“I must however demur: you are not yet up to the flight,” Laurence said. “We have near six hundred miles to cover in three days’ flying, and every dragon of our company will be under full weight of harness and men; none of them can carry you. You must remain here.”

“That will not do,” Ning said. “No-one comes to this covert except low officers and couriers, and too few of those besides. But pray do not worry,” she added. “You are beset with many cares, and must be desiring to return to Temeraire at once. You may dress for flying; I will make all the necessary arrangements.”

Laurence did have to dress, so he deferred further argument even while wondering what arrangements she thought she might make. There was no dragon in the covert who could manage her bulk and the necessary speed of their flight both: she was growing with the same explosive speed Laurence recalled from Temeraire’s early weeks, and more nearly approximated the size of a light-weight than a courier beast, by now. In an emergency, she might have been carried, but he would not slow the entire company for her and her unknown purposes.

But when he emerged from his cabin, she looked only satisfied and said, “Good, you are ready; our transport is nearly here.”

Nearly in this case proved to mean the better part of an hour, and only when Laurence was on the point of refusing to wait any longer, and taking a courier, did a heavy ponderous flapping of large wings aloft clear the landing-ring of the covert. The massive Regal Copper of Temeraire’s acquaintance from the breeding grounds, Requiescat, came thumping down.

“I regret that it was not possible for you to be more timely,” Ning said, rather coldly.

“It ain’t my fault,” Requiescat said. “I don’t fly a mile straight up for my own pleasure. But you can’t guess the fuss the groundlings make, only if I choose to coast in at a decent height—‘stampeded everyone on Rotten Row,’ ” he mimicked a whine. “They don’t take much stampeding, let me tell you. Climb on, since you’re in such a hurry, and let’s be off.”

“A moment, if you please,” Laurence said.

The Regal startled and peered very carefully down. “Why, I didn’t see you there,” he said, addressing a shrub somewhat to Laurence’s left. “Who are you, then?”

“I am Temeraire’s captain,” Laurence said in some asperity. “Do I understand that you are volunteering to come to the Continent with us? And fight?”

“I might as well, I guess,” Requiescat said. “I am tired of carrying rocks around. It may be good money, but it gets stale, there’s no denying.”

Laurence contemplated without enthusiasm the project of feeding a Regal Copper, with six other heavy-weights to manage already among their force—but there was no denying the breed exerted a kind of moral force upon their fellows disproportionate to even their immense scale. He was sensible of the advantage Requiescat’s presence should offer not merely in battle, but in securing the uncertain discipline of his company. His worst fear at present was not defeat, but a mutiny among his captains, which might rob them of a victory otherwise in reach—and he would hold himself responsible regardless of the ill-management of the Admiralty which had served him with such officers as made that mutiny a prospect more probable than unthinkable.

Laurence looked at Ning, who regarded him with placid mien. How she had prevailed upon an unharnessed and indolent beast to volunteer for war, Laurence did not know, and suspected some inducement had been privately offered, which might well be held to his own account in future. But so far as the practical side of the matter, she had indeed found a solution: Requiescat could certainly manage her weight, even if he were armored to boot.

“Very well,” Laurence said, yielding. “If you are set on this course, you are welcome; and you may accompany us as well, if you choose,” he added to Ning, “but I think I will require your promise that so long as you remain with us you will undertake no action inimical to Britain’s interests, nor hold any conversation with the enemy.”

Ning considered this demand long enough to make Laurence glad he had made it, and at last judiciously said, “I believe I can commit myself so far: you have my word,” and he could only hope that would be sufficient bond to keep her from either imprudence, or a dishonorable excess of the reverse.

—

“Requiescat is welcome: he is very handy in a fight when he likes to be, even if he does want the biggest share of everything, always,” Temeraire said. “But I do not understand why Ning wishes to come along, and—Laurence, of course I do not mean to imply there is anything wanting in a dragon of my lineage, only I am afraid Ning—that she is—” He stopped, wondering how best to put it into words, without inviting any reflections on her breeding.

“Just so,” Laurence said with a sigh, “but we are most likely better off bringing her than leaving her behind; she would certainly make some form of mischief in our absence.”

“I am quite content to come,” Ning herself said, when Temeraire tried to suggest that perhaps she would be better off remaining out of the noise and tumult of war, where she might easily be injured, particularly at her small size. “I will be careful to evade any danger.”

“I am sure she will,” Temeraire muttered, disgruntled, but there was no more time for persuasion to act upon her; the last furious bustle of preparation was under way, and Challoner, the new second lieutenant, was begging his pardon, but they needed his help with the armor.

Temeraire had scarcely remembered the enormous effort involved in getting a British heavy-weight under full arms and under way, and the size of the crew required to make the operation possible at all. He had once taken it for granted. Now he had learned to look with a critical eye upon the service which had then been all his world, and yet the cheerful ordinary shouting and cursing still had the power to raise a pang of pleasurable nostalgia—officers and ground crew all scrambling in every direction, checking over every buckle; the supplies all laid out and going aboard in their orderly fashion, as unchanged as sunrise. There was even something satisfying in the imposing weight of harness and chainmail, and more still in knowing his belly-netting held nearly fifty incendiaries, and a full complement of seven riflemen were already gone aboard his back.

He had been luxuriously scrubbed yesterday, under Challoner’s supervision—Lieutenant Challoner herself entirely satisfactory, with a silver-buttoned coat in bright green, hair neatly braided and tied at the end with a matching ribbon, everything about her deeply comforting to Temeraire’s sense of what was due their new rank and stature. She had also the charming quality of being the sister of one of Temeraire’s former officers who had died at the Battle of Dover, and therefore seemed rather like a lost valuable recovered: although it was puzzling Rebecca should have described herself to him as the younger sister, when she was older than Dilly had been; but Temeraire put this aside; he did not like to think too much about the way time passed for people.