Victory of Eagles Page 0,12

golden square.

"Charming woman," Gentius said, sadly. "She fed me my first bite, fresh liver, when my head was no bigger than her hand. One never quite gets over the first, you know."

"Yes," Temeraire said, low, and looked away unhappily; at least Gentius had not had her taken from him, and put who knew where.

When he had put the portrait back with equal care, and listened to a long story about one of the wars in which Gentius had fought - something with the Prussians, where pepper guns had been invented: very unpleasant things, especially when one had not been expecting them at all - then Gentius was quite ready to be sympathetic, and to shake his head censoriously over Requiescat's behavior. "No proper manners, these days, that is what it is."

"I am very glad to hear you say so: that is just what I thought, but as I am quite young, I did not feel sure of myself, without advice from someone wiser, like yourself," Temeraire said, and then with sudden inspiration added, "I suppose next, he will propose that if any of us have some treasure, which he likes, gold or jewels, we must give it to him: it follows quite plainly."

That was indeed enough to rouse Gentius up, with so handsome a treasure of his own to consider. "I do not see that you are wrong at all," he said, darkly. "Of course we cannot have Winchesters taking caves fit for Regal Coppers, there would be no end of trouble and quarreling, and then sooner or later the men will involve themselves, and make it all even worse; they think somehow Reapers are less use than Anglewings, because there are more of them and they are clannish, instead of the other way round; and they have many more such odd notions. But that is not the same as taking away a cave perfectly suitable to your weight and standing." He paused and said delicately, "I do not suppose you had a formation of your own?"

"No," Temeraire said, "at least, not officially; although Arkady and the others fought under my orders, and I was wing-mates with Maximus: he is Laetificat's hatchling."

"Laetificat, yes; fine dragon," Gentius said. "I served with her, you know, in 'seventy-six; we had a dust-up with the colonials at Boston. They got artillery above our positions - "

Temeraire came away eventually with Gentius's firm promise to attend the council-meeting, and returned to his cave well-pleased with the success of his first efforts. "Who else is on the council?" he asked.

While Perscitia began listing off names, Reedly, a mongrel half-Winchester with yellow streaks, piped up from the corner, "You ought to speak to Majestatis."

Perscitia bristled at once. "I see no reason why he ought do any such thing. Majestatis is a very common sort of dragon; and he is not on the council, anyway."

"He made sure I got a share of the food, when we were all sick, and things were short," Minnow said, on the other side; she was a muddy-colored feral with touches of Grey Copper and Sharpspitter and even a little Garde-de-Lyon, which had given her vivid orange eyes and blue spots to set off her otherwise drab coloring.

A low murmur of general agreement went around. A crowd had gradually accumulated in Temeraire's cave to offer their advice and remarks, a good many of the smaller dragons having interested themselves in Temeraire's case: those he had sheltered and their acquaintance, and besides them the not-insignificant number who had some injury, real or imagined, to lay at Requiescat's door. "And he is not on the council only because he does not care to be; he is a Parnassian," Minnow added, to Temeraire.

"If he were a Flamme-de-Gloire, it would hardly signify," Perscitia said coldly, "as he does nothing but sleep all the time."

Moncey nudged Temeraire with his head and murmured, "Corrected her once, six years ago."

"It was only an error of arithmetic!" Perscitia said heatedly. "I should have found it out myself in a moment, I was only occupied with the much more important question - "

"Where does he live?" Temeraire asked, interrupting; he felt that anyone who did not have time for politics must be rather sensible.

Majestatis was indeed sleeping when Temeraire came to see him; his cave was out of the way, and not very large; but Temeraire noticed that there was a carefully placed heap of stones, along the back, which blocked one's view into the interior; if he widened his pupils as