Talleyrand watched all the discussion with half-lidded eyes, which flicked to Laurence a moment. He leaned back to one of his aides with a quick curled finger for a whispered consultation; then when the first exchange had died down, intervened to say, “Perhaps Marshal Murat and I will go and have words with Liberté, to ensure there is no more confusion: we have been speaking long, and a little rest, a little time, would do well for all of us.” He pushed himself awkwardly to his feet, bringing the rest out of their chairs, and leaning a little towards Perceval said, “I hope we will have an opportunity to speak again; this evening?”

Bowing precedence to Murat, he let the Marshal leave the room, and limping out after him paused at the door to turn to Laurence and say, in a clear carrying voice, “Allow me to express again the thanks of His Imperial Majesty’s government, Monsieur Laurence; and to assure you that you have a claim on the gratitude of France which the Emperor has not forgotten.”

The graceful words cut him worse than knives. It was a pain dealt incidentally, Laurence was bitterly sure: Talleyrand had aimed rather at the ministers at the table, to discredit any report which Laurence might be bringing them. “Your government, monsieur,” Laurence said, “owes me nothing; I did not act for their sake.”

Talleyrand only smiled gently, and half-bowed again before he left the room.

“By God, the impudence,” Wellesley said savagely, scarcely waiting until the door had shut, and in no low voice. “That arrogant pig—son of an innkeeper and a whore, and married to another; that, to be King of Britain—”

“They have made no such suggestion,” Lord Eldon began; he was Lord Chancellor, having risen to the peerage as a notable lawyer, and thence to the Tory government for his steadfast opposition to Catholic emancipation.

“Do you imagine any of that upstart parvenu’s circle mean to be content with something as mealy-mouthed as governorship?” Wellesley said. “Give him six months, and it will be King Murat, as soon as he has taken the Army and the Navy to pieces.”

“No, the terms are unacceptable,” Perceval said, without great conviction. “But these are a beginning position—”

“They are an insult from first to last,” Wellesley said, “and ought to be rejected out of hand.”

“One of his proposals, at least,” another minister interjected, “gentlemen, I beg we consider, on its own merits, apart from any other: may I urge that a swift decision indeed be taken to send Their Majesties to Halifax, with all haste and all necessary considerations for their security?”

“Defeatist nonsense,” Wellesley snapped. “Bonaparte is not coming anywhere near Scotland before spring, no matter what we do.”

“All our scouts report his soldiers are all over the north of England already.”

“Foraging,” Wellesley said, “in small parties. We have two dozen outposts and garrisoned castles between London and Edinburgh, and he cannot march his army past them.”

“Surely the least risk ought not be run. Bonaparte went from Berlin to Warsaw on the eve of winter—”

“Because half the garrison commanders threw up their arms and surrendered at nothing more than a fanfare at their gates. I have more faith in our officers than that.”

“The King is not a young man,” Perceval said, breaking into the increasing heat of Wellesley’s exchange with the minister, “nor in the best of health—”

“No-one proposes he should expose himself upon the battlefield,” Wellesley said, “but he can still address the troops.”

Perceval paused, and heavily, quietly said, “The King is not in the best of health.”

No-one spoke a moment; then someone said to Wellesley, in a conciliating tone, “If the Prince of Wales stays; or Prince William, and the King goes—”

Wellesley shrugged it away, a tight angry motion. “If you are determined to send him away, send him; and if you mean to give away his throne, too, make a parcel of it with whatever else these snakes are asking for, and let them preach sedition to the troops direct; why not?”

“Come, General Wellesley, this is surely overreaction—”

“If you believe for an instant they did not know perfectly well what the beast was about—”

“I hope we are not going to be distracted by some notion that Talleyrand, if not Bonaparte himself, seriously concocted a plan of subterfuge to be carried out by one dragon among others,” Eldon said. “I have heard the idle chatter of the beasts; let us not read into it conscious and deliberate intent—”

“Sir,” Laurence said, and bore the looks which he received for having the temerity to interject, “perhaps you are not aware that dragons learn their tongue in the shell, and do not ordinarily acquire another; it cannot be by coincidence that they brought a beast which could speak English, and easily communicate anything to our own.”

“So let them be fed a second time, and it will drive any seditious thoughts out of their heads, if any managed to get in,” Eldon said. “What else could Bonaparte possibly offer the creatures anyway?”

“Respect, if nothing else,” Laurence said. “If you cannot see the neglect and disdain with which they have been treated has left them open to the meanest approach, the least offer of courtesy and reward—”

“That is enough from you, Laurence,” Lord Mulgrave said icily. “You have done more good for Bonaparte than Talleyrand and Murat and any ten yammering dragons could achieve here, if we gave them every opportunity in the world.”

Laurence flinched, and hoped he did not show it. Mulgrave had approved the fatal plan to send the sick dragon to France, in the first place; he had led the inquiry where Laurence had learned of it by accident; he had chosen the men for the court-martial, and personally overseen it, with deep venom.

“A man may be a wild enthusiast even without being a traitor,” Mulgrave said, “and you are both; if you have been allowed to live a little longer, by counsel other than mine, you are certainly the last man on whom anyone of sense would rely.”

Wellesley said sharply, “This is the distraction; and I dare say if Talleyrand could listen in he would congratulate himself on its success. Sir,” he said to Perceval, “throw him out, I beg of you, and Murat with him. Every minute that flag of parley sits before the eyes of the army, you cut a little more of the heart out of my men. We ought to be speaking of the counterattack, not debating terms of surrender: that is what these are, however you like to dress them up.”

“General Wellesley, you and General Dalrymple will forgive my bluntness,” Lord Liverpool said, breaking in, “but unpleasant as these terms are, we may find them preferable to the ones he offers us in March.—I hope my remarks are taken as no reflection upon the Army. It is a plain fact that Bonaparte has beaten every army that ever took the field against him, the Russians, the Austrians, the Prussians, the Turks, and we ourselves. It seems to me we might well agree to whatever he wants, so long as the Army and the Navy are preserved a little while, and the King is safe; anything that will get him out of London and back to Paris. Then we can manage Murat—”

“Are you—” Wellesley cut himself off, and in a flat tone said, “While Bonaparte is in England, we can end this with a single victory—not only the invasion, but the war, this whole ten years and more of conflict. The last we want is to see him go; the only damned thing to be thankful for is he has put himself in our reach. In a month we will have fifty thousand men here; at Edinburgh another sixty, and a hundred and fifty fighting beasts, on our own ground; in a month—”

“Half the Grande Armée is sitting on the coast of France waiting their turn to come over for a share,” Eldon said. “In a month, Bonaparte will have two hundred thousand men, or more.”

“No, he shan’t.” The door banged, and Jane Roland came in, stripping off her bloody gauntlets: more blood streaked her face and hair, and stained her coat. “What?” she said to their startled questions, and looked at herself in the glass on the wall. “Oh, I look a fright. No, it isn’t any of mine, I suppose it is that poor damned Frenchman’s: I broke a sword on the fellow.”