So he did think the French dragons could hardly help but see they were overmatched all around. “I suppose that is why,” Temeraire said to Kulingile, referring to Piccolo’s rudeness. “It cannot be a comfortable situation for them.”
Ardenteuse and Genevieve had both been entirely respectful towards himself from almost the beginning, although Temeraire was a little displeased that they had assumed that attitude only when they had learned he was a Celestial. “Oh! Like Mme. Lien,” Ardenteuse had said eagerly. “Only she is all white, like snow, and has the most splendid jewels, different ones for every day of the week—”
So it could not be called a satisfying state of affairs, in total; not by any means. “If only we had come across them sailing, when we had the Allegiance ourselves,” Temeraire said.
“And we would still have had all the cattle,” Kulingile agreed regretfully.
“But we are not at all planning anything,” Temeraire protested, a few days later, when Laurence reproached him. “Indeed, Laurence, I would not do anything to dishonor you, I promise,” except of course to preserve Laurence’s safety, Temeraire privately amended.
He had learned his lesson in that regard when Laurence had been imprisoned for treason: the British had put Laurence into prison on the Goliath, supposedly safe; Temeraire had gone into the breeding grounds believing it; and then Napoleon had invaded and the ship had been sunk. And Temeraire could not find that anyone had given a single thought to Laurence’s safety at the time—he had only escaped on the ship’s boats because he had been helping them fight.
So Temeraire did not mean to trust any future promises of that sort from anyone; if the French should try and take Laurence away from him, he had already privately conceived of several stratagems which he might use to extract Laurence from their grasp. But there was no need to go into all of that, Temeraire felt, so long as the French did not do anything unreasonable.
“No,” Laurence said. “No, you cannot be accused of anything like planning; there is nothing secretive or conniving in Iskierka’s announcing daily in full voice that she does not mean to be immured in a breeding ground, or in your roaring up waves for your own entertainment fit to sink the ship—” The wave had not been nearly so large as all that, Temeraire wanted to argue, but it did not seem the appropriate moment. “But neither are these gestures calculated to leave our hosts with any confidence in our respect for the rules of civilized warfare, the which they have themselves so generously embraced in offering us harbor from a disaster of our own making.”
Temeraire did not think it was fair to call it their own making: it was not his fault, or Laurence’s, that the Allegiance had sunk. But he did not argue: Laurence spoke too bleakly of the loss, and Temeraire knew it had wounded him very deeply. Indeed he felt it himself—it did not seem right that the Allegiance should be gone forever, and Riley with her. The haze of the long, desperate flight had left the sinking strangely uncertain in Temeraire’s memory—surely they would one day look out from a port, and see her coming in again.
“Of course no-one would ever dream of asking Captain Laurence to violate his parole,” Mr. Hammond said, after Laurence had been taken below again. “But as I think of it, there is no reason you might not speak with the Incan beast—I cannot call myself a proper scholar in the tongue, but I have made some little study of Quechua—I should be happy to instruct you in what little I know—”
“I see no reason why anyone would like to speak with Maila in the least,” Temeraire said, flattening his ruff as he looked up to see the Incan dragon flying alongside Iskierka: the very stupid feathery scales spread out wide when he flew, and shone gaudily iridescent in the sun.
“If we could only form a notion of where their negotiations stand,” Hammond said, in a low voice, “it would be of the greatest use—”
“What use will it be if we are only to be taken to prison?” Temeraire said.
“But by necessity we are first being taken to the Inca,” Hammond said, even more quietly, “who might care to speak with us before they make any decision, so long as they know we are close at hand and empowered to make them offers.”
That was a heartening thought: not all the Inca could be as rude as Maila, Temeraire supposed. “I suppose you may as well teach me the language,” he said. “You can come up along with me when it is my turn to go flying next, and begin.”
“Oh,” Hammond said, and swallowed.