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Laurence had, in the course of an eighteen year naval career, witnessed nearly every way there was to die at sea.
Perhaps the most unsettled he had ever been by one of these had come when he was a young lieutenant—on his first assignment after Shorewise, in fact.
He had been speaking to a midshipman by the name of Burnett—a boy, really, only recently rated. The intervening years had stolen the details of the conversation from Laurence’s memory, but not the moment of its ending. A shout came from aloft, only in hindsight recognizable as “’Ware below!” and nearly in the same instant there came the horrible hollow sound as the heavy block struck the boy’s skull.
It would have been a mercy had Burnett died instantly, but he did not, lingering for long hours in the care of a surgeon who could do nothing to help and very little to ease the pain. Laurence had been present then, too, at one point holding the slight shoulders down as the boy siezed.
It was a horror far greater than death in battle to Laurence—that it was merely bad luck on a fine day which not only killed, but killed with such ill-circumstance. It was neither quick as cannon-shot nor lingering enough to get one’s affairs in order as an illness might allow. No, it was too much between, too inconstant, and Laurence had seen Burnett’s face in his nightmares for months afterward.
Perhaps that was why this moment felt so terribly familiar, as if it were happening all over again.
“Ware below!” Someone shouted, and—
There was one reflex Tharkay had in advantage over that dead child—he ducked, an arm going up as if to shield himself from a sword blow.
It likely saved his life.
The block struck with bone-shattering force, but it struck his forearm first and only then his skull.
Laurence saw all of this clearly, for the moment seemed queerly slow, as if each instant were preserved as a painting in all its ponderous detail. The moment after, in contrast, was too quick to perceive. Laurence did not see Tharkay collapse, only saw him on the deck, crumpled.
He did not hear himself shout. Someone else’s cry of “—Surgeon!” as the first thing he registered, and it was followed by the roughness of the deck on his palms.
Do not move him!
The cry was not in his ears but in his memory, an echo of the surgeon when Burnett died, and so Laurence did not. He did not even touch. But he could not stop himself wanting to. He leaned close instead, searching for signs of life.
There was blood in a bright smear on the deck and on Tharkay’s face, and he could not see the source. Was it hidden in Tharkay’s hair?
The eyelids fluttered, and Laurence felt something like relief bubble up before it was replaced by dread. Tharkay yet lived. Would it last?
“Out of the way!” A voice said, and Laurence was shoved aside none too gently. A protest rose, reflexive, but he saw it was the Allegiance’s surgeon, and on his heals was the loblolly boy.
Tharkay made a small sound: something like a groan with no breath behind it.
A shadow fell over them all in the shape of familiar black wings; Temeraire was coming in for a landing after his breakfast hunting flight.
Laurence lunged forward to hold Tharkay still as the whole ship rocked with the dragon’s weight returning to the bow.
“Oh, why are you all gathered like that? Is someone hurt?” Temeraire demanded, already sounding distressed. He craned his neck forward to see them over the edge of the dragondeck.
The surgeon was waving Laurence back once again so he could examine Tharkay’s skull. Helplessly, Laurence turned and Temeraire was able to see past him.
“Tharkay!” This was punctuated by a wordless sort of keen, which nevertheless did not cover Tharkay’s own pained noise as the surgeon touched his head.
“My dear,” Laurence said, finding himself unable to offer more than this in comfort.
“Wha—” Tharkay said, his voice slurred.
The surgeon grunted. “The skull is not fractured.” he announced. “But the arm is. Nip him below to the sick berth Jenkins, there’s a good man.”
“You are not going to move him?” Temeraire asked. “Keynes always said—Dorset, where is Dorset, I am sure he should see—”
The surgeon snorted comprehensively. “I am sure your dragon-surgeon is an expert in injury sustained in flight. As we are on a ship—”
Temeraire bristled, ruff flaring, but he did not have a chance to make reply; Tharkay spoke.
“I would rather...not...stay on the deck.” His eyes were squeezed shut in pain, and his voice was thready and weak and even slurred but mostly intelligible for all that, if lacking the polished and accented edge he normally maintained in company. “Though perhaps a stretcher, if one can be contrived…”
“I am sure it can be.” Laurence said firmly, forestalling any further argument.
Tharkay only grimaced.
That concerned Laurence a great deal. He had seen Tharkay continue to fight after a hot poker had seared his leg terribly. That the man had not even tried to rise by himself meant nothing good. It would even be a comfort if the man cried out; that would at least mean he had the strength for exclamations, instead of husbanding it all merely to hold on to consciousness.
The stretcher was brought; Tharkay was very carefully transferred into it; two strong seamen took him down to the surgeon’s domain in the orlop deck.
A place Laurence belatedly realized he could not follow. As a technical prisoner, he had the liberty of the deck for Temeraire’s sake, and it did not mean he had liberty of the ship entire.
And so he was forced to remain as Tharkay vanished into the depths.
“Please, Laurence said to one of Riley’s passing midshipmen. “Will you carry a request to the captain for me?”
The boy scowled and Laurence realized belatedly that he had not marked which midshipman he was asking. He had simply seen the blue coat. This was Roberts, and he among all Riley’s officers was the most hostile to Laurence; his father had died aboard Victory during Lien’s final attach, and he laid the blame for it and the whole of the invasion at Laurence’s feet.
But there was no help for it; Laurence could only press on with the messenger he had not mean to choose. “He will want to know soonest that his guest is injured,” he added.
This was enough to convince the young man, thank heaven, and he left without another word or any gesture of courtesy. But Laurence could not mind that, not when he was going.
“Will Tharkay be alright?” Temeraire asked, quietly by his standards.
Laurence turned, realizing how quiet his dragon had been and how much he must have been holding back while the stretcher was brought.
He did not know how to answer. He had seen men recover from wounds like this one—Chiouseul had been coherent enough to interrogate within days of Catherine’s striking him with an iron bar, and Laurence himself recovered from the blow he took in the fight over the channel not long before they left for China.
Yet he could not put this forth as a reassurance for Temeraire, much less himself; he had also seen too many men die in this way. It was not only Burnett but also seamen struck with the hilt of a sword or the butt of a pistol in battle, and those who fell from the rigging or down hatches. Even a supposed recovery could not be trusted; one man had been pronounced healthy and left the sick berth, only to be discovered dead in his hammock the next morning.
“We must hold to hope, my dear.” It was all he could offer.
As it happened, Granby and Iskierka returned from their own flight before Laurence was able to speak to Riley. Granby heard the story with a sick expression on his face and then went off immediately, telling Iskierka to behave herself only distractedly.
Laurence could not help but feel a pang, watching him go. He had taken such freedom of movement for granted in his former life.
The minutes stretched long before Granby returned with little to report and worry written across his face, and still Riley had not come. Laurence had begun to wonder whether Roberts had truly carried the message, but in the event Riley had only gone directly to the sick berth himself first.
He had barely any more word from the surgeon than had Granby, however, the man not wanting to commit to a prognosis. “Though he did say they do not mean to move him again until he is certain the danger has passed,” Riley finished. Then abruptly he added, “And I am damned sorry it happened; truly it is wretched luck.”
This was the least formal statement he had made—not only in this conversation but in several prior. Riley was not Roberts to harbor resentment over the invasion, but he was conscious of the eyes of his officers and it was clear to Laurence that he did not mean to give the appearance of a marked and continuing preference for a man who was disgraced and a prisoner.
But the personal tone was an opening, and Laurence took it. “Sir,” he said, “In that case I request leave to move about belowdecks until Mr. Tharkay can return to his cabin.”
Riley hesitated, and for a moment Laurence truly feared he would deny the request. He had been used to visiting his friends and officers during their convalescence, (Indeed, he had spent many hours with Granby in this very ship as the then-lieutenant recovered from his musketball wound) and he did not know what he would do if it were denied him. He could not appeal if it was; there was no true logic behind allowing him the liberty, only sentiment. He felt a sort of rising misery at the idea of waiting for secondhand news of Tharkay’s death or survival without even being able to offer a companionable presence.
But Riley did not deny him. “Very well,” he said, “but pray do your best to avoid being alone among the crew. There are some—sentiments—” He stopped and instead finished, “Let us pray that Mr. Tharkay will not need to remain in the sick berth long.”
Laurence nodded. There was nothing else he could say.
When Tharkay woke, the darkness was so impenetrable that he feared something was wrong with his eyes. He flailed, trying to get an arm up to check them, but had to subside with a gasp as a terrible pain in his arm joined the terrible pain in his head.
Someone made a startled half-exclamation and then there were hands on his shoulders. He tensed, ready too—
“Tharkay!” Said a hushed voice, and Tharkay relaxed almost without meaning to; It was Laurence.
“A moment,” Laurence said and then there were footsteps and a soft curse and then—
Light. Faint and unrevealing, but enough to give texture to the darkness.
“Forgive me.” Laurence truly sounded regretful. “I have fallen asleep on watch, it seems.” He held up the lantern. “Have you wrenched the arm too badly?”
Tharkay shifted just slightly, feeling the way the arm was bound tight to something stiff. The movement sent another sharp pain shooting up into his shoulder and down into his fingertips, but this one was more bearable. “I do tolerably,” he said, or rather tried to say; he had been aiming for his most affected accent, and instead it came out mumbled and slurred, only barely intelligible.
It startled and alarmed him afresh, and apparently it did Laurence as well—he had brought the lantern closer and the expression on his face was easily readable even in only the few moments before Tharkay had to close his eyes, unable to handle even the weak light.
“Where,” Tharkay said, and then swallowed. Even that one word did not quite sound like himself. “Where are we?”
“The sick berth,” Laurence said quietly. “You were awake before, do you remember?”
“No,” Tharkay replied. “How was I—” Speaking was taking greater and greater effort, and even getting the question out was nearly too much. He was tempted to simply slide back into unconsiousness.
But he wished to know, no matter whether he would remember when he next woke.
“You were struck by a block dropped from the fore topgallant yard,” Laurence said. “It broke one of the bones in your forearm, as the surgeon says, and then struck your head.”
“Ah,” said Tharkay. A flash came to him: looking up into Laurence’s stricken face, and seeing more the white sails beyond him, masts reaching for the sky.
“You woke once on deck and again after they bought you below, or so I am told.” A pause. “The surgeon considered that an encouraging sign. It is just past two bells in the middle watch now.”
That meant something, but it took Tharkay a very long time to work it out.
His head ached.
“I have slept a long time, then,” he managed at last. Though it was not quite the thing.
“Yes,” Laurence confirmed. “the surgeon feared you would begin to sieze, but you have not. Nor stirred much at all before now.”
Ah, that was it. “You have been watching me.” He made the effort and cracked one eye open, trying to guage Laurence’s expression.
He could not tell, in the dim light, whether Laurence blushed to be accused of fretting. “As I have no duties aboard ship, I volunteered. Granby will spell me come the morning watch.”
That was not quite what Tharkay had meant either, but he was no longer certain what he had meant. His thoughts ran away from him too easily, and he had already been a great deal less taciturn in this conversation than was his habit.
When he said no more, Laurence stepped away again, re-hanging the lantern in its proper place.
Tharkay allowed his eye to close again, gratefully.
He had planned to stay awake for a little longer, but when he was next aware there was a red glow coming through his eyelids, faint but enough to know daylight was fast approaching.
Remembering the pain from just the lantern, (and oh, what a relief it was to know he remembered) he did not open them again, but rather attempted to use his other senses to catalogue his surroundings.
There was not much that was not already obvious, in any case. He was in a flat cot rather than a hammock, and he shifted slightly from side to side together with the roll of the ship. The sick berth smelt of brine and mildew as the whole ship did, but accompanied by a note of old blood which was not reassuring. His mouth was dry and tasted rather foul, and water would certainly be the first thing to request.
Just as soon as he could bring himself to open his eyes.
There was a creak louder and nearer than the distant groan of the hull, and the sound of a breath. “Are you awake?”
Granby’s voice.
Tharkay steeled himself, hoping his difficulty speaking had receded. “I am,” he said, and then managed no more in his dismay. The words were just as slurred as before.
“Oh good,” Granby said. “Will you take some water?”
Tharkay would, and this at least he managed to do without wrenching his arm or failing in coordination.
Afterward, Granby explained what he had missed while sleeping—apparently the surgeon had come to check on him at the changing of the watch—while Tharkay only half-attended. A seed of panic was taking root in his breast. He had been accustomed to controlling his speech, if nothing else about himself. How was he to manage if the slurring continued? Certainly it would mean the end of his work for the company and Whitehall both, and perhaps an end to his lawsuit. He could well imagine the sympathy he would receive from the Scottish courts were he to not only look but sound an uneducated foreigner when he appeared.
Lord, and what of his other languages? If his English were so damaged, would his French be worse? His Chinese? Any work he might find with the corps would be closed to him as well if he could no longer manage Durzagh.
Unable to wait any longer for an answer, he interrupted Granby. “Quelle heure est-il?”
Granby stopped abruptly.
To Tharkay’s own ears the French had sounded no worse than his English had, but Granby should have been able to respond if that was the case; he had more than enough French to give the time.
Tharkay twisted, trying to roll so he could look at Granby directly, and the man gave a wordless protest and tried to push him back. “Lord!” he said. “Tell me you meant to speak french!”
Oh. “Yes,” Tharkay got out, relaxing. “I did.”
“Thank Christ!” Granby said, empathetically. “If you started speaking something I don’t, I haven’t the slightest idea what we would do. It is not like Temeraire can get his head down here to translate.”
Tharkay would rather have liked to be able to test things only Temeraire could translate, but surely if his French was intact, his other languages must be also?
He allowed his eyes to slide shut again as Granby continued. “As for the time, it is just before dawn, I think.”
“Thank you.”
Granby did not press him to speak more, for which Tharkay was grateful. He did insist Tharkay eat some of the food which had been left out for him, however.
Tharkay acquiesced with no good humor, but he was able to keep the softened biscuit down, at least, though his stomach roiled and protested, reacting as much to eating after nearly an entire day without as to the injury, he thought. By the time he had finished the bell was rung and the ship came to noisy life all around them. The thump and scrape of holly stoning the deck was familiar now at least, even if Tharkay did not precisely appreciate adding more pounding to his already throbbing head.
The surgeon came and Tharkay submitted to inspection, though privately he did not see much point. The man did nothing for his head save offer him a small dose of Laudanum, and his arm would heal or not on its own; as naval surgeon on the unglamorous Allegiance the man was little better than a barber, and would only be useful if Tharkay required the arm be removed.
He did not say so, however, and was rewarded for his restraint by the man leaving with a rather untactful, “well, you haven’t died yet, at any rate.”
He had not died, and did not, but over the course of the day he did have cause to wish for it. He was not permitted to return to his cabin where he might rest—or rage at the injustice and unfairness of it al—in peace. Instead it was the sick berth for him, and the watchful eyes of not only Granby and Laurence, but also vistors like Emily Roland and Demane, and even captain Riley. (Tharkay supposed that as the man’s ostensible guest, Riley felt a responsibility.) So perforce he he had to speak little, hiding his slurred speech to the greatest extent he could manage, and hiding his fear of it entirely.
And all throughout the pain was an unwavering companion, sometimes subsiding into a low simmer and sometimes bubbling to a fever pitch.
That, he did a poor job of hiding, turning snappish and irritable, when when at last before supper the surgeon came again and said to Laurence (who was his nursemaid at this hour), “Yes, yes, you may take him to his cabin.”
Laurence had a greater respect for naval surgeons than did Tharkay. He thanked the man very seriously and asked for his suggestions as Tharkay braced himself to rise. He had sone so fully only twice prior in the say, and both times had been accompanied by such weakness and nausea that he was only barely able to relieve himself before returning to the cot.
This time Laurence did not give him the chance to embarrass himself by toppling over, as he nearly did on his first rising. There was a hand for Tharkay to take and then a shoulder for him to lean on, and though Tharkay could not help but resent the need, he was grateful when they came to his cabin without severe incident. Laurence had made even the dreaded ladder navigable.
Laurence did not leave, of course, but helped Tharkay out of his coat and into his cot before bringing over the chair and settling in.
“Surely Temeraire has missed your company,” Tharkay tried.
He did expect a refusal to take the hint, but not the form it took, which cut him to the bone. “Not as much,” Laurence said quietly, “As we would both regret yours if by my inattention your recovery went astray.”
Tharkay was quiet the, and not only because of his difficulty with speech. He would have liked to escape into sleep, but though it hovered about him he had already rested so much that day that it did not come upon him so easily.
Apparently satisfied Tharkay did not mean to answer, Laurence went on. “I well understand your desire to escape any...mother-henning, as it were, and I pledge with all sincerity to avoid the oversolicitude to oppressive to your person. But…” The pause was a thinking one, as if Laurence had not known the precise end of the sentence before he began it. “...I would not take the slightest unnecessary risk at this time.”
Which meant, Tharkay supposed, that he was not to contemplate escape. It was a strange proposition, in truth. He was unaccustomed to injury in circumstances such as these; in the course of his typical occupation he had simply to work around it, or to go to ground if that proved impossible. To have not only the whole remainder of the voyage before his work resumed, (If his work resumed. If his command of his tongue was not lost for good.) but also friends who would not abide his vanishing was novel.
“Very well,” he said, forming the words with an especial care, thinking about exactly what shape his mouth must make to bring the statement out clear. “Though I… cannot promise...that I will not chafe at the restriction.”
Tharkay was as good as his word. For the next three days he did not attempt to bar Laurence from his cabin, nor Granby, but he also made no real attempt to hide his irritation with their enforced presence.
He did attempt to hide his relief in the moments he required help to rise or dress or shift his arm to a less uncomfortable position and Laurence was there to offer silent assistance without being asked.
He attempted to hide it, but either Laurence was grown adept at reading his friend, or the injury had stolen away too much of Tharkay’s skill at concealment. The relief was clear enough for Laurence to be certain of it.
The arm would likely take weeks more to heal properly, but Tharkay’s health was improving rapidly in many other aspects, and the danger of death seemed to have passed. He no longer squinted in even faint light, and his balance had for the most part returned. He even ate as normal, the nausea subsiding.
But his speech was still slurred.
Tharkay’s frustration with this was evident, and beneath the frustration was something Laurence identified as an undercurrent of real fear.
He recalled the way he had been so very surprised by Tharkay’s accent on their first meeting, and thought perhaps he understood. Such a degree of control was a skill which must have taken a great deal of honing, and any setback would be bitter indeed.
Laurence could do nothing to help, save draw Tharkay into discussion and hope that, like a muscle, use would return the former strength.
But Tharkay only responded indifferently, his words sparse and lapsing into silence at the first opportunity.
Instead, as Tharkay recovered they played cards in near-silence, and when the cards proved a sad inconvenience to play one-handed, they switched to chess, playing with a shipboard set fashioned with pegs on the pieces and holes drilled in the board.
It was while playing on the evening of the third day that things came to a head.
“Perhaps if you are feeling up to it tomorrow,” Laurence offered as Tharkay’s rook took his bishop. “You might join Temeraire and I on a short flight.”
Tharkay did not look up from the board. “Perhaps.”
Laurence was used to such answers by now, and though it was not his usual habit to press past similar hints in the normal course, he found himself doing so a great deal in these last days, excusing it by the knowledge that Tharkay’s disinclination to speak was not necessarily a rejection of the distraction of conversation. “He would relish the chance to practice his Chinese with you.”
He saw Tharkay’s hand clench briefly on the defeated bishop, before he relaxed his grip and placed it carefully in the case. “I am less...certain.”
This was closer to explicitly speaking of the difficulty than they had yet come, and Laurence considered Tharkay responding at all to be an invitation of sorts. “I believe he would appreciate the opportunity to help.”
Tharkay barked something like a laugh; uncharacteristic for him, and angry. “I do not think he—” He stopped and inhaled twice, clearly unhappy with the way not and think had blurred together into one sound. “—would be happy to find his help—“ This time he bit off his words strangely, as if forcing their separation. “—of no use.”
“Come, now, there is no reason to believe you will not recover!” Laurence protested. “Already your other symptoms are much reduced—“
Tharkay shoved himself to his feet, away from the small table. All the chess pieces rattled, the pegs clattering in their slots. “This has not,” he said, breathing hard. “Has not,” he repeated, separating the words with a longer pause and an unhappy twist to his mouth. “I can. not. speak.”
Laurence’s heart ached to see him so low in his spirits. “But you are,” he protested. “You have been.”
“Not as I must.”
And it was this, at last, which made Laurence realize he had been underestimating the true degree of Tharkay’s distress. He had not said should, but must, and he said it with such despair that Laurence understood.
Tharkay had a greater mastery of his tongue than any man Laurence knew—indeed, only Temeraire could exceed him. It was not merely a skill to be lost or a tool to be broken. That long-ago night in Istanbul Tharkay had as much as said he strove to control how people saw him, even when that could only be achieved by fanning the flames of an unfair suspicion.
But a man who spoke as Tharkay had since his injury could not exercise such control; he would be assumed at best truly foreign and more likely lacking all understanding.
Having recently lost the respect of all society himself, Laurence could well imagine how the thought must plague Tharkay. No hope of recovery nor effort at practice could shake such a thing.
Laurence regarded his friend unhappily, knowing that he had forced this to the fore, and that Tharkay did not want him to know these things. “Please,” he said, gesturing at Tharkay’s vacated seat. It was all he could offer with his thoughts running circles in his head, as if he, too, had been struck.
Tharkay sat, but his face was closed and withdrawn.
Laurence made a move—a nothing sort of maneuver, taking a pawn that gave him no real advantage. “I hardly know how to reassure you.” he said.
“Please. It is nothing.” A barefaced lie if Laurence had ever heard one.
Laurence shook his head. “I have given pain, while convincing myself I was here speeding your recovery. I do most heartily apologize, and beg your pardon.”
Was that a thawing, in Tharkay’s expression? “You have given nothing not already—” an inhalation, awkwardly placed as if he could go no further before needing to recover. “—present in my mind.”
“There is little I can offer,” Laurence said, “save that—save that my own opinion of you has not changed, nor will it.” Tharkay remained the man he always had been, in Laurence’s eyes. It would take a great deal more than this to change that. “Nor,” he continued, “have the opinions of all aboard who have cause to esteem you. Including Temeraire.”
Tharkay was silent, but it was a different sort of silence, not shocked, but something neighbor to it. Laurence flattered himself that it might be gratified.
“Indeed, Tharkay,” he concluded, relieved to have found the right heading. “While I cannot speak with any certainty, I am optimistic this ailment is temporary and likely to resolve before we reach New South Wales, and even if it were not, I hope you know that you may relay on me for any testimonial of your abilities, intelligence, and character. At least,” he added belatedly, “to whatever extent my word is worth.”
Tharkay gazed at him a long time, and Laurence was looking down again at the board, having accepted his silence, before Tharkay spoke.
“Tenzing,” he said.
Laurence nearly upended the aboard, his elbow knocking against the table as he looked up too quickly. “Beg pardon?”
“Tenzing is my given name. Pray use it.”
He did not seem to notice that these words, he hardly slurred at all.