Laurence was silenced; he could not dispute the justice of Taruca’s charge. And if they had not meant to keep him a servant, that was little excuse; Iskierka had still taken him for their own selfish benefit; and Laurence had no confidence that Taruca would not face reprisal from his owner, however previously mild, now that he had been so vocal about his desire to be elsewhere.
“Temeraire,” he said finally, “pray tell the governor that intending no offense, we are sorry to have nevertheless given it; and that honor demands we see Taruca to his home. If by this challenge we can secure his liberty without further injuring relations between our nations, we will venture it, so long as Iskierka is willing.”
“I might as easily fight, instead,” Temeraire said, belatedly regretting having been quite so forceful about Iskierka’s responsibility, when Hualpa explained that she must be properly attired to enter the arena, and some twelve young women he called mamaconas came out of a storeroom of the hall carrying together a golden neck-collar very like the one Hualpa wore, with the fringe splendidly woven of black wool. “After all, we are all of one party.”
“As she is the offender, she must face the trial,” Hualpa said. “Come: you may sit on her side of the court.”
Temeraire sighed. “Yes, that is for you,” he said, as the mamaconas brought the collar to Iskierka, who was eyeing it with wretchedly undisguised greed; she did not need to advertise their nearly destitute state. “And Laurence, the rest of us must go outside to the courtyard.”
Which was if anything more magnificent than the hall itself: open to the sky and with two fountains at either end, and the dragon Iskierka was to fight at the other side, sunning himself on the hard stone: a sleek creature with long silver scales tipped with green, and enormously long black fangs overhanging his lower jaw.
“What dragon is that?” Granby asked, from Temeraire’s back, where he had climbed up with Laurence to be carried to the stands. Temeraire regretfully recalled when that was Granby’s proper place, and none other; that now Forthing occupied that position was too distressful to contemplate long: as though Temeraire had come very low in the world, from those first days.
“His name is Manca Copacati,” Temeraire said, having consulted Hualpa, and settling himself upon one of the stepped platforms of the temple wall overlooking the long end of the court.
“Copacati?” Granby said. “The venom-spitters?”
Across the court, the silver dragon yawned enormously and shaking his head spat once on the ground in the manner of an old sailor clearing his throat: a thin greenish kind of ichor, which put up small trailers of steam in the sunlight.
Iskierka, who had come out of a passageway yielding onto the other side—and in Temeraire’s opinion doing nothing short of prancing—looked up at them over her shoulder and called, “Oh! A real fight: Granby, are you watching? Is your view all it ought to be? You might turn a little, Temeraire, so Granby can better see me win.”
“Damn her posturing; have they a surgeon, at least?” Granby said.
“I am sure I would win, too,” Temeraire said, under his breath: and to sharpen his regret, the battle would not have been brawling at all, but for an excellent cause, which Laurence approved.
“I would, too,” Kulingile said to Demane, anxiously. “I am much bigger than that dragon.”
“Cui?” Hualpa said, gesturing, and some young men came dragging a cart laden with hot baskets of delicious-smelling things: guinea pigs, skinned, stuffed with a sort of nutty bean, and roasted: and the baskets themselves made of maize husks, so one might pick them up and eat the entire thing at once. Temeraire ate five for consolation.
Granby, meanwhile, drank as many cups of the cloudy beer. Laurence could hardly chide him under the circumstances: an interminable wait while a crowd of spectators assembled with the air of coming to see an entertainment, and at the other end of the court the Copacati amusing himself by loudly recounting stories of his former victories to his acquaintance sitting by his end of the courtyard. Iskierka demanded translations of these, which Temeraire grudgingly provided; they made a narrative of maiming and destruction which even if exaggerated tenfold would have remained upsetting.
Seeing Granby’s distress, Hualpa said something to Temeraire which made his ruff bristle wide. “As though I would allow anything of the sort,” Temeraire said, indignantly.
“What now?” Granby said, dully; he was bent forward against Temeraire’s neck and had his forehead pressed against his good arm, against the sun which was climbing towards its zenith.
“He says that you should not be afraid, because Manca has an excellent ayllu and will take you into it, if he should kill Iskierka. But there is no need to worry: I have told him you would of course stay with me: and if that silver dragon should try to take you, I will fight him.”