she had as yet come to no harm. She rather thought this might not do as she desired, and so said nothing.
She was not alone for long. Laurence returned only a few minutes after Emily had left her. Jane bade him enter, and watched as he methodically removed his sword and coat and laid them aside, coat neatly folded, across the flat surface of her trunk. He sat beside her and cleared his throat.
“Temeraire sends his most heartfelt condolences.”
Jane nodded her thanks. “He is well? Truly?”
Laurence shook his head, frowning strangely. “This has all been such a terrible shock to him.”
“To all of us.”
“Yes, but we’ve been so long gone, as you said, with no news . . . He is forbidden from seeing any of the others, of course, and that is what is most difficult for him. It is partly why Lenton ordered us here, I think; Maximus and Lily are both at Loch Loggan, and if we were there, or even in Edinburgh, Temeraire might not be able to resist disobeying orders to fly off and visit them.”
“I see. Well, I am glad you are here, no matter the reason.”
Laurence nodded, and then was silent. His head was bowed into shadow and Jane could not see his face very well, but his profile was tense and unhappy. “I believe he feels guilty,” he said at last.
“Whatever for?” Jane asked, frowning. “For being healthy when the others are ill?”
Laurence raised his head to look her in the eye. “Perhaps, though I believe . . . I believe it is more for having been away when it happened.”
“Nonsense,” Jane said, sitting up a bit straighter. “Had he been here, he would be no better off than any of them, and the Corps would be the worse for it.”
“He cares not a whit for the Corps,” Laurence said, shaking his head and then loosening his neck-cloth. “He cares for his friends. It has always been so.”
Jane reached and removed his neck-cloth altogether, allowing her fingers to linger on his collar, barely touching the warm skin of his throat. “The younger dragons are often that way, but it is no less true - for him and for you as well, Laurence. I do hope you are not feeling guilty.” She withdrew her hands.
Laurence sighed. “For Temeraire’s sake I must feel no guilt, but for your sake, Jane, I do wish -”
“There was nothing you could have done.”
“I might -”
“Nothing.” She smoothed his neckcloth over the knee of her trouser, and then spread it across his folded coat. “There was nothing anyone could do.”
“I am so deeply sorry.”
“I know. Thank you.”
Jane rose and went to her dresser, where she fetched a bottle of wine. She poured them both a glass and, having seated herself once more, raised her own. “To Excidium,” she said, and then found herself quite unable to say anything more.
“To Excidium,” Laurence echoed.
Jane drank deeply and set her glass aside. Laurence offered with a gesture to pour her more, but she was forced to decline. “I am afraid I become quite maudlin if I drink more than one glass. I think . . .” She watched him drain his own. “Let us go to bed.”
They undressed and lay down together. Laurence’s hand lingered on her side, near her breast, but he made no advances. Jane was put in mind of that night in London, when he had despaired that he must lose Temeraire and his own position with the Corps; she had not imagined then - could not then have conceived - that less than two years would see her in a position even more hopeless. Even now she could not at times conceive of it; Excidium was dead and she knew that, and yet she often woke in the small hours of the morning and wondered if it might all not have been a long, terrible dream.
“Jane,” Laurence murmured, pushing himself up onto one arm. He hesitated, and Jane, desiring to forestall whichever impossible question he intended to put to her, kissed him. He froze; she made as if she had not noticed, and at length he gave in to her, as she knew he must.
Jane would admit without shame that she had at first taken him to her bed in part out of curiosity. He was handsome, of course, and dedicated to his duty, and they had grown easy with each other very quickly, but Emily’s father had possessed these qualities as well, as had Jane’s other lovers. What had intrigued her especially with Laurence was the desire she had found in herself to discover what lay beneath the courteous and oddly formal façade of this former Naval officer.
And the truth was . . . more courtesy. Although, thank God, rather less formality.
She did not know who had undertaken his education in these matters - certainly not this Edith he spoke of from time to time - and she had never thought to ask as it would only serve to embarrass him, but she had endeavored to complete it. He’d not noticed, of course; men were so very sensitive about that sort of thing. But even now he was so careful and polite about it all that he could drive a woman like Jane quite mad. She made a private game of it at times: What lengths were required to strip away the layers of courtesy to reveal the man?
Tonight, Jane found with very little surprise, was quite different. She realized now that when she had wished he might come home, she had wished for this: for his solid presence in her bed, beside her, and, yes, inside of her. That night in London they had made love so that he might forget for a time; now they did the same for her. A respite, that was all, but Jane had lived so long with her loss always at the forefront of her thoughts that any relief, however short, seemed nothing short of miraculous.
And yet afterwards, when he kissed her and she stroked her fingers through his hair, grown long like Emily’s, her respite ended with cruel abruptness. She thought with some despair that she had succeeded only in distracting them both for a short time. He laid his head beside hers on the pillow; all the candles save one on the table had guttered out and she could not see his expression, but she felt him as he gazed at her.
“I have something for you,” he said at last. “From China.” He rose and fetched something from his coat; he brought the candle with him when he returned, setting it beside the bed so she might properly see the jade pendant carved with Chinese writing he revealed cupped in the palm of his hand. “I must confess, I considered that it might perhaps be better to wait, at least, or perhaps choose something else entirely.”
“Why?” she asked, sitting up and accepting it from him. “It’s very fine.”
He ducked his head and told her the story of a young Chinese girl, who had run away from home and joined their own Corps in place of her father, who was ill. “The beginning of the poem is carved on the stone,” he finished at last. “It reminded me of you.”
“Somewhat less appropriate now,” she said; her throat ached. Such a gift would once have delighted her, and though it was no less beautiful, she could not help but fear it would serve only to remind her of what she had lost.
“No,” he said. “That is why I decided to give it to you now after all. This is who you are, Jane, and it matters not if you have a dragon, if you stay with the Corps or choose to leave. I thought - I thought it might be some comfort to remember that.”
She nodded. “Yes, thank you.” She slipped it on. The chain was long and the pendent fell nearly to her breasts; she could hide it beneath her clothes if need be. “But you must see that it does matter. I cannot stay with the Corps, Laurence.”
“Why not?” Laurence asked, frowning, as he slid back into bed beside her. “Surely no one has ordered you to resign?”
“No, but there is nothing for me here and I cannot pretend otherwise. And, well, no one has said anything, of course, but if I should choose not to take a hatchling . . .”
“That is infamous, that they might turn you out,” Laurence said furiously. “After all your noble service -”
“Lenton would set me up with a nice pension,” Jane replied, laying a hand on his arm to soothe him.
It made no difference. “Infamous,” Laurence repeated, his countenance darkening yet further. “Jane, I cannot stand by and see you turned out - I will not.”
“But there is no other -”
“There is,” he said urgently, surprising her into silence. “There would be - if we married.”
She stared at him, torn between relief - here indeed was a solution, a way for her to stay with the Corps and no one could question her legitimacy - and horror, for it was not a solution she had ever considered, and in some ways was perhaps worse than no solution at all. But he only kept on looking at her and it was clear she must say something. “I had not ever thought to marry anyone,” she said at last.
“Jane, pray do not think I make this proposal in haste,” Laurence said, his tone gentling. “I am sorry I said it so roughly, but you must know what deep affection I hold for you, and for Emily as well.”
“I do know,” she said, humbled.
Laurence was silent for a few seconds; at last he said, “I realize this must shock you. We have never declared ourselves, and I had never thought to marry any more than you had. But it is a solution and one that I believe may - may serve us both quite well.”
She shook her head, and touched his face with the tips of her fingers in the guttering candlelight. “My dear Laurence, I would only disappoint you.”
“That is not - I would never expect anything of you that you did not wish to give,” he said, plainly stung.
“You would never mean to,” she corrected, knowing it was true even if he did not; for all his good intentions, if they were to wed it could only end badly. It would seem logical at first, as he would have Temeraire to think of, and the Corps, and she would not. It would only be right for her to look after their household and any children they might have together. Yes, it would be entirely logical and correct and she would feel as though someone were suffocating her every minute of it. She felt that way now, only thinking of it.
“I understand that it is not something you ever wanted for yourself,” Laurence said. “But do not give me your answer now. Pray think on it at the very least.”
She nodded. “I will think on it.” And likely very little else, she added privately.
They put out the last candle. Jane feigned sleep until Laurence’s breathing deepened, and then she opened her eyes to gaze around the room at the moonlit outlines of the detritus of her life as Excidium’s captain. As a solution marriage was deceptively simple; most other women - even some of the other female captains - would have seized upon it as a lifeline at once, and would certainly take her for a fool if they knew she thought to refuse him. Then again, she cared for him deeply, and the thought of hurting him was painful in its own right.
And yet, Jane knew she could let none of it influence her eventual decision. Her future, whatever it may be, must be hers to choose.
Fin.
Author: sahiya
Pairing/Rating: Jane/Laurence, PG-13
Length: 4500 words
Disclaimer: Not mine! They all belong to Naomi Novik and Del Rey.
Summary: Excidium was eight weeks dead when Laurence returned.
Author's Notes: People probably saw this back when I posted it to the_covert and temeraire_fans in August, but I was going back and re-tagging all my fics tonight (procrastinating? moi?) and thought I'd post it here, since that is what the comm is for, after all. Thanks very much to fuzzyboo03 and antennapedia for beta reading.
This was obviously written before the release of Empire of Ivory and based purely on my own speculation.
Without Answer
Excidium was eight weeks dead when Laurence returned.
Out of strange coincidence, Jane found herself engaged in writing him a letter at the moment he appeared in the doorway of her rooms at Dover. But then again, perhaps the coincidence was not so strange; she had written him many letters, none of which had she any hope of sending. She did not indulge herself such as a matter of course, but the day the first dragon began coughing blood - one of the couriers, it had been, a little Greyling - and they had all realized far too late the awful truth of their situation, Jane had seated herself at her desk and written an account of events. There was barely anything personal in it at all, save that it began Dear William.
Now, she had a stack of letters in her trunk that described in the baldest possible terms everything that had happened since then: each dragon fallen sick at Dover and the ones they had news of from other coverts, each dragon dead, and as well, the course of Excidium’s illness till that cold, clear day when his labored, painful breathing had eased at last.
His death was not in any way unexpected, but Jane had thought he had another day, perhaps two; though that could hardly be called a reprieve and it was God’s own mercy that released him from his suffering. She had stood the night watch, keeping vigil until dawn light stretched down into the covert and across the heaving backs of the sick dragons, when she had fallen into light sleep, leaning against his feverish body. Her lieutenant woke her when they realized he would not draw breath again.
I abhor any sort of weakness in myself, she wrote now, especially that which might be attributed to my sex. But for all that, Laurence, I wish very much that you would
Here she paused. She wished he might come home; and yet, at the same time, she did not, she could not, because with Laurence must come Emily, and with Emily, questions to which Jane had no answers.
Thus, it was with a certain relief as well as a certain dread that she glanced up to see Laurence in her doorway. He appeared rather disheveled, his neck-cloth askew, his clothing stained and travel-worn - highly unusual for her perennially trim and proper former Naval officer. He said nothing; after a moment Jane was forced to look away, for she could not bear the stark sympathy in his eyes.
She turned her letter over so that the writing was not visible. She had never expected, nor indeed wanted, that he should ever see any of them.
“Jane -” he began, tentatively.
“Is Emily well?” she asked; it was merely something to say to forestall the inevitable, but it occurred to her quite suddenly that she had not the faintest idea what she might do if Emily were not. She had been thus far too mired in worry as to what must become of them to even consider the possibility, but of course it was a long journey, undoubtedly rife with dangers; what if Laurence had come not to give condolences, but rather to deliver his own terrible news?
She held herself very still, awaiting his answer, but for his part, he seemed relieved at the question. “Yes,” he said. “Very well. She conducted herself admirably.”
Jane let out a long breath. “Good, that is very good. And Temeraire?”
“Also well.”
“And -”
“Jane,” Laurence said in a tone that brooked no argument. It was a tone Jane knew well, having one of her own: a captain’s tones, the voice of command. Jane had not used her own in some months, of course; she wondered if it would fade with disuse. She fell silent, and looked away.
“Jane,” he repeated, stepping into the room for the first time, though she had not invited him: an unthinkable breach of etiquette for him. “I am so very sorry. I cannot conceive -”
“No,” she said hollowly, “you cannot.” But that was not fair; he had come close enough to losing Temeraire, as she well knew, which loss would have devastated him. She was forced to relent. “I must beg your forgiveness, Laurence. You’ve been so long gone, and I . . .” She stood, and then did not know quite what to do with herself. The notion of embracing him felt oddly embarrassing, indecorous. “I should have liked to give you a better welcome,” she finished at last.
He did not answer her for nearly a minute. She watched him consider and discard several replies, in his careful, courteous way. At last he said, “Emily does not know. That is,” he added, “I have not told her, nor has anyone else to my knowledge. But she may well have realized.”
“Yes.” Jane drew a deep breath. “Yes, I should - I must tell Emily.” Daunting and terrible as the task was, at the very least it was something to do, a direction and a purpose.
She went to the door, caught the attention of a passing servant, and bade him find Emily and send her up. She closed the door and turned to find herself in unexpected proximity to Laurence. She wanted to step away, but she did not; rather, she tilted her head back to see him properly - she had scarcely looked him in the eye since he had arrived - and said, “If you were to stay, I would be glad of it.”
“Then stay I shall.” He touched her then for the first time, a mere hand on her wrist, and she allowed it, though she felt as though she might come undone completely in the face of too much affection. In spite of her reservations, she found herself leaning towards him until her head rested against his chest, his large hands upon her back. He smelled of dirt and sweat from the road; it made her want to weep for all she had lost as she had not done since the day Excidium died and she cried alone in these very rooms, far from the gaze of her crew and the other captains.
She did not weep; though she was certain he’d not have thought less of her if she had, she would have thought less of herself. Rather, she gathered herself inward to speak past the painful constriction in her throat. “Emily . . . carried out her duties well?”
“Yes. Very well. She will make a fine -” Laurence stopped. “I am sorry,” he said in a strangled voice following a moment of mortified silence.
“I quite understand,” Jane replied, closing her eyes. “And she may yet with another Longwing, a hatchling. But with so many captains now left unpartnered . . . well, the competition will be fierce for some time, as you might imagine.”
“Has there been talk, then, of putting you to a hatching?”
“Yes.” Jane opened her eyes once more. She could see through the window from where they stood, though all that was visible were the tops of the trees, still winter bare, and a broad swathe of gray sky. “But I think not. The notion of beginning again with a hatchling . . . I want no other dragon than Excidium.”
“But perhaps, when some time has passed -”
“Did you not feel the same?” she answered sharply, pulling away to look up at him. “When you thought you had lost Temeraire, did you not say the same, that you would rather be hanged than begin anew with a hatchling? Did you believe your feelings would change with time then, Laurence?”
He bowed his head. “No, Jane, I did not. I must beg your pardon.”
She at once felt ashamed of herself. This was none of it his fault, least of all that he now found himself with the only fully trained and healthy dragon in all England. Her apology was forestalled, however, by a knock at the door. She stepped away to compose herself, while he went to sit on her trunk, leaving the two chairs free for Jane and Emily. She opened the door, and found herself facing her daughter for the first time in nigh on two years.
Emily barely resembled the girl Jane had said farewell to; she had grown so she was much the same height as Jane, and her shape had altered - all in quite expected ways, but no less startling for that. Jane wondered rather sadly what changes her daughter perceived in her; she expected that she bore the same signs as the other captains who had lost dragons: aged and grieving, tired and empty.
“Emily,” Jane said, stepping forward to embrace her. “Welcome home.”
“Thank you, Mother,” Emily replied, and allowed Jane to draw her over to sit. She nodded respectfully to Laurence. “Everything is well with Temeraire, sir,” she said. “He was eating when I left, though he bade me ask you if he might not bathe later.”
Laurence nodded. “Thank you, Emily. I shall see to him shortly.”
She nodded, and looked back toward Jane, who could not bring herself to say what she must. “Mother,” Emily said at last, reaching for Jane’s hand, “you needn’t tell me. Excidium is dead, isn’t he?”
“Yes, dearest,” Jane sighed; cowardly though she knew it was, she felt relieved beyond words that she did not have to say it herself.
Emily merely nodded and lowered her gaze to their joined hands. “I thought he must be, when I heard what happened. I am so very sorry, Mother.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and then accepted the handkerchief Laurence unobtrusively offered her, the only outward signs of her own grief; her voice never cracked, but remained steady throughout.
“As am I,” Jane said quietly, and then did not know what else she might say. Emily had never known a time when she had not been Excidium’s future captain. Indeed, on the day of her daughter’s birth at the covert in Edinburgh, Jane had risen from her bed and taken Emily to meet Excidium for the first time. Jane was Excidium’s third captain, but she had not inherited him; Excidium had never before seen a baby, and had looked upon Emily with obvious doubtfulness, plainly unwilling to believe that the fussing, red-faced infant, approximately the size of one of his incisors, would ever command his crew. Jane felt her breath catch in her throat at the memory of the unexpected happiness that had swallowed her whole as she had reclined, still weak and exhausted from the birth, against Excidium’s foreleg and cradled Emily to her breast.
From that moment, Emily’s future had been as certain as ever it could be. Now, if Emily were to ask Jane what would become of her, of them, Jane simply did not know what she might say.
But Emily did not ask. When she spoke once more it was to say, “Was there a funeral?”
“Yes,” Jane said. “It was quite lovely.” One of many and shorter than it might have been under other circumstances, but it had soothed her all the same, even through the shock of her loss.
“Is he buried here then? At the covert? Might I visit him?”
They had been forced to burn the bodies. They had no space for so many dragons dead at once; burned, they required no more ground than a man. Jane swallowed and nodded. “As often as you like. I’ll take you tomorrow, if you may be spared from your duties.”
Emily glanced toward Laurence, who nodded. “Yes, thank you,” she said, and then hesitated, biting her lip. “Then I’m not to - that is, I mustn’t resign as Temeraire’s runner?” Before Laurence could answer, she turned to Jane and added, her brown eyes impossibly wide and bright, “Will we be forced to leave?”
“No,” Jane said, managing, she dearly hoped, a firm tone. “Have no fear of that. There will always be Longwings in the Corps, and therefore always a need for you. And when you are older,” she added, as she could see the question forming on Emily’s lips, “you may very well be put to a hatchling.”
“A hatchling,” Emily repeated. “But, Mother, do you not wish - that is, might it not be better - for you - if you were to have a new dragon? Will they not give you one?”
Jane sighed and stroked a hand over her daughter’s hair, grown long and unruly during her journey. “There are so few now, dearest, and for me no dragon could ever compare to Excidium. They should go to other captains, who will not judge them against someone else and, I fear, find them always wanting.” She cleared her throat and, attempting a lighter tone, said, “I must confess, I haven’t much notion of my own future, but pray do not concern yourself.”
Emily frowned, and Jane realized that all her efforts to conceal her true feelings and thoughts from her daughter had been for naught. Emily had so changed in her time away; Jane had made provisions to care for and reassure a girl who no longer existed. She looked away from her daughter’s steady, knowing gaze, discomfited.
Laurence took his leave shortly thereafter to see to Temeraire. It being rather late already, Jane had supper brought to her rooms for herself and Emily. The servants lit the candles on the table and in the sconces, and they ate together while the shadows in the room lengthened. They spoke no more of Excidium, to Jane’s relief and guilt; they would speak of him again, and soon, but for the moment she was content that Emily regale her with outlandish tales of China, where dragons walked the streets and lived like men.
Emily belonged in the Corps, Jane told herself privately. In many ways that thought was a burden lifted, and yet . . . Jane forced herself to put aside all notions she might once have had of taking her daughter with her when she left, as eventually she must. Whatever assurance Jane had made Emily before, she had thought that the uncertainty that lay before her might be less trying, or at least less frightening, if they were to face it together. Now she realized that it could never be so.
“Are you well, Mother?” Emily asked.
Jane realized she had said nothing in several minutes. “Only tired, that is all. Pray do not worry.”
It was clear that Emily did worry as she took her leave a few minutes later to the find the rest of Temeraire’s crew and her bed. She lingered, embraced Jane, and departed at last, casting glances over her shoulder. Jane wished to reassure her somehow, but she could only think to tell her that she and her grief had been alone together for eight weeks now, and she had as yet come to no harm. She rather thought this might not do as she desired, and so said nothing.
She was not alone for long. Laurence returned only a few minutes after Emily had left her. Jane bade him enter, and watched as he methodically removed his sword and coat and laid them aside, coat neatly folded, across the flat surface of her trunk. He sat beside her and cleared his throat.
“Temeraire sends his most heartfelt condolences.”
Jane nodded her thanks. “He is well? Truly?”
Laurence shook his head, frowning strangely. “This has all been such a terrible shock to him.”
“To all of us.”
“Yes, but we’ve been so long gone, as you said, with no news . . . He is forbidden from seeing any of the others, of course, and that is what is most difficult for him. It is partly why Lenton ordered us here, I think; Maximus and Lily are both at Loch Loggan, and if we were there, or even in Edinburgh, Temeraire might not be able to resist disobeying orders to fly off and visit them.”
“I see. Well, I am glad you are here, no matter the reason.”
Laurence nodded, and then was silent. His head was bowed into shadow and Jane could not see his face very well, but his profile was tense and unhappy. “I believe he feels guilty,” he said at last.
“Whatever for?” Jane asked, frowning. “For being healthy when the others are ill?”
Laurence raised his head to look her in the eye. “Perhaps, though I believe . . . I believe it is more for having been away when it happened.”
“Nonsense,” Jane said, sitting up a bit straighter. “Had he been here, he would be no better off than any of them, and the Corps would be the worse for it.”
“He cares not a whit for the Corps,” Laurence said, shaking his head and then loosening his neck-cloth. “He cares for his friends. It has always been so.”
Jane reached and removed his neck-cloth altogether, allowing her fingers to linger on his collar, barely touching the warm skin of his throat. “The younger dragons are often that way, but it is no less true - for him and for you as well, Laurence. I do hope you are not feeling guilty.” She withdrew her hands.
Laurence sighed. “For Temeraire’s sake I must feel no guilt, but for your sake, Jane, I do wish -”
“There was nothing you could have done.”
“I might -”
“Nothing.” She smoothed his neckcloth over the knee of her trouser, and then spread it across his folded coat. “There was nothing anyone could do.”
“I am so deeply sorry.”
“I know. Thank you.”
Jane rose and went to her dresser, where she fetched a bottle of wine. She poured them both a glass and, having seated herself once more, raised her own. “To Excidium,” she said, and then found herself quite unable to say anything more.
“To Excidium,” Laurence echoed.
Jane drank deeply and set her glass aside. Laurence offered with a gesture to pour her more, but she was forced to decline. “I am afraid I become quite maudlin if I drink more than one glass. I think . . .” She watched him drain his own. “Let us go to bed.”
They undressed and lay down together. Laurence’s hand lingered on her side, near her breast, but he made no advances. Jane was put in mind of that night in London, when he had despaired that he must lose Temeraire and his own position with the Corps; she had not imagined then - could not then have conceived - that less than two years would see her in a position even more hopeless. Even now she could not at times conceive of it; Excidium was dead and she knew that, and yet she often woke in the small hours of the morning and wondered if it might all not have been a long, terrible dream.
“Jane,” Laurence murmured, pushing himself up onto one arm. He hesitated, and Jane, desiring to forestall whichever impossible question he intended to put to her, kissed him. He froze; she made as if she had not noticed, and at length he gave in to her, as she knew he must.
Jane would admit without shame that she had at first taken him to her bed in part out of curiosity. He was handsome, of course, and dedicated to his duty, and they had grown easy with each other very quickly, but Emily’s father had possessed these qualities as well, as had Jane’s other lovers. What had intrigued her especially with Laurence was the desire she had found in herself to discover what lay beneath the courteous and oddly formal façade of this former Naval officer.
And the truth was . . . more courtesy. Although, thank God, rather less formality.
She did not know who had undertaken his education in these matters - certainly not this Edith he spoke of from time to time - and she had never thought to ask as it would only serve to embarrass him, but she had endeavored to complete it. He’d not noticed, of course; men were so very sensitive about that sort of thing. But even now he was so careful and polite about it all that he could drive a woman like Jane quite mad. She made a private game of it at times: What lengths were required to strip away the layers of courtesy to reveal the man?
Tonight, Jane found with very little surprise, was quite different. She realized now that when she had wished he might come home, she had wished for this: for his solid presence in her bed, beside her, and, yes, inside of her. That night in London they had made love so that he might forget for a time; now they did the same for her. A respite, that was all, but Jane had lived so long with her loss always at the forefront of her thoughts that any relief, however short, seemed nothing short of miraculous.
And yet afterwards, when he kissed her and she stroked her fingers through his hair, grown long like Emily’s, her respite ended with cruel abruptness. She thought with some despair that she had succeeded only in distracting them both for a short time. He laid his head beside hers on the pillow; all the candles save one on the table had guttered out and she could not see his expression, but she felt him as he gazed at her.
“I have something for you,” he said at last. “From China.” He rose and fetched something from his coat; he brought the candle with him when he returned, setting it beside the bed so she might properly see the jade pendant carved with Chinese writing he revealed cupped in the palm of his hand. “I must confess, I considered that it might perhaps be better to wait, at least, or perhaps choose something else entirely.”
“Why?” she asked, sitting up and accepting it from him. “It’s very fine.”
He ducked his head and told her the story of a young Chinese girl, who had run away from home and joined their own Corps in place of her father, who was ill. “The beginning of the poem is carved on the stone,” he finished at last. “It reminded me of you.”
“Somewhat less appropriate now,” she said; her throat ached. Such a gift would once have delighted her, and though it was no less beautiful, she could not help but fear it would serve only to remind her of what she had lost.
“No,” he said. “That is why I decided to give it to you now after all. This is who you are, Jane, and it matters not if you have a dragon, if you stay with the Corps or choose to leave. I thought - I thought it might be some comfort to remember that.”
She nodded. “Yes, thank you.” She slipped it on. The chain was long and the pendent fell nearly to her breasts; she could hide it beneath her clothes if need be. “But you must see that it does matter. I cannot stay with the Corps, Laurence.”
“Why not?” Laurence asked, frowning, as he slid back into bed beside her. “Surely no one has ordered you to resign?”
“No, but there is nothing for me here and I cannot pretend otherwise. And, well, no one has said anything, of course, but if I should choose not to take a hatchling . . .”
“That is infamous, that they might turn you out,” Laurence said furiously. “After all your noble service -”
“Lenton would set me up with a nice pension,” Jane replied, laying a hand on his arm to soothe him.
It made no difference. “Infamous,” Laurence repeated, his countenance darkening yet further. “Jane, I cannot stand by and see you turned out - I will not.”
“But there is no other -”
“There is,” he said urgently, surprising her into silence. “There would be - if we married.”
She stared at him, torn between relief - here indeed was a solution, a way for her to stay with the Corps and no one could question her legitimacy - and horror, for it was not a solution she had ever considered, and in some ways was perhaps worse than no solution at all. But he only kept on looking at her and it was clear she must say something. “I had not ever thought to marry anyone,” she said at last.
“Jane, pray do not think I make this proposal in haste,” Laurence said, his tone gentling. “I am sorry I said it so roughly, but you must know what deep affection I hold for you, and for Emily as well.”
“I do know,” she said, humbled.
Laurence was silent for a few seconds; at last he said, “I realize this must shock you. We have never declared ourselves, and I had never thought to marry any more than you had. But it is a solution and one that I believe may - may serve us both quite well.”
She shook her head, and touched his face with the tips of her fingers in the guttering candlelight. “My dear Laurence, I would only disappoint you.”
“That is not - I would never expect anything of you that you did not wish to give,” he said, plainly stung.
“You would never mean to,” she corrected, knowing it was true even if he did not; for all his good intentions, if they were to wed it could only end badly. It would seem logical at first, as he would have Temeraire to think of, and the Corps, and she would not. It would only be right for her to look after their household and any children they might have together. Yes, it would be entirely logical and correct and she would feel as though someone were suffocating her every minute of it. She felt that way now, only thinking of it.
“I understand that it is not something you ever wanted for yourself,” Laurence said. “But do not give me your answer now. Pray think on it at the very least.”
She nodded. “I will think on it.” And likely very little else, she added privately.
They put out the last candle. Jane feigned sleep until Laurence’s breathing deepened, and then she opened her eyes to gaze around the room at the moonlit outlines of the detritus of her life as Excidium’s captain. As a solution marriage was deceptively simple; most other women - even some of the other female captains - would have seized upon it as a lifeline at once, and would certainly take her for a fool if they knew she thought to refuse him. Then again, she cared for him deeply, and the thought of hurting him was painful in its own right.
And yet, Jane knew she could let none of it influence her eventual decision. Her future, whatever it may be, must be hers to choose.
Fin.