‘They were very tasty. Can I eat those over there? They look even larger.’
There was a handsome flock of sheep grazing placidly on the far side of the valley, white against the green. ‘No, Temeraire; those are sheep, mutton,’ Laurence said. ‘They are not as good, and I think they must be someone’s property, so we cannot go snatching them. But perhaps I will see if I cannot arrange for the shepherd to set one aside for you for tomorrow, if you would like to come back here.’
‘It seems very strange that the ocean is full of things that one can eat as one likes, and on land everything seems to be spoken for,’ Temeraire said, disappointed. ‘It does not seem quite right; they are not eating those sheep themselves, after all, and I am hungry now.’
‘Oh Lord, Temeraire, don’t talk that way, or I suppose I shall be arrested for teaching you seditious thinking,’ Laurence said, amused. ‘It sounds positively revolutionary. Only think, perhaps the fellow who owns those is the same one we will ask to give us a nice lamb for your dinner tonight; he will hardly do so if we steal his sheep now.’
‘I would rather have a nice lamb now,’ Temeraire muttered, but he did not go after one of the sheep, and instead returned to examining the clouds. ‘May we go over to those clouds? I would like to see why they are moving like that.’
Laurence looked at the shrouded hillside dubiously, but he more and more disliked telling the dragon no when he did not have to; it was so often necessary. ‘We may try it if you like,’ he said, ‘but it seems a little risky; we could easily run up against the mountainside and be brought by the lee.’
‘Oh, I will land below them, and then we may walk up,’ Temeraire said, crouching low and putting his neck to the ground so Laurence could scramble back aboard. ‘That will be more interesting in any case.’
It was a little odd to go walking with a dragon, and very odd to outdistance one; Temeraire might take one step to every ten paces of Laurence’s, but he took them very rarely, being more occupied in looking back and forth to compare the degree of cloud cover upon the ground. Laurence finally walked some distance ahead and threw himself down upon the slope to wait; even under the heavy fog, he was comfortable, thanks to the heavy clothing and oilskin cloak which he had learned from experience to wear while flying.
Temeraire continued to creep very slowly up the hill, interrupting his studies of the clouds now and again to look at a flower, or a pebble; to Laurence’s surprise, he paused at one point and dug a small rock out of the ground, which he then brought up to Laurence with apparent excitement, pushing it along with the tip of a talon, as it was too small for him to pick up in his claws.
Laurence hefted the thing, which was about the size of his fist; it certainly was curious-looking, pyrite intergrown with quartz crystal and rock. ‘How did you come to see it?’ he said, with interest, turning it over in his hands and brushing away more of the dirt.
‘A little of it was out of the ground and it was shining,’ Temeraire said. ‘Is that gold? I like the look of it.’
‘No, it is just pyrite, but it is very pretty, is it not? I suppose you are one of those hoarding creatures,’ Laurence said, looking affectionately up at Temeraire; many dragons had an inborn fascination with jewels or precious metals. ‘I am afraid I am not rich enough a partner for you; I will not be able to give you a heap of gold to sleep on.’
‘I should rather have you than a heap of gold, even if it were very comfortable to sleep on,’ Temeraire said. ‘I do not mind the deck.’
He said it quite normally, not in the least as though he meant to deliver a compliment, and immediately went back to looking at his clouds; Laurence was left gazing after him in a sensation of mingled amazement and extraordinary pleasure. He could scarcely imagine a similar feeling; the only parallel he could conceive from his old life would be if the Reliant had spoken to say she liked to have him for her captain: both praise and affection, from the highest source imaginable, and it filled him with fresh determination to prove worthy of the encomium.
‘I am afraid I cannot help you, sir,’ the old fellow said, scratching behind his ear as he straightened up from the heavy volume before him. ‘I have a dozen books of draconic breeds, and I cannot find him in any of them. Perhaps his colouration will change when he gets older?’
Laurence frowned; this was the third naturalist he had consulted over the past week since landing in Madeira, and none of them had been able to give him any help whatsoever in determining Temeraire’s breed.
‘However,’ the bookseller went on, ‘I can give you some hope; Sir Edward Howe of the Royal Society is here on the island, taking the waters; he came by my shop last week. I believe he is staying in Porto Moniz, at the northwestern end of the island, and I am sure he will be able to identify your dragon for you; he has written several monographs on rare breeds from the Americas and the Orient.’
‘Thank you very much indeed; I am glad to hear it,’ Laurence said, brightening at this news; the name was familiar to him, and he had met the man in London once or twice, so that he need not even scramble for an introduction.
He went back out into the street in good humour, with a fine map of the island and a book on mineralogy for Temeraire. The day was particularly fine, and the dragon was presently sprawled out in the field which had been set aside for him some distance outside the city, sunning himself after a large meal.
The governor had been more accommodating than Admiral Croft, perhaps due to the anxiety of his populace over the presence of a frequently-hungry dragon in the middle of their port, and had opened the public treasury to provide Temeraire with a steady supply of sheep and cattle. Temeraire was not at all unhappy with the change in his diet, and he was continuing to grow; he would no longer have fit on the Reliant’s stern, and he was bidding fair to become longer than the ship itself. Laurence had taken a cottage beside the field, at small expense due to its owner’s sudden eagerness to be nowhere nearby, and the two of them were managing quite happily.
He regretted his own final removal from the ship’s life when he had time to think of it, but keeping Temeraire exercised was a great deal of work, and he could always go into the town for his dinner. He often met Riley or some of his other officers; he had some other naval acquaintances in the town as well, and so he rarely passed a solitary evening. The nights were comfortable as well, even though he was obliged to return to the cottage early due to the distance; he had found a local servant, Fernao, who, although wholly unsmiling and taciturn, was not disturbed by the dragon and could prepare a reasonable breakfast and supper.
Temeraire generally slept during the heat of the day, while he was gone, and woke again after the sun had set; after supper Laurence would go to sit outside and read to him by the light of a lantern. He had never been a great reader himself, but Temeraire’s pleasure in books was so great as to be infectious, and Laurence could not but think with satisfaction of the dragon’s likely delight in the new book, which spoke in great detail about gemstones and their mining, despite his own complete lack of interest in the subject. It was not the sort of life which he had ever expected to lead, but so far, at least, he had not suffered in any material way from his change of status, and Temeraire was developing into uncommonly good company.
Laurence stopped in a coffeehouse and wrote Sir Edward a quick note with his direction, briefly explaining his circumstances and asking for permission to call. This he addressed to Porto Moniz, then sent off with the establishment’s postboy, adding a half-crown to speed it along. He could have flown across the island much more quickly, of course, but he did not feel he could simply descend upon someone without warning and with a dragon in tow. He could wait; he still had at least a week of liberty left to him before a reply would come from Gibraltar
