“Well,” Granby said, fatalistically, as they left the table, “at least there’s this: she’ll only marry me if she wants someone who will not give her any bother; maybe I can even leave, in a few years.”
“If you have already given her a child; two or three, ideally. I hope your family are productive?” Hammond said, as they walked; only as an aside: he was sunk in gloom, and did not even notice the wry looks which his remark provoked.
“I don’t think anyone should say I had an excess of sensibility about the matter,” Granby said, which Laurence thought rather understated the case, “and in any case one could not worry over-much about a child with, as far as I can see, a dozen nursemaids over ten tons in size; beyond the usual line, that is; but it is over-much for Hammond to talk of my qualities as a sire in that way, as though I were a horse.”
“I am sure it was just Lien’s excuse,” Temeraire said, “and not true in the least; I do not believe it for an instant that Celestials cannot breed.”
“If you say so,” Kulingile said equably. “I don’t see it matters much,” which Temeraire could not agree with; but then, Kulingile was rather young, and did not yet think of eggs as desirable things. He did not appreciate properly that Temeraire’s own egg had been so valuable a prize that Laurence’s two-eighths share, as captain of the vessel which had seized it, had bought the splendid breastplate of platinum and sapphire which Temeraire yet wore; and that Iskierka’s egg had commanded a hundred thousand pounds in gold coins—of course, no-one had known at the time what her personality was to be, and Temeraire had been thought only an Imperial rather than a Celestial dragon. But that only went to show how very important eggs were: no-one in Britain would give a hundred thousand pounds for Iskierka to-day, he was quite sure; except perhaps Hammond at the present moment.
“It is just chance,” Temeraire said uneasily, “that I have not yet had an egg—”
Iskierka, who was watching narrowly across the great courtyard, where the lamps showed Maila sitting outside the French hall and speaking with the Flammes-de-Gloire, snorted over her shoulder. “After all that noise you made, of having to do your duty by all those dragons in the breeding grounds which they put you to? And that was years ago: by now there would surely be news, if any of them had got an egg by you.”
“Well, if Lien is telling a little of the truth, perhaps it is that I have not tried enough with the right sort of dragon,” Temeraire said, “for they were forever putting me to only the most docile beasts—not,” he added, “that they were not perfectly pleasant creatures; but they had none of them been particularly remarkable, in battle, and many of them were only middle-weights—”
“You do not need to hint,” Iskierka said, with a huff, “although it would serve you perfectly well if I did not care to anymore; but I will try now with you, if you like, and Maila can wait,” she added, in a rather venomous tone, “as he likes to go sit and make eyes at the Frogs.”
“I was not hinting—” but Temeraire shook out his ruff, and hastily said, “—oh, never mind; very well,” when Iskierka bridled up, with a martial light in her eye. Privately even he might admit that it would be something, to have an egg with both the divine wind and breathing fire. He bent his head, and surreptitiously polished his breastplate; it was too bad he had not insisted on his talon-sheaths for the ceremony earlier, he belatedly thought; only he had not felt like putting his best forward on what had been such a dismal occasion.
“Come on, then,” Iskierka said. “I should like a snack first: I saw a herd of those wild llamas moving on the plain to the south, yesterday, and I dare say they are still there; and there was a nice private little valley just up the mountain-side from there.”
“Those were tasty,” Iskierka said, licking her chops: when they had finished hunting, Temeraire had persuaded her to heat up a few rocks with her fire; he had piled them into a pit with the llamas and buried them along with a pleasantly aromatic shrub and a bit of water from a salt spring, so that when they had finished their business, the llamas were cooked and ready to eat.
“And we shall see,” Iskierka continued, “about the egg. It does not seem to me there was much to it, and I am sure for my part at least, everything will go smoothly. I have been ready this age: if only you were not always so difficult.”