She spoke passionately, the tips of her wings nearly trembling with urgency, and leaning towards him rested her neck across his shoulders, coiling loosely about him. “I fear greatly, Xiang,” she said, low, “even if I should bear this egg, if that will be enough. So many things can happen to an egg! They may persuade the Emperor to grant it to one of the other princes; or they may try—they may try—”
She shuddered, silently, and Temeraire bent his own head and nosed at her comfortingly. “I do not blame you in the least for worrying,” he said. “If they are mad enough to try and kill Laurence, and the crown prince, and to murder Chuan, they might do anything at all.”
“That is my own thought as well,” Mei said unhappily. “Xiang, will you forgive me: would you not stay? Let the alliance be made, let China send legions to this war; might you not remain here in their stead, where you alone can act? I do not ask you to forsake your companion,” she added swiftly, “but you might stay to keep watch over your own egg, quite reasonably; you might demand that it go only to the crown prince, and perhaps even—”
She faltered, and then said, low, “I have thought that perhaps the egg might even be bound to him at hatching; though it is not the proper way.”
“Well, I have never found anything to complain of in it,” Temeraire said. “I am very glad indeed to have had Laurence all my life, from the beginning; even if he did not know much about dragons, and nothing at all of China. I see nothing against it, provided that one ensures the captain is quite the right sort of person, which of course Laurence is, and not some wretched fellow like Rankin; that is where it goes all wrong.”
Mei flew away not long afterwards, and Temeraire had just been deciding to go and find Laurence, when he came back into the courtyard: the captains had seen Mei go. “I hope,” Laurence said to him, “—I hope you have had—a pleasant evening.”
“Oh! A splendid evening,” Temeraire said, reassuringly as he could: Laurence sounded so doubtful. “Mei is a magnificent lover,” he added, “whatever Iskierka likes to say about her, and I dare say we may already have made a very handsome egg.”
“Ah,” Laurence said, in a slightly stifled voice. “I—Temeraire, I beg your pardon; I do understand that this is—ordinarily considered in the normal course of your—your duty, but I should hope—that is to say, I should have been certain—”
Temeraire listened a little puzzled, but he soon worked out that Laurence only feared he might not like making the egg. “Oh, I certainly do not mind obliging Mei,” Temeraire said. “I only minded in Wales, when they would set me to every female dragon in the Corps, it seemed, and only the meekest ones at that: some of them only middle-weight, for that matter. It was not what was due to me, I felt; I only obliged them for your sake,” for at the time, of course, Laurence had been a prisoner aboard the ship Goliath: a prisoner, convicted for treason, and sentenced to die.
Temeraire shivered a little; he did not like to remember that dreadful time of separation. He hurried on. “But pray do not think this anything like: after all, this is quite an especial compliment to me, that the crown prince should want my own egg—even if he hasn’t any other choice,” he added.
“Very—very well,” Laurence said, still awkwardly, and then said, “Pray shall I read something to you, this evening?”
“Shall I not read to you, Laurence, instead?” Temeraire said. “Mei has brought me a new book of poetry, which we read into only a little way; I should be glad to read it with you.”
He felt a little craven in making the suggestion: it was merely a delaying tactic. Temeraire could scarcely imagine that Laurence would be willing to stay here in China, with the war in Europe from all reports going badly and Britain in such dire straits; even if an alliance was formed, Laurence would wish to be there. And yet, if they remained, and so protected Mianning and saw him to the throne, that would serve Britain and China both.
He marshaled his arguments in one corner of his mind while they read several of the lovely poems together, and Temeraire explained to Laurence his sense of the meaning; and then as the moon climbed overhead and bathed the courtyard stream in white, Temeraire drew a deep breath and broached the subject at last.
Laurence was silent a long while afterwards, as silent and grave as Temeraire had feared. His ruff drooped against his neck. He could not press Laurence; he was still painfully conscious of the great debt between them yet to be repaid: the loss of Laurence’s reputation, of his countenance, and most sharply and terribly of his fortune of ten thousand pounds. At least Temeraire had seen him restored to his rank—with seniority—but that did not make up for all the rest. Temeraire still woke occasionally with a start from dreams in which he heard Roland saying again, “He has lost his fortune,” and found the eyes of all his friends upon him accusingly, horrified, as they all repeated in unison, “Ten thousand pounds.”