All Africa below the Sahara had been made over to the Tswana, and Brazil marked out for them as well, abutting the Incan Empire’s holdings in the west. Indeed Laurence could see nothing for Moshueshue to complain of in the arrangements, if they had been at all enforceable, with no other European power in a position to quarrel with them.

“Sir, I can tell you that he has no power to assign any of these lands, though he may claim to,” Laurence said to Moshueshue, who shrugged a little.

“Had you the power to assign Cape Town to yourselves, or the Portuguese to claim Louanda? You claimed those places, and acted upon your claims; you took slaves and established your fortifications and your farms, and you would be there yet, if we had not driven you away by force. All maps are fiction when the world is seen from the sky. But if ten thousand dragons choose to believe in this one, I think you will find it nearer truth than otherwise.”

Laurence looked at those neat lines, which divided the fields of Scotland among a dozen feral bands—who should, he found, reading into the Code Napoléon Draconique, be entitled to take a certain amount of cattle in their territory, and to call upon one another for aid if their claims met resistance—and he began to understand. He knew well the jealousy of dragons, over anything they considered their own possessions and their own territory in particular, even if very lately acquired, or by dubious means or even outright stolen. Napoleon meant to put all that possessive spirit to his own service: by telling the dragons they were entitled to these rights, he would make them willing to defend them, and by providing them with a network of alliances would enable them to do so—if not forever, then certainly for long enough to be a powerful distraction to the human nations whose borders they occupied.

It was his stratagem in Russia refined and writ large: he would make all the ferals of Europe into enemies of the very governments who presently fed them in the breeding grounds or ignored their small depredations. That most of those ferals would be slaughtered in reprisal, or starve in the ensuing chaos, he would ignore, save when convenient for him to come to the aid of one or another band, as an excuse for making still more war upon his neighbors.

Laurence looked up from the sheaf of papers. “And would you lend your aid, to a feral band in Britain, seeking to seize lands not their own?”

“Where would you prefer to see war made, Captain Laurence?” Moshueshue asked softly. “In your country, or on the other side of the sea?”

“War has a habit of spreading, sir,” Laurence said. “I would prefer to see peace.”

—

Temeraire settled back down uneasily. “Well, it all seems to have gone quiet again,” he said to Iskierka, “only I cannot see what any of them were about, except some sort of quarreling—it does not seem to have gone near the house, or near the egg, so I suppose it can have done no real harm.”

He felt unconvinced by his own words: he did not at all like the sound of gunshots so near-by, and such a squabbling of dragons. He had seen five all together go skirmishing aloft; a bright blue dragon fighting three and finally four of the French middle-weights, until they had harried him back to the ground. Temeraire had not recognized the breed at all, and so knew nothing of his allegiance, but what should any dragon be doing here, if not a friend of France, and if a friend, why starting up such an enormous fuss?—and why putting on so disheartening a display? The French dragons had brought him down so very skillfully, even though he had been quite large and old and impressively scarred. Temeraire had not liked observing it at all. As dreadful as it must be to think of leaving Laurence behind in captivity, to save the egg, it was far worse to think of being captured in the attempt to do so—the egg taken away again, and locked up this time somewhere in secret, so there would be no second chance.

“You will insist on making trouble as though we hadn’t enough,” Iskierka said, eating her cow with unconcern bordering, in Temeraire’s opinion, on a complete lack of sensibility. “So what if they are quarreling among themselves? If you ask me, this is as good a chance for us as anything. We had much better stop worrying and just go at once, while they are busy with the nonsense over there.”

“Why,” Temeraire said, beginning to explain why this was a singularly bad idea, as Iskierka’s always were, and then discovered he could not find a satisfactory argument against it. He struggled a moment longer, then said, “Oh, very well, then,” and gulped the last hindquarter of beef out of his own bowl—they had complained falsely of hunger, and asked for beef in the British tradition. Temeraire had felt a bit guilty at putting their guards to such trouble, but they could not be sure of getting anything much to eat between here and Dover. He and Iskierka had settled it between them they should make for the covert there.

The bowls were clean; they had drunk deeply from the fountain. The evening was fast approaching: the lights of the house shone golden against the blue night. Laurence was there now, perhaps, Temeraire thought miserably—safe and well, his health improved and all consideration taken for his comfort—and by this evening, when their flight was known, he would surely be taken from there, hurled into a cold dank prison cell, made wretched and ill—

“Let us go at once,” Temeraire said, before courage and resolution failed him.

“Very well, but if anything should happen to Granby, I will never forgive you,” Iskierka said, adding not a little to his unhappiness.

“Be quiet, and start that fire going,” Temeraire said resentfully. He rose up on his haunches and spread out his wings, making as large a screen of himself as he could manage. They had surreptitiously scraped together a heap of old branches and leaves into the back corner of their pavilion over the course of the day; Iskierka put her head low to them and blew a narrow line of flame upon the pile until it had fairly caught, and the fire began to lick up the columns of the pavilion. In a moment, the roof was blooming with small flames, surprising Temeraire by a wholly unaccustomed feeling of deep terror, which sent him jerking out of the pavilion with a gasp of dismay.

Iskierka followed him out, snorting. “Whatever is it? What if they look over and see us too soon?”

“The fire is far enough along,” Temeraire said, striving to sound calm and sensible, and to be so as well; when really he wanted only to be gone, aloft and away from the flames. He shook out his wings and looked them over, covertly—surely some embers had caught upon them? There was no sign of so much as a spark, but as soon as he turned away he felt the small stinging sensation of prickling heat upon the membranes. He looked again: there was still nothing there.