with distress. He had not seen it so, at all; he had not thought - "It need not be treason, surely," Temeraire said, "not just to let them see?" but as he spoke, the protest shriveled small upon his tongue: he had known, of course; he had not spoken to Laurence.
He coiled around himself in distress, mid-air, and said, "Oh - I am so very sorry; Laurence, I beg you will forgive me. You cannot think I would ever mean to ask anything like of you again, after everything so dreadful which has occurred - not just to defend a pavilion," and he was very relieved to feel Laurence's hand upon his neck, and added, to try and explain himself, "Only I cannot see how it can be right to only watch, as friends are hurt, who have been so generous - and when the Government, after all, has taken so much away."
"By this argument you should soon reduce all loyalty to a mere competition of bribery," Laurence said. "If I had thought for one instant that those robes should so secure your affections as to make you wink at treason, I should have thrown them on the fire directly, regardless of what distress you might feel; and," he added, with a degree of heat, "I am growing inclined to think Jia Zhen knew precisely what he did when he made you so extravagant a gift."
"I do not mean only the robes," Temeraire protested weakly, but he was very much shocked that Laurence should even consider so hideous an act, and added, "and I hope you would never really do anything so dreadful. Of course I cannot help but feel kindly towards them, and the Government is always behaving like a scrub; that is not any of their fault, and certainly it is no fault of the robes."
He looked back at the pavilion in much distress: the Otter, small and quick, had already turned broadside to the harbor, and as he watched, and flinched, the roar of the cannon echoed across the water. The ball went sailing high - they had the cannon elevated - and came down upon one graceful high-pointed corner of the pavilion's roof, in an instant carrying away the elaborately carved dragon and smashing through the tiles. A distant shriek of wood breaking, which sounded queerly as though it came from somewhere to the east, and a cloud of splinters bursting away; a clatter of more red tiles went sliding down into the gap, and the dark hole stood dreadfully jagged against the elegant line.
"Oh!" Temeraire cried in distress, "Laurence, only look; and if anyone should have been below - "
He darted a little closer - of course he would not do anything, not now he did see it must be still more wrong; but he could not help it -
"Temeraire," Laurence said.
"No, of course I will not," Temeraire said, despairingly. "I suppose I might not even knock down the cannonballs, as they flew?" He did not know if the divine wind would allow it, but -
Laurence's answer, whatever it might have been, was entirely lost to Temeraire; instead all the world went spinning round and full of noise, roaring, and he was driven in a tumbling rush down into the ocean swell, green foaming light everywhere, choking into his nose and into his throat. Temeraire struggled wildly to right himself, belling out his sides, and he burst back up through the surface, coughing and coughing. "Laurence," he managed, choking, twisting his neck around in panic - but Laurence had not been snatched: he was there, streaming wet and short one of his boots, but dangling safely from his harness and pulling himself back into position.
"There," Iskierka said, beating back up and away, looking down at him, "so much for your scheming; as though you were so very clever, and no-one had any business making out that you meant to do something to the ships, behaving like a sneak."
"I did not, at all!" Temeraire said, calling up at her wrathfully, because that was a wicked lie; he had never meant to hurt the ships, "and I think you have been a great deal more of a sneak than I might have been in ages, jumping down upon me like that with no warning."
"You may complain all you like," Iskierka said, "but it is no more than you deserved; I will not let you hurt Granby in the service any more than you already have.