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your
    rights to complain; it is enough of a miracle you should
    have brought us Iskierka and one egg whole, considering the
    way Bonaparte has been romping about the Continent, much
    less our amiable band of brigands. But I cannot spare the
    chance of more, however mean and scrawny they might be; not
    with matters as they stand."

    The map of Europe was laid out topmost on her table, great
    clots of markers, representing dragons, spread from the
    western borders of Prussia's former territory all the way
    to the footsteps of Russia. "From Jena to Warsaw in three
    weeks," she said, as one of her runners poured out wine for
    them. "I would not have given a bad ha'penny for the news,
    if you had not brought it yourself, Laurence; and if we
    hadn't had it from the Navy, too, I would have sent you to
    a physician."

    Laurence nodded. "And I have a great deal to tell you of
    Bonaparte's aerial tactics, which are wholly changed from
    what they were. Formations are of no use against him; at
    Jena, the Prussians were routed, wholly routed. We must at
    once begin devising counters to his new methods."

    But she was already shaking her head. "Do you know,
    Laurence, I have less than forty dragons fit to fly? and
    unless he is a lunatic, he will not come across with less
    than a hundred. He shan't need any fine tactics to do for
    us. For our part, there is no one to learn any new."

    The scope of the disaster silenced him: forty dragons, to
    try and patrol all the coastline of the Channel, and give
    cover to the ships of the blockade.

    "What we want at present is time," Jane continued. "There
    are a dozen hatchlings in Ireland, preserved from the
    disease, and twice as many eggs due to hatch in the next
    six months: we bred a good many of them, early on. If our
    friend Bonaparte will only be good enough to give us a
    year, things will look something more like: the rest of
    these new shore batteries in place, the young dragons
    brought up, your ferals knocked into shape; not to mention
    Temeraire and our new fire-breather."

    "Will he give us a year?" Laurence said, low, looking at
    the counters: not very many yet, upon the Channel
    coastline; but he had seen first-hand how swiftly
    Napoleon's dragon-borne army could now move.

    "Not a minute, if he hears anything of our pitiable state,"
    Jane said. "But that aside-well, we hear he has made a very
    good friend in Warsaw, a Polish countess they say is a
    raving beauty; and he would like to marry the Tsar's
    sister. We will wish him good fortune in his courting, and
    hope he takes a long leisurely time about it. If he is
    sensible, he will want a winter night for crossing the
    Channel, and the days are already growing longer.

    "But you may be sure that if he learns how thin we are on
    the ground, he will come posting back quick as lightning,
    and damn the ladies. So our task of the moment is to keep
    him properly in the dark. A year's time, then we will have
    something to work with; but until then, for you all it must
    be-"

    "Oh, patrolling," Temeraire said, in tones of despair, when
    Laurence had brought their orders.

    "I am sorry, my dear," Laurence said, "very truly sorry;
    but if we can serve our friends at all, it will be by
    taking on those duties which they have had to set aside."
    Temeraire was silent and brooding, unconsoled; in an
    attempt to cheer him, Laurence added, "But we need not
    abandon your cause, not in the least. I will write my
    mother, and those of my acquaintance who may have the best
    advice to give, on how we ought to proceed-"

    "Whatever sense is there in it," Temeraire said, miserably,
    "when all our friends are ill, and there is nothing to be
    done for them? It does not matter if one is not allowed to
    visit London, if one cannot even fly an hour. And Arkady
    does not give a fig for liberty, anyway; all he wants are
    cows. We may as well patrol; or even do formations."

    This was the mood in which they went aloft, a dozen of the
    ferals behind them more