Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik Page A

so; there can be no just comparison."

    "No, indeed," Temeraire said energetically. "I do not think
    much of this Nelson, if he has anything to say for slavery:
    I am sure he cannot be half so nice as Laurence, no matter
    how many battles he has won. I have never seen anything as
    dreadful as those poor slaves in Cape Coast; and I am very
    glad if we can help them, as well as our friends."

    "And this, from a dragon," Wilberforce said, with great
    satisfaction, while Laurence was made mute by dismay. "What
    man can refuse to feel pity for those wretched souls, when
    it may be stirred in such a breast? Indeed," he said,
    turning to Lord Allendale, "we ought to hold the assembly
    here where we sit. I am certain it will answer all the
    better, so far as producing a great sensation, and
    moreover," he added, with a glint of humor in his eye, "I
    should like to see the gentleman who will refuse to
    consider an argument made to him by a dragon, with that
    dragon standing before him."

    "Out of doors, at this season?" Lord Allendale said.

    "We might organize it like the pavilion-dinners in China:
    long tables, with coal-pits underneath to make them warm,"
    Temeraire suggested, entering with enthusiasm into the
    spirit of the thing, while Laurence could only listen with
    increasing desperation as his fate was sealed. "We will
    have to knock down some trees to make room, but I can do
    that very easily, and if we were to hang panels of silk
    from the remainder, it will seem quite like a pavilion, and
    keep warm besides."

    "An excellent notion," Wilberforce said, leaving his chair
    to inspect the scratched diagrams which Temeraire was
    making in the dirt. "It will have an Oriental flavor,
    exactly what is needed."

    "Well, if you think it so; all I can say in its favor, it
    will certainly be the nine-days' wonder of society, whether
    more than half-a-dozen curiosity-seekers come or not," Lord
    Allendale said.

    "We can spare you for one night, now and again," Jane said,
    sinking Laurence's final hopes of escape. "Our intelligence
    is nothing to brag about, now we have no couriers to risk
    on spy-missions; but the Navy do a good business with the
    French fishermen, on the blockade, and they say there has
    yet been no movement to the coast. They might be lying, of
    course," she added, "but if there were a marked shift in
    numbers, the prices of the catch would have risen, with
    livestock going to dragons."

    The maid brought in the tea, and she poured for him. "Do
    not I beg you repine too much upon it," Jane went on,
    meaning the Admiralty's refusal to give them more funds.
    "Perhaps this party of yours will do us some good in that
    quarter, and Powys has written me to say he has cobbled
    together something for us already, by subscription among
    the retired senior officers. It will not do for anything
    extravagant, but I think we can keep the poor creatures in
    pepper, at least until then."

    In the meanwhile, they set about the experimental pavilion:
    the promise of so substantial a commission proved enough to
    tempt a handful of more intrepid tradesmen to the Dover
    covert. Having met them at the gates, with a party of
    crewmen, Laurence escorted them the rest of the way to
    Temeraire, who in an attempt to be unalarming hunched
    himself down as small as a dragon of some eighteen tons
    could manage, and nearly flattened his ruff down against
    his neck. Yet he could not help but insinuate himself into
    the conversation once the construction of the pavilion was
    well under discussion, and indeed his offerings were quite
    necessary, as Laurence had not the faintest notion how to
    convert the Chinese measurements.

    "I want one!" Iskierka said, having overheard too much of
    the proceedings from her nearby clearing: heedless of
    Granby's protests, she squirmed herself through the trees
    into Temeraire's clearing, shaking off a blizzard of ashflakes, and alarming the poor tradesmen very much with a
    hiccough of fire which sent steam shooting