“And we will have a bad time of searching,” Churki added. “There isn’t a moon to-night.”

“Searching!” Forthing said. “What do you mean, searching: flying about and roaring and scaring good people in-doors? No talk of that, if you please. You are both working yourself up over nothing. Here’s a note that Captain Laurence and Mr. Hammond very kindly asked someone to send for them, so you shouldn’t worry when they came home a little late even though they are two sensible gentlemen perfectly able to take care of themselves, and instead here you are brewing it up into a proper conspiracy for no reason.”

“I do not think it is no reason, at all,” Temeraire said, with dislike. He did not think Forthing was as devoted to Laurence as he should have been, considering how Laurence had condescended to have him as first officer. Churki might be a little over-fretful on account of how Incan dragons were giving to stealing one another’s people, but certainly there was no harm in being cautious. “Only it would do no good anyway for us to begin flying around without knowing anything of where Laurence and Hammond are: we will never find them without some direction. Who brought the letter, Roland, and where did they get it?”

“Just one of the street boys, the ones who aren’t afraid to come near the covert,” Roland said. “We’ll see if we can catch him; like as not he’ll have gone for one of the bun-sellers down the road.” She tapped Baggy and Gerry, and went running with them for the gate of the covert.

Baggy returned the first, some twenty minutes later and out of breath. “Tisn’t my fault,” he said, when Churki demanded what was taking them all so long. “When we found him, he could only say he brought it from a message-boy who brought it this far but didn’t want to come in the covert; so we had to go after him, and it is only luck I even got that one at all. And then he said it came from an officer, a Prussian officer named Von Karlow, at a public house near the German Gate, and that is all the way on the other side of the town.”

“Ah!” Dyhern said. “Von Karlow: I know the man. I have fought with him: a good man—an honorable man. He would not send you a lie, Temeraire, I am sure.”

“There, you see,” Forthing said.

“I do not see,” Churki said. “I have never heard this man’s name. How does he know Hammond or Laurence at all, and how does he know that they are at this lodge? Why should it be his business to send a letter on their behalf? I am by no means satisfied.”

Forthing was inclined to argue with her, but Temeraire interrupted. “Dyhern,” he said, “if this gentleman is your acquaintance, perhaps you will oblige me by going to call upon him, and asking him the direction of this lodge. After all, it must be outside the city somewhere; there could be no real harm in our going to look in upon them, and if they have only stayed the night because of their horses being tired, we might bring them home.”

He finished decidedly, with a flip of his tail, and felt he had struck a sensible, a reasonable course of compromise, without permitting himself to grow overly alarmed as Churki had. But Forthing, of course, could only bleat objections. “There is no call for your chasing off after Captain Laurence,” he said. “What if he should have left by the time you got there? He would come straight here, and want to know what had become of you; meanwhile you would be flying about half-distracted, supposing the worst, and what if we should get orders to fight?”

“We will not get orders to fight,” Temeraire said. “We have wanted orders to fight for three weeks, and we have not had any; we are not going to get some now.”

He turned his head even as he spoke: at last here was Ferris coming back into the clearing. Forthing said, “Mr. Ferris, I hope you have word from the captain; I am sure you will tell us everything is well, and there is no reason for any sort of alarm.”

“Oh, will I,” Ferris said, and Temeraire, looking closely, saw that his face was set and furious. “He is gone to a meeting; some caper-merchant Russian lag-wit insulted the Emperor of China to his face at a party last night, and he struck the man. I cannot find anyone to tell me where it is, but I have learned for a certainty that one of the man’s friends called on Hammond this morning, some fellow named Karloff or Karlow.”

“Good God!” Forthing cried, and there was a general noise of excitement and babble among the crew, which made it quite impossible at first for Temeraire to understand what exactly had happened, and why they should be so distressed that Laurence had—quite justifiably—chastised a rudesby, and what any of this had to do with meetings or hunting-lodges. “Captain Dyhern, pray will you go at once,” Forthing was saying, and Dyhern was already coming out of his tent, in his coat and his hat, and Baggy said, “I will run ahead and get you a carriage, sir,” and pelted away towards the street again.

“What is the to-do?” Roland said, looking as Baggy flew past her; she was coming back the other way. “Did Baggy have any luck finding the message-boy?”

“Roland,” Temeraire said, putting a forefoot before her, so she could not be swallowed up in the general chaos, “pray tell me at once what it means, that Laurence has gone to a meeting.”

“He wouldn’t,” she said, but at once said, “Oh, but he would, wouldn’t he; has he?”

“Yes,” Temeraire said, gripped with horror. “Roland, what is a meeting?”

“The worst nonsense anyone ever heard of, and he knows perfectly well better; if Mother were here, she would throw him in stocks for it, if he has not got himself shot,” Roland said, stormily.

“Shot?” Temeraire said blankly. “Shot?”

“He has gone to fight a duel,” Roland said.

—

Nearly the most dreadful hour of Temeraire’s life followed on this intelligence: an hour in which he could do nothing, knowing all the time that somewhere not an hour’s flight away, Laurence might at this very moment be stepping upon a field of honor. This was aptly named, it seemed to Temeraire, as honor was a word which seemed associated with every worst disaster in his life: a hollowness for which Laurence had before now been willing to die in the most unnecessary fashion, and this one more unnecessary than ever. “For no-one could suppose Laurence was a coward,” Temeraire said. “Not even anyone who disliked him extremely: I have heard the Admiralty tell him he had not enough fear.”