“But—” He stopped, and scratched at his forehead with the side of his claw. “But how will matters at all be different, once we are at home? If men will be upset at giving dragons liberty, would this not interfere with the war in England, too, and not only by keeping us from the eggs here? Or, if some British dragons did not want to fight anymore, that would hurt the war also.”

He peered down with open curiosity at Laurence, waiting an answer; an answer which Laurence could not give, for indeed he felt precisely so, and he could not lie and say otherwise, not in the face of a direct question. He could think of nothing to say which would satisfy Temeraire, and as his silence stretched, Temeraire’s ruff slowly drooped down, flattening against his neck, and his tendrils hung limply.

“You do not want me to say these things when we are at home, either,” Temeraire said quietly. “Have you only been humoring me? You think it is all foolishness, and we ought not make any demands.”

“No, Temeraire,” Laurence said, very low. “Not foolishness at all, you have all the right in the world to liberty; but selfish—yes; I must call it so.”

Temeraire flinched, and drew his head back a little, bewildered; Laurence looked down at his own tight-wrung hands; there could be no softening of it now, and he must pay for his long delay of the inevitable, at an usurious rate of interest.

“We are at war,” he said, “and our case is a desperate one. Against us is ranged a general who has never been defeated, at the head of a country with twice over and more the native resources of our own small British Isles. You know Bonaparte has once massed an invasion force; he can do it again, if only he should subdue the Continent to his satisfaction, and perhaps with more success in a second attempt. In such circumstances, to begin a campaign for private benefit, which should have material risks of injuring the war effort, in my opinion can bear no other name; duty requires we put the concerns of the nation above our own.”

“But,” Temeraire protested, in a voice as small as could be produced from his deep chest, “but it is not for my own benefit, but for that of all the dragons, that I wish to press for change.”

“If the war be lost, what will anything else matter, or whatever progress you have made at the expense of such a loss?” Laurence said. “Bonaparte will tyrannize over all Europe, and no one will have any liberty at all, men or dragons.”

Temeraire made no answer; his head drooped over his forelegs, curling in on himself.

“I beg you, my dear, only to have patience,” Laurence said after a long and painful moment of silence, aching to see him so downcast; and wishing he might in honesty recall his own words. “I do promise you, we will make a beginning; once we are home in England, we will find friends who will listen to us, and I hope I may have some small influence to call upon also. There are many real advances,” he added, a little desperately, “practical improvements, which can be made without any unhappy effect upon the progress of the war; and with these examples to open the way, I am confident you will soon find a happier reception for your more lavish ideas, a better success at the cost only of time.”

“But the war must come first,” Temeraire said, low.

“Yes,” Laurence said, “—forgive me; I would not for the world give you pain.”

Temeraire shook his head a little, and leaned over to nuzzle him briefly. “I know, Laurence,” he said, and rose up to go and speak to the other dragons, who were still gathered behind them in the garden, watching; and when he had seen them all flit away again, he padded away with head bowed low to curl himself brooding in the shade of the cypress-trees. Laurence went inside and sat watching him through the window-lattice, wondering wretchedly if Temeraire would have been happier, after all, to stay the rest of his days in China.

“You could tell him—” Granby said, but he stopped and shook his head. “No, it won’t do,” he agreed. “I am damned sorry, Laurence, but I can’t see how you can sweeten it. You would not credit the stupid display in Parliament anytime we ask for funds only to keep up a covert or two, or get some better provisions for them; even if we only start building them pavilions, we will have a second war at home on our hands, and that is the least of his notions.”

Laurence looked at him. “Will it hurt your chances?” he asked, quietly; these could not be very good in any case, with more than a year so far from home, out from under the eye of the senior officers who decided which lieutenants should be allowed a chance to put a hatchling into harness, not with ten eager men or more to every egg.

“I hope I am not so selfish a dog as to cavil for a reason such as that,” Granby said with spirit. “I never knew a fellow to get an egg who was forever worrying about it; pray don’t consider it. Damned few fellows who come into the Corps fresh, like me, ever get their step; there are too many dragons who go by inheritance, and the admirals like to have fellows from Corps families. But if I ever have a boy, now I am far enough along I can give him a leg up, or one of my nephews; that is good enough for me, and serving with a prime goer like Temeraire.”

But he could not quite keep a wistful note from his voice; of course he would want his own dragon, and Laurence was certain that service as first lieutenant aboard a heavy-weight like Temeraire would ordinarily have meant a very good opportunity. Consideration for Granby was not an argument which could be made to Temeraire himself, of course, being a wholly unfair sort of pressure. On Laurence, however, it weighed heavily; he had been himself the beneficiary of a great deal of influence in his naval service, much of it even earned by merit, and he considered it a point of honor to do properly by his own officers.

He went outside. Temeraire had retreated further within the gardens; when Laurence at last came on him, Temeraire was still sitting curled quietly, his distress betrayed only by the furrows which he had gouged deep in the ground before him. His head was lowered upon his forelegs, and his eyes distant and narrow-slitted; the ruff nearly flat against his neck, sorrowful.

Laurence had no very clear notion of what to say, only wishing desperately to see him less unhappy, and almost willing to lie again if it would not hurt him the more. He stepped closer, and Temeraire lifted his head and looked at him; they neither of them spoke, but he went to Temeraire’s side and put his hand on him, and Temeraire made a place in the crook of his foreleg for Laurence to sit.

A dozen nightingales were singing, pent in some nearby aviary; no other sound disturbed them a long while, and then Emily came running through the garden and calling, “Sir, sir,” until panting she reached them and said, “Sir, pray come, they want to take Dunne and Hackley and hang them.”

Laurence stared, leapt down from Temeraire’s arm, and dashed back up the stairs to the court, Temeraire sitting up and putting his head anxiously over the terrace railing: nearly all the crew were out in the arched cloister, figuring in a wild noisy struggle with their own door guards and several other palace eunuchs: men of far greater position, judging by their golden-hilted scimitars and rich garb, and of more powerful mien, bull-necked and plainly not mutes, with furious imprecations flying from their lips as they wrestled slighter aviators to the ground.

Dunne and Hackley were in the thick of it; the two young riflemen were panting and fighting against the grip of the heavy-set men who clutched at them. “What the devil do you all mean by this?” Laurence bellowed, and let his voice carry over their heads; Temeraire added emphasis with his own rumbling growl, and the struggle subsided: the aviators fell back, and the guards stared up at Temeraire with expressions to suggest they would have gone pale if they could. They did not loose their captives, but at least did not attempt at once to drag them away.