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“Mr Forthing,” Laurence calls, stepping out of his tent with a hand gesture that Forthing knows all too well by now: orders await, that you should have predicted. Laurence expects much of him. He’s had a whole journey through Terra Australis to come to this realisation: how this disgraced captain—now restored to the list, he forces himself to remember—functions with his crew and dragon is not, at all, what he’s used to. Or perhaps the duties of a first lieutenant are simply too much to bear; perhaps this is a position he isn’t meant to be in, and Laurence can’t help but remind him of it, simply by awaiting actions that Forthing does not know to take.
He straightens his spine. Worthy or not, he has been chosen to lead Temeraire’s crew—this whatever that bloody bull-headed dragon might think—and someone’s got to do it, aye? He likes to think himself a good deal more competent than some of the louts he was sent here with. Is that being priggish? Damn right sounds like it. Yet Laurence chose him for a reason, even though his own dragon hated him: and now he’s leaving this godforsaken country thanks to that post, and who knows, maybe he’ll get to see Billy again, and he won’t fuck this up. He won’t. First Lieutenant Edmund Forthing is a man who can cross two oceans to get back to his son: and so he’ll bloody stay that man, as long as he needs to.
Behind Laurence comes another fellow, one that Forthing’s never seen. Tall, his head perching as high as Laurence’s, and crowned by a mop of reddish brown hair which hasn’t seen a good bath in a while. His coat clearly used to be expensive before it shared a passionate love affair with a ravenous and especially filthy cutlass. Black shines timidly through the layer of mud covering his boots, which Forthing belatedly identifies as Hessians.
Overall, a single question remains: what the hell is prissy Mr Laurence doing with that scrub? The answer rains down on him, slight drizzle and then pouring hail: “Mr Forthing, would you please show Mr Ferris about? He shall accompany us to the Allegiance.”
In the muddy waters of Forthing’s memory, Temeraire scoffs, Ferris would have managed it so much faster. Pray, Laurence, are you certain he shall not return?
Apparently he has returned.
Of course there’s shock on Forthing’s face—horror even, maybe?—and of course Laurence doesn’t begin to understand why. He leaves them be at Forthing’s clear “Aye, sir,” carried off by more urgent troubles. Lieutenant Ferris—past lieutenant, disgraced, too—stands there, motionless. Makes sense for Temeraire to favour him. Aristocratic build, blue blood running all through his veins, that one, elegant hands and clear-cut lips—red cheeks and nose, a bright shade of crimson, and a slouch to the spine, and the eyes—good Lord.
It’s when Forthing sees the eyes that he realises he’s facing a dead man. Pretty eyes, they are, a vivid shade of green, spattered with gold like an aviator’s dress coat. Pretty eyes, they would be, if not for the lacklustre veil hanging over them. No life in those eyes. No joy, no rage, no sorrow even: just a haggard, empty shell, a snail crushed by a cart’s wheel, a porcelain vase shattered on a marble floor.
“If you’d follow me,” Forthing whispers, and the body does, but the eyes, the eyes have stopped following anything a long time ago already.
He’s drunk. Barely answers Forthing’s tentative questions, mutters to himself, drifts off halfway through sentences that collapse in the dismally quiet sea of his emotions. Forthing finds him a tent, some water, a place to rest his head. Ferris sits and sets his forehead down against his knees. Slowly, reverently. Like a prayer—one that Forthing isn’t sure is directed at the right God.
He isn’t ashamed to say his duties serve as an excellent excuse to run away.
So, truly, Forthing’s first meeting with Henry Ferris only happens on the morrow, when the man’s apparently purged himself of the alcohol boiling in his veins. Forthing’s down at the well, rubbing fresh water onto his face and the back of his neck, more as a shield against the crushing heat than a real attempt at hygiene in this wretched dust land. To the other men out and about, he pays no mind; until a tall figure steps up to him, extending a hand whose skin has long since lost its calluses, if ever it had any.
“I fear we haven’t been properly introduced. Henry Ferris.”
Shifty gaze and unsteady bearing: but fuck, isn’t that accent a dagger to the throat. The smell of poshness stinks stronger than that of whiskey. That’s Laurence’s lieutenant right there. Forthing almost barks out a laugh in his face: the fuck is he hoping for, coming to greet him with that guilty stance, rubbing the stench of his past position in Forthing’s face?
Forthing shakes his hand. Of course he does. “Edmund Forthing.” He doesn’t say: lieutenant. He doesn’t say: your replacement. He doesn’t say: your equal, except in all things where you’re better than me.
What he says, vicious and unworthy of him, is, “And what did you come to Australia for, Mr Ferris?”
Those eyes aren’t dead. Those eyes are burning with all the flames of hell, licking at Forthing’s gut and reminding him that even trembling hands can still bury a knife in sensible places. But Ferris, of course, is a better man than he: he turns and departs without another word.
Why does Laurence keep asking of him what he should be asking of Forthing? He means well, his captain, but at this he fails pitifully: each day the humiliation burns brighter; each day the pain’s glare rises higher into Ferris’ throat. Surely Forthing does not need to be reminded of Ferris’ presence. He has enough on his hands already, with the crew’s widespread ineptitude and the precarity of their position, stranded on a desert island. With each Mr Ferris, can you— and Mr Ferris, if you please— Forthing’s authority is undermined some more: can Laurence not see that this is the last thing they need? Mutiny is crawling on their doorstep. Only the dragons’ presence has saved them from the worst. Ferris fears for Laurence, for Granby with his injured arm, for Dlamini, for Roland worst of all. And for Forthing, yes, who despite his coarseness and his terrible manners is not so dreadful an officer as all that: it is he who stands at the front lines of their little battalion of officers, he who throws the punches that Laurence does not see, he who crowds the convicts in and pushes them back through sheer force of snarling teeth and broad shoulders.
Despite his height, Ferris isn’t the most impressive fellow out there: but he tries to help, when he can, throwing biting remarks and even sharper looks at those who do not listen. But what are two men against two dozen? The dam will break soon enough. Forthing shall be the first to fall.
In the meantime, Ferris has more pressing problems. The fever takes him on the very first evening of their arrival on the island, right after the French abandon them here: during the day it leaves him be, but nights invariably turn him into a shivering, moaning mess. He drags himself to the bushes where no-one can hear. He dreams of whiskey warming his throat. When the men manage to make alcohol, it is all he can do not to throw himself at their feet, begging for a ration. Can he force them to give him some, without causing chaos? Steal a few drops, perhaps? He stares and stares and despairs. He needs it as dreadfully, painfully, awfully as he needs breathing. He knows he will die, can die from it: the fever will simply overcome him. One of these nights he will fall asleep, and shan’t ever be waking up.
In the bushes, there is someone who can hear. Huddled on the uneven ground, trying to catch his breath that insists on running from him, he sees dark eyes staring down at him. God, no. God, don’t let anyone see him like this. Don’t let him, don’t let him.
Forthing kneels, loops an arm about his shoulders, and offers him water. It’s not nearly enough. Ferris could spit it all in his face. He doesn’t. Drinks. And that’s not a tear on his cheek, that’s a fallen drop.
Forthing rocks him back and forth gently, like one might do to a small child. Ferris remembers cradling his niece in his arms. She wasn’t nearly as pathetic.
“Let’s get back to camp,” Forthing murmurs. Ferris follows his lieutenant.
In Brazil, the idiot goes back to drinking. Forthing has an uncharitable thought just then: he thinks, well, what of it? What if that fool drowns in one of those bottles? Less competition for him. One fewer loud mouth to contradict him in front of the captain.
That is unkind, of course. But what is truer: Forthing is no fisherman, to always pull Henry Ferris out of his self-made ocean. This once, and the next day, and the next day, he turns his back on him.
And Laurence doesn’t fucking notice any of it.
Look at him parading around with those ill-deserved gold bars gleaming on the shoulders of his raggedy old coat. He lacks even the decency to tie his neckcloth around his neck. As opposed to him, Ferris is not blind to the way Temeraire’s ruff flattens when the dragon lays eyes on his first lieutenant, to Laurence’s quiet disapproval when he glances at the man’s attire. In Australia and South America perhaps, Forthing’s dishevelled state could be justified. But here on the Potentate, with the formation’s resources and nothing but time on his hands, whyever can he not take better care of himself?
Ferris is an aviator, born and bred: the blood in his veins is that of the Aerial Corps rather than the Barons Seymour. He knows not to care about society’s standards. Yet Forthing crosses a line Ferris did not even know existed: the thick brown beard eating at his cheeks is longer than it has any right to be, his creased and faded coat is worn without cravat or waistcoat, and the state of his trousers is enough to send a grown man reeling back. He is first lieutenant on Temeraire, and he should look good for his captain. He should be better. He should be Ferris.
Deep down, Ferris knows Forthing is a kind man. He has seen him with the young gentlemen, his booming voice lowered to a gentle baritone, his hand a reassuring touch on their shoulders as he encourages them to climb faster, study harder, shoot straighter. Forthing gives sensible orders, can reach any target with a pistol, is well-liked by the men, even the rowdiest fellows among the crew.
He is not a dreadful lieutenant. He is even a good one, and Ferris hates him for it.
Because he deserves this position, doesn’t he? There’s a reason Ferris never recovered it, with his drunkenness and wretched behaviour; now he cannot possibly deny Forthing’s authority. A man is to respect his first lieutenant, and Ferris, who spent the past two years begging to be considered a part of Laurence’s crew, has to accept him as such. First Lieutenant Forthing of Temeraire: and Henry Ferris, not even third son to Lord Seymour, not even aviator, not even anything.
More often than not it is the thought of Forthing that forces him to set down a half-empty bottle. Be better than him, he reminds himself as he clutches his trembling hands to his chest. Be better, be better, be better. He shakes and writhes and retches in the dark corners of the ship. He always yields, of course, like he did in Brazil—but less and less often. This is a fight he is determined to win. He speaks of it to no-one.
“The captain is asking for you,” Forthing tells him one of those days, as he stumbles out in the open air of the dragondeck, sweat cooling along his spine. Ferris knows how he must look, face red and perspiration clinging to his temples: but the captain is asking for him, and not Forthing. The brief dart of triumph whooshing past evaporates soon, too soon, before he has time to savour it. Laurence calling him is not a source of pride, but a reminder of all he has lost: an embarrassment, in front of the man who replaced him.
Forthing’s eyes are dark as they follow him across the deck.
Later that day, the runners rush to Ferris’ side, asking if he has seen Lieutenant Forthing. “What for?” Ferris retorts: with them he can dare to ask. They want him to help them with their letters: he has the best handwriting of the entire ship, they claim. Ferris, who has seen Forthing’s handwriting, despairs a little at the state of the crew. Ferris used to be the one the lads came to. He used to read them stories, huddled against Temeraire’s flank. He used to be a trusted brother, hardly older than them, one they could ask anything to.
“Over there,” he answers, stiltedly; and Forthing nods in mocking gratitude as the runners join him. Oh, what Ferris wouldn’t give to wipe that smugness off his face!
In the storm, they lose the captain. How does such a thing happen? How does such a man simply disappear? Laurence has known war and peace and battle and gale; he has been on all the seas and continents of the world, and has touched hands with the greatest leaders of the greatest countries. Yet he is gone, in the blink of an eye, gone and missing and dead, surely. Isn’t it pathetic? God doesn’t care about a single life. He sees humanity as sheep to be herded: what is a small loss, if the rest of them thrive on?
And with Laurence gone, what reason has Ferris to stay?
When the ship is in harbour, when Laurence refuses to return, Ferris finds a bottle. The liquor at least is yet to disappear. He laughs at this: at least now he knows who to trust in his life, of his captain or his whiskey. Fuck it, he thinks, says, does, and pours it down his throat.
A hand closes over his and tears the bottle away. He straightens, crazy-eyed, his teeth bared in an animal snarl. Forthing, there, in his cabin; Forthing with his bottle in hand; Forthing looking him up and down with pity in his eyes.
“You should rest; this won’t help you.”
“Didn’t ask for you to—to tell me what would help me or not,” Ferris snaps. He is slurring a little. Was that the first bottle? He stands, puts a hand to the wall to steady himself. Uses his superior height to loom over Forthing. Ridiculous, maybe—the man is twice as large as him, with broad shoulders and powerful arms. Big, strong hands. Ferris stares at these hands.
“Get some sleep,” Forthing simply repeats, fatigue in his voice that Ferris has put there.
“No need for you to order me ‘round: m’not one of your crew; neither your subordinate nor your responsibility.”
“You’ve made yourself my responsibility by drinking in public and disheartening the hands.”
Ferris’ laugh is a screeching sound, wedging its blade right under Forthing’s throat. “I’ll stop drinking in public the day you’ll stop debasing Temeraire and his crew by dressing like a tramp. Can’t tell me there wasn’t a single tailor to be found in all those ports we visited—that you don’t have the money, with your lieutenant’s wages, not to look like a vagabond!”
“And you can’t tell me that silver spoon is stuck so far up your arse that it weighs on your tongue and makes you sound like a right twat!”
All of Ferris’ finely honed retorts slam into the brick wall of his astonishment. Forthing’s glare stabs deep into his entrails, crushes the seething jealousy curling there, chokes him with a firm grip on his throat. Ferris realises only now that he has never heard him raise his voice in anger.
“I’ve a son to feed, sir,” Forthing hisses, taking a step forward, “—a family to care for. I won’t let my Billy starve because of a self-centred, jealous posh idiot who prefers to stare at his reflection at the bottom of a glass rather than admit he’s not the only fellow with troubles in his life.” His fist curls around Ferris’ collar. It is a massacre of thoughts in Ferris’ mind: they all fall dead and useless, drowned under the sea of stupor overcoming him. “I’ve heard enough of your vicious comments now—think I wouldn’t mind a bit of silence for a while.”
“Then come and get it,” Ferris breathes.
His own words come as a surprise; Forthing’s lips even more so. Ferris’ head slams against the wall of his cabin when he is pushed against it. The kiss is as strong as a vice, both of them snarling and biting at one another, trying to tear the stubbornness out with their teeth. A rough hand closes in Ferris’ hair and rends a whine from his throat. Forthing’s mouth clamps down on the sensitive skin of his neck, right where the sound burst to life, drinking it from the source, and what is Ferris to do but offer him more of the same?
His breath bursts out in ragged pants. He can taste the alcohol in them. The thrill of stupidity makes Forthing’s kisses all the more delicious. Despite asking for silence, the man does his very best to wring threadbare noises out of him, and Ferris gives them, gives all that he has, just to spite him, and if they are overheard and arrested and hanged, what then? What if all this finally drops to an end with the snap of his neck? What if he dies beside the only man who was ever truly his equal? But a hand creeps its way to his mouth—a hand sews his lips tight together.
“Shh,” Forthing breathes against his carotid. “Quiet for me, Harry.”
Ferris’ hand cracks out, whip-like. The whites of Forthing’s eyes seem to reach out to him, widening, as Ferris rams him down into the hammock. Somewhere along this path balance deserts him: he crashes on top of Forthing, lips a tangle of fury and despair, jealousy sizzling in chests pressed together. The silence in his mind, blessed, blessed silence, is deeper than the bottle ever brought him. If Ferris’ hands cannot pull a lieutenant’s coat to his shoulders, if his mouth cannot call out orders to his crew, if his hips cannot bear a leather harness, then God built them for this: for seizing Forthing’s collar, biting at Forthing’s lips, thrusting against Forthing’s thigh.
Air flooding his lungs when he remembers to pull away, just enough for a growl: “Call me Harry one more time—”
And Forthing, heavy-lidded, open-mouthed, his breath stolen from Ferris’ own, raising a firm hand to the back of his neck, steadying him, grounding him: “Harry,” he whispers, and Ferris is lost.
The whiskey won’t let him talk; not that he has much to say: only Edmund’s name, a bramble of desire in his mud-dark head, and choked-out orders Forthing follows without missing a beat. In his hands Ferris remembers what power is like. In his hands he recalls that Henry Ferris was once a lieutenant—a memory tainted by lust rather than shame. The taste of it has nothing in common. Lust is chapped lips against his, salt upon his tongue, burning heat in his palm; lust is Forthing’s back arching off the hammock; lust is a coarse beard brushing his ear and Edmund’s head thrown back and deft fingers working him to a brilliant, dawn-like release.
They lean into each other. They take in the glorious scent of their own sweat. They start to remember a cracked-open future. And rise brusquely, and button up their breeches, and stare at the whole world, if not at their own actions.
Forthing grabs the bottle when he leaves.
It is a dark thing confined to dark corners, its shadow jagged and dangerous, nothing like what Forthing shared with Emmeline in the first passionate weeks of their marriage. They are aviators adopting the millennia-old naval habit of frigging each other at sea. They are reflections grappling to the death from either side of a mirror. They are reminding themselves of each other’s place: sprawled on the floor of Forthing’s cabin, huddled together in the hold behind a pile of crates, panting silently into each other’s necks. Forthing lets Ferris conquer the authority he has lost and peels off his own responsibilities. He lets himself be pushed and pulled and held down, lets his body go pliant and his mind go silent, lets the frenzy of need settle to a dreary melancholy in the depths of Ferris’ smirk.
What’s pretty obvious is that Ferris uses him to fight his demons off. Takes him instead of drinking, closes his lips around his prick when he wishes for a bottle’s neck instead. It’s fine. Forthing has demons of his own hiding behind Henry Ferris’ eyes. When Ferris moans Edmund in a drawn-out whisper, they all turn to ashes.
Would you look at that: the captain’s not dead after all. Only stranded on yet another beach, and accompanied by a Japanese kid of all things, and considerably lighter than when they’ve last seen him: they lost the captain, and the captain lost himself, too.
For once, Forthing burns with gratitude, that he is no more to Laurence than a burden of a lieutenant: they all rush to his side, whooping with joy, throwing themselves in his arms. Granby shouts a delighted Will! and flings an arm around his shoulders. Berkley heaves out his thundering laugh and punches him in the arm. Ferris grabs his hand in both of his and repeats, “Captain! Captain, you made it, you have no idea how relieved—we’ve all been so worried—”
In their excitement they don’t see what Forthing noticed the second their captain climbed aboard: that’s not bloody Will Laurence.
Except it is, they soon learn—a Will Laurence from eight years ago, his memory lost somewhere in the storm that deposited his body on the Japanese shore. The thought’s a terrifying one. Forthing tries to imagine what it’d be like to be missing eight years of his life. Would he have to go through the white-hot horror of learning of Emmeline’s death a second time? Shivers roll down his spine like a retreating tide. Would he remember Billy?
Boots thump down on the dragondeck behind him: the sound of an aviator slipping to the ground from a dragon’s back. Granby murmurs his thanks to Immortalis for letting him through. He leans on the railing beside Forthing. Jets of spray brush against their chins and exposed necks, the rhythmic sloshing sound of the waves against the hull a lullaby whispering them to sleep. Night cools the sea and muffles their sorrow. The stars are lighthouses from another world, guiding them to China.
“Hal told me,” Granby says.
Hal. Jesus Christ. Forthing steps away from the railing. Granby is tall, but thin as a twig and missing an arm: it’d take more than a single push for him to yank Forthing overboard, and Forthing is confident he’d have time to scream for help.
But: “At ease, Lieutenant. I’m not without sins myself, eh?”
Granby smiles at him, open and sincere. Slowly, cautiously, Forthing sets his elbows down beside him. He’s not a bad fellow, that Captain Granby; surely he wouldn’t try to kill a bloke for the crime of getting his prick wet now and again, aye?
The seafoam brushing past his lips tastes the same as Ferris’ throat when he shakes with pleasure. Forthing closes his eyes.
“Why?” Granby asks, unexpected. “He’s been a damned twat with you. Why the hell would you befriend him?”
The euphemism weighs like lead on Forthing’s back. A ploy to avoid discovery, of course: but a distorted, dirty one. Befriend Ferris is perhaps the only thing he’s left to do to this man.
The question rings and rings around his closed-off ears, trying to find its way in. Why? Why the hell would you tup him? Why the hell would you spend any more time than you need to with that arse?
God, Edmund, whispers Harry’s voice behind him. Yes, just like that—so good, Edmund, yes, good, so good…
“Suppose he’s the only one who befriended me back,” Forthing mumbles. Too low for Granby to hear, he’s sure. He hopes.
That evening, he perches on Maximus’ back—Temeraire won’t let him up—and looks down at the circle of aviators on the dragondeck. Laurence is holed up in his cabin, of course, poor confused soul he is: but here they all are, the closest thing Forthing has had to friends in years. And they’re not friends at all, are they? Here is Chenery brandishing Little’s sketchbook in the air, too high for him to catch, pulling an exasperated laugh out of the usually quiet captain. Here is Harcourt kicking Berkley’s arse at a game of cards. Here is Warren leaning over to show Sutton and Hobbes an excerpt from his book. Here is Granby whispering something in Ferris’ ear and twisting his pretty mouth in a smile.
If Forthing were to join them, what would they do? What would they say? Nothing, surely: they’d welcome him as one of them, all the better to sneer and ridicule and dissect the second he’d turn his back. They’re not bad folks, the lot of them. They’re good officers and good friends. They take one look at the orphan from the slums and get to snigger for days. And who can really blame them? They have their own troubles. They’re captains, officers of the kind that aren't sent to rot in Australia. They are, according to the Admiralty and to anyone with an ounce of sense in their skull, better than him.
Forthing thanks Maximus and heads to his cabin. He passes by Laurence on the way there: standing in front of his door, looking lost, looking exhausted.
“Trouble sleeping, sir?” Laurence stares at his face, his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, desperate for any reminder of his identity. “Lieutenant Forthing,” Forthing supplies. “You should get some rest, sir. Would help with that—that head of yours.”
“Of course,” murmurs Laurence. “Goodnight—Lieutenant.”
The hesitation is a brief one, but it is all Forthing hears.
Goodnight… Lieutenant?
His cabin’s door falls closed and he falls to the floor. The ship rocks and rocks and rocks beneath his trembling spine. He cradles the memory close to his chest: Billy in his arms, wide brown eyes following the line of his finger. Pointing at various dragons, asking what breed, do you remember what breed that is? Yes, a Malachite Reaper, very good! Such a talented boy, his Billy. Forthing might not have lost his memory, might well cherish the thought of his beloved son—but the letters they exchange convey only a fragment of the people they are. By the time they meet again, will Billy recognise his father’s face?
China: despite everything, Ferris finds he is glad to return to China. His memories of the place are not all good ones, yet he recalls games of football through the palace with Granby, memorable evenings drowning in rice wine, struggling to eat delicious food with strange utensils. The sight of those glorious landscapes brings a smile to his lips; combined with the clear head he has finally been sporting for several days, he feels lighter than he has in years. Temeraire bolts through the air before them, guiding them to Beijing with no-one but Laurence on his back, as the Chinese custom requires: his crew have been divided upon various Chinese dragons sent to escort them from Tien Sing harbour to the palace. Ferris sits rather comfortably in a silk harness against a Shen Lung’s flank: with a hand looped around the line connecting him to the main tack, he can even twist himself round to peer at the streets whooshing past underneath.
To his right, Forthing lowers an astonished gaze on this unfamiliar scenery. Certainly it is a feast for the eyes, unlike anything one might find in Britain. Dragons mingling with people in streets wide enough for even the largest heavy-weights: no fear in those folks’ stances, no fearful glances thrown the beasts’ way.
Ferris leans in, raising his voice to be heard over the roaring wind: “They grow up alongside dragons! Hatchlings are not harnessed before they are at least two years old, and even then they choose their partner, if they have one at all; it is most common for dragons to go without a captain, can you imagine?”
“They let ferals into their city?” Forthing exclaims.
“Not ferals: citizens! They can even use money—bank accounts—very efficient system!”
Ferris cannot suppress the absurd delight kindling in his breast at the sight of Forthing’s admiring expression. It grows better—worse—once they land in the palace: Forthing turns a queer shade of grey as he takes in the majesty of the place, the grandeur of the architecture, the riches strewn delicately all around them. Prince Laurence is to meet the Emperor soon, they are informed: in the meantime, a hot bath and a full meal are awaiting them.
“Oh, you’re going to adore rice wine,” Granby yelps, grabbing Chenery’s arm and pulling him—and, by extension, Little—behind the servants leading them to the baths.
Stripping of their filthy clothes, sending them to be washed and scrubbed—three cheers for Forthing’s damned coat—and freeing their bodies of the layer of grime covering them is the greatest experience Ferris has known in a good long while. He splashes deliciously hot water through his hair, lets it gurgle down his back, like warm fingers caressing his spine. The men joke and splash around for a while, but their energy soon dwindles under the languid press of the heavy air, and mellow moans of satisfaction soon replace the indignant cries and laughter. The memory of home, of Loch Laggan and its exquisite baths, combined with the bliss of their current situation, relaxes both bodies and minds.
Ferris lets the water engulf him up to his chin. The murmur of conversations drapes over him like a blanket. Snuggled in this nest of comfort, more than half of his being drifting over to the realm of drowsiness, he doesn’t stop his head as it rolls to the side.
A back appears in his field of vision. It is a very nice back: well-muscled and broad-shouldered, wide chest narrowing down slightly to a firm waist. From the snug depths of his near-slumber, Ferris watches as Forthing lets his hair down from its thin ribbon; it falls upon his shoulders in unruly dark strands, the ends of which have been bleached a paler shade of brown by the unforgiving sun. He turns, lowers himself on one knee to press his head underwater, throws it back and sends crystal droplets flying in a glorious halo that, for one brief, breathtaking second, frames his powerful figure like a statue of old. The skin of his chest and forearms disappears under a thick coat of dark hair. Water catches in his beard and accentuates its shape by weighing it down. That beard: does he ever intend to shave it, when they return to Britain? Certainly it is nothing short of unfashionable. He looks like a right tramp. He looks like a derelict. He looks like temptation itself. Ferris waves the tips of his fingers underwater, thinks of running them through that soft, soft beard; pressing his thumb to Forthing’s lips, maybe, watching them part for him and replacing his fingers with his mouth, raw and tender, to discover how Forthing kisses without the frantic urgency of passion.
God, how beautiful he is, Ferris thinks in the privacy of his mind. When Forthing turns and meets his gaze, he knows that this thought is writ plainly across his face, for his loveless lover to see.
Forthing’s eyebrow twitches. The way his gaze trails slowly along Ferris’ body can be no coincidence. It sends tremors through Ferris’ veins, and not only because of the unaware audience around them. He leans against the edge of the bath, extends a hand far behind him to grab a bar of soap, conscious of the way the movement emphasises the lean lines of his chest and arm. Forthing’s attention remains centred on his hair while he scrubs it attentively—or does it?
Those hands trickling along his skin, Ferris imagines they are not his. He bends one knee, brings it close to his chest to rub at his shin. Forthing stretches, lets the muscles roll under the skin of his shoulders, cannot hide his smug grin at Ferris’ expression. With deliberate impudence, he cocks his head to the side and slips a casual hand through his beard to scratch his chin.
Ferris knows defeat when he encounters it. The warmth on his cheeks hardly equals the fire of his smile. He pulls himself out of the water and, leaving, forces himself not to glance back.
Barely out of the baths and already the words rice wine are leaping from lip to lip. Laurence’s interview with the Emperor is only on the morrow, after all, someone reminds the group, a half-hearted attempt at pragmatism that convinces nobody: but none of them needs to be convinced. The aviators hurtle through the palace’s gardens, seeking glasses—optional—and bottles filled to the brim with liquor—mandatory. Pulled in their wake, Forthing follows: why not indulge, after all, if only to forget that their captain seems changed forever, that he hasn’t seen his son in years?
“You coming, Ferris?”
Who asked: Chenery, Granby, Harcourt? Does it matter? Ferris’ face is a fortress and their laughter is a ram, forcing open the heavy wooden gates of his resolution. His foot inches backwards on the smooth floor. Parted lips and bright eyes, still-wet hands withdrawing into the haven of his wide shirt sleeves: he glances left, right, licks his lips, finds his wrists tied by the snake of temptation.
Forthing takes a step forward. “I don’t suppose,” he states firmly, “that Mr Ferris plans to abandon his captain in his hour of need. Mr Ferris, if you will follow me; Captain Laurence’s awaiting us.”
All the protests and grumbles in the world are no match for the sheer gratitude in Ferris’ eyes. He bends his neck and follows meekly, only waving his hand at his friends in quiet apology. They weave their way through the bustling palace, passing by servants and clerks and busy secretaries. Laurence, who has no need for them, won’t see them in his rooms tonight. Forthing only means to lead Ferris back to his bed, spare him the ordeal of watching others drink: but Ferris hails an attendant and utters a few words in stumbling Chinese. The man nods, gestures, manages to be understood. What Ferris is planning, Forthing doesn’t ask: he falls into step behind him, through more gardens and two flights of stairs and along a wide expanse of grass clearly designed for dragons to come and go. At last they fall to a halt beside a gurgling fountain. Rocks of grotesque, unidentifiable shapes rise over the placid surface, darkened by the shadow of a small pavilion overlooking the pond, whose curved roof arches prettily towards the sky like the curve of a hatchling’s neck. The servant bows and departs. The lanterns hanging from the pavilion’s beams dress the water in regal shades of fire and gold.
The silence tells Forthing everything he needs to know: no-one’s around to witness their conversation. He steps onto the pavilion’s wooden boards. Ferris leans back against one of the tubular posts holding the structure upright, his arms folded across his chest. The light makes embers of his lashes and highlights the gold specks in his eyes.
“You know this place?” Forthing gestures at the pavilion around them, the pond, all the splendid Chinese fuckery Ferris seems perfectly comfortable in.
Ferris, in fact, is not looking at the fuckery. “Went by once or twice, I’d say.” His fingers drum an unsteady rhythm on his opposite arm. “Thank you. For—over there.”
“Aye. Nothing important.”
“You could have gone with them.”
“Don’t think they care to see the likes of me.”
Ferris slides to the floor, hooks his arms around his knees. Forthing sits, too, belatedly. Locusts pipe up all around them, a sudden outburst of sound once the little creatures decide that the greater beasts in that pavilion are no danger to them.
“What’s your son like?”
The question plants a harpoon across Forthing’s tongue—renders him speechless for a second. Ferris turns a vivid shade of red, immediately gesturing stiffly to contradict his own words.
“You don’t have to answer—only, you mentioned him a while ago, and I thought, well, you aren’t much older than me, so he can’t be more than a wee lad, am I right?”
“He’s eight by now.” Forthing can’t bring himself to do much more than whisper the words. “His name’s William. Billy, that is. Brightest boy in the Corps. Passionate about dragons, he is, and spry as a right monkey. He’ll make a great captain if I can ever give him his step. I’ve a chance now, with that post on Temeraire—”
Jesus, Edmund, learn to shut your trap every once in a while. He trails off into awkwardness. Ferris’ life and career and dreams, for a mildly competent lieutenant and the hope of a potential future for a lad he doesn’t even know: Forthing supposes Ferris doesn’t see that deal with much benevolence. Indeed the man’s lips tighten. It’s sickening, really, that Forthing stole his place, when they both know—when even their captain knows—which of them really deserves the position.
Well, Laurence used to know that. Now he thinks of Ferris as his servant; his valet with a surprisingly upper-class accent. Is there any worse fate for a toff? Ferris’s had to stomp on his pride long ago. He’s had to stomp on so many things.
“Is that why you’re trying to make a good impression on Laurence?” Ferris asks, very low. “Now that you’ve got a chance to start anew?”
Forthing’s throat has never known moisture in his entire life. “Aye, could put it that way.”
“You can’t. Laurence doesn’t need his memory to see that you’re not one of us. You’re no gentleman, no part of the nobility, and you will never be.” Ferris’ words sink into Forthing’s flesh like so many needles. Harsh truth, forever more brutal than vicious lies. “Your accent, your attire, your bearing—you stink of the slums and that will never change. Laurence took one look at you when he got back aboard that transport and immediately recognised you for what you are: a pauper.” And, softly, almost gently: “Save your strength for worthier battles, Edmund.”
Forthing rises; walks over to Ferris; crouches in front of him; tilts his chin up with two intent fingers.
“Be glad that I ain’t one of your fancy kind, Harry,” he crows, “or else I’d already have challenged you and shot your fucking tongue off for those words.” He leans forward, lets the threat graze Ferris’ skin as their noses brush together. “Talk to me like that again, and I might change my mind.”
True alarm whips across Ferris’ features; then his fingers curl around Forthing’s neckcloth, tighten the fabric around his neck. A mad, mirthless smile tickles the corner of his lips. “Call me Harry one more time,” he whispers.
But Forthing is not in the mood for games. “Bold words coming from a valet.” He shoves Ferris back against his wooden column and strides off to join the other aviators. Pretending that the tiny, pained gasp Ferris let out at his words didn’t wedge itself straight across his throat; pretending, too, that pauper and stink of the slums haven’t replaced so good, Edmund, just like that in that little vial of Harry’s soft voice he keeps in a corner of his mind.
They stop fucking. They leave Beijing. Forthing’s face darkens some more with every passing day. Ferris ponders the fact that he might be an idiot.
Due to unfortunate circumstances, Forthing is now stuck under a landslide with Sipho Tsuluka Dlamini and a stupid prick. Temeraire’s massive body, a precious shield against the cascade of rocks that trapped them here, offers surprisingly little space for them to stand in: the dragon wrapped himself in tight coils to protect them from the mountain’s onslaught, and only a few feet separate his belly from his folded limbs. Darkness chokes them the second the world stops roaring. A small whine escapes Sipho’s throat. Coughing and sputtering, Forthing rises on all fours.
“Sipho? You alright, son?”
“I— Yes. I’m, I’m well. Where are you?”
Forthing extends his hands on either side of him, waves them until they encounter a small curly head. Sipho immediately throws himself in his arms, clearly shaking. Above them comes another deep rumble—only Temeraire’s voice, talking in Durzagh, and the hissing and clicking sounds of Arkady’s answer. Beneath it all, Forthing listens carefully, and finds only silence.
“Ferris?”
“Mr Ferris?” Sipho repeats against Forthing’s chest.
No answer. No bloody answer. “Ferris?” Forthing calls again, terror dampening his palms, and starts to poke around their limited enclosure. “Henry? Henry, answer me, mate.”
A warm limb under his fingers. He grasps at Ferris’ leg, keeps a firm hold on Sipho with his left hand, coughs some more while he brushes the gravel off the terrifyingly still body.
“Harry, I swear to God if you don’t answer right now I will tear your stupid head off your shoulders—”
A heave of Ferris’ chest—thank fuck—and his hand closing around Forthing’s forearm. “Edmund—Edmund, what, what happened, I can’t see, I can’t see anything, what—”
“Easy, lad, you’re right as rain, only a rockslide, only a small cliff falling on us, small pickle, nothing of import.” Ferris chokes out a laugh. Forthing’s free hand still runs along his body, feeling for injuries: “Any pain? How’s the head? Suppose you must have hit it all pretty-like: you gave us a nasty scare there—went for a nap, say, you can’t be as tired as all that.” He keeps his tone light and his jokes flowing, to reassure Sipho and Henry as much as himself: even Temeraire’s booming voice can only cross so much stone, and what reaches them, muffled and distorted, intermittently, insinuates increasing dissatisfaction with his situation. Forthing can’t quite decide which would be worse, of Temeraire’s being stuck under the rocks or his rising up and abandoning them to a certain death in the process. “Come on, Henry, up, up. You lazy arse, can’t stay lying there all day, now can you? At least you remember my name, didn’t follow in Laurence’s footsteps, eh?”
“How are we going to get out of here?” Sipho asks, his voice small.
“Oh, Temeraire will find us a way out, I’m sure.” Forthing wishes he could dismiss his own concerns as easily. The kid isn’t fooled anyway: too clever a young fellow for anything of the sort, isn’t he? He reminds Forthing of his Billy, at times. Oh, God. Oh God. He can’t die here. He can’t die without seeing Billy again.
He can’t make an orphan of his son.
“Why isn’t he moving?” murmurs Sipho, of Temeraire.
Could the dragon have heard him over the stone fortress separating them? Just as the sentence is uttered, the world starts shaking again. Temeraire’s legs kick and claw uselessly. A talon crashes into Forthing’s shoulder and sends him sprawling with a cry. He curls up against Sipho and Ferris, all three of them nestled against each other, comforted by the tacit promise to die together.
Dragons roar. Rocks groan. It is all they can hear. Gravel rains down in Forthing’s hair. Most of the strands have escaped their queue by now, but it ain’t like he has any hands left to push them out of his eyes and mouth: one arm around Sipho, one around Ferris, and he’ll be damned if he ever lets go. Sipho’s sobs rake his body with every convulsion of their firmament of stone. He shouldn’t cry. Wasting air. They don’t have much left. Forthing lets him; pets his hair and murmurs his name and tells him he’s a brave boy, smartest he’s ever met, greater scholar than most grown men could ever hope to be. What he doesn’t say is that he’s got a seat waiting for him in heaven’s grandest library. That he’ll be able to write as many essays as he pleases on the Lord’s writing-desk.
He’s still talking, not sure about what. Billy’s name, stumbling out of his chapped lips in the midst of mindless apologies. God, he’ll see Emmeline again. Let him see Emmeline again. He’s not so sure about his own place in heaven: he’s killed too many a man for that. Not sure he’s worthy of the honour. Billy, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Promise you’ll get your captain’s bars for your da. It’s what he would have wanted.
When silence arrives it is like the night. Temeraire stops moving. Perhaps he is dead. Perhaps his skull, too, was crushed by the landslide: perhaps these spasms were only the symptoms of his long, excruciating agony. Those aren’t tears blocking Forthing’s airway: he can breathe less and less. He tries to hold his breath, to preserve more air for Ferris and Sipho. Oh, Henry: Lord, why would you take Henry now? Why, when he has only managed to leave the bottle behind? Why refuse a second chance to a young man who lost it all?
Henry’s head rests against his. Some of the hair in Forthing’s face is probably his. It is softer than his own. He tightens his grip around Ferris’ waist. In response, Ferris’ fingers close over his. He presses Forthing’s hand gently, regular motions synchronised with his trembling breathing. The tender skin beneath his ear is warm where Forthing nuzzles it. Pure selfishness replaces all thoughts of worth: Forthing contemplates the sickeningly glorious realisation that there is no-one else he would rather die with.
“Harry,” he breathes in Ferris’ ear, more vibration than sound, the noise only twisted enough to be understood by its intended recipient; and if this name becomes Forthing’s last word on this earth, well, what of it?
“Ed,” Henry sighs. His lashes brush Forthing’s cheek when he closes his eyes.
The rumble of stone like distant thunder. The ominous creaking of this natural ceiling crumbling under its own weight. Forthing extends his legs before him and finds that his feet touch the rock, with Temeraire’s belly to his back. Above them, all around, stone and stone and jail. Is there even a world out there? Forthing tries to remember the feel of the wind on his face. He stares at the darkness and tries to imagine light.
He’s never been the most imaginative fellow.
Dark. Dark. Stone. Dark, and death.
He can’t really breathe, now. Dust has conquered his lungs whole. He will inhale only grime until the end of his days. Fortunately, that time is approaching fast. Last day on earth: spent under the earth. At least, he thinks, no need to lower him six feet down. Whether his eyes are open and closed matters little. Can’t see, can’t breathe, can’t think, and soon will cease being.
Sipho has stopped crying now.
There are angels, descending upon them, waiting for them to cross the threshold of death. Ferris raises his voice to greet them. “Here,” he says, to guide them in the right direction. And then, louder, “Here. Here! In here! We’re alive! We’re not dead, we’re here, in here!”—and Lord, oh Lord, these are not angels, these are dragons’ voices, and human ones, and they’re not fucking dead yet!
“IN HERE!” Forthing bellows with all the force his chest can still muster. Sipho jumps against him. He scrambles to his feet, starts scraping and clawing and punching these hellish walls of darkness, starts tearing apart the freezing veil of death, starts hollering his way out of his own damned tomb. Sipho and Ferris cry out, too, fight beside him, stand with him, refuse to die with him, and rapture is that ray of light that Forthing knows will forever greet him on every single morning of his miraculously extended life.
Kulingile’s great eye blinks at them through the minuscule aperture. “Get the lad out!” Forthing howls, tearing his hands apart on that thumb-wide fissure. Blood cascades down his fingers from a torn-off nail. The fuck does he care? Finally, finally, the hole widens, more light pours in, slowly, ever so slowly. Sipho will live. Sipho will live even if Forthing has to heave this mountain up on his own shoulders to get him out. Kulingile’s gigantic talons dig and dig, freeing a tunnel to freedom, to survival: at last the gap is large enough for a child to fit through.
“But what of you?” Sipho protests as Forthing lifts him bodily to the opening.
“Don’t worry about us, son, we’ll be fine. Now out.”
Some wriggling, some squirming: the soles of Sipho’s shoes disappear into the light. Relief is an unexpected flood, so strong it sends Forthing collapsing on his knees, his mind dizzy from this glorious solace. The lad is out. The lad will live. He can’t feel his hands, coughs more than he breathes. The lad is out. The hole is still widening. A hand on his collar forces him to his feet.
“Come on, Lieutenant, this is yet to be over.” Ferris grins down at him. He looks stupid. His hair has turned a dirty brown, nothing like its usual beautiful red, and there is more grime than skin on his body. Craning his neck up to meet his gaze hurts: Forthing lets his heavy, heavy head fall down. Stares at Henry’s chest instead.
“Aye. You’re right. Give me your foot.”
“You’re going out first,” Ferris declares firmly.
“Fuck off. Can’t fit through that.” A perfect truth: lean as he is, Ferris can writhe his way out of the small conduit, whereas Forthing’s broader shoulders can’t possibly hope to imitate him. “Out. That’s an order, Mr Ferris.” He pulls the man to him, hoists him up in his arms with the last remnants of his strength. He catches a glimpse of Ferris’ aggrieved expression as their faces brush against one another. Forthing grins. “See you on the other side, aye?”
With his help, Ferris scrambles out. Despite the light trickling in, darkness still dances before Forthing’s eyes. They dig some more. Unknown hands dive in to grab at his hands, his arms, his clothes. Lift him up. He coughs and spits some dirt out. Rolls on the ground, meets the sun face to face for the first time in what feels like years.
“Oh,” he says to the sky, “oh, I’m not dead, am I?”
Ferris loves his captain, he really does. There is no true way to despise Will Laurence, despite everything: but that everything grows more impossible to ignore every day, for Laurence does not even come to ask after his first lieutenant’s health. They all three of them, Forthing, Sipho and Ferris, keep coughing for several days after that experience. Dirt escapes their eyelids with each of their blinks. Forthing is missing two nails, Ferris’ ankle is sprained and his head seems to have doubled in size, Sipho won’t come out of his tent, and Laurence only listens to Forthing’s exhausted report and says, “Very well. Get some rest—,” before disappearing to enquire after Tenzing fucking Tharkay.
They leave for Beijing almost immediately. Poor Mr Tharkay needs a doctor, after all. And yes, of course he needs a doctor—the man’s been tortured, for Christ’s sake, and the truth of it all is that Napoleon is invading Russia, and that time is of the essence—but what is even the point of Laurence recovering his memories if he can’t recover his empathy?
“It’s fine,” Forthing mutters, once they are back in Beijing. He sits cross-legged on his bed, holding his injured hand tight to his chest. That hand is an ugly sight, one that lifts Ferris’ stomach right up to his throat the second he lays eyes on it. “I am well, after all; the kid has it far worse than me.”
They say nothing of the habit they have both taken of sleeping with a lit candle by their bed: dangerous, certainly, yet the prospect of a fire somehow less dreadful than the memories.
Without asking for an invitation, Ferris sits on the bed, by Forthing’s side. Temeraire is to leave for Russia soon, taking his crew with him. They will follow, of course. Loyalty is a choice they’ve long since stopped benefitting from.
“Suppose you don’t mind my being injured, if it can justify your taking on some of my responsibilities,” Forthing grumbles.
“And certainly you don’t mind reaping the rewards of my efforts, when you can pretend you were the one to conduct those tasks all along,” Ferris retorts.
The banter is puny and lacking at heart. Ferris falls backwards on the bed and stares at the ceiling. His mouth misses the taste of salt the name of Edmund Forthing used to deposit on his tongue. Forthing lies down beside him, their shoulders pressed together. All of a sudden Ferris wants nothing more than a good cry. Were the world a fair place, he’d have Granby beside him, whose shoulder he’s always been able to sob on—but Granby’s off to his captain duties, a busy bee at this time of tension and terror. Ferris should be trailing behind Laurence, offering him whatever help he might bring. Forthing should be taking care of the crew. Instead they are here, and not even fucking.
“Want me to frig you?” Ferris says.
Forthing closes his eyes. “Not really.”
“Good. Me neither.” After a pause, Ferris adds, “I need a drink.”
“Nay, you don’t.” Forthing rolls to the side, grabs his shoulder with his good hand, forces their faces to align. “Hear me, Henry? You don’t.”
“I don’t need it,” Ferris whispers.
“Good. You don’t need it.” Forthing sets his forehead against Ferris’. Their eyes drift closed together. Their breaths intertwine.
Slowly, Ferris sets his arms about Forthing’s waist. A sharp intake of breath—yet the man does not pull away. Remains pliant and silent, even as Ferris pulls him closer. Even as he buries his face in Forthing’s neck. And even as, at last, Forthing copies his movements, with the stiff unease of a man unused to such close proximity.
How long they remain like that is a mystery.
In Russia, Forthing is forced to spend the money he usually saves for Billy on a good winter coat. In Russia, Forthing sees men and horses and dragons alike starving to death like so many damned souls. In Russia, Forthing feels a bullet tear his own face apart.
There is one thing the entire formation knows about Lieutenant Forthing: he is an excellent shot. Give the man a pistol and he will hit his target, no matter the conditions. When Forthing levels his gun at the Frenchmen before them, Ferris does not doubt for a second that the bullet will aim straight. And it does: the man falls, blood spurting out of his forehead in an eerie, ramrod-straight spray not unlike a unicorn’s horn—but not before he has time to shoot as well.
How does it happen? Could Forthing himself even explain it? He must have been shouting an order, bellowing a battle cry, letting out an exclamation of surprise or even of minor pain. No explanation is worth the sight of the bullet barrelling into his mouth and ripping his cheek open on its way out. Blood darkens Forthing’s face immediately. A small strip of skin dangles from his face as he heaves in great moaning breaths, doubled over in his harness, hand shaking like mad on his now useless pistol.
Useless: that’s what he is during a battle; hence Ferris turns away. Dyhern is grappling with a Frenchman, several feet lower on Temeraire’s almost vertical neck. The cry of rage exploding out of Ferris’ throat is unbefitting of a gentleman. He snaps his carabiners open, plummets down and crashes into the Imperial Guard’s chest. His fist saves his life by closing of its own accord on one of Dyhern’s carabiner straps, pushed by instinct rather than reason. The man chokes for air through his crushed lungs. Ferris slams the barrel of his pistol between his teeth, yelling, “For Edmund, you fucking son of a—,” and lets the sound of a skull splitting apart drown the rest of his words. Dyhern is laughing, the madman, eyes bright at the feat he just witnessed. Ferris only has time to clip his carabiners closed before the earth’s axis tilts queerly, and he plunges down at impossible speed.
His back slams against Temeraire’s hide. The breath is punched out of him. No more movement, no more wingbeats: he rolls painstakingly on his belly. Temeraire—crashed to the ground? But the battle is not over: three Frenchmen left, one of whom staggers towards the captain. He is shot through the skull—by Roland, Jesus—and his companions fall back, eyes wide. Ferris rises on unsteady legs to point his sword at their chests; and there appears Forthing, a study in red and white, pale as death apart from the blood dribbling from his face.
“Tell them to surrender,” he hisses. Ferris can see his tongue moving through the hole in his cheek; can see once-white teeth now turned crimson by the cascade of blood. A violent gag nearly rips his stomach from his body.
“Rendez-vous,” he stammers, after an embarrassingly long pause in order to recall the correct phrase.
The French offer no protest. They can but stare at Forthing, bleeding, bloodied demon with his long tangled hair blowing every which way and the gaping hole in his unkempt beard and his own flesh slapping against his face with every push and pull of the impassive wind, extending a ruthless hand for their weapons and croaking out orders in roughly accented English. In fact, no-one contradicts anything he says just then. When he throws a sizzling glare Ferris’ way and barks out a “Tie ‘em up,” it is all Ferris can do not to use his own harness as handcuffs in his haste to find rope.
Afterwards, Forthing stands on Temeraire’s back, overlooking the scene of bloodshed around them. A nasty stain expands slowly on the shoulder and collar of his coat; his shirt has already been tinted red. Ferris’ boots crunch on the layer of frost covering Temeraire’s hide as he approaches.
“Sir.”
Forthing’s hazy eyes land on him. “Mr Ferris.”
“I believe you are in need of medical assistance, sir.”
Forthing raises a hand to his cheek—winces, when his index finger slips through the hole and brushes against his teeth. “Go see if the captain needs your help with anything.” He bends, unlatches his carabiners.
Ferris laughs. “With all due respect, I’m afraid not, sir.”
Sharp glance, hand tightening on the carabiner straps. “The hell do you mean by ‘no’, Ferris?”
“The captain can’t possibly need my help as much as you do. Sir.” Ferris slips an arm around Forthing’s waist, guides him down Temeraire’s flank, heedless of his weak protests. The cold and fury of the battle have protected him from the pain, but he shan’t remain numb for much longer, and Ferris would like to see him taken care of before he starts screaming. Forthing paws weakly at his shoulder, trying to push him off. “Shh,” Ferris tells him, bending his neck to murmur in his ear. “Shh, all is well, Ed, I’ll take care of you.”
The stupor on Forthing’s face distorts even his deformed cheek. He stares up at Ferris. “Why?” he retorts, helplessly.
The answer is painfully obvious. “I—” Frost freezes the words in his mouth, leaves them burning and screaming on his tongue, unable to escape. What comes out instead is perhaps even truer: “Because no-one ever has.”
Dear Billy,
Thinking about you To-day. Miss you more than I can say. Don’t count this as a full Letter: I shan’t Post it until I write Another to go with it.
Russia may be the coldest Place in the whole World. Certainly the Coldest I’ve been to. Can’t say I like it much. Paper’s Expensive here: short Letters, etc. Fought the French today. We won. Your Da almost Captured old Boney himself, what do you say to that? Though I suppose I can’t call it Almost since the man Tricked us in the first Place. Slippery Snake that he is: we’ll get him one of those Days.
Your Handwriting’s improving. I’m proud of you. Hope you’re not too much Trouble for Capt Whitby. Ask him for his Map when you can: Russia’s not that Far from Britain, is it?
See you Soon, lad.
Your Da who loves you very Much.
PS-: Ignore the blood in the Corner. Just a Scratch.
A duel; a wounded Russian baron; a beautiful girl with eyes only for him. Ferris cannot recall a day he has been in a more convoluted position than this: Temeraire desperate for Miss Merkelyte to marry him, Gabija herself smiling and flushing whenever their eyes meet, and no less than three rivals competing for her favours.
Well; one rival, truly. Hammond cannot be said to hold the young lady in any kind of amorous regard; and Forthing—
“It is clear enough she wants out of this life. I don’t suppose we can leave before one of us is wedded: and if it shan’t be Hammond nor Ferris, there are others among us who wouldn’t refuse the honour,” and saying this the bastard spares a cocky glance for Ferris, who feels heat flood his cheeks at this open provocation.
Laurence only nods, profound fatigue distorting his usually proud bearing. His injury has left him out of his mind with exhaustion, and this squabble cannot possibly encourage his recovery.
That day, while the doctor takes a look at both his patients, Ferris takes his anger out on a poor empty bucket left by the coop to bring grain to the chickens: it rolls to the ground when he kicks it, and then slams against the fence once his foot viciously slips underneath it, all the better to do as much damage as possible.
“I take it you wanted the lady.” Leaning against the wall of the house, Dyhern eyes him with unabashed amusement.
“I don’t—I can’t—what I want does not matter: he only pretends he’s interested in order to rile me!”
Dyhern chuckles. “Seems to work.” He throws his head back, blows a steady stream of smoke that rises in almost draconic coils over the low roof, brings his pipe back to his lips. “Besides, I don’t see that he couldn’t be interested for the sake of it; the girl’s handsome after all: and I don’t think him married?”
“Widowed. Childbirth.”
“There: if a man can’t recover enough from such grief to peer at pretty ladies again, there’s no hope for any of us.”
“He wouldn’t have offered, at all, were it not for me.”
Ferris comes to sit beside Dyhern, resting his elbows on his knees. The man hands him his pipe; he thanks him with a flick of his wrist, but does not take it.
“You don’t seem to like each other much.”
In fact they’ve never been more cordial to each other: still bickering constantly, still exchanging glares at every opportunity, but none of Ferris’ bitter words have been wholly sincere for weeks now. No, he doesn’t like Forthing much: he falls asleep thinking of their fingers entwined and must suppress a smile whenever his lieutenant comes into view. Their feuds have turned into a game somewhere along the way. He doesn’t like Forthing at all.
“What’s certain is I don’t like the thought of him with that girl,” he mumbles.
Dyhern’s laugh is a quiet thing for such a large fellow. “Is your family the reason you cannot marry her yourself?”
“I have brought pain enough to my mother in the past.”
“A mother should know to forgive what makes her son happy,” Dyhern says gravely. He slides down to Ferris’ level and stretches his legs out in front of him. “You are young: you have decades before you to discover heartbreak.”
“I wish I didn’t know of it already,” Ferris whispers. “I wish I could marry her and be Temeraire’s first lieutenant again. I wish I could be certain I shan’t spend my life in misery.” He closes his eyes, rests his forehead upon his knees. Muffled, his next words nevertheless creep up to Dyhern’s ears: “I wish I could marry Edmund. I wish I didn’t want to.”
Dyhern says nothing for a very long time, smoking. Then he extends his arm and pulls Ferris to his chest. The smell of tobacco and wet wool drown out everything else.
“There’s room enough in this world for everyone, son. Don’t forget that this includes you.”
In the end Forthing doesn’t get the girl—ha!—and Ferris doesn’t either—through no fault of his own. Her beauty is beyond compare, it is true, but he finds he is glad for the excuse of his mother’s disapproval, for despite all his best wishes, his heart belongs to another. He still makes a show of sighing and blushing after her wherever Forthing can see it, and thus earns an accidental friend, for Gabija proves to be, despite her shyness, a kind and clever young lady as well as a gorgeous one. The few words they exchange, in their stumbling German, are full of wit and more often than not bring a sincere smile to Ferris’ lips. What he wouldn’t give to fall for her: he lets their fingers brush, on one occasion, and finds wistful joy in the shiver it sends along his spine.
He would call Gabija a friend, yes, as much as one he has only addressed directly once or twice can be; hence why, when she rushes to his side red-faced and shivering, hiking her skirts up in a trembling hand, he jumps to his feet immediately.
“Was passiert?”
She is stammering, tears welling up in her wide brown eyes. “He—he tried—I told him no, but he tried—”
Colour deserts Ferris’ face before the meaning of the words can even reach his mind fully. Dobrozhnov has been attempting to seduce her for days: but this is too much to bear. His sword whistles through the air as he draws it. Behind him, Forthing lets out a quiet gasp, and then a “Harry, no—” that Ferris pays no heed to. The house’s door slams open with a kick of his boot. Dobrozhnov jumps in his sickbed, with the guilty expression of a man who knows himself at risk. The words come out a growl: “Now you will give me satisfaction, you wretch—” and Laurence’s eyes widen and Mrs Merkelyte slaps a hand to her mouth and steel fists close around each of Ferris’ arms—Forthing and Dyhern both, pulling him back when he would have struck the man’s cheek hard enough to leave a bruise matching the one Laurence himself drew.
“What a to-do,” Dobrozhnov snorts, knowing himself safe. When to this he adds an insult to Gabija’s virtue, Ferris crushes Forthing’s foot and launches himself at him, but he is no match for both Dyhern and Forthing in strength: two larger men than he, and yet they struggle to drag him out of the room, and only manage it once Laurence reassures him about his honour and Gabija’s safety both.
“Good God, Harry,” Forthing exclaims after forcibly sitting him down by the fence.
Ferris gnashes his teeth and glares at the window, praying for lightning to strike down on that house and leave all of its inhabitants miraculously safe, bar that Russian cunt. Gabija shuffles over to him, her lips parted, her nose a pretty shade of pink.
“Thank you,” she stutters, in hesitant English: then turns and runs away at her mother’s timely call.
“Jesus Christ, Harry,” Forthing repeats, louder now that the lady has gone, before collapsing by his side.
“Ah, the verve of youth,” says Dyhern, and slaps Ferris on the shoulder.
He is the one to marry her eventually; Ferris is glad to know her in good hands.
Laurence and Temeraire both, the crew is informed, shall host a dinner with the commanding officers and dragons meant to accompany them on their campaign to Prussia. The newly-made admiral is asking his men to put on their best clothes, in order to make a good impression: for Laurence has men now, and a full crew to boast, and Forthing finds himself second-in-command in charge of three dozen fellows.
He’s fighting with his tentatively starched neckcloth when a knock to his open door distracts him from his battle. Ferris enters the room with a smile on his face. The white fabric of his neckcloth is bright enough to blind; his stockings hug firm calves and highlight the strength of his legs; his hair the exact shade of warm autumn evenings falls in fashionable curls over his high forehead. His coat, of a green so dark it seems nearly black, gets to embrace his slender back: Forthing is overwhelmed by a sudden rush of jealousy for an article of clothing. The coattails brush against his silk breeches with every step he takes.
“Why, Edmund, still not ready?” he exclaims, laughing, as he crosses the room to him: before stopping so suddenly he might as well have been struck by lightning. “What happened to your face?”
Forthing blinks; stares at himself in the mirror. “A razor?”
In truth he can understand Ferris’ bewilderment: he can scarcely recognise his own face without a thick beard to darken it. Both Temeraire and Lieutenant Challoner, whom the dragon’s charged with ensuring the crew put on their Sunday best for the occasion, have heavily implied that facial hair wouldn’t do, wouldn’t do at all in fact: and although experience has taught Forthing that he shan’t ever keep the men’s respect with a clean-shaven face considering what it makes him look like, he’s settled for a nice moustache like the Hussars sometimes sport on the Continent—not the epitome of fashion Temeraire expects, certainly, but prim and proper enough for Forthing’s admittedly far lower standards. He can’t say he enjoys the way it shows off the sizable pale scar on his cheek, but what’s a man to do?
Conflicting emotions war on Ferris’ features: incredulity gives way to horror and then to astonished awe. He takes another step forward, raises a hesitant hand as though considering placing it on Forthing’s cheek, forces his arm back to his side.
“Oh,” he says.
Forthing lets out a laugh. “Disappointed much?” Another drawback to the lack of beard: now Ferris can’t possibly miss the way his cheeks turn crimson at his own question. Too late to swallow back the words: desperate for a distraction, he returns to his pitiful attempts at tying his neckcloth.
“I can’t say that. It—it suits you.” Forthing’s finger slips and he somehow manages to pinch his own skin while trying to make a knot. He clears his throat. Ferris is very red, too. He takes another step, the better to get hold of Forthing’s cravat. “Here—let me.” He bows his head to tie the fabric with expert movements. His long fingers dance on Forthing’s collar, sometimes brush against his vulnerable skin. The knot appears in a matter of seconds.
“Thank you,” Forthing murmurs. He fiddles with the neckcloth, probably ruining Ferris’ splendid work—but can’t bring himself to look him in the eye.
Those deft fingers slide up and settle under his chin, forcing his head up. Those same freckles that adorn Ferris’ cheekbones have also invaded the back of his hands; Forthing never noticed.
“You’re—a very handsome fellow, do you know?”
Through the flush and the stammer shines timid sincerity. Ferris, with his dashing looks and green eyes of the kind the poets write verses about, pretends that Forthing, rough, uncouth, disfigured Forthing, holds beauty in his core; and Forthing, foolish perhaps, mad surely, believes him.
He cranes his neck. Ferris’ eyes flutter closed. He offers himself up so beautifully: this is a face meant to be cradled and covered in gentle kisses; this is a soul meant to be shown tenderness. Forthing loves him, oh so ardently: but these aren’t words he can dare to utter. Not to a man; not to a nob; not to anyone he’s damned so thoroughly by grazing their life with his. So he shuts his trap, and rises just slightly on the balls of his feet, and presents his lips instead, ‘cause you can always deny what’s never been spoken.
Steps shuffle by in the corridor. They jerk back as one. The gaping maw of the open door scoffs at them, taunting them for their folly. A group of aviators strolls by: one of them, a young fair-haired lieutenant, lights up and leans against the door with a wide grin.
“Ferris, you there! So the Admiralty’s come crawling back, have they? I say, bunch of bastards up there: we’re glad you’re back, aye, folks?”
His friends all nod vigorously, and soon Ferris finds himself surrounded by a circle of enthusiastic young fellows. Red-faced and ever so slightly stiff in his movements, he still greets them with evident pleasure; and, throwing an arm around Forthing’s shoulders: “This is Lieutenant Forthing, first on Temeraire. Edmund, these fellows are all officers aboard Aspera. We used to be on the same formation—”
“Forthing?” Ferris’ friend says, at the same time as Forthing says, “Aspera?”
Ferris looks back and forth between them. “Yes?”
“Aspera’s here?”
The lieutenant grins. “Oh aye, we just landed. The lad keeps blabbering on about you ever since he saw that heavy-weight of yours in the clearings, mate.”
Forthing takes off running.
He bolts out of the room, flies down the stairs, bursts out of the building and sprints towards the distant curve of Aspera’s ample back. He’s already shouting as he reaches the middle-weight’s clearing, and to hell with this pretence of etiquette, fuck it if he looks like a madman. “Billy!” And the answer, rushing straight to his lungs like fresh water in a desert, filling it with life after years of slumber: “Da!”
He clambers down Aspera’s flank, his carabiners an easy extension of his limbs, as skilled as a lifelong aviator. He jumps the last feet to the ground and shoots towards his father, and that first touch is his heart starting anew, blood cascading through veins which have been frozen ever since they parted all those hundreds of days ago. Forthing grabs him. Whirls him around in the air. Are they laughing or crying? Both, neither, there’s no bloody difference when he pulls his son tight to his chest and feels his own flesh, reunited at last.
“Da,” Billy chokes, grasping his coat’s collar, creasing the expensive fabric, “I didn’t know you’d be there—saw the Celestial and, and didn’t know where you were, where to find you, and—”
“I’m here, I’m here, I’m not leaving, I’m here, Billy, I’m—Lord, how you’ve grown, almost a man now, aye?”
He sobs out a laugh, on his knees by Aspera’s feet. Billy hugs him with surprising strength. Forthing hugs back. He can’t stop crying. He doesn’t give a flying fuck. Look how tall his Billy is: how strong, and clever, and proper, finest lad in the whole world. He can’t stop staring at him between hoarse exclamations. He looks like his mother. God. Oh God, thank you, thank you for this, for everything, he will withstand it again and again for a minute with Billy, a second, the blurriest reflection of his gap-toothed smile in a muddy puddle.
“What’s that on your face?” Billy whispers, running his fingers along the scar.
“An adventure story,” Forthing replies. He wipes his eyes with his sleeve, uselessly: the tears won’t stop coming.
“Can I have your sword?”
“‘Course you can.” He hands the kid his dress sword. Billy brandishes it proudly. Forthing remains on his knees, staring his fill, and rediscovers the heat of happiness on his skin.
Captain Whitby laughs and waves his hand benevolently when Forthing asks to borrow his runner for the evening. He leads Billy back to the covert, tells him of his travels, makes an epic tale of every experience. Billy shows him his drawings, proudly reads him aloud an excerpt from his letters—he’s kept them all, all of Forthing’s letters to him, safely put away in a small wooden box his mother left him. Forthing constantly ruffles his hair. Can’t help himself. Can’t keep his hands off him. They play aerial battle with sticks: and it is lying on his back in the grass and grinning like a fool, his son’s makeshift sword to his throat, that Forthing blinks up to Ferris standing over him.
“I see you’ve been defeated at last.” Ferris smiles down at them.
Billy sticks out his chest. “He’s French. And also dead. I killed him.”
“Congratulations, Captain,” Ferris replies, very seriously, and extends a gloved hand that Billy immediately shakes.
“Who’s this, Da?” he asks, just as Forthing rises, brushing the blades of grass and the dirt from his now irremediably stained breeches.
“Henry—,” and his ceremonial tone is somewhat contradicted by the stupid smile he can’t swallow down, “—may I introduce you to William Forthing, runner aboard His Majesty’s dragon Aspera? Billy, this is Henry Ferris. He’s a member of my crew—no. No, that’s not quite right, is it?” His eyes are soft, too soft, as they land on Ferris. Billy’s a sharp lad; risk is, he’ll guess what’s at stake here: let him understand. Forthing has nothing to hide from his son. “He’s my dearest friend,” he concludes.
Ferris smiles. His teeth glint white under the firelight of his unreserved joy. He bows to Billy, with all the innate elegance of a gentleman.
“My pleasure, sir.”
“Hullo,” Billy says, and waves.
For the first time in years, Forthing has a family again.
Prussia is true to Ferris’ recollection of it: smoke and combat and roaring dragons, war in all its revolting splendour. As soon as they arrive, reports of battles won and skirmishes lost, injuries and death and—and—
“Acting-captain?” he repeats, numbly, stupidly.
Laurence gives him a small smile; presses his shoulder gently. “Many of the Prussian dragons have lost their captains, at war or in prison; I beg you will seize this opportunity, Ferris. It is a plea rather than an order: there is no-one else I would rather have leading my middle-weights.”
Ferris stares, mouth agape. Then, choking, “Yes; yes, I would—” and trails off in bewilderment. Laurence claps him on the shoulder, gestures for him to leave the tent.
“My congratulations, Captain Ferris; pray ask for Adelheid; and please see to it that someone finds you a uniform: Captain Dyhern, I believe, could supply you with one.”
Daylight barks down on Ferris’ face when he stumbles out. The world is a blur not unlike that brought the familiar state of drunkenness. Officers and crewmen shuffle and run all about, comings and goings too swift and distant for his shattered mind to register. In a daze he finds Dyhern, pulls on his sleeve like a child: “I have been made acting-captain. Laurence says you shall give me a uniform,” and only then starts laughing, mad and hysterical, until Dyhern bursts out laughing with him and almost sends him sprawling with a punch to the shoulder.
“Ferris, you lucky dog! At last! Come; come, of course we shall find you a coat,” and throwing rapid orders in German, he guides Ferris to Eroica and soon tosses a Prussian uniform in his arms. The fabric weighs more than it should once Ferris pulls it on. Dyhern laughs again, clicking his tongue. “You look just like a proper Prussian soldier!”
Ferris is stumbling through the military camp. He catches a glimpse of his reflection in the metallic surface of a large cooking pot: vague colours rather than clear shapes, red hair and red collar framing a pale, overjoyed face. His smile cuts a wide crevasse into this distorted portrait.
The Prussian middle-weights are gathered behind the heavy-weights, and it is easy enough to identify which, among them, are captainless: they do not squabble, do not converse, only stand apart and grieve, silent and motionless like great sculptures rather than living beasts. Ferris asks quietly for Adelheid, and is led to a broad-shouldered Berghexe, her distinctive plum hide turned a sad grey by the loss which befell her. Her talons furrow the earth relentlessly. She growls at nothing and everything, her fangs bared. Her glare, when Ferris approaches her, is enough to make any less enthused man reconsider his decision.
“Who are you?” she snaps.
“My name is Henry Ferris. I have been tasked with leading you and your crew into battle.”
“I do not want another captain.”
“That is not what I am. I am sorry for your loss; I ask only that you help me fight the French: would defeating Bonaparte not help in avenging your captain?”
“Revenge,” Adelheid murmurs. Her talons dig deep into the poor soil beneath her. “Revenge; yes, I should like that of all things.” She lowers a great orange eye to Ferris’ level, peering at him through a translucent lid. “And you, an Englishman, you would help me in this?”
“If you will allow it,” Ferris answers truthfully, and offers his hand. After a second, Adelheid noses at it.
He makes himself acquainted with her crew, brave men and women who do not flinch at the idea of getting aloft on a potentially suicidal dragon. His newly-found duties eat at the day until the sun descends on the smoke-dark horizon. Adelheid is a beautiful dragon, almost a heavy-weight by British standards, with a gigantic crimson maw and rows upon rows of blue-and-white stripes on her long, flat tail. A single horn rises from the back of her head and extends it in a manner not unlike Temeraire’s ruff, though this appendage of course cannot move. Under her sour mood and ferocious thirst for blood hides a deep love for linguistics: she speaks only German but says she used to dedicate hours to debates with other dragons from her formation about the way the language operates. Just for her, Ferris promises himself to improve his German.
It is night-time when he heads back to his tent, but the camp is no less busy for it. He weaves his way through a throng of people, delicious fatigue pulling at his limbs. The captain’s insignia on his shoulders seem to light up his path. He cannot stop touching them.
Before the British aviators’ tents is a campfire, and around it a friendly circle: there Granby, his head thrown back to laugh at a joke from Whitby; there Adair, the tiniest smile on his lips; there Forthing, with his head cocked to the side. Ferris steps into the firelight. It turns his coat a deep shade of red instead of its original blue. Silence falls as gazes turn to him: Granby is the first to notice his captain bars. He yelps, leaps to his feet and over the fire to throw himself at Ferris. They all follow, Challoner and Whitby and the rest of Laurence’s crew, their smiles stretch wider than their faces, congratulations fall, laughter rings out, happiness burns like a long-awaited blessing.
Forthing shakes Ferris’ hand, his face very serious. “My compliments, Captain.” It is only much later, once they have eaten and laughed and lived to the full extent of yet another evening spent out of the grave, that Ferris comes to wonder if he has offended Forthing, by making post and reaping a reward that, in a fair world, would justly belong to him.
He stands in his tent like a fool, still bundled up in that Prussian coat, when a scraping sound attracts his attention. A hand, slipping underneath the back wall of his tent, painstakingly lifting the fabric for a head to wriggle through. Ferris can only stare in disbelief. Forthing glares up at him, but doesn’t quite manage not to break into a grin by the end of his sentence: “Care to lend me a hand, Captain?”
Ferris cannot, for he is too busy doubling over and crying from laughter. Forthing squirms offendedly into the tent; his vest and shirt, once he finds his way on his feet, seem to have forever turned a dirty brown.
“There’s a door,” Ferris chokes out through his tears.
“Didn’t want ‘em to see me,” Forthing grumbles.
“Why?” retorts Ferris, wiping his eyes: “You’ve come to ravish me?”
Forthing grins. He looks damnably too proud of himself. “And so what if I have?”
“Then you’re taking your sweet old time.”
Forthing crosses the room in two strides and crashes bodily against him. His slovenly shirtsleeves brush against Ferris’ uniform coat. He grabs Ferris’ face in both hands, and this is not a kiss, not really: it is the culmination of a play that could only end one way. It is a great monster whose body lays torn apart inside both of their hearts, finally soaring free as they reunite it. They devour each other, shedding clothes as they go, adieu to the captain’s coat, but that does not stop Forthing from whispering “Captain Ferris” against Ferris’ lips, and Ferris yanks him down, collapses backwards on his cot, pulls sharply on Forthing’s shirt to free it of his pantaloons and hurls it across the tent to join his already discarded waistcoat, gasping “Call me Harry; by God, call me Harry one more time,” just as Forthing rocks his hips against him. A cold touch to the bare skin of his chest: a glass vial—“Did you bring oil on a campaign?” Ferris exclaims, but Forthing only laughs and kisses him harder.
“Missed it like hell last time, didn’t we?”
He’s right, damn the man. Ferris tells him as much. Forthing gives him a tentative grin.
“I’d rather you buggered me instead.”
“Jesus Christ,” Ferris says, with feeling. He complies, of course. What’s a man to do?
Afterwards, Forthing lies against him, warm and sated, still panting softly from their exertions. Even cropped shorter than its usual queue, his hair still manages to fall directly in his face: it is as though his very body refuses to take on a refined appearance. His moustache tickles Ferris’ shoulder where his cheek is pressed, skin to skin. Ferris threads his fingers through his hair: the thickest mane he’s ever seen, soft as silk if only one cares to explore as far as the smallest strands, close to the skull. Ferris’ mouth is uncomfortably full of unspoken words. He weighs them on the balance of his terror, ponders the risks of uttering them. Forthing presses a lazy kiss to his shoulder.
“You’re a better fuck when you’re sober,” he comments.
“You’re a better fuck when you don’t boast about your rank.”
“You’d rather I boasted about yours, Captain?”
The cot shakes as Forthing rises on one elbow. Shuddering at the name, Ferris kisses that infuriating grin off his face. Forthing’s shoulders hit the counterpane; Ferris rolls over and stretches himself out over him, their legs immediately entangled like tree branches joining hands under the sky’s indifferent vault.
“Call me captain one more time…” How long since those words have last been a threat? Forthing cranes his neck up, lets Ferris’ lips explore the tender skin of the underside of his jaw, where the barrier of his beard has always prevented them from investigating.
“My captain—,” Forthing’s fingers draw paths of sweet pleasure along Ferris’ spine, “—my nuisance, my very own posh bastard.”
Ferris mouths at the coarse lines of his throat, where stubble is already growing back. Greatly daring, he whispers, “Your lover.” Forthing’s hand tightens on his back: but he cannot stop there, must see this through to the end, even if it costs him his heart and his life. “Your love,” he says, rising on both elbows, “if you’d only let me.”
It is in Forthing’s eyes that Ferris understands the meaning of the words wine-dark sea. He has never been drunker.
“My love,” Forthing says, slowly, testing the words on his tongue. It tears Ferris apart: builds a new man out of him, and brushes the empty shell away. Forthing chokes out a weak laugh. “Aye, I suppose that ain’t entirely wrong, is it?”
Ferris smiles. “I love you too, Edmund.” The secret hangs between them, solidified by this name that he alone uses, out of all those millions of souls in this world.
Forthing throws his head back, eyes closed, lips stretched in a smile. “So it bloody well seems.”
The war ends surprisingly quietly. Before the cries, before the joy, before the celebrations and drunkenness and all-encompassing relief, there is the thump of an emperor’s crown hitting the floor. The scratch of a quill against a peace treaty. Forthing thinks about those noises often: it’s the sound of his life tearing apart at the seams.
Temeraire and his Admiral Laurence retire from the Corps. They settle in the Scottish countryside, alongside a friend of old, and let the last fingers of mist from the war drift away behind gentle thistles. Dismantled, Temeraire’s crew is left to find positions aboard other dragons: most of the officers and hands manage it easily enough, guided by a war hero’s recommendation and Temeraire’s ferocious determination to see them settled.
Temeraire does not fight for his first lieutenant. And if the name of Edmund Forthing slips Laurence’s mind, after all that he went through, can he really be blamed?
Yes, Forthing thinks, ruffling his son’s hair. Hell yes he can; and, through all his respect and admiration and grudging love for Admiral Will Laurence, a single drop of bitterness leaves an unpleasant taste on his tongue: the knowledge that, for all that he cared too much about too many, Laurence never cared about him.
So here he stands, grounded, dragonless, as useful to the world as a bird without wings. He uses his lieutenant’s wages to buy a nice coat, one that Temeraire would have liked after all. He drifts through dispassionate days. A soldier in peace-time has little to offer: a stranded aviator has nothing at all to occupy his hours with. He takes up his old habit of whittling. Makes a small, unidentified dragon, and gifts it to Billy. Roams the grounds of Dover, pretending to ignore the scars on his body and the scars in his mind; and who is there to watch as he slams the window open at night to prove to himself that this room is yet to be engulfed in stone? Where the stars used to be lighthouses, he sees only hundreds of distant lovers’ hearths, warming the homes they built for themselves. He wonders if, wherever he is, Henry sees those same stars and ever thinks of him.
He is helping Aspera’s ground crew with her harness, trying to make himself useful, when a runner in a blue coat bolts to his side and asks, in a heavy Prussian accent, “You are Mr Forthing, yes?”
Hope squeaks when Forthing crushes it mercilessly under the sole of his boot. “I am; who’s asking?”
“Kapitän Ferris, of Adelheid,” the lad announces proudly, and touches his hat. “Says he’d like to talk to a Lieutenant Forthing.”
Forthing makes his apologies to his work companions, who wave obligingly and let him follow the runner. His heart makes a notable effort to escape his ribcage, hammering as it is. They pass by a few unoccupied clearings, before finally reaching a large one bustling with life: foreign officers in their unusual uniform ordering their crew about for many an adjustment to the dragon’s harness. Adelheid is magnificent, in far better health than Forthing has last seen her: her scales are starting to recover their natural vibrant purple, and she makes a point of inspecting closely whatever minor alteration her crew are making, careful not to disturb their work.
“Ja, danke, Brauneis; das ist ganz bequem,” and, turning to nose at one of her officers, purrs some more quick German that Forthing can’t quite catch. Not that he would care to, anyway: he stops at the edge of the clearing, staring at that man.
Tall, dignified, handsome, with a ramrod-straight spine and a long sword to his side: Ferris hasn’t changed one bit in the weeks that passed since their last encounter, yet this officer is not the one Forthing used to know. He speaks clear German to his dragon, whose head he embraces in a full-bodied hold. Even at this distance, the sparks in his joyous smile threaten to blind Forthing. He radiates happiness, so much so that Forthing finds himself smiling, too. The annoyed runner grabs his sleeve and pulls him forward. He can’t say that he follows wholly willingly. He doesn’t suppose he could just stay there, half-hidden in those trees’ shadows, gorging himself on others’ contentment; staring his fill at this beautiful man while he isn’t yet one sea and two countries away.
“Leutnant Forthing, mein Herr.”
The runner touches his hat again, waiting for his captain’s approval before scampering off. Ferris’ smile—can that even be?—widens even more as he turns. A fiery forelock falls square between his eyes, resting on the bridge of his nose. It gives him a childish air that Forthing can’t help but find adorable.
“Ed! You came!”
“You wanted to see me, sir,” Forthing replies, but the bitterness doesn’t seep through, replaced instead by badly concealed delight.
Ferris grabs his shoulders and pulls him into a hug. It knocks the breath out of him once again, this shameless display of affection out of the bedroom, for anyone to witness. An absurdly brazen claim to the world: I’m friends with Ed Forthing and I’m not afraid to show it.
“I’ve missed you,” he mumbles in Forthing’s hair, and adds, almost inaudible even to Forthing’s ears, “my love.”
Thus does Forthing greet Adelheid with a face scarlet from the root of his hair to his shoulders. She blinks slowly at him, wariness in her talons which seem to have never quite forgotten the habit of ploughing the ground.
“Good afternoon,” she says, in uncertain English. Ferris beams. She shakes herself a little, visibly delighted by his enthusiasm. “I am Adelheid; I will be your dragon soon.”
The earth opens under Forthing’s feet. Ferris is laughing, very pale under his smile, and punching her neck: “Heidi!” he cries, and then something else, in German. She answers, he answers, they bicker. Good God, Forthing needs to sit down. He does, suddenly. Adelheid says something in a dubious tone, and Ferris crouches before him, grabbing his hands. “I am dreadfully sorry: you know I meant to ask myself, of course. Adelheid means to keep me, do you know, and I like her very much. I’ve been told you were unassigned, and I need a first lieutenant; though of course it would mean leaving for Prussia. I’m missing a runner also: I shan’t ask you to leave without Billy, but I’ve no doubt we shall have Whitby’s blessing. We’ve only returned to Britain for me to put my things in order, see, and bid adieu to my family. We’ll be on the wing tomorrow—you don’t have to accept. I’m sure you have better prospects here; another heavy-weight, perhaps.”
“As a matter of fact, I don’t,” Forthing croaks out. His eyes are blurry. Surely this is unrelated to his present circumstances. “I don’t suppose you have whiskey lying around?” he asks weakly.
Ferris snorts. “You know damn well I don’t.”
Forthing squeezes the fingers weaved through his own. Considers never letting go of them. “Harry, I—thank you. Thank you so much.”
Ferris’ face falls. “So you shan’t be coming?”
A laugh, bright and truly happy: and Forthing is amazed to find it rises from his own chest. “On the contrary, Captain; if Billy’s coming, I’ve nothing holding me here: you’re my only anchors.”
Perhaps spurred on by an imperceptible sign from her captain, perhaps of her own volition, Adelheid wraps herself around them, cutting them from the world. Ferris leans forward and rests his forehead against Forthing’s. That damned lock of hair tickles both of their noses.
“The war is behind us, beloved,” Ferris whispers. “Let us build our own peace.”