Chapter XVII
Comparison of Oriental and Western breeds-Antiquity of the Oriental breeds-Known Breeds
native to the Empires of China and Japan-Distinguishing characteristics of the Imperial-A
note on the Celestial.
... THE SECRETS OF the Imperial breeding programme are most jealously guarded, as the
national treasures which they assuredly are, and transmitted strictly through word of
mouth among a trusted line and through documents encoded by closely held ciphers. Very
little is therefore known in the West, and indeed anywhere outside the precincts of the
imperial capital, about these breeds.
Brief observations by travellers have yielded only a handful of incomplete details; we know
that the Imperial and Celestial are distinguished by the number of talons on their claws,
which are five, unlike virtually every other draconic breed, being four-fingered; similarly,
their wings have six spines rather than the five common to European breeds. In the Orient,
these breeds are popularly supposed to be highly superior in intelligence, retaining into
adulthood that remarkable facility of memory and linguistic ability which dragons
ordinarily lose early in life.
For the veracity of this claim we have but one recent witness, though a reliable one: M. le
Comte de la Pérouse encountered an Imperial dragon at the Korean court, who through
their close relations to the court of China have been often granted the privilege of an
Imperial egg. The first Frenchman to attend at this court in recent memory, he was asked
for lessons in his native tongue, and by his reports, the dragon though full-grown was well
able to hold a conversation by the time of his departure, some one month later, an
achievement hardly to be scorned even by a gifted linguist...
That the Celestial is closely related to the Imperial may be inferred from the few
illustrations we in the West have managed to obtain of this breed, but very little else is
known of them. The divine wind, that most mysterious of draconic abilities, is known to us
only by hearsay, which would have us believe that the Celestials are able to produce
earthquakes or storms, capable of leveling a city. Plainly the effects have been heartily
exaggerated, but there is considerable practical respect for the ability among the Oriental
nations, which cautions against any rash dismissal of this gift as pure phantasy...
Acknowledgments
I OWE THANKS FIRST and foremost to the group of beta readers who saw His Majesty's
Dragon through to completion, from the very first chapter to the last, and who gave me not
only an enthusiastic audience to write for but enormous quantities of excellent advice: Holly
Benton, Dana Dupont, Doris Egan, Diana Fox, Laura Kanis, Shelley Mitchell, L. Salom, Micole
Sudberg, and Rebecca Tushnet; and to Francesca Coppa, for telling me to do it in the first
place. Thanks also to Sara Rosenbaum and everyone else on livejournal who contributed
title suggestions.
I've been lucky enough to have the help of a wonderful agent, Cynthia Manson, who is also a
friend; and the advice of not one but two terrific editors, Betsy Mitchell at Del Rey and Jane
Johnson at HarperCollins UK. Many other friends and readers gave me encouragement and
advice along the way, and helped with everything from title suggestions to catching out-of-period words; I wish I could list them all but will settle for saying a general and heartfelt
thank-you. I'd also like to thank several people who went out of their way to help with my
research: Susan Palmer at the Soane Museum in London, Fiona Murray and the volunteer
staff at the Georgian House in Edinburgh, and Helen Roche at the Merrion Hotel in Dublin .
To my mother and father and Sonia, much love and gratitude; and last and most important:
this book is dedicated to my husband, Charles, who has given me so many gifts that I can't
even begin to mention them all, the first and best of which is joy.