It was an impressive display, calculated with success to impose a certain natural reluctance to break that silence upon any visitor. But as Laurence stepped forward, Temeraire suddenly hissed behind him, the sound carrying and as purely dangerous as the scrape of a sword-blade leaving its scabbard; Laurence, appalled, turned round to look at him in protest, but Temeraire’s gaze was fixed to the left: in the shade cast down by the high tower of the Divan, piled upon herself in glittering white coils, Lien lay watching them with her blood-red eyes.

THERE WAS SCARCELY an opportunity to think, to do anything but stare; the Kazilik dragons had moved to flank Temeraire, and Mustafa was already beckoning them closer to the throne. Laurence numbly stepped forward and made his formal bow with less than his customary grace. The Sultan looked at him without much expression. His face was very broad, his neck disappearing between his clothing and his square brown beard, and rather delicate-featured, with a contemplative look in his handsome dark eyes; he carried within himself an air of repose and of dignity, which seemed rather natural than assumed.

All the prepared speech had gone entirely from Laurence’s head, and his rehearsed phrases; he looked up at the Sultan squarely and said in the plainest French,

“Your Majesty, you know my errand, and the agreement between our nations. All her obligations under that agreement Britain has fulfilled, and the payment has been delivered. Will you give us the eggs for which we have come?”

The Sultan received this blunt speech calmly and with no sign of anger; he spoke himself in fluent and easy

French and said mildly, “Peace be upon your country, and your King; let us pray that friendship will never fail between us.” He said a little more in this vein, and spoke of deliberations among his ministers, and promised another audience, and the pursuit of many inquiries. Still laboring under the violent and unhappy shock of finding Lien in the midst of the Sultan’s court and his inner councils, Laurence had difficulty in following all he said, but none at all in understanding the meaning underneath: more delay, more refusal, and no intention at all of providing satisfaction. There was indeed little effort made to conceal that meaning: the Sultan made no denials, no explanations, counterfeited no wrath or dismay. Almost he spoke with a touch of pity in his look, though not in the least a softening, and when he had finished, he dismissed them at once, without granting Laurence another opportunity to speak.

Temeraire’s attention throughout had never wavered: he had not so much as glanced at the Sultan he had been so eager to see, despite all the glittering display, but rather kept his eyes fixed upon Lien; his shoulders were bunched from moment to moment, and his foreleg crept up by small degrees until it was nearly bumping against Laurence’s back, waiting to snatch him away.

The Kaziliks had to nudge him to set him into motion, away along the path, and he went sideways, crab-stepping awkwardly, so as not to face away from her; she for her part never stirred, but as serene as a snake let her eyes follow them back around the curve of the palace and out of the inner courtyard again, until the wall hid her from view.

“Bezaid says she has been here three weeks,” Temeraire said; his ruff was spread full and trembling, and had not lowered since the moment they had laid eyes upon Lien. He had made a great protest when Laurence had tried to go into the kiosque, refusing to let him out of his sight; even in the garden he had nudged Laurence insistently to climb upon his foreleg, and his officers had been forced to come out to hear his report.

“Long enough to have knocked us to flinders,” Granby said grimly. “If she’s of a like mind with Yongxing, she wouldn’t have scrupled to toss poor Yarmouth into the Med, any more than he would have minded having you knocked on the head; and as for Arbuthnot’s accident, it’s no great trouble for a dragon to spook a horse.”

“She might have done all this and more besides,” Laurence said, “and made no headway against us, if the Turks had not been full willing to profit by it.”

“They have fallen in with Bonaparte for certain, and make no mistake,” Lieutenant Ferris agreed, smoldering, “and I wish they may have joy of it, when they are dancing to his tune; they’ll soon enough be sorry for it.”

“We will be sorrier, sooner,” Laurence said.

The shadow overhead silenced them all, but for Temeraire’s savage and rumbling growl; and the two Kaziliks sat up hissing anxiously as Lien circled down and landed gracefully in the clearing. Temeraire bared his teeth at her and snarled.

“You sound like a dog,” she said to him, cool and disdainful, in fluent French, “and your manners are not much different. Will you bark at me next?”

“I do not care if you think I am rude,” Temeraire said, tail lashing militantly, with much danger to the surrounding trees, walls, statuary. “If you want to fight, I am ready, and I will not let you hurt Laurence or my crew, ever.”

“Why should I wish to fight you?” Lien said; she settled herself back upon her haunches, sitting erect like a cat, with her tail coiled neatly around herself, and unblinking stared at them.

Temeraire paused. “Because—because—but do you not hate me? I would hate you, if Laurence had been killed, and it were at all your fault,” he said candidly.

“And like a barbarian, you would fling yourself at me and try to claw me to death, I am sure,” Lien said.

Temeraire’s tail faded slowly to the ground, only the very tip still twitching, and he gazed at her nonplussed; that would certainly have been his very reaction. “Well, I am not afraid of you.”

“No,” she said calmly. “Not yet.”

Temeraire stared at her, and she added, “Would your death repay one tenth part of what you have taken from me? Do you think I would count your captain’s blood equal to that of my dear companion, a great and honorable prince, as far above yours as pure jade is to the offal that lies in the streets?”

“Oh!” Temeraire said, with indignation, ruffing up even further. “He was not honorable, at all, or else he would not have tried to have Laurence killed; Laurence is worth a hundred of him or any other prince, and anyway, Laurence is a prince now himself,” he added.

“Such a prince you may keep,” she said, contemptuous. “For my companion, I will have a truer revenge.”

“Well,” Temeraire said, snorting, “if you do not want to fight, and you do not mean to hurt Laurence, I do not know why you have come; and you can go away again now, because I do not trust you in the least,” he finished defiantly.

“I came,” she said, “to be certain that you understood. You are very young and stupid, and you have been badly educated; I would pity you, if I had any pity left.

“You have overthrown the whole of my life, torn me from family and friends and home; you have ruined all my lord’s hopes for China, and I must live knowing that all for which he fought and labored was for naught. His spirit will live unquiet, and his grave go untended.

“No, I will not kill you, or your captain, who binds you to his country.” She shook out her ruff and leaning forward said softly, “I will see you bereft of all that you have, of home and happiness and beautiful things. I will see your nation cast down and your allies drawn away. I will see you as alone and friendless and wretched as am I; and then you may live as long as you like, in some dark and lonely corner of the earth, and I will call myself content.”

Temeraire was wide-eyed and transfixed by the low monotone finality of her words, his own ruff wilting slowly down to lie flat against his neck, and by the time she had finished he was huddled small away from her, clutching Laurence still closer with both his forelegs shielding him like a cage.