There was more to be found as they drew near: the river and ocean had together cut the cliffs down at their junction, and a large and prosperous fishing village had grown up around the river mouth where the access to the sea should be easiest. A great number of good-sized houses, thatched roofs high and deeply sloped, and even one larger structure of smooth stone; there were broad and stone-paved streets quiet even at daybreak but for the pale dots of cream and brown: grazing sheep, wandering freely.
“I hope the Inca will be gracious hosts,” Temeraire said, looking on these last with an acquisitive eye as he swiftly beat on towards the coast.
“Pray remember, Captain—Temeraire,” Hammond said anxiously, “Pizarro and his adventurers landed on this same coast, perhaps even in this very settlement—they, too, called themselves an embassy and accepted local hospitality, and then, of course—in short, we must remember we are not come to a virgin land, but one with cause for the deepest suspicion—we must exercise the greatest caution—”
Laurence had only the vaguest notion of the history of the conquistadors, a dredging from schoolroom days, but the story of Pizarro’s gruesome end had been a favorite of the tutors whose task it had been to keep several young boys occupied, particularly when approved of as a morality tale by their father. “I trust, sir,” he said dryly, “that though we are not a pretty crew, we will prove able to restrain ourselves from rapine and pillage; and I will go so far as to assure you of our not abducting and murdering the present Inca chieftain, should we encounter that person.”
“I beg you will not joke upon the matter,” Hammond said, without any marked decrease in anxiety. “If the Inca are indeed prepared to entertain negotiations—exchange ambassadors—if they are now at last willing to be persuadable, and the French have already made inroads—”
Hammond did not need to expound too greatly on this theme. Pizarro had correctly realized that he had discovered a great empire; he had written accurate and detailed reports of the excellent roads, the wealth in gold and silver, the full granaries; he had recognized without any subsequent contradiction the value of the territory which he had found. His only error had been to mistake the abundant dragons for feral creatures, spread wide for lack of guns—an error disabused with marked speed and ferocity when his last act of murder removed the one hostage whose safety had stayed their retribution.
But his error had been only in favor of the Incan empire’s might, and since then some two hundred years had surely brought advances to their army and their nation; there was no question that a French alliance with them could alter the course of the war.
“As little as I like to countenance any delay in our mission to Brazil,” Hammond said, “I cannot call it anything but Providential that we should have the opportunity to intervene in such a negotiation, which but for the greatest good fortune we should have known nothing of, and been unable to answer.”
Laurence could not call it greatest good fortune to have lost the Allegiance, or to be made prisoner and marooned; but he had no argument with Hammond’s conclusion: that they ought make every effort to put Britain on friendly terms with the Inca, even at the cost of delay. Yet without disagreement on this point, Laurence nevertheless could not care for Hammond’s hinted suggestions of a covert approach.
“We will not avert suspicion by creeping past their coast stealthily and falling upon their water or taking their game without invitation,” Laurence said. “And both we must have imminently; I must think it better to ask first, and hope we are met hospitably.”
“As much as one can call it asking, when we appear with three dragons in tow,” Hammond said, dismally.
But there was no alternative. The pirates’ map had not led them astray, but many of the islands marked upon it had scarcely deserved the name, and certainly could offer no safe harbor. The two weeks of their journey leaping from one to another, with only a few string bags of cocoanuts and salt pork for refreshment, had not left them in a condition to recommend themselves as guests, even while increasing their urgency to do so. Unshaven faces dirty and sunken-cheeked, ragged clothing and cracked boots: they looked very beggars, and were suitably perishing of hunger and thirst to match that state.
“I do not mean to steal anything, and I will just say a word in Kulingile’s ear, and Iskierka’s, so they shan’t, either,” Temeraire said. “But those sheep do look so very nice and fat: surely they can spare us one or two; or three, even. We might put that wall back up for them, that has fallen into the ocean, if they liked to be repaid; or perhaps if we should begin by doing it, they would feel grateful and inclined to be courteous.”