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to run along in reverse. Strategy, strategy, would call it a victory to see the Chinese aerial legions decimated: without them, the Chinese infantry and cavalry could hardly stand against British artillery. The distant corners of India brought under control, Japan humbled; perhaps a sick beast might be delivered to the Inca, and the fabled cities of gold flung open at last.

"I am sure they will find a prettier name for it, in the history books," Jane said. "It is only dragons, you know; we ought think nothing more of it, than if we were to set fire to a few dozen ships in their harbor, which we would gladly enough do."

He bowed his head. "And this is how wars should be fought."

"No," she said tiredly. "This is how they are won." She put her hands on her knees, and pushed herself standing. "I cannot stay, I must take the courier for Dover at once; I have persuaded Excidium to let me go. I will need you by tomorrow night." She rested her hand on his shoulder a moment, and left him.

He did not move, a long while, and when he at last raised his head, Temeraire was awake and watching him, the slit-pupiled eyes a faint gleam in the dark. "What has happened?" Temeraire asked quietly, and quietly Laurence told him.

Temeraire was not angry, precisely; he listened, and grew rather intent than savage, crouched low; when Laurence had done, he said, simply, "What are we to do?"

Laurence wavered uncertainly - he did not understand; he had expected some other response, something more than this - and said at last, "We are to go to Dover - " He stopped.

Temeraire had drawn back his head. "No," he said, after a moment's strange stillness. "No; that is not what I meant, at all."

Silence. "There is nothing to - no protest which - She is already sent," Laurence said, finally; he felt thick-tongued, helpless. "The invasion is to be expected at any moment, we are to stand guard at the Channel - "

"No," Temeraire said loudly. There was a terrible resonance in his voice; the trees murmured back with it, shivering. "No," he repeated. "We must take them the cure. How can we come at it? We can go back to Africa, if we must - "

"You are speaking treason," Laurence said, without feeling, oddly calm; the words only a recitation of fact, distant.

"Very well," Temeraire said, "if I am an animal, and may be poisoned off like an inconvenient rat, I cannot be expected to care; and I do not. You cannot tell me I should obey; you cannot tell me I should stand idle - "

"It is treason!" Laurence said.

Temeraire stopped, and looked at him only. Laurence said, low and exhausted, "It is treason. Not disobedience, not insubordination; it cannot - there is no other name which it can bear. This Government is not of my party; my King is ill and mad; but still I am his subject. You have sworn no oath, but I have." He paused. "I have given my word."

They were silent again. There was a clamor back in the trees; some of the ground-crew men returning from their day's leave, noisy with liquor; a snatch of raised song - that saucy little trim-rigged doxy - and roar of laughter, as they went into the barracks-house, their lanterns vanishing.

"Then I must go alone," Temeraire said wretchedly, so softly that for once there was real difficulty in making out the words. "I will go alone."

Laurence breathed once more; hearing it, said aloud, made everything quite clear. He was grateful, it occurred to him, that Jane had refused; that he had not that pain to give. "No," he said, and stepped forward, to put his hand on Temeraire's side.

Chapter 16

LAURENCE WROTE TO Jane, the merest word; no apology could suffice, and he would not insult her, by asking her to sympathize, adding only:

...and I wish to make clear, that I have in no wise made my thoughts known to, nor received Aid of, my officers, my crew, or any man; and, neither deserving nor soliciting any excuse for my own Part, do heartily entreat that all blame attaching to these my actions should be laid at my door alone, and not upon those who cannot even be charged, as might on similar occasions be merited, with culpable blindness, my Resolve having been formed bare minutes before setting ink to this Page, and will upon its enclosure be