“Come away, Temeraire,” Laurence said, “before that fellow comes up here, and demands to know what we are about. I am damned if I will apologize to him for interference, and more so if I will tell him what you were saying to those beasts: the poor wretches have enough to bear, without being cuffed about further.”
“Laurence,” Temeraire said, leaping aloft, “do you suppose that they do keep the dragons in the breeding grounds, somehow, even if they are hungry?”
Laurence was silent, then heavily said, “I imagine they might set the heavy-weights upon them, if they try to leave.”
“But how could the heavy-weights agree to hurt a dragon so much smaller than they are, and who was only hungry, and not taking anything of theirs?” Temeraire said. “Surely they would feel perfect scrubs for doing such a thing. Although I do see,” he added, “that it would be hard to refuse anyone who had given you so much treasure, and helped guard it; one would feel the most extraordinary sense of obligation. Laurence,” he said suddenly, with dawning realization, “Laurence, is that why you do not care anything for fortune?”
“I cannot claim to be so unworldly as to care nothing for fortune,” Laurence said, “but I hope that I am unwilling to be a slave to it.”
The notion that fortune might enslave had not previously occurred to Temeraire, and it did not sit very well, but he could not deny that the Russian heavy-weights seemed to be quite willing to put on chains, all for treasure. “But I cannot believe,” he decided, “that they are so dreadful as to pen up small dragons for it; not, at least, without giving them a chance to refute it: I will ask Vosyem.”
“Pray save your inquiries for after the battle,” Laurence said. “We cannot hazard a division among our forces now. That might indeed offer Napoleon an advantage he would be quick to seize; and you may be sure that no argument or quarrel could have so powerful an effect, towards your ends, as the demonstration you and the legions—and for that matter, the enemy—are presently setting forward before the eyes of the Russian high command and so many of their young officers, of the immense advantage to be gained by an honorable and just treatment of dragons.”
Temeraire did see the necessity of defeating Napoleon, first, before they tried to do anything else; but that only made it all the more aggravating that Napoleon refused to be properly defeated. Anyway he did not see why the Russian dragons had let things get into such a fix, in the first place: even if the heavy-weights did behave so badly, surely the little dragons could sneak out, one after another—or they might mass themselves into groups, and all but a few dash past—there were any number of ways Temeraire might imagine, for them to slip out of the breeding grounds, and once out, they might go anywhere they liked.
He devised several dozen such strategems, that afternoon, while there was nothing to do but wait: Laurence had urged him to rest, but Temeraire found he could not sleep properly with the enemy so very close—with victory so very close. He drowsed only a little, and ate his porridge unenthusiastically—he did appreciate, of course, how efficient porridge was, and how necessary to supply a force as large as their own, but he was growing rather tired of it—and then looked around for distraction: but Laurence was closeted with Tharkay and his officers, discussing their positions in the coming battle. That was a somewhat delicate matter, with Tharkay and Dyhern and Ferris not properly officers, although in Temeraire’s opinion that ought not count for much when one considered how ragged the proper officers were, and anyway—he sighed—it seemed they would very likely not have much to do. General Chu had hinted very strongly that Temeraire needn’t expect to do a lot of fighting, himself. It did not seem fair, somehow, that he and Laurence should have made it at all possible for them all to have such a splendid battle, and now have no real share of it themselves.
He decided to discuss his thoughts with Grig—in an entirely hypothetical manner; he would not at all provoke a quarrel—and looked for him; Grig was for once not directly in their camp, but sitting on the edge of it, and watching a couple of other Russian dragons hanging about with the long and messy supply-train of the army. They were a sort of dragon Temeraire had not seen at all amongst the Russians before, closer to middle-weight and without any bony plates, colored in green and fawn brown, and they wore only light harness.
“Why,” Temeraire said, coming over to join Grig, “those fellows look likely: why are they not fighting? I dare say they would be more use than those heavy-weights, if we had enough of them: where did they come from?”