My knowledge of Dajin dragons was still woefully patchy, and I knew even less of how the Yelangese interacted with the creatures, owing to my premature deportation from that country a decade before. I did recall one point, though, which might be salient. “Because dragons are an imperial symbol?” Then I made several connections, quite rapidly. “Good Lord. Dragons are an imperial symbol … and the Taisên have been slaughtering theirs for their bones.”
Thu nodded. “We say the first emperor of Yelang was able to unify the country because he had the blessing of the dragons. This is why they have always kept dragons, and given them so much respect. For the Taisên to kill them is very shocking.”
“And for the Khiam Siu to encounter them en route to planning an invasion is fortuitous. Half dragons, anyway.”
At my addendum, Thu’s eyes widened. “You have thought of something,” I said. “Is it useful?”
He did not answer me directly. Instead, choosing each word very carefully, he said, “In some versions of the tale, it is said that the dragons could take human form.”
We all fell silent. It was the type of silence that seems almost clairvoyant, where no one speaks because it is apparent that everyone else is already following the same path of thought, and a mere cock of the head or lift of the hand is enough to communicate the next point. Finally Thu said, “If Giat Jip-hau—”
“We’d have to get him here, first,” I said morosely. “And that would take months.”
Thu looked startled. “Is he not with the soldiers? I would not expect him to sit back and let others lead the way.”
“He—” I stopped, blinking. I had met Giat Jip-hau in Scirland, during those interminable diplomatic events, though I had not spoken to him above twice. He looked very different in the rough garb of a Mrtyahaiman expedition, with his facial hair grown to a thin scruff.
The would-be emperor of Yelang was in the caeliger camp that very moment.
And now I had a very good idea of why Dorson was so reluctant to allow any of the Khiam Siu to speak with the Draconeans. Suhail said, “Do you think you could arrange a meeting?”
“From the Draconean side, yes,” I said. “I’m sure Kuvrey and Sejeat and Habarz would be willing. But from the Scirling side? Dorson will see it as an attempt to usurp his role.” Which, in all fairness, it would be.
“Then don’t tell him,” Suhail said.
*
Even after a winter among the Draconeans, I could not always read their expressions and body language reliably. The three sisters, yes; their mannerisms were deeply familiar to me. The elders, however, were another matter. I therefore did not realize, until I suggested the meeting with Giat Jip-hau, that Kuvrey, Sejeat, and Habarz had taken a strong dislike to Colonel Dorson.
“We would like to speak to someone else,” Kuvrey said, when she heard my proposal. I did not think it was my imagination that I read her words as understatement. All of Dorson’s words went through me, and I did what I could to polish them, but by now the Draconeans had enough sense of human body language that they might well be able to detect his perpetual air of condescension. Even while negotiating a treaty, Dorson seemed as if he were speaking to a group of particularly clever animals, which could not possibly go over well.
Back I went to the caeliger landing meadow, for a hushed conversation with Tom and Andrew. “I think I can resolve this situation in a way that will work out to everyone’s benefit—but it requires me to get at least Giat Jip-hau out of the camp without Dorson noticing. Better if it is him and some of his countrymen, but him at a minimum.”
Andrew chewed on his lower lip. “I could make some kind of diversion—light something on fire, perhaps—”
“No!” I reared back in alarm, then made myself relax. If anyone saw us, we must not look like we were plotting conspiracy. (Even if we were. Especially because we were.) “You’ve already put your neck out far enough, Andrew. I don’t want to see you in front of a firing squad.”
“Dorson wouldn’t do that,” my brother scoffed, but all the confidence in the world would not have persuaded me to risk him in that fashion.
Tom said, “What about the Draconeans? If some of them wanted to meet with Dorson—”
“I would be needed as their interpreter. Which means I would not then be there to interpret for the Khiam Siu.” Given time we did not have, Suhail might have been able to share that duty with me—but there were limits even to my husband’s capacity for learning.
Tom had seen the flaw as quickly as I had. He nodded. “Nighttime, then. When most of the camp is asleep.” He hesitated, then said, “We could make certain they sleep. All of them, except the Khiam Siu. I still have quite a lot of laudanum.”
The prospect made me blanch. “That is nearly as bad as Andrew’s suggestion. They would know it was you, Tom—or they would blame the Khiam Siu for drugging them. No, we simply need the sentries to look the other way for a brief time.”
“Then we’re back to a diversion,” Andrew said. “But one quiet enough that it won’t wake up the whole camp. I’m on watch tonight, if you can arrange the meeting for the right hour, but there will be another fellow with me. And I don’t think it will work for me to simply point behind him and say, ‘What in the world can that be?’”
For the Khiam Siu to sneak out of camp, they would need a longer distraction than that. The three of us sat in silence for a time, broken only by the occasional aborted suggestion: “What if—no, never mind” and the like.
Finally a thought came to me, and a grin spread across my face. “I think I have the answer. But I will need something from Imsali first.”
*
It was a mad rush, arranging everything in time. Tom spoke to Giat Jip-hau, as he could do so without attracting as much attention as I would; but I had to settle the place and time of meeting with the elders, and then I had to talk to Ruzt. She doubted my ability to carry out the plan on my own—rightly, I suspect—and so when night fell at last, I crept out of Imsali and toward the caeliger meadow with Zam at my side, and two squirming bundles under my coat.
When we were still far enough from the meadow not to risk being overheard, she muttered, “One group of humans; another group of humans. How much difference will it really make?”
All the difference in the world, I hoped. But what I said was, “How much difference would it have made had I been found by Esdarr and her sisters, instead of you three?”
Zam spat something I expect was very uncomplimentary, and we left it at that.
At the edge of camp, beyond the light of their lamps and fire, we crouched down behind the same cover that had previously sheltered Ruzt. Zam released her own bundles first, with a quiet whistle to command them. My coat began squirming even more energetically; I opened it and let two more mews slip free. They lifted their heads and sampled the air; then one scurried away. They would have easy pickings in the camp’s supplies: Dorson and his men had not learned from the Nying to set traps.