The handsome clock against the wall chimed the hour softly, and a footman came in to speak to her in a quiet voice; the Empress rose to her feet, and they rose with her. “Gentlemen, I am afraid I must bid you farewell,” she said, giving them her hand to kiss in dismissal, and they were escorted out past another visitor waiting to be taken in. The gentleman was standing at the other side of the antechamber, studying the large landscape upon the wall; Laurence saw him only briefly and from the back, but some vague sense of familiarity tugged at him, and when they had gone on into the hallway, he almost stumbled a moment in surprise: it had been Talleyrand.

“A remarkable performance,” Tharkay said, when they were at last shown to their own quarters—a magnificent suite more suitable for a visiting dignitary than prisoners of war—and private once more, the guards having withdrawn politely past their doors. The garden outside the windows gave a handsome illusion of liberty, if one did not go close enough to see the additional soldiers standing to attention across the paths, just out of view. “She makes quite the picture of domesticity. You would never think to look at her that she is the absolute ruler of several million people and some five thousand dragons, and a nation larger than Europe.

“Talleyrand is an interesting visitor for her to host. He quarreled with her husband several years ago, after the failure of the invasion of Britain. I wonder where he is getting his money from these days: Austria, perhaps.”

Laurence had of course said nothing of the means by which he had engineered Tharkay’s release, nor asked anything about the charge laid against him. He only knew as much as he did by unhappy accident; he could invite no further confidences on a subject where he had intruded without invitation in the first place. But nevertheless he could not help but perceive in Tharkay’s remarks a professional assessment, and Laurence could not but recoil at the idea of a man taking funds in exchange for his own country’s secrets.

“Spying is not the cleanest business,” Tharkay said, perhaps reading his face.

Laurence shook his head sharply: he felt certain whatever might be distasteful in the work Tharkay did could have nothing to do with this kind of selfish treachery. “There can be no comparison,” he said, and then realized he had betrayed himself unintentionally.

Tharkay nodded a little, but did not speak directly to the subject. “The two are not unrelated, I am afraid,” he said only. “A man rarely will compromise himself without assistance.”

“That does not justify the act upon his side,” Laurence said. “No man may be made a traitor without his consent.”

He could speak from experience; he had given his own consent, once. He could not understand the coarseness of spirit which could permit a man to do such a thing for money and not the bleakest imperative of honor.

He paced the room round twice, troubled, and abruptly asked, “Are we not obligated by ordinary humanity to warn her she ought not be in his company? A man who would do treason for money—what would he not do?” Even if Talleyrand was in some sense on their side, Laurence could not help but feel uneasy to have knowledge of his treachery, and yet say nothing as the man was admitted to the private company of the expectant Empress and her small child—the worst fears of Napoleon’s enemies realized.

But Tharkay said dryly, “You seem to be under the impression she does not know exactly the sort of man he is. At the very least she cannot suppose him fond of her husband; a man who has been publicly called a shit in front of half the Marshals of France by his emperor is not likely to be easily conciliated. In any case, certainly Fouché knows as well as I do that Talleyrand’s expenses outrun his public income.”

“Why would she entertain such a visitor, if he had not persuaded her of his having been reconciled with her husband?”

“He might be safer company, if he were the Emperor’s loyal servant,” Tharkay said, “but he would not be half so useful, if she cares to maintain any sort of communication with the other courts of Europe when they have declared war upon France.”

To reconcile this kind of cold scheming with the charming young woman they had only just left was an incongruous task, but Granby said, “Well, I am not forgetting any time soon that she set a hundred beasts on our tail hunting us across the Andes, however meek and mild she chooses to look at present,” which was a useful reminder. “I am sure I wish Napoleon every joy of his wife: better him than me.”

“But not, perhaps, for us,” Tharkay said. “Our present circumstances leave a great deal to be desired. Not that I mean to make you regret your happy escape,” he added, with a faintly amused glint.

“No fear of that,” Granby said. “I don’t mean to say I wouldn’t rather be back in the Peninsula, where I can do some good, but I would as lief kick my heels in France the rest of the war as be married in Cusco. I don’t suppose one dragon can make all that much difference, even Iskierka, when he has a whole horde of them breeding up.” He sighed.

Tharkay was silent; then he said, “And yet Napoleon does suppose it.”

“What do you mean?” Laurence said.

“We are not here by accident, after all,” Tharkay said. “Temeraire and Iskierka were deliberately tempted here, as you have divined, by those threats against the egg; but if you will pardon me, we have not considered how they were tempted: where you heard these threats.”

“The Prussian dragons had overheard them,” Laurence said, and then slowly, “—you mean that they were deliberately permitted to escape?”

Tharkay inclined his head. “You would have been a good deal more skeptical of threats sent directly to you, and having received those threats, you would not have supposed you could intercept the egg. Not to mention that it does pass credulity that some thirty dragons were able to flee the breeding grounds of France without challenge.”

“But surely credulity is passed much more thoroughly to suppose that Napoleon let half the Prussian aerial corps loose, just to get Temeraire and Iskierka here,” Granby said. “Not that they don’t make a good deal of noise, but they are only two beasts: they aren’t worth the exchange.”

“With as many dragons as Napoleon has in prospect, the relative value of keeping the Prussian beasts captive must have been diminished,” Tharkay said. “But nevertheless, you are right—if the dragons were judged solely for their fighting-qualities. Which must mean there are other considerations which have prompted the act.”