Laurence was not superstitious, but he ate; they could hardly refuse any advantage whatsoever. Tharkay took his own dose, pulled up the hood of his cloak over his face, and they went out to the road.

‘They may have already sent Granby to France, of course,’ Tharkay said to him in Chinese, while they sat in the back of a drover's cart.

‘I hope not risk the Navy,’ Laurence said, fumbling in his turn through the difficult language, which he knew he made nearly unintelligible, despite Temeraire's many despairing attempts to correct his pronunciation. It gave them some privacy from the hungry curiosity of the drover, who for a couple of quiet shillings had agreed to take them along to market with the cattle he hoped to sell before they should be confiscated.

Tharkay nodded. If Napoleon were sure enough of his grip on London, he might choose to keep his valuable captive penned rather than risk Granby's death in a crossing under fire, and the resulting frenzy of a Kazilik unleashed upon his forces. They could hope for at least a brief delay if the question were considered, during which Granby would be held near-by. They had to hope: otherwise there was no chance at all.

The last two crawling miles to the city were infuriating, when they had flown fifty that morning in much less time, and the outskirts of London sounded already like a province of France. Tens of thousands of soldiers were busy making encampments, calling to each other and to the dragons who were helping them dig ditches, move stones and even widen roads, and local merchants more industrious than patriotic ran up and down the lanes of the camp, plying food and more commonly drink in far reaching voices and awkward, badly-accented French: ‘Une frank, monser’ and ‘s'il voo plait,’ but they were already improving.

‘He is not shy of making permanent alterations,’ Tharkay said, indicating the buildings that were being raised: large stones were being laid into the ground and pressed down by dragons, to make a raised platform once mortar had been poured over and between them, and logs sunk at the corners. There were no walls to the shelters, but as they came closer to the city Laurence saw one already finished and in use: dragons slept on three sides, and soldiers were crammed into the sheltered space between them. The men would sleep warm despite the coming winter; warmer than the British soldiers. The work bore all the hallmarks of long occupation; Napoleon was not planning any immediate campaign, Laurence realized grimly, but rather to entrench himself.