“Hrmmr,” Churki said, frowning, but then she smoothed down her feathers. “Well,” she said to Temeraire, “I do not have a real claim, and I suppose Laurence is older; although I had thought of her for Hammond. But I do not mean to interfere,” she said, as though making a handsome concession.
“Interfere with what?” Temeraire said, in alarm. “Whatever do you mean? I am sure Laurence does not think of her like that, at all—”
“Why should he not?” Churki said. “She is a hearty young woman: she might bear him children for twenty years, if they begin quickly. Certainly they should neither of them wait any longer; a man should begin to have children at twenty, in my opinion, and a woman at sixteen.”
Temeraire stalked away from them and back to the pavilion. “I do not see why she must always be on about Laurence marrying,” he complained in some irritation to Mei, who very kindly put aside the poetry she was reading to comfort his distress. “Laurence has quite enough to do, as it is. He has his crew to oversee, and there is the war, which we must contrive to win; and when that is done, there will be our valley, and I dare say I will find him another fortune, sooner or later, which he will have to manage. I do not see that he at all ought to marry.”
“Well,” Mei said, “if he is not married already, certainly he ought not without the Emperor’s approval, and the choice must be carefully made. There is no call for a prince to marry in haste; concubines may suffice him quite well.”
“Aren’t those a sort of whore?” Temeraire said, doubtfully. “I know Laurence does not hold with visiting those—”
“No, no,” Mei said, “a concubine, bound to him and him alone; surely that woman who travels with you, who is under guard by your young soldier, is one of his?”
Temeraire flattened down his ruff. “No!” he said. “That is Mrs. Pemberton; she is Emily’s chaperone, and why we must needs have brought her along, I am sure I do not in the least know! Laurence hasn’t any concubine, at all.”
“What, none?” Mei said, staring at him with her eyes widening.
“No,” Temeraire said, suddenly wary.
“None!” Mei cried. “Prince Mianning has seven: one has borne him a promising boy of four already, with another child coming soon. However is he to have heirs?”
So Temeraire spent the day’s flight in high dudgeon, speaking to no-one. Why would everyone see Laurence married? He did not see that it was anyone’s concern, other than his own. “You are quite well, Laurence?” he asked, turning his head around. “Are you certain you are not feverish, and warm through?”
“I am perfectly comfortable, I thank you,” Laurence said, tiredly, and fell silent again. They had searched the camp through and searched again, of course, all the rest of the night and in the early hours of the morning, looking for any trace of the assassins—whence they had come, what their purpose, but without a trace at all.
By the end, General Chu had shrugged and said he supposed the men were mere outlaws, having made the attempt only to get at Mrs. Pemberton and Emily. Which was perfect nonsense: Emily was quite a remarkable young officer, but Temeraire did not see that there was anything out of the ordinary about Mrs. Pemberton, nor why anyone should have gone to particular lengths to get at her.
“I must suppose,” Laurence had said to him and to Hammond, after they had given up the futile search, when morning light at last coming had uncovered nothing more of use, “that this is another endeavour of the conservative faction.”
“I will make the argument, sir, if I may,” Hammond had said to Laurence with a somewhat stiff tone, “that this explains their willingness to permit this expedition. To separate you from the Imperial court, exposed to such blatant attempts as these upon your life which their partisans may nevertheless easily explain away, must be sufficient good in their eyes, and preclude the notion that they must have some real complaint to make.
“I suppose,” he added, “that we may expect more of these assaults, when we have reached camp: General Fela is, we know already, one of their partisans; and they must rely on your death, in severing the one formally acknowledged tie between our nations, to remove the impulse to alliance.”
“Then we ought not go any further,” Temeraire had said, in high alarm. “We ought to return at once to the court; and then I will squash Lord Bayan, and that will put a stop to these assassination attempts.”