‘Laurence has taken oaths and feels duty to you; he would even let you hang him, although I do not understand why,’ Temeraire said after a moment, low and angrily. ‘And I cannot make him come away with me against his will, because that would also be wrong. But I will not allow him to be parted from me again, and if you do hang him, I will take my friends and go; but not back to China. I will go to Napoleon, and I will tell him he may have my territory, if only he destroys you all, and I will give him any help he wants of me to do it. Now, threaten me again, if you like.’

Laurence stood wretchedly by, helpless. He ought to have expected it. Lien had done as much over the death of her companion, Prince Yongxing; she had put herself freely into Bonaparte's hands, despite having nothing but contempt for him and all of the West at the time, and even though Napoleon, the master of Europe, might very well turn his eyes against her own nation, someday. And what small sense of loyalty Temeraire might have begun to feel towards Britain had been thoroughly undone, first by the Admiralty's plan to infect and kill all the dragons of the West, by reserving the cure for British use; and then by their later imprisonment of, and the pronounced death-sentence on Laurence, which had been used as a bludgeon against him: and now used once too often.

To think his execution would not leave Temeraire free to make his own way back to China, but a devoted enemy of Britain, was a fresh agony. Laurence had no doubt that such a threat would only make the generals despise him and the dragon all the more, and see in it his own scheme for preserving his neck by blackmail. They might choose not to provoke Temeraire now while Napoleon had men on British soil, but that, he hoped profoundly, was only a temporary state, after that …

Laurence did not discount Temeraire's achievement, as Dalrymple did. Without experience or training for the task, or anything but will, he had persuaded sixty lazy, well-fed dragons to go to war with him; and had already won two victories against the French army. That Lefèbvre was not the best of the marshals, that he had no great number of dragons with him, that Temeraire had only engaged with small companies, meant very little next to the greater success of keeping his force together and well-fed. These men might short-sightedly think themselves happy to be rid of Temeraire and any dragons recalcitrant enough to follow him; and if they did not, they would more than likely take his outburst as still more cause to try some low scheme of murder against him.

‘Temeraire,’ he said into the lingering silence, ‘Temeraire, you cannot say such things; you are a serving-officer now; these are your superiors; you may not make threats, or growl at their orders. You must withdraw the remarks.’