‘Oh,’ Temeraire said, ‘oh no, whatever are you doing?’
Laurence paused in confusion. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘No, Laurence; I am speaking to the egg,’ Temeraire said, raising his head with an expression of consternation, his ruff flattened against his neck. ‘It is hatching; however are we to get it away, now?’
‘Only remember, you must put up with him for a little while,’ Temeraire informed the egg, as it rocked a little more, ‘as otherwise he can make no end of trouble for everyone, but it will only be a few minutes, and then you may choose someone else, or to have no one at all. And if he puts anything on you which you do not like, only wait a moment, and I will take it away directly. You might,’ he added a little exasperated, ‘have waited in the shell a little longer, until we had gone away and you were quite safe: anyone would think you were not listening to me at all.’
‘Captain Granby, if you would be so good as to remove the egg from the prospect of any more interference,’ Rankin said, as he and the party of officers came up the track and onto the promontory, ‘I would be grateful; if it would suit you, I should like to arrange the hatching here,’ indicating the place where he stood, quite near the track and a distance from the promontory’s edge.
Temeraire flared out his ruff: Rankin indeed had the leather hood which Laurence had spoken of, and a heavy net with chains, such as Temeraire had once been held down with, shipboard during a typhoon; he had not liked it at all. ‘Remember, only a moment,’ he hissed at the egg, and then reluctantly let the aviators take it away: at least they were very careful, carrying it.
When it was in place, Rankin detailed a couple of the younger officers, midshipmen, to stand on the other side of the egg with the mesh netting, as though they would entangle the poor hatchling if it should try and fly away. To add insult to injury, a boy was leading a handsome sheep on a string behind him, and as soon as the first crack had appeared, Rankin nodded, and two men butchered it into a tub — a lovely hot smell of fresh blood — and brought it over. Temeraire thought it quite unfair — one was so hungry, breaking the shell; it would be so very difficult to resist — and wondered if perhaps he ought take the meat away.
‘Granby,’ Iskierka said, pricking up her spikes as she also observed, ‘I do not see why we should not have bought a sheep or two, ourselves; or a cow. I am sure we have enough money.’
‘It wouldn’t be polite, dear one,’ Granby said.
‘I don’t see why,’ Iskierka said. ‘Temeraire might have money, too, if he were as clever at taking prizes as I am; it is not my fault he shouldn’t have arranged things better, and I needn’t eat kangaroo to make up for it.’
‘Pray let’s discuss it later,’ Granby said, hastily. ‘The egg is hatching, anyway.’
The shell did not crack neatly, Temeraire noted with a critical eye; instead it fractured off in bits and pieces, and then the hatchling finally smashed its way out in a very messy burst, shaking itself loose. It was not very pretty, either, in his opinion: it was grey all over like Wringe, save for two very broad red streaks of colour sweeping from the breastbone and under the wing-joints to trail out in spots along the backbone into its long, skinny tail.
‘Good conformation,’ Granby said to Laurence, under his breath. ‘Blast it! Shoulders as strong as you could like.’
The hatchling was quite heavily built forward, Temeraire supposed; and it had very clever snatching front claws, which it used almost at once: Rankin stepped forward with two quick steps, holding the hood; but to Temeraire’s delight, the hatchling snapped out its wrists and seizing hold dragged it away from him and said, ‘No, I won’t have any of that,’ and setting its teeth in the other end tore it quite apart with a slash of its talons.
It flung the pieces down on the ground, with an air of satisfaction. ‘There; now, take it away, and give me the meat.’
Rankin recovered, despite this setback, and said, ‘You may have it as soon as you have put on the harness.’
‘You needn’t, at all,’ Temeraire put in, ignoring the looks of disapprobation which the aviators flung at him. ‘You can take yourself a perfectly tasty kangaroo, anytime you like.’
‘Well, I don’t like; what I like is the smell of that meat over there,’ the hatchling said, and put its head over on its side considering. ‘As for you: you are an earl’s son, is it?’ it inquired of Rankin intently. ‘An especially good earl?’
Rankin looked a little taken aback, and said after a pause, ‘My father’s creation dates from the twelfth century.’
‘Yes, but, is he rich?’ the hatchling said.
‘I hope,’ Rankin said, ‘that I may not be so impolite as to speak crassly of my family’s circumstances.’
‘Well, that may be pretty-spoken, but it don’t tell me anything useful,’ the hatchling said. ‘Does he have any cows?’
Rankin hesitated, visibly torn, and then said, ‘I believe there are some dairy farms on his estates — several hundred head among them, I imagine.’
‘Good, good,’ the dragonet said, approvingly. ‘Well, let us have a look at this harness, and as long as you are busy being polite, you might give me a taste while I am thinking it over; I do like your hair,’ it added; Temeraire did have to admit Rankin’s was of a particularly appealing shade of yellow which looked a little like gold in the sunlight, ‘and your coat, although that fellow has nicer buttons,’ meaning Granby, ‘but I suppose you can have some like that put on?’
‘But you do not want him, at all!’ Temeraire said. ‘He is an extremely unpleasant person, and neglected Levitas dreadfully, although Levitas was forever trying to please him, and then Levitas died, and it was all his doing.’
‘Yes, so you have said, over and over, while I was getting ready to come out; and all I have to say is, this Levitas fellow sounds a right bore,’ the dragonet said, ‘and I shall like to have a captain who is the son of an earl, and rich, too; I don’t aim to be eating kangaroo day-in and day-out, thank you; or hurrying about catching prizes for myself, either. But that,’ he added, looking at the harness which Rankin was with a slightly uncertain air proffering, ‘is not nice enough by half: those buckles are dirty, it looks to me.’
‘They are certainly dirty,’ Temeraire put in urgently, ‘and so was Levitas’s harness, all the while: quite covered with dirt, and Rankin would not even let him bathe.’
‘This is only a temporary harness,’ Rankin said, adding tentatively, ‘and I shall have a nicer made for you, chased with gold,’ in what Temeraire felt was a quite shameful bargaining sort of manner.
‘Ah, now that sounds more like,’ the dragonet said.
‘And I shall give you a name, straightaway,’ Rankin added, with more firmness. ‘We shall call you Serenitus—‘
‘I have been thinking Conquistador, myself,’ the dragonet interrupted him, ‘or perhaps Caesar; only as I understand it, the conquistadors came out of it with a good deal more gold.’
‘No one is going to call you Caesar,’ Temeraire said, revolted. ‘You are only going to be a middleweight, anyway, if you are that big: Wringe is not even as big as a Reaper.’
‘You never know,’ the dragonet said unfazed. ‘It is better to be prepared. I think Caesar will suit me very well, now I think about it a little more.’
‘Well, I wash my hands of it all,’ Temeraire said to Laurence, afterwards, more than a little aggravated watching Caesar, ‘Oh! How ridiculous — eating a second sheep!’ Rankin had sent out for it, after Caesar had eaten all the first one, down to the scraps, and suggested with a very transparent air that perhaps eating quite a lot while he was fresh-hatched would help him to grow bigger. ‘And I do not believe that at all,’ he added.
‘Well,