“I suppose Fela must be wary already,” she added. “Those guard-dragons are his, that much is sure enough. They are watching everything we do: they will have noticed Temeraire has been gone more than a day, and have seen Immortalis and Kulingile and Mei flying back and forth as well. If anything, we are giving him all the cause he needs to accuse us of going about and giving more aid and comfort to the rebels, in the meantime.”
“Rebels,” Hammond said slowly, from the chest upon which he sat, “—rebels, of whom we have seen not the least sign, and have no evidence for, but General Fela’s own reports,” and they all regarded him in surprise. “Oh! It is the prettiest arrangement,” he added, answering their growing astonishment, “I wonder I did not guess at it before. The conservative party required some excuse, some argument, to resist an alliance and to undermine Prince Mianning’s growing influence at court. They trumped up this rebellion, General Fela sent in a few false reports—”
“The devil,” Berkley said. “Are you saying there are no damned rebels at all?”
“I dare say there are some number of malcontents, and some quantity of small banditry here and there: enough to make reports plausible,” Hammond said. “But we have not heard a peep of any kind of truly organized force—no rebel army, no real fighting.”
They none of them spoke a moment; the implications hideous: “Good God, Hammond: if it is true, he put that village to the sword without cause,” Laurence said.
“Pray consider the desperate nature of Fela’s situation,” Hammond said. “He might have expected to vanish away a false rebellion as easily as he had created it, with no such measures required. Yet quite unexpectedly, the crown prince proposed your superceding him in command, with a substantial force and an experienced senior officer to back you. From that moment, he has known the lie of the rebellion could not long be preserved. His only hope is to quickly discredit us, and have General Chu and his force recalled—and he has made excellent headway on that front. But if Prince Mianning had not made the suggestion, and we had been sent here alone as the conservatives wished, I am sure he would have been delighted to keep us traipsing about these mountains looking for mythical rebels until the end of days.”
“Doing his best to arrange Laurence’s murder in the meanwhile,” Granby said. “But how are we to prove any of it?”
There was scarcely any hope of their finding Tharkay, or any other evidence, so unfamiliar with the territory as they were; General Fela and his own forces knew it far too well themselves, from having been stationed here for some time. “We must have help,” Laurence said.
Temeraire could not but feel the most dreadful awkwardness, marching coolly past the guard-dragons to General Chu’s tent, and summoning him out of it. Of course Laurence was nominally in command, and he himself as a Celestial technically took precedence over any other breed, but oh! What did that matter when everyone knew perfectly well that General Chu was a most senior dragon, a great general, and really meant to be in command; he could feel the outrage of the other dragons’ eyes upon him, and writhed inwardly to be behaving so rudely.
General Chu came out of his pavilion, between the two scarlet dragons whom Fela had appointed his personal honor-guard, and very stiffly bowed his head. “How may I be of service?” he said shortly.
Temeraire did not know how he could have answered; but Laurence had not the least hesitation. He said in quite a calm voice, “General Chu, have you found any trace of the rebels that the Emperor has commanded us to destroy?”
Chu’s mane bristled. “As yet we have not discovered their base of operations,” he said, even more shortly. “The search continues.”
“Then you would oblige me greatly by coming with us to discuss how we may improve that search,” Laurence said, and nothing more—no explanation, no polite adornment. One of the guard-dragons flattened his own heavy brows, and Temeraire avoided their eyes.
Chu’s eyes narrowed under the forward ridge of his mane. “If I may propose to Your Highness, there is no reason we cannot discuss the matter profitably here,” and indicated with his claw the great maps laid out just inside his pavilion, with clustered markers of red upon them showing the maneuvers of the dragons.
“I prefer to be surveying the territory directly, with my own eyes,” Laurence said. “We will seek out a higher vantage point, if you please. You there, you may keep your places,” he added, when the honor-guard would have risen. “We do not need an escort.” He touched Temeraire’s side; Temeraire was desperately glad to leap aloft and escape the mortification and the cold glares. He hovered just out of ear-shot, pretending not to notice the outraged expressions on the other dragons, and their flattened wings and spines, as General Chu heaved himself into the air and followed.