‘Keep your hands off,’ she said coldly, and jerked expertly free with a twist of her hips, while the other officers roared with laughter at their fellow's expense. She won past them at last, cheeks flushed with colour and her eyes downcast. Laurence was nearly even with her now and as they passed one another he seized one of her sheets and snapped it open over the entire company.

A confused babble of shouting arose at once. They rushed the swathed men, toppling those who had been standing. The door to the room opened and another man looked out. Tharkay shot him, and kicked the door wide. Granby, warned by the commotion, took the opening at once and came rushing out of the room sporting a bruised cheek and a bandaged arm. ‘Thank God. Give me a pistol,’ he said, and threw off the sling.

‘The window,’ Laurence said, and turning at the report of a shot, received Woolvey into his arms. There was a startled look on Woolvey's face, and a great stain spreading through his shirt, just visible beneath the swallow-wing lapels of his coat. Another shot was fired and another, and bullets tore wildly through the sheet, small fires catching the linen in their wake. The maid had fled down the hall screaming.

‘Iskierka!’ Granby was shouting. He had dashed into the room across the way and was leaning out the window.

A look was enough to be sure. The light had already faded from Woolvey's eyes. ‘Laurence,’ Tharkay said, and shot the first French officer struggling free of the tangled sheet.

‘Damn you,’ Laurence said, not very certain if he meant Woolvey, or the man who had shot him, or indeed himself. Stooping, he worked the wedding-ring from Woolvey's hand, and went after Tharkay into the bedroom. They shut the door and barricaded it with a wardrobe. It would hold only for a moment, but they needed no longer, Iskierka's talons were already tearing at the window, scrabbling away glass, masonry and brick in great shattering blocks.

Chapter Eleven

It was not at all pleasant to wait, and wait, and keep waiting. Temeraire paced, and then went aloft to look in case there should be any sign, and then came back down and paced a little more.

‘There is no one coming, is there?’ Perscitia asked, a little anxiously, worried in another direction entirely. ‘No French dragons? Perhaps you should stop going up so much. Someone might see you, and,’ she added quickly, ‘if we had to move, it would make it hard for Laurence to find us again, on his way back.’

Temeraire tried to settle. He could not help but see the sense in this remark, but he shook his head at her offer of a haunch of cow. The smaller dragons had gone out quietly hunting for all of them, but he did not have much appetite.