“How badly are you hurt?” Temeraire nosed him all over, tongue flickering out for reassurance.

“I am perfectly well, I assure you, nothing more than a bump on the arm,” Laurence said, trying to fend him off; though he could not help being privately glad to see that Temeraire’s fit of temper had at least for the moment subsided.

Granby ducked into the curve of Temeraire’s body, and unrepentantly ignored Laurence’s cold looks. “There; we have worked out watches amongst ourselves. Laurence, you do not suppose it was some sort of accident, or that he mistook you for someone else, do you?”

“No.” Laurence hesitated, then reluctantly admitted, “This was not the first attempt. I did not think anything of it at the time, but now I am almost certain he tried to knock me down the fore hatch, after the New Year’s dinner.”

Temeraire growled deeply, and only with difficulty restrained himself from clawing at the deck, which already bore deep grooves from his thrashing about during the storm. “I am glad he fell overboard,” he said venomously. “I hope he was eaten by sharks.”

“Well, I am not,” Granby said. “It will make it a sight more difficult to prove whyever he was at it.”

“It cannot have been anything of a personal nature,” Laurence said. “I had not spoken ten words to him, and he would not have understood them if I had. I suppose he could have run mad,” he said, but with no real conviction.

“Twice, and once in the middle of a typhoon,” Granby said, contemptuously, dismissing the suggestion. “No; I am not going to stretch that far: for my part, he must have done it under orders, and that means their prince is most likely behind it all, or I suppose one of those other Chinamen; we had better find out double-quick who, before they try it again.”

This notion Temeraire seconded with great energy, and Laurence blew out a heavy sigh. “We had better call Hammond to my cabin in private and tell him about it,” he said. “He may have some idea what their motives might be, and we will need his help to question the lot of them, anyway.”

Summoned below, Hammond listened to the news with visible and increasing alarm, but his ideas were of quite another sort. “You seriously propose we should interrogate the Emperor’s brother and his retinue like a gang of common criminals; accuse them of conspiracy to murder; demand alibis and evidence—You may as well put a torch to the magazine and scuttle the ship; our mission will have as much chance of success that way as the other. Or, no: more chance, because at least if we are all dead and at the bottom of the ocean there can be no cause for quarrel.”

“Well, what do you propose, then, that we ought to just sit and smile at them until they do manage to kill Laurence?” Granby demanded, growing angry in his turn. “I suppose that would suit you just as well; one less person to object to your handing Temeraire over to them, and the Corps can go hang for all you care.”

Hammond wheeled round on him. “My first care is for our country, and not for any one man or dragon, as yours ought to be if you had any proper sense of duty—”

“That is quite enough, gentlemen,” Laurence cut in. “Our first duty is to establish a secure peace with China, and our first hope must be to achieve it without the loss of Temeraire’s strength; on either score there can be no dispute.”

“Then neither duty nor hope will be advanced by this course of action,” Hammond snapped. “If you did manage to find any evidence, what do you imagine could be done? Do you think we are going to put Prince Yongxing in chains?”

He stopped and collected himself for a moment. “I see no reason, no evidence whatsoever, to suggest Feng Li was not acting alone. You say the first attack came after the New Year; you might well have offended him at the feast unknowingly. He might have been a fanatic angered by your possession of Temeraire, or simply mad; or you might be mistaken entirely. Indeed, that seems to me the most likely—both incidents in such dim, confused conditions; the first under the influence of strong drink, the second in the midst of the storm—”

“For the love of Christ,” Granby said rudely, making Hammond stare. “And Feng Li was shoving Laurence down hatchways and trying to knock his head in for some perfectly good reason, of course.”

Laurence himself had been momentarily bereft of speech at this offensive suggestion. “If, sir, any of your suppositions are true, then any investigation would certainly reveal as much. Feng Li could not have concealed lunacy or such zealotry from all his country-men, as he could from us; if I had offended him, surely he would have spoken of it.”

“And in ascertaining as much, this investigation would only require offering a profound insult to the Emperor’s brother, who may determine our success or failure in Peking,” Hammond said. “Not only will I not abet it, sir, I absolutely forbid it; and if you make any such ill-advised, reckless attempt, I will do my very best to convince the captain of the ship that it is his duty to the King to confine you.”

This naturally ended the discussion, so far as Hammond was concerned in it; but Granby came back after closing the door behind him, with more force than strictly necessary. “I don’t know that I have ever been more tempted to push a fellow’s nose in for him. Laurence, Temeraire could translate for us, surely, if we brought the fellows up to him.”

Laurence shook his head and went for the decanter; he was roused and knew it, and he did not immediately rely upon his own judgment. He gave Granby a glass, took his own to the stern lockers, and sat there drinking and looking out at the ocean: a steady dark swell of five feet, no more, rolling against her larboard quarter.

He set the glass aside at last. “No: I am afraid we must think better of it, John. Little as I like Hammond’s mode of address, I cannot say that he is wrong. Only think, if we did offend him and the Emperor with such an investigation, and yet found no evidence, or worse yet some rational explanation—”

“—we could say hail and farewell to any chance of keeping Temeraire,” Granby finished for him, with resignation. “Well, I suppose you are right and we will have to lump it for now; but I am damned if I like it.”

Temeraire took a still-dimmer view of this resolution. “I do not care if we do not have any proof,” he said angrily. “I am not going to sit and wait for him to kill you. The next time he comes out on deck I will kill him, instead, and that will put an end to it.”

“No, Temeraire, you cannot!” Laurence said, appalled.

“I am perfectly sure I can,” Temeraire disagreed. “I suppose he might not come out on deck again,” he added, thoughtfully, “but then I could always knock a hole through the stern windows and come at him that way. Or perhaps we could throw in a bomb after him.”

“You must not,” Laurence amended hastily. “Even had we proof, we could hardly move against him; it would be grounds for an immediate declaration of war.”

“If it would be so terrible to kill him, why is it not so terrible for him to kill you?” Temeraire demanded. “Why is he not afraid of our declaring war on him?”

“Without proper evidence, I am sure Government would hardly take such a measure,” Laurence said; he was fairly certain Government would not declare war with evidence, but that, he felt, was not the best argument for the moment.

“But we are not allowed to get evidence,” Temeraire said. “And also I am not allowed to kill him, and we are supposed to be polite to him, and all of it for the sake of Government. I am very tired of this Government, which I have never seen, and which is always insisting that I must do disagreeable things, and does no good to anybody.”

“All politics aside, we cannot be sure Prince Yongxing had anything to do with the matter,” Laurence said. “There are a thousand unanswered questions: why he should even wish me dead, and why he would set a manservant on to do it, rather than one of his guards; and after all, Feng Li could have had some reason of his own of which we know nothing. We cannot be killing people only on suspicion, without evidence; that would be to commit murder ourselves. You could not be comfortable afterwards, I assure you.”