‘I want him bled,’ Wellesley had said, in the tower room of Edinburgh Castle, as they stood over the map of England swarming with blue markers, with the icy rain lashing at the windows. Down the hall, the muffled sound of the King's voice was rising in some complaint. To Laurence it seemed very loud. ‘Every man to him is worth five to us. He must bring them across at great expense, and he must spend his dragons’ strength to do it. And his men live off the land; he relies upon them raiding the countryside, feeding themselves and driving in cattle for the dragons, and keeping his supply lines meagre and short.'

‘You mean you wish us to attack his irregulars,’ Laurence broke in, tired of evasions.

‘His supply lines, his foragers, his scouts.’ Wellesley thumped the map. 'He has hundreds of small raiding parties scattered throughout the country north of London; he cannot survive long without them, and they are exposed. You will destroy every one of them you can find.

‘You will not engage,’ he added, ‘any substantial party, other dragons in number, or artillery: I do not mean to lose any of our beasts.’

Laurence had expected something of the sort, from the tenor of Wellesley's summons, and heard it with dull acceptance. The strategy was sound, coldly speaking. If Bonaparte began to lose men quicker than he could replace them, and found his supply growing short, he would have to accept a battle on whatever terms it was offered him, or withdraw entirely.

But dragons were not usually put to such a use in civilized warfare; Wellesley knew it, and so did he. Pragmatism alone held them too valuable to risk and too expensive to supply, save against a more substantial target of strategic importance. However, it was not pragmatism but sentiment that with a single voice called the exceptions inhuman. Little aroused greater horror and more condemnation from ordinary men than the prospect of dragons set loose against them. Men had been court martialled and hanged for it, even by their own side.

‘Pillaging,’ Wellesley added after a moment, ‘of course, cannot be tolerated—’

‘There will be none,’ Laurence said, ‘save what must be requisitioned to feed the dragons. Is there anything else?’

Wellesley looked at him narrowly. ‘Will you do it?’

There was little enough Laurence could do, to repair what he had done; he could not restore the lives of the slain, or raise sunken ships from the Channel, or make recompense to all the ordinary countrymen whose livelihood and possessions had been raided away by an invading army. He could not repair his father's health, or the King's, or Edith's happiness. But he had already stained himself irrevocably with dishonour, for the sake of an enemy nation and a tyrant's greed; he could stain himself a little more for the sake of his own, and shield with his own ruined reputation those who still had one to protect.