His Majesty's Dragon

Chapter 9

THE RIFLE-BALL PASSED so close it stirred Laurence’s hair; the crack of return fire sounded behind him, and Temeraire slashed out at the French dragon as they swept past, raking the deep blue hide with long gashes even as he twisted gracefully to avoid the other dragon’s talons.

“It’s a Fleur-de-Nuit, sir, the coloring,” Granby shouted, wind whipping away at his hair, as the blue dragon pulled away with a bellow and wheeled about for another attempt at the formation, its crew already clambering down to stanch the bleeding: the wounds were not disabling.

Laurence nodded. “Yes. Mr. Martin,” he called, more loudly, “get the flash-powder ready; we will give them a show on their next pass.” The French breed were heavily built and dangerous, but they were nocturnal by nature, and their eyes sensitive to sudden flashes of bright light. “Mr. Turner, the flash-powder warning signal, if you please.”

A quick confirmation came from Messoria’s signal-ensign; the Yellow Reaper was herself engaged in fending off a spirited attack against the front of the formation by a French middleweight. Laurence reached out to pat Temeraire’s neck, catching his attention. “We are going to give the Fleur-de-Nuit a dose of flash-powder,” he shouted. “Hold this position, and wait for the signal.”

“Yes, I am ready,” Temeraire said, a deep note of excitement ringing in his voice; he was almost trembling.

“Pray be careful,” Laurence could not help adding; the French dragon was an older one, judging by its scars, and he did not want Temeraire to be hurt through overconfidence.

The Fleur-de-Nuit arrowed towards them, trying once again to barrel between Temeraire and Nitidus: the goal was clearly to split apart the formation, injuring one or the other dragon in the process, which would leave Lily vulnerable to attack from behind on a subsequent pass. Sutton was already signaling a new maneuver which would bring them about and give Lily an angle of attack against the Fleur-de-Nuit, which was the largest of the French assailants, but before it could be accomplished this next run had to be deflected.

“All hands at the ready; stand by on the powder,” Laurence said, using the speaking-trumpet to amplify his orders, as the massive blue-and-black creature came roaring towards them. The speed of the engagement was far beyond anything Laurence had ever before experienced. In the Navy, an exchange of fire might last five minutes; here a pass was over in less than one, and then a second came almost immediately. This time the French dragon was angling closer towards Nitidus, wanting nothing more to do with Temeraire’s claws; the smaller Pascal’s Blue would not be able to hold his position against the great bulk. “Hard to larboard; close with him!” he shouted to Temeraire.

Temeraire answered at once; his great black wings abruptly swiveled and tilted them towards the Fleur-de-Nuit, and Temeraire closed more swiftly than a typical heavy-combat dragon would have been able to do. The enemy dragon jerked and looked at them in reflex, and Laurence shouted, “Light the powder,” as he caught a glimpse of the pale white eyes.

He only just closed his own eyes in time; the brilliant flash was visible even through his eyelids, and the Fleur-de-Nuit bellowed in pain. Laurence opened his eyes again to find Temeraire slashing fiercely at the other dragon, carving deep strokes into its belly, and his riflemen strafing the bellmen on the other side. “Temeraire, hold your position,” Laurence called; Temeraire was in danger of falling behind in his enthusiasm for fighting off the other dragon.

With a start, Temeraire beat his wings in a flurry and lunged back into his place in the formation; Sutton’s signal-ensign raised the green flag, and as a unit they all wheeled around in a tight loop, Lily already opening her jaws and hissing: the Fleur-de-Nuit was still flying blind, and streaming blood into the air as its crew tried to guide it away.

“Enemy above! Enemy above!” Maximus’s larboard lookout was pointing frantically upwards; even as the boy shrilled, a terrible thick roaring like thunder sounded in their ears and drowned him out: a Grand Chevalier came plummeting down towards them. The dragon’s pale belly had allowed it to blend into the heavy cloud cover undetected by the lookouts, and now it descended towards Lily, great claws opening wide; it was nearly twice her size, and outweighed even Maximus.

Laurence was shocked to see Messoria and Immortalis both suddenly drop; he realized belatedly it was the reflex which Celeritas had warned them of, so long ago: a reaction to being startled from above. Nitidus had given a startled jerk of his wings, but recovered, and Dulcia had kept her position, but Maximus had put on a burst of speed and overshot the others, and Lily herself was wheeling around in instinctive alarm. The formation had dissolved into chaos, and she was wholly exposed.

“Ready all guns; straight at him!” he roared, signaling frantically to Temeraire; it was unnecessary, for after a moment’s hovering, Temeraire had already launched himself to Lily’s defense. The Chevalier was too close to deflect him entirely, but if they could strike him before he was able to latch on to Lily, they could still save her from a fatal mauling, and give her time to strike back.

The four other French dragons were all coming about again. Temeraire put on a burst of sudden speed and just barely slid past the reaching claws of the Pêcheur-Couronné, and collided with the great French beast with all his claws outstretched even as the Chevalier slashed at Lily’s back.

She shrieked in pain and fury, thrashing; the three dragons were all entangled now, beating their wings furiously in opposite directions, clawing and slashing. Lily could not spit upwards; they had to somehow get her loose, but Temeraire was much smaller than the Chevalier, and Laurence could see the enormous dragon’s claws sinking deeper into Lily’s flesh, even though her crew were hacking at the iron-hard talons with axes.

“Get a bomb up here,” Laurence snapped to Granby; they would have to try and hurl one into the Chevalier’s belly-rigging, despite the danger of missing and striking Temeraire or Lily.

Temeraire kept slashing away in a blind passion, his sides belling out for breath; he roared so tremendously that his body vibrated with the force and Laurence’s ears ached. The Chevalier shuddered with pain; somewhere on his other side, Maximus also roared, blocked from Laurence’s sight by the French dragon’s bulk. The attack had its effect: the Chevalier bellowed in his deep hoarse voice, and his claws sprang free.

“Cut loose,” Laurence shouted. “Temeraire, cut loose; get between him and Lily.” In answer, Temeraire pulled himself free and dropped. Lily was moaning, streaming blood, and she was losing elevation rapidly. Having driven off the Chevalier was not enough: the other dragons were now as great a danger to her until she could get back aloft into fighting position. Laurence heard Captain Harcourt calling orders whose words he could not make out; abruptly Lily’s belly-rigging fell away like a great net sinking down through the clouds, and bombs, supplies, baggage, all went tumbling down and vanished into the waters of the Channel below; her ground crew were all tying themselves to the main harness instead.

Thus lightened, Lily shuddered and made a great effort, beating back up into the sky; the wounds were being packed with white bandages, but even at a distance Laurence could see she would need stitching. Maximus had the Chevalier engaged, but the Pêcheur-Couronné and the Fleur-de-Nuit were falling into a small wedge formation with the other French middle-weight, preparing to take a dash at Lily again. Temeraire maintained position just above Lily and hissed threateningly, his bloody claws flexing; but she was climbing too slowly.

The battle had turned into a wild melee; though the other British dragons had now recovered from their initial fright, they were in no sort of order. Harcourt was wholly occupied with Lily’s difficulties, and the last French dragon, a Pêcheur-Rayé, was fighting Messoria far below. Clearly the French had identified Sutton as the commander, and were keeping him out of the way; a strategy Laurence could grimly admire. He had no authority to take command, he was the most junior captain in the party, but something had to be done.

“Turner,” he said, catching his signal-ensign’s attention; but before he gave any order, the other British dragons were already wheeling around and in motion.

“Signal, sir, form up around leader,” Turner said, pointing.

Laurence looked back and saw Praecursoris swinging into Maximus’s usual place with signal-flags waving: not being limited to the formation’s pace, Choiseul and the big dragon had gone on ahead of them, but his lookouts had evidently caught sight of the battle and he had now returned. Laurence tapped Temeraire’s shoulder to draw his attention to the signal. “I see it,” Temeraire called back, and at once backwinged and settled into his proper position.

Another signal flashed out, and Laurence brought Temeraire up and in closer; Nitidus also pulled in more tightly, and together they closed the gap in the formation where Messoria would normally have been. Formation rise together, the next signal came, and with the other dragons around her, Lily took heart and was able to beat up more strongly: the bleeding had stopped at last. The trio of French dragons had separated; they could no longer hope to succeed with a collective charge, not straight into Lily’s jaws, and the formation would be up to the level of the Chevalier in a moment.

Maximus break away, the signal flashed: Maximus was still engaged in close quarters with the Chevalier, and rifles were cracking away on both sides. The great Regal Copper gave a final slash of his claws and pushed away: just a fraction too soon, for the formation was not yet high enough, and another few moments were necessary before Lily would be able to strike.

The Chevalier’s crew now saw his fresh danger and sent the big dragon back aloft, a great deal of shouting going on aboard in French. Though he was bleeding from many wounds, the Chevalier was so large that these did not hamper him severely, and he was still able to climb quicker than the injured Lily. After a moment, Choiseul signaled, Formation hold elevation, and they gave up the pursuit.

The French dragons came together at a distance into a loose cluster, wheeling around as they considered their next attack. But then they all turned as one and fled rapidly north-east, the Pêcheur-Rayé disengaging from Messoria also. Temeraire’s lookouts were all calling out and pointing to the south, and when Laurence looked over his shoulder he saw ten dragons flying towards them at great speed, British signals flashing out from the Longwing in the lead.

The Longwing was indeed Excidium; he and his formation accompanied them along the rest of the journey to the Dover covert, the two heavyweight Chequered Nettles among them taking it in turn to support Lily on the way. She was making reasonable progress, but her head was drooping, and she made a very heavy landing, her legs trembling so that the crew only barely managed to scramble off before she crumpled to the ground. Captain Harcourt’s face was streaked with unashamed tears, and she ran to Lily’s head and stood there caressing her and murmuring loving encouragement while the surgeons began their work.

Laurence directed Temeraire to land on the very edge of the covert’s landing ground, so the injured dragons might have more room. Maximus, Immortalis, and Messoria had all taken painful if not dangerous wounds in the battle, though nothing like what Lily had suffered, and their low cries of pain were very difficult to hear. Laurence repressed a shudder and stroked Temeraire’s sleek neck; he was deeply grateful for Temeraire’s quickness and grace, which had preserved him from the others’ fate. “Mr. Granby, let us unload at once, and then if you please, let us see what we can spare for the comfort of Lily’s crew; they have no baggage left, it looks to me.”

“Very good, sir,” Granby said, turning to give the orders at once.

It took several hours to settle the dragons down and get them unpacked and fed; fortunately the covert was a very large one, covering perhaps one hundred acres when including the cattle pastures, and there was no difficulty about finding a comfortably large clearing for Temeraire. Temeraire was wavering between excitement at having seen his first battle and deep anxiety for Lily’s sake; for once he ate only indifferently, and Laurence finally told the crew to take away the remainder of the carcasses. “We can hunt in the morning, there is no need to force yourself to eat,” he said.

“Thank you; I truly do not feel very hungry at the moment,” Temeraire said, settling down his head. He was quiet while they cleaned him, until the crewmen had gone and left him alone with Laurence. His eyes were closed to slits, and for a moment Laurence wondered if he had fallen asleep; then he opened them a little more and asked softly, “Laurence, is it always so, after a battle?”

Laurence did not need to ask what he meant; Temeraire’s weariness and sorrow were apparent. It was hard to know how to answer; he wanted so very much to reassure. Yet he himself was still tense and angry, and while the sensation was familiar, its lingering was not. He had been in many actions, no less deadly or dangerous, but this one had differed in the crucial respect: when the enemy took aim at his charge, they were threatening not his ship, but his dragon, already the dearest creature to him in the world. Nor could he contemplate injury to Lily or Maximus or any of the members of the formation with any sort of detachment; they might not be his own Temeraire, but they were full comrades-in-arms as well. It was not at all the same, and the surprise attack had caught him unprepared in his mind.

“It is often difficult afterwards, I am afraid, particularly when a friend has been injured, or perhaps killed,” he said finally. “I will say that I find this action especially hard to bear; there was nothing to be gained, for our part, and we did not seek it out.”

“Yes, that is true,” Temeraire said, his ruff drooping low upon his neck. “It would be better if I could think we had all fought so hard, and Lily had been hurt, for some purpose. But they only came to hurt us, so we did not even protect anyone.”

“That is not true at all; you protected Lily,” Laurence said. “And consider: the French made a very clever and skillful attack, taking us wholly by surprise, with a force equal to our own in numbers and superior in experience, and we defeated it and drove them off. That is something to be proud of, is it not?”

“I suppose that is true,” Temeraire said; his shoulders settled as he relaxed. “If only Lily will be all right,” he added.

“Let us hope so; be sure that all that can be done for her, will be,” Laurence said, stroking his nose. “Come now, you must be tired. Will you not sleep? Shall I read to you a little?”

“I do not think I can sleep,” Temeraire said. “But I would like you to read to me, and I will lie quietly and rest.” He yawned as soon as he had finished saying this, and was asleep before Laurence had even taken the book out. The weather had finally turned, and the warm, even breaths rising from his nostrils made small puffs of fog in the crisp air.

Leaving him to sleep, Laurence walked quickly back to the covert headquarters; the path through the dragon-fields was lit with hanging lanterns, and in any case he could see the windows up ahead. An easterly wind was carrying the salt air in from the harbor, mingled with the coppery smell of the warm dragons, already familiar and hardly noticed. He had a warm room on the second floor, with a window that looked out onto the back gardens, and his baggage had already been unpacked. He looked at the wrinkled clothes ruefully; evidently the servants at the covert had no more notion of packing than the aviators themselves did.

There was a great noise of raised voices as he came into the senior officers’ dining room, despite the late hour; the other captains of the formation were assembled at the long table where their own meal was going largely untouched.

“Is there any word about Lily?” he asked, taking the empty chair between Berkley and Dulcia’s captain, Chenery; Captain Harcourt and Captain Little of Immortalis were the only ones not present.

“He cut her to the bone, the great coward, but that is all we know,” Chenery said. “They are still sewing her up, and she hasn’t taken anything to eat.”

Laurence knew that was a bad sign; injured dragons usually became ravenous, unless they were in very great pain. “Maximus and Messoria?” he asked, looking at Berkley and Sutton.

“Ate well, and fast asleep,” Berkley said; his usually placid face was drawn and haggard, and he had a streak of dark blood running across his forehead into his bristly hair. “That was damned quick of you today, Laurence; we’d have lost her.”

“Not quick enough,” Laurence said quietly, forestalling the murmur of agreement; he had not the least desire to be praised for this day’s work, though he was proud of what Temeraire had done.

“Quicker than the rest of us,” Sutton said, draining his glass; from the looks of his cheeks and nose, it was not his first. “They caught us properly flat-footed, damned Frogs. What the devil they were doing to have a patrol there, I would like to know.”

“The route from Laggan to Dover isn’t much of a secret, Sutton,” Little said, coming to the table; they dragged chairs about to make room for him at their end of the table. “Immortalis is settled and eating, by the by; speaking of which, please give me that chicken here.” He wrenched off a leg with his hands and tore into it hungrily.

Looking at him, Laurence felt the first stirrings of appetite; the other captains seemed to feel the same way, and for the next ten minutes there was silence while they passed the plates around and concentrated on their food; they had none of them eaten since a hasty breakfast before dawn at the covert near Middlesbrough. The wine was not very good, but Laurence drank several glasses anyway.

“I expect they’ve been lurking about between Felixstowe and Dover, just waiting to get a drop on us,” Little said after a while, wiping his mouth and continuing his earlier thought. “By God, if you ever catch me taking Immortalis that way again; overland it is for us from now on, unless we’re looking for a fight.”

“Right you are,” Chenery said, with heartfelt agreement. “Hello, Choiseul; pull up a chair.” He shuffled over a little more, and the royalist captain joined them.

“Gentlemen, I am very happy to say that Lily has begun to eat; I have just come from Captain Harcourt,” he said, and raised a glass. “To their health, may I propose?”

“Hear, hear,” Sutton said, refilling his own glass; they all joined in the toast, and there was a general sigh of relief.

“Here you all are, then; eating, I hope? Good, very good.” Admiral Lenton had come up to join them; he was the commander-in-chief of the Channel Division, and thus all those dragons at the Dover covert. “No, don’t be fools, don’t get up,” he said impatiently, as Laurence and Choiseul began to rise, and the others belatedly followed. “After the day you’ve had, for Heaven’s sake. Here, pass that bottle over, Sutton. So, you all know that Lily is eating? Yes, the surgeons hope she will be flying short distances in a couple of weeks, and in the meantime you have at least nicely mauled a couple of their heavy-combat beasts. A toast to your formation, gentlemen.”

Laurence was at last beginning to feel his tension and distress ease; knowing Lily and the others were out of danger was a great relief, and the wine had loosened the tight knot in his throat. The others seemed to feel much the same way, and conversation grew slow and fragmented; they were all much inclined to nod over their cups.

“I am quite certain that the Grand Chevalier was Triumphalis,” Choiseul was telling Admiral Lenton quietly. “I have seen him before; he is one of France’s most dangerous fighters. He was certainly at the Dijon covert, near the Rhine, when Praecursoris and I left Austria, and I must represent to you, sir, that it bears out all my worst fears: Bonaparte would not have brought him here if he was not wholly confident of victory against Austria, and I am sure more of the French dragons are on their way to assist Villeneuve.”

“I was inclined to agree with you before, Captain; now I am sure of it,” Lenton said. “But for the moment, all we can do is hope Mortiferus reaches Nelson before the French dragons reach Villeneuve, and that he can do the job; we cannot spare Excidium if we do not have Lily. I would not be surprised if that was what they intended by this strike; it is the clever sort of way that damned Corsican thinks.”

Laurence could not help thinking of the Reliant, perhaps even now under the threat of a full-scale French aerial attack, and the other ships of the great fleet currently blockading Cadiz. So many of his friends and acquaintances; even if the French dragons did not arrive first, there would be a great naval battle to be fought, and how many would be lost without his ever hearing another word from them? He had not devoted much time to correspondence in the last busy months; now he regretted the neglect deeply.

“Have we had any dispatches from the blockade at Cadiz?” he asked. “Have they seen any action?”

“Not that I have heard of,” Lenton said. “Oh, that’s right, you’re our fellow from the Navy, aren’t you? Well, I will be starting those of you with uninjured beasts on patrolling over the Channel Fleet anyway while the others recover; you can touch down for a bit by the flagship and hear the news. They’ll be damned glad to see you; we haven’t been able to spare anyone long enough to bring them the post in a month.”

“Will you want us tomorrow, then?” Chenery asked, stifling a yawn, not entirely successfully.

“No, I can spare you a day. See to your dragons, and enjoy the rest while it lasts,” Lenton said, with a sharp, braying laugh. “I’ll be having you rousted out of bed at dawn the day after.”

Temeraire slept very heavily and late the next morning, leaving Laurence to occupy himself for some hours after breakfast. He met Berkley at the table, and walked back with him to see Maximus. The Regal Copper was still eating, a procession of fresh-slaughtered sheep going down his gullet one after another, and he only rumbled a wordless, mouth-full greeting as they came to the clearing.

Berkley brought out a bottle of rather terrible wine, and drank most of it himself while Laurence sipped at his glass to be polite, as they told over the battle again with diagrams scratched in the dirt and pebbles representing the dragons. “We would do very well to add a light-flyer, a Greyling if one can be spared, to fly lookout above the formation,” Berkley said, sitting back heavily upon a rock. “It is all our big dragons being young; when the big ones panic in that way, the little ones will have a start even if they know better.”

Laurence nodded. “Although I hope this misadventure will at least have given them some experience in dealing with the fright,” he said. “In any event, the French cannot count on having such ideal circumstances often; without the cloud cover they should never have managed it.”

“Gentlemen; are you looking over the plan of yesterday?” Choiseul had been walking past towards the headquarters; he joined them and crouched down beside the diagram. “I am very sorry to have been away at the beginning.” His coat was dusty and his neckcloth was stained badly with sweat: he looked as though he had not shifted his clothes since yesterday, and a thin tracery of red veins stood out in the whites of his eyes; he rubbed his face as he looked down.

“Have you been up all night?” Laurence asked.

Choiseul shook his head. “No, but I took it in turns with Catherine—with Harcourt—to sleep a little, by Lily; she would not rest otherwise.” He shut his eyes in an enormous yawn, and nearly fell over. “Merci,” he said, grateful for Laurence’s steadying hand, and pushed himself slowly to his feet. “I will leave you; I must get Catherine some food.”

“Pray go and get some rest,” Laurence said. “I will bring her something; Temeraire is asleep, and I am at liberty.”

Harcourt herself was wide awake, pale with anxiety but steady now, giving orders to the crew and feeding Lily with chunks of still-steaming beef from her own hand, a constant stream of encouragement coming from her lips. Laurence had brought her some bread with bacon; she would have taken the sandwich in her bloody hands, unwilling to interrupt, but he managed to coax her away long enough to wash a little and eat while a crewman took her place. Lily kept eating, with one golden eye resting on Harcourt for reassurance.

Choiseul came back before Harcourt had quite finished, his neckcloth and coat gone and a servant following with a pot of coffee, strong and hot. “Your lieutenant is looking for you, Laurence; Temeraire begins to stir,” he said, sitting down again heavily beside her. “I cannot manage to sleep; the coffee has done me well.”

“Thank you, Jean-Paul, if you are not too tired, I would be very grateful for your company,” she said, already drinking her second cup. “Pray have no hesitation, Laurence, I am sure Temeraire must be anxious. I am obliged to you for coming.”

Laurence bowed to them both, though he had a sense of awkwardness for the first occasion since he had grown used to Harcourt. She was leaning with no appearance of consciousness against Choiseul’s shoulder, and he was looking down at her with undisguised warmth; she was quite young, after all, and Laurence could not help feeling the absence of any suitable chaperone.

He consoled himself that nothing could happen with Lily and the crew present, even if they had not both been so obviously done in; in any case, he could hardly stay under the circumstances, and he hurried away to Temeraire’s clearing.

The rest of the day he spent gratefully in idleness, seated comfortably in his usual place in the crook of Temeraire’s foreleg and writing letters; he had formed an extensive correspondence while at sea, with all the long hours to fill, and now many of his acquaintance were owed responses. His mother, too, had managed to write him several hasty and short letters, evidently kept from his father’s knowledge; at least they were not franked, so Laurence was obliged to pay to receive them.

Having gorged himself to compensate for his lack of appetite the night before, Temeraire then listened to the letters Laurence was writing and dictated his own contributions, sending greetings to Lady Allendale, and to Riley. “And do ask Captain Riley to give my best wishes to the crew of the Reliant,” he said. “It seems so very long ago, Laurence, does it not? I have not had fish in months now.”

Laurence smiled at this measure of time. “A great deal has happened, certainly; it is strange to think it has not even been a year,” he said, sealing the envelope and writing the direction. “I only hope they are all well.” It was the last, and he laid it upon the substantial pile with satisfaction; he was a great deal easier in his conscience now. “Roland,” he called, and she came running up from where the cadets were playing a game of jacks. “Go take this to the dispatch post,” he said, handing her the stack.

“Sir,” she said, a little nervously, accepting the letters, “when I am done, might I have liberty for the evening?”

He was startled by the request; several of the ensigns and midwingmen had put in for liberty, and had it granted, that they might visit the city, but the idea of a ten-year-old cadet wandering about Dover alone was absurd, even if she were not a girl. “Would this be for yourself alone, or will you be going with one of the others?” he asked, thinking she might have been invited to join one of the older officers in a respectable excursion.

“No, sir, only for me,” she said; she looked so very hopeful that Laurence thought for a moment of granting it and taking her himself, but he could not like to leave Temeraire alone to brood over the previous day.

“Perhaps another time, Roland,” he said gently. “We will be here in Dover for a long time now, and I promise you will have another opportunity.”

“Oh,” she said, downcast. “Yes, sir.” She went away drooping so that Laurence felt guilty.

Temeraire watched her go and inquired, “Laurence, is there something particularly interesting in Dover, and might we go and see it? So many of our crew seem to be making a visit.”

“Oh dear,” Laurence said; he felt rather awkward explaining that the main attraction was the abundance of harbor prostitutes and cheap liquor. “Well, a city has a great many people in it, and thus various entertainments provided in close proximity,” he tried.

“Do you mean such as more books?” Temeraire said. “But I have never seen Dunne or Collins reading, and they were so very excited to be going: they talked of nothing else all yesterday evening.”

Laurence silently cursed the two unfortunate young midwingmen for complicating his task, already planning their next week’s duties in a vengeful spirit. “There is also the theater, and concerts,” he said lamely. But this was carrying concealment too far: the sting of dishonesty was unpleasant, and he could not bear to feel he had been deceitful to Temeraire, who after all was grown now. “But I am afraid that some of them go there to drink, and keep low company,” he said more frankly.

“Oh, you mean whores,” Temeraire said, startling Laurence so greatly he nearly fell from his seat. “I did not know they had those in cities, too, but now I understand.”

“Where on earth had you heard of them?” Laurence asked, steadying himself; now relieved of the burden of explanation, he felt irrationally offended that someone else had chosen to enlighten Temeraire.

“Oh, Victoriatus at Loch Laggan told me, for I wondered why the officers were going down to the village when they did not have family there,” Temeraire said. “But you have never gone; are you sure you would not like to?” he added, almost hopefully.

“My dear, you must not say such things,” Laurence said, blushing and shaking with laughter at the same time. “It is not a respectable subject for conversation, at all, and if men cannot be prevented from indulging the habit, they at least ought not to be encouraged. I shall certainly speak with Dunne and Collins; they ought not to be bragging about it, and especially not where the ensigns might hear.”

“I do not understand,” Temeraire said. “Vindicatus said that it was prodigiously nice for men, and also desirable, for otherwise they might like to get married, and that did not sound very pleasant at all. Although if you very much wished to, I suppose I would not mind.” He made this last speech with very little sincerity, looking at Laurence sideways, as if to gauge the effect.

Laurence’s mirth and embarrassment both faded at once. “I am afraid you have been given some very incomplete knowledge,” he said gently. “Forgive me; I ought to have spoken of these matters to you before. I must beg you to have no anxiety: you are my first charge and will always be, even if I should ever marry, and I do not suppose I will.”

He paused a moment to reflect if speaking further would give Temeraire more worry, but in the end he decided to err on the side of full confidence, and added, “There was something of an understanding between myself and a lady, before you came to me, but she has since set me at liberty.”

“Do you mean she has refused you?” Temeraire said, very indignantly, by way of demonstrating that dragons might be as contrary as men. “I am very sorry, Laurence; if you like to get married, I am sure you can find someone else, much nicer.”

“This is very flattering, but I assure you, I have not the least desire to seek out a replacement,” Laurence said.

Temeraire ducked his head a little, and made no further demurrals, quite evidently pleased. “But Laurence—” he said, then halted. “Laurence,” he asked, “if it is not a fit subject, does that mean I ought not speak of it anymore?”

“You must be careful to avoid it in any wider company, but you may always speak of anything you like to me,” Laurence said.

“I am merely curious, now, if that is all there is in Dover,” Temeraire said. “For Roland is too young for whores, is she not?”

“I am beginning to feel the need of a glass of wine to fortify myself against this conversation,” Laurence said ruefully.

Thankfully, Temeraire was satisfied with some further explanation of what the theater and concerts might be, and the other attractions of a city; he turned his attention willingly to a discussion of the planned route for their patrol, which a runner had brought over that morning, and even inquired about the possibility of catching some fish for dinner. Laurence was glad to see him so recovered in spirit after the previous day’s misfortunes, and had just decided that he would take Roland to the town after all, if Temeraire did not object, when he saw her returning in the company of another captain: a woman.

He had been sitting upon Temeraire’s foreleg in what he was abruptly conscious was a state of disarray; he hurriedly climbed down on the far side so that he was briefly hidden by Temeraire’s body. There was no time to put back his coat, which was hung over a tree limb some distance away in any case, but he tucked his shirt back into his trousers and tied his neckcloth hastily back round his neck.

He came around to make his bow, and nearly stumbled as he saw her clearly; she was not unhandsome, but her face was marred badly by a scar that could only have been made by a sword; the left eye drooped a little at the corner where the blade had just missed it, and the flesh was drawn along an angry red line all the way down her face, fading to a thinner white scar along her neck. She was his own age, or perhaps a little older; the scar made it difficult to tell, but in any case she wore the triple bars which marked her as a senior captain, and a small gold medal of the Nile in her lapel.

“Laurence, is it?” she said, without waiting for any sort of introduction, while he was still busy striving to conceal his surprise. “I am Jane Roland, Excidium’s captain; I would take it as a personal favor if I might have Emily for the evening—if she can possibly be spared.” She glanced pointedly at the idle cadets and ensigns; her tone was sarcastic, and she was clearly offended.

“I beg your pardon,” Laurence said, realizing his mistake. “I had thought she wanted liberty to visit the town; I did not realize—” And here he barely caught himself; he was quite sure they were mother and daughter, not only because of the shared name but also a certain similarity of feature and expression, but he could not simply make the assumption. “Certainly you may have her,” he finished instead.

Hearing his explanation, Captain Roland unbent at once. “Ha! I see, what mischief you must have imagined her getting into,” she said; her laugh was curiously hearty and unfeminine. “Well, I promise I shan’t let her run wild, and to have her back by eight o’clock. Thank you; Excidium and I have not seen her in almost a year, and we are in danger of forgetting what she looks like.”

Laurence bowed and saw them off; Roland hurrying to keep up with her mother’s long, mannish stride, speaking the whole time in obvious excitement and enthusiasm, and waving her hand towards her friends as she went away. Watching them go, Laurence felt a little foolish; he had at last grown used to Captain Harcourt, and should have been able to draw the natural conclusion. Excidium was after all another Longwing; presumably he too insisted on a female captain just as did Lily, and with his many years of service, his captain could scarcely have avoided battle. Yet Laurence had to own he was surprised, and not a little shocked, to see a woman so cut about and so forward; Harcourt, his only other example of a female captain, was by no means missish, but she was still quite young and conscious of her early promotion, which perhaps made her less assured.

With the subject of marriage so fresh in his mind after his discussion with Temeraire, he also could not help wondering about Emily’s father; if marriage was an awkward proposition for a male aviator, it seemed nearly inconceivable for a female one. The only thing he could imagine was that Emily was natural-born, and as soon as the idea occurred to him he scolded himself to be entertaining such thoughts about a perfectly respectable woman he had just met.

But his involuntary guess proved entirely correct, in the event. “I am afraid I have not the slightest idea; I have not seen him in ten years,” she said, later that evening; she had invited him to join her for a late supper at the officers’ club after bringing Emily back, and after a few glasses of wine he had not been able to resist making a tentative inquiry after the health of Emily’s father. “It is not as though we were married, you know; I do not believe he even knows Emily’s name.”

She seemed wholly unconscious of any shame, and after all Laurence had privately felt any more legitimate situation would have been impossible. But he was uncomfortable nevertheless; thankfully, though she noticed, she did not take any offense at it for herself, but rather said kindly, “I dare say our ways are still odd to you. But you can marry, if you like, it is not held against you at all in the Corps. It is only that it is rather hard on the other person, always taking second place to a dragon. For my own part, I have never felt anything wanting; I should never have desired children if it were not for Excidium’s sake, although Emily is a dear, and I am very happy to have her. But it was sadly inconvenient, for all that.”

“So Emily is to follow you as his captain?” Laurence said. “May I ask you, are the dragons, the long-lived ones, I mean, always inherited this way?”

“When we can manage it; they take it very hard, you see, losing a handler, and they are more likely to accept a new one if it is someone they have some connection to, and whom they feel shares their grief,” she said. “So we breed ourselves as much as them; I expect they will be asking you to manage one or two for the Corps yourself.”

“Good Lord,” he said, startled by the idea; he had discarded the thought of children with his plans of marriage, from the very moment of Edith’s refusal, and still further gone now that he was aware of Temeraire’s objections; he could not immediately imagine how he might arrange the matter.

“I suppose it must be rather shocking to you, poor fellow. I am sorry,” she said. “I would offer, but you ought to wait until he is at least ten years old; and in any case I cannot be spared just now.”

Laurence required a moment to understand what she meant, then he snatched up his wineglass with an unsteady hand and endeavored to conceal his face behind it; he could feel color rising in his cheeks despite all the will in the world to prevent it. “Very kind,” he said into the cup, strangled half between mortification and laughter; it was not the sort of offer he had ever envisioned receiving, even if it had only half been made.

“Catherine might do for you by then, however,” Roland went on, still in that appallingly practical tone. “That might do nicely, indeed; you could have one each for Lily and Temeraire.”

“Thank you!” he said, very firmly, in desperation trying to change the subject. “May I bring you a glass of something to drink?”

“Oh, yes; port would be splendid, thank you,” she said. By this time he was beyond being shocked; and when he returned with two glasses and she offered him an already-lit cigar, he shared it with her willingly.

He stayed talking with her for several hours more, until they were the only ones left in the club and the servants were beginning to pointedly stop concealing their yawns. They climbed the stairs together. “It is not so very late as all that,” she said, looking at the handsome great clock at the end of the upper landing. “Are you very tired? We might have a hand or two of piquet in my rooms.”

By this time he had begun to be so easy with her that he thought nothing of the suggestion. When he left her at last, very late, to return to his own rooms, a servant was walking down the hall and glanced at him; only then did he consider the propriety of his behavior and suffer a qualm. But the damage, if any, had already been done; he put it from his mind, and sought his bed at last.

Chapter 10

HE WAS SUFFICIENTLY experienced to no longer be very surprised, the next morning, when he found that their late night had led to no gossip. Instead, Captain Roland hailed him warmly at breakfast and introduced him to her lieutenants without the slightest consciousness, and they walked out to their dragons together.

Laurence saw Temeraire finishing off a hearty breakfast of his own, and took a moment to have a private and forceful word with Collins and Dunne about their indiscretion. He did not mean to go on like a blue-light captain, preaching chastity and temperance all day; still, he did not think it prudish if he preferred his youngsters to have a respectable example before them in the older officers. “If you must keep such company, I do not propose to have you making whoremongers of yourselves, and giving the ensigns and cadets the notion that this is how they ought to behave,” he said, while the two midwingmen squirmed. Dunne even opened his mouth and looked as though he would rather like to protest, but subsided under Laurence’s very cold stare: that was a degree of insubordination he did not intend to permit.

But having finished the lecture and dismissed them to their work, he found himself a trifle uneasy as he recalled that his own behavior of the previous night was not above reproach. He consoled himself by the reminder that Roland was a fellow-officer; her company could hardly be compared to that of whores, and in any case they had not created any sort of public spectacle, which was at the heart of the matter. However, the rationalization rang a little hollow, and he was glad to distract himself with work: Emily and the two other runners were already waiting by Temeraire’s side with the heavy bags of post that had accumulated for the blockading fleet.

The very strength of the British fleet left the ships on the blockade in strangely isolated circumstances. It was rarely necessary for a dragon to be sent to their assistance; they received all but their most urgent dispatches and supplies by frigate, and so had little opportunity to hear recent news or receive their post. The French might have twenty-one ships in Brest, but they did not dare come out to face the far more skilled British sailors. Without naval support, even a full French heavy-combat wing would not risk a strafing run with the sharpshooters always ready in the tops and the harpoon and pepper guns primed upon the deck. Occasionally there might be an attack at night, usually made by a single nocturnal-breed dragon, but the riflemen often gave as good as they got in such circumstances, and if a full-scale attack were ever launched, a flare signal could easily be seen by the patrolling dragons to the north.

Admiral Lenton had decided to reorder the uninjured dragons of Lily’s formation as necessary from day to day, to both keep the dragons occupied and patrol a somewhat greater extent. Today he had ordered Temeraire to fly point, with Nitidus and Dulcia flanking him: they would trail Excidium’s formation on the first leg of Channel patrol, then break off for a pass over the main squadron of the Channel Fleet, currently just off Ushant and blockading the French port of Brest. Aside from the more martial benefits, their visit would furnish the ships of the fleet with at least a little break in the lonely monotony of their blockade-duty.

The morning was so cold and crisp no fog had gathered, the sky sharply brilliant and the water below almost black. Squinting against the glare, Laurence would have liked to imitate the ensigns and midwingmen, who were rubbing black kohl under their eyes, but as point-leader, he would be in command of the small group while they were detached, and he would likely be asked aboard to see Admiral Lord Gardner when they landed at the flagship.

Thanks to the weather, it was a pleasant flight, even if not a very smooth one: wind currents seemed to vary unpredictably once they had moved out over the open water, and Temeraire followed some unconscious instinct in rising and falling to catch the best wind. After an hour’s patrol, they reached the point of separation; Captain Roland raised a hand in farewell as Temeraire angled away south and swept past Excidium; the sun was nearly straight overhead, and the ocean glittered beneath them.

“Laurence, I see the ships ahead,” Temeraire said, perhaps half an hour later, and Laurence lifted his telescope, having to cup a hand around his eye and squint against the sun before he could see the sails on the water.

“Well sighted,” Laurence called back, and said, “Give them the private signal if you please, Mr. Turner.” The signal-ensign began running up the pattern of flags that would mark them as a British party; less of a formality in their case, thanks to Temeraire’s unusual appearance.

Shortly they were sighted and identified; the leading British ship fired a handsome salute of nine guns, more perhaps than was strictly due to Temeraire, as he was not an official formation leader. Whether it was misunderstanding or generosity, Laurence was pleased by the attention, and had the riflemen fire off a return salute as they swept by overhead.

The fleet was a stirring sight, with the lean and elegant cutters already leaping across the water to cluster around the flagship in anticipation of the post, and the great ships-of-the-line tacking steadily into the northerly wind to keep their positions, white sails brilliant against the water, colors flying in proud display from every mainmast. Laurence could not resist leaning forward to watch over Temeraire’s shoulder, so far that the carabiner straps drew taut.

“Signal from the flagship, sir,” Turner said, as they drew near enough for the flags to be readable. “Captain come aboard on landing.”

Laurence nodded; no less than he had anticipated. “Pray acknowledge, Mr. Turner. Mr. Granby, I think we will do a pass over the rest of the fleet to the south, while they make ready for us.” The crew of the Hibernia and the neighboring Agincourt had begun casting out the floating platforms that would be lashed together to form a landing surface for the dragons, and a small cutter was already moving among them, gathering up the tow-lines. Laurence knew from experience that the operation required some time, and would go no quicker with the dragons circling directly overhead.

By the time they had completed their sweep and returned, the platforms were ready. “Bellmen up above, Mr. Granby,” Laurence ordered; the crew of the lower rigging quickly came scrambling up onto Temeraire’s back. The last few sailors hastily cleared off the deck as Temeraire made his descent, with Nitidus and Dulcia following close upon him; the platform bobbed and sank lower in the water as Temeraire’s great weight came upon it, but the lashings held secure. Nitidus and Dulcia landed at opposite corners once Temeraire had settled himself, and Laurence swung himself down. “Runners, bring the post,” he said, and himself took the sealed envelope of dispatches from Admiral Lenton to Admiral Gardner.

Laurence climbed easily into the waiting cutter, while his runners Roland, Dyer, and Morgan hurried to hand the bags of post over to the outstretched hands of the sailors. He went to the stern; Temeraire was sprawled low to better preserve the balance of the platform, with his head resting upon the edge of the platform very close to the cutter, much to the discomfort of that vessel’s crew. “I will return presently,” Laurence told him. “Pray give Lieutenant Granby the word if you require anything.”

“I will, but I do not think I will need to; I am perfectly well,” Temeraire answered, to startled looks from the cutter’s crew, which only increased as he added, “But if we could go hunting afterwards, I would be glad of it; I am sure I saw some splendid large tunnys on our way.”

The cutter was an elegant, clean-lined vessel, and she bore Laurence to the Hibernia at a pace which he would once have thought the height of speed; now he stood looking out along her bowsprit, running before the wind, and the breeze in his face seemed barely anything.

They had rigged a bosun’s chair over the Hibernia’s side, which Laurence ignored with disdain; his sea-legs had scarcely deserted him, and in any case climbing up the side presented him with no difficulty. Captain Bedford was waiting to greet him, and started in open surprise as Laurence climbed aboard: they had served together in the Goliath at the Nile.

“Good Lord, Laurence; I had no notion of your being here in the Channel,” he said, formal greeting forgotten, and meeting him instead with a hearty handshake. “Is that your beast, then?” he asked, staring across the water at Temeraire, who was in his bulk not much smaller than the seventy-four-gun Agincourt behind him. “I thought he had only just hatched a sixmonth gone.”

Laurence could not help a swelling pride; he hoped that he concealed it as he answered, “Yes, that is Temeraire. He is not yet eight months old, yet he does have nearly his full growth.” With difficulty he restrained himself from boasting further; nothing, he was sure, could be more irritating, like one of those men who could not stop talking of the beauty of their mistress, or the cleverness of their children. In any case, Temeraire did not require praising; any observer looking at him could hardly fail to mark his distinctive and elegant appearance.

“Oh, I see,” Bedford said, looking at him with a bemused expression. Then the lieutenant at Bedford’s shoulder coughed meaningfully. Bedford glanced at the fellow and then said, “Forgive me; I was so taken aback to see you that I have been keeping you standing about. Pray come this way, Lord Gardner is waiting to see you.”

Admiral Lord Gardner had only lately come to his position as commander in the Channel, on Sir William Cornwallis’s retirement; the strain of following so successful a leader in so difficult a position was telling upon him. Laurence had served in the Channel Fleet several years before, as a lieutenant; they had never been introduced previously, but Laurence had seen him several times, and his face was markedly aged.

“Yes, I see, Laurence, is it?” Gardner said, as the flag-lieutenant presented him, and murmured a few words which Laurence could not hear. “Pray be seated; I must read these dispatches at once, and then I have a few words to give you to carry back for me to Lenton,” he said, breaking the seal and studying the contents. Lord Gardner grunted and nodded to himself as he read through the messages; from his sharp look, Laurence knew when he reached the account of the recent skirmish.

“Well, Laurence, you have already seen some sharp action, I gather,” he said, laying aside the papers at last. “It is just as well for you all to get some seasoning, I expect; it cannot be long before we see something more from them, and you must tell Lenton so for me. I have been sending every sloop and brig and cutter I dare to risk close in to the shore, and the French are busy as bees inland outside Cherbourg. We cannot tell with what, precisely, but they can hardly be preparing for anything but invasion, and judging by their activity, they mean it to be soon.”

“Surely Bonaparte cannot have more news of the fleet in Cadiz than do we?” Laurence said, disturbed by this intelligence. The degree of confidence augured by such preparations was frighteningly high, and though Bonaparte was certainly arrogant, his arrogance had rarely proven to be wholly unfounded.

“Not of immediate events, no, of that I am now thankfully certain. You have brought me confirmation that our dispatch-riders have been coming back and forth steadily,” Gardner said, tapping the sheaf of papers on his desk. “However, he cannot be so wild as to imagine he can come across without his fleet, and that suggests he expects them soon.”

Laurence nodded; that expectation might still be ill-founded or wishful, but that Bonaparte had it at all meant Nelson’s fleet was in imminent danger.

Gardner sealed the packet of returning dispatches and handed them over. “There; I am much obliged to you, Laurence, and for your bringing the post to us. Now I trust you will join us for dinner, and of course your fellow captains as well?” he said, rising from his desk. “Captain Briggs of the Agincourt will join us as well, I think.”

A lifetime of naval training had inculcated in Laurence the precept that such an invitation from a superior officer was as good as a command, and though Gardner was no longer strictly his superior, it remained impossible to even think of refusing. But Laurence could not help but consider Temeraire with some anxiety, and Nitidus with even more. The Pascal’s Blue was a nervous creature who required a great deal of careful management from Captain Warren under ordinary circumstances, and Laurence was certain that he would be distressed at the prospect of remaining aboard the makeshift floating platform without his handler and no officer above the rank of lieutenant anywhere to be seen.

And yet dragons did wait under such conditions all the time; if there had been a greater aerial threat against the fleet, several might even have been stationed upon platforms at all times, with their captains frequently called upon to join the naval officers in planning. Laurence could not like subjecting the dragons to such a wait for no better cause than a dinner engagement, but neither could he honestly say there was any actual risk to them.

“Sir, nothing could give me greater pleasure, and I am sure I speak for Captain Warren and Captain Chenery as well,” he said: there was nothing else to be done. Indeed Gardner could hardly be said to be waiting for an answer; he had already gone to the door to call in his lieutenant.

However, only Chenery came over in response to the signaled invitation, bearing sincere but mild regrets. “Nitidus will fret if he is left alone, you see, so Warren thinks it much better if he does not leave him,” was all the explanation he offered, made to Gardner very cheerfully; he seemed unconscious of the deep solecism he was committing.

Laurence privately winced at the startled and somewhat offended looks this procured, not merely from Lord Gardner but from the other captains and the flag-lieutenant as well, though he could not help but feel relieved. Still the dinner began awkwardly, and continued so.

The admiral was clearly oppressed by thoughts of his work, and there were long periods between his remarks. The table would have been a silent and heavy one, save that Chenery was in his usual form, high-spirited and quick to make conversation, and he spoke freely in complete disregard of the naval convention that reserved the right of starting conversation to Lord Gardner.

When addressed directly, the naval officers would pause very pointedly before responding to him, as briefly as possible, before dropping the subject. Laurence was at first agonized on his behalf, and then began to grow angry. It must have been clear to even the most sensitive temper that Chenery was speaking in ignorance; his chosen subjects were innocuous, and to sit in sullen and reproachful silence seemed to Laurence a far greater piece of rudeness.

Chenery could not help but notice the cold response; as yet he was only beginning to look puzzled, not offended, but that would hardly last. When he gamely tried once more, this time Laurence deliberately volunteered a reply. The two of them carried the discussion along between them for several minutes, and then Gardner, his attention drawn from his brown study, glanced up and contributed a remark. The conversation was thus blessed, and the other officers joined in at last; Laurence made a great effort, and kept the topic running throughout the rest of the meal.

What ought to have been a pleasure thus became a chore, and he was very glad when the port was taken off the table, and they were invited to step up on deck for cigars and coffee. Taking his cup, he went to stand by the larboard taffrail to better see the floating platform: Temeraire was sleeping quietly with the sun beating on his scales, one foreleg dangling over the side into the water, and Nitidus and Dulcia were resting against him.

Bedford came to stand and look with him, in what Laurence took as companionable silence; after a moment Bedford said, “I suppose he is a valuable animal and we must be glad to have him, but it is appalling you should be chained to such a life, and in such company.”

Laurence could not immediately command the power of speech in response to this remark so full of sincere pity; half a dozen answers all crowded to his lips. He drew a breath that shook in his throat and said in a low, savage voice, “Sir, you will not speak to me in such terms, either of Temeraire or of my colleagues; I wonder that you could imagine such an address acceptable.”

Bedford stepped back from his vehemence. Laurence turned away and left his coffee cup clattering upon the steward’s tray. “Sir, I think we must be leaving,” he said to Gardner, keeping his voice even. “As this is Temeraire’s first flight along this course, best were we to return before sunset.”

“Of course,” Gardner said, offering a hand. “Godspeed, Captain; I hope we will see you again shortly.”

Despite this excuse, Laurence did not find himself back at the covert until shortly after nightfall. Having seen Temeraire snatch several large tunnys from the water, Nitidus and Dulcia expressed the inclination to try fishing themselves, and Temeraire was perfectly happy to continue demonstrating. The younger crewmen were not entirely prepared for the experience of being on board while their dragon hunted; but after the first plummeting drop had accustomed them to the experience, the startled yells vanished, and they rapidly came to view the process as a game.

Laurence found that his black mood could not survive their enthusiasm: the boys cheered wildly each time Temeraire rose up with yet another tunny wriggling in his claws, and several of them even sought permission to climb below, the better to be splashed as Temeraire made his catch.

Thoroughly glutted and flying somewhat more slowly back towards the coast, Temeraire hummed in happiness and contentment, turned his head around to look at Laurence with bright-eyed gratitude, and said, “Has this not been a pleasant day? It has been a long time since we have had such splendid flying,” and Laurence found that he had no anger left to conceal in making his reply.

The lamps throughout the covert were just coming alight, like great fireflies against the darkness of the scattered trees, the ground crews moving among them with their torches even as Temeraire made his descent. Most of the younger officers were still soaking wet and beginning to shiver as they climbed down from Temeraire’s warm bulk; Laurence dismissed them to their rest and stood watch with Temeraire himself while the ground crew finished unharnessing him. Hollin looked at him a little reproachfully as the men brought down the neck and shoulder harnesses, encrusted with fish scales, bones, and entrails, and already beginning to stink.

Temeraire was too pleased and well-fed for Laurence to feel apologetic; he only said cheerfully, “I am afraid we have made some heavy work for you, Mr. Hollin, but at least he will not need feeding tonight.”

“Aye, sir,” Hollin said gloomily, and marshaled his men to the task.

The harness removed and his hide washed down by the crew, who by this time had formed the technique of passing buckets along rather like a fire brigade to clean him after his meals, Temeraire yawned enormously, belched, and sprawled out upon the ground with so self-satisfied an expression that Laurence laughed at him. “I must go and deliver these dispatches,” he said. “Will you sleep, or shall we read this evening?”

“Forgive me, Laurence, I think I am too sleepy,” Temeraire said, yawning again. “Laplace is difficult to follow even when I am quite awake, and I do not want to risk misunderstanding.”

As Laurence had enough difficulty for his own part merely in pronouncing the French of Laplace’s treatise on celestial mechanics well enough for Temeraire to comprehend, without making any effort to himself grasp the principles he was reading aloud, he was perfectly willing to believe this. “Very well, my dear; I will see you in the morning, then,” he said, and stood stroking Temeraire’s nose until the dragon’s eyes had slid shut, and his breathing had evened out into slumber.

Admiral Lenton received the dispatches and the verbal message with frowning concern. “I do not like it in the least, not in the least,” he said. “Working inland, is he? Laurence, could he be building more boats on shore, planning to add to his fleet without our knowing?”

“Some awkward transports he might perhaps be able to make, sir, but never ships-of-the-line,” Laurence said at once, with perfect certainty on the subject. “And he already has a great many transports, in every port along the coastline; it is difficult to conceive that he might require more.”

“And all this is around Cherbourg, not Calais, though the distance is greater, and our fleet is closer by. I cannot account for it, but Gardner is quite right; I am damned sure he means mischief, and he cannot very well do it until his fleet is here.” Abruptly he stood and walked straight from the office; unsure whether to take this as a dismissal, Laurence followed him through the headquarters and outside, to the clearing where Lily was lying in her recovery.

Captain Harcourt was sitting by Lily’s head, stroking her foreleg, over and over; Choiseul was with her and reading quietly to them both. Lily’s eyes were still dull with pain, but in a more encouraging sign, she had evidently just eaten whole food at last, for there was a great heap of cracked bones still being cleared away by the ground crew.

Choiseul put down his book and said a quiet word to Harcourt, then came to them. “She is almost asleep; I beg you not to stir her,” he said, very softly.

Lenton nodded and beckoned him and Laurence both further away. “How does she progress?” he asked.

“Very well, sir, according to the surgeons; they say she heals as quickly as could be hoped,” Choiseul said. “Catherine has not left her side.”

“Good, good,” Lenton said. “Three weeks, then, if their original estimate holds true. Well, gentlemen, I have changed my mind; I am going to send Temeraire out on patrol every day during her recovery, rather than giving him and Praecursoris turn and turn about. You do not need the experience, Choiseul, and Temeraire does; you will have to keep Praecursoris exercised independently.”

Choiseul bowed, with no hint of dissatisfaction, if he felt any. “I am happy to serve in any way I can, sir; you need merely direct me.”

Lenton nodded. “Well, and for now, stay with Harcourt as much as ever you can; I am sure you know what it is to have a wounded beast,” he said. Choiseul rejoined her by the now-sleeping Lily, and Lenton led Laurence away again, scowling in private thought. “Laurence,” he said, “while you patrol, I want you to try and run formation maneuvers with Nitidus and Dulcia; I know you have not been trained to small-formation work, but Warren and Chenery can help you there. I want him able to lead a pair of light-combatants in a fight independently, if need be.”

“Very good, sir,” Laurence said, a little startled; he wanted badly to ask for some explanation, and repressed his curiosity with some difficulty.

They came to the clearing where Excidium was just falling asleep; Captain Roland was speaking with her ground crewmen and inspecting a piece of the harness. She nodded to them both and came away with them; they walked back together towards the headquarters.

“Roland, can you do without Auctoritas and Crescendium?” Lenton asked abruptly.

She lifted an eyebrow at him. “If I have to, of course,” she said. “What’s this about?”

Lenton did not seem to object to being so directly queried. “We must begin to think about sending Excidium to Cadiz once Lily is flying well,” he said. “I am not going to have the kingdom lost for want of one dragon in the right place; we can hold out against aerial raids a long time here, with the help of the Channel Fleet and the shore batteries, and that fleet must not be allowed to escape.”

If Lenton did choose to send Excidium and his formation away, their absence would leave the Channel vulnerable to aerial attack; yet if the French and Spanish fleet escaped Cadiz and came north, to join with the ships in port at Brest and Calais, perhaps even a single day of so overwhelming an advantage would be enough for Napoleon to ferry over his invasion force.

Laurence did not envy Lenton the decision; without knowing whether Bonaparte’s aerial divisions were halfway to Cadiz overland or still along the Austrian border, the choice could only be half guess. Yet it would have to be made, if only through inaction, and Lenton was clearly prepared instead to take the risk.

Now Lenton’s design with regard to Temeraire’s orders was clear: the admiral wanted the flexibility of having a second formation on hand, even if a small and imperfectly trained one. Laurence thought that he recalled that Auctoritas and Crescendium were middle-weight combat dragons, part of Excidium’s supporting forces; perhaps Lenton intended to match them with Temeraire, to make a maneuverable strike force of the three of them.

“Trying to out-guess Bonaparte; the thought makes my blood run cold,” Captain Roland said, echoing Laurence’s sentiments. “But we will be ready to go whenever you want to send us; I will fly maneuvers without Auctor and Cressy as time allows.”

“Good, see to it,” Lenton said, as they climbed the stairs to the foyer. “I will leave you now; I have another ten dispatches to read yet, more’s the pity. Goodnight, gentlemen.”

“Goodnight, Lenton,” Roland said, and stretched out with a yawn when he was gone. “Ah well, formation flying would be deadly boring without a change-about every so often, any road. What do you say to some supper?”

They had some soup and toasted bread, and a nice Stilton after, with port, and once again settled in Roland’s room for some piquet. After a few hands, and some idle conversation, she said, with the first note of diffidence he had ever heard from her, “Laurence, may I make so bold—”

The question made him stare, as she had never before hesitated to forge ahead on any subject whatsoever. “Certainly,” he said, trying to imagine what she could possibly mean to ask him. Abruptly he was aware of his surroundings: the large and rumpled bed, less than ten steps away; the open throat of her dressing-gown, for which she had exchanged her coat and breeches, behind a screen, when they first came into the room. He looked down at his cards, his face heating; his hands trembled a little.

“If you have any reluctance, I beg you to tell me at once,” she added.

“No,” Laurence said at once, “I would be very happy to oblige you. I am sure,” he added belatedly, as he realized she had not yet asked.

“You are very kind,” she said, and a wide flash of a smile crossed her face, lopsidedly, the right side of her mouth turning up more than the scarred left. Then she went on, “And I would be very grateful if you would tell me, with real honesty, what you think of Emily’s work, and of her inclination for the life.”

He was hard-pressed not to turn crimson at his mistaken assumption, even as she added, “I know it is a wretched thing to ask you to speak ill of her to me, but I have seen what comes of relying too heavily upon the line of succession, without good training. If you have any cause to doubt her suitability, I beg you to tell me now, while there still may be time to repair the fault.”

Her anxiety was very plain now, and thinking of Rankin and his disgraceful treatment of Levitas, Laurence could well understand it; sympathy enabled him to recover from his self-inflicted embarrassment. “I have seen the consequences of what you describe as well,” he said, quick to reassure her. “I promise you I would speak frankly if I saw any such signs; indeed, I should never have taken her on as a runner if I were not entirely convinced of her reliability, and her dedication to her duty. She is too young for certainty, of course, but I think her very promising.”

Roland blew out a breath gustily and sat back in her chair, letting her hand of cards drop as she stopped even pretending to be paying them attention. “Lord, how you relieve me,” she said. “I hoped, of course, but I find I cannot trust myself on the subject.” She laughed with relief, and went to her bureau for a new bottle of wine.

Laurence held out his glass for her to fill. “To Emily’s success,” he proposed, and they drank; then she reached out, took the glass from his hand, and kissed him. He had indeed been wholly mistaken; on this matter, she proved not at all tentative.

Chapter 11

LAURENCE COULD NOT help wincing at the haphazard way in which Jane threw her things out of the wardrobe and into heaps upon the bed. “May I help you?” he asked finally, out of desperation, and took possession of her baggage. “No, I beg you, permit me the liberty; you may consider your flight path as I do this,” he said.

“Thank you, Laurence, that is very kind of you.” She sat down with her maps instead. “It will be a straightforward flight, I hope,” she went on, scribbling calculations and moving the small bits of wood which she was using to represent the scattered dragon transport ships that would provide Excidium and his formation with resting places on their way to Cadiz. “So long as the weather holds, less than two weeks should see us there.” With so much urgent need, the dragons would not be going by a single transport, but rather would fly from one transport to another, attempting to predict their locations based on the current and the wind.

Laurence nodded, though a little grimly; they were only a day shy of October, and there was every likelihood at this time of year that the weather would not hold. Then she would be faced with the dangerous choice of trying to find a transport that might easily have been blown off-course, or seeking shelter inland in the face of Spanish artillery. Presuming, of course, that the formation was not itself brought down by a storm: dragons were from time to time cast down by lightning or heavy winds, and if flung into a heavy ocean, they could easily drown with all their crew.

But there was no choice. Lily had recovered with great speed over the intervening weeks; she had led the formation through a full patrol only yesterday, and landed without pain or stiffness. Lenton had looked her over, spoken a few words with her and Captain Harcourt, and gone straightaway to give Jane her orders for Cadiz. Laurence had been expecting as much, of course, but he could not help feeling concern, both for the dragons going and for those remaining behind.

“There, that will do,” she said, finishing her chart and throwing down her pen; he looked up from the baggage in surprise: he had fallen into a brown study and packed mechanically, without marking what he did; now he realized that he had been silent for nearly twenty minutes together, and that he had one of her stays in his hands. He hastily dropped it atop the neatly packed things in her small case, and closed the lid.

The sunlight was beginning to come in at the window; their time was gone. “There, Laurence, do not look so glum; I have made the flight to Gibraltar a dozen times,” she said, coming to kiss him soundly. “You will have a worse time of it here, I am afraid; they will undoubtedly try some mischief once they know we are gone.”

“I have every confidence in you,” Laurence said, ringing the bell for the servants. “I only hope we have not misjudged.” It was as much as he would say critical of Lenton, particularly on a subject where he could not be unbiased. Yet he felt that even if he had not had a personal objection to make to placing Excidium and his formation in danger, he would still have been concerned by the lack of further intelligence.

Volly had arrived three days before with a report full of fresh negatives. A handful of French dragons had arrived in Cadiz: enough to keep Mortiferus from forcing out the fleet, but not a tenth of the dragons which had been stationed along the Rhine. And in cause for more concern, even though nearly every light and quick dragon not wholly involved in dispatch service had been pressed into scouting and spying, they still knew nothing more of Bonaparte’s work across the Channel.

He walked with her to Excidium’s clearing and saw her aboard; it was strange, for he felt as though he ought to feel more. He would have put a bullet in his brains sooner than let Edith go to face danger while he remained behind himself, yet he could say his adieus to Roland without much more of a pang than in bidding farewell to any other comrade. She blew him a friendly kiss from atop Excidium’s back, once her crew were all aboard. “I will see you in a few months, I am sure, or sooner if we can chase the Frogs out of harbor,” she called down. “Fair winds, and mind you don’t let Emily run wild.”

He raised a hand to her. “Godspeed,” he called, and stood watching as the enormous wings carried Excidium up, the other dragons of his formation rising to join him, until they had all dwindled out of sight to the south.

Although they kept a wary eye on the Channel skies, the first weeks after Excidium’s departure were quiet. No raids came, and Lenton was of the opinion that the French still thought Excidium was in residence, and were correspondingly reluctant to make any venture. “The longer we can keep them thinking it, the better,” he said to the assembled captains after another uneventful patrol. “Aside from the benefit to us, just as well if they don’t realize another formation is nearing their precious fleet at Cadiz.”

They all took a great measure of comfort from the news of Excidium’s safe arrival, which Volly brought almost two weeks to the day from his departure. “They’d already begun when I left,” Captain James told the other captains the next day, taking a hurried breakfast before setting out on his return journey. “You could hear the Spaniards howling for miles: their merchantmen are as quick to fall apart under dragon-spray as any ship-of-the-line, and their shops and houses as well. I expect they’ll fire on the Frenchmen themselves if Villeneuve doesn’t come out soon, alliance or not.”

The atmosphere grew lighter after this encouraging news, and Lenton cut their patrol a little short and granted them all liberty for celebration, a welcome respite to men who had been working at a frenetic pace. The more energetic went into town; most seized a little sleep, as did the weary dragons.

Laurence took the opportunity to enjoy a quiet evening’s reading with Temeraire; they stayed together late into the night, reading by the light of the lanterns. Laurence woke out of a light doze some time after the moon had risen: Temeraire’s head was dark against the illuminated sky, and he was looking searchingly to the north of their clearing. “Is something the matter?” Laurence asked him. Sitting up, he could hear a faint noise, strange and high.

Even as they listened, the sound stopped. “Laurence, that was Lily, I think,” Temeraire said, his ruff standing up stiffly.

Laurence slid down at once. “Stay here; I will return as quickly as I may,” he said, and Temeraire nodded without ever looking away.

The paths through the covert were largely deserted and unlit: Excidium’s formation gone, all the light dragons out on scouting duty, and the night cold enough to send even the most dedicated crews into the barracks buildings. The ground had frozen three days before; it was packed and hard enough for his heels to drum hollowly upon it as he walked.

Lily’s clearing was empty; a faint murmur of noise from the barracks, whose lit windows he could see distantly, through the trees, and no one about the buildings. Lily herself was crouched motionless, her yellow eyes red-rimmed and staring, and she was clawing the ground silently. Low voices, and the sound of crying; Laurence wondered if he was intruding untimely, but Lily’s evident distress decided him: he walked into the clearing, calling in a strong voice, “Harcourt? Are you there?”

“No further” came Choiseul’s voice, low and sharp: Laurence came around Lily’s head and halted in dreadful surprise: Choiseul was holding Harcourt by the arm, and there was an expression of complete despair on his face. “Make no sound, Laurence,” he said; there was a sword in his hand, and behind him on the ground Laurence could see a young midwingman stretched out, dark bloodstains spreading over the back of his coat. “No sound at all.”

“For God’s sake, what do you think you are about?” Laurence said. “Harcourt, is it well with you?”

“He has killed Wilpoys,” she said thickly; she was wavering where she stood, and as the torchlight came on her face he could see a bruise already darkening across half her forehead. “Laurence, never mind about me, you must go and fetch help; he means to do Lily a mischief.”

“No, never, never,” Choiseul said. “I mean no harm to her or you, Catherine, I swear it. But I will not be answerable if you interfere, Laurence; do nothing.” He raised the sword; blood gleamed on its edge, not far from Harcourt’s neck, and Lily made the thin eerie noise again, a high-pitched whining that grated against the ear. Choiseul was pale, his face taking on a greenish cast in the light, and he looked desperate enough to do anything; Laurence kept his position, hoping for a better moment.

Choiseul stood staring at him a moment longer, until satisfied Laurence did not mean to go, and then said, “We will go all of us together to Praecursoris; Lily, you will stay here, and follow when you see us go aloft: I promise you no harm will come to Catherine so long as you obey.”

“Oh, you miserable, cowhearted traitor dog,” Harcourt said, “do you think I am going to go to France with you, and lick Bonaparte’s boots? How long have you been planning this?” She struggled to pull away from him, even staggering as she was, but Choiseul shook her and she nearly fell.

Lily snarled, half-rising, her wings mantling: Laurence could see the black acid glistening at the edges of her bone spurs. “Catherine!” she hissed, the sound distorted through her clenched teeth.

“Silence, enough,” Choiseul said, pulling Harcourt up and close to his body, pinning her arms: the sword still held steady in his other hand, Laurence’s eyes always upon it, waiting for a chance. “You will follow, Lily; you will do as I have said. We are going now; march, at once, monsieur, there.” He gestured with the sword. Laurence did not turn around, but stepped backwards, and once beneath the shadow of the trees he moved more slowly still, so that Choiseul came unknowingly closer than he meant to do.

A moment of wild grappling: then they all three went to the ground in a heap, the sword flying and Harcourt caught between them. They struck the ground heavily, but Choiseul was beneath, and for a moment Laurence had the advantage; he was forced to sacrifice it to roll Harcourt free and out of harm’s way, and Choiseul struck him across the face as soon as she was clear, throwing him off.

They rolled about on the ground, battering at each other awkwardly, both trying to reach for the sword even as they struggled. Choiseul was powerfully built and taller, and though Laurence had a far greater experience of close combat, the Frenchman’s weight began to tell as they wrestled. Lily was roaring out loud now, voices calling in the distance, and despair gave Choiseul a burst of strength: he drove a fist into Laurence’s stomach and lunged for the sword while Laurence curled gasping about the pain.

Then there was a tremendous roaring above them: the ground shuddered, branches tumbling down in a rain of dry leaves and pine needles, and an immense old tree was wrenched whole out of the ground beside them: Temeraire was above them, beating wildly as he tore away the cover. More bellowing, now from Praecursoris: the French dragon’s pale marbled wings were visible in the dark, approaching, and Temeraire writhed around to face him, claws stretching out. Laurence dragged himself up and threw himself onto Choiseul, bearing him down to the ground with all his weight: he was retching even as they struggled, but Temeraire’s danger spurred him on.

Choiseul managed to turn them over and force an arm against Laurence’s throat, pressing hard; choking, Laurence caught only a glimpse of motion, and then Choiseul went limp: Harcourt had fetched an iron bar from Lily’s gear and struck him upon the back of the head.

She was nearly fainting with the effort, Lily trying to crowd between the trees to reach her; the crew were rushing into the clearing now at last, however, and many hands helped Laurence up to his feet. “Stand over that man there, bring torches,” Laurence said, gasping. “And get a full-voiced man here, with a speaking-trumpet; hurry, damn you,” for above, Temeraire and Praecursoris were still circling each other, claws flashing.

Harcourt’s first lieutenant was a big-chested man with a voice that needed no trumpet: as soon as he understood the circumstances he cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed up at Praecursoris. The big French dragon broke off and flew in wild desperate circles for a moment as he peered down to where Choiseul was being secured, and then with drooping head he returned to the ground, Temeraire hovering watchfully until he had landed.

Maximus was housed not far off, and Berkley had come to the clearing on hearing the noise: he took charge now, setting men to chain Praecursoris, and others to bear Harcourt and Choiseul to the surgeons; still others to take away poor Wilpoys to be buried. “No, thank you, I can manage,” Laurence said, shaking off the willing hands that would have carried him as well; his breath was returning, and he walked slowly over to the clearing where Temeraire had landed beside Lily, to comfort both the dragons and try to calm them.

Choiseul did not rouse for the better part of a day, and when he first woke he was thick-tongued and confused in his speech. Yet by the next morning, he was once again in command of himself, and at first refused to answer any questions whatsoever.

Praecursoris had been ringed round by all the other dragons, and ordered to remain on the ground under pain of Choiseul’s death: a threat to the handler was the one thing which could hold an unwilling dragon, and the means by which Choiseul had intended to force Lily to defect to France were now used against him. Praecursoris made no attempt to defy the command, but huddled into a miserable heap beneath his chains, eating nothing, and occasionally keening softly.

“Harcourt,” Lenton said at last, coming into the dining room and finding them all assembled and waiting, “I am damned sorry, but I must ask you to try: he has not spoken to anyone else, but if he has the honor of a yellow rat he must feel some explanation owed you. Will you ask him?”

She nodded, and then she drained her glass, but her face stayed so very pale that Laurence asked quietly, “Should you like me to accompany you?”

“Yes, if you please,” she said at once, gratefully, and he followed her to the small, dark cell where Choiseul was incarcerated.

Choiseul could not meet her gaze, nor speak to her; he shook his head and shuddered, and even wept as she asked him questions in an unsteady voice. “Oh damn you,” she cried at last, crackling with anger. “How could—how could you have a heart to do this? Every word you have said to me was a lie; tell me, did you even arrange that first ambush, on our way here? Tell me!”

Her voice was breaking, and he had dropped his face into his hands; now he raised it and cried to Laurence, “For God’s sake, make her go; I will tell you anything you like, only send her out,” and dropped it back down again.

Laurence did not in the least want to be his interrogator, but he could not prolong Harcourt’s suffering unnecessarily; he touched her on the shoulder, and she fled at once. It was deeply unpleasant to have to ask Choiseul questions, still more unpleasant to hear that he had been a traitor since coming from Austria.

“I see what you think of me,” Choiseul added, noting the look of disgust on Laurence’s face. “And you have a right; but for me, there was no choice.”

Laurence had been keeping himself strictly to questions, but this paltry attempt at excuse inflamed him beyond his resistance. With contempt, he said, “You might have chosen to be honest, and done your duty in the place you begged of us.”

Choiseul laughed, with no mirth in the sound. “Indeed; and when Bonaparte is in London this Christmastime, what then? You may look at me that way if you like; I have no doubt of it, and I assure you if I thought any deed of mine could alter that outcome, I would have acted.”

“Instead you have become a traitor twice over and helped him, when your first betrayal could only be excused if you had been sincere in your principles,” Laurence said; he was disturbed by Choiseul’s certainty, though he would never conceive of giving any sign as much.

“Ah, principles,” Choiseul said; all his bravado had deserted him, and he seemed now only weary and resigned. “France is not so under-strength as are you, and Bonaparte has executed dragons for treason before. What do principles matter to me when I see the shadow of the guillotine hanging upon Praecursoris, and where was I to take him? To Russia? He will outlive me by two centuries, and you must know how they treat dragons there. I could hardly fly him to America without a transport. My only hope was a pardon, and Bonaparte offered it only at a price.”

“By which you mean Lily,” Laurence said coldly.

Surprisingly, Choiseul shook his head. “No, his price was not Catherine’s dragon, but yours.” At the blank look upon Laurence’s face, he added, “The Chinese egg was sent as a gift for him from the Imperial Throne; he meant me to retrieve it. He did not know Temeraire was already hatched.” Choiseul shrugged and spread his hands. “I thought perhaps if I killed him—”

Laurence struck him full across the face, with such force as to knock him onto the stone floor of the cell; his chair rocked and fell over with a clatter. Choiseul coughed and blotted blood from his lip, and the guard opened the door and looked inside. “Everything all right, sir?” he asked, looking straight at Laurence; he paid not the slightest mind to Choiseul’s injury.

“Yes, you may go,” Laurence said flatly, wiping blood from his hand onto his handkerchief as the door closed once again. He would ordinarily have been ashamed to strike a prisoner, but in this moment he felt not the slightest qualm; his heart was still beating very quickly.

Choiseul slowly set his chair back upright and sat down once more. More quietly, he said, “I am sorry. I could not bring myself to it, in the end, and I thought instead—” He stopped, seeing the color rise again in Laurence’s face.

The very notion that for all these months such malice had been lurking so close to Temeraire, averted only by some momentary quirk of conscience on Choiseul’s part, was enough to make his blood run cold. With loathing, he said, “And so instead you tried to seduce a girl barely past her schoolroom years and abduct her.”

Choiseul said nothing; indeed, Laurence could hardly imagine what defense he could have offered. After a moment’s pause, Laurence added, “You can have no further pretensions to honor: tell me what Bonaparte plans, and perhaps Lenton will have Praecursoris sent to the breeding grounds in Newfoundland, if indeed your motive is for his life, and not your own miserable hide.”

Choiseul paled, but said, “I know very little, but what I know I will tell you, if he gives his word to do as much.”

“No,” Laurence said. “You may speak and hope for a mercy you do not deserve if you choose; I will not bargain with you.”

Choiseul bowed his head, and when he spoke he was broken, so faint Laurence had to strain to hear him. “I do not know what he intends, precisely, but he desired me to urge the weakening of the covert here most particularly, to have as many sent south to the Mediterranean as could be arranged.”

Laurence felt sick with dismay; this goal at least had been brilliantly accomplished. “Does he have some means for his fleet to escape Cadiz?” he demanded. “Does he suppose he can bring them here without facing Nelson?”

“Do you imagine Bonaparte confided in me?” Choiseul said, not lifting his head. “To him also I was a traitor; I was told the tasks I was to accomplish, nothing more.”

Laurence satisfied himself with a few more questions that Choiseul truly knew nothing else; he left the room feeling both soiled and alarmed, and went at once to Lenton.

The news cast a heavy pall upon the whole covert. The captains had not broadcast the details, but even the lowliest cadet or crewman could tell that a shadow lay upon them. Choiseul had timed his attempt well: the dispatch-rider would not reach them again for six days, and from there two weeks or more would be required to see any portion of the forces from the Mediterranean restored to the Channel. Militia forces and several Army detachments had already been sent for; they would arrive within a few days, to begin emplacing additional artillery along the coastline.

Laurence, with additional cause for anxiety, had spoken to Granby and Hollin to raise their caution on Temeraire’s behalf. If Bonaparte were jealous enough of having so personal a prize taken away, he might well send another agent, this one more willing to slay the dragon he could no longer claim. “You must promise me to be careful,” he told Temeraire as well. “Eat nothing unless one of us is by, and has approved it; and if anyone whom I have not presented to you seeks to approach you, do not under any circumstances permit it, even if you must fly to another clearing.”

“I will have a care, Laurence, I promise,” said Temeraire. “I do not understand, though, why the French Emperor should want to have me killed; how could that improve his circumstances? He would do better to ask them for another egg.”

“My dear, the Chinese would hardly condescend to give him a second where the first went so badly astray while in the keeping of his own men,” he said. “I am still puzzled at their having given him even one, indeed; he must have some prodigiously gifted diplomat at their court. And I suppose his pride may be hurt, to think that a lowly British captain stands in the place which he had meant to occupy himself.”

Temeraire snorted with disdain. “I am sure I would never have liked him in the least, even if I had hatched in France,” he said. “He sounds a very unpleasant person.”

“Oh, I cannot truly say. One hears a great deal of his pride, but there is no denying that he is a very great man, even if he is a tyrant,” Laurence said reluctantly; he would have been a great deal happier to be able to convince himself that Bonaparte was a fool.

Lenton gave orders that patrols now were to be flown only by half the formation at a time, the rest kept back at the covert for intensive combat training. Under cover of night, several additional dragons were secretly flown down from the coverts at Edinburgh and Inverness, including Victoriatus, the Parnassian whom they had rescued what now seemed a long time ago. His captain, Richard Clark, made a nice point of coming to greet Laurence and Temeraire. “I hope you can forgive me for not paying you my respects and my gratitude sooner,” he said. “I confess at Laggan I had very little thought for anything but his recovery, and we were shipped out again without warning, as I believe were you.”

Laurence shook his hand heartily. “Pray do not give it a thought,” he said. “I hope he is wholly recovered?”

“Entirely, thank Heaven, and none too soon, either,” Clark said grimly. “I understand the assault is expected at any moment.”

And yet the days stretched out, painfully long with anticipation, and no attack came. Three more Winchesters were brought down for additional scouting, but one and all they returned from their dangerous forays to the French shores to report heavy patrols at all hours along the enemy’s coastline; there was no chance of penetrating far enough inland to acquire more information.

Levitas was among them, but the company was large enough that Laurence was not obliged to see much of Rankin, for which he was grateful. He tried not to see the signs of that neglect which he could do no more to cure; he felt he could not visit the little dragon further without provoking a quarrel which might be disastrous to the temper of the whole covert. However, he compromised with his conscience so far as to say nothing when he saw Hollin coming to Temeraire’s clearing very early the next morning with a bucket full of dirty cleaning rags and a guilty expression.

A great coldness settled over the camp as night came on Sunday, the first week of waiting gone: Volatilus had not arrived as expected. The weather had been clear, certainly no cause for delay; it stayed so for two further days, and then a third; still he did not come. Laurence tried not to look to the skies, and ignored his men doing the same, until that night he found Emily crying quietly outside the clearing, having crept away from the barracks for a little privacy.

She was very ashamed to be caught at it, and pretended there was only some dust in her eyes. Laurence took her to his rooms and had some cocoa brought; he told her, “I was two years older than you are now when I first went to sea, and I blubbered at night for a week.” She looked so very skeptical at this account that a laugh was drawn from him. “No, I am not inventing this for your benefit,” he said. “When you are a captain, and find one of your own cadets in similar circumstances, I imagine you will tell them what I have just told you.”

“I am not really afraid,” she said, weariness and cocoa having combined to make her drowsy and unguarded. “I know Excidium will never let anything happen to Mother, and he is the finest dragon in all Europe.” She woke up at having made this slip, and added anxiously, “Temeraire is very nearly as good, of course.”

Laurence nodded gravely. “Temeraire is a great deal younger. Perhaps he will equal Excidium some day, when he has more experience.”

“Yes, just so,” she said, very relieved, and he concealed his smile. Five minutes later she was asleep; he laid her on the bed and went to sleep with Temeraire.

“Laurence, Laurence.” He stirred and blinked upwards; Temeraire was nudging him awake urgently, though the sky was still dark. Laurence was dimly aware of a low roaring noise, a crowd of voices, and then the crack of gunfire. He started up at once: none of his crew were in the clearing, nor his officers. “What is it?” Temeraire asked, rising to his feet and unfurling his wings as Laurence climbed down. “Are we being attacked? I do not see any dragons aloft.”

“Sir, sir!” Morgan came running into the clearing, nearly falling over himself in his haste and eagerness. “Volly is here, sir, and there has been a great battle, and Napoleon is killed!”

“Oh, does that mean the war is over already?” Temeraire asked, disappointed. “I have not even been in any real battles yet.”

“Perhaps the news may have grown in the telling; I should be surprised to learn that Bonaparte is truly dead,” Laurence said, but he had identified the noise as cheering, and certainly some good news had arrived, if not of quite such an absurd caliber. “Morgan, go and rouse Mr. Hollin and the ground crew with my apologies for the hour, and ask them to bring Temeraire his breakfast. My dear,” he said, turning to Temeraire, “I will go and learn what I can, and return with the news soonest.”

“Yes, please, and do hurry,” Temeraire said urgently, rearing up on his back legs to see above the trees what might be in progress.

The headquarters was blazing with light; Volly was sitting on the parade grounds before the building tearing ravenously into a sheep, a couple of groundsmen with the dispatch service keeping off the growing crowd of men streaming from the barracks. Several of the young Army and militia officers were firing off their guns in their excitement, and Laurence was forced to nearly push his way through to reach the doors.

The doors to Lenton’s office were closed, but Captain James was sitting in the officers’ club, eating with scarcely less ferocity than his dragon, and already all the other captains were with him, having the news.

“Nelson told me to wait; said they’d come out of port before I had time to make another circuit,” James was saying, out of the corner of his mouth and somewhat muffled by toast, while Sutton attempted to sketch the scene on a piece of paper. “I hardly believed him, but sure enough, by Sunday morning out they came, and we met them off Cape Trafalgar early on Monday.”

He swallowed down a cup of coffee, all the company waiting impatiently for him to finish, and pushed his plate aside for a moment to take the paper from Sutton. “Here, let me,” he said, drawing little circles to mark the positions of the ships. “Twenty-seven and twelve dragons of ours, against thirty-three and ten.”

“Two columns, breaking their line twice?” Laurence asked, studying the diagram with satisfaction: just the sort of strategy to throw the French into disarray, from which their ill-trained crews could hardly have recovered.

“What? Oh, the ships, yes, with Excidium and Laetificat over the weather column, Mortiferus over the lee,” James said. “It was hot work at the head of the divisions, I can tell you; I couldn’t see so much as a spar from above for the clouds of smoke. At one time I thought for sure Victory had blown up; the Spanish had one of those blasted little Flecha-del-Fuegos over there, dashing about quicker than our guns could answer. He had all her sails on fire before Laetificat sent him running with his tail between his legs.”

“What were our losses?” Warren asked, his quiet voice cutting through the high spirits of their excitement.

James shook his head. “It was a proper bloodbath and no mistake,” he said somberly. “I suppose we have near a thousand men killed; and poor Nelson himself came in a hairsbreadth of it: the fire-breather set alight one of Victory’s sails, and it came down upon him where he stood on the quarterdeck. A couple of quick-thinking fellows doused him with the scuttlebutt, but they say his medals were melted to his skin, and he will wear them all the time, now.”

“A thousand men; God rest their souls,” Warren said; conversation ceased, and when finally resumed it was at first subdued.

But excitement, joy gradually overcame what perhaps were the more proper sentiments of the moment. “I hope you will excuse me, gentlemen,” Laurence said, nearly shouting as the noise climbed to a fresh pitch; it precluded any chance of acquiring further intelligence for the moment. “I promised Temeraire to return at once. James, I suppose that the report of Bonaparte’s demise is a false one?”

“Yes, more’s the pity: unless he falls down in an apoplexy over the news,” James called back, which roused a general shout of laughter that continued by natural progression into a round of “Hearts of Oak,” and the singing followed Laurence out the door and even through the covert, as the song was taken up by the men outside.

By the time the sun rose, the covert was half empty. Scarcely a man had slept; the prevailing mood could not help but be joyful almost to the point of hysteria, as nerves which had been drawn to their limits abruptly relaxed. Lenton did not even attempt to call the men to order and looked the other way as they poured out of the covert into the city, to carry the news to those who had not yet heard and mingle their voices into the general rejoicing.

“Whatever scheme of invasion Bonaparte has been working towards, this must surely have put paid to it,” Chenery said exultantly, later that evening, as they stood together on the balcony and watched the returning crowd still milling more slowly about in the parade grounds below, all the men thoroughly drunk but too happy for quarreling, snatches of song bursting out occasionally to float up towards them. “How I should like to see his face.”

“I think we have been giving him too much credit,” Lenton said; his cheeks were red with port and satisfaction, as well they might be: his judgment to send Excidium had proven sound and contributed materially to the victory. “I think it clear he does not understand the navy so well as the army and the aerial corps. An uninformed man might well imagine that thirty-three ships-of-the-line had no excuse to lose so thoroughly to twenty-seven.”

“But how can it have taken his aerial divisions so long to reach them?” Harcourt said. “Only ten dragons, and from what James said, more than half of those Spanish—that is not a tenth of the strength he had in Austria. Perhaps he has not moved them from the Rhine after all?”

“I have heard the passes over the Pyrenees are damned difficult, though I have never tried them myself,” Chenery said. “But I dare say he never sent them, thinking Villeneuve had what forces he needed, and they have all been lolling about in covert and getting fat. No doubt he has been thinking all this time that Villeneuve would sail straight through Nelson, perhaps losing one or two ships in the process: expecting them daily, and wondering where they were, and we here biting our nails meanwhile for no good reason.”

“And now his army cannot come across,” Harcourt said.

“Quoth Lord St. Vincent, ‘I don’t say they cannot come, but they cannot come by sea,’ ” Chenery said, grinning. “And if Bonaparte thinks to take Britain with forty dragons and their crews, he is very welcome to try, and we can give him a taste of those guns the militia fellows have been so busily digging-in. It would be a pity to waste all their hard work.”

“I confess I would not mind a chance to give that rascal yet another dose of medicine,” Lenton said. “But he will not be so foolish; we must be content with having done our duty, and let the Austrians have the glory of polishing him off. His hope of invasion is done.” He swallowed the rest of his port and said abruptly, “There is no more putting it off, though, I am afraid; we cannot need anything more from Choiseul now.”

In the silence that fell among them, Harcourt’s drawn breath was almost a sob, but she made no protest, and her voice remained admirably steady as she merely asked, “Have you decided what you will do with Praecursoris?”

“We will send him to Newfoundland if he will go; they need another breeding sire there to fill out their complement, and it is not as though he were vicious,” Lenton said. “The fault is with Choiseul, not him.” He shook his head. “It is a damned pity, of course, and all our beasts will be creeping about miserable for days, but there is nothing else for it. Best to get it done with quickly; tomorrow morning.”

Choiseul was given a few moments with Praecursoris, the big dragon nearly draped with chains and watched closely by Maximus and Temeraire on either side. Laurence felt the shudders go through Temeraire’s body as they stood their unpleasant guard, forced to observe while Praecursoris swung his head from side to side in denial, and Choiseul made a desperate attempt to persuade him to accept the shelter Lenton had offered. At last the great head drooped in the barest hint of a nod, and Choiseul stepped close to lay his cheek against the smooth nose.

Then the guards stepped forward; Praecursoris tried to lash at them, but the entangling chains pulled him back, and as they led Choiseul away the dragon screamed: a dreadful sound. Temeraire hunched himself away from it, his wings flaring, and moaned softly; Laurence leaned forward and stretched himself fully against his neck, stroking over and over. “Do not look, my dear,” he said, the words struggling to come through the thickening of his throat. “It will be over in a moment.”

Praecursoris screamed once more, at the end; then he fell to the ground heavily, as if all vital force had gone from his body. Lenton signaled that they might go, and Laurence touched Temeraire’s side. “Away, away,” he said, and Temeraire launched himself far from the scaffold at once, striking out over the clean, empty sea.

“Laurence, may I bring Maximus over here, and Lily?” Berkley asked, in his usual abrupt way, having come upon him without warning. “Your clearing is big enough, I think.”

Laurence raised his head and stared at him dully. Temeraire was still huddled in misery, head hidden beneath his wings, inconsolable: they had flown for hours, just the two of them and the ocean below, until Laurence had at last begged him to turn back to land, out of fear that he would become exhausted. He himself felt almost bruised and ill, as if feverish. He had attended at hangings before, a grim reality of naval life, and Choiseul had been far more deserving of the fate than many a man Laurence had seen at the end of a rope; he could not say why he felt such anguish now.

“If you like,” he said, without enthusiasm, letting his head sink again. He did not look up at the rush of wings and shadows as Maximus came over the clearing, his enormous bulk blotting out the sun until he landed heavily beside Temeraire; Lily followed after him. They huddled at once around each other and Temeraire; after a few moments, Temeraire unwound himself enough to entwine more thoroughly with them both, and Lily spread her great wings over them all.

Berkley led Harcourt over to where Laurence sat leaning against Temeraire’s side, and pushed her unresisting to sit beside him; he lowered his stout frame awkwardly to the ground opposite them and handed about a dark bottle. Laurence took it and drank without curiosity: strong, unwatered rum, and he had not eaten anything all day; it went to his head very quickly, and he was glad for the muffling of all sensation.

Harcourt began to weep after a little while, and Laurence was horrified to find his own face wet even as he reached to grip her shoulder. “He was a traitor, nothing but a lying traitor,” Harcourt said, scrubbing tears away with the back of her hand. “I am not sorry in the least; I am not sorry at all.” She spoke with an effort, as though she were trying to convince herself.

Berkley handed her the bottle again. “It is not him; damned rotter, deserved it,” he said. “You are sorry on account of the dragon, and so are they. They don’t think much of King and country, you know; Praecursoris never knew a damned thing about it but where Choiseul told him to go.”

“Tell me,” Laurence said abruptly, “would Bonaparte have really executed the dragon for treason?”

“Likely enough; the Continentals do, once in a great while. More to scare the riders off the notion than because they blame the beasts,” Berkley said.

Laurence was sorry to have asked; sorry to know that Choiseul had been telling the truth so far at least. “Surely the Corps would have granted him shelter in the colonies, if he had asked,” he said angrily. “There is still no possible excuse. He desired his place in France restored; he was willing to risk Praecursoris to have it back, for we might just as easily have chosen to put his dragon to death.”

Berkley shook his head. “Knew we are too hard up for breeders to do as much,” he said. “Not to excuse the fellow; I dare say you are right. He thought Bonaparte was going to roll us up, and he did not like to go and live in the colonies.” Berkley shrugged. “Still damned hard on the dragon, and he has not done anything wrong.”

“That is not true; he has,” Temeraire put in unexpectedly, and they looked up at him; Maximus and Lily raised their heads as well to listen. “Choiseul could not have forced him to fly away from France, nor to come here bent on hurting us. It does not seem to me that he is any less guilty at all.”

“I suppose it is likely he did not understand what was being asked of him,” Harcourt said tentatively to this challenge.

Temeraire said, “Then he ought to have refused until he did understand: he is not simple, like Volly. He might have saved his rider’s life, then, and his honor too. I would be ashamed to let my rider be executed, and not me too, if I had done as much.” He added venomously, his tail lashing the air, “And I would not let anyone execute Laurence anyway; I should like to see them try.”

Maximus and Lily both rumbled in agreement. “I will never let Berkley commit treason, ever,” Maximus said, “but if he did, I would step on anyone who tried to hang him.”

“I would just take Catherine and go away, I think,” Lily said. “But perhaps Praecursoris would have liked to do the same. I suppose he could not break all those chains, for he is smaller than either of you, and he cannot spray. Also, there was only one of him, and he was being guarded. I do not know what I would do, if I could not have escaped.”

She finished softly, and they all began to slump down in fresh misery, huddling together again, until Temeraire stopped and said with sudden decision, “I will tell you what we shall do: if ever you need to rescue Catherine, or you Berkley, Maximus, I will help you, and you will do as much for me. Then we do not need to worry; I do not suppose anyone could stop all three of us, at least not before we could escape.”

All three of them appeared immeasurably cheered by this excellent scheme; Laurence was now regretting the amount of rum he had consumed, for he could not properly form the protest he felt had to be made, and urgently.

“Enough of that, you damned conspirators; you will have us hanged a great deal sooner than we will,” Berkley said, thankfully, on his behalf. “Will you have something to eat, now? We are not going to eat until you do, and if you are so busy to protect us, you may as well begin by saving us from starvation.”

“I do not think you are in any danger of starving,” Maximus said. “The surgeon said only two weeks ago that you are too fat.”

“The devil!” Berkley said indignantly, sitting up, and Maximus snorted in amusement at having provoked him; but shortly the three dragons did allow themselves to be persuaded to take some food, and Maximus and Lily returned to their own clearings to be fed.

“I am still sorry for Praecursoris, even though he acted badly,” Temeraire said presently, having finished his meal. “I do not see why they could not let Choiseul go off to the colonies with him.”

“There must be a price for such things, or else men would do them more often, and in any case he deserved to be punished for it,” Laurence said; his own head had cleared with some food and strong coffee. “Choiseul meant to make Lily suffer as much as Praecursoris does; only imagine if the French had me prisoner, and demanded that you fly for them against your friends and former comrades to save my life.”

“Yes, I do see,” Temeraire said, but with dissatisfaction in his tone. “Yet it still seems to me they might have punished him differently. Would it not have been better to keep him a prisoner and force Praecursoris to fly for us?”

“I see you have a nice sense of the appropriate,” Laurence said. “But I do not know that I can see any lesser punishment for treason; it is too despicable a crime to be punished by mere imprisonment.”

“And yet Praecursoris is not to be punished the same way, only because it is not practical, and he is needed for breeding?” Temeraire said.

Laurence considered the matter and could not find an answer for this. “I suppose, in all honesty, being aviators ourselves we cannot like the idea of putting a dragon to death, and so we have found an excuse for letting him live,” he said finally. “And as our laws are meant for men, perhaps it is not wholly fair to enforce them upon him.”

“Oh, that I can well agree with,” Temeraire said. “Some of the laws which I have heard make very little sense, and I do not know that I would obey them if it were not to oblige you. It seems to me that if you wish to apply laws to us, it were only reasonable to consult us on them, and from what you have read to me about Parliament, I do not think any dragons are invited to go there.”

“Next you will cry out against taxation without representation, and throw a basket of tea into the harbor,” Laurence said. “You are indeed a very Jacobin at heart, and I think I must give up trying to cure you of it; I can but wash my hands and deny responsibility.”

Chapter 12

BY THE NEXT morning Praecursoris had already gone, sent away to a dragon transport launching from Portsmouth for the small covert in Nova Scotia, whence he would be led to Newfoundland, and at last immured in the breeding grounds which had lately been started there. Laurence had avoided any further sight of the stricken dragon, and deliberately had kept Temeraire awake late the night before, so that he would sleep past the moment of departure.

Lenton had chosen his time as wisely as he could; the general rejoicing over the victory at Trafalgar continued, and served to counter the private unhappiness to some extent. That very day a display of fireworks was announced by pamphlets, to be held over the mouth of the Thames; and Lily, Temeraire, and Maximus, being the youngest of the dragons at the covert and the worst affected, were sent to observe by Lenton’s orders.

Laurence was deeply grateful for the word as the brilliant displays lit the sky and the music from the barges drifted to them across the water: Temeraire’s eyes were wide with excitement, the bright bursts of color reflecting in his pupils and his scales, and he cocked his head first one way then another, in an effort to hear more clearly. He talked of nothing but the music and the explosions and the lights, all the way back to the covert. “Is that a concert, then, the sort they have in Dover?” he asked. “Laurence, cannot we go again, and perhaps a little closer next time? I could sit very quietly, and I would not disturb anyone.”

“I am afraid fireworks such as those are a special occasion, my dear; concerts are only music,” Laurence said, avoiding an answer; he could well imagine the reaction of the city’s inhabitants to a dragon’s coming to take in a concert.

“Oh,” Temeraire said, but he was not greatly dampened. “I would still like that extremely; I could not hear very well tonight.”

“I do not know that there is any suitable accommodation which could be made in the city,” Laurence said slowly and reluctantly, but happily a sudden inspiration came to him, and he added, “but perhaps I can hire some musicians to come to the covert and play for you, instead; that would be a great deal more comfortable, in any case.”

“Yes, indeed, that would be splendid,” Temeraire said eagerly. He communicated this idea to Maximus and Lily as soon as they had all once again landed, and the two of them professed equal interest.

“Damn you, Laurence, you had much better learn to say no; you will forever be getting us into these absurd starts,” Berkley said. “Just see if any musicians will come here, for love or money.”

“For love, perhaps not; but for a week’s wages and a hearty meal, I am quite certain most musicians could be persuaded to play in the heart of Bedlam,” Laurence said.

“It sounds a fine idea to me,” Harcourt said. “I would quite like it myself. I have not been to a concert except once when I was sixteen; I had to put on skirts for it, and after only half an hour a dreadful fellow sat next to me and whispered impolite remarks until I poured a pot of coffee into his lap. It quite spoiled my pleasure, even though he went away straight after.”

“Christ above, Harcourt, if I ever have reason to offend you, I will make damned sure you have nothing hot at hand,” Berkley said; while Laurence struggled between nearly equal portions of dismay: at her having been subjected to such insult and at her means of repulsion.

“Well, I would have struck him, but I would have had to get up. You have no notion how difficult it is to arrange skirts when sitting down; it took me five minutes together the first time,” she said reasonably. “So I did not want to have it all to do again. Then the waiter came by and I thought that would be easier, and anyway more like something a girl ought to do.”

Still a little pale with the notion, Laurence bade them goodnight, and took Temeraire off to his rest. He slept once again in the small tent by his side, even though he thought Temeraire was well over his distress, and was rewarded in the morning by being woken early, Temeraire peering into the tent with one great eye and inquiring if perhaps Laurence would like to go to Dover and arrange for the concert today.

“I would like to sleep until a civilized hour, but as that is evidently not to be, perhaps I will ask leave of Lenton to go,” Laurence said, yawning as he crawled from the tent. “May I have my breakfast first?”

“Oh, certainly,” Temeraire said, with an air of generosity.

Muttering a little, Laurence pulled his coat back on and began to walk back to the headquarters. Halfway to the building, he nearly collided with Morgan, running to find him. “Sir, Admiral Lenton wants you,” the boy said, panting with excitement, when Laurence had steadied him. “And he says, Temeraire is to go into combat rig.”

“Very good,” Laurence said, concealing his surprise. “Go tell Lieutenant Granby and Mr. Hollin at once, and then do as Lieutenant Granby tells you; mind you speak of this to no one else.”

“Yes, sir,” the boy said, and dashed off again to the barracks; Laurence quickened his pace.

“Come in, Laurence,” Lenton said in reply to his knock; it seemed that every other captain in the covert was already crowded into the office as well. To Laurence’s surprise, Rankin was at the front of the room, sitting by Lenton’s desk. By wordless agreement, they had managed to avoid speaking to one another since Rankin’s transfer from Loch Laggan, and Laurence had known nothing of his and Levitas’s activities. These had evidently been more dangerous than Laurence might have imagined: a bandage around Rankin’s thigh was visibly stained with blood, and his clothes also; his thin face was pale and set with pain.

Lenton waited only until the door had closed behind the last few stragglers to begin; he said grimly, “I dare say you already realize, gentlemen: we have been celebrating too soon. Captain Rankin has just returned from a flight over the coast; he was able to slip past their borders, and caught a look at what that damned Corsican has been working on. You may see for yourselves.”

He pushed across his desk a sheet of paper, smudged with dirt and bloodstains that did not obscure an elegantly drafted diagram in Rankin’s precise hand. Laurence frowned, trying to puzzle the thing out: it looked rather like a ship-of-the-line, but with no railings at all around her upper deck, and no masts shipped, with strange thick beams protruding from both sides fore and aft, and no gunports.

“What is it for?” Chenery said, turning it around. “I thought he already had boats?”

“Perhaps it will become clearer if I explain that he had dragons carrying them about over the ground,” Rankin said. Laurence understood at once: the beams were intended to give the dragons a place to hold; Napoleon meant to fly his troops over the Navy’s guns entirely, while so many of Britain’s aerial forces were occupied at the Mediterranean.

Lenton said, “We are not certain how many men he will have in each—”

“Sir, I beg your pardon; may I ask, how long are these vessels?” Laurence asked, interrupting. “And is this to scale?”

“To my eye, yes,” Rankin said. “The one which I saw in mid-air had two Reapers to a side, and room to spare; perhaps two hundred feet from front to back.”

“They will be three-deckers inside, then,” Laurence said grimly. “If they sling hammocks, he can fit as many as two thousand men apiece, for a short journey, if he means to carry no provisions.”

A murmur of alarm went around the room. Lenton said, “Less than two hours to cross each way, even if they launch from Cherbourg, and he has sixty dragons or more.”

“He could land fifty thousand men by midmorning, good God,” said one of the captains Laurence did not know, a man who had arrived only recently; the same calculation was running in all their heads. It was impossible not to look about the room and tally their own side: less than twenty men, a good quarter of whom were the scout and courier captains whose beasts could do very little in combat.

“But surely the things must be hopeless to manage in the air, and can the dragons carry such a weight?” Sutton asked, studying the design further.

“Likely he has built them from light wood; he only needs them to last a day, after all, and they need not be watertight,” Laurence said. “He needs only an easterly wind to carry him over; with that narrow framing they will offer very little resistance. But they will be vulnerable in the air, and surely Excidium and Mortiferus are already on their way back?”

“Four days away, at best, and Bonaparte must know that as well as do we,” Lenton said. “He has spent nearly his entire fleet and the Spanish as well to buy himself freedom from their presence; he is not going to waste the chance.” The obvious truth of this was felt at once; a grim and expectant silence fell upon the room. Lenton looked down at his desk, then stood up, uncharacteristically slow; Laurence for the first time noticed that his hair was grey and thin.

“Gentlemen,” Lenton said formally, “the wind is in the north today, so we may have a little grace if he chooses to wait for a better wind. All of our scouts will be flying in shifts just off Cherbourg; we will have an hour’s warning at least. I do not need to tell you we will be hopelessly outnumbered; we can only do our best, and delay if we cannot prevent.”

No one spoke, and after a moment he said, “We will need every heavy- and middleweight beast on independent duty; your task will be to destroy these transports. Chenery, Warren, the two of you will take midwing positions in Lily’s formation, and two of our scouts will take the wing-tip positions. Captain Harcourt, undoubtedly Bonaparte will reserve some dragons for defense; your task is to keep those defenders occupied as best you can.”

“Yes, sir,” she said; the others nodded.

Lenton took a deep breath and rubbed his face. “There is nothing else to be said, gentlemen; go to your preparations.”

There was no sense in keeping it from the men; the French had nearly caught Rankin on his way back and already knew that their secret at last was out. Laurence quietly told his lieutenants, then sent them about their work; he could see the passage of the news through the ranks: men leaning in to hear from one another, their faces hardening as they grasped the situation, and the ordinary idle conversation of a morning vanishing quite away. He was proud to see even the youngest officers take it with great courage and go straight back to their work.

This was the first time Temeraire would ever use the complete accoutrements of heavy combat outside of practice; for patrol a much lighter set of gear was used, and their previous engagement had been under traveling harness. Temeraire stood very straight and still, only his head turned about so he could watch with great excitement as the men rigged him out with the heaviest leather harness, triple-riveted, and began hooking in the enormous panels of chain-mesh that would serve as armor.

Laurence began his own inspection of the equipment and belatedly realized that Hollin was nowhere to be seen; he looked three times through the whole clearing before he quite believed the man’s absence, and then called the armorer Pratt away from his work on the great protective plates which would shield Temeraire’s breast and shoulders during the fighting. “Where is Mr. Hollin?” he asked.

“Why, I don’t believe I’ve seen him this morning, sir,” Pratt said, scratching his head. “He was in last night, though.”

“Very good,” Laurence said, and dismissed him. “Roland, Dyer, Morgan,” he called, and when the three runners came, he said, “Go and see if you can find Mr. Hollin, and then tell him I expect him here at once, if you please.”

“Yes, sir,” they said almost in unison, and dashed off in different directions after a hurried consultation.

He returned to watching the men work, a deep frown on his face; he was astonished and dismayed to find the man failing in his duty at all, and under these circumstances most particularly; he wondered if Hollin could have fallen ill and gone to the surgeons: it seemed the only excuse, but the man would surely have told one of his crewmates.

More than an hour went by, and Temeraire was in full rig with the crew practicing boarding maneuvers under Lieutenant Granby’s severe eye, before young Roland came hurrying back to the clearing. “Sir,” she said, panting and unhappy. “Sir, Mr. Hollin is with Levitas, please do not be angry,” she said, all in one rushing breath.

“Ah,” Laurence said, a little embarrassed; he could hardly admit to Roland that he had been turning a blind eye to Hollin’s visits, so she naturally was reluctant to be a tale-bearer on a fellow aviator. “He will have to answer for it, but that can wait; go and tell him he is needed at once.”

“Sir, I told him so, but he said he cannot leave Levitas, and he told me to go away at once, and to tell you that he begs you to come, if only you can,” she said, very quickly, and eyeing him nervously to see how he would take this insubordination.

Laurence stared; he could not account for the extraordinary response, but after a moment, his estimate of Hollin’s character decided him. “Mr. Granby,” he called, “I must go for a moment; I leave things in your hands. Roland, stay here and come fetch me at once if anything occurs,” he told her.

He walked quickly, torn between temper and concern, and reluctance to once again expose himself to a complaint from Rankin, particularly under the circumstances. No one could deny the man had done his duty bravely, just now, and to offer him insult directly after would be an extraordinary piece of rudeness. And at the same time, Laurence could not help but grow angry at the man as he followed Roland’s directions: Levitas’s clearing was one of the small ones nearest the headquarters, undoubtedly chosen for Rankin’s convenience rather than his dragon’s; the grounds were poorly tended, and when Levitas came into view, Laurence saw he was lying in a circle of bare sandy dirt, with his head in Hollin’s lap.

“Well, Mr. Hollin, what’s all this?” Laurence said, irritation making his tone sharp; then he came around and saw the great expanse of bandages that covered Levitas’s flank and belly, hidden from the other side, and already soaked through with the near-black blood. “My God,” he said involuntarily.

Levitas’s eyes opened a little at the sound and turned up to look at him hopefully; they were glazed and bright with pain, but after a moment recognition came into them, and the little dragon sighed and closed them again, without a word.

“Sir,” Hollin said, “I’m sorry, I know I’ve my duty, but I couldn’t leave him. The surgeon’s gone; says there’s nothing more to be done for him, and it won’t be long. There is no one here at all, not even to send for some water.” He stopped, and said again, “I couldn’t leave him.”

Laurence knelt beside him and put his hand on Levitas’s head, very lightly for fear of causing him more pain. “No,” he said. “Of course not.”

He was glad now to find himself so close to the headquarters. There were some crewmen idling by the door talking of the news, so he could send them to Hollin’s assistance, and Rankin was in the officers’ club, easily found. He was drinking wine, his color already greatly improved and having shifted his bloodstained clothing for fresh; Lenton and a couple of the scout captains were sitting with him and discussing positions to hold along the coastline.

Coming up to him, Laurence told him very quietly, “If you can walk, get on your feet; otherwise I will carry you.”

Rankin put down his glass and stared at him coldly. “I beg your pardon?” he said. “I gather this is some more of your officious—”

Laurence paid no attention, but seized the back of his chair and heaved. Rankin fell forward, scrabbling to catch himself on the floor; Laurence took him by the scruff of his coat and dragged him up to his feet, ignoring his gasp of pain.

“Laurence, what in God’s name—” Lenton said in astonishment, rising to his feet.

“Levitas is dying; Captain Rankin wishes to make his farewells,” Laurence said, looking Lenton squarely in the eye and holding Rankin up by the collar and the arm. “He begs to be excused.”

The other captains stared, half out of their chairs. Lenton looked at Rankin, then very deliberately sat back down again. “Very good,” he said, and reached for the bottle; the other captains slowly sank back down as well.

Rankin stumbled along in his grip, not even trying to free himself, shrinking a little from Laurence as they went; outside the clearing, Laurence stopped and faced him. “You will be generous to him, do you understand me?” he said. “You will give him every word of praise he has earned from you and never received; you will tell him he has been brave, and loyal, and a better partner than you have deserved.”

Rankin said nothing, only stared as if Laurence were a dangerous lunatic; Laurence shook him again. “By God, you will do all this and more, and hope that it is enough to satisfy me,” he said savagely, and dragged him on.

Hollin was still sitting with Levitas’s head in his lap, a bucket now beside him; he was squeezing water from a clean cloth into the dragon’s open mouth. He looked at Rankin without bothering to hide his contempt, but then he bent over and said, “Levitas, come along now; look who’s come.”

Levitas’s eyes opened, but they were milky and blind. “My captain?” he said uncertainly.

Laurence thrust Rankin forward and down onto his knees, none too gently; Rankin gasped and clutched at his thigh, but he said, “Yes, I am here.” He looked up at Laurence and swallowed, then added awkwardly, “You have been very brave.”

There was nothing natural or sincere in the tone; it was as ungraceful as could be imagined. But Levitas only said, very softly, “You came.” He licked at a few drops of water at the corner of his mouth. The blood was still welling sluggishly from beneath the dressing, thick enough to slightly part the bandages one from the other, glistening and black. Rankin shifted uneasily; his breeches and stockings were being soaked through, but he looked up at Laurence and did not try to move away.

Levitas gave a low sigh, and then the shallow movement of his sides ceased. Hollin closed his eyes with one rough hand.

Laurence’s hand was still heavy on the back of Rankin’s neck; now he lifted it away, rage gone, and only tight-lipped disgust left. “Go,” he said. “We who valued him will make the arrangements, not you.” He did not even look at the man as Rankin left the clearing. “I cannot stay,” he said quietly to Hollin. “Can you manage?”

“Yes,” Hollin said, stroking the little head. “There can’t be anything, with the battle coming and all, but I’ll see he’s taken and buried proper. Thank you, sir; it meant a great deal to him.”

“More than it ought,” Laurence said. He stood looking down at Levitas a short while longer; then he went back to the headquarters and found Admiral Lenton.

“Well?” Lenton asked, scowling, as Laurence was shown into his office.

“Sir, I apologize for my behavior,” Laurence said. “I am happy to bear any consequences you should think appropriate.”

“No, no, what are you talking about? I mean Levitas,” Lenton said impatiently.

Laurence paused, then said, “Dead, with a great deal of pain, but he went easily at the end.”

Lenton shook his head. “Damned pity,” he said, pouring a glass of brandy for Laurence and himself. He finished his own glass in two great swallows and sighed heavily. “And a wretched time for Rankin to become unharnessed,” he said. “We have a Winchester hatching unexpectedly at Chatham: any day now, by the hardening of the shell. I have been scrambling to find a fellow in range worthy of the position and willing to be put to a Winchester; now here he is on the loose and having made himself a hero bringing us this news. If I don’t send him and the beast ends up unharnessed, we will have a yowl from his entire damned family, and a question taken up in Parliament, like as not.”

“I would rather see a dragon dead than in his hands,” Laurence said, setting down his glass hard. “Sir, if you want a man who will be a credit to the service, send Mr. Hollin; I would vouch with my life for him.”

“What, your ground-crew master?” Lenton frowned at him, but thoughtfully. “That is a thought, if you think him suited for the task; he could not feel he was hurting his career by such a step. Not a gentleman, I suppose.”

“No, sir, unless by gentleman you mean a man of honor rather than breeding,” Laurence said.

Lenton snorted at this. “Well, we are not so stiff-necked a lot we must pay that a great deal of mind,” he said. “I dare say it will answer nicely; if we are not all dead or captured by the time the egg cracks, at any rate.”

Hollin stared when Laurence relieved him of his duties, and said a little helplessly, “My own dragon?” He had to turn away and hide his face; Laurence pretended not to see. “Sir, I don’t know how to thank you,” he said, whispering to keep his voice from breaking.

“I have promised you will be a credit to the service; see to it you do not make me a liar, and I will be content,” Laurence said, and shook his hand. “You must go at once; the hatching is expected at almost any day, and there is a carriage waiting to take you to Chatham.”

Looking dazed, Hollin accepted Laurence’s hand, and the bag with his few possessions which his fellows on the ground crew had hastily packed for him, then allowed himself to be led off towards the waiting carriage by young Dyer. The crew were beaming upon him as they went; he was obliged to shake a great many hands, until Laurence, fearing he would never get under way, said, “Gentlemen, the wind is still in the north; let us get some of this armor off Temeraire for the night,” and put them to work.

Temeraire watched him go a little sadly. “I am very glad that the new dragon will have him instead of Rankin, but I wish they had given him to Levitas sooner, and perhaps Hollin would have kept him from dying,” he said to Laurence, as the crew worked on him.

“We cannot know what would have happened,” Laurence said. “But I am not certain Levitas could ever have been happy with such an exchange; even at the end he only wanted Rankin’s affection, as strange as that seems to us.”

Laurence slept with Temeraire again that evening, close and sheltered in his arms and wrapped in several woolen blankets against the early frost. He woke just before first light to see the barren tree-tops bending away from the sunrise: an easterly wind, blowing from France.

“Temeraire,” he called quietly, and the great head rose up above him to sniff the air.

“The wind has changed,” Temeraire said, and bent down to nuzzle him.

Laurence allowed himself the indulgence of five minutes, lying warm and embraced, with his hands resting on the narrow, tender scales of Temeraire’s nose. “I hope I have never given you cause for unhappiness, my dear,” he said softly.

“Never, Laurence,” Temeraire said, very low.

The ground crew came hurrying from the barracks the moment he touched the bell. The chain-mesh had been left in the clearing, under a cloth, and Temeraire had slept in the heavy harness for this once. He was quickly fitted out, while at the other side of the clearing Granby reviewed every man’s harness and carabiners. Laurence submitted to his inspection as well, then took a moment to clean and reload his pistols fresh, and belt on his sword.

The sky was cold and white, a few darker grey clouds scudding like shadows. No orders had come yet. At Laurence’s request, Temeraire lifted him up to his shoulder and reared onto his hind legs; he could see the dark line of the ocean past the trees, and the ships bobbing in the harbor. The wind came strongly into his face, cold and salt. “Thank you, Temeraire,” he said, and Temeraire set him down again. “Mr. Granby, we will get the crew aboard,” Laurence said.

The ground crew put up a great noise, more a roar than a cheer, as Temeraire rose into the air; Laurence could hear it echoed throughout the covert as the other great beasts beat up into the sky. Maximus was a great blazing presence in his red-gold brilliance, dwarfing the others; Victoriatus and Lily also stood out against the crowd of smaller Yellow Reapers.

Lenton’s flag was streaming from his dragon Obversaria, the golden Anglewing; she was only a little larger than the Reapers, but she cut through the crowd of dragons and took the lead with effortless grace, her wings rotating almost as did Temeraire’s. As the larger dragons had been set on independent duty, Temeraire did not need to keep to the formation’s speed; he quickly negotiated a position near the leading edge of the force.

The wind was in their faces, cold and damp, and the low whistling shriek of their passage carried away all noise, leaving only the leathery snap of Temeraire’s wings, each beat like a sail going taut, and the creaking of the harness. Nothing else broke the unnatural, heavy silence of the crew. They were already drawn in sight: at this distance the French dragons seemed a cloud of gulls or sparrows, so many were they, and wheeling so in unison.

The French were keeping at a considerable height, some nine hundred feet above the surface of the water, well out of range of even the longest pepper guns. Below them, a lovely and futile spread of white sail: the Channel Fleet, many of the ships wreathed in smoke where they had tried a hopeless shot. More of the ships had taken up positions nearer the land, despite the terrible danger of placing themselves so close to a leeward shore; if the French could be forced to land very near the edge of the cliffs, they might yet come into range of the long guns, if briefly.

Excidium and Mortiferus were racing back from Trafalgar at frantic speed with their formations, but they could not hope to arrive before the end of the week. There was not a man among them but had known to a nicety the numbers which the French could muster against them. Rationally, there had never been any cause for hope.

Even so, it was a different thing to see those numbers made flesh and wing: fully twelve of the light wooden transports which Rankin had spied out, each carried by four dragons, and defended by as many more besides. Laurence had never heard of such a force in modern warfare; it was the stuff of the Crusades, when dragons had been smaller and the country more wild, the more easily to feed them.

This occurring to him, Laurence turned to Granby and said calmly, loud enough to carry back to the men, “The logistics of feeding so many dragons together must be impractical for any extended period; he will not be able to try this again soon.”

Granby only stared at him a moment, then with a start he said hurriedly, “Just so; right you are. Should we give the men a little exercise? I think we have at least half an hour’s grace before we meet them.”

“Very good,” Laurence said, pushing himself up to his feet; the force of the wind was great, but braced against his straps he was able to turn around. The men did not quite like to meet his eyes, but there was an effect: backs straightened, whispers stopped; none of them cared to show fear or reluctance to his face.

“Mr. Johns, exchange of positions, if you please,” Granby called through his speaking-trumpet; shortly the topmen and bellmen had run through their exchange under the direction of their lieutenants, and the men were warmed up against the biting wind; their faces looked a little less pinched. They could not engage in true gunnery-practice with the other crews so close, but with a commendable show of energy, Lieutenant Riggs had his riflemen fire blanks to loosen their fingers. Dunne had long, thin hands, at present bled white with cold; as he struggled to reload, his powder-horn slipped out of his fingers and nearly went over the side. Collins only saved it by leaning nearly straight out from Temeraire’s back, just barely catching the cord.

Temeraire glanced back once as the shots went off, but straightened himself again without any reminder. He was flying easily, at a pace which he could have sustained for the better part of a day; his breathing was not labored or even much quickened. His only difficulty was an excess of high spirits: as the French dragons came more closely into view, he succumbed to excitement and put on a burst of speed; but at the touch of Laurence’s hand, he drew back again into the line.

The French defenders had formed into a loosely woven line-of-battle, the larger dragons above, with the smaller ones beneath in a darting unpredictable mass, forming a wall shielding the transport vessels and their carriers. Laurence felt if only they could break through the line, there might be some hope. The carriers, most of them of the middle-weight Pêcheur-Rayé breed, were laboring greatly: the unaccustomed weight was telling on them, and he was sure they would be vulnerable to an attack.

But they had twenty-three dragons to the French forty-and-more defenders, and almost a quarter of the British force was made up of Greylings and Winchesters, no proper match for the combat-weight dragons. Getting through the line would be nearly impossible; and once through, any attacker would immediately be isolated and vulnerable in turn.

On Obversaria, Lenton sent up the flags for attack: Engage the enemy more closely. Laurence felt his own heart begin beating faster, with the tremble of excitement that would fade only after the first moments of battle. He raised the speaking-trumpet and called forward, “Choose your target, Temeraire; if ever you can get us alongside a transport, you cannot do wrong.” In the confusion of the enormous crowd of dragons, he trusted Temeraire’s instincts better than his own; if there was a gap in the French line, Laurence was sure that Temeraire would see it.

By way of answer, Temeraire struck out immediately for one of the outlying transports, as if he meant to go straight at it; abruptly he folded his wings and dived, and the three French dragons who had closed ranks in front of him dashed in pursuit. Swiveling his wings, Temeraire halted himself in mid-air while the three went flashing past; with a few mighty wing-strokes he was now flying directly up towards the unprotected belly of the first carrier on the larboard side, and now Laurence could see that this dragon, a smaller female Pêcheur-Rayé, was visibly tired: her wings laboring, even though her pace was still regular.

“Ready bombs,” Laurence shouted. As Temeraire came hurtling past the Pêcheur-Rayé and slashed at the French dragon’s side, the crew hurled the bombs onto the deck of the transport. The crack of gunfire came from the Pêcheur’s back, and Laurence heard a cry behind him: Collins threw up his arms and went limp in his harness, his rifle tumbling away into the water below. A moment later the body followed: he was dead, and one of the others had cut him loose.

There were no guns on the transport itself, but the deck was built slanting like a roof: three of the bombs rolled off before they could burst, drifting smoke as they fell uselessly. However, two exploded in time: the whole transport sagged in mid-air as the shock briefly threw the Pêcheur off her pace, gaping holes torn in the wooden planking. Laurence caught a single glimpse of a pale, staring face inside, smudged with dirt and inhuman with terror; then Temeraire was angling away.

Blood was dripping from somewhere below, a thin black stream; Laurence leaned to check, but saw no injury; Temeraire was flying well. “Granby,” he shouted, pointing.

“From his claws—the other beast,” Granby shouted back, after a moment, and Laurence nodded.

But there was no opportunity for a second pass: two more French dragons were coming at them directly. Temeraire beat up quickly into the sky, the enemy beasts following; they had seen his trick of maneuvering and were coming at a more cautious pace so as not to overrun him.

“Double back, straight down and at them,” Laurence called to Temeraire.

“Guns ready,” Riggs shouted behind him, as Temeraire drew a deep, swelling breath and neatly turned back on himself in mid-air. No longer at war with gravity, he plummeted towards the French dragons, roaring furiously. The tremendous volume rattled Laurence’s bones even in the face of the wind; the dragon in the lead recoiled, shrieking, and entangled the head of the second in its wings.

Temeraire flew straight down between them, through the bitter smoke of the enemy gunfire, the British rifles speaking in answer; several of the enemy dead were already cut loose and falling. Temeraire lashed out and carved a gash along the second dragon’s flank as they went past; the spurting blood splashed Laurence’s trousers, fever-hot against his skin.

They were away, and the two attackers were still struggling to right themselves: the first was flying very badly and making shrill noises of pain. Even as Laurence glanced behind them he saw the dragon being turned back for France: with their advantage in numbers, Bonaparte’s aviators had no need to push their dragons past injury.

“Bravely done,” Laurence called, unable to keep jubilation, pride out of his voice, as absurd as it was to indulge in such sentiments at the height of so desperate a battle. Behind him, the crew cheered wildly as the second of the French dragons pulled away to find another opponent, not daring to attempt Temeraire alone. At once Temeraire was winging back towards their original target, head raised proudly: he was still unmarked.

Their formation-partner Messoria was at the transport: thirty years of experience made her and Sutton wily, and they too had won past the line-of-battle, to continue the attack on the already-weakened Pêcheur whom Temeraire had injured. A pair of the smaller Poux-de-Ciel were defending the Pêcheur; together they were more than Messoria’s weight, but she was making use of every trick she had, skillfully baiting them forward, trying to make an opening for a dash at the Pêcheur. More smoke was pouring from the transport’s deck: Sutton’s crew had evidently managed to land a few more bombs upon it.

Flank to larboard, Sutton signaled from Messoria’s back as they approached. Messoria made a dash at the two defenders to keep their attention on her, while Temeraire swept forward and lashed at the Pêcheur’s side, his claws tearing through the chain-mesh with a hideous noise; dark blood spurted. Bellowing, instinctively trying to lash out at Temeraire in defense, the Pêcheur let go the beam with one foreleg; it was secured to the dragon’s body by many heavy chains, but even so the transport listed visibly down, and Laurence could hear the men inside yelling.

Temeraire made an ungraceful but effective fluttering hop and avoided the strike, still closely engaged; he tore away more of the chain-mesh and clawed the Pêcheur again. “Prepare volley,” Riggs bellowed, and the riflemen strafed the Pêcheur’s back cruelly. Laurence saw one of the French officers taking aim at Temeraire’s head; he fired his own pistols, and with the second shot, the man went down clutching his leg.

“Sir, permission to board,” Granby called forward. The Pêcheur’s topmen and riflemen had suffered heavy losses; its back was largely cleared, and the opportunity was ideal; Granby was standing at the ready with a dozen of the men, all of them with swords drawn and hands ready to unlock their carabiners.

Laurence had been dreading this possibility of all things; it was only with deep reluctance that he gave Temeraire the word and laid them alongside the French dragon. “Boarders away,” he shouted, waving Granby his permission with a low, sinking feeling in his belly; nothing could have been more unpleasant than to watch his men make that terrifying unharnessed leap into the waiting enemy’s hands, while he himself had to remain at his station.

A terrible ululating cry in the near distance: Lily had just struck a French dragon full in the face, and it was scrabbling and clawing at its own face, jerking in one direction and then the next, frenzied with the pain. Temeraire’s shoulders hunched with sympathy just as the Pêcheur’s did; Laurence flinched himself from the intolerable sound. Then the screaming stopped, abruptly; a sickening relief: the captain had crept out along the neck and put a bullet into his own dragon’s head rather than see the creature die slowly as the acid ate through the skull and into the brain. Many of his crew had leapt to other dragons for safety, some even to Lily’s back, but he had sacrificed the opportunity; Laurence saw him falling alongside the tumbling dragon, and they plunged into the ocean together.

He wrenched himself from the horrible fascination of the sight; the bloody struggle aboard the Pêcheur’s back was going well for them, and he could already see a couple of the midwingmen working on the chains that secured the transport to the dragon. But the Pêcheur’s distress had not gone unnoticed: another French dragon was coming towards them at speed, and some exceptionally daring men were climbing out of the holes in the damaged transport, trying to make their way up the chains to the Pêcheur’s back to provide assistance. Even as Laurence caught sight of them, a couple of them slipped on the sloping deck and fell; but there were more than a dozen making the attempt, and if they were to reach the Pêcheur, they would certainly turn the tide of battle against Granby and the boarders.

Messoria cried out then, a long shrill wail. “Fall back,” Laurence heard Sutton shouting. She was streaming dark blood from a deep cut across her breastbone, another wound on her flank already being packed with white bandage; she dropped and wheeled away, leaving the two Poux-de-Ciel who had been attacking her at liberty. Though they were much smaller than Temeraire, he could not engage the Pêcheur while under attack from two directions: Laurence had either to call back the boarding party, or abandon them and hope they could take the Pêcheur, securing its surrender by seizing its captain alive.

“Granby!” Laurence shouted; the lieutenant looked around, wiping blood from a cut on his face, and nodded as soon as he saw their position, waving them off. Laurence touched Temeraire’s side and called to him; with a last parting slash across the Pêcheur’s flank that laid white bone bare, Temeraire spun away, gaining some distance, and hovered to permit them to survey. The two smaller French dragons did not pursue, but remained hovering close to the Pêcheur; they did not dare try to get close enough to send men over, for Temeraire could easily overwhelm them if they put themselves in so exposed a position.

Yet Temeraire himself was also in some danger. The riflemen and half the bellmen had gone for the boarding party; well worth the risk, for if they took the Pêcheur, the transport could not very well continue on; if it did not fall entirely, at least the three remaining dragons would likely be forced to turn back for France. But that meant Temeraire was now undermanned, and they were vulnerable to boarding themselves: they could not risk another close engagement.

The boarding party was making steady progress now against the last men resisting aboard the Pêcheur’s back; they would certainly outdistance the men from the transport. One of the Poux-de-Ciel dashed in and tried to lie alongside the Pêcheur; “At them,” Laurence called, and Temeraire dived instantly, his raking claws and teeth sending the smaller beast into a hurried retreat. Laurence had to send Temeraire winging away again, but it had been enough. The French had lost their chance, and the Pêcheur was crying out in alarm, twisting her head around: Granby was standing at the French dragon’s neck with a pistol aimed at a man’s head—they had taken the captain.

At Granby’s order, the chains were flung off the Pêcheur, and they turned the captured French dragon’s head towards Dover. She flew unwillingly and slowly, head turning back every few moments in anxiety for her captain; but she went, and the transport was left hanging wildly askew, the three remaining dragons struggling desperately under its weight.

Laurence had little opportunity to enjoy the triumph: two fresh dragons came diving at them: a Petit Chevalier considerably larger than Temeraire despite the name, and a middleweight Pêcheur-Couronné who dashed to seize the sagging support beam. The men still clinging to the roof threw the dangling chains to the fresh dragon’s crew, and in moments the transport was righted and under way again.

The Poux-de-Ciel were coming at them again from opposite sides, and the Petit Chevalier was angling round from behind: their position was exposed, and growing rapidly hopeless. “Withdraw, Temeraire,” Laurence called, bitter though the order was to give. Temeraire turned away at once, but the pursuing dragons drew nearer; he had been fighting hard now for nearly half an hour, and he was tiring.

The two Poux-de-Ciel were working in concert, trying to herd Temeraire towards the big dragon, darting across his path of flight to slow him. The Petit Chevalier suddenly put on a burst of speed, and as he drew alongside them a handful of men leapt over. “ ’Ware boarders,” Lieutenant Johns shouted in his hoarse baritone, and Temeraire looked round in alarm. Fear gave him fresh energy to draw away from the pursuit; the Chevalier fell behind, and after Temeraire lashed out and caught one of the Poux-de-Ciel, they too abandoned the chase.

However, there were eight men already crossed over and latched on; Laurence grimly reloaded his pistols, thrusting them into his belt, then lengthened his carabiner straps and stood. The five topmen under Lieutenant Johns were trying to hold the boarders at the middle of Temeraire’s back. Laurence made his way back as quickly as he dared. His first shot went wide, his second took a Frenchman directly in the chest; the man fell coughing blood and dangled limply from the harness.

Then it was hot, frantic sword-work, with the sky whipping past too quickly to see anything but the men before him. A French lieutenant was standing in front of him; the man saw his gold bars and aimed a pistol at him; Laurence barely heard the speech the man tried to make him, and paid no attention, but knocked the gun away with his sword-arm and clubbed the Frenchman on the temple with his pistol-butt. The lieutenant fell; the man behind him lunged, but the wind of their passage was against him, and the sword-thrust scarcely penetrated the leather coat Laurence wore.

Laurence cut the man’s harness-straps and kicked him off with a boot to the middle, then looked around for more boarders; but by good fortune the others were all dead or disarmed, and for their part only Challoner and Wright had fallen, except for Lieutenant Johns, who was hanging from his carabiners, blood welling up furiously from a pistol-wound in his chest; before they could try to tend him, he gave a final rattling gasp and also was still.

Laurence bent down and closed Johns’s dead, staring eyes, and hung his own sword back on his belt. “Mr. Martin, take command of the top, acting lieutenant. Get these bodies cleared away.”

“Yes, sir,” Martin said, panting; there was a bloody gash across his cheek, and red splashes of blood in his yellow hair. “Is your arm all right, Captain?”

Laurence looked; blood was seeping a little through the rent in the coat, but he could move the arm easily, and he felt no weakness. “Only a scratch; I will tie it up directly.”

He clambered over a body and back to his station at the neck and latched himself in tight, then pulled loose his neckcloth to wrap around the wound. “Boarders repelled,” he called, and the nervous tension left Temeraire’s shoulders. Temeraire had drawn away from the battlefield, as proper when boarded; now he turned back around, and when Laurence looked up he could see the whole extent of the field of battle, where it was not obscured by smoke and dragon wings.

All but three of the transports were under no sort of attack at all: the British dragons were being heavily engaged by the French defenders. Lily was flying virtually alone; only Nitidus remained with her, the others of their formation nowhere in Laurence’s sight. He looked for Maximus and saw him engaged closely with their old enemy, the Grand Chevalier; the intervening two months of growth had brought Maximus closer to his size, and the two of them were tearing at each other in a terrible savagery.

At this distance the sound of the battle was muffled; instead he could hear a more fatal one entirely: the crash of the waves, breaking upon the foot of the white cliffs. They had been driven nearly to shore, and he could see the red-and-white coats of the soldiers formed up on the ground. It was not yet midday.

Abruptly a phalanx of six heavy-weight dragons broke off from the French line and dived towards the ground, all of them roaring at the top of their lungs while their crews threw bombs down. The thin ranks of redcoats wavered as in a breeze, and the mass of militia in the center almost broke, men falling to their knees and covering their heads, though scarcely any real damage was done. A dozen guns were fired off, wildly: shots wasted, Laurence thought in despair, and the leading transport could make its descent almost unmolested.

The four carriers drew closer together, flying in a tight knot directly above the transport, and let the keel of the vessel carve a resting place in the ground with its own momentum. The British soldiers in the front ranks threw up their arms as an immense cloud of dirt burst into their faces, and then almost at once half of them fell dead: the whole front of the transport had unhinged like a barn door, and a volley of rifle-fire erupted from inside to mow down the front lines.

A shout of “Vive l’Empereur!” went up as the French soldiers poured out through the smoke: more than a thousand men, dragging a pair of eighteen-pounders with them; the men formed into lines to protect the guns as the artillery-men hurried to bring their charges to bear. The redcoats fired off an answering volley, and a few moments later the militia managed a ragged one of their own, but the Frenchmen were hardened veterans; though dozens fell dead, the ranks shut tight to fill in their places, and the men held their ground.

The four dragons who had carried the transport were flinging off their chains. Free of their burden, they rose again to join the fight, leaving the British aerial forces even more outnumbered than before. In a moment another transport would land under this increased protection, and its own carriers worsen the situation further.

Maximus roared furiously, clawed free of the Grand Chevalier and made a sudden desperate stoop towards the next transport as it began to descend; no art or maneuver, he only flung himself down. Two smaller dragons tried to bar his way, but he had committed his full weight to the dive; though he took raking blows from their claws and teeth, he bowled them apart by sheer force. One was only knocked aside; the other, a red-and-blue-barred Honneur-d’Or, tumbled against the cliffs with one wing splayed helplessly. It scrabbled at the ragged stone face, sending powdery chalk flying as it tried to get purchase and climb up onto the cliff-top.

A light frigate of some twenty-four guns, with a shallow draft, had been daring to stay near the coast; now she leapt at the chance: before the dragon could get up over the cliff’s edge, her full double-shotted broadside roared out like thunder. The French dragon screamed once over the noise and fell, broken; the unforgiving surf pounded its corpse and the remnants of its crew upon the rocks.

Above, Maximus had landed on the second transport and was clawing at the chains; his weight was too much for the carriers to support, but they were struggling valiantly, and with a great heave in unison they managed to get the transport over the edge of the cliff as he finally broke the supports. The wooden shell fell twenty feet through the air and cracked open like an egg, spilling men and guns everywhere, but the distance was not great enough. Survivors were staggering to their feet almost at once, and they were safely behind their own already-established line.

Maximus had landed heavily behind the British lines: his sides were steaming in the cold air, blood running freely from a dozen wounds and more, and his wings were drooped to the ground: he struggled to beat them again, to get aloft, and could not, but fell back onto his haunches trembling in every limb.

Three or four thousand men already on the ground, and five guns; the British troops massed here only twenty thousand, and most of those militia, who were plainly unwilling to charge in the face of dragons above: many men were already trying to run. If the French commander had any sense at all, he would scarcely wait for another three or four transports to launch his own charge, and if his men overran the gun emplacements they could turn the artillery against the British dragons and clear the approaches completely.

“Laurence,” Temeraire said, turning his head around, “two more of those vessels are going in to land.”

“Yes,” Laurence said, low. “We must try and stop them; if they land, the battle on the ground is lost.”

Temeraire was quiet a moment, even as he turned his path of flight onto an angle that would bring him ahead of the leading transport. Then he said, “Laurence, we cannot succeed, can we?”

The two forward lookouts, young ensigns, were listening also, so that Laurence had to speak as much to them as to Temeraire. “Not forever, perhaps,” Laurence said. “But we may yet do enough to help protect England: if they are forced to land one at a time, or in worse positions, the militia may be able to hold them for some time.”

Temeraire nodded, and Laurence thought he understood the unspoken truth: the battle was lost, and even this was only a token attempt. “And we must still try, or we would be leaving our friends to fight without us,” Temeraire said. “I think this is what you have meant by duty, all along; I do understand, at least this much of it.”

“Yes,” Laurence said, his throat aching. They had outstripped the transports and were over the ground now, with the militia a blurred sea of red below. Temeraire was swinging about to face the first of the transports head-on; there was only just enough time for Laurence to put his hand on Temeraire’s neck, a silent communion.

The sight of land was putting heart into the French dragons: their speed was increasing. There were two Pêcheurs at the fore of the transport; roughly equal in size, and neither injured: Laurence left it to Temeraire to decide which would be his target, and reloaded his own pistols.

Temeraire stopped and hovered in mid-air before the oncoming dragons, spreading his wings as if to bar the way; his ruff raised instinctively up, the webbed skin translucent grey in the sunlight. A slow, deep shudder passed along his length as he drew breath and his sides swelled out even further against his massive rib cage, making the bones stand out in relief: there was a strange stretched-tight quality to his skin, so that Laurence began to be alarmed: he could feel the air moving beneath, echoing, resonating, in the chambers of Temeraire’s lungs.

A low reverberation seemed to build throughout Temeraire’s flesh, like a drum-beat rolling. “Temeraire,” Laurence called, or tried to; he could not hear himself speak at all. He felt a single tremendous shudder travel forward along Temeraire’s body, all the gathered breath caught up in that motion: Temeraire opened his jaws, and what emerged was a roar that was less sound than force, a terrible wave of noise so vast it seemed to distort the air before him.

Laurence could not see for a moment through the brief haze; when his vision cleared, he at first did not understand. Ahead of them, the transport was shattering as if beneath the force of a full broadside, the light wood cracking like gunfire, men and cannon spilling out into the broken surf far below at the foot of the cliffs. His jaw and ears were aching as if he had been struck on the head, and Temeraire’s body was still trembling beneath him.

“Laurence, I think I did that,” Temeraire said; he sounded more shocked than pleased. Laurence shared his sentiments: he could not immediately bring himself to speak.

The four dragons were still attached to the beams of the ruined transport, and the fore dragon to larboard was bleeding from its nostrils, choking and crying in pain. Hurrying to save the dragon, its crew cast off the chains, letting the fragment fall away, and it managed the last quarter mile to land behind the French lines. The captain and crew leapt down at once; the injured dragon was huddled and pawing at its head, moaning.

Behind them, a wild cheer was going up from the British ranks, and gunfire from the French: the soldiers on the ground were shooting at Temeraire. “Sir, we are in range of those cannon, if they get them loaded,” Martin said urgently.

Temeraire heard and dashed out over the water, for the moment beyond their reach, and hovered in place. The French advance had halted for a moment, several of the defenders milling about, wary of coming closer and as confused as Laurence and Temeraire himself were. But in a moment the French captains above might understand, or at least collect themselves; they would make a concerted attack on Temeraire and bring him down. There was only a little time left in which to make use of the surprise.

“Temeraire,” he called urgently, “fly lower and try if you can striking at those transports from below, at cliff-height. Mr. Turner,” he said, turning to the signal-ensign, “give those ships below a gun and show them the signal for engage the enemy more closely; I believe they will take my meaning.”

“I will try,” Temeraire said uncertainly, and dived lower, gathering himself and once again taking that tremendous swelling breath. Curving back upwards, he roared once again, this time at the underside of one of the transports still over the water. The distance was greater, and the vessel did not wholly shatter, but great cracks opened in the planks of the hull; the four dragons above were at once desperately occupied in keeping it from breaking open all the rest of the way.

An arrow-head formation of French dragons came diving directly towards them, some six heavyweight dragons behind the Grand Chevalier in the lead. Temeraire darted away and at Laurence’s touch dropped lower over the water, where half a dozen frigates and three ships-of-the-line lay in wait. As they swept past their long guns spoke in a rolling broadside, one gun after another, scattering the French dragons into shrill confusion as they tried to avoid the flying grapeshot and cannonballs.

“Now, quickly, the next one,” Laurence called to Temeraire, though the order was scarcely necessary: Temeraire had already doubled back upon himself. He went directly at the underside of the next transport in line: the largest, flown by four heavyweight dragons, and with ensigns of golden eagles flying from the deck.

“Those are his flags, are they not?” Temeraire called back. “Bonaparte is on there?”

“More likely one of his Marshals,” Laurence shouted over the wind, but he felt a wild excitement anyway. The defenders were forming up again at a higher elevation, ready to come after them once more; but Temeraire beat forward with ferocious zeal and outdistanced them. This larger transport, made of heavier wood, did not break as easily; even so, the wood cracked like the sound of pistol-shot, splinters flying everywhere.

Temeraire dived down to attempt a second pass; suddenly Lily was flying alongside them, and Obversaria on their other side, Lenton bellowing through his speaking-trumpet, “Go at them, just go at them; we will take care of those damned buggers—” and the two of them whirled to intercept the French defenders coming after Temeraire again.

But even as Temeraire began his climb, fresh signals went up from the damaged transport. The four dragons who were carrying it together wheeled around and began to pull away; and across the battlefield all the transports still aloft gave way and turned, for the long and weary flight back in retreat to France.