He gave them dinner, very kindly, and waved away Hollin's offer of payment, accepting an amount only for the goat which went to feed Elsie. The mayor's wife and oldest girl, a few years out of the schoolroom, ate with them, and Laurence was occasionally recalled to his manners enough to make some little conversation, but he was too burdened to be fit company. The fresh intelligence meant they must now go back, at once; the generals must know that the French had penetrated this far.

‘There were some eagles, I hear,’ the young woman ventured. ‘Georgie said, before he went, the boys from Ham saw two of them.’

That was bad, very bad; two French regiments, and so far from the bulk of Napoleon's army, likely meant a Marshal lay somewhere in the area. The worst of the Marshals were competent; as the hands of their chief they were dangerous as vipers. There was nothing strategic to be won here, in the west of England, but there was a great deal of food; food which would keep those French dragons in the air. ‘Had they cavalry?’ he asked abruptly, raising his head. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he added, realizing belatedly that he had interrupted a conversation, which had moved on without him; Hollin and the young lady had been talking about the places which he saw on his route.

‘Oh—I am sorry, sir; no, I don't remember Georgie saying so,’ she said, abashed at being addressed.

‘I think they do not, Captain,’ the mayor affirmed. ‘They came on foot here, anyway.’

If Napoleon had thrown all of his strength into air power, Laurence was not sure what that might mean. It disregarded all established wisdom about modern warfare, which held that a properly organized force of cavalry and infantry together, supported by pepper guns and artillery, could repel virtually any dragon attack. But no one had ever heard of a dragon attack using more than fifty dragons before Napoleon's first attempt at crossing the Channel in the year five. Laurence remembered their astonishment at his managing to bring together a force of a hundred beasts.

He went outside after the meal, and waited politely while Hollin took Miss—the name had already escaped Laurence— to see Elsie, by her nervous request. The dragon was also interested to meet her, ladies not common company for dragons but for the female captains, who rarely dressed for their natural station; and Elsie was quite willing to be petted and offered a blancmange that the young lady had made, which she politely licked up from the serving plate in a couple of swipes.

‘Why, what a lovely plate,’ she said after, with much more enthusiasm, and was visibly sorry to see it drawn back; it had a gaily painted border in red and blue with a few small touches of silver. ‘I have never seen anything so pretty,’ Elsie added, stretching her head to look at it again.