NAOMI NOVIK

Empire of Ivory

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperVoyager An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 2007

Copyright © Naomi Novik 2007

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 2014

Cover illustrations © Dominic Harman

Naomi Novik asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007256730

Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2009 ISBN: 9780007318582

Version: 2017-01-09

Dedication

To Francesca,

may we always flee lions together

Contents

Title Page Copyright Dedication Part I Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five PART II Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve PART III Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Keep Reading Acknowledgements By the Same Author About the Publisher

PART I

Chapter One

‘Send up another, damn you, send them all up, at once if you have to,’ Laurence said savagely to poor Calloway, who did not deserve to be sworn at: the gunner was firing off the flares so quickly his hands were scorched black, skin cracking and peeling to bright red where some powder had spilled onto his fingers; he was not stopping to wipe them clean before setting each flare to the match.

One of the little French dragons darted in again, slashing at Temeraire’s side, and five men fell screaming as a piece of the makeshift carrying-harness unravelled. They vanished at once beyond the lantern-light and were swallowed up by the darkness; the long twisted rope of striped silk, a pillaged curtain, unfurled gently in the wind and billowed down after them, threads trailing from the torn edges. A moan went through the other Prussian soldiers still clinging desperately on to the harness, and after it low, angry mutterings in German.

Any gratitude the soldiers might have felt for their rescue from the siege of Danzig had since been exhausted: three days flying through icy rain, no food but what they had crammed into their pockets in those final desperate moments, no rest but a few hours snatched along a cold and marshy stretch of the Dutch coast, and now this French patrol harrying them all this last endless night. Men so terrified might do anything in a panic; many of them had still their small-arms and swords, and there were more than a hundred of them crammed aboard, to the less than thirty of Temeraire’s own crew.

Laurence swept the sky again with his glass, straining for a glimpse of wings, an answering signal. They were in sight of shore, the night was clear: through his glass he saw the gleam of lights dotting the small harbours all along the Scottish coast, and below heard the steadily increasing roar of the surf. Their flares ought to have been plain to see all the way to Edinburgh; yet no reinforcements had come, not a single courier-beast even to investigate.

‘Sir, that’s the last of them,’ Calloway said, coughing through the grey smoke that wreathed his head, the flare whistling high and away. The powder flash went off silently above their heads, casting the white scudding clouds into brilliant relief, reflecting from dragon scales in every direction: Temeraire all in black, the rest in gaudy colours muddied to shades of grey by the lurid blue light. The night was full of their wings: a dozen dragons turning their heads around to look back, their gleaming pupils narrowing; more coming on, all of them laden down with men, and the handful of small French patrol-dragons darting among them.

All seen in the flash of a moment, then the thunderclap crack and rumble sounded, only a little delayed, and the flare dying away drifted into blackness again. Laurence counted ten, and ten again; still there was no answer from the shore.

Emboldened, the French dragon came in once more. Temeraire aimed a swipe which would have knocked the little Pou-de-Ciel flat, but his attempt was very slow, for fear of dislodging any more of his passengers; their small enemy evaded with contemptuous ease and circled away to wait for his next chance.

‘Laurence,’ Temeraire said, looking round, ‘where is everyone? Victoriatus is in Edinburgh; he at least ought to have come. After all, we helped him, when he was hurt; not that I need help, precisely, against these little dragons,’ he added, straightening his neck with a crackle of popping joints, ‘but it is not very convenient to try and fight while we are carrying so many people.’

This was putting a braver face on the situation than it deserved: they could not very well defend themselves at all, and Temeraire was taking the worst of it, bleeding already from many small gashes along his side and flanks, which the crew could not bandage up, so cramped were they aboard.

‘Only keep everyone moving towards the shore,’ Laurence said; he had no better answer to give. ‘I cannot imagine the patrol will pursue us over land,’ he added, but doubtfully. He would never have imagined a French patrol could come so near to shore as this, either, without challenge; and how he should manage to disembark a thousand frightened and exhausted men under bombardment he did not like to contemplate.

‘I am trying; only they will keep stopping to fight,’ Temeraire said, wearily, and turned back to his work. Arkady and his rough band of mountain ferals found the small, stinging attacks maddening, and they kept trying to turn around mid-air and go after the French patrol-dragons; in their contortions they were flinging off more of the hapless Prussian soldiers than the enemy could ever have accounted for. There was no malice in their carelessness: the wild dragons were unused to men except as the jealous guardians of flocks and herds, and they did not think of their passengers as anything more than an unusual burden; but with malice or none, the men were dying all the same. Temeraire could only prevent them by constant vigilance, and now he was hovering in place over the line of flight, cajoling and hissing by turns, encouraging the others to hurry onwards.

‘No, no, Gherni,’ Temeraire called out, and dashed forward to swat at the little blue and white feral: she had dropped onto the very back of a startled French Chasseur-Vocifère: a courier beast of scarcely four tons, who could not bear up under even her slight weight and was sinking in the air despite the frantic beating of its wings. Gherni had already fixed her teeth in the French dragon’s neck and was now worrying it back and forth with savage vigour; meanwhile the Prussians clinging to her harness were all but drumming their heels on the heads of the French crew, crammed so tightly not a shot from the French side could fail of killing one of them.

In his efforts to dislodge her, Temeraire was left open, and the Pou-de-Ciel seized the fresh opportunity; this time daring enough to make an attempt at Temeraire’s back. His claws struck so near that Laurence saw the traces of Temeraire’s blood shining black on the curved edges as the French dragon lifted away again; his hand tightened on his pistol, uselessly.

‘Oh, let me, let me!’ Iskierka was straining furiously against the restraints keeping her lashed to Temeraire’s back. The infant Kazilik would soon be a force to reckon with; as yet, however, scarcely a month out of the shell, she was too young and unpracticed to be a serious danger to anyone beside herself. They had tried as best they could to secure her, with straps and chains and lecturing, but the last she roundly ignored, and though she had been but irregularly fed these last few days, she had added another five feet of length overnight: neither straps nor chains were proving of much use in restraining her.

‘Will you hold still, for all love?’ Granby said despairingly; he was throwing his own weight against the straps to try and pull her head down. Allen and Harley, the young lookouts stationed on Temeraire’s shoulders, had to go scrambling out of the way to avoid being kicked as Granby was dragged stumbling from side to side by her efforts. Laurence loosened his buckles and climbed to his feet, bracing his heels against the strong ridge of muscle at the base of Temeraire’s neck. He caught Granby by the harness-belt when Iskierka’s thrashing swung him by again, and managed to hold him steady, but all the leather was strung tight as violin-strings, trembling with the strain.

‘But I can stop him!’ she insisted, twisting her head sidelong as she tried to work free. Eager jets of flame were licking out from the sides of her jaws as she tried once again to lunge at the enemy dragon, but their Pou-de-Ciel attacker, small as he was, was still many times her size and too experienced to be frightened off by a little show of fire; he only jeered, backwinging to expose all of his speckled brown belly to her as a target in a gesture of insulting unconcern.

‘Oh!’ Iskierka coiled herself tightly with rage, the thin spiky protrusions all over her sinuous body jetting steam, and with a mighty heave reared up on her hindquarters. The straps jerked painfully out of Laurence’s grasp, and involuntarily he caught his hand back to his chest, numb fingers curling over instinctively. Granby had been dragged into mid-air and was dangling vainly from her thick neck band, while she let loose a torrent of flame: thin and yellow-white, so hot that the air about it seemed to twist and shrivel away. It made a fierce banner against the night sky.

But the French dragon had cleverly put himself before the wind, coming strong and from the east; now he folded his wings and dropped away, and the blistering flames were blown back against Temeraire’s flank. Temeraire, still scolding Gherni back into the line of flight, uttered a startled cry and jerked away while sparks scattered over the glossy blackness of his hide, perilously close to the carrying-harness of silk and linen and rope.

‘Verfluchtes Untier! Wir werden noch alle verbrennen,’ one of the Prussian officers yelled hoarsely, pointing at Iskierka, and fumbled with a shaking hand in his bandoleer for a cartridge.

‘Enough there; put up that pistol,’ Laurence roared at him through the speaking-trumpet. Lieutenant Ferris and a couple of the topmen hurriedly unlatched their harness-straps and let themselves down to wrestle it out of the officer’s hands. They could only reach the fellow by clambering over the other Prussian soldiers, however, and though too afraid to let go of the harness, the men were obstructing their passage in every other way, thrusting out elbows and hips with abrupt jerks, full of resentment and hostility.

Lieutenant Riggs was giving orders, distantly, towards the rear; ‘Fire!’ he shouted, clear over the increasing rumble among the Prussians; the handful of rifles spoke with bright powder-bursts, sulphurous and bitter. The French dragon made a little shriek and wheeled away, flying a little awkwardly: blood streaked in rivulets from a rent in its wing, where a bullet had by lucky chance struck one of the thinner patches around the joint and penetrated the hide.

The respite came a little late; some of the men were already clawing their way up towards Temeraire’s back, snatching at the greater security of the leather harness to which the aviators were hooked by their carabiner straps. But the harness could not take all their weight too, not so many of them; if the buckles stretched open, or some straps gave way, and the whole began to slide, it would entangle Temeraire’s wings and send them all plummeting into the ocean together.

Laurence loaded his pistols fresh and thrust them into his waistband, loosened his sword, and stood up again. He had willingly risked all their lives to rescue these men from a trap, and he meant to see them safely ashore if he could; but he would not see Temeraire endangered by their hysteric fear.

‘Allen, Harley,’ he said to the boys, ‘run across to the riflemen and tell Mr. Riggs: if we cannot stop them, they are to cut the carrying-harness loose, all of it; and be sure you keep latched on as you go. Perhaps you had better stay here with her, John,’ he added, when Granby made to come away with him. Iskierka was quiet for the moment, her enemy having quit the field, but she still coiled and recoiled herself in sulky restlessness, muttering in disappointment.

‘Oh, certainly! I should like to see myself do any such thing,’ Granby said, taking out his sword; he had foregone pistols since becoming Iskierka’s captain, to avoid the risk of handling open powder around her.

Laurence was too unsure of his ground to pursue an argument; Granby was not properly his subordinate any longer, and the more experienced aviator of the two of them, counting years aloft. Granby took the lead as they crossed Temeraire’s back, moving with the sureness only a boy trained up from the age of seven could have aloft; at each step Laurence handed forward his own lead-strap and let Granby lock it on to the harness for him, which he could do one-handed, that they might go more quickly.

Ferris and the topmen were still struggling with the Prussian officer in the midst of a thickening clot of men; they were disappearing from view under the violent press of bodies, only Martin’s yellow hair visible. The soldiers were near full riot, men beating and kicking at one another, thinking of nothing but an impossible escape; the knots of the carrying-harness were tightening, giving up more slack, so all the loops and bands of it hung loose and swinging with the thrashing, struggling men.

Laurence came on one of the soldiers, a young man, eyes wide and staring in his wind-reddened face and his thick moustache wet-tipped with sweat, trying to work his arm beneath the main harness, blindly, though the buckle was already straining open, and he would in a moment have slid wholly free.

‘Get back to your place!’ Laurence shouted, pointing to the nearest open loop of the carrying-harness, and thrusting the man’s hand away from the straps. Then his ears started ringing, a thick ripe smell of sour cherries flooded his nostrils as his knees folded beneath him. He put a hand to his forehead slowly, stupidly; it was wet. His own harness-straps were holding him, painfully tight against his ribs with all his weight pulling against them. The Prussian had struck him with a bottle; it had shattered, and the liquor was dripping down the side of his face.

Instinct rescued him; he put up his arm to take the next blow and pushed the broken glass back at the man’s face; the soldier said something in German and let go the bottle. They wrestled together a few moments more; then Laurence caught the man’s belt and heaved him up and away from Temeraire’s side. The soldier’s arms were spread wide, grasping at nothing; Laurence, watching, abruptly recalled himself, and at once he lunged out, reaching to his full length; but too late, and he came thumping heavily back against Temeraire’s side with empty hands; the soldier was already gone from sight.

His head did not hurt over much, but Laurence felt queerly sick and weak. Temeraire had resumed flying towards the coast, having rounded up the rest of the ferals at last, and the force of the wind was increasing. Laurence clung to the harness a moment, until the fit passed and he was able to make his hands work properly again. There were already more men clawing up: Granby was trying to hold them back, but they were overbearing him by sheer weight of numbers, even though struggling as much against one another as him. One of the soldiers grappling for a hold on the harness climbed too far out of the press; he slipped, landed heavily on the men below him, and carried them all away; as a tangled, many-limbed mass they fell into the slack loops of the carrying-harness, and the muffled wet noises of their joints and bones cracking sounded together like a roast chicken being wrenched hungrily apart.

Granby was hanging from his harness-straps, trying to get his feet planted again; Laurence crab-walked over to him and gave him a steadying arm. Below he could just make out the washy sea foam, pale against the black water; Temeraire was flying lower and lower as they neared the coast.

‘That damned Pou-de-Ciel is coming round again,’ Granby panted, as he got back his footing; the French had somehow stretched a dressing over the gash in the dragon’s wing, even if the great white patch of it was awkwardly placed and far larger than the injury made necessary. The dragon looked a little uncomfortable in the air, but he was coming on gamely nonetheless; they must have spotted Temeraire’s vulnerability. If the Pou-de-Ciel were able to catch the harness and drag it loose, it might deliberately finish what the soldiers had begun in their panic, and the chance of bringing down a heavy-weight, much less one as valuable as Temeraire, would surely tempt them to great risk.

‘We will have to cut the soldiers loose,’ Laurence said, low and wretched, and looked upwards, where the carrying-loops attached to the leather; but to send a hundred men and more to their deaths, scarce minutes from safety, he was not sure he could bear; or ever to meet General Kalkreuth again, having done it; some of the general’s own young aides were aboard Temeraire, and doing their best to keep the other men quiet.

Riggs and his riflemen were firing short, hurried volleys; the Pou-de-Ciel was keeping just out of range, waiting for the best moment to chance his attack. Then Iskierka sat up and blew out another stream of fire: Temeraire was flying ahead of the wind, so the flames were not turned against him, this time; but every man on his back had at once to throw himself flat to avoid the torrent, which burned out too quickly before it could reach the French dragon.

The Pou-de-Ciel at once darted in while the crew was distracted; Iskierka was gathering herself for another blow, and the riflemen could not get up again. ‘Christ,’ Granby said; but before he could reach her, a low rumble like fresh thunder sounded, and below them small round red mouths bloomed with smoke and powder-flashes: shore batteries, firing from the coast below. Illuminated in the yellow blaze of Iskierka’s fire, a twenty-four-pound ball of round-shot flew past them and took the Pou-de-Ciel in the chest; he folded around it like paper as it drove through his ribs, and crumpled out of the air, falling to the rocks below: they were over the shore, they were over the land, and thick-fleeced sheep were fleeing before them across the snow-matted grass.

The townspeople of the little harbour of Dunbar were alternately terrified at the descent of a whole company of dragons onto their quiet hamlet, and elated by the success of their new shore-battery, put into place scarcely two months ago and never before tried. Half-a-dozen courier-beasts driven off and one Pou-de-Ciel slain, became a Grand Chevalier and several Flammes-de-Gloire overnight, all hideously slain. The town could talk of nothing else, and the local militia strutted through the streets to general satisfaction.

The townspeople grew less enthusiastic, however, after Arkady had eaten four of their sheep; the other ferals had made only slightly less extravagant depredations, and Temeraire himself had seized upon a couple of cows, shaggy yellow-haired Highland cattle, sadly reported afterwards to be prize-winning, and devoured them to the hooves and horns.

‘They were very tasty,’ Temeraire said, apologetically; and turned his head aside to spit out some of the hair.

Laurence was not inclined to stint the dragons in the least, after their long and arduous flight, and on this occasion was perfectly willing to sacrifice his usual respect for civil property for their comfort. Some of the farmers made noises about payment, but Laurence did not mean to try and feed the bottomless appetites of the ferals out of his own pocket. The Admiralty might reach into theirs, if they had nothing better to do than sit before the fire and whistle while a battle was carrying on outside their windows, and men dying for lack of a little assistance. ‘We will not be a charge upon you for long. As soon as we hear from Edinburgh, I expect we will be called to the covert there,’ he said flatly, in reply to the protests. The horse-courier left at once.

The townspeople were more welcoming to the Prussians, most of them young soldiers pale and wretched after the flight. General Kalkreuth himself had been among these final refugees; he had to be let down from Arkady’s back in a sling, his face white and sickly under his beard. The local medical man looked doubtful, but cupped a basin full of blood, and had him carried away to the nearest farmhouse to be kept warm and dosed with brandy and hot water.

Other men were less fortunate. The harnesses, cut away, came down in filthy, tangled heaps weighted by corpses already turning green: some had been killed during the French attacks, others smothered by their own fellows in the panic, or dead of thirst, or plain terror. They buried sixty-three men out of a thousand that afternoon, some of them nameless, in a long and shallow grave laboriously pick-axed out of the frozen ground. The survivors were a ragged crew, clothes and uniforms inadequately brushed, faces still dirty, attending silently. Even the ferals, though they did not understand the language, perceived the ceremony, and sat on their haunches respectfully to watch from a distance.

Word arrived back from Edinburgh only a few hours later, but with orders so queer as to be incomprehensible. They began reasonably enough: the Prussians to be left behind in Dunbar and quartered on the town; and the dragons, as expected, were summoned to the city. But there was no invitation to General Kalkreuth or his officers to come along. On the contrary, Laurence was strictly adjured to bring no Prussian officers with him. As for the dragons, they were not permitted to enter the large and comfortable covert at all, not even Temeraire. Instead Laurence was ordered to leave them sleeping in the streets about the castle, and to report to the admiral in command in the morning.

He stifled his first reaction, and spoke mildly of the arrangements to Major Seiberling, now the senior Prussian; implying as best he could without outright falsehood that the Admiralty meant to wait until General Kalkreuth was recovered before they gave him an official welcome.

‘Oh; must we fly again?’ Temeraire said. He heaved himself wearily back onto his feet, and approached the drowsing ferals to nudge them awake: they had all crumpled into somnolence after their dinners.

Their flight to Edinburgh was slow and the days were growing short. It was only a week to Christmas, Laurence realized abruptly. The sky was fully dark by the time they reached their destination; but the castle shone out for them like a beacon, its windows and walls bright with torches as it stood on its high rocky hill above the shadowed expanse of the covert. The narrow buildings of the medieval part of the city crammed together close around it.

Temeraire hovered doubtfully above the cramped and winding streets; there were many spires and pointed roofs to contend with, and not very much room between them, giving the city the appearance of a spear-pit. ‘I do not see how I am to land here,’ he said uncertainly. ‘I am sure to break one of those buildings; why have they built these streets so small? It was much more convenient in Peking.’

‘If you cannot do it without hurting yourself, we will go away again, and orders be damned,’ Laurence said; his patience was grown very thin.

But in the end Temeraire managed to let himself down into the old cathedral square without bringing down more than a few lumps of ornamental masonry; the ferals, being all of them considerably smaller, had less difficulty. They were a little anxious at being removed from the fields full of sheep and cattle, however, and suspicious of their new surroundings; Arkady bent low and put his eye to an open window to peer inside at the empty rooms, making sceptical inquires of Temeraire as he did so.

‘That is where people sleep, is it not, Laurence? Like a pavilion,’ Temeraire said, trying cautiously to rearrange his tail into a more comfortable position. ‘And sometimes it is where they sell jewels and other pleasant things. But where are all the people?’

Laurence was quite sure that all the people had fled; the wealthiest tradesman in the city would sleep in a gutter tonight, if it were the only bed he could find in the new part of town, safely away from the pack of dragons who had invaded his streets.

The dragons eventually disposed of themselves in some manner of reasonable comfort; the ferals, used to sleeping in rough-hewn caves, were even pleased with the soft, rounded cobblestones. ‘I do not mind sleeping in the street, Laurence, truly; it is quite dry, and I am sure it will all be very interesting to look at, in the morning,’ Temeraire said, consolingly, before falling asleep with his head lodged in one alleyway and his tail in another.

But Laurence minded for him; it was not the sort of welcome which he felt they might justly have looked for, a long year away from home, having been sent halfway round the world and back. It was one thing to find themselves in rough quarters while on campaign, where no man could expect much better and might be grateful for a cow-byre to lay his head upon. But to be deposited like baggage, on cold unsanitary stones stained dark with years of street refuse, was something other; the dragons might at least have been granted use of the open farmland outside the city.

Laurence knew it was unconscious malice: the common unthinking assumption made by men who treated dragons only as inconvenient, if elevated, livestock, to be managed and herded without consideration for their own sentiments. It was an ingrained assumption. Even Laurence had recognized it as outrageous only when forced to do so by witnessing by contrast the conditions he had observed in China, where dragons were received as full members of society.

‘Well,’ Temeraire said reasonably, while Laurence laid out his own bedroll inside the house beside his head, leaving the windows open so they might continue to speak, ‘we knew how matters were here, and so we cannot be very surprised. Besides, I did not come back to make myself more comfortable, or I would have stayed in China. We must improve the circumstances of our friends. Not,’ he added, ‘that I would object to having my own pavilion; but I would rather have liberty. Dyer, pray will you retrieve that bit of gristle from between my teeth? I cannot reach far enough to put my claw upon it.’

Dyer, startled from his half-doze upon Temeraire’s back, ran to fetch the small pick from their luggage, and then scrambled obediently into Temeraire’s open jaws to scrape away.

‘You would have more luck achieving the latter if there were more men ready to grant you the former,’ Laurence said. ‘I do not mean to counsel you to despair; indeed we must not. But I had hoped to find, upon our arrival, more respect for you than when we departed, not less. It would have brought material advantage to our cause.’

Temeraire waited until Dyer had climbed out again to answer. ‘I am sure they will listen to the merits of such reform,’ he said; a large assumption, which Laurence was not at all sanguine enough to share, ‘and all the more, when I have seen Maximus and Lily and they are ranged with me. And perhaps Excidium also, for he has been in the most battles: no one could help but be impressed by him. I am sure they will see the wisdom of my arguments; they will not be as stupid as Eroica and the others were,’ Temeraire added, with obvious shades of resentment. The Prussian dragons had at first rather disdained his attempts to convince them of the merits of greater liberty and education among dragons. They were as fond of their traditional rigorous military order as their handlers, and preferred to ridicule the habits that Temeraire had acquired in China as effete.

‘I hope you will forgive me for my bluntness; but I am afraid that even if you allied the hearts and minds of every dragon in Britain with your own, it would make very little difference. As a political party you have no influence with Parliament,’ Laurence said.

‘Perhaps we do not, but I imagine if we were to go to this Parliament, we would be attended to,’ Temeraire said, an image most convincing, if not likely to produce the sort of attention Temeraire desired.

He said as much, and added, ‘We must find some better means of drawing sympathy to your cause, from those who have the influence to foster political change. I am only sorry I cannot apply to my father for advice, as relations stand between us.’

‘Well, I am not sorry, at all,’ Temeraire said, putting back his ruff. ‘I am sure he would not have helped us; and we can do perfectly well without him.’ Aside from his loyalty, which would have made him resent coldness towards Laurence on any grounds, Temeraire viewed Lord Allendale’s objections to the Aerial Corps as objections to him personally. Despite them never having met, he felt violently towards anyone whose sentiments would have seen Laurence separated from him.

‘My father has been engaged in politics for half of his life,’ Laurence said. Lord Allendale made special effort towards abolition in particular, it was a movement that had been met with as much scorn at its inception, as Laurence anticipated for Temeraire’s own cause. ‘I assure you his advice would be of the greatest value; and I do mean to effect a repair, if I can, which would allow us to consult him.’

‘I would as soon have kept it, myself,’ Temeraire muttered, meaning the elegant red vase that Laurence had purchased in China as a conciliatory gift. It had since travelled with them five thousand miles and more, and Temeraire had grown as possessive of it. He sighed when it was finally sent away, with a brief and apologetic note.

But Laurence was all too conscious of the difficulties that faced them, and of his own inadequacy to progress so vast and complicated a campaign. He had been a boy when Wilberforce had come to their house. He came as the guest of one of Lord Allendale’s political friends, newly inspired with fervour against the slave trade and just beginning the parliamentary campaign to abolish it. That was twenty years ago, and despite the most heroic efforts by men of ability, wealth and power greater than his own, a million souls or more must have been carried away from their native shores since then.

Temeraire had been hatched for only a few years; for all his intelligence, he could not yet grasp the weary struggle which was the required path to a political position, however moral and just it was, however necessary, or contrary to their immediate self-interest it was. Laurence bade him good-night without further disheartening advice; but as he closed the windows, which began to rattle gently from the sleeping dragon’s breath, the distance to the covert beyond the castle walls seemed to him less easily bridged than all the long miles which had brought them home from China.

The Edinburgh streets were quiet in the morning, unnaturally so, and deserted but for the dragons sleeping in stretched ranks over the old grey cobbles. Temeraire’s great bulk was heaped awkwardly before the smoke-stained cathedral and his tail running down into an alleyway scarcely wide enough to hold it. The sky was clear, cold and very blue, only a scattering of terraced clouds ran out to sea, a faint suggestion of pink and orange lighting the stones.

Tharkay was awake, the only soul stirring; he sat crouched against the cold in one of the narrow doorways; an elegant home, the heavy door stood open behind him. He had a cup of tea, steaming in the air. ‘May I offer you one?’ he inquired. ‘I am sure the owners would not begrudge us.’

‘No, thank you; I must go up and see about the dragons,’ Laurence said; he had been woken by a runner from the castle, summoning him to a meeting in the castle, at once. Another piece of discourtesy, when they had arrived so late; and to make matters worse, the boy had been unable to tell him if any provision had been made for the hungry dragons. What the ferals would say when they awoke, Laurence did not like to think.

‘You need not worry; I am sure they can fend for themselves,’ Tharkay said blandly, not a cheering prospect, and offered Laurence his own cup as consolation; Laurence sighed and drained it, grateful for the strong, hot brew.

He was escorted from the castle gates to the admiral’s office by a young red-coated Marine, their path winding around to the headquarters building through the medieval stone courtyards, empty and free from hurry in the early morning dimness. The doors were opened, and he went in stiffly, straight-shouldered; his face had set into disapproving lines, cold and rigid. ‘Sir,’ he said, eyes fixed at a point upon the wall; and only then glanced down, and said, surprised, ‘Admiral Lenton?’

‘Laurence. Yes, sit; sit down.’ Lenton dismissed the guard, and the door closed upon them and the musty, book-lined room; the Admiral’s desk was nearly clear, but for a single small map, a handful of papers. Lenton sat for a moment silently. ‘It is damned good to see you,’ he said at last. ‘Very good to see you indeed. Very good.’

Laurence was very much shocked at his appearance. In the year since their last meeting, Lenton seemed to have aged ten: hair gone entirely white, and a vague, rheumy look in his eyes; his jowls hung slack. ‘I hope I find you well, sir,’ Laurence said, deeply sorry, no longer wondering why Lenton had been transferred north to Edinburgh, a quieter post. He wondered what illness had ravaged him so, and who had been made commander at Dover in his place.

‘Oh…’ Lenton waved his hand, fell silent. ‘I suppose you have not been told anything,’ he said, after a moment. ‘No, that is right; we agreed we could not risk word getting out.’

‘No, sir,’ Laurence said, anger kindling afresh. ‘I have heard nothing, and been told nothing. Our allies asked me daily for word of the Corps, until they knew there was no more use in asking.’

He had given his personal assurances to the Prussian commanders. He had sworn that the Aerial Corps would not fail them; that the promised company of dragons, which might have turned the tide against Napoleon in this last disastrous campaign, would still arrive at any moment. He and Temeraire had stayed and fought in their place when the dragons did not arrive, risking their own lives and those of his crew in an increasingly hopeless cause; but the dragons had never come.

Lenton did not immediately answer, but sat nodding to himself, murmuring. ‘Yes, that is right, of course.’ He tapped a hand on the desk, looked at some papers without reading them, a portrait of distraction.

Laurence added more sharply, ‘Sir, I can hardly believe you would have lent yourself to so treacherous a course, and one so terribly short-sighted; Napoleon’s victory was by no means assured, if the twenty promised dragons had been sent.’

‘What?’ Lenton looked up. ‘Oh, Laurence, there was no question of that. No, none at all. I am sorry for the secrecy, but as for not sending the dragons, that called for no decision. There were no dragons to send.’

Victoriatus heaved his sides out and in, a gentle, measured pace. His nostrils were wide and red, a thick flaking crust edged their rims, and dried pink foam lingered about the corners of his mouth. His eyes were closed, but after every few breaths they would open a little, dull and unseeing with exhaustion; he gave a rasping, hollow cough that flecked the ground before him with blood; and subsided once again into the half-slumber that was all he could manage. His captain, Richard Clark, was lying on a cot beside him: unshaven, in filthy linen, an arm flung up to cover his eyes and the other hand resting on the dragon’s foreleg; he did not move, even when they approached.

After a few moments, Lenton touched Laurence on the arm. ‘Come, enough; let’s away.’ He turned slowly aside, leaning heavily upon a cane, and took Laurence back up the green hill to the castle. The corridors, as they returned to his offices, seemed no longer peaceful but hushed, sunk in irreparable gloom.

Laurence refused a glass of wine, too numb to think of refreshment. ‘It is a sort of consumption,’ Lenton said, looking out the windows that faced onto the covert yard; Victoriatus and twelve other great beasts lay screened from one another by the ancient windbreaks, piled branches and stones grown over with ivy.

‘How widespread?’ Laurence asked.

‘Everywhere,’ Lenton said. ‘Dover, Portsmouth, Middlesbrough. The breeding grounds in Wales and Halifax; Gibraltar; everywhere the couriers went on their rounds; everywhere.’ He turned away from the windows and took his chair again. ‘We were inexpressibly stupid; we thought it was only a cold, you see.’

‘But we had word of that before we had even rounded the Cape of Good Hope, on our journey east,’ Laurence said, appalled. ‘Has it lasted so long?’

‘In Halifax it started in September of the year five,’ Lenton said. ‘The surgeons think now it was the American dragon, that big Indian fellow: he was kept there, and then the first dragons to fall sick here were those who had shared the transport with him to Dover; then it began in Wales when he was sent to the breeding grounds there. He is perfectly hearty, not a cough or a sneeze; very nearly the only dragon left in England who is, except for a handful of hatchlings we have tucked away in Ireland.’

‘You know we have brought you another twenty,’ Laurence said, taking a brief refuge in making his report.

‘Yes, these fellows are from where, Turkestan?’ Lenton said: willing to follow. ‘Did I understand your letter correctly; they were brigands?’

‘I would rather say that they were jealous of their territory,’ Laurence said. ‘They are not very pretty, but there is no malice in them. Though what use twenty dragons can be, to cover all England—’ He stopped. ‘Lenton, surely something can be done? Must be done?’ he said.

Lenton only shook his head briefly. ‘The usual remedies did some good, at the beginning,’ he said. ‘Quieted the coughing, and so forth. They could still fly, if they did not have much appetite; and colds are usually such trifling things with them. But it lingered on so long, and after a while the possets seemed to lose their effect. Some began to grow worse—’

He stopped, and after a long moment he sighed and added with an effort, ‘Obversaria is dead.’

‘Good God!’ Laurence cried. ‘Sir, I am shocked to hear it – so deeply grieved.’ It was a dreadful loss: she had been flying with Lenton some forty years, the flag-dragon at Dover for the last ten, and though relatively young had produced four eggs already; she was perhaps the finest flyer in all England, with few to even compete with her for the title. ‘That was in, let me see, August,’ Lenton said, as if he had not heard. ‘After Inlacrimas, but before Minacitus. It takes some of them worse than others. The very young hold up best, and the old ones linger; it is the ones between who have been dying. Dying first, anyway; I suppose they will all go in the end.’

Chapter Two

‘Captain,’ Keynes said, ‘I am sorry, but any gormless imbecile can bandage up a bullet-wound, and a gormless imbecile is very likely to be assigned in my place. I cannot stay with the healthiest dragon in Britain when the quarantine-coverts are full of the sick.’

‘I perfectly understand, Mr. Keynes, and you need say no more,’ Laurence said. ‘Will you not fly with us as far as Dover?’

‘No; Victoriatus will not last the week; I will wait and attend the dissection with Dr. Harrow,’ Keynes said, with brutal practicality that made Laurence flinch. ‘I hope we may learn something about the characteristics of the disease. Some of the couriers are still flying; one will carry me onwards.’

‘Well,’ Laurence said, and shook the surgeon’s hand. ‘I hope we shall see you with us again soon.’

‘I hope you will not,’ Keynes said, in his usual acerbic manner. ‘If you do, I will otherwise be lacking for patients, which from the course of this disease, will mean they are all dead.’

Laurence could hardly say his spirits were lowered; they had already been reduced so far as to make the doctors loss make little difference. But he was sorry. Dragon-surgeons were not by and large near so incompetent as the naval breed, and despite Keynes’ words Laurence did not fear his eventual successor, but to lose a good man, his courage and sense proven and his eccentricities known, was never pleasant; and Temeraire would not like it.

‘He is not hurt?’ Temeraire pressed. ‘He is not sick?’

‘No, Temeraire; but he is needed elsewhere,’ Laurence said. ‘He is a senior surgeon; I am sure you would not deny his attentions to your comrades suffering from this illness.’

‘Well, if Maximus or Lily should need him,’ Temeraire said, crabbily, and drew furrows in the ground. ‘Shall I see them again soon? I am sure they cannot be so very ill. Maximus is the biggest dragon I have ever seen, even though we have been to China; he is sure to recover quickly.’

‘No, my dear,’ Laurence said, uneasily, and broke the worst of the news. ‘The sick… none of them have recovered, and you must take the very greatest care not to go anywhere near the quarantine-grounds.’

‘But I do not understand,’ Temeraire said. ‘If they do not recover, then—’ He paused.

Laurence only looked away. Temeraire had good excuse for not understanding at once. Dragons were hardy creatures, and many breeds lived a century and more; he might have justly expected to know Maximus and Lily for longer than a man’s lifetime, if the war did not take them from him.

At last, sounding almost bewildered, Temeraire said, ‘But I have so much to tell them – I came for them, so they might learn that dragons may read and write, and have property, and do things other than fight.’

‘I will write a letter for you, which we can send to them with your greetings, and they will be happier to know you are well and safe from contagion than for your company,’ Laurence said. Temeraire did not answer; he was very still, and his head bowed deeply to his chest. ‘We will be nearby,’ Laurence went on, after a moment, ‘and you may write to them every day, if you wish; when we have finished our work.’

‘Patrolling, I suppose,’ Temeraire said, with a very unusual note of bitterness, ‘and more stupid formation-work; while they are all sick, and we can do nothing.’

Laurence looked down, into his lap, where their new orders lay amid the oilcloth packet of all his papers, and had no comfort to offer: brusque instructions for their immediate removal to Dover, where Temeraire’s expectations were likely to be answered in every particular.

He was not encouraged by their arrival at Dover. They reported their presence directly after they had landed, but Laurence was left to cool his heels in the hall outside the new admiral’s office for thirty minutes, listening to voices by no means indistinct despite the heavy oaken door. He recognized Jane Roland shouting; the voices that answered her were unfamiliar too, and Laurence rose to his feet abruptly as the door was flung open. A tall man in a naval coat came rushing out with clothing and expression both disordered, his lower cheeks mottled to a moderate glow under his sideburns; he did not pause, but threw Laurence a furious glare before he left.

‘Come in, Laurence, come in,’ Jane called, and he entered the room. She stood with the admiral, an older man dressed rather astonishingly in a black frockcoat and knee breeches with buckled shoes.

‘You have not met Dr. Wapping, I think,’ Jane said. ‘Sir, this is Captain Laurence, of Temeraire.’

‘Sir,’ Laurence said, and made his leg deep to cover his confusion and dismay. He supposed that if all the dragons were in quarantine, putting the covert in the charge of a physician was the sort of thing that would make sense to landsmen. The notion had once been advanced to him by a family friend seeking his influence on behalf of a less-fortunate relation, to put forward a surgeon – not even a naval surgeon – for the command of a hospital ship.

‘I am honoured to make your acquaintance, Captain,’ Dr. Wapping said. ‘Admiral, I will take my leave; I beg your pardon for having been the cause of so unpleasant a scene.’

‘Nonsense; those rascals at the Victualing Board are a pack of unhanged scoundrels, and I am happy to put them in their place; good day to you. Would you credit it, Laurence,’ Jane said, as Wapping closed the door behind himself, ‘the wretches are not content that the poor creatures eat scarcely enough to feed a bird, but they must send us diseased stock and scrawny too?

‘But this is not any way to welcome you home.’ She caught him by the shoulders and kissed him soundly on both cheeks. ‘You are a damned sight. Whatever has happened to your coat? Will you have a glass of wine?’ She poured for them both without waiting his answer and he took the drink it in a sort of appalled blankness. ‘I have all your letters, so I have a tolerable notion what you have been doing; you must forgive me my silence, Laurence. I found it easier to write nothing than to leave out the only matter of any importance.’

‘No. That is, yes, of course,’ he said, and sat down with her at the fire. Her coat had been thrown over the arm of her chair, and now that he looked, he could see the admiral’s fourth bar on the shoulders; and the front, which was now magnificently frogged with braid. Her face, too, was altered but not for the better: she had lost a stone of weight at least, and her dark hair, cropped short, was shot with grey.

‘Well, I am sorry to be such a ruin,’ she said ruefully, and laughed away his apologies. ‘No, we are all of us decaying, Laurence, there is no denying it. You have seen poor Lenton, I suppose. He held up like a hero for three weeks after she died, but then we found him on the floor of his bedroom in an apoplexy. For a week he could not speak without slurring his words. He came along a good ways afterwards, but he is still only a shade of himself.’

‘I am deeply sorry for it,’ Laurence said, ‘though I drink to your promotion,’ and by a Herculean effort he managed it without a stutter.

‘I thank you, dear fellow,’ she said. ‘I would be full of pride, I suppose, if matters were otherwise, and if it were not one annoyance after another. We glide along tolerably well when left to our own devices, but I must consistently deal with those doltish creatures from the Admiralty. They are told, before they come, and told again, and still they will simper at me, and coo, as if I had not been a-dragonback before they were out of dresses; and then they simply stare when I dress them down for behaving like kiss-my-hand squires.’

‘I suppose they find it a difficult adjustment,’ Laurence said, with private sympathy. ‘I wonder the Admiralty should have—’ He paused, sensing that he was treading on obscure and dangerous ground. One could not very well quarrel with the pursuit, by whatever means necessary, of reconciling Longwings – perhaps Britain’s most deadly breed – to service with the corps. The beasts would accept only female handlers, and some must be offered to them. Laurence regretted the necessity that thrust gently born women out of their rightful society and into harm’s way, but at least they were raised to it. And occasionally, they had chance perforce to act as formation-leaders, transmitting manoeuvres to their wings. But an admiralty was a far cry from flag rank, and she was in command of the largest covert in Britain, and perhaps the most critical at that.

‘They certainly did not like to give it to me, but they had precious little choice,’ Jane said. ‘Portland would not come from Gibraltar; Laetificat is not fit enough for the sea-voyage. So, it was Sanderson or I. He is making a cake of himself over the business; he goes off into corners and weeps like a woman, as though that would help anything. A veteran of nine fleet actions, if you would credit it!’ She ran her hand through her disordered crop and sighed. ‘Never mind, you are not to listen to me, Laurence, I am simply impatient; and his Animosia does poorly.’

‘And Excidium?’ Laurence ventured.

‘Excidium is a tough old bird, and he knows how to husband his strength: he has the sense to eat, even though he has no appetite. He will muddle along a good while yet. And you know, he has close on a century of service; many his age have already rid themselves of the whole business and retired to the breeding grounds.’ She smiled; it was not whole-hearted. ‘There; I have been brave. Let us move on to pleasanter things. I hear you have brought me twenty dragons, and by God do I have a use for them. Let us go and see them.’

‘She is a handful and a half,’ Granby admitted softly, as they considered the coiled serpentine length of Iskierka’s body, faint threads of steam issuing from the many needle-like spikes upon her body, ‘and I didn’t ride herd on her, sir, I am sorry.’

Iskierka had already established herself to her own satisfaction, if no one else’s, by clawing out a deep pit in the clearing next to Temeraire’s where she had been housed, and then filling it with ash acquired from the demise of some two dozen young trees, the largest she could manage at present. She had unceremoniously uprooted and burnt them inside her pit, then added a collection of boulders to the powdery grey mixture, which she fired to a moderate glow before falling asleep in her heated nest. The bonfire and its lingering smoulder were visible for some distance, even from the farmhouses nearest the covert; and after only a few hours, her arrival had produced several complaints and a great deal of alarm.

‘Oh, you have done enough keeping her harnessed out in the countryside, and without a head of cattle to your name,’ Jane said, giving the drowsing Iskierka’s side a pat. ‘They may bleat to me all they like, she’s a fire-breather and you may be sure the Navy will cheer your name when they hear we have our own at last. Well done; well done indeed, and I am happy to confirm you in your rank, Captain Granby. Should you like to do the honours, Laurence?’

Most of Laurence’s crew had already been employed in Iskierka’s clearing, beating out the stray embers which flew from her pit and threatened to ignite all the entire covert if left unchecked. Ash-dusty and tired as they all were, they had stayed, lingering consciously without the need of any announcement. They lined up on one muttered word from young Lieutenant Ferris to watch Laurence pin a second pair of gold bars upon Granby’s shoulders.

‘Gentlemen,’ Jane said, when Laurence had done, and they gave a cheek-flushed Granby three huzzahs, whole-hearted if a little subdued, and Ferris and Riggs stepped over to shake him by the hand.

‘We will see about assigning you a crew, though it is early days with her yet,’ Jane said, after the ceremony had dispersed, and they proceeded on to make her acquainted with the ferals. ‘I have no shortage of men now, more’s the pity. Feed her twice daily, see if we cannot make up for any growth she may have been shorted, and whenever she is awake I will start you on Longwing manoeuvres. I don’t know if she can scorch herself, as they can with their own acid, but we needn’t find out by trial.’

Granby nodded; he seemed not the least nonplussed at answering to her. Neither did Tharkay, who had been persuaded to stay on at least a little longer, as one of the few of them with any influence upon the ferals at all. He rather looked mostly amused, in his secretive way, once past the inquiring glance which he had first cast at Laurence: as Jane had insisted upon being taken to the new-come dragons at once, there had been no chance for Laurence to give Tharkay a private caution in advance of their meeting. He did not reveal any surprise, however, but only made her a polite bow, and performed the introductions calmly.

Arkady and his band had made no little less confusion of their own clearings than Iskierka, preferring to knock down all the trees between them and cluster together in a great heap. The chill of the December air did not trouble them, used as they were to the vastly colder regions of the Pamirs, but they spoke disapprovingly of the dampness, and on discovering the senior officer of the covert before them, at once demanded an accounting of their promised cows, from her: one apiece daily, was the offer by which they had been lured into service.

‘They make the argument that if they do not eat their share of cows upon a given day, that they are still owed the cattle, and may call the credit in at a future time,’ Tharkay explained, igniting Jane’s deep laugh.

‘Tell them they shall have as much as they can eat on any occasion, and if they are too suspicious for that to satisfy them, we shall make them a tally. Each of them may take one of the logs they have knocked over to the feeding pens, and mark it each time they take a cow,’ Jane said, more merry than offended at being met with a negotiation. ‘Pray ask, will they agree to a rate of exchange? Two hogs for a cow, or two sheep, should we bring in some variety of livestock?’

The ferals put their heads together and muttered, hissed and whistled among themselves in a cacophony made private only by the obscurity of their language. Finally Arkady turned back and professed himself willing to settle, on the proviso that the rate for goats would be three to one cow; they had some measure of contempt for the species being the animals most easily obtained in their former homeland, and they also suspected them of being scrawny.

Jane bowed to him to seal the arrangement, and he bobbed his head back. His expression was one of deeply satisfaction and rendered all the more piratical by the red splash of colour covering one of his eyes and spilling down his neck.

‘They are a gang of ruffians and make no mistake,’ Jane said, as she led them back to her offices, ‘but I have no doubt of their flying capabilities, at any rate: with that sort of wiry muscle they will fly circles around anything in their weight-class, or over it, and I am happy to stuff their bellies for them.’

‘No, sir; there’ll be no trouble,’ the steward of the headquarters said, rather quietly, promising to find rooms for Laurence and his officers. Most of the other captains and officers were encamped in the quarantine-grounds with their sick dragons, despite the cold and wet, and so the building was deserted; even more hushed and silent than it had been during the low-ebb before Trafalgar, when nearly all the formations had gone south to help bring down the French and Spanish fleets.

They all drank Granby’s health, but the party broke up early, and Laurence was not disposed to linger. A few wretched lieutenants sat at a dark table in the corner, without talking; an older captain snored, his head tipped against the side of his armchair and a bottle of brandy empty by his elbow. Laurence took his supper alone in his rooms and drank his port near the fire.

He opened the door at a faint tapping, expecting perhaps Jane, or one of his men had come with some word from Temeraire, but was startled to find Tharkay instead. ‘Pray come in,’ Laurence said, and belatedly added, ‘I hope you will forgive my state.’ The room was disordered, and he had borrowed a dressing-gown from a colleague’s neglected wardrobe. It was considerably too large around the waist, and badly crumpled.

‘I am come to say good-bye,’ Tharkay said, and, ‘No, I have nothing to complain of,’ when Laurence had made an awkward inquiry, ‘but I am not of your company. I do not care to stay as only a translator; it is a role which would soon pall.’

‘I would be happy to speak to Admiral Roland – perhaps a commission—’ Laurence said, trailing away; he did not know what might be done, or how such matters were arranged in the Corps, except to imagine them a good deal less formally prescribed than in the Army, or the Navy. Tharkay was an asset of inestimable value to them as a linguist; and Laurence would have argued gladly for any measure that might persuade him to stay.

‘I have already spoken to the Admiral,’ Tharkay said, ‘and have been given one, if not the sort you mean: I will go back to Turkestan and enlist more ferals, if any more can be persuaded into your service on similar terms.’

‘No matter how mean and scrawny they are,’ Jane said, entering the room without ceremony and stripping off her gloves, which were stained by the sour-milk odour of dragon mucus, and acrid smoke. ‘Pray don’t think me ungrateful, Laurence,’ she added, coming to warm her hands at the fire, ‘it is 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 with them; but I would be a good deal happier to have another twenty at such a price.’

Laurence would have been a good deal happier to have the first twenty ferals more manageable; a quality they were not more likely to gain after Tharkay’s departure. ‘I will pray for your safe return,’ Laurence said, and offered his hand in farewell. He could not object, it was hard to imagine that Tharkay’s pride might allow him to remain as a supernumerary, even if mere restlessness did not drive him on.

‘What an odd fellow you have found us, Laurence,’ Jane said, when Tharkay had gone. ‘I ought to give him his weight in gold, and would, if the Admiralty would not squawk. Twenty dragons talked out of the trees, like Merlin; or was it St. Patrick? Never mind, come to my rooms, if you please. This place has a cursed draft, and my maps are there.’

The map of Europe was laid out on her table, covered with great clots of markers, representing dragon positions 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 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 too, they have changed entirely. Formations are of no use against him; at Jena, the Prussians were routed, wholly routed. We must begin devising counters to his new methods at once.’

But she was already shaking her head. ‘Do you know, Laurence, I have less than forty dragons fit to fly? Unless Bonaparte 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 defence.’

The scope of the disaster silenced him: only forty dragons, to patrol the south coast, and give cover to the ships of the blockade.

‘What we need at present is time,’ Jane continued. ‘There are a dozen hatchlings in Ireland, preserved from contagion, 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 is good enough to give us a year, the rest of these new shore-batteries will be in place, the young dragons brought up, and we’ll have 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. There were not many near the Channel yet; but he had seen first-hand how swiftly Napoleon’s dragon-borne army could move.

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

‘But we can 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. In a year’s time 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. In an attempt to cheer him, Laurence added, ‘But we need not abandon your cause, not in the least. I cannot write my father, as relations between us stand; but 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 for 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 occupied in squabbling amongst themselves than in paying any attention to the sky; Temeraire was in no way inclined to make them mind, and with Tharkay gone, the few hapless officers set upon their backs had very little hope of exerting any form of control.

These young men had been chosen for their language skills. The ferals all far too old, in draconic terms, to acquire a new tongue easily, so their officers would have to learn theirs instead. To hear them trying to whistle and cluck the awkward syllables of the Durzagh language had quickly palled as entertainment and become a nuisance to the ear. But it had also to be endured; no one aside from Temeraire knew the tongue fluently, and only a few of Laurence’s younger officers had acquired a smattering in the course of their journey to Istanbul.

Laurence had indeed lost two of his already-diminished number of officers to the cause: both Dunne, one of the riflemen, and Wickley of the bellmen had a good enough grasp of Durzagh to translate basic signals, and were not so young as to make command absurd. They had been set aboard Arkady in a highly theoretical position of authority; the natural bond which the first harnessing seemed to produce was absent of course, and Arkady was far more likely to obey his own whimsical impulse than any orders which they might give. The feral leader had already expressed his opinion that flying over the ocean was absurd, he proclaimed it a useless territory for which no reasonable dragon would have interest, and the likelihood that he would veer away at any given moment in search of better entertainment seemed to Laurence precariously high.

Jane had set them a course along the coastline, for their first excursion. There was no risk at all of action, so near to land, but at least the cliffs interested the ferals. The bustle of shipping around Portsmouth had drawn their eye, and they would gladly have investigated further if not called to order by Temeraire. They flew on past Southampton and westward along towards Weymouth, setting a leisurely pace. The ferals resorted to wild acrobatics for entertainment; swooping to heights that should have rendered them dizzy and ill, save for their habituation among the loftiest mountains on the earth. They plummeted into absurd and dangerous diving manoeuvres, skimming the sea so closely that they threw up spray from the waves. It was a sad waste of energy, but the ferals now were well-fed by comparison to their previous state, and they had a surfeit which Laurence was glad enough to see spent in so unrestrained a manner, even if the officers clinging sickly to their harnesses did not agree.

‘Perhaps we might try a little fishing,’ Temeraire suggested, turning his head around, when little Gherni abruptly cried out above them, and then the world spun and whirled as Temeraire flung himself sidelong; a Pêcheur-Rayé went flying past them, and the champagne-popping of rifle-fire spat at them from his back.

‘To stations,’ Ferris was shouting, men scrambling wildly; the bellmen were casting off a handful of bombs down on the recovering French dragon below while Temeraire veered away, climbing. Arkady and the ferals were shrilly calling to one another, wheeling excitedly; they flung themselves with eagerness on the French dragons: a light scouting party of six, as best Laurence could make out among the low-lying clouds, the Pêcheur the largest of the lot and the rest all light-weights or couriers; both outnumbered and outweighed, therefore, and reckless to be coming so close to British shores.

Reckless, or deliberately venturesome; Laurence thought grimly it could not have escaped the notice of the French that their last encounter had brought no answer from the coverts.

‘Laurence, I am going after that Pêcheur; Arkady and the others will take the rest,’ Temeraire said, curving his head around even as he dived.

The ferals were not shy by any means, and gifted skirmishers, from all their play; Laurence thought it safe to leave the smaller dragons entirely to them. ‘Pray make no sustained attack,’ he called, through the speaking-trumpet. ‘Only roust them from the shore, as quickly as you may—’ as the hollow thump-thump of bombs, exploding below, interrupted.

Their own battle was not a long one; without the hope of surprise, the Pêcheur knew himself thoroughly overmatched, Temeraire a more agile flyer and in a wholly different class so far as weight. Having risked and lost a throw of the dice, he and his captain were evidently not inclined to try their luck again; Temeraire had scarcely stooped before the Pêcheur dropped low to the water and beat away quickly over the waves, his riflemen keeping up a steady fusillade to clear his retreat.

Laurence turned his attention above, to the furious howling of the ferals’ voices: they could scarcely be seen, having lured the French high aloft, where their greater ease with the thin air could tell to their advantage. ‘Where the devil is my glass?’ he said, and took it from Allen. The ferals were making a sort of taunting game of the business, darting in at the French dragons and away, setting up a raucous caterwauling as they went, without very much actual fighting to be seen. It would have done nicely to frighten away a rival gang in the wild, Laurence supposed, particularly one so outnumbered, but he did not think the French were to be so easily diverted; indeed as he watched, the five enemy dragons, all of them little Poux-de-Ciels, drew into close formation and promptly bowled through the cloud of ferals.

The ferals, still focused on their show of bravado, scattered too late to evade the rifle-fire, and now some of their shrill cries expressed real pain. Temeraire was beating furiously, his sides belling out like sails as he heaved for the breath to get himself as high, but he could not easily gain such altitude, and would be at a disadvantage to the smaller French beasts when he did. ‘Give them a gun, quickly, and show the signal for descent,’ Laurence shouted to Turner, without much hope; but the ferals came plummeting down in a rush when Turner put out the flags, none too reluctant to position themselves around Temeraire.

Arkady was keeping up a low, indignant clamouring under his breath, nudging anxiously at his second Wringe, the worst-hit, her dark grey hide marred with streaks of darker blood. She had taken several balls to the flesh and one unlucky hit to the right wing, which had struck her on the bias and scraped a long, ugly furrow across the tender webbing and two spines; she was listing in mid-air awkwardly as she tried to favour it.

‘Send her below to shore,’ Laurence said, scarcely needing the speaking-trumpet with the dragons crowded so close that they might have been talking in a clearing and not the open sky. ‘And pray tell them again, they must keep well-clear of the guns; I am sorry they have had so hot a lesson. Let us keep together and—’ but this came too late, as the French were advancing down in arrow-head formation, and the ferals followed his first instruction too closely on and had spread themselves out across the sky.

The French also at once separated; even together they were not a match for Temeraire, who they had surely recognized, and by way of protection engaged themselves closely with the ferals. It must have been an odd experience for them; Poux-de-Ciel were generally the lightest of the French combat breeds, and now they were finding themselves the relative heavy-weights in battle against the ferals, who even where their wingspan and length matched were all of them lean and concave-bellied creatures, a sharp contrast against the deep-chested muscle of their opponents.

The ferals were now more wary, but also more savage, hot with anger at the injury to their fellow and their own smaller stinging wounds. They used their darting lunges to better effect, learning quickly how to feint in and provoke the rifle volleys, then come in again for a real attack. The smallest of them, Gherni and little motley-coloured Lester, were attacking one Pou-de-Ciel together, with the more wily Hertaz pouncing in every now and again, claws blackened with blood; the others were engaged singly, and more than holding their own, but Laurence quickly perceived the danger, even as Temeraire called, ‘Arkady! Bnezh s’li taqom—’ and broke off to say, ‘Laurence, they are not listening to me.’

‘Yes, they will be in the soup in a moment,’ Laurence agreed; the French dragons, though they seemed on the face of it to be fighting as independently as the ferals, were all manoeuvring skilfully, their backs to one another; indeed they were only allowing the ferals to herd them into formation, which should allow them to make another devastating pass. ‘Can you break them apart, when they have come together?’

‘I do not see how I will be able to do it, without hurting our friends; they are so close to one another, and some of them are so little,’ Temeraire said anxiously, tail lashing as he hovered.

‘Sir,’ Ferris said, and Laurence looked at him. ‘I beg your pardon, sir, but we are always told, as a rule, to take a bruising before a ball; it don’t hurt them long, even if they are knocked properly silly, and we are close enough to give any of them a lift to land, if it should go so badly.’

‘Very good; thank you, Mr. Ferris,’ Laurence said, putting strong approval in it; he was still very glad to see Granby matched off with Iskierka, even more so when dragons would now be in such short supply, but he felt the loss keenly, as exposing the weaknesses in his own abbreviated training as an aviator. Ferris had risen to his occasions with near-heroism, but he had been but a third lieutenant on their departure from England, scarcely a year ago, and at nineteen years of age could not be expected to put himself forward to his captain with the assurance of an experienced officer.

Temeraire put his head down and puffed up his chest with a deep breath, then flung himself down among the shrinking knot of dragons, and barrelled through with much the effect of a cat descending upon an unsuspecting flock of pigeons. Friend and foe alike went tumbling wildly; and thankfully, the ferals, used to rough play, were none of them much the worse for wear, except for being flung into higher excitement. They flew around with much disorderly shrilling for a few moments, and as they did, the French righted themselves: the formation leader waved a signal-flag, and the Poux-de-Ciel wheeled together and away, escaping.

Arkady and the ferals did not pursue, but came gleefully romping back over to Temeraire, alternating complaints at his having knocked them about, with boastful prancing over their victory and the rout of the enemy, which Arkady implied was in spite of Temeraire’s jealous interference. ‘That is not true, at all,’ Temeraire said, outraged, ‘you would have been perfectly dished without me,’ and turned his back upon them and flew towards land, his ruff stiffened up with indignation.

Wringe was sitting and licking at her scarred wing in the middle of a field. A few clumps of bloodstained white wool upon the grass, and a certain atmosphere of carnage in the air, suggested she had quietly found herself some consolation; but Laurence chose to be blind. Arkady immediately set up as a hero for her benefit, and paraded back and forth to re-enact the encounter. So far as Laurence could follow, the battle might have raged a fortnight, and engaged some hundreds of enemy beasts, all of them vanquished by Arkady’s solitary efforts. Temeraire snorted and flicked his tail in disdain, but the other ferals proved perfectly happy to applaud the revised account, though they occasionally jumped up to interject stories of their own noble exploits.

Laurence meanwhile had dismounted; his new surgeon Dorset, a rather thin and nervous young man, bespectacled and given to stammering, was going over Wringe’s injuries. ‘Will she be well enough to make the flight back to Dover?’ Laurence inquired; the scraped wing looked nasty, what he could see of it; she uneasily kept trying to fold it close and away from the inspection, though fortunately Arkady’s theatrics were keeping her distracted enough that Dorset could make some attempt at handling it.

‘No,’ Dorset said absently, with not the shade of a stammer and a quite casual authority. ‘She needs to lie quiet a day or so under a poultice; and those balls must come out of her shoulder presently, although not now. There’s a courier-ground outside Weymouth, which has been taken off the routes and will be free from infection. We must find a way to get her there.’ He let go of her wing and turned back to Laurence blinking watery eyes.

‘Very well,’ Laurence said, bemused; at the change in his demeanour more than the certainty alone. ‘Mr. Ferris, have you the maps?’

‘Yes, sir; though it is twelve miles straight flying to Weymouth covert across the water, sir, if you please,’ Ferris said, hesitating over the leather wallet of maps.

Laurence nodded and waved them away. ‘Temeraire can support her so far, I am sure.’

Her weight posed less difficulty than her unease with the proposed arrangement, and, too, Arkady’s sudden fit of jealousy, which caused him to propose himself as a substitute: quite ineligible, as Wringe outweighed him by several tons, and they should not have lifted him a yard off the ground.

‘Pray do not be so silly,’ Temeraire said, as she dubiously expressed her reservations at being ferried. ‘I am not going to drop you unless you bite me. You have only to lie quiet, and it is a very short way.’

Chapter Three

They reached the Weymouth covert only a little short of dusk, somewhat dispirited. Wringe had expressed her intention seven times during the course of their flight, of climbing off mid-air and flying the rest of the way herself. Then she had accidentally scratched Temeraire twice, in startlement, and had even thrown a couple of the topmen clean off his back with her uneasy shifting. Their lives were saved only by their carabiner-locked straps. On landing, they were both handed down badly bruised and ill from the knocking they had taken, and assisted by their fellows, they limped away to be dosed liberally with brandy at the small barracks-house.

Wringe then put up a fuss upon having the bullets extracted, sidling her hindquarters away when Dorset approached, knife in hand. She insisted that she was quite well, but Temeraire was sufficiently exasperated by now to have lost patience with her evasions, and his low rumbling growl, resonating upon the hard-packed earth, made her flatten to the ground meekly and submit.

‘That will do,’ Dorset said, having pried out the third and final of the balls. ‘Now let’s have some fresh meat for her, just to be sure, and a night’s quiet rest. This dry ground is too hard,’ he added, with disapproval, as he climbed down from her shoulder, the three balls rattling bloodily in his little basin.

‘I do not care if it is the hardest ground in Britain; only let me have a cow and I will sleep,’ Temeraire said wearily, leaning his head so that Laurence could stroke his muzzle while his own shallow cuts were poulticed. He ate the cow in three tremendous tearing gulps, hooves to horns, tipping his head backwards to let the last bite of hindquarters slip down his throat. The farmer who had been prevailed upon to bring some of his beasts to the covert stood paralyzed in macabre fascination, his mouth agape, His two farm-hands stood likewise, their eyes starting from their heads. Laurence pressed a few more guineas into the man’s unresisting hand and hurried them all off; it would do Temeraire’s cause no good to have fresh and lurid tales of draconic savagery spreading.

The ferals disposed of themselves directly around the wounded Wringe, sheltering her from any draft and pillowing themselves one upon the other as comfortably as they could manage, the smaller ones among them crawling upon Temeraire’s back directly he had fallen asleep.

It was too cold to sleep out, and they had not brought tents with them on patrol; Laurence meant to leave the barracks, small enough in all conscience without dividing off a captain’s partition, to his men, and take himself to a hotel, if one might be had; in any case he would have been glad of a chance to send word back to Dover by the stage, that their absence would not occasion distress. He did not trust any of the ferals to go alone, yet, with their few officers so unfamiliar.

Ferris approached as Laurence made inquiry of the few tenants of the covert. ‘Sir, if you please, my family are here in Weymouth; I am sure my mother would be very happy if you chose to stay the night,’ he said, adding, with a quick, anxious glance that belied the easy way in which he issued this invitation, ‘I should only like to send word ahead.’

‘That is handsome of you, Mr. Ferris; I would be grateful, if I should not be putting her out,’ Laurence said. He did not miss the anxiety. It was likely that Ferris felt compelled to make the invitation out of courtesy, and would have done so even if his family had not so much as an attic corner and a crust of bread to spare. Most of his younger gentlemen, indeed most of the Corps, were drawn from the ranks of what could only be called the shabby-gentility. He knew that they were inclined to think him higher than he himself did: his father kept a grand state, certainly, but Laurence had not spent three months together at home since taking to sea, without much sorrow inflicted on either side, except perhaps for his mother’s, and so he was better accustomed to a hanging berth than a palace.

Even so, he would have spared Ferris out of sympathy but for the likely difficulty of finding other lodgings; and his own weary desire to be settled, even if it were indeed in an attic corner, with a crust of bread. With the noise of the day behind them, he was finding it difficult not to yield to a lowness of spirit. The ferals had behaved as badly as expected, and he could not help but think how impossible it would be to guard the Channel with such a company. The contrast to the fine and ordered ranks of British formations could not have been greater. But those ranks were now decimated, and he felt their absence keenly.

The word was sent accordingly and a carriage was summoned. It was waiting outside the covert gates by the time they had gathered their things and walked to meet it down the long narrow path which led away from the dragon-clearings.

A twenty minute drive brought them to the outskirts of Weymouth. Ferris grew more hunched as they bowled along, and became so miserably white that Laurence might have thought him taken ill with motion sickness if he had not known Ferris to be perfectly settled through thunderstorms aloft and typhoons at sea. He was not likely to be distressed by the motion of a comfortable, well-sprung chaise. The carriage turned, then, drawing into a heavily wooded lane. Shortly the forest parted and they drew abreast of the house: a vast and sprawling gothic edifice, its blackened stone barely visible behind centuries of ivy; the windows illuminated, threw a beautiful golden light onto a small ornamental brook which wound through the open lawn before the house.

‘A very fine prospect, Mr. Ferris,’ Laurence said as they rattled over the bridge. ‘You must be sorry not to be at home more often. Has your family resided here long?’

‘Oh, for an age,’ Ferris said, blankly, lifting his head. ‘It was built by some crusader or other, I think, I don’t much know.’

Laurence hesitated and then a little reluctantly offered, ‘My father and I have disagreed on occasion, I am sorry to say, so I am not often at home.’

‘Mine is dead,’ Ferris said. After a moment, he seemed to realize that this was rather an abrupt period to the conversation, and so added with some effort, ‘My brother Albert is a good sort, I suppose, but he has ten years on me and so we have never really come to know one another.’

‘Ah,’ Laurence said, left no more the wiser as to the cause of his dismay.

There was certainly nothing lacking in their welcome. Laurence had braced himself for the usual neglect. He expected to be shown directly to rooms out of sight of the rest of the company and was even tired enough now to hope to be slighted. But nothing of the sort: a dozen footmen were out with their lights lining the drive, another two waiting with the step to hand them down, and a substantial body of the staff coming outside to greet them despite the cold and what must surely have been a full house within to manage, a wholly unnecessary ostentation.

Ferris blurted desperately, just as the horses were drawn up, ‘Sir – I hope you will not take it to heart, if my mother – She means well—’ The footmen opened the door, and discretion forced Ferris’s mouth closed.

They were shown to the drawing-room and found company assembled to meet them: not very large, but decidedly elegant. The women wore clothing of an unfamiliar style, the surest mark of the height of fashion to a man who was often separated from society for a year at a time. Several of the gentlemen bordered on outright dandyism. Laurence noted it all mechanically; he wore trousers and Hessians himself, and those were dust-stained, but he could not be brought to care very much, even when he saw that the other gentlemen were dressed more formally in knee-breeches. There were also a couple of military men among their number, a colonel of the marines whose long, seamy, sun-leathered face held a vague familiarity that most likely meant they had dined together on one ship or another, and a tall army captain in a red coat, stood near him, lantern-jawed and blue-eyed.

‘Henry, my dear!’ A tall woman rose from her seat to come and greet them with both her hands outstretched: too like Ferris to mistake her, with the same high forehead and reddish-brown hair, and the same trick of holding her head very straight, which made her neck look longer. ‘How happy we are you have come!’

‘Mother,’ Ferris said, woodenly, and bent to kiss her obliging cheek. ‘May I present Captain Laurence? Sir, this is Lady Catherine Seymour, my mother.’

‘Captain Laurence, I am overjoyed to make your acquaintance,’ she said, offering him her hand.

‘My lady,’ Laurence said, giving her a formal leg. ‘I am very sorry to intrude upon you; I beg you will forgive us arriving in all our dirt.’

‘Any officer of His Majesty’s Aerial Corps is welcome in this house, Captain,’ she declared, ‘at any moment of day or night, I assure you, and should he come with no introduction at all, he should be welcome still.’

Laurence did not know what to say to this. He would no more have descended upon a strange house without introduction than loot one. The hour was late, but not uncivilized, and he was accompanied by her own son, so found such reassurances to be unnecessary, but having been invited and welcomed, he settled on a vague, ‘Very kind.’

The company was not similarly effusive. Ferris’s eldest brother Albert, the present Lord Seymour, was a little haughty. He made the early point, when Laurence complimented his house, of conveying that the house was called Heytham Abbey, and had been in their possession since the reign of Charles II. The head of the family had risen from knight to baronet to baron in a steady climb, and had there remained.

‘I congratulate you,’ Laurence said, dismissing the obvious opening to puff about his own consequence; he was an aviator now, and knew well that such evil outweighed any other considerations in the eyes of Society. He could not help but wonder why they should have sent a son to the corps; there was no sign of it being an encumbered estate: while appearances might be sustained on credit, so extravagant a number of servants could not have been managed.

Dinner was announced shortly after they arrived, to Laurence’s surprise; he had hoped for nothing more than a little cold supper, and thought it late even for that much. ‘Oh, think nothing of it, we are grown modern, and often keep town hours even when we are in the country,’ Lady Catherine cried. ‘We have so much company from London that it would be tiresome for them to be constantly adjusting their dinner-hour. Dishes would be sent away half-eaten, only to be wished for later. Now, we will certainly not stand on formality; I must have Henry beside me, for I am longing to hear all you have been doing, my dear, and Captain Laurence, you shall escort Lady Seymour, of course.’

Laurence could only bow politely and offer his arm, although Lord Seymour certainly ought to have preceded him, even if Lady Catherine chose to make a natural exception for her younger son. Her daughter-law looked for a moment as if she were going to balk at the offer, but then she laid her hand on his arm without any further hesitation, and he chose not to notice.

‘Henry is my youngest, you know,’ Lady Catherine said to Laurence over the second course; he was on her right. ‘Second sons in this house have always gone to the drum, and the third to the Corps, and I hope that may never change.’ This, Laurence thought might have been subtly directed at his dinner companion, but Lady Seymour gave no sign that she had heard her mother-in-law as she continued to speak with the gentleman on her right, the army captain, who was Ferris’s other brother, Richard. ‘I am very glad, Captain Laurence, to meet a gentleman whose family feels as I do on the matter.’

Laurence, who had only narrowly escaped being thrown from his house by his irate father due to his shift in profession, could not in honesty accept this compliment, and with some awkwardness said, ‘Ma’am, I beg your pardon, I must confess you do us credit and yet we have not earned it. Younger sons in my family are supposed to go to the Church, but I was mad for the sea, and would have no other.’ He was then forced to explain his accidental acquisition of Temeraire and subsequent transfer to the Aerial Corps.

‘I will not withdraw my remarks, sir. It is even more to their credit that you have principle enough to do your duty when it was presented to you,’ Lady Catherine said firmly. ‘It is shameful, the disdain that so many of our finest families profess for the Corps, and I will never hold with them in the least.’

The dishes were being changed once again as she made this ringing and overly-loud speech. Laurence noticed, baffled, that they were returning nearly untouched after all. The food had been excellent, therefore he could only conceive that Lady Catherine’s protestations were humbug, and that they had already dined earlier in the evening. He watched covertly as the next course was dished out, and indeed, the ladies in particular, picked unenthusiastically at the food, scarcely bothering to uphold the pretence of conveying morsels to their mouths. Of the gentlemen only Colonel Prayle seemed to make any serious progress. He caught Laurence looking and gave him just the slightest wink, then continued eating with the steady trencherman rhythm of a professional soldier, used to taking advantage of any food when it was before him.

If they had been a large party, coming late to an empty house, Laurence might have understood a gracious host holding back dinner for their convenience, or serving them a later second meal at the table, but the assumption that they might have been offended by a simple private supper, when the rest of the company had already dined, was absurd. He was obliged to sit through several more removes, uncomfortably aware that they were a pleasure for no one else. Ferris ate sparingly, with his head down; ordinarily he possessed as rapacious an appetite as any nineteen-year-old boy unpredictably fed of late.

When the ladies departed to the drawing room, Lord Seymour began to offer port and cigars, with a determined, if false, note of heartiness. Laurence refused all but the smallest glass for politeness’ sake. No one objected to rejoining the ladies quickly, most of them had already started to droop by the fire even though not half an hour had elapsed.

No one proposed cards or music; the conversation was low and leaden. ‘How dull you all are tonight!’ Lady Catherine rallied them, with a nervous energy. ‘You will give Captain Laurence a quite disgusting impression of our society.

‘You cannot often have been in Dorset, I suppose, Captain.’

‘No, I have not had the pleasure before, ma’am,’ Laurence said. ‘My uncle lives near Wimbourne, but I have not visited him in many years.’

‘Oh! The perhaps you are acquainted with Mrs. Brantham’s family?’

One of the ladies, who had been nodding off, roused long enough to say, with sleepy tactlessness, ‘I am sure he is not.’

‘It is not likely that I been introduced, ma’am; my uncle moves very rarely outside his political circles,’ Laurence said, after a pause. ‘Also, my service has kept me from enjoying wider society, particularly these last few years.’

‘But what compensations you must have had!’ Lady Catherine said. ‘I am sure it must be glorious to travel by dragon, without any worry that you could be sunk in a gale, and to arrive so much more quickly.’

‘Ha ha, unless your ship grows tired of the journey and eats you,’ Captain Ferris said, nudging his younger brother with his elbow.

‘Richard, what nonsense, as if there were any danger of such a thing! I must insist that you withdraw the remark,’ Lady Catherine said. ‘You offend our guest.’

‘Not at all, ma’am,’ Laurence said, discomfited; the vigour of her objection gave an undeserved weight to the joke. He could more easily have borne the jest than her compliments, which he could not help but feel were excessive and insincere.

‘You are kind to be so tolerant,’ she said. ‘Of course, Richard was only joking, but you would be simply appalled to know how many people in society say such things and believe them. I am sure it is very poor-spirited to be afraid of dragons.’

’ ‘I am afraid it is only the natural consequence,’ Laurence said, ‘of the unfortunate state of affairs that prevails in our country, which keeps dragons isolated in distant coverts and encourages horrific conjecture.’

‘But, what else is to be done with them?’ Lord Seymour said. ‘Are we to put them in the village square?’ He amused himself greatly with this suggestion; he was by now uncomfortably florid of face, having heroically performed his duty as host over a second dinner. Even now he did justice to another glass of port, over which he coughed as he laughed.

‘In China, they can be seen in the streets of every town and city,’ Laurence said. ‘They sleep in pavilions no more separated from residences than town-houses in London.’

‘Heavens;’ I would not sleep a wink,’ Mrs. Brantham said, with a shudder. ‘How dreadful these foreign customs are.’

‘It seems to me a most peculiar arrangement,’ Seymour said, his brows drawing together. ‘How do the horses stand it? My driver in town must go a mile out of his way when the wind is in the wrong quarter and blowing over the covert, because the beasts get so skittish.’

Laurence had to concede that even in China they did not cope well; horses were not often evident in the cities, except for trained cavalry beasts. ‘But I assure you their lack is not felt; they employ dragons as living carriages, and citizens of higher estate are conveyed individually by courier, at as you can imagine a much higher rate of speed. Indeed, Bonaparte himself has adopted the system, at least within his encampments.’

‘Oh, Bonaparte,’ Seymour said. ‘No; thank goodness we organize things more sensibly here. I have been meaning to congratulate you. Ordinarily, not a month goes by when my tenants do not complain about the patrols passing overhead, frightening their cattle to pieces and leaving their—’ he waved his hand expressively as a concession to the ladies ‘—everywhere, but this six-month there has been not a peep from them. I suppose you have implemented new routes, and none too soon. I had nearly made up my mind to raise the matter in Parliament.’

Though aware of the circumstance reducing the frequency of the patrols, Laurence could not answer this remark in a civil fashion; so he did not answer at all, and instead went to fill his glass again.

He took it away and went to stand by the window furthest from the fire, to keep his senses refreshed by the cool draught. Lady Seymour had taken a seat beside it for the same reason. She had put aside her wineglass and was slowly fanning herself. When he had stood there for a moment she made a visible effort to engage him. ‘So Captain, you were forced to shift from the Navy to the Aerial Corps? It must have been very hard. I suppose you must have gone to sea when you were fully mature?’

‘I first took ship at the age of twelve, ma’am,’ Laurence said.

‘Oh! But you must have come home, from time to time, surely? And twelve years is not as young as the schooling age of seven; no one can say there is no difference. Even so, I am sure your mother must never have thought of sending you from home at such an age.’

Laurence hesitated, conscious that Lady Catherine and indeed most of the other company, who had not dozed off, were now listening to their conversation. ‘I was fortunate to secure a berth more often than not, so I was not much at home.’ he said, as neutrally as he could. ‘I am sure it must be hard, for a mother, in either case.’

‘Hard! Of course it is hard,’ Lady Catherine said, interjecting. ‘What of it? We mothers ought to have the courage to send our sons, if we expect them to have the courage to go, and we should not view it as some sort of grudging sacrifice and send them off so late that they are too old to properly take to the life.’

‘I suppose,’ Lady Seymour said, with a tight, angry smile, ‘that we might also starve our children, to accustom them to privation, and force them to sleep in a pigsty, so they might learn to endure filth and cold.’

What little other conversation had gone forward, now was completely extinguished. Spots of colour stood high on Lady Catherine’s cheeks. Lord Seymour snored prudently by the fire, his eyes shut, and poor Lieutenant Ferris had retreated into the opposite corner of the room and was staring fixedly out the window into the pitch-dark grounds, where nothing was to be seen.

Laurence, sorry to have blundered into an long-standing quarrel, attempted to make peace, and said, ‘I hope you will permit me to say that I have found the Corps to be undeserving of the character it has been given. I believe it to be no more dangerous or distasteful day to day, than any other branch of the military; I can, from my own experience, say that our sailors face as much hard duty as the aviators, and I am sure that Captain Ferris and Colonel Prayle will attest to the privations of their respective services,’ he raised his glass to those gentlemen.

‘Hear, hear,’ Prayle said, coming to his aid, jovially, ‘aviators cannot claim all the hard luck. We fellows also deserve our fair share of your sympathy. But you may be sure that they will always possess the latest news of the war; Captain Laurence, you must know better than any of us, what is occurring on the Continent. Tell us, is Bonaparte preparing for invasion again, now that he has packed the Russians off home?’

‘Pray do not speak of that monster,’ Mrs. Brantham spoke up. ‘I am sure I have never heard anything half so dreadful as what he has done to the Queen of Prussia by taking both her sons away to Paris!’

At this, Lady Seymour, still flushed, spoke out, ‘Poor woman, she must be in agony. What mother’s heart could bear it! Mine would break to pieces, I know.’

‘I am sorry to hear that,’ Laurence said, to Mrs. Brantham, breaking the awkward silence that followed. ‘They are very brave children.’

‘Henry tells me you have had the honour of meeting them, during your service, Captain Laurence, and the Queen too,’ Lady Catherine said. ‘I am sure you must agree, that however much her heart should break, she would never encourage her sons to be cowards, and hide behind her skirts.’

He could say nothing to this without prolonging the squabble, so simply gave her a bow. Lady Seymour was looking out the window, fanning herself with short jerky strokes. The conversation limped on a little longer, and as soon as he felt he could politely excuse himself, he did, on the grounds of their early departure.

He was shown to a very handsome room, which held signs of a hasty rearrangement; a comb by the washbasin suggested that it had been otherwise occupied until perhaps that very evening. Laurence shook his head at this fresh sign of over-solicitousness, and was sorry for the guest who had been inconvenienced on his account.

Before a full quarter of an hour had passed, Lieutenant Ferris knocked timidly on his door, and when admitted tried to express his regrets without precisely apologizing, as he could scarcely do. ‘I only wish she would not feel it so. I suppose it is because I did not want to go at the time, and she cannot forget that I wept,’ he said, fidgeting with the curtain uneasily. He was looking out the window to avoid meeting Laurence’s eyes. ‘But that was only fear of leaving home, as any child would experience; I am not sorry for it now, at all, and I would not give up the Corps for anything.’

He soon made his goodnights and escaped again, leaving Laurence to ruefully consider that the cold, open hostility of his father might yet be preferable to a welcome so anxious and smothering.

One of the footmen tapped at the door to offer valet services to Laurence, directly after Ferris had gone; but he had nothing to do. Laurence had grown so used to doing everything for himself, that his coat was already off, and his boots in the corner, although he was glad enough to send them away for blacking.

He had not long been abed before he was disturbed again, by a great barking clamour from the kennels and the mad shrilling of horses. He went to the window and saw lights coming on in the distant stables, and heard a thin faint whistling somewhere aloft, carrying clearly from a distance. ‘Bring my boots at once, if you please; and instruct the household to remain within,’ Laurence told the footman, who had responded hurriedly to his ring.

He went down in some disarray, tying his neck cloth with a flare in his hand. ‘Clear away, there,’ he called loudly to the servants who had gathered in the open court before the house. ‘Clear away: the dragons will need room to land.’

This intelligence emptied the courtyard. Ferris was already hurrying out, carrying his own signal-flare and a candle. He knelt down to ignite the blue light, which hissed into the air and burst high above them. The night was clear, and the moon only a thin slice; at once the whistling came again, louder: it was Gherni’s high ringing voice. She descended in a rustle of wings.

‘Henry, is that your dragon? Where do you all sit?’ asked Captain Ferris, coming down the stairs cautiously. Gherni, whose head did not reach the second storey windows, would have indeed been hard-pressed to carry more than four or five men. While no dragon could be described as charming, her blue-and-white china complexion was rather elegant, and the darkness softened the edges of her claws and teeth into a less threatening shape. Laurence was heartened to see that a few of the party, still more or less dressed, had gathered on the stoop to see her.

She cocked her head at Captain Ferris’ questions and said something in the dragon tongue that was quite incomprehensible, then sat up on her hind legs and called out a piercing answer to a cry that only she had heard.

Temeraire’s more resonant voice soon became audible, and he landed on the wide lawn behind Gherni. The lamps gleamed on his thousands of glossy obsidian scales, and his shivering wings kicked up a spray of dust and small pebbles that rattled against the walls like small-shot. He curved his great serpentine neck, so that his head was well clear of the roof. ‘Pray hurry, Laurence,’ he said. ‘A courier came to tell us that there is a Fleur-de-Nuit bothering the ships off Boulogne. I have sent Arkady and the others to chase him away, but I do not trust them to mind themselves without me there.’

‘No indeed,’ Laurence said, turning only to shake Captain Ferris’s hand; but there was no sign of him, or of any living souls but Ferris and Gherni. The doors had been shut tight, and the windows all were shuttered.

* * *

‘Well, we are in for it, make no mistake,’ Jane said, having received Laurence’s report in Temeraire’s clearing. They had fought the first skirmish off Weymouth, with the nuisance of chasing away the Fleur-de-Nuit, and then another alarm had roused them after just a few hours of snatched sleep; and quite unnecessarily so, for they arrived on the edge of dawn only to catch sight of a single French courier vanishing off over the horizon, chased by the orange gouts of cannon-fire from the fearsome shore battery, which had lately been established at Plymouth.

‘They were not real attacks,’ Laurence said. ‘Even that skirmish, though they provoked it. If they had bested us, they could not have stayed to take advantage of it; not upon such small dragons, and not if they wished to get themselves home before they collapsed.’

He had given his men leave to sleep a little on the way back, his own eyes closing once or twice during the flight, too; but that was nothing to seeing Temeraire almost grey with fatigue, and his wings tucked limply against his back.

‘No; they are probing our defences, more aggressively and sooner than I had expected,’ Jane said. ‘I am afraid they have grown suspicious. They chased you into Scotland with neither hide nor wing of another dragon to challenge them. The French are not fool enough to overlook the implications of that, however badly it ended for them. If one of their beasts reach the countryside and flies over the quarantine coverts, the game will be up: they will know they have license to invade.’

‘How have you kept them from growing suspicious this long?’ Laurence said. ‘Surely they must have noted the absence of patrols?’

‘We have managed to disguise the situation so far, by sending the sick on short rounds during clear days when they can be seen from a good distance,’ Jane said. ‘Many of them can still fly, and even fight for a little while, although none of them can stand a long journey. They tire too easily, and they feel the cold more than they should; they complain of aching bones, and the brisk winter has only made matters worse.’

‘If they lie upon the ground, I am not surprised they do not feel well,’ Temeraire said, lifting his head. ‘Of course they feel the cold; I feel it myself on this hard and frozen ground, and I am not at all sick.’

‘Dear fellow,’ Jane said, ‘I would make it summer again if I could; but there is nowhere else for them to sleep.’

‘They must have pavilions,’ Temeraire said.’

‘Pavilions?’ Jane asked.

Laurence went into his small sea-chest and brought out the thick packet which had come with them all the way from China, wrapped many times over with oilcloth and twine. The outer layers were stained almost black, the inner still pale. He unravelled them until he came to the thin fine rice paper inside, illustrating the plans for the dragon-pavilion, then handed the sheets to her.

‘Just see if the Admiralty will pay for such a thing,’ Jane said dryly, but she looked the designs over with a thoughtful more than a critical eye. ‘It is a clever arrangement, and I dare say it would make them a damned sight more comfortable than lying on damp ground. I hear those at Loch Laggan fare better; where they have the heat from the baths underground, and the Longwings quartered in sandpits hold up longer, though they do not like such confinement in the least.’

‘I am sure that if they only had the pavilions and some more appetizing food to eat, they would soon get well. I did not like to eat at all when I had my cold, until the Chinese cooked for me,’ Temeraire said.

‘I second that,’ Laurence agreed. ‘He scarcely ate at all before their intervention. Keynes was of the opinion that the strength of spices compensated, to some part, for his inability to smell or taste with the tongue.’

‘Well, I can certainly find a few guineas here and there for that; and manage to arrange a trial. We have not spent half of what we ordinarily would have on powder,’ Jane said. ‘It will not last for very long, not if we are to feed two hundred dragons spiced meals, and the problem of where I am to find cooks enough to manage it remains, but if we see some improvement from it, we may have some better luck persuading their Lordships to carry the project forward.

Chapter Four

Gong Su, the cook Laurence had hired in China, was enlisted to their cause, and over the course of a week had emptied his spice cabinets. He had made vigorous use of his sharpest peppers, much to the intense disapproval of the herdsmen, who were rousted from comfortable and easy posts, that usually required little more than dragging cows from the pen to slaughter, and had now been set to stirring the pungent cauldrons.

The effect of the new cuisine was a marked one: the dragons’ appetites were more startled awake than coaxed, and many of the near somnolent beasts began clamouring with fresh hunger. However, the spices were not easily replaced, and Gong Su shook his head with dissatisfaction over what the Dover merchants could provide, the cost of which was astronomical.

‘Laurence,’ Jane said, having called him to her quarters for dinner, ‘I hope you will forgive me for dealing you a shabby hand: I mean to send you off to plead our case. I would not like to leave Excidium for long now, and I cannot take him over London sneezing as he does. We can manage a couple of patrols here while you are gone, and so Temeraire may rest; he needs to in any case.

‘And thank Heaven, that fellow Barham, who I believe gave you some difficulty, is out. Grenville has the place now. He is not a bad fellow, so far as I can tell; he does not understand the first thing about dragons, but that hardly makes him unique.’

Later that evening, as Jane reached for her wine glass at the end of her bed and settled back against Laurence’s arm, she said, ‘But I should add, privately, that I would not hazard two pins for my chances of persuading him to anything. He yielded to Powys in the end, over my appointment, and can scarcely bear to address a note to me. The truth is, I have made use of his mortification to squeak through half-a-dozen orders for which I have not quite the authority, some of which I am sure he would have objected to, if he could have done so without summoning me. Our chances of agreement are precious small, but we will do a good deal better with you there.’

It did not prove to be the case, however; even Jane would not have been refused admittance. One of the Navy secretaries: a tall, thin, officious fellow, stood before Laurence speaking impatiently, ‘Yes, yes, I have your numbers written in front of me; and you may be sure we have taken note of the higher requisitions of cattle. But have any of them recovered? You say nothing of that. How many can fly now that could not manage it before, and for how long can they sustain it?’

Laurence resentfully felt as if he were inquiring about the improved performance of a ship, after changes of her cordage or sailcloth. ‘The surgeons are of the opinion, that with these measures we can certainly expect to retard the progress of the illness,’ he could not claim that any had recovered. ‘Which alone must be of benefit, and perhaps with the addition of these pavilions—’

The secretary was shaking his head. ‘If they will not improve further, I cannot give you any encouragement on the matter: we must still build shore batteries along the coastline, and if you think dragons expensive, you cannot imagine the cost of the guns.’

‘All the more reason to spend a little more on the dragons we have, to safeguard their remaining strength,’ Laurence said. In frustration he added, ‘And especially, sir, because it is no more than their just deserts for their service; these are sentient creatures, not dumb cavalry horses.’

‘Oh, such romantic notions,’ the secretary said, dismissively. ‘Captain; I regret to inform you that his Lordship is occupied today. We have your report, and you may be sure he will respond to it, when he has time. I can make you an appointment for next week, perhaps.’

Laurence restrained himself from replying to this incivility in a way he felt it deserved; and departed feeling that he had been a far worse messenger than Jane would have been. His spirits were not to be recovered even upon catching a glimpse of Lord Nelson in the courtyard: splendid in his dress uniform and row of peculiar misshapen medals. They had been partially melted to his skin at Trafalgar, when a pass by a Spanish fire-breather during the battle had caught his flagship, and his life had nearly despaired of from the dreadful burns he received. Laurence was glad to see him so recovered: a line of pink scarred skin was visible upon his jaw, running down his throat into the high collar of his coat; but this did not deter him from talking energetically with, or rather to, a small group of attentive officers, his one arm gesturing wildly.

A crowd had collected at a respectful distance to overhear, and Laurence had to push his way into the street through them, making his muttered apologies as softly as he could; at any other time he might have stayed to listen with them. At present he had to make his way through the streets, thick dark slurry of half-frozen ice and muck chilling his boots, back to the London covert, where Temeraire waited anxiously to receive the news.

‘But surely there must be some means of persuading him,’ Temeraire said. ‘I cannot bear that our friends should be allowed to grow worse, when we have so easy a remedy at hand.’

‘We will have to manage on what we can afford, and stretch that little out,’ Laurence said. ‘Some effect may be produced by simply the searing of the meat, or by stewing it; let us not despair, my dear, but hope that Gong Su’s ingenuity may yet find some answer.”

‘I do not suppose Grenville eats raw beef every night, with the hide still on it, and with no salt added, or that he goes to sleep on the cold ground,’ Temeraire said, resentfully. ‘I should like to see him try it for a week and then try to refuse us.’ His tail lashed dangerously at the already denuded treetops around the edge of the clearing.

Laurence agreed, and then it occurred to him that Grenville was likely to dine from home. He called Emily to fetch him some paper, and wrote several notes in quick succession. The season was not yet begun, but he had a dozen acquaintances besides his family that were likely to be in town for the opening of Parliament. ‘There is very little chance I will be able to catch him,’ he warned Temeraire, to forestall the raising of his hopes, ‘and even less that he will listen to me, if I do.’

He could not wish whole-heartedly for success in locating the man, either; he did not think he could restrain his temper in his present mood, against the further onslaught of casual insults that he was likely to face wearing his aviator’s coat. Indeed, any social occasion promised to be rather a punishment than a pleasure, but an hour before dinner, he received a reply from an old shipmate from the Leander, who had long since made post and was now a member himself, and who expected to meet Grenville that night at Lady Wrightley’s ball: that lady being one of his mother’s intimates.

There was a sad and absurd crush of carriages outside the great house, and a blind obstinacy on the part of two coach drivers who were not willing to give way to each other, narrowing the lane to an impasse so that no one else could move either. Laurence was glad to have resorted to an old fashioned sedan chair, even if he had done so simply due to the impossibility of hiring a horse-drawn carriage anywhere near the covert. He reached the steps unsplattered. Even if his coat were green, at least it was new and properly cut; his linen was beyond reproach and his knee breeches and stockings were a crisp white, so he felt he need not blush for his appearance.

He offered his card and was presented to his hostess, a lady he had met only once before, at one of his mother’s dinners. ‘Pray, how does your mother? I suppose she has gone to the country?’ Lady Wrightley said, perfunctorily extending her hand. ‘Lord Wrightley, this is Captain William Laurence, Lord Allendale’s son.’

A gentleman just lately entered stood beside Lord Wrightley, still speaking with him; he startled at the introduction, and insisted on being presented to Laurence as a Mr. Broughton, from the Foreign Office.

Broughton seized Laurence’s hand with great enthusiasm. ‘Captain Laurence, you must permit me to congratulate you,’ he said. ‘Or should I say, Your Highness, as I suppose we must address you now, ha ha!’

Laurence’s hurried, ‘I beg you will not—’ was thoroughly ignored as an astonished Lady Wrightley demanded an explanation.

‘Why, you have a prince of China attending your party, I will have you know, ma’am. The most complete stroke, Captain, the most complete stroke imaginable. We have had it all from Hammond: his letter has been worn to rags in our offices, and we go about wreathed in delight; we tell others of it just to have the pleasure of saying it over again. How Bonaparte must be gnashing his teeth!’

‘It was nothing to do with me, sir, I assure you,’ Laurence said with growing despair. ‘It was all Mr. Hammond’s doing – a mere formality—’ But he spoke too late, for Broughton was already regaling Lady Wrightley and half-a-dozen other interested parties with a account both colourful and highly inaccurate of Laurence’s adoption, which in truth had been nothing more than a means of saving-face. The Chinese had required the excuse in order to give Laurence their official imprimatur to serve as companion to a Celestial dragon, a privilege reserved solely for the Imperial family. He was quite sure that the Chinese had forgotten his existence the very moment he had departed: he had not entertained the least notion of trading upon the adoption at home.

The brangle of carriages outside had stifled the flow of newcomers causing a lull in the party, still in its early hours, which made everyone more willing to hear the exotic story, although its success had already been guaranteed by the fairy-tale colouration that it had acquired. And so, Laurence found himself the subject of much attention. Lady Wrightley was by no means embarrassed to pronounce Laurence’s attendance a coup rather than a favour done for an old friend.

He would have liked to go at once, but Grenville had not yet arrived, and so he clenched his teeth and bore the indignity of being presented around the room. ‘No, I am afraid I am not ranked in the line of succession,’ he said, over and over, privately thinking that he would like to see the reaction of the Chinese to such a suggestion; they had implied that he was an unlettered savage on more than occasion.

He had not expected to dance; society was perennially uncertain on the subject of the aviators’ respectability, and he did not mean to blight some lady’s reputation, nor open himself to the unpleasant experience of being fended off by a chaperone. But just before the first dance commenced, his hostess presented him deliberately to one of her guests, as an eligible partner. Miss Lucas was perhaps in her second or third season; a plump attractive girl, still delighted with the frivolity of a ball, and full of easy, cheerful conversation.

‘How well you dance!’ she exclaimed, after they had traversed the floor together, with rather more surprise than was complimentary. She asked a great many questions about the Chinese court, which he could not answer: the ladies had been kept thoroughly sequestered from their view. He entertained her a little instead with the description of a theatrical performance, but as he had been stabbed shortly after it ended, his memory proved somewhat imperfect, and naturally it had been carried out in Chinese.

Miss Lucas, in turn, told him a great deal about her family in Hertfordshire, and her tribulations with the harp, expressing the hope of one day playing for him, and then mentioned her next youngest sister who was due to be presented next season. She was nineteen, he surmised; and was struck abruptly when the realisation that Catherine Harcourt had been already Lily’s captain and had flown that year in the Battle of Dover at this age, struck him. He looked at the smiling muslin-clad girl with a hollow feeling, and then looked away. He had written two letters each to Harcourt and to Berkley, on Temeraire’s behalf and his own; but no answer had come. He knew nothing of how they, or their dragons, fared.

He politely returned the lady to her mother; but, having proved himself to be a satisfactory partner, was then forced to submit with to one set after another, until at last, near eleven o’clock, Grenville arrived with a small party of gentlemen.

‘I am expected in Dover tomorrow, sir, or would not trouble you here,’ Laurence said grimly after approaching him. He loathed the necessity of such an encroachment, and did not know whether he could have steeled himself to it, had he not been introduced to Grenville many years before,

‘Laurence, yes,’ Grenville said, vaguely, looking like he wished to move on swiftly. He was no great politician: his brother was the prime minister, and he had been made a lord out of loyalty, and not for his brilliance or even his ambition. He listened without enthusiasm to Laurence’s proposals; detailed carefully for the benefit of their interested audience, who had to remain in ignorance of the epidemic: once the general public was in possession of such information, there could be no concealing it from the enemy.

‘Provision is made,’ Laurence said, ‘for the relatives of the slain, for the sick and wounded, not least because such care will preserve them, or their offspring, for future service. The revisions we desire are nothing more than those attentions, sir, and they have been proven to be beneficial from the example set by the Chinese, whom all of the world acknowledge as being foremost in the understanding of dragonkind.’

‘Of course, of course,’ Grenville said. ‘The comfort and welfare of our brave sailors or aviators, and all of our good beasts, is always principal in the considerations of the Admiralty,’ a meaningless platitude to anyone who had ever visited an army hospital, or had, as Laurence, been forced to subsist upon the provisions deemed suitable for those brave sailors in times of crisis: rotting meat, weevil infested biscuits and the vinegar-water beverage which passed for wine. Veterans of his own crews, or their widows, had also been denied their pensions on scurrilous grounds on far too many occasions, rendering Grenville’s claim absurd.

‘May I hope, then, sir,’ Laurence said, ‘that you approve of us proceeding on this course?’ An avowal, which could not easily be refused without embarrassment; but Grenville was too slippery, and evaded the commitment without openly refusing.

‘We must consider the particulars of these proposals more extensively, Captain; before anything can be done,’ he said. ‘We must consult our best medical men,’ he continued in this vein without pause for some time, until he turned to another gentleman of his acquaintance who had arrived, and addressed him in a new topic: a clear dismissal, and Laurence knew that nothing would be done.

He limped back to the covert in the early hours of the morning; the sun’s faint light just beginning to show. Temeraire lay fast asleep and dreaming, his tail twitching idly back and forth. His crew had dispersed into the barracks or were tucked against his sides, the warmer, if less dignified sleeping place. Laurence went straight to the small cottage that had been provided for his use and sank gladly upon the bed. Wincing, he worked off the tight buckled shoes, still new and stiff, which had cut into his feet.

The morning was a silent one. Besides his failure, which had somehow been communicated throughout the covert, though he had told no one but Temeraire, Laurence had given the men a general furlough night before; and judging by their bloodshot eyes and wan faces, they had made good use of their leave. There was a certain degree of clumsiness and fatigue apparent in their movements, and Laurence watched anxiously as their breakfast, large pots of oat porridge, were manoeuvred precariously off the fire.

Temeraire meanwhile finished picking his teeth with a large leg-bone, the remnant of his own breakfast, a stew of tender veal with onions, and set it down. ‘Laurence, do you still mean to build the one pavilion, even if the Admiralty will give us no funds?’

‘I do,’ Laurence answered. Most aviators acquired only a small amount of prize-money from their battles, as the Admiralty paid little for the capture of a dragon compared to the requisition of a ship, the latter more easily put to use than the former, which required substantial expense in its upkeep. But Laurence had established a handsome level of capital while he was still a naval officer, against which he had little charge, his ordinary pay being sufficient to meet his needs. ‘I must consult with the tradesmen, but I hope that by economising upon the materials and reducing the pavilion in size, I will be able to afford to construct one for you.’

‘Then,’ Temeraire said, with a determined and heroic air, ‘I have been thinking: pray let us build it in the quarantine-grounds instead. I do not much mind my clearing at Dover, and I would rather Maximus and Lily were more comfortable.’

Laurence was surprised; generosity was not a common trait among dragons, who were rather jealous of anything that they considered their property, and a particularly things that were marks of status. ‘If you are quite certain, my dear; it is a noble thought.’

Temeraire toyed with the leg-bone and did not look entirely certain, but eventually made his assent final. ‘In any case,’ he added, ‘once we have built it, perhaps the Admiralty will see the benefit of them, and then I may have an even more handsome one: it would not be very pleasant to have a small poky one, when everyone else’s is nicer.’ This thought cheered him considerably, and he crunched up the bone with satisfaction.

Revived with strong tea and a good breakfast, the crew began to get Temeraire under harness for their return to Dover, only they were still a little slow; Ferris took special pains in seeing that the buckles were secure after Laurence dropped a quiet word in his ear.

‘Sir,’ little Dyer said, as he and Emily came in from the covert gates carrying the post bound for Dover, which they would carry with them, ‘there are some gentlemen approaching.’ Temeraire raised his head from the ground as Lord Allendale came into the covert with a slight, plainly dressed gentleman at his side.

Their progress was arrested as they stared at the great inquisitive head peering at them, and Laurence was very glad for the delay, which gave him time to gather his wits: he would not have been more shocked to receive a visit from the King, but he would have been a good deal more pleased. He could imagine only one cause for the visit: there had been more than one person of his parents’ acquaintance present at the ball, and the news of the foreign adoption must have travelled straight to his father’s ear. Laurence knew he had given his father just cause to reproach him by having submitted to a foreign adoption, however politically expedient it was, but he was by no means remorseful enough to endure reproach in front of his officers and his crew, aside from any consideration for what Temeraire’s reaction might be to seeing him so abused.

He handed away his coffee cup to Emily, and gave his clothing a surreptitious glance, grateful that the cold morning meant he had not been tempted to forgo coat or neckcloth. ‘I am honoured to see you, sir; will you take tea?’ he asked, crossing the clearing to shake his father’s hand.

‘No, we have breakfasted,’ Lord Allendale said, abruptly, his eyes still fixed on Temeraire. Only with some effort did he turn away to present to Laurence his companion, Mr. Wilberforce: one of the champions of the abolition movement.

Laurence had only met the gentleman once, long ago. Wilberforce’s face had settled into grave lines during the intervening decades, deepening now as he looked anxiously up at Temeraire; but there was still something warm and good humoured about his mouth, and a gentleness to his eyes, confirming the early impression of generosity which Laurence had carried away, if indeed his public works had not been testament enough to it. Twenty years of city air and incessant fighting had ruined his health, but not his character. Political intrigue and the West Indies’ interests had undermined his work, but he had persevered; and even besides his tireless labour against slavery, he had stood a resolute reformer all the while.

In the furthering of Temeraire’s cause, there was scarcely a man whose advice Laurence would have desired more; and if the circumstances had been other, and he had reached a rapprochement with his father, he would certainly have sought an introduction. However, he could not understand why his father should bring Wilberforce hence, unless perhaps he had some curiosity to encounter a dragon.

But the gentleman’s expression as he looked upon Temeraire did not seem enthusiastic. ‘I would be very happy for a cup of tea, in the quiet, perhaps?’ he said, and after some hesitation yielded to further question, ‘Is the beast quite tame?’

‘I am not tame,’ Temeraire said indignantly, his hearing perfectly capable of overhearing this exchange, ‘but I am certainly not going to hurt you, if that is what you are asking; you have more reason to fear being stepped upon by a horse.’ He twitched his tail angrily against his side, nearly knocking over a couple of the topmen engaged in pitching the travelling-tent upon his back, and so gave himself the lie even as he spoke. His audience was sufficiently distracted by his remarks not to notice this point, however.

‘It is most wonderful,’ Mr. Wilberforce said, after conversing with him a little longer, ‘to discover such excellent understanding in a creature so far removed from ourselves; one might call it even miraculous. But I see that you are making ready to depart; so I must beg your pardon,’ he bowed to Temeraire, ‘and yours, Captain, for so indelicately moving to the subject which has brought us here: in short, we seek your assistance.’

‘I hope you will speak frankly, sir,’ Laurence said, thoroughly mystified, and begged them to sit down, making his apologies for the surroundings. Emily and Dyer had dragged chairs out of the cabin for their use, as the small building was hardly fit for receiving guests, and arranged them near the embers of the fire for warmth.

‘I should be clear’,’ Wilberforce began, ‘that no one could be insensible of the service which the Right Honourable gentleman has rendered his country, or begrudge him the just rewards of that service, and the respect of the common man—’

‘You might better say blind adoration of the common man,’ Lord Allendale put in, with heavy disapproval. ‘And some persons not so common, who have less excuse; the influence that the man has upon the Lords is appalling. Every day that he is not at sea brings fresh disaster.’ After a few moments more of confusion, Laurence gathered that they were speaking of none other than Vice-Admiral Nelson.

‘Forgive me,’ Wilberforce stepped in diplomatically, ‘we have spoken so much of these matters, amongst ourselves, that we go too quickly.’ He drew a hand over his jaw, and rubbed his jowls. ‘I believe you know something of the difficulties which we have encountered, against our attempts to abolish the trade in human life?’

‘I do,’ Laurence said. Twice, victory had seemed within their reach, but the House of Lords had held up the resolution using some excuse connected with the examination of witnesses. On another attempt the bill had indeed gone through, but only after certain amendments that had changed immediate abolition to gradual abolition: so gradual that there had been no sign of it, even fifteen years later. At that time The Terror in revolutionary France had already made a bloody ruin of the word liberty, and put the derivative label of Jacobin into the mouths of the slave traders to be levelled against abolitionists. No further progress had been made, for many years.

‘But this last session,’ Wilberforce said, ‘we were on the verge of achieving a vital measure: an act, which should have barred new ships from joining the slave trade. It ought to have been passed, we had the votes in our grasp; and then Nelson came back from the country. He had just lately risen from his sickbed, and he chose to address Parliament upon the subject; the vigour of his opposition alone caused the measure to fail.’

‘I am sorry to hear it,’ Laurence said, though not surprised. Nelson’s views had been pronounced in public often enough. Like many a naval officer, he thought slavery a necessary evil, a nursery for her sailors and the foundation of her trade; he saw the abolitionists as cohort of quixotic enthusiasts bent on undermining Britain’s maritime power and threatening her hold upon her colonies. He believed that only this domination allowed her to hold fast against the looming threat of Napoleon. ‘Very sorry,’ he continued, ‘but I do not know what use I can be to you; I cannot claim any personal acquaintance with the gentleman that might give me the opportunity to attempt to persuade him—’

‘No, no; we have no such hope,’ Wilberforce said. ‘He has expressed himself too decidedly upon the subject. Many of his greatest friends, and sadly most of his creditors, are slave owners or are involved with the trade. I am sorry to say such considerations lead astray even the best and wisest of men.’

They sought, he explained while Lord Allendale continued to look morose, to offer the public a rival for their interest and admiration, and gradually Laurence understood through their circular approaches that they meant to offer him as this figure, on the grounds of his recent and exotic expedition and the very adoption which he had expected his father to condemn.

‘The public will take a natural interest in your late adventure,’ Wilberforce said, ‘and you have the authority of a military officer who has fought against Napoleon in the field; your voice can challenge Nelson’s assertions that the end of the trade will be the ruin of the nation.’

‘Sir,’ Laurence said, not certain if he was sorry to disoblige Mr. Wilberforce, or happy to be forced to refuse such an undertaking, ‘I hope you will not think me lacking in respect or conviction, but I am in no way fit for such a role; and could not agree to assist you, even if I wished to. I am a serving officer; my time is not my own.’

‘But here you are in London,’ Wilberforce pointed out gently, ‘and surely, when stationed at the Channel, you could on occasion be spared?’ It was a suggestion that Laurence could not easily contradict without betraying the secret of the epidemic, presently confined to the Corps and only the most senior officials of the Admiralty. ‘I know it cannot be a comfortable proposal, Captain, but we are engaged in God’s work here; we ought not scruple to use any tool which He has put in our path.’

‘For Heaven’s sake, you will have to do nothing but attend a dinner party, perhaps a few; kindly do not cavil,’ Lord Allendale said brusquely, tapping his fingers upon the arm of his chair. ‘Of course one cannot enjoy this self-puffery, but you have tolerated far worse indignities, and made a far greater spectacle of yourself, than what we ask of you: last night, if you like—’

‘You needn’t speak so to Laurence,’ Temeraire interrupted coldly, giving the gentlemen both a start. They had already forgotten that he was listening to their conversation. ‘We have chased off the French four times this last week, and flown nine patrols; we are very tired and have come to London only because our friends are sick and have been left to starve and die in the cold, because the Admiralty will do nothing to make them more comfortable.’

He finished stormily, a low threatening resonance building deep in his throat: the instinctive reaction to use the divine wind lingered as an echo after his words. No one spoke for a moment, and then Wilberforce said thoughtfully, ‘It seems to me that we need not be at cross-purposes; and we may advance your cause, Captain, with our own.’

They had meant, it seemed, to launch him at some social event, the dinner-party that Lord Allendale had mentioned, or perhaps even a staged ball, which Wilberforce then proposed to make a subscription-party. ‘It’s avowed purpose,’ he explained, ‘will be to raise funds for sick and wounded dragons, the veterans of Trafalgar and Dover. There are such veterans, among the sick, aren’t there Captain?’ he asked.

‘There are some,’ Laurence said. He did not admit it was all of them; all but Temeraire.

Wilberforce nodded. ‘Those are names to conjure with later. These dark days,’ he continued, ‘when all see Napoleon’s star in ascendancy over the Continent, will give further emphasis still, to your reputation as a hero of the nation, and make your words a stronger counterweight to Nelson’s.’

Laurence could scarcely bear to hear himself so described; and in comparison with Nelson, who had led four great fleet actions, destroyed all of Napoleon’s navy, and established Britain’s primacy at sea; Nelson who had justly won a ducal coronet by valour in battle, not been made a foreign prince through subterfuge and political machination. ‘Sir,’ he said, struggling to restrain himself from inflicting a violent rejection, ‘I must beg you not to speak 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 half 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 help but feel pity for those wretched souls, when their plight stirs such a breast? Indeed,’ he said, turning to Lord Allendale, ‘we ought to hold the assembly where we sit. I am certain it will answer all the better, producing a great sensation, and moreover,’ he added, with a glint of humour in his eye, ‘I should like to see the gentleman who can refuse to consider an argument made to him by a dragon, while the dragon stands before him.’

‘Out of doors, in this season?’ Lord Allendale said, with great scepticism.

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

‘An excellent notion,’ Wilberforce said, leaving his chair to inspect the scratched diagrams which Temeraire was drawing in the dirt. ‘It will have an Oriental flavour, that is exactly what is needed.’

‘Well, if you think it so; all I can say in its favour, is that it will certainly be the latest nine days’ wonder, whether half a dozen curiosity-seekers come or not,’ Lord Allendale said, and rose brushing the dust from his trousers to say, ‘The preparations will require some time: let us say we hold it in three weeks, and fix the date for the twelfth of the new year.’

‘We can spare you for a night, now and again,’ Jane said, sinking Laurence’s final hope of escape. ‘Our intelligence is limited, now that we have no couriers to risk on spy missions, but the Navy do 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 price of the catches would have risen, with more livestock going to dragons.’

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

Meanwhile, they set about building the experimental pavilion. The promise of such a substantial commission proved enough to tempt a handful of the more intrepid tradesmen to the Dover covert. Laurence met them at the gates with a party of crewmen, and escorted them the rest of the way to Temeraire, who in an attempt to be unalarming, had hunched himself down as small as any dragon of eighteen tons could, and had nearly flattened his ruff completely against his neck. But he could not resist insinuating himself into the conversation once the construction of the pavilion was well under discussion, and indeed his offerings proved quite necessary, as Laurence had not the faintest notion how to translate 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 through the trees into Temeraire’s quarter, shaking a blizzard of ash, and greatly alarming the poor tradesmen with a hiccup of fire, which sent steam shooting out of her spines. ‘I want to sleep in a pavilion too: I do not like this cold dirt at all.’

‘Well, you cannot have one,’ Temeraire said. ‘This is for our sick friends, and anyway you have no capital to hand.’

‘Then I shall get some,’ she declared. ‘Where does one get capital, and what does it look like?’

Temeraire proudly rubbed his breastplate of platinum and pearl. ‘This is a piece of capital,’ he said, ‘and Laurence gave it to me. He won it taking a ship in a battle.’

‘Oh! that is very easy,’ Iskierka said. ‘Granby, let us go get a ship, and then I may have a pavilion.’

‘Lord, you cannot have anything of the sort, do not be silly,’ Granby said, nodding rueful apologies to Laurence as he entered the clearing along the trail of smashed branches and crushed hedge which his dragon had left in her wake. ‘You would burn it down in an instant: the thing is made of wood.’

‘Can it not be made of stone?’ she demanded, swinging her head around to eye one of the horrified tradesmen. She had not yet grown very large, despite the twelve feet in length she had acquired with a steady diet, since settling at Dover. She was sinuous rather than bulky, in the normal Kazilik style, and looked little more than a garden-snake next to Temeraire. But her appearance at close quarters was by no means as reassuring: the hissing-kettle-noise, of whatever internal mechanism produced her fire, was plainly audible and the vents of hot air issued from her spines, white and impressive in the cold air.

No one answered her, except the elderly architect, Mr. Royle. ‘Stone? No, I must advise against it. Brick would be a much more practical construction,’ he opined. He had not looked up from the plans since being handed them. Badly nearsighted, he inspected them with a jeweller’s loupe, held an inch from his watery blue eyes, and could most likely not make either dragon out. ‘Silly oriental stuff, this roof, do you insist on having it so?’

‘It is not silly oriental stuff at all,’ Temeraire said, indignantly, ‘it is very elegant: that design is my mother’s own pavilion, and it is in the best fashion.’

‘You will need linkboys on it all winter long to brush the snow clear, and I will not give a brass farthing for the gutters after two seasons,’ Royle said. ‘A good slate roof, that is the thing, do you not agree with me, Mr. Cutter?’

Mr. Cutter had no opinion to offer, as he had backed against the trees and looked ready to bolt; and would have if Laurence had not prudently stationed his ground-crew around the border of the clearing to forestall just such panic.

‘I am very willing to be advised by you, sir, as to the best plan of construction, and the most reasonable,’ Laurence said, while Royle blinked around looking for the source of the response. ‘Temeraire, our climate here is a good deal wetter, so we must cut our cloth to suit our station.’

‘Very well, I suppose,’ Temeraire said, casting a wistful eye at the upturned roof and the brightly painted wood.

Iskierka meanwhile, had been inspired and began to plot her acquisition of capital. ‘If I burn up a ship, is that good enough, or must I bring it back whole?’ she demanded.

Her piratical career began the next morning, when she presented Granby with a small fishing-boat, which she had picked out of the Dover harbour during the night. ‘Well, you did not say it must be a French ship,’ she said crossly, to their recriminations, and curled up to sulk. Stealthy little Gherni was hastily recruited to replace it the following night, under the cover of darkness, undoubtedly to the great consternation of its temporarily bereft owner.

‘Laurence, do you suppose that we could obtain more capital by taking French ships?’ Temeraire asked, with a level of thoughtfulness very alarming to Laurence, who had just returned from dealing with Iskierka’s pretty piece of confusion.

‘The French ships are penned in their harbours by the Channel blockade, thank Heaven, and we are not privateers, to go plying the lanes for their shipping,’ Laurence said. ‘Your life is too valuable to risk in such a selfish endeavour. In any case, once you have began to behave in such an undisciplined manner, you may be sure Arkady and his lot would follow your example and leave Britain undefended; not to mention the encouragement that Iskierka would take from it.’

‘Whatever am I to do with her?’ Granby said, wearily taking a glass of wine with Laurence and Jane in the officers’ common room at the covert headquarters that same evening. ‘I suppose being dragged hither and yon in the shell, has caused it; and all the fuss and excitement she has had since. But that cannot excuse it forever. I must manage her somehow, and I am at a standstill. I would not be surprised if one morning I awoke to find the entire harbour set alight, because she took it into her head that we would not have to sit about defending the city if it were all burned up. I cannot even make her sit still long enough to get her under full harness.’

‘Never mind; I will come by tomorrow, and see what I can do,’ Jane said, pushing the bottle over to him again. ‘She is a little young for work, but I think her energy had better be put to use, than cause all this fretting. Have you chosen your lieutenants yet, Granby?’

‘I will have Lithgow, for my first, if you’ve no objection, and Harper for a second, to act as captain of the riflemen also,’ he said. ‘I don’t like to take too many men, when we don’t know what her growth will be like.’

‘You would not like to turn them off later, you mean, when they, like as not, they cannot get another post.’ Jane said gently, ‘I know it will be hard if it comes to that; but we cannot short-change her, not with her so wild. Take Row also, as captain of the bellmen. He is old enough to retire if he must be turned off, and he is a good steady campaigner, who will not blink at her starts.’

Granby nodded a little, his head bowed. The next morning, with great state, Jane came to Iskierka’s clearing. She wore all of her medals, a gold-plated sabre and pistols on her belt and even her great plumed hat, which aviators scarcely used. Granby had assembled his new crew, and they saluted her with a great noise of arms. Iskierka nearly coiled herself into knots with excitement, and the ferals and even Temeraire peered over the trees to watch with interest.

‘Well, Iskierka; your captain tells me that you are ready for service,’ Jane said, putting her hat under her arm, and looking sternly at the little Kazilik, ‘but what are these reports I hear, that you will not mind his orders? We cannot send you into battle if you cannot follow orders.’

‘Oh! It is not true!’ Iskierka said. ‘I can follow orders as well as anyone, it is only that no one will give me any good ones. I am told only to sit, and not to fight, and to eat three times a day; I do not want any more stupid cows!’ she added, smoulderingly. The ferals, after having this translated for them by their own handful of officers, set up a low squabbling murmur of disbelief.

‘It is not simply the pleasant orders we must follow, but the tiresome as well,’ Jane said, when the noise had died down. ‘Do you suppose Captain Granby likes to sit in this clearing, forever waiting for you to grow more settled? Perhaps he would rather go back to service with Temeraire, and enjoy some fighting.’

Iskierka’s eyes stretched platter-wide, and her spikes hissed like a furnace. In an instant she had thrown a pair of jealous coils around Granby, which bade fair to boil him like a lobster in steam. ‘He would not! You would not, at all, would you?’ she appealed. ‘I will fight just as well as Temeraire, I promise; and I will even obey the stupidest orders, at least, if I may have some pleasant ones also,’ she qualified hastily.

‘I am sure she will mind better in future, sir,’ Granby managed coughing, his hair was already soaking, and plastered against his forehead and neck. ‘Pray don’t fret; I would never leave you, only I am getting wet,’ he added, plaintively.

‘Hm,’ Jane said, with frowning consideration. ‘Since Granby speaks for you, I suppose we will give you your chance.’ she said, at last, ‘You may even have your first orders, Captain, if she will let you come for them, and stand still for her harness.’

Iskierka immediately let him loose and stretched herself out for the ground-crew, only craning her neck a little to see the red-sealed and yellow-tasselled packet, which communicated their instruction in very ornate and important language, to do nothing more than run a quick, hour long patrol down to Guernsey and back. ‘And you may take her by that old heap of rubble at Castle Cornet, where the gunpowder blew up the tower. Tell her it is a French outpost, and that she may flame it from aloft,’ Jane added to Granby, in a soft tone, not meant for Iskierka’s ears.

Iskierka’s harness was a great deal of trouble to arrange as her spines were arranged quite randomly, and the frequent issuing of steam made her hide slick. An improvised collection of short straps and many buckles, had been constructed and were wretchedly easy to tangle, so she could not entirely be blamed for growing tired of the process. But the promise of action and the interested crowd made her more patient this time; and at some length she was properly rigged out. Granby said, with relief, ‘There, it is quite secure. Now, see if you can shake any of it loose, dear one.’

She writhed and beat her wings, twisting herself this way and that to inspect the harness. ‘You are supposed to say, ‘all lies well,’ if you are comfortable,’ Temeraire whispered loudly to her, after she had been engaged in this sport for several minutes.

‘Oh, I see,’ she said, and settling again announced, ‘All lies well. Now, we shall go?’

In this way she was at least a little reformed, though no one could have called her obliging, and she invariably stretched her patrols further afield than Granby would have them; in hope of meeting an enemy more challenging than an old fort and a couple of innocent birds. ‘But at least she will take a little training, and is eating properly, which I call victory enough, for now,’ Granby said. ‘And after all, as much as she frightens us, she’ll give the Frogs a worse scare. Laurence, can you believe, we talked to the fellows up at Castle Cornet, and they set up a bit of sail for her at aim at, and she can set it alight from eighty yards away. That’s twice the range of a Flamme-de-Gloire, and she can go at it for five minutes straight! I don’t understand how she gets her breath while she does it.’

They’d had considerable trouble keeping her out of direct combat, for the French continued their harassment and scouting of the coast with ever-increasing aggression. Jane used the sick dragons more frequently for basic patrols to spare Temeraire and the ferals, who instead waited for most of the day on the cliff tops for the warning flare to go up, or listening with ears pricked for the report of a signal-gun, before dashing frantically to meet another incursion.

In the space of two weeks, Temeraire had four skirmishes with small groups, and once Arkady and a few of his band, sent on patrol by themselves while Temeraire snatched a few more hours of sleep, barely managed to turn back a Pou-de-Ciel who had daringly tried to slip past the shore-batteries at Dover, less than a mile away from having a clear view of the quarantine-grounds.

The ferals returned from their narrow victory naturally delighted with themselves, and Jane with quick cleverness took the opportunity to present to Arkady, with full ceremony, a long length of chain with a large dinner-platter inscribed with his name for a medal; almost worthless, being made only of brass, but polished to a fine golden shine. Arkady was rendered speechless as it was fastened about his neck; but for only a moment, after which he erupted into a torrent of carolling joy, and insisted that every single one of his fellows inspect his prize; even Temeraire did not escape this fate. He bristled and withdrew with indignity to his own clearing to polish his breastplate vigorously.

‘You cannot compare them.’ Laurence said, cautiously, ‘It is only a trinket, to make him complacent, and encourage them in their efforts.’

‘Oh, certainly.’ Temeraire said, haughtily. ‘Mine is much nicer; I would not want anything so common as brass.’ After a moment he added, muttering, ‘But his is very large.’

‘Cheap at double the price,’ Jane said the next day, when he came to give the morning report, for once uneventful. The ferals were more zealous than ever, and rather disappointed not to find more enemies. ‘They come along handsomely, just as we had hoped.’ But she spoke wearily.

Laurence poured her a small glass of brandy and brought it to her at the window, where she stood looking out at the ferals cavorting in mid-air over their clearing. ‘Thank you, I will.’ She took the glass, but did not drink at once. ‘Conterrenis has gone,’ she said abruptly. ‘The first Longwing we have lost; it was a bloody business.’ She sat down heavily. ‘He took a bad chill and suffered a haemorrhage in his lungs, so the surgeons tell me. At any rate, he could not stop coughing, and so his acid came and came; it began to build up on his spurs and sear his skin. It laid his jaw bare to the bone.’ She paused. ‘Gardenley shot him this morning.’

Laurence took the chair beside her, feeling wholly inadequate to the task of providing any comfort. After a little while she drank the brandy and set down her glass, and they turned back to the maps to discuss the next day’s patrolling.

He left her, ashamed now of dreading the party, now only a few days’ hence, and determined to put himself forward with no regard for his own mortification; for even the smallest chance of improving’ the conditions of the sick dragons.

… and I hope you will permit me to suggest, Wilberforce had written, that any Oriental touch to your wardrobe, even a little one, which might at a glance set you apart, would be most useful. I am happy to report that we have engaged some Chinese to serve, by offering a good sum in the ports, where occasionally a few of them may be found having taken service on an East Indiaman. They are not properly trained, of course, but they will only be carrying dishes to and from the kitchens, and we have instructed them most severely to show no alarm in the presence of the dragon, which I hope they have understood. However, I do have some anxiety as to their comprehension of what faces them, and should you have enough liberty to come early, hope that we may try their fortitude.

Laurence stifled his sighs, sent his Chinese coat to his tailors for refurbishment, and asked Jane her permission to go early. The Chinese servants did indeed cause a great commotion on their arrival, but only by abandoning their work and running to prostrate themselves before Temeraire, almost throwing themselves beneath his feet in their efforts to make the show of respect that they considered a Celestial’s due. The British workmen who were engaged in the final decoration of the covert were not nearly so complaisant, and vanished one and all, leaving the great panels of embroidered silk, ordered at vast expense, hanging askew from the tree branches and dragging upon the earth.

Wilberforce exclaimed in dismay as he came to greet Laurence; but Temeraire issued instructions to the Chinese servants, who set to work with great energy, and with the assistance of the crew the covert was a handsome sight in time to receive the guests. Brass lamps were tied onto branches to stand in place of Chinese paper lanterns, and small coal-stoves placed at intervals along the tables.

‘We may bring the business off, if it does not snow,’ Lord Allendale said, pessimistically, arriving early to inspect the arrangements. ‘It is a great pity your mother could not be here,’ he added, ‘but the child has not yet come, and she does not like to leave Elizabeth in her confinement,’ referring to the wife of Laurence’s eldest brother, soon to present him with his fifth child.

The night stayed clear, if cold, and the guests began to arrive in cautious dribs and drabs, keeping well away from Temeraire, who was ensconced in his clearing at the far end of the long tables, and peering at him not very surreptitiously through their opera glasses. Laurence’s officers were meanwhile standing by him, stiff and equally terrified in their best clothes: all new, fortunately, and Laurence was rewarded for the trouble he had taken in directing his officers to the better tailors in Dover, for the repairs which all their wardrobes required after their long stay abroad, by seeing them in well fitting coats and trousers.

Emily was the only one of them truly pleased, as she had acquired her first silk gown for the occasion; and if she tripped upon the hem a little she did not seem to mind. She was rather exultant over her kid gloves and string of pearls, which Jane had bestowed upon her. ‘It is late enough in all conscience for her to be learning how to manage skirts,’ Jane said. ‘Do not fret, Laurence. I promise you no one will be suspicious. I have made a cake of myself in public a dozen times, and no one has ever thought me an aviator for it. But if it gives you any comfort, you may tell them that she is your niece.’

‘I will do no such thing; my father will be there, and I assure you he is thoroughly aware of all his grandchildren,’ Laurence said. His father would immediately conclude Emily to be his own natural-born child, should he make such a claim. He privately decided that he would keep Emily close by Temeraire’s side, where she would be little seen; he had no doubt that his guests would keep a good distance away, whatever persuasion Mr. Wilberforce intended to apply.

That persuasion, however, took the most undesirable form. Mr. Wilberforce spotted Emily and said, ‘Come; behold this young girl who thinks nothing of standing within reach of the dragon. Even if you can permit yourself, madam, to be outdone by trained aviators, I hope you will not allow a child to outstrip you?’

With a sinking heart Laurence observed his father turning to cast an astonished eye on Emily, confirming his worst fears. Lord Allendale did not scruple, either, to approach and interrogate her. Emily, perfectly innocent of malice, answered him in her clear girlish voice, ‘Oh, I have lessons every day, sir, from the Captain, although it is Temeraire who gives me my mathematics, now, as Captain Laurence does not like arithmetic. But I would rather practice fencing,’ she added candidly, looking a little uncertain when she found herself laughed over and pronounced a dear by the pair of ladies who had been persuaded to venture close to the great table, by her example.

‘A masterful stroke, Captain,’ Wilberforce murmured softly. ‘Wherever did you find her?’ He did not wait for an answer as he then accosted a party of gentlemen who had risked coming closer, and continued to work upon them in the same fashion; embellishing his persuasions with if Lady So-and-So had been brave enough to approach Temeraire, surely they could not show themselves hesitant.

Temeraire was very interested in all of the guests, particularly admiring the more bejewelled ladies, and managed by accident to please the Marchioness of Carstoke, a lady of advanced years whose bosom was concealed only by a vulgar array of emeralds set in gold, by informing her that she looked a good deal more like a monarch, in his estimation, than did the Queen of Prussia, whom he had only seen in travelling clothes.

Several gentlemen challenged him to perform simple sums, a challenge to which he blinked a little, and having given them the answers, enquired whether this was the sort of game normally played at parties, and whether he ought to offer them a mathematical problem in return.

‘Dyer, pray bring me my sand-table,’ he said, and when this was agreed. Using his claw he sketched out a small diagram for the purpose of posing them a question on the Pythagorean theorem, which proved sufficient to baffle most of the gentlemen, whose own mathematical skill did not extend past the card tables.

‘But it is a very simple exercise,’ Temeraire insisted in some confusion, wondering aloud to Laurence if he had missed some sort of joke. At last a member of the Royal Society on a quest to observe certain aspects of Celestial anatomy, was able to provide the answer.

When Temeraire had spoken to the servants in Chinese, conversed in fluent French with several of the guests and failed to eat or crush anyone, fascination began at last to trump fear and draw more of the company towards him. Soon Laurence found himself quite neglected and of considerably less interest; a circumstance which would have delighted him, if only it had not left him to make awkward conversation with his father, who inquired stiltedly about Emily’s mother. He posed questions which if evaded would only have made Laurence seem more guilty, and yet whose perfectly truthful answers, that Emily was the natural-born daughter of Jane Roland, a gentlewoman living in Dover, and that he had taken charge of her education, still left entirely the wrong impression. And Laurence could no more correct this, than his father could outright ask.

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