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