“—servant of the throne,” Hammond said loudly, overriding, “and plainly one of trusted probity and judgment to have been given such license, for, Captain, there can only be one purpose in asking us to make such a journey: they wish to discuss an alliance.”
“How you should arrive at a conclusion so wholly unsupported by any past evidence offered by their behavior—” Laurence began.
“I have been laboring these last five years myself, Captain,” Hammond said, “and not, I trust, to no purpose: China may not have opened her ports to us, but there has certainly been a softening of—”
“From a softening to alliance?” Laurence said.
“If I may,” Gong Su said, apologetically: their voices had risen past even a fiction of private conversation, though Laurence was not much inclined to forgive the reminder that virtually all his conversation, save those conducted under rare circumstances of real privacy, had been exposed to an interest beyond ordinary gossiping curiosity. “I do not presume to speculate as to the motives of my lord, or as to the purpose of his invitation! But I have been impelled to speak as I have by those late events, which one must fear as altering for evil the very balance and the order of the world: and it is with that consideration that I do urge you to hasten without delay to answer the invitation of the crown prince, as is your filial duty.”
“Oh! Laurence, it is beyond anything wonderful!” Temeraire said, in delight. “Of course we must go: I should like nothing better than that Maximus and Lily should see China, and all our formation, too. And to think that Gong Su has arranged it all: I should never have imagined it.”
“No,” Laurence said, stifling the smart of renewed indignation. The first infuriated heat of betrayal past, he had not been able to stand his ground against Hammond’s persuasion very long. Gong Su had made his meaning too plain, even if a notion of courtly decorum forbade him outright speaking on behalf of the Emperor’s son. Laurence could not despite a certain irritated desire to do so believe him a liar or untrustworthy: indeed it was impossible to fault for loyalty a man who in the service of his throne had left home and family to accept a menial position and keep it across a war, five continents, and so many weary years.
Temeraire peered at him a little anxiously. “I hope,” he said tentatively, “that you do not mind we should not go back to England straightaway? But I do understand from Lily that everything there at present is quite at a standstill: and Napoleon will surely have a long time sailing back. And I am sure that this Captain Blaise in charge of the Potentate will see the very real importance of our going to China under these circumstances.”
Of that, Laurence had less certainty. “Particularly as we have only the crown prince’s invitation, and not the Emperor’s; and no certainty of success when we have arrived,” Laurence added soberly, “but I am persuaded we must make the attempt. If we should indeed find it possible to engage China in alliance, that may be our only hope now of standing for long against Napoleon. But we may have to make the passage overland and far to the north, at the Bering strait. I have no confidence in Blaise’s diverting the Potentate at our request: he is not Riley.”
He stopped and said again, low, “He is not Riley,” and swallowed regret once more: the loss not only of a friend, but of that still more priceless treasure, a man on whom he could rely.
“No,” Temeraire said, and bent his head to nose gently at Laurence’s back in comfort.
To Betsy Mitchell, editor extraordinaire, who gave Temeraire his wings
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Heaps of thanks to beta-readers Georgina Paterson, Vanessa Len, Rachel Barenblat, and N. K. Jemisin (if you haven’t read her novel The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms do yourself a favor and run to snatch it up), who gave me wonderful feedback and helped me improve this novel in myriad ways.
Thanks also to my terrific agent, Cynthia Manson, not least because she brought me and Temeraire together with my fantastic editor, Betsy Mitchell, to whose passion and encouragement I owe not only a million and one improvements but the vast sprawl of this saga of Laurence and Temeraire’s ongoing adventures, which I had only dimly glimpsed when I first jumped on board the deck of the Reliant as it captured a dragon egg.
All my love and thanks and gratitude to Charles, always my first and best and most exacting reader, and also to our new daughter, Evidence, who did her very best to interfere with every stage of this book.