Wellesley shrugged it away, a tight angry motion. ‘If you are determined to send him away, send him. But if you mean to give away his throne, too, why not make a parcel of it, with whatever else these snakes are asking for? Perhaps we should let them preach sedition to the troops directly?’

‘Come, General Wellesley, this is surely overreaction—’

‘If you believe for an instant they did not know perfectly well what the beast was about—’

‘I hope we are not going to be distracted by some notion that Talleyrand, if not Bonaparte himself, concocted a plan of subterfuge to be carried out by a dragon,’ Eldon said. ‘I have heard the idle chatter about the beasts, but let us not read conscious and deliberate intent from it.’

‘Sir,’ Laurence said, and bore the looks which he received for having the temerity to interject, ‘perhaps you are not aware that dragons learn their tongue in the shell, and do not ordinarily acquire another. It cannot be mere coincidence that they have brought a beast who can speak English, and easily communicate with our own.’

‘So feed them twice over and drive any seditious thoughts from their heads, if indeed any managed to find their way in,’ Eldon said. ‘What else could Bonaparte possibly offer the creatures anyway.’

‘Respect, if nothing else,’ Laurence said. ‘The neglect and disdain with which they have been treated has left them open to the meanest approach, the least offer of courtesy and reward—’

‘That is enough from you, Laurence,’ Lord Mulgrave said icily. ‘You have done more good for Bonaparte than Talleyrand and Murat could achieve here, if we gave them every opportunity in the world.’

Laurence flinched, and hoped he did not show it. Mulgrave had approved the plan to send the sick dragon to France. He had chaired the inquiry where Laurence had learned of it by accident and Mulgrave had chosen the men for his court-martial, and overseen it personally, with resentful venom.

‘A man may be a wild enthusiast without being a traitor,’ Mulgrave said, ‘but you are both. Even if you have been allowed to live a little longer, by counsel other than mine, you are the last man on whom anyone sensible would rely.’

Wellesley said sharply, ‘This is their intended distraction, gentleman; and I dare say Talleyrand would congratulate himself on its success. Sir,’ he said to Perceval, ‘throw him out, I beg of you, and Murat with him. Every minute that flag of parley sits before the eyes of the army, you cut a little more of the heart out of my men. We ought to be speaking of the counterattack, not debating terms of surrender. That is what these are, however you like to dress them up.’