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The parliamentary delegation to the Assemblée Nationale had, by all accounts, been a great success. Despite the much-repeated urgings of the British ambassador, Laurence had been content to fade into the background as much as possible, attending only the most important of the state banquets and events, and otherwise letting Temeraire undertake his draconic version of diplomacy. To Temeraire’s chagrin, he had deliberately omitted to pack his Imperial robes, and was perfectly happy to present himself as the retired aviator that he now was.
Instead of being confined to stuffy meeting rooms and tedious salons, Laurence had entertained himself with walks in the Tuileries, visits to certain of his favourite patisseries, and expeditions to various Parisian shops, looking for small trinkets with which to surprise Tharkay. As ever, he found himself spending more than he had intended, being unable to resist an exquisite Breguet pocket watch which he knew Tharkay would quietly delight in. He hesitated for a moment over the suggestion of including a miniature portrait in the case; but imagining with amusement Tharkay’s horrified reaction at such sentimentality (not to mention the difficulty of Tharkay ever being able to consult the watch in public without giving away matters best kept under wraps), he declined.
Tharkay himself had stayed in Scotland, having pled some time-sensitive business on the estate. Laurence, knowing his old habits of confidentiality not quite banished, had not pressed him for more details; but he missed having Tharkay by his side on his travels, and his hotel bed, despite its crisp linens, felt over-large and uninviting at night. He looked forward with pleasant anticipation to their reunion; although in the past months and indeed years had passed between their encounters, it had been some time since they had been parted for so long.
So although the visit had been engaging enough, and Temeraire was flushed with the pride of his success in furthering Anglo-French relations, Laurence was not sorry to be heading back to Strathvagan, a journey that must of necessity be made in several stages.
—
At his stopover at the Dover covert Laurence sighed a little over the insipid coffee that was provided with breakfast; he had become used to taking his coffee strong and thick, in the Turkish style that Tharkay preferred. But it was hot and wet at least, and it accompanied a plate heaped with eggs and bacon, so he tucked in with quite an appetite, calling the mess steward over for a newspaper.
He shook out the proffered copy of the Times, prepared to spend some of the morning catching up with the latest news before staring the next leg of the journey north, but—“Good God,” came his startled exclamation when he saw the headline. A couple of other aviators taking their own breakfasts looked up at this; but none was an intimate friend or even a former comrade from service days, so Laurence was left in peace to read through the article, a look of increasing disquiet on his face.
He called over the steward once again. “Harkness, do you have a recent Glasgow Herald at all—the Scotsman or the Mercury perhaps?”
Harkness looked doubtful, but after a few moments returned with some Scottish papers from the previous week, and Laurence set to reading through those, also. By the time he was finished, his bacon was cold, the eggs an ugly, congealed mass, and Laurence’s face as hard as stone.
—
Laurence kept his thoughts to himself on the flight north; he knew Temeraire could not be easy, if he were aware of what was troubling him. But he found himself even more eager to be home, where he knew Tharkay would help him make sense of his confusion.
—
Tharkay always seemed to have a sixth sense for their arrival at Strathvagan; and indeed, as the house came into view, from high above Laurence could see Tharkay’s tiny figure exiting through the kitchen doors, and beginning the short walk up to the pavilion; arriving there just in time to have his hair blown all about by the downdraft of Temeraire’s landing.
He smoothed his hair back into place as best he could, but some tufts remained out of order; Laurence privately enjoyed this tousled appearance, which put him in mind of more intimate, unguarded moments. Tharkay reached up to pat Temeraire’s muzzle; but there was something diffident about his smile of greeting. “You have made good time, I see,” he said, “for I had not expected you until tomorrow at the earliest. Are you well, Will? Temeraire?”
Laurence slid down from Temeraire’s back, suddenly even more gladdened than he had anticipated, to see Tharkay’s familiar face and hear his voice. It had been over a month since they had parted, and Laurence was struck now with how earnestly he had missed him.
He knew Tharkay was not one for displays of sentimentality or affection outside the bedroom, but Laurence found he could not resist drawing him into his arms, relishing the press of Tharkay’s body and trying to convey physically the depth of his happiness in their reunion. Surprisingly, Tharkay embraced him back ardently; perhaps he also had felt Laurence’s absence from their home to be over-long.
—-
They did not speak of the matter until they had returned to the house; in the drawing room well out of the earshot of servants or anxious dragons.
“You will have seen the news,” Laurence began.
“Indeed,” said Tharkay. “Not good news; I am sorry, Will.”
“I can scarcely believe it. Wilson, Hardie, Baird, all arraigned on treason charges, and a score of men more. It makes no sense, Tenzing, these men are artisans, weavers, smiths—they are not revolutionaries.” Laurence was thinking now of his several meetings with the group, who had been pursuing an extension of the franchise; they had hoped for his allyship, and Temeraire’s too, and he had been inclined to grant it. He had found them to be reasonable, educated men; hardly fanciful, but moderate in their vision of a more egalitarian society; indeed their views aligned with much of Temeraire’s current parliamentary campaigning.
“Yet it seems they are revolutionaries,” objected Tharkay. “You saw what the arrests followed: agitation for a general strike, military drills, a march on the Carron ironworks for weaponry, calls for liberty or death. Will, these are not the actions of a political discussion group. They are Radicals, and this was always the likely end for their project: treason, and all its consequences.”
“I cannot credit it. There was no word of any of this when I last met them, scarce two months ago. I would swear to it.”
“I believe you, though I fear many would not,” said Tharkay, “and from what you told me of your meetings I did always suspect their ambitions to be too great. Such men were not like to stop at discussing political tracts; they were always heading in the direction of action. Ill-advised, dangerous, certainly; but not unexpected.”
“Not unexpected to you, perhaps. You warned me off, you said they were in too deep, but this—I did not foresee this—”
“It is a bad business,” said Tharkay briskly, “and you are well out of it, Will. I am glad that no suspicion can fall upon you, since you were in Paris for the whole duration of the unrest.”
But over dinner Laurence could not help but notice that Tharkay was uncommonly quiet; and the flashes of his smile, each instance of which Laurence inwardly treasured, rarer than usual.
—-
It was later that evening that Laurence remembered his gift, and he brought it down to the library where Tharkay was quietly pouring their after-dinner drinks. Laurence was especially pleased with the watch, a chronomètre à doubles secondes, an impressive technological innovation the likes of which he had never seen before.
He looked on in eager anticipation as Tharkay opened the box. It had been, he acknowledged, perhaps a little ridiculously expensive; but then, what was that compared to Tharkay, who had given him so much?
Tharkay looked down at the watch in his hand; the polished case glinted in the firelight. His face was unreadable. Laurence felt a twinge of disappointment: he had been hoping for, expecting, more delight. It really was a very fine watch.
Tharkay drew in a breath and looked up, eyes dark. “It was me,” he said, low.
“I beg your pardon?” Laurence asked, perplexed.
“It was me,” Tharkay repeated, “I urged them on. Wilson, Baird, all the rest. I encouraged the strike, I planted the ideas. They ran with it themselves, of course, and it cannot be linked back to me, but the proclamation—I had a hand in it all, Will.”
Laurence’s mind was utterly blank for a moment. “For God’s sake, why?”
“I told you,” Tharkay said, urgently, bitterly. “I told you they would go too far, and drag you along to hell with them. Will, do you imagine the government would let you escape another treason charge? It could not be borne.”
Laurence simply stared. “What do you mean?”
“If they were to do this mad thing, to march to their own ruin, better that they do it when you were safely out of the country,” Tharkay said, looking defiant.
“But they will be hanged—” Laurence exclaimed, aghast.
Tharkay’s response was immediate, and vehement: “And you will not.”
Laurence felt a dizzying sensation, as if standing at a precipice. “Do you mean to tell me—you engineered this thing—”
“They would have got there themselves, eventually,” Tharkay said dismissively. “Baird was already talking of a strike, and planning for a militia was not far off; I only moved things along a little faster.”
“Only? Tenzing, we are talking about mens’ lives! How can you say you have not sent them straight to the gallows—”
“—they sent themselves, by their own actions! And this way there can be no question of your name being—”
“—of my name? Tell me you did not do this for me, I beg you—”
The two men were both standing now, almost toe to toe. Tharkay ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. “What would you have had me do, Will?” he said, angrily. “Watch you walk yourself up to the scaffold? Again?—and this time succeed? Do you have any idea what that would do to me, to Temeraire—”
“That choice, sir, was not yours to make.”
Their voices had been rising in volume and pitch, but Laurence’s harsh tone took them both by surprise; Tharkay took a step back, recoiling.
They paused, staring at one another, as if truly seeing each other for the first time.
“Will—” Tharkay began.
“No,” said Laurence. “This was badly done, Tenzing. How could you think, how could you place my preservation above—” but he trailed off, still half-stunned by the enormity of what he had just heard.
Tharkay shook his head, reaching his hand out as if to grasp Laurence’s. “How can you not see, that their end was inevitable—I warned you to keep your distance, but you would not hear me—and you know that with the merest hint of treason, you would have instantly been considered a ringleader—”
But Laurence flinched away; he found he could not lift his hand to take Tharkay’s. “I cannot see it your way, Tenzing. You must know I would never have asked, much less condoned—”
Tharkay let his hand drop then, but he looked Laurence directly in the eye, and his voice was firm. “I am not asking you to condone my choices, Will; I never have. It is for me to live with them, not you.”
Laurence’s laugh was bitter to his own ears. “But it seems you are asking me to live with those choices, since you did not permit me the courtesy of making my own. And what if I cannot?”
Tharkay made no answer; perhaps could make no answer.
Laurence paused; and said, a little more gently, “I must beg your pardon, Tenzing; I find I cannot continue in this vein; you must excuse me.” He dashed off the remainder of his whisky in one burning swallow and placed the glass carefully back on the side table.
Although he did not look back as he left the room, he was quite certain that Tharkay stood, staring after him, for some time.
—
Laurence walked the dark corridors of Strathvagan House, deep in anguished and solitary thought, for most of that long night. This was the house that Tenzing had made a home for him, these past seven years; each room, each prospect alive with memories of their shared endeavours, shared discoveries, shared happiness. In this spot, they had exchanged their first, tentative kisses; these stairs had seen them stumbling up to their rooms together, laughing, too many times to count; curled close on this settee they had spent long evenings, talking, committing their futures to one another. Laurence had experienced a deep and joyful peace here that had been wholly unexpected after his long years of war; and he knew that Tharkay had felt the same.
Dawn was breaking as Laurence slipped into the silent bedroom, uncertain of his welcome; Tharkay was still, huddled under the blankets with just his hair visible, and so Laurence undressed and lay down himself, not at all sure what else to do.
But Tharkay was not asleep, and turned over to face Laurence. In the dim light his eyes were shadowed; Laurence knew at once that sleep had escaped him entirely, too.
Tharkay searched Laurence’s face; and what he found there made his own expression fall, his lips pressed together in a tight line.
“You cannot forgive me,” Tharkay said, low.
Laurence ached with the inevitability of his response; would have given almost anything to be able to marshal a different reply than the one he made: “I find that I cannot.”
Tharkay tipped up his chin defiantly to look Laurence in the eyes. “And yet, I would do the same again, to spare you from the noose.”
“I know you would,” said Laurence, and the next words threatened to choke him, “and that is why Tenzing, I must—I cannot—”
“Shhh,” said Tharkay, placing his fingers over Laurence’s lips, “do not say it just yet,” and there was a world of pain in his voice. “Only let me have this,” Tharkay murmured, and he moved closer. When he kissed Laurence, open mouthed, there was a low-burning heat to it, as if he could hold the whole outside world, all their history and travails, at bay with the force of his desire.
The movement of their bodies took a long-familiar cadence. Wordlessly Tharkay reached for the oil; Laurence hitched one leg over his lover’s hip: as they had done a hundred, five hundred easy times before this, as natural as breathing; but this time they both knew it to be a farewell.
Tharkay’s face, pressed against Laurence’s as they moved together, was damp; and his breath came in shaky gasps that were not solely of pleasure.
Afterwards, Laurence rolled onto his back. Tharkay lay within his arms, the scarred fingers of one hand laced in Laurence’s, his forehead tucked into that familiar place between Laurence’s shoulder and neck.
“You and Temeraire are welcome—will always be welcome—” Tharkay said, wretched.
“You know we cannot stay,” was Laurence’s reply, equal in misery.
“Where will you go, then?”
Laurence stared at the ceiling, unseeing. “Wollaton, I suppose, to begin with. And then perhaps it is time for that trip to China at last. By sea—we cannot go overland without—”
Next to him, Tharkay’s breath hitched, and he tailed off.
“And after that—”
But he did not continue: the whole long, dreary future without Tharkay’s presence in his life, without his love, stretched in front of him, grey and unknown.
“Will, I—” but Tharkay could not complete the thought. He moved to lie on his back also, gazing up at the ceiling; when Laurence risked a glance over he saw that Tharkay’s eyes, too, were wet with more unshed tears.
There was nothing more to be said or done. Laurence unlaced their fingers; rolled over and sat up.
“I do not regret it,” said Tharkay, fierce and low. “I do not regret any of it.”
Laurence turned to look at him. Tharkay’s face was open in its heartbreak, as he had never seen it before; his beloved familiar body, every scar memorised, was bare and vulnerable under the thin sheets. Numbly, Laurence knew that he would never touch that body as a lover again. When they next met, in the months or years to come, a handshake and a polite, infinitely painful distance would be all that he could look forward to.
“I could never regret you, Tenzing,” Laurence said, and began to dress.