Crucible of Gold (44 page)
Authors: Naomi Novik
“Oh! Laurence, it is beyond anything wonderful!” Temeraire said, in delight. “Of course we must go: I should like nothing better than that Maximus and Lily should see China, and all our formation, too. And to think that Gong Su has arranged it all: I should never have imagined it.”
“No,” Laurence said, stifling the smart of renewed indignation. The first infuriated heat of betrayal past, he had not been able to stand his ground against Hammond’s persuasion very long. Gong Su had made his meaning too plain, even if a notion of courtly decorum forbade him outright speaking on behalf of the Emperor’s son. Laurence could not despite a certain irritated desire to do so believe him a liar or untrustworthy: indeed it was impossible to fault for loyalty a man who in the service of his throne had left home and family to accept a menial position and keep it across a war, five continents, and so many weary years.
Temeraire peered at him a little anxiously. “I hope,” he said tentatively, “that you do not mind we should not go back to England straightaway? But I do understand from Lily that everything there at present is quite at a standstill: and Napoleon will surely have a long time sailing back. And I am sure that this Captain Blaise in charge of the
Potentate
will see the very real importance of our going to China under these circumstances.”
Of that, Laurence had less certainty. “Particularly as we have only the crown prince’s invitation, and not the Emperor’s; and no certainty of success when we have arrived,” Laurence added soberly, “but I am persuaded we must make the attempt. If we should indeed find it possible to engage China in alliance, that may be our only hope now of standing for long against Napoleon. But we may have to make the passage overland and far to the north, at the Bering strait. I have no confidence in Blaise’s diverting the
Potentate
at our request: he is not Riley.”
He stopped and said again, low, “He is not Riley,” and swallowed regret once more: the loss not only of a friend, but of that still more priceless treasure, a man on whom he could rely.
“No,” Temeraire said, and bent his head to nose gently at Laurence’s back in comfort.
To Betsy Mitchell, editor extraordinaire, who gave Temeraire his wings
ACKNOWLEDGMENTSHeaps of thanks to beta-readers Georgina Paterson, Vanessa Len, Rachel Barenblat, and N. K. Jemisin (if you haven’t read her novel
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
do yourself a favor and run to snatch it up), who gave me wonderful feedback and helped me improve this novel in myriad ways.Thanks also to my terrific agent, Cynthia Manson, not least because she brought me and Temeraire together with my fantastic editor, Betsy Mitchell, to whose passion and encouragement I owe not only a million and one improvements but the vast sprawl of this saga of Laurence and Temeraire’s ongoing adventures, which I had only dimly glimpsed when I first jumped on board the deck of the
Reliant
as it captured a dragon egg.All my love and thanks and gratitude to Charles, always my first and best and most exacting reader, and also to our new daughter, Evidence, who did her very best to interfere with every stage of this book.
THE TEMERAIRE SERIES BY NAOMI NOVIK
His Majesty’s Dragon
Throne of Jade
Black Powder War
Empire of Ivory
Victory of Eagles
Tongues of Serpents
Crucible of Gold
ABOUT THE AUTHORNaomi Novik was born in New York in 1973, a first-generation American, and raised on Polish fairy tales, Baba Yaga, and Tolkien. Her first novel,
His Majesty’s Dragon
, the opening volume of the Temeraire series, was published in 2006 and has been translated into twenty-three languages and optioned by Peter Jackson, the Academy Award–winning director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.She has won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel, and the Locus Award for Best First Novel. She is one of the founding board members of the Organization for Transformative Works, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the fair-use rights of fan creators, and is herself a fanfic writer and fan vidder, as well as one of the architects of the open-source Archive of Our Own.
Novik lives in New York City with her husband, Edgar Award–winning mystery novelist Charles Ardai, their shiny new daughter, Evidence, and a recently and ruthlessly winnowed set of
fourfive computers.You can find out more at her website (
http://naominovik.com/
) and follow her as naominovik on Livejournal, Twitter, and Facebook.