Temeraire had eaten heartily that morning: a couple of young venison, with some stuffed ducks as a relish; he did not ask to eat, but looked a little wistfully at a smaller purple dragon eating roast suckling pigs off a skewer. But down a smaller alley Laurence also saw a tired-looking blue dragon, his hide marked with old sores from the silk carrying-harness he wore, turning sadly away from a beautifully roasted cow and pointing instead at a small, rather burnt sheep left off to the side: he took it away to a corner and began eating it very slowly, stretching it out, and he did not disdain the offal or the bones.

It was natural that if dragons were expected to earn their bread, there should be some less fortunate than others; but Laurence felt it somehow criminal to see one going hungry, particularly when there was so much extravagant waste at their residence and elsewhere. Temeraire did not notice, his gaze fixed on the displays. They came out of the district over another small bridge which led them back onto the broad avenue where they had begun. Temeraire sighed deeply with pleasure, releasing the aroma only slowly from his nostrils.

Laurence, for his part, was fallen quiet; the sight had dispelled his natural fascination with all the novelty of their surroundings and the natural interest inherent in a foreign capital of such extents, and without such distraction he was inescapably forced to recognize the stark contrast in the treatment of dragons. The city streets were not wider than in London by some odd coincidence, or a question of taste, or even for the greater grandeur which they offered; but plainly designed that dragons might live in full harmony with men, and that this design was accomplished, to the benefit of all parties, he could not dispute: the case of misery which he had seen served rather to illustrate the general good.

The dinner-hour was hard upon them, and Zhao Wei turned their route back towards the island; Temeraire also grown quieter as they left the market precincts behind, and they walked along in silence until they reached the gateway; there pausing he looked back over his shoulder at the city, its activity undiminished. Zhao Wei caught the look and said something to him in Chinese. “It is very nice,” Temeraire answered him, and added, “but I cannot compare it: I have never walked in London, or even in Dover.”

They took their leave from Zhao Wei briefly, outside the pavilion, and went in again together. Laurence sat heavily down upon a wooden bench, while Temeraire began to pace restlessly back and forth, his tail-tip switching back and forth with agitation. “It is not true, at all,” he burst out at last. “Laurence, we have gone everywhere we liked; I have been in the streets and to shops, and no one has run away or been frightened: not in the south and not here. People are not afraid of dragons, not in the least.”

“I must beg your pardon,” Laurence said quietly. “I confess I was mistaken: plainly men can be accustomed. I expect with so many dragons about, all men here are raised with close experience of them, and lose their fear. But I assure you I have not lied to you deliberately; the same is not true in Britain. It must be a question of use.”

“If use can make men stop being afraid, I do not see why we should be kept penned up so they may continue to be frightened,” Temeraire said.

To this Laurence could make no answer, and did not try; instead he retreated to his own room to take a little dinner; Temeraire lay down for his customary afternoon nap in a brooding, restless coil, while Laurence sat alone, picking unenthusiastically over his plate. Hammond came to inquire after what they had seen; Laurence answered him as briefly as he could, his irritation of spirit ill-concealed, and in short order Hammond went away rather flushed and thin-lipped.

“Has that fellow been pestering you?” Granby said, looking in.

“No,” Laurence said tiredly, getting up to rinse his hands in the basin he had filled from the pond. “Indeed, I am afraid I was plainly rude to him just now, and he did not deserve it in the least: he was only curious how they raise the dragons here, so he could argue with them that Temeraire’s treatment in England has not been so ill.”

“Well, as far as I am concerned he deserved a trimming,” Granby said. “I could have pulled out my hair when I woke up and he told me smug as a deacon that he had packed you off alone with some Chinaman; not that Temeraire would let any harm come to you, but anything could happen in a crowd, after all.”

“No, nothing of the kind was attempted at all; our guide was a little rude to begin, but perfectly civil by the end.” Laurence glanced over at the bundles stacked in the corner, where Zhao Wei’s men had left them. “I begin to think Hammond was right, John; and it was all old-maid flutters and imagination,” he said, unhappily; it seemed to him, after the long day’s tour, that the prince hardly needed to stoop to murder, with the many advantages of his country to serve as gentler and no less persuasive arguments.

“More likely Yongxing gave up trying aboard ship, and has just been waiting to get you settled in under his eyes,” Granby said pessimistically. “This is a nice enough cottage, I suppose, but there are a damned lot of guards skulking about.”

“All the more reason not to fear,” Laurence said. “If they meant to kill me, they could have done so by now, a dozen times over.”

“Temeraire would hardly stay here if the Emperor’s own guards killed you, and him already suspicious,” Granby said. “Most like he would do his best to kill the lot of them, and then I hope find the ship again and go back home; though it takes them very hard, losing a captain, and he might just as easily go and run into the wild.”

“We can argue ourselves in circles this way forever.” Laurence lifted his hands impatiently and let them drop again. “At least today, the only wish which I saw put in action was to make a desirable impression upon Temeraire.” He did not say that this goal had been thoroughly accomplished and with little effort; he did not know how to draw a contrast against the treatment of dragons in the West without sounding at best a complainer and at worst nearly disloyal: he was conscious afresh that he had not been raised an aviator, and he was unwilling to say anything that might wound Granby’s feelings.

“You are a damned sight too quiet,” Granby said, unexpectedly, and Laurence gave a guilty start: he had been sitting and brooding in silence. “I am not surprised he took a liking to the city, he is always on fire for anything new; but is it that bad?”

“It is not only the city,” Laurence said finally. “It is the respect which is given to dragons; and not only to himself: they all of them have a great deal of liberty, as a matter of course. I think I saw a hundred dragons at least today, wandering through the streets, and no one took any notice of them.”

“And God forbid we should take a flight over Regent’s Park but we have shrieks of murder and fire and flood all at once, and ten memoranda sent us from the Admiralty,” Granby agreed, with a quick flash of resentment. “Not that we could set down in London if we wanted to: the streets are too narrow for anything bigger than a Winchester. From what we have seen even just from the air, this place is laid out with a good deal more sense. It is no wonder they have ten beasts to our one, if not more.”

Laurence was deeply relieved to find Granby taking no offense against him, and so willing to discuss the subject. “John, do you know, here they do not assign handlers until the dragon is fifteen months of age; until then they are raised by other dragons.”

“Well, that seems a rotten waste to me, letting dragons sit around nursemaiding,” Granby said. “But I suppose they can afford it. Laurence, when I think what we could do with a round dozen of those big scarlet fellows that they have sitting around getting fat everywhere; it makes you weep.”