LITMIR.BIZ

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instructions regarding my situation, which I trust you will carry, but I confess I would be grateful for some idea of what to expect,’ he finished.

      ‘You’re asking the wrong fellow, I’m afraid,’ James said cheerfully, draining a sixth cup. ‘Never heard of anything like it, and I can’t even give you advance warning about training. I was sold off for the dispatch service by the time I was twelve, and on Volly by fourteen; you’ll be doing heavy combat with your beauty. But,’ he added, ‘I’ll spare you any more waiting: I’ll pop over to the landing grounds, get the post, and take your admiral’s dispatch over tonight. I shouldn’t be surprised if you have a senior cap over to see you before dinnertime tomorrow.’

      ‘I beg your pardon, a senior what?’ Laurence said, forced to ask in desperation; James’s mode of speaking had grown steadily looser with the coffee he consumed.

      ‘Senior captain,’ James said. He grinned, swung his leg down, and climbed out of the chair, standing up on his toes to stretch. ‘You’ll make a flyer; I almost forget I’m not talking to one.’

      ‘Thank you; that is a handsome compliment,’ Laurence said, though privately he wished James would have made more of an effort to remember. ‘But surely you will not fly through the night?’

      ‘Of course; no need to lie about here, in this weather. That coffee has put the life back in me, and on a cow Volly could fly to China and back,’ he said. ‘We’ll have a better berth over on Gibraltar anyway. Off I go,’ and with this remark he walked out of the sitting room, took his own coat from the closet, and strolled out the door whistling, while Laurence hesitated, taken aback, and only belatedly went after him.

      Volly came bounding up to James with a couple of short fluttering hops, babbling to him excitedly about cows and ‘Temrer,’ which was the best he could do at Temeraire’s name; James petted him and climbed back up. ‘Thanks again; will see you on my rounds if you do your training at Gibraltar,’ he said, waved a hand, and with a flurry of grey wings they were a quickly diminishing figure in the twilight sky.

      ‘He was very happy to have the cow,’ Temeraire said after a moment, standing looking after them beside Laurence.

      Laurence laughed at this faint praise and reached up to scratch Temeraire’s neck gently. ‘I am sorry your first meeting with another dragon was not very auspicious,’ he said. ‘But he and James will be taking Admiral Croft’s message to Gibraltar for us, and in another day or two I expect you will be meeting more congenial minds.’

      James had evidently not been exaggerating in his estimate, however; Laurence had just set out for town the next afternoon when a great shadow crossed over the harbour, and he looked up to see an enormous red-and-gold beast sailing by overhead, making for the landing grounds on the outskirts of the town. He at once set out for the Commendable, expecting any communication to reach him there, and none too soon; halfway there a breathless young midshipman tracked him down, and told him that Admiral Croft had sent for him.

      Two aviators were waiting for him in Croft’s stateroom: Captain Portland, a tall, thin man with severe features and a hawksbill nose, who looked rather dragonlike himself, and a Lieutenant Dayes, a young man scarcely twenty years of age, with a long queue of pale red hair and pale eyebrows to match, and an unfriendly expression. Their manner was as aloof as reputation made that of all aviators, and unlike James they showed no signs of unbending towards him.

      ‘Well, Laurence, you are a very lucky fellow,’ Croft said, as soon as Laurence had suffered through the stilted introductions, ‘we will have you back in the Reliant after all.’

      Still in the process of considering the aviators, Laurence paused at this. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he said.

      Portland gave Croft a swift contemptuous glance; but then the remark about luck had certainly been tactless if not offensive. ‘You have indeed performed a singular service for the Corps,’ he said stiffly, turning to Laurence, ‘but I hope we will not have to ask you to continue that ser vice any further. Lieutenant Dayes is here to relieve you.’

      Laurence looked in confusion at Dayes, who stared back with a hint of belligerence in his eye. ‘Sir,’ he said, slowly; he could not quite think, ‘I was under the impression that a dragon’s handler could not be relieved: that he had to be present at its hatching. Am I mistaken?’

      ‘Under ordinary circumstances, you are correct, and it is certainly desirable,’ Portland said. ‘However, on occasion a handler is lost, to disease or injury, and we have been able to convince the dragon to accept a new aviator in more than half of such cases. I expect here that his youth will render Temeraire,’ his voice lingered on the name with a faint air of distaste, ‘even more amenable to the replacement.’

      ‘I see,’ Laurence said; it was all he could manage. Three weeks ago, the news would have given him the greatest joy; now it seemed oddly flat.

      ‘Naturally we are grateful to you,’ Portland said, perhaps feeling some more civil response was called for. ‘But he will do much better in the hands of a trained aviator, and I am sure that the Navy cannot easily spare us so devoted an officer.’

      ‘You are very kind, sir,’ Laurence said formally, bowing. The compliment had not been a natural one, but he could see that the rest of the remark was meant sincerely enough, and it made perfect sense. Certainly Temeraire would do better in the hands of a trained aviator, a fellow who would handle him properly, the same way a ship would do better in the hands of a real seaman. It had been wholly an accident that Temeraire had been settled upon him, and now that he knew the truly extraordinary nature of the dragon, it was even more obvious that Temeraire deserved a partner with an equal degree of skill. ‘Of course you would prefer a trained man in the position if at all possible, and I am happy if I have been of any service. Shall I take Mr. Dayes to Temeraire now?’

      ‘No!’ Dayes said sharply, only to fall silent at a look from Portland.

      Portland answered more politely, ‘No, thank you, Captain; on the contrary, we prefer to proceed exactly as if the dragon’s handler had died, to keep the procedure as close as possible to the set methods which we have devised for accustoming the creature to a new handler. It would be best if you did not see the dragon again at all.’

      That was a blow. Laurence almost argued, but in the end he closed his mouth and only bowed again. If it would make the process of transition easier, it was only his duty to keep away.

      Still, it was very unpleasant to think of never seeing Temeraire again; he had made no fare well, said no last kind words, and to simply stay away felt like a desertion. Sorrow weighed on him heavily as he left the Commendable, and it had not dissipated by evening; he was meeting Riley and Wells for dinner, and when he came into the parlour of the hotel where they were waiting for him, it was an effort to give them a smile and say, ‘Well, gentlemen, it seems you are not to be rid of me after all.’

      They looked surprised; shortly they were both congratulating him enthusiastically, and toasting his freedom. ‘It is the best news I have heard in a fortnight,’ Riley said, raising a glass. ‘To your health, sir.’ He was very clearly sincere despite the promotion it would likely cost him, and Laurence was deeply affected; consciousness of their true friendship lifted the grief at least a little, and he was able to return the toast with something approaching his usual demeanour.

      ‘It does seem they went about it rather strangely, though,’ Wells said a little later, frowning over Laurence’s brief description of the meeting. ‘Almost like an insult, sir, and to the Navy, too; as though a naval officer were not good enough for them.’

      ‘No, not at all,’ Laurence said, although privately he did not feel very sure of his interpretation. ‘Their concern is for Temeraire, I am sure, and rightly so, as well as for the Corps; one could scarcely expect them to be glad at the prospect of having an untrained fellow on the back of so valuable a creature, any more than we would like to see an Army officer given command of a first-rate.’

      So he said, and so he believed, but that was not very much of a consolation. As the evening wore on, he grew more rather than less conscious

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