Crucible of Gold

no dragon at all; so I took in all her ayllu with her and they were so very happy to come —but she died of the spotted fever, a hundred years ago.”

The dreadful decimation of the last two centuries had altered the circumstances: dragons whose entire ayllu died would steal others to replace them. “And of course they will particularly try for those like my Taruca,” Curicuillor said, nosing at him gently, “for anyone can see he will not die, at least of the pox.

“And there are laws in place now,” she continued, “against the practice; but even so some dragons will sneak about and try to steal men from very far away, so they will not be tracked down and caught: and then we cannot even find them, to challenge or to take them back.”

“And the Sapa Inca will sometimes take men and move them about, if one beast has very many and another beast has lost all of hers,” added Churki, one of her younger offspring, with a faintly resentful air, “and there is no refusing: otherwise we would have even more than we do.”

“Ah, well,” Curicuillor said, adjusting a few of her coils and resettling, “you cannot expect someone to go on if all their ayllu are dead, as though they were some savage beast in the wilderness; of course they will go raiding, then, if some measure is not taken.”

When the splendid dinner had been cleared away, at Laurence’s prompting Temeraire asked her for further direction. “Cusco is there,” Curicuillor said, showing him the way upon a wonderful map laid out in a courtyard of her home, a sort of model made of gold and gemstones, showing all the surrounding countryside, “and also we will give you another safe-conduct which you should wear upon your breast: it may help to reassure the guards as you approach the city, despite your appearance.”

Temeraire flattened his ruff; there was nothing in the least the matter with his appearance, in his opinion.

“And if you like,” Curicuillor added thoughtfully, “when you have concluded your business there, you might come back; or for that matter not go at all, as all this business of foreign wars sounds foolish to me. It is easy to get excited over fighting, but that is not mature behavior: you ought to be ready to fight if you must, to defend your ayllu or to expand your territory so they may prosper, but not just to be making noise for the sake of it. Why, here you are with nearly two hundred men, all of them of an age to sire children, and only two little ones; which is no wonder when you have no women with you.”

“Oh,” Temeraire said doubtfully. It struck him as uncomfortably remarkable: here he was across a great ocean from China, and yet this dragon who was plainly very old and wise—even if one occasionally had to repeat things several times over before she would believe them—was of nearly the same opinion regarding fighting as his own mother, Qian. He had almost convinced himself that in this one respect, perhaps the Chinese practice might be considered inferior to the West; but to have it echoed so forcefully and independently here on the other side of the world undermined his conclusion.

“We do not miss having women about,” he said, “that is, wives, which is what I suppose you mean; I should be perfectly happy to have more women like Roland about. But I have not thought of Laurence marrying.” He did not see why it should be at all desirable.

“How are there to be children, otherwise?” Curicuillor said, in a faintly exasperated tone. “I hope you do not set your heart only on one person. What if he should die with no children at all, because you are wanting all his attention: then you will be quite alone and it will serve you right, for not planning.”

Temeraire did not see why Laurence should die, at all, but he was uneasily aware that men did do so, quite often; he thought of Riley and was silent.

“Well, you are all very young,” Curicuillor said with a sigh. “I do not know what things can be like in your country, when hatchlings your age have already an ayllu of their own. You are of an age to be fighting, but so you should be with the army, and not responsible for others; it is no wonder to me that we hear such strange reports of your men.”

Heaving herself up, she padded down to the edge of the water. When Temeraire came up beside her, she shook her head out towards the far side of the lake, where a handsome clear white beach stood out from the trees. “I have meant to have Churki begin there with her ayllu, when a few more children are born,” she said, “for then we should command this part of the lake on all sides, and it would take a very brazen thief to make an attempt at us then. But there is no need to wait. Why do you not think better of this war of yours? You and your friends might stay: I will exchange with you, so you will have enough young women to start some proper families, and we will have new blood, so it will be good for all of us.”

“They do seem to arrange things better, here,” Kulingile said wistfully. They were sitting on the beach watching: one of the younger dragons was digging out a new terrace into the hillside with a party of a dozen young men and women, who were spreading out gravel of many shapes and dirt in layers to fill the space as he carried over loads of each. When the dragon had finished depositing the final layer, he settled to earth and a couple of the young women who had been sitting on the side climbed onto his back with a basket of large silver hoops, which they had been polishing all the morning, and put these back into place along his wings.

“I had much rather have Granby than a dozen other people, even if they were splendid about polishing jewels,” Iskierka said, “but they do seem to have heaps of treasure here; and I should not mind for Granby to have children.”

Temeraire did not say so, but he felt quite strongly that he would mind, if Laurence were to be very occupied with them.

“We shan’t stay here, of course,” Iskierka continued. “That would be great nonsense when there is a whole war going on in Europe, which we can go back to; but we might as well trade her some of the sailors for women. That seems to me very sensible: I do not see why we haven’t more women in our crews to begin with.”

“Well, I do not, either; Roland is particularly clever, and can be trusted with anything, even jewels,” Temeraire said. “But it is the sailors’ duty to remain with us and help to fight the war; and we may not trade them because they are not our property.”

“I don’t see why not,” Iskierka said, “if they want to stay; which they do, because I heard Granby telling Laurence that it would be a job to keep from losing half the men to desertion with women making calf-eyes at them, and silver cups on the dinner table.”

“But in that case the women very likely should not like to come,” Temeraire said. “In any case, I do not think Curicuillor should like us to carry them away, either. It is not much to say, she will trade them to us if we stay here, where she can see them anytime she likes: that is not really like giving them away.”

“Oh, well,” Iskierka said, giving up the scheme easily. “I suppose I will wait until we are home: then I will find some young women for my crew, and to have children for Granby.”

“You would not like to be always having children, would you, Laurence?” Temeraire asked that evening.

“I beg your pardon?” Laurence said, and when Temeraire had explained Iskierka’s plan was quick to assure him that he had no such desire. “I would hope,” he added, “that she means to consult John’s wishes before proceeding with this design; if there were any grounds for such hope.”

The men began to make ready to depart, the next morning, and Temeraire flew from their encampment in search of Curicuillor to make their farewells: she was back in her courtyard half-asleep, with a group of women around her weaving industriously: beautiful cloth in bright red and yellow, which Temeraire could not help but look over with an appreciative eye: not silk, but it looked nearly as fine.

“It was too much to expect that you should have so much sense, at your age,” Curicuillor said regretfully, when Temeraire explained they did not mean to stay. “But still, you have been very kind, and behaved much better than I would have expected when you are so young and from an uncivilized country. I will send Churki with you, to introduce you at the court.

“And Choque-Ocllo has given you a khipu, although even so I cannot say if they will let your men see the Sapa Inca,” she added. “Men and women have such short memories: but we have not forgotten the dreadful way Atahualpa was murdered. My own mother was alive at the time: three roomfuls of gold and silver were delivered in ransom for him, yet even so those evil men pulled him out into the great courtyard of Cajamarca and put a cord around his neck, and before anyone understood what was happening, he was strangled. Pahuac was watching all along. He threw himself off the mountains with his