Victory of Eagles Page 0,29

as much as it is any man's; it belongs to us all together, and if we only sit here eating cows while Napoleon is trying to take it away, we have no right to complain of anything."

"Well, what's there to complain of, then?" Requiescat said. "We have everything as we like it."

"So you would quarrel over one wet unpleasant cave instead of another, but you would not like to sleep in a pavilion, which is never wet or cold, even in winter?" Temeraire said, scornfully. "You only think you have things as you like, because you have never seen anything better, and that is because you have spent all your lives penned up here or in coverts."

When he had described pavilions for them a little more, and the dragon-city in Africa, and added, "And in Yutien, there were dragons who were merchants, and all of them had heaps of jewels: only tin and glass, Laurence said, but they were very pretty anyway, and in Africa they had gold enough to put it on all their crews," there were not many dragons who did not sigh at least a little, and those who had some little bit of treasure on them looked at it, and many of the rest looked at them, wistfully.

"It all sounds a lot of gimcrackery to me," Requiescat said.

"Then you may stay here and have my cave, which is not a quarter as nice as a pavilion," Temeraire said coolly, "and when we have beaten Napoleon and taken prizes, you shan't have a share; Moncey will have more gold than you."

"Prizes!" Gentius said, rousing unexpectedly. "I helped in taking a prize once. My captain had a fourteenth share. That is how she bought the picture."

Everyone knew Gentius's painting, and a really impressed murmur went around: this was better than hypothetical jewels in another country which none of them had seen.

"Now, now; settle down," Ballista said, thumping her tail, but with a considerably more lenient air. "Look here, I suppose no-one much wants the French to beat, anyway; we have all had a go with them before, if we were ever in service. But the men don't want us unless we take harness and captains, and we cannot just go wandering into battles: we will get circled round and shot up. That is no joke, even for us big ones."

"If we fight thoughtlessly, just one alone at a time, we will," Temeraire said, "but there is no reason we must, and we cannot be boarded if we have no harness, or - or anyone to capture. We will be our own army, and we will work out tactics for ourselves, not stuff men have invented without bothering to ask us even though they cannot fly themselves: it stands to reason we can do better than that, if we try."

"Hm, well," Ballista said; this was a convincing argument, and the general murmur of agreement found it so.

"All right, all right," Requiescat said. "Very nice story-telling, but it is all a hum. Treasure and battles are well and good, but what d'you mean to do for dinner?"

They landed all together on the grounds the next morning at the feeding time, the cows bellowing invitingly in their pen, and the delicious grassy scent made Temeraire's tongue want to lick out at the air. But the other dragons all kept the line with him: no one even put their nose out towards the running cattle. The herdsmen prodded the cows forward, with no results, and looked at one another and back at Lloyd, in confusion.

Lloyd began going up and down the line looking up at them all in bafflement, saying to one after another in turn, "Go on, then, eat something," entreatingly. Temeraire waited until Lloyd came up to him and then bent his head down and said, "Lloyd, where do the cows come from?"

Lloyd stared at him. "Go on, eat something, old boy," he repeated, feebly, so it came out as a question more than a command.

"Stop that; my name is Temeraire, or you may say sir," Temeraire said, "since that is how to speak to someone politely."

"Oh, ah," Lloyd said, not very sensibly.

"You have heard that the French have invaded?" Temeraire inquired.

"Oh!" Lloyd said, in tones of relief. "None of you need worry anything about that. Why, they shan't come anywhere near, or interfere with the cows. You shall all be fed, the cows will come here every day, there's no call to save them, old boy - "

Temeraire raised