Temeraire/1806

* Friends
* Route Map
* Peking
* Attack

### Appearance

glossy black hide with opalescent blue and pale grey markings on the edges of his wings

## Military

### Status

* Alive
* Exiled from Britain
* Active

## Book Appearances

### Books

* *His Majesty's Dragon*
* *Throne of Jade*
* *Black Powder War*
* *Empire of Ivory*
* *Victory of Eagles*
* *Tongues of Serpents*
* *Crucible of Gold*
* *Blood of Tyrants*
* *League of Dragons*

### London

Before the story starts, the Chinese delegation has arrived in London to protest the British using one of their Celestial Dragons as a Beast of burden. Nor do they recognize that the egg was captured from the French ship transporting it and they demand Temeraire be returned to the Chinese. The British Admiralty is willing to let them take Temeraire back with them, but Temeraire refuses to go. The Admiralty separates Laurence and Temeraire and they haven’t seen each other for a couple of weeks. Since Temeraire is refusing to go with them willingly, the Admiralty orders Laurence to lie to Temeraire to get him on the transport and taken to far out at sea so he can not fly back to land.

This is the point where the story begins with the First Lord of the Admiralty, Barham, threatening to arrest Laurence. After their meeting is over with Barham along with the Chinese delegation and a company of Marines go to the London Covert to meet with Temeraire where Barham lies to Temeraire and tells him that Laurence has taken another dragon. This upsets Temerare enough that he unleashes the Divine Wind on them, at that time Laurence is at the London Covert preparing to go back to the Dover Covert with Jane when he hears Temeraire and rushes to his clearing. Barham orders the Marines to arrest Laurence, so Temeraire snatches up Laurence with his claw and heads for the Dover covert where all of the dragons are preparing to take off to engage the French.

### Dover Covert

When they land in Obversaria’s clearing to talk to Lenton and Laurence has explained everything to him, Lenton tells them that he has no time to deal with them right then but realizes that there is no way that Temeraire will stay behind so orders them to get armored up.

Temeraire fights fiercely during the battle and Laurence is injured. Upon their return Barham is there with the Marines ready to arrest Laurence and pepper spray Temeraire if he doesn’t behave. All of the other officers of his crew stand ready to protect with drawn pistols and swords, until Keynes comes back and yells at the Marines and Barham for stirring up all of the dragons that are fresh from battle. Once the marines look around at all of the dragons looking into Temeraire’s clearing they put away their guns and leave, leaving Barham behind.

The next day the Chinese envoy decrees that Laurence must come with them to China and Linton decides that the entire crew had better go along so Barham doesn’t cause them additional problems.

### Voyage to China

#### French attack

Soon after they set sail, the French attacks the *Allegiance* during the night, led by a Fleur-de-Nuit one that wasn’t as sensitive to bright lights as the other ones they met were.  The dragon Is accompanied by two frigates.  The Frigates send over boarding parties, when Temeriaire uses the Divine Wind and sinks the *Valérie*, with all hands aboard.

Temeriare dived two low at one point and was shot in the chest with a special Dragon bullet, the Fleur-de-Nuit was just about on him, and Temeriare unable to get away when Lily’s wing of dragons arrive. With their arrival the other ship and the boarding party threw down their arms, struck their colors and surrendered.

A Dragon transport is coming from Halifax, the *William of Orange*, bringing a new dragon for the British to cross bread with their dragons. The transport is in flight distance of the *Allegiance* so after the attack, Captain Harcourt sends off her smaller dragons to bring them in closer so that they could take her wing back to Dover and leave much needed repair supplies with the *Allegiance.*

Temeriare’s injury is major but not life threatening and he is prohibited flying for several weeks. The Prince sets out to woe Temeraire while he is recovering. Prince Yongxing regals him with all of the advantageous offered in China to Dragons, teaching him how to read Chinese and speaking to him only in Chinese so no one can overhear what he says.

When they pull in at Cape Coast to replenish the food supplies, the main slavery port, Temeriare is deeply affected by the sight of the slaves and the way they are treated, which has further impact on his views on several different subjects throughout the rest of the story.

Soon after crossing the Equator, Volly  and James arrive with dispatches and mail,  Volly is sick with what is assumed to be a cold. Since Volly spends the night with Temeriare on the dragondeck, he ends up by catching it too.

Harcourt writes to Laurence and sends the Dragons greetings to Temeriare:

#### New Year

*Mid-February 1806*

During the New Year feast Yongxing has his cooks prepares food for Temeraire the way that the Dragons in China eat.  Temeraire quickly comes to appreciate having his food cooked and prepared the Chinese way instead of eating it raw.

#### Capetown

*March 1806*

By the time they reach Capetown, Temeriare is very ill and not at all interested in eating anything.  While supplies are laid into the ship and any final repairs are made, the Chinese Delegate and the aviators stay at a castle.  Laurence grows concerned over Temeraire not eating so he prevails upon the cooks to prepare some tempting meals for him.  They start experimenting with local ingredients that the native children bring to them, one of which is a very large fungus (mushroom relative), a very smelly one.  But the cooks make it into a sauce and Temeriare pours it over his meat and devours it.   Soon after Temeriare starts to improve.  At this time, no one connects him getting better with the very smelly fungus.

#### Indian Ocean

Blown of course and not corrected by the inept Lieutenant Beckett, while on watch, they encounter weather bad enough that they have to chain Temeraire down to prevent his shifting around upsetting their ship. This caused a lot of anguish in both Laurence and Temeraire.

The storm blew for 3 days, even though Laurence spent the entire time with Temeraire, he was in a foul mood by the time they were able to remove his chains and he took off for a solo flight, without Laurence or Harness.

Almost three weeks later they came to the island of New Amsterdam where Temeraire spent time watching the Seals playing in the Ocean, but as soon as he joined them in the water, they scattered, so all Temeraire could do is watch them from a distance. They spent a few days there with the sailors "sealing", hunting the seals for their meat.

From there, they strike off across the Indian Ocean to go directly to Dutch East Indies, but a few days later
a Sea Serpent attacks the *Allegiance*. Temeraire kills it though he tries to stop it’s mindless rampaging first.  Temeraire regrets that he could not make her understand that she had to stop.

#### China

*Macao, China - June 16, 1806*

When they first arrived in the harbor at Macao, the chinese on land went crasy, shouting “Tien-lung, tien-lung!”
Xongxing explained that it was good luck to see a Celestrial, so they were excited to see him because they rarely have ever had the chance before.

Once they arrive in Peking Temeraire meets the other celestial dragons including his Mother and twin brother.  He also meets his first intimate companion, Lung Qin Mei, a charming female Imperial dragon.

Temeraire discovers that there is another way to live for Dragons, other then the way he has known in England.  In China, Dragons have full citizenship and are paid for any work they do for humans.  They are great readers and writers themselves and have appropriate tools to make it possible for them to turn pages and to write with instead of dictating.

When Temeraire is absent overnight, Laurence and his crew are attacked at the place they are staying and Willoughby is killed. Laurence believes it is the work of Prince Yongxing

When Laurence is attacked during a play being performed for everyone, Temeraire kills the knife thrower and then goes after Prince Yongxing. Lien protects him and attacks Temeraire, during the aerial fight, they destroy the scenery for the play which results in shards of wood flying everywhere, with a long shard enters Yongxing's eye, killing him instantly. This stops the fight but Lien vows revenge against Temeraire and the British.

He decides to leave China with Laurence so that he can spread the word to other European dragons that they have choices and to make a difference in the way they live and are treated.

## References

1. ↑ Novik, Naomi. In His Majesty's Service: Three Novels of Temeraire (His Majesty's Service, Throne of Jade, and Black Powder War) (p. 455). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
2. ↑ Novik, Naomi. In His Majesty's Service: Three Novels of Temeraire (His Majesty's Service, Throne of Jade, and Black Powder War) (p. 517). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.