Temeraire still did not quite understand what had happened. First that wretched assassin had nearly slain Laurence, and then the Imperial guards had flown off with him—Temeraire had tried to be understanding; Hammond had shouted urgently to him that they meant only to protect Laurence, to protect Mianning, and take them to a place of safety. That sounded well enough, until several of the courtiers had begun to cry out that the British had tried to kill the crown prince; fortunately Temeraire had already snatched up the bomb-thrower, as that fellow tried to creep out a side door, and he could see that it was only a fellow dressed in Western clothes, which were anyway not quite right: his too-long wool coat dyed royal blue, instead of navy or bottle-green, and no waistcoat, and his hair lightened somehow; he had been wearing a dented hat drawn low down his face.
Temeraire had been forced to knock down several guards, who had tried to advance on Mr. Hammond and the rest of his party with swords, to make them all listen to him; he had even been forced to roar—awkwardly; it had brought down a portion of the roof—and it had required the better part of an hour to straighten out the matter, and persuade the Imperial dragons to take charge of the scene. “Mr. Hammond,” Temeraire had said, at that point, having handed over the assassin to Mianning’s guards with what he considered was extraordinary restraint; he had not killed him straightaway, “I perfectly understand those fellows did not mean anything terrible by carrying Laurence away, and I will try not to be very short with them, but they certainly ought to have consulted my opinion on the subject of his protection, and you may be sure I will make that quite plain to them: I do not mean to have any repetition of such a misunderstanding. Now, someone had better tell me which way they have gone.”
To the Summer Palace, someone had told him; but Temeraire remembered the Summer Palace quite well, and it was not due west of the city at all; they had not gone to the Summer Palace, so it was no use his flying that way. So he had been forced to chase them down directly, even though his flying strength was not entirely recovered; when he had gone out of the city limits, he had at last been able to distinguish them from the ordinary traffic, a cluster of specks in the distance, but he fell further and further behind. Once he had even lost sight of them entirely, and panic had clutched his breast a little while, driving him to a speed greater than he could comfortably maintain, until he had passed a small porter flying in the opposite direction who, chirping, had said, “Oh, they are going to Lord Bayan’s estate, I am sure: he lives just over those hills. He is very rich,” the porter added, “and a great servant of the Emperor.”
“I am very grateful to you,” Temeraire said, and, feeling relieved to hear that Laurence was in such good hands, he had flown onwards at an easier pace, though even more irritated at the guard-dragons: there was no call for them to have made such haste. They ought to have considered, it seemed to Temeraire, that in taking Laurence further away from him, they were not improving his safety: and where, he wondered, was Mianning’s companion? Lung Tien Chuan certainly ought to have been there, at their meeting, and Temeraire would have felt a good deal happier to rely on his judgment, and not some soldier-dragons who had not even managed to stop an assassin getting into the room in the first place.
But still he had not been very anxious, and then he had sailed into the courtyard to find the house burning, the red dragons attacking him of all absurdities, and to cap everything Laurence fleeing the disaster stripped to the waist; his beautiful robes were gone. “Good God, that does not matter,” Laurence said impatiently, when Temeraire anxiously inquired after them. “I imagine they have burnt by now; I dare say no-one has the least concern for my costume at present.”
To his horror, Temeraire could hold out no hope for their rescue: even as he turned to look, bitter smoke and flames were boiling out of the windows, licking from under the eaves at the roof wherever the scarlet dragon had not smashed it to pieces. He leapt to action at once, and worked as quickly as he could, calling out instructions to the other dragons, who had cowered down now and were not behaving so stupidly: soon they were ferrying great loads of water back and forth from the nearby pond, while Temeraire himself tore down and stamped out the worst bits of the fire, and roared down other parts of it.
But it was no use. One wing of the house they managed to save; all else was a smoldering ruin, damp and stinking, the body of the scarlet dragon lying amid it blackened and surrounded by puddles. All the household stood huddled aside and watched it collapse, women with children in their arms and the servants still clutching dully at the small buckets they had been trying to use against the flames, and not even a scrap of silk left of Laurence’s gown. Lord Bayan himself, the owner, did not do anything to help; he only stood surrounded by his guards watching his house burn, and when the flames had at last been conquered, Temeraire turned back and found the lord prostrating himself before Prince Mianning.
“I am desolate that my house should have been the scene of such events,” Lord Bayan said, “when you ought to have been confident of safety here.”