Then Palliatia landed, with four more Yellow Reapers, and a couple of Grey Coppers, hungry, and punished him by making his subterfuge quite real. They fell upon the porridge, were noisy and quarrelsome while eating, and when it was all gone she said belligerently, “And where will we eat tomorrow? No treasure and no food either; what of all your fine promises now?”

He was rather taken aback to be so challenged, and said, “You needn’t snap at me, because we have lost a battle. After all, if Napoleon were so easy to beat, he would not have any treasure worth taking. So you must expect some difficulties, and I call it poor-spirited to begin to complain only because you were not clever enough to find yourself enough dinner last night.”

“Oh, you did not talk of difficulties before,” she said, “and you did not seem to think so much of Napoleon either. If he has so much treasure, then it stands to reason he must be very difficult to beat, and perhaps we are not going to win at all.”

“And if we do,” a Grey Copper named Rictus said pointedly, raising his head out of the porridge-pit, “I expect there will be no pavilions anyway, or treasure, not for us, or leastways not for those of us who haven’t got our captains again, and a place in the Corps waiting for us any time we like. No, it’ll be back to the breeding grounds with us, and if we are only to end up as we began, I don’t see why we are going about getting ourselves shot, and clawed, and flying across all Creation hungry.”

There was a low scattered murmur of agreement, and worse, several other dragons raising their heads, in some interest, to see how he would answer. Temeraire sat up angrily. “I am not a sneak, and if you like to call me one, you may say so at once, and plainly, instead of creeping about implying it.”

“Well, what do you mean to do, when we have won?” Ballista said, having listened in so far. “Rictus isn’t wrong to say that you needn’t worry about the rest of us anymore: you are not unharnessed anymore, even if you haven’t much of a crew to speak of.”

Temeraire flattened his ruff at this last remark. After all, he had Gong Su back now, and Dorset—even if Dorset was not quite so desirable as Keynes—and of course Emily and Demane and Sipho, and Fellowes and Blythe, and even Allen, so he had a perfectly respectable number, which in any case had nothing to do with the matter. “You had a crew before, and might have one again, yourself, and so might any of us,” he pointed out, “so the question is not whether one is in harness, but whether one may choose to be, or not, and if it is only a choice between being in harness or being in the breeding grounds, that is not enough of a choice at all, when the breeding grounds are so boring; and that is the case even if one is in harness for the moment.”

“Yes, but,” Ballista said, and then paused until Majestatis, lying next to her, said bluntly, “Look, old worm, we are all doing what you say, so what if they should offer you something you want, if only you keep us quiet and fighting with the rest of the harnessed fellows? We all know they want to hang your captain—what if they should offer you his life?”

Temeraire paused in his turn. “Well, I am not going to let them hang Laurence no matter what,” he said, with a hasty glance to be sure he had not been overheard, “but I do see: they might offer me a very large pavilion, or a great deal of gold.” He rubbed a talon back and forth over his forehead, thoughtfully. “It would not be fair,” he said at last, “if I took anything that should be for me only, when I should be getting it not for my own work but for all of ours: we are all sharing. So perhaps,” he added, “one of you had better come along, when I go and talk to the generals again: one of the little ones who can go all about and let everyone know what it is they will give us.”

“I will come along,” Minnow said. “I have never been harnessed, and I don’t look to be ever, so no-one can say I am inclined to go soft on them. Anyway I would like to see a general, I never have.”

Temeraire stretched his head over to ask Laurence and Admiral Roland who was presently in command, and where they might be; which he thought quite a straightforward question. “Well, it isn’t,” Admiral Roland answered him. “It is still Dalrymple for the moment, I suppose. But he is likely to be replaced as soon as we get to Scotland and Government have a chance to take him out of harm’s way: our harm, that is. If there is a lick of sense among them it shall be Wellesley in his place, but we ought not put our hopes so high.”

“But then who am I to talk to?” Temeraire said. “I do not like to say so, but the others are not quite happy—after all our hard work, we have lost, and got no treasure, and they would like to know what use it is to keep on. Not,” he added hastily, in case Laurence or Admiral Roland should think that he was a poor officer, “that we have no discipline, but after all, they are not harnessed, so they wonder why we are helping so much.”

Laurence was silent a moment, and then he said, “We may as well speak to Wellesley: it cannot much matter who we have made arrangements with, if the war is lost.”

Admiral Roland nodded and said, “I will tell you: now we have got the guns out of the way, I meant to send some of us back anyway, to cover the infantry when they come out of Weedon. It is too close to London, and Bonaparte has too many dragons by half. I think I have worked out where he is getting them from,” she added. “He is using unharnessed beasts, too, pulled out of his own breeding grounds: I dare say that Celestial of his can talk them out of their caves as well as Temeraire can ours.”

“I do not see that she needed go to any special effort,” Temeraire said, with feeling, “when Napoleon is doing everything nice, and giving his dragons pavilions and treasure, too, I expect: I am sure no-one is complaining to her.”

Admiral Roland snorted. “Well, whether she has had much work or not, I am confident this is the best explanation for how he has laid hands on a hundred spare dragons, in so little time; he hasn’t taken a single beast off his eastern borders at all. And that means he can afford to spend a few dozen of them to harry our foot, on the march.”

Laurence nodded, and Temeraire saw the danger plainly: with the infantry walking to Scotland, they would be an easy target on the road for aerial assault; and going at their creeping pace of twenty miles a day would be in striking range of dragons headquartered at London for a week.

“The unharnessed beasts can less easily be taken by boarding, if Bonaparte should manage to put together some clever little strike,” she went on, “so it would be just as well to make Temeraire’s regiment the guard; and let him hash this out with Wellesley, before we have a mutiny on our hands: I haven’t the right to promise them anything, and you may be sure if I did their Lordships wouldn’t abide by it. And if you do secure them any pay,” she added dryly, “pray be sure it comes to the harnessed dragons, too: I am sure Excidium would not say no to a little treasure of his own.”

“It seems a great bother to me, to be flying back,” Armatius grumbled, when Temeraire had brought back the news: he did not much like always carrying Gentius around, but he was the least maneuverable of the heavy-weights, save Requiescat, so it fell to him nearly all the time.

“At least you do not need to carry a gun, too, in this direction,” Temeraire said, “and flying slower we will be able to find more food. Anyway, we are going to go arrange for our pay, which is like treasure that is given you every month without your having to work for it, so you cannot complain.”

Except the harnessed dragons sharing the park with them, who were disgruntled at not being allowed to come along and get some pay themselves. “Well, I am going back with you,” Iskierka announced, and would not be dissuaded, no matter what Granby said; and to Temeraire’s deep disgust Admiral Roland finally said, “No, it is just as well, Granby: she will only fuss, lying about in Scotland or going on patrol.”