to worry; I do not suppose anyone could stop all three of us, at least not before we could escape.”
All three of them appeared immeasurably cheered by this excellent scheme; Laurence was now regretting the amount of rum he had consumed, for he could not properly form the protest he felt had to be made, and urgently.
“Enough of that, you damned conspirators; you will have us hanged a great deal sooner than we will,” Berkley said, thankfully, on his behalf. “Will you have something to eat, now? We are not going to eat until you do, and if you are so busy to protect us, you may as well begin by saving us from starvation.”
“I do not think you are in any danger of starving,” Maximus said. “The surgeon said only two weeks ago that you are too fat.”
“The devil!” Berkley said indignantly, sitting up, and Maximus snorted in amusement at having provoked him; but shortly the three dragons did allow themselves to be persuaded to take some food, and Maximus and Lily returned to their own clearings to be fed.
“I am still sorry for Praecursoris, even though he acted badly,” Temeraire said presently, having finished his meal. “I do not see why they could not let Choiseul go off to the colonies with him.”
“There must be a price for such things, or else men would do them more often, and in any case he deserved to be punished for it,” Laurence said; his own head had cleared with some food and strong coffee. “Choiseul meant to make Lily suffer as much as Praecursoris does; only imagine if the French had me prisoner, and demanded that you fly for them against your friends and former comrades to save my life.”
“Yes, I do see,” Temeraire said, but with dissatisfaction in his tone. “Yet it still seems to me they might have punished him differently. Would it not have been better to keep him a prisoner and force Praecursoris to fly for us?”
“I see you have a nice sense of the appropriate,” Laurence said. “But I do not know that I can see any lesser punishment for treason; it is too despicable a crime to be punished by mere imprisonment.”
“And yet Praecursoris is not to be punished the same way, only because it is not practical, and he is needed for breeding?” Temeraire said.
Laurence considered the matter and could not find an answer for this. “I suppose, in all honesty, being aviators ourselves we cannot like the idea of putting a dragon to death, and so we have found an excuse for letting him live,” he said finally. “And as our laws are meant for men, perhaps it is not wholly fair to enforce them upon him.”
“Oh, that I can well agree with,” Temeraire said. “Some of the laws which I have heard make very little sense, and I do not know that I would obey them if it were not to oblige you. It seems to me that if you wish to apply laws to us, it were only reasonable to consult us on them, and from what you have read to me about Parliament, I do not think any dragons are invited to go there.”
“Next you will cry out against taxation without representation, and throw a basket of tea into the harbor,” Laurence said. “You are indeed a very Jacobin at heart, and I think I must give up trying to cure you of it; I can but wash my hands and deny responsibility.”
Chapter 12
BY THE NEXT morning Praecursoris had already gone, sent away to a dragon transport launching from Portsmouth for the small covert in Nova Scotia, whence he would be led to Newfoundland, and at last immured in the breeding grounds which had lately been started there. Laurence had avoided any further sight of the stricken dragon, and deliberately had kept Temeraire awake late the night before, so that he would sleep past the moment of departure.
Lenton had chosen his time as wisely as he could; the general rejoicing over the victory at Trafalgar continued, and served to counter the private unhappiness to some extent. That very day a display of fireworks was announced by pamphlets, to be held over the mouth of the Thames; and Lily, Temeraire, and Maximus, being the youngest of the dragons at the covert and the worst affected, were sent to observe by Lenton’s orders.
Laurence was deeply grateful for the word as the brilliant displays lit the sky and the music from the