One of the young officers on Wellesley’s staff, who had walked out with him, made a rude noise. “You need not sniff, either,” Temeraire said. “China may not have so many guns as here, but there are thousands of dragons in the army.”

“Thousands indeed,” Wellesley said, skeptically.

“Six thousand two hundred and eighty-eight, my mother told me,” Temeraire said. No one said anything a moment, and he supposed it might seem odd to be so precise, so he explained, “Because that is a lucky number—of course they have more dragons who can fight, but those dragons are not officially in the army.”

“And if,” Laurence said to Wellesley, “the population of France is not so great as that of China, if they should even achieve the same proportion of dragons to men and arable land, using the same techniques of husbandry which you may be sure Lien has conveyed to Bonaparte, their nation will shortly be able to field a military force of a thousand. Would you care to face that in five years, with the Corps at its present rate of growth?”

“Damn you, I am not in a mood to be lectured at with figures, as though I were in a boardroom in Whitehall,” Wellesley said. “Very well. Your beasts will have their keep, and above that, the same wages as any other man in service under the Navy Board—”

“A shilling a day will keep a seaman’s wife and children, and let him carouse on shore a little when he comes into port; it will not do as much for a dragon,” Laurence said.

“And we don’t want little coins we must keep track of, either, and cannot hold on to,” Minnow put in. “A proper mess that would be.”

Temeraire nodded. “No, and what we really want is to be able to go where we like. That is what I want promised, also: if we may go where we like, and do any work that is offered to us, then even should Government offer us unfair wages, we will work for someone else instead. And the same for harnessed dragons, too,” he added.

“Any work that is offered to you?” Wellesley said. “By all means. As for going where you like—”

He and Laurence wrangled a long time, in low voices, over sums and coverts, and how much ought to be paid to a heavy-weight, over a courier, and so on. Temeraire listened carefully, but he did not know all the places which Laurence named, where coverts ought to be, and also he was not quite certain about the money. His breastplate, he knew, was worth nearly ten thousand pounds, but shillings and pence were new. They were interrupted at last only by the arrival of a breathless courier from the main camp, to inform them that the last stragglers from the battlefield had been regrouped, and were ready to begin the march to the north.

“I have no more time for this,” Wellesley said. “Twenty coverts, on the Bath Road and the Great North Road, where they can go to sleep and be fed. As for pavilions, they can build the damned things themselves with their own shillings: set themselves up like admirals, if they like. And after this, they had damned well better keep in line.”

“Sir,” Laurence said, and made a bow: to Wellesley’s back; the general had already turned and walked away.

LAURENCE FOUND HIMSELF almost at once the center of a large and interested audience of dragons, all pressing in and jostling for room to hear him, as soon as he had begun to try and explain to Temeraire and Minnow the system of coinage.

“So ten pounds will buy a cow?” Minnow said intently, “and a pound and a shilling is a bit of gold?”

“If it is twenty shillings to a pound, and twenty-four shillings a day,” Temeraire said thoughtfully, “then that is nearly four hundred pounds a year for a heavy-weight—” performing calculations in his head, which produced a buzz of satisfaction among the other dragons.

“But where is it?” Iskierka demanded. “I did not come back to just hear numbers; what sort of treasure is that?”

Temeraire snapped at her a little. “It is reliable treasure,” he said. “Not all of us want to be always running around picking quarrels and making difficulties, like you, all to grab more and more: this is for everyone every day who does their duty, like proper soldiers, and it is fair.”

The other dragons were generally of his mind, if Iskierka continued to sulk, and agreed they were satisfied with their lot. But Laurence himself felt not a little disgusted, on having stooped to such back-room negotiations, at such a moment: maneuvering for personal interest, while Bonaparte marched into London and the French followed on their heels, felt more like treason to him than any of the acts for which he had been charged. “We must see to your dinners,” he said, more out of an urgent wish to put an end to the gloating noise. “The Army will march at first light, and we must be ready.”

In the morning, when the dragons had breakfasted and gone aloft, the first regiments were already out on the road, their pace sluggish enough that Requiescat remarked, near dinner-time, “Now, this is what I call a pleasant flight, no fussing or hurry.” Temeraire only sighed.

“We might go over to them and offer to carry them, at least a little way, as many as could climb aboard us?” he suggested to Laurence. “I am sure they could go faster.”

“Not without orders,” Laurence said; he could well imagine Wellesley’s reaction, or Dalrymple’s, if the dragons should begin to fly towards the ranks, and likely panic some of the men and cavalry-beasts into running, after all the difficulty in forming them back into their regiments.

“It is only so dull: we might fly to to-night’s rendezvous and back again three times over, before they have got there,” Temeraire said, “and some of us more than that. What if Requiescat and a few of the others should stay pacing them, and we go ahead—or perhaps,” he added, ruff coming up with enthusiasm, “we might go back, and see if we cannot pay Napoleon back a little, for everything which he has done.” He peered back over his shoulder, to see how this was received.

“It is not your place even to propose such a thing, anymore,” Laurence said. “You have accepted a commission; you are obliged to preserve discipline, not to undermine it—” Hearing himself thus condemned from his own mouth, Laurence abruptly stopped; he did not know how to speak to Temeraire of duty anymore, without being a hypocrite.

“I suppose,” Temeraire said, regretfully. “It is not always so pleasant to be an officer. And I am sure Iskierka will complain, all night, and say more cutting things about going slowly, and running away, and not getting treasure.” He snorted, and looked, and then said doubtfully, “Where is Iskierka?”

She had been flying sullenly to their rear all the morning, amusing herself by occasional wild darts into the heavy low clouds above, where her flames made gold and crimson and purple flashes through the white and grey, like a sunset in mid-morning. But Laurence did not remember her doing it the last two hours and more. Arkady was gone also, with a handful of the other ferals, and when questioned, Wringe had a guilty twist to her neck, even while she professed surprise and confusion.

Temeraire did not miss it, either. “But how am I to make Wringe tell me where they have gone?” he asked Laurence, and batted her reaching talons away from a bleating sheep. He had brought them down in a broad meadow, the better to interrogate the remaining ferals, and the other dragons were driving the luckless resident herd in towards them all, so they should make a meal while they worked out what Iskierka and the others had done. “No, you may not eat, until you have told me: they have made a great deal of trouble for all of us.”

“I call that hard,” Requiescat said, mumbling around a sheep. “It ain’t as though we will not outstrip those redcoats anyhow, and nobody minds a snack, either.”

“You may find it less pleasant when we have had to fly thirty miles back to catch Iskierka up, and then sixty on to the rendezvous,” Laurence said grimly; and that the very best outcome they could hope for.