two at Dover.’
The party broke up, and Laurence climbed to his tower room thoughtfully. A Longwing could spit with tremendous accuracy; in their first day of training Laurence had seen Lily destroy targets with a single quick spurt from nearly four hundred feet in the air, and no cannon from the ground could ever fire so far straight up. Pepper guns might hamper her, but her only real danger would come from aloft: she would be the target of every enemy dragon in the air, and the formation as a whole was designed to protect her. The group would be a formidable presence upon any battlefield, Laurence could easily see; he would not have liked to be beneath them in a ship, and the prospect of doing so much good for England gave him fresh interest for the work.
Unfortunately, as the weeks wore on, he saw plainly that Temeraire found it harder going to keep up his own interest. The first requirement of formation flying was precision, and holding one’s position relative to the others. Now that Temeraire was flying with the group, he was limited by the others, and with speed and manoeuvrability so far beyond the general, he soon began to feel the constraint. One afternoon, Laurence overheard him asking, ‘Do you ever do more interesting flying?’ to Messoria; she was an experienced older dragon of thirty years, with a great many battle scars to render her an object of admiration.
She snorted indulgently at him. ‘Interesting is not very good; it is hard to remember interesting in the middle of a battle,’ she said. ‘You will get used to it, never fear.’
Temeraire sighed and went back to work without anything more like a complaint; but though he never failed to answer a request or to put forth an effort, he was not enthusiastic, and Laurence could not help worrying. He did his best to console Temeraire and provide him with other subjects to engage his interest; they continued their practice of reading together, and Temeraire listened with great interest to every mathematical or scientific article that Laurence could find. He followed them all without difficulty, and Laurence found himself in the strange position of having Temeraire explain to him the material which he was reading aloud.
Even more usefully, perhaps a week after they had resumed training a parcel arrived for them in the mail from Sir Edward Howe. It was addressed somewhat whimsically to Temeraire, who was delighted to receive a piece of mail of his very own; Laurence unwrapped it for him and found within a fine volume of dragon stories from the Orient, translated by Sir Edward himself, and just published.
Temeraire dictated a very graceful note of thanks, to which Laurence added his own, and the Oriental tales became the set conclusion to their days: whatever other reading they did, they would finish with one of the stories. Even after they had read them all, Temeraire was perfectly happy to begin over again, or occasionally request a particular favourite, such as the story of the Yellow Emperor of China, the first Celestial dragon, on whose advice the Han dynasty had been founded; or the Japanese dragon Raiden, who had driven the armada of Kublai Khan away from the island nation. He particularly liked the last because of the parallel with Britain, menaced by Napoleon’s Grande Armée across the Channel.
He listened also with a wistful air to the story of Xiao Sheng, the emperor’s minister, who swallowed a pearl from a dragon’s treasury and became a dragon himself; Laurence did not understand his attitude, until Temeraire said, ‘I do not suppose that is real? There is no way that people can become dragons, or the reverse?’
‘No, I am afraid not,’ Laurence said slowly; the notion that Temeraire might have liked to make a change was distressing to him, suggesting as it did a very deep unhappiness.
But Temeraire only sighed and said, ‘Oh, well; I thought as much. It would have been nice, though, to be able to read and write for myself when I liked, and also then you could fly alongside me.’
Laurence laughed, reassured. ‘I am sorry indeed we cannot have such a pleasure; but even if it were possible, it does not sound a very comfortable process from the story, nor one that could be reversed.’
‘No, and I would not like to give up flying at all, not even for reading,’ Temeraire said. ‘Besides, it is very pleasant to have you read to me; may we have another one? Perhaps the story about the dragon who made it rain, during the drought, by carrying water from the ocean?’
The stories were obviously myths, but Sir Edward’s translation included a great many annotations, describing the realistic basis for the legends according to the best modern knowledge. Laurence suspected even these might be exaggerated slightly; Sir Edward was very clearly enthusiastic towards Oriental dragons. But they served their purpose admirably: the fantastic stories made Temeraire only more determined to prove his similar merit, and gave him better heart for the training.
The book also proved useful for another reason, for only a little while after its arrival, Temeraire’s appearance diverged yet again from the other dragons, as he began to sprout thin tendrils around his jaws, and a ruff of delicate webbing stretched between flexible horns around his face, almost like a frill. It gave him a dramatic, serious look, not at all unbecoming, but there was no denying he looked very different from the others, and if it had not been for the lovely frontispiece of Sir Edward’s book, an engraving of the Yellow Emperor which showed that great dragon in possession of the same sort of ruff, Temeraire would certainly have been unhappy at being yet again marked apart from his fellows.
He was still anxious at the change in his looks, and shortly after the ruff had come in, Laurence found him studying his reflection in the surface of the lake, turning his head this way and that and rolling his eyes back in his head to see himself and the ruff from different angles.
‘Come now, you are likely to make everyone think you are a vain creature,’ Laurence said, reaching up to pet the waving tendrils. ‘Truly, they look very well; pray give them no thought.’
Temeraire made a small, startled noise, and leaned in towards the stroking. ‘That feels very strange,’ he said.
‘Am I hurting you? Are they so tender?’ Laurence stopped at once, anxious. Though he had not said as much to Temeraire, he had noticed from reading the stories that the Chinese dragons, at least the Imperials and Celestials, did not seem to do a great deal of fighting, except in moments of the greatest crisis for their nations. They seemed more famed for beauty and wisdom, and if the Chinese bred for such qualities first, it would not be impossible that the tendrils might be of a sensitivity which could make them a point of vulnerability in battle.
Temeraire nudged him a little and said, ‘No, they do not hurt at all. Pray do it again?’ When Laurence very carefully resumed the stroking, Temeraire made an odd purring sort of sound, and abruptly shivered all over. ‘I think I quite like it,’ he added, his eyes growing unfocused and heavy-lidded.
Laurence snatched his hand away. ‘Oh, Lord,’ he said, glancing around in deep embarrassment; thankfully no other dragons or aviators were around at the moment. ‘I had better speak to Celeritas at once; I think you are coming into season for the first time. I ought to have realized, when they sprouted; it must mean you have reached your full growth.’
Temeraire blinked. ‘Oh, very well; but must you stop?’ he asked plaintively.
‘It is excellent news,’ Celeritas said, when Laurence had conveyed this intelligence. ‘We cannot breed him yet, for he cannot be spared for so long, but I am very pleased regardless: I am always anxious when sending an immature dragon into battle. And I will send word to the breeders; they will think of the best potential crosses to make. The addition of Imperial blood to our lines can only be of the greatest benefit.’
‘Is there anything— some means of relief—’ Laurence stopped, not quite sure how to word the question in a way that would not seem outrageous.
‘We will have to see, but I think
