to bear you there,’ Rankin said. ‘My next flight will be this Saturday, and I can easily have you back by suppertime if we leave in the morning.’
‘Thank you; I am very much obliged to you,’ Laurence said, surprised and pleased. ‘I will apply to Celeritas for permission to go.’
Celeritas frowned at the request, made the next morning, and looked at Laurence narrowly. ‘You wish to go with Captain Rankin? Well, it will be the last day of liberty you have for a long time, for you must and will be here for every moment of Temeraire’s flight training.’
He was almost fierce about it, and Laurence was surprised by his vehemence. ‘I assure you I have no objection,’ he said, wondering in astonishment if the training master thought he meant to shirk his duties. ‘Indeed, I had not imagined otherwise, and I am well aware of the need for urgency in his training. If my absence would cause any difficulty, I beg you to have no hesitation in refusing the request.’
Whatever the source of his initial disapproval, Celeritas was mollified by this statement. ‘As it happens, the ground crewmen will need a day to fit Temeraire out with his new gear, and it will be ready by then,’ he said, in less-stern tones. ‘I suppose we can spare you, as long as Temeraire is not finicky about being harnessed without you there, and you may as well have a final excursion.’
Temeraire assured Laurence he did not mind, so the plan was settled, and Laurence spent part of the next few evenings making measurements of his neck, and of Maximus’s, thinking the Regal Copper’s current size might be a good approximation for what Temeraire could reach in future. He pretended to Temeraire that these were for the harness; he looked forward to giving the present as a surprise, and seeing it take away some of the quiet distress that lingered, casting a pall over the dragon’s usually high spirits.
Rankin looked with amusement at his sketches of possible designs. The two of them had already formed the settled habit of playing chess together in the evenings, and sitting together at dinner. Laurence so far had little conversation with the other aviators; he regretted it, but could see little point in trying to push himself forward when he was comfortable enough as he was, and in the absence of any sort of invitation. It seemed clear to him that Rankin was as outside the common life of the aviators as he was, perhaps set aside by the elegance of his manners, and if they were both outcast for the same reason, they might at least have the pleasure of each other’s society for compensation.
He and Berkley met at breakfast and training every day, and he continued to find the other captain an astute airman and aerial tactician; but at dinner or in company Berkley was silent. Laurence was not sure either that he wanted to try and draw the man into intimacy, or that a gesture in that direction would be welcome, so he contented himself with being civil, and discussing technical matters; so far they had only known each other a few days, and there would be time enough to take a better measure of the man’s real character.
He had steeled himself to react properly on meeting Captain Harcourt again, but she seemed shy of his company; he saw her almost only at a distance, though Temeraire was soon to be flying in company with her dragon Lily. One morning however she was at table when he arrived for breakfast, and in an attempt to make natural conversation, he asked how her dragon came to be called Lily, thinking it might be a nickname like Volly’s. She flushed to her roots again and said very stiffly, ‘I liked the name; pray how did you come to name Temeraire?’
‘To be perfectly honest, I did not have any idea of the proper way of naming a dragon, nor any way of finding out at the time,’ Laurence said, feeling he had made a misstep; no one had remarked on Temeraire’s unusual name before, and only now that she had brought him to task for it did he guess that perhaps he had raised a sore point with her. ‘I called him after a ship: the first Téméraire was captured from the French, and the one presently in service is a ninety-eight gun three-decker, one of our finest line-of-battle ships.’
When he had made this confession, she seemed to grow more easy, and said with more candour, ‘Oh; as you have said as much, I do not mind admitting that it was nearly the same with me. Lily was not properly expected to hatch for another five years at the earliest, and I had no notion of a name. When her egg hardened, they woke me in the middle of the night at Edinburgh covert and flung me on a Winchester, and I barely managed to reach the baths before she broke the shell. I simply gaped when she invited me to give her a name, and I could not think of anything else.’
‘It is a charming name, and perfectly suits her, Catherine,’ Rankin said, joining them at the table. ‘Good morning, Laurence; have you seen the paper? Lord Pugh has finally managed to marry off his daughter; Ferrold must be desperately hard up.’ This piece of gossip, concerning as it did people whom Harcourt did not know at all, left her outside the conversation. Before Laurence could change the subject, however, she excused herself and slipped away from the table, and he lost the opportunity to further the acquaintance.
The few days remaining in the week before the excursion, passed swiftly. The training as yet was still more a matter of testing Temeraire’s flying abilities, and seeing how best he and Maximus could be worked into the formation centred on Lily. Celeritas had them fly endless circuits around the training valley, sometimes trying to minimize the number of wingbeats, sometimes trying to maximize their speed, and always trying to keep them in line with one another. One memorable morning was spent almost entirely upside down, and Laurence found himself dizzy and red-faced at the end of it. The stouter Berkley was huffing as he staggered off Maximus’s back after the final pass, and Laurence leaped forward to ease him down to the ground as his legs gave out from under him.
Maximus hovered anxiously over Berkley and rumbled in distress. ‘Stop that moaning, Maximus; nothing more ridiculous than a creature of your size behaving like a mother hen,’ Berkley said as he fell into the chair that the servants had hurriedly brought. ‘Ah, thank you,’ he said, taking the glass of brandy Laurence offered him, and sipped at it while Laurence loosened his neckcloth.
‘I am sorry to have put you under such a strain,’ Celeritas said, when Berkley was no longer gasping and scarlet. ‘Ordinarily these trials would be spread over half a month’s time. Perhaps I am pressing on too quickly.’
‘Nonsense, I will be well in a trice,’ Berkley said at once. ‘I know damned well we cannot spare a moment, Celeritas, so do not be holding us back on my account.’
‘Laurence, why are matters so urgent?’ Temeraire asked that evening after dinner, as they once again settled down together outside the courtyard walls to read. ‘Is there to be a great battle soon, and we are needed for it?’
Laurence folded the book closed, keeping his place with a finger. ‘No; I am sorry to disappoint you, but we are too raw to be sent by choice directly into a major action. But it is very likely that Lord Nelson will not be able to destroy the French fleet without the help of one of the Longwing formations presently stationed in England; our duty will be to take their place, so they may go. That will indeed be a great battle, and though we will not participate in it directly, I assure you our part is by no means unimportant.’
‘No, but it does not sound very exciting,’ Temeraire said. ‘But perhaps France will invade us, and then we will have to fight?’ He sounded rather more hopeful than anything else.
‘We must hope not,’ Laurence said. ‘If Nelson destroys their fleet, it will pretty well put paid to any chance of Bonaparte’s bringing his army across. Though I have heard he has something like a thousand boats to carry his men, they are only transports, and the Navy would sink them by the dozen if they tried to come across without the protection of the fleet.’
Temeraire sighed and put his head down over his forelegs. ‘Oh,’ he said.
Laurence laughed and stroked his nose. ‘How bloodthirsty you are,’ he said with amusement. ‘Do not fear; I promise you we will see enough action when your training is done. There is a great deal of skirmishing over the Channel, for one thing; and then we may be sent in support of a naval operation, or perhaps sent to harass the French shipping independently.’ This heartened Temeraire greatly, and he turned his attention to the book with restored good humour.
Friday