“Sir, we are most grateful, but you must be aware that if we are not to be allowed free movement during the day, the size of this house is by no means adequate to our needs,” Hammond said. “Why, only Captain Laurence and myself had private rooms last night, and those small and ill-befitting our standing, while the rest of our compatriots were housed in shared quarters and very cramped.”
Laurence had noticed no such inadequacy, and found both the attempted restrictions on their movement and Hammond’s negotiations for more space mildly absurd, the more so as it transpired, from their conversation, that the whole of the island had been vacated in deference to Temeraire. The complex could have accommodated a dozen dragons in extreme comfort, and there were sufficient human residences that every man of Laurence’s crew might have had a building to himself. Still, their residence was in perfectly good repair, comfortable, and far more spacious than their shipboard quarters for the last seven months; he could not see the least reason for desiring additional space any more than for denying them the liberty of the island. But Hammond and Zhao Wei continued to negotiate the matter with a measured gravity and politeness.
Zhao Wei at length consented to their being allowed to take walks around the island in the company of the servants, “so long as you do not go to the shores or the docks, and do not interfere in the patrols of the guardsmen.” With this Hammond pronounced himself satisfied. Zhao Wei sipped at his tea, and then added, “Of course, His Majesty wishes Lung Tien Xiang to see something of the city. I will conduct him upon a tour after he has eaten.”
“I am certain Temeraire and Captain Laurence will find it most edifying,” Hammond said immediately, before Laurence could even draw breath. “Indeed, sir, it was very kind of you to arrange for native clothing for Captain Laurence, so he will not suffer from excessive curiosity.”
Zhao Wei only now took notice of Laurence’s clothing, with an expression that made it perfectly plain he was nothing whatsoever involved; but he bore his defeat in reasonably good part. He said only, “I hope you will be ready to leave shortly, Captain,” with a small inclination of the head.
“And we may walk through the city itself?” Temeraire asked, with much excitement, as he was scrubbed and sluiced clean after his breakfast, holding out his forehands one at a time with the talons outspread to be brushed vigorously with soapy water. His teeth even received the same treatment, a young serving-maid ducking inside his mouth to scrub the back ones.
“Of course?” Zhao Wei said, showing some sincere puzzlement at the question.
“Perhaps you may see something of the training grounds of the dragons here, if there are any within the city bounds,” Hammond suggested: he had accompanied them outside. “I am sure you would find it of interest, Temeraire.”
“Oh, yes,” Temeraire said; his ruff was already up and half-quivering.
Hammond gave Laurence a significant glance, but Laurence chose to ignore it entirely: he had little desire to play the spy, or to prolong the tour, however interesting the sights might be. “Are you quite ready, Temeraire?” he asked instead.
They were transported to the shore by an elaborate but awkward barge, which wallowed uncertainly under Temeraire’s weight even in the placidity of the tiny lake; Laurence kept close to the tiller and watched the lubberly pilot with a grim and censorious eye: he would dearly have loved to take her away from the fellow. The scant distance to shore took twice as long to cover as it ought to have. A substantial escort of armed guards had been detached from their patrols on the island to accompany them on the tour. Most of these fanned out ahead to force a clear path through the streets, but some ten kept close on Laurence’s heels, jostling one another out of any kind of formation in what seemed to be an attempt to keep him blocked almost by a human wall from wandering away.
Zhao Wei took them through another of the elaborate red-and-gold gateways, this one set in a fortified wall and yielding onto a very broad avenue. It was manned by several guards in the Imperial livery, as well as by two dragons also under gear: one of the by-now-familiar red ones, and the other a brilliant green with red markings. Their captains were sitting together sipping tea under an awning, their padded jerkins removed against the day’s heat, and both were women.
“I see you have women captains also,” Laurence said to Zhao Wei. “Do they serve with particular breeds, then?”
“Women are companions to those dragons who go into the army,” Zhao Wei said. “Naturally only the lower breeds would choose to do that sort of work. Over there, that green one is one of the Emerald Glass. They are too lazy and slow to do well on the examinations, and the Scarlet Flower breed all like fighting too much, so they are not good for anything else.”
“Do you mean to say that only women serve in your aerial corps?” Laurence asked, sure he had misunderstood; yet Zhao Wei only nodded a confirmation. “But what reason can there be for such a policy; surely you do not ask women to serve in your infantry, or navy?” Laurence protested.
His dismay was evident, and Zhao Wei, perhaps feeling a need to defend his nation’s unusual practice, proceeded to narrate the legend which was its foundation. The details were of course romanticized: a girl had supposedly disguised herself as a man to fight in her father’s stead, had become companion to a military dragon and saved the empire by winning a great battle; as a consequence, the Emperor of the time had pronounced girls acceptable for service with dragons.
But these colorful exaggerations aside, it seemed that the nation’s policy itself was accurately described: in times of conscription, the head of each family had at one time been required to serve or send a child in his stead. Girls being considerably less valued than boys, they had become the preferred choice to fill out the quota when possible. As they could only serve in the aerial corps, they had come to dominate this branch of the service until eventually the force became exclusive.
The telling of the legend, complete with recitation of its traditional poetic version, which Laurence suspected lost a great deal of color in the translation, carried them past the gate and some distance along the avenue towards a broad grey-flagged plaza set back from the road itself, and full of children and hatchlings. The boys sat cross-legged on the floor in front, the hatchlings coiled up neatly behind, and all together in a queer mixture of childish voices and the more resonant draconic tones were parroting a human teacher who stood on a podium in front, reading loudly from a great book and beckoning the students to repeat after every line.
Zhao Wei waved his hand towards them. “You wanted to see our schools. This is a new class, of course; they are only just beginning to study the Analects.”
Laurence was privately baffled at the notion of subjecting dragons to study and written examinations. “They do not seem paired off,” he said, studying the group.
Zhao Wei looked blankly at him, and Laurence clarified, “I mean, the boys are not sitting with their own hatchlings, and the children seem rather young for them, indeed.”
“Oh, those dragonets are much too young to have chosen any companions yet,” Zhao Wei said. “They are only a few weeks old. When they have lived fifteen months, then they will be ready to choose, and the boys will be older.”
Laurence halted in surprise, and turned to stare at the little hatchlings again; he had always heard that dragons had to be tamed directly at hatching, to keep them from becoming feral and escaping into the wild, but this seemed plainly contradicted by the Chinese example. Temeraire said, “It must be very lonely. I would not have liked to be without Laurence when I hatched, at all.” He lowered his head and nudged Laurence with his nose. “And it would also be very tiresome to have to hunt all the time for yourself when you are first hatched; I was always hungry,” he added, more prosaically.