“We’re in the mountains, too?” I said, startled.
“Of course we are. We’ve had surveyors there for the past two years. Ostensibly just to measure the peaks more accurately, but Yelang knows perfectly well what we’re doing. Just as we know what they’re up to.”
I frowned, one finger tapping my lip. “Have any of them reported finding unusual remains? Carcasses, bones—”
Lord Rossmere gave me a look fit to freeze a specimen solid. “They are not there to study the wildlife, Lady Trent. Their attention is on other things.”
Thu Phim-lat had spared a fragment of his attention for this matter. Assuming, of course, that he was telling the truth.
He was maddeningly close-mouthed about his find. I knew why; it was his one bargaining chip, apart from what he knew about the terrain of the Mrtyahaima, which the Khiam Siu were not going to surrender without gaining a good deal more in return. Mr. Thu did let slip at one point, however, that the location was not of any particular use for invading Yelang, as the mountains there were much too difficult to traverse.
That narrowed down the list of places he might have been… to only half of an impossibly large area. It was still too much. I tried again with Paul, this time accosting him at a garden party. “Mr. Thu believes more specimens may be found in the region, if we search. But if we wait, someone else will discover them first, and then we shall lose this scholarly coup. Possibly even to Yelang!”
Paul only snorted. “No one in the government cares about that, Isabella. Dragon specimens, however interesting, have no military value.”
I swallowed the impulse to point out that the bone specimens we discovered in Vystrana had turned out to have tremendous value, both military and otherwise. Bringing up that matter would only do me more harm than good.
Despite my restraint, one Synedrion member (who shall remain nameless here) was blunt enough to say it to my face, in the lobby of the chamber where the Closed House met. “Why in God’s name do you expect anyone here to do you favours, Lady Trent? It’s your fault we’re facing caeligers from half a dozen nations in this aerial war, instead of just Yelang.”
“I had nothing to do with Mr. Broadmay’s actions,” I snapped. The words came out by reflex; it was not the first time I had uttered them.
The gentleman grunted, as if the response he wanted to make was a good deal more vulgar. “Do you deny that you encouraged him?”
“I most certainly do. That I spoke out against the slaughter of dragons for their bones, I confess; but I never spoke directly to Mr. Broadmay, and had he introduced himself and explained his plan, I would have dissuaded him.”
I would have tried, at least. Even now, I am not certain how sincere I would have been in my hypothetical attempt to stop him. Justin Broadmay, having heard my lectures and read my essays, had sought out a position at one of the factories producing synthetic dragonbone. His express intent, as confessed before a judge, was to learn both the chemical makeup of the substance and the process used to give it the proper structure, and then disseminate his collected information around the world.
I cannot even say that I think he was wrong. Once upon a time, I feared that the discovery of a method for preserving natural dragonbone would have disastrous consequences for the beasts, as humans slaughtered them for material. I had poured all I could afford and more into pursuing a replacement, especially once the preservation method became known in other countries. When Scirling scientists finally developed that replacement, however, I realized that it had created a new problem.
The availability of a form of dragonbone we could produce at will, in the shapes desired, spurred a great many subsequent developments, not least of all in the field of war. And if other countries wished to keep up, they would have no choice but to harvest as much as they could… from natural sources.
The only solution was to make the replacement formula as widely available as the one for preservation. It did not entirely remove the competition, of course: now everyone was racing to acquire the necessary raw materials, and flogging their own engineers to build newer and better devices from this miracle substance. But there was no putting that jinni back in the bottle; once preservation had been achieved—and it was inevitable that someday it should be—we could only move forward.
For better or for worse, Justin Broadmay had the courage of his convictions—a courage I myself lacked. As a consequence, a judge had sentenced him to prison two years previously, and ultimately he spent the greater part of a decade there. It was only through the efforts of my legal-minded and charitable friends that he was freed so soon.
But the whole Broadmay incident left me on less than advantageous footing with Her Majesty’s government. In the end, I only achieved my goal by trading shamelessly on a connection I was not even supposed to have: my past encounter with Queen Miriam herself.
I did not meet with Her Majesty in person. A baroness I might be, but a title alone does not grant sufficient clout to be able to call upon the sovereign at will—especially when the circumstances in which we met were, at the time, still considered a state secret. Instead I had tea with Lady Astonby, whom my readers may recall as “Hannah,” the woman whom, along with then-Princess Miriam, I met on the island of Lahana in the Broken Sea.
A conversation over tea is not as irrelevant as you might think. Lady Astonby was not a peeress in her own right; she had her title by virtue of marrying her husband, and as such she had no vote in the Synedrion. But she belonged to that cadre of noblewomen surrounding the queen who participated in politics by other means. Through their social duties as hostesses, they gathered information; through their patronage and networks of friends, they dispensed influence. It was indirect, but not ineffective, and it permitted the queen to exercise more control over the Synedrion than she might otherwise have had.
“You believe this man’s offer to be of value,” Lady Astonby said, once I had explained the situation to her.
“Yes. I know that most would consider such information to be insignificant at best; but I believe it may be a discovery of great import to my field. And while draconic studies are not so impressive as the movement of armies, achievements in that area do raise our credit with other nations.”
Lady Astonby studied me with a gaze that took in everything and gave nothing back. “But gaining that information requires you to support the Khiam revolutionaries. I would not have expected you to extend such charity to the Yelangese.”
She had observed the Battle of Keonga, and I had to assume she knew of my other unpleasant encounters. I said, “I have been kidnapped, threatened, and otherwise mistreated by Eiversch, Bulskoi, Chiavorans, Yembe, Ikwunde, Keongans, Akhians, and my own countrymen. If I allowed that to discourage me, I should soon become a hermit, trusting no one at all.”
It was a pert answer more than an honest one, but Lady Astonby allowed it to stand for the time being. “You have said in your publications and letters that you believe the Draconeans bred a unique species for their use. Do you think this specimen might be an example of that creature?”
I knew perfectly well that if I said “yes,” my odds of success would go up dramatically. In theory any extinct variety should be of scientific interest; but that one, of course, was the Lost Ark of paleontological draconic research. Unfortunately, that would have been untrue, and I am not a very good liar. “As much as I might hope so, Lady Astonby, I doubt it. There were Draconean settlements in the lower reaches of the Mrtyahaima, but not up at the elevations where soft tissue might be preserved. And although we have evidence of breeding in various parts of the world, developmental lability makes it quite unlikely that the same species could have been bred in such a cold climate. Not without a great deal of effort, at least.”