Hammond tried for a little longer to dress it up: but when at last he came out with a description which Laurence could swallow, it seemed Wellington had expressed the opinion that if anyone might be hoped to have success at talking sense into a band of uncontrollable dragons, it should be the two of them; as long as someone was sent along to be sure they did not in the process give away three-quarters of the colony.
“I am sure we should be splendid ambassadors,” Temeraire put in, peering down at Laurence hopefully, “however uncomplimentary Wellington may have been about it. Not that I was not quite angry with the Tswana at the time, for after all they had no right to take you, but one must make allowances for their people being taken for slaves, and I am sure the Tswana can be reasonable. Indeed, I do not see why we might not satisfy them at once, by returning those who were stolen.”
“Ah,” Hammond said awkwardly, “yes, well—of course, the interests of our allies must be considered—the difficulty of tracing particular individuals—and naturally the position of the Government vis-à-vis the, the property rights of—”
“Oh! Property rights! That is perfectly absurd to say,” Temeraire said. “If I should take a cow to eat, even if no-one was watching it, you should call it stealing; and if I should give it away to Kulingile for some opals, you would not say that he had any property rights, I am sure, particularly if he knew perfectly well that it was not my own cow at the time.”
Hammond began to take on again the harried look familiar from several occasions of their first mission together, to China, and Laurence was unable to resist, with a certain dour amusement, some speculation whether Hammond would not quickly regret having allowed time to soften his impressions of those past difficulties—and to add a roseate glow to the final triumph—and having volunteered himself as the man intended to keep a leash upon them in this proposed endeavor.
For his own part, Laurence was entirely sure that the number of slaves who would be returned in such a programme as Temeraire proposed would not satisfy the Tswana. Even if the Portuguese were willing to hand over their slaves honestly, they could not raise up the dead devoured by the cruel labor of their mines and plantations, and by the hopelessness of their captivity. Nor could he conceive of making himself in any way the agent of slave-owners, which Hammond had ought to have known, if not from acquaintance with Laurence himself, then from the reputation of his father: Lord Allendale had long been a passionate advocate for abolition.
“But nothing of the sort is conceived, I assure you,” Hammond protested. “Indeed, I will go so far as to say that the Portuguese are quite prepared—under the circumstances, a certain readiness to compromise—” He halted, before making any outright promises, and added, “but in any case, you should not at all be their agent, but ours.”
“And our interest in the matter?” Laurence said.
“The establishment of peace,” Hammond said, “which surely you cannot dispute to be desirable.”
“Peace is not unpleasant, or nearly so boring as one might expect,” Temeraire said, with a faintly wistful note that gave him the lie, “but I do not see why you should be particularly interested in peace in Brazil; if you thought it so splendid you might make peace with Napoleon, in Europe, first: not that I at all wish to promote such a thing,” he added hastily, “at least, not while Lien is lording it over in France: I hope we shall never be at peace with her.”
“Ah,” Hammond said, fumbling, and then stopped, visibly irresolute before saying, “Sir, if I may rely upon your discretion—the utmost secrecy—”
“I am sure you may,” Temeraire said with interest, pricking forward his ruff as he leaned in; Hammond looked still more uncertain, as a large dragon’s notion of confidential whispering might be heard a good ten yards away.
“So far as it is in our power, you may,” Laurence said, “and for what we cannot control, you may rely, sir, on your news being of only scant interest locally, and unlikely of being carried on in any manner which should render it worth relying upon, to any hostile agent.”
That, at least, was very true: there was commerce to and from Port Jackson, but there was not a man laboring in the valley who might reasonably expect to leave this country again; where poverty and perpetual inebriation did not bar them, the law would, and they were as trapped here as Laurence had thought himself and Temeraire to be. Britain was another world; the war a distant fairy-story; none of them would care, if they overheard.