on our journey east,’ Laurence said, appalled. ‘Has it lasted so long?’
‘In Halifax it started in September of the year five,’ Lenton said. ‘The surgeons think now it was the American dragon, that big Indian fellow: he was kept there, and then the first dragons to fall sick here were those who had shared the transport with him to Dover; then it began in Wales when he was sent to the breeding grounds there. He is perfectly hearty, not a cough or a sneeze; very nearly the only dragon left in England who is, except for a handful of hatchlings we have tucked away in Ireland.’
‘You know we have brought you another twenty,’ Laurence said, taking a brief refuge in making his report.
‘Yes, these fellows are from where, Turkestan?’ Lenton said: willing to follow. ‘Did I understand your letter correctly; they were brigands?’
‘I would rather say that they were jealous of their territory,’ Laurence said. ‘They are not very pretty, but there is no malice in them. Though what use twenty dragons can be, to cover all England—’ He stopped. ‘Lenton, surely something can be done? Must be done?’ he said.
Lenton only shook his head briefly. ‘The usual remedies did some good, at the beginning,’ he said. ‘Quieted the coughing, and so forth. They could still fly, if they did not have much appetite; and colds are usually such trifling things with them. But it lingered on so long, and after a while the possets seemed to lose their effect. Some began to grow worse—’
He stopped, and after a long moment he sighed and added with an effort, ‘Obversaria is dead.’
‘Good God!’ Laurence cried. ‘Sir, I am shocked to hear it – so deeply grieved.’ It was a dreadful loss: she had been flying with Lenton some forty years, the flag-dragon at Dover for the last ten, and though relatively young had produced four eggs already; she was perhaps the finest flyer in all England, with few to even compete with her for the title. ‘That was in, let me see, August,’ Lenton said, as if he had not heard. ‘After Inlacrimas, but before Minacitus. It takes some of them worse than others. The very young hold up best, and the old ones linger; it is the ones between who have been dying. Dying first, anyway; I suppose they will all go in the end.’
‘Captain,’ Keynes said, ‘I am sorry, but any gormless imbecile can bandage up a bullet-wound, and a gormless imbecile is very likely to be assigned in my place. I cannot stay with the healthiest dragon in Britain when the quarantine-coverts are full of the sick.’
‘I perfectly understand, Mr. Keynes, and you need say no more,’ Laurence said. ‘Will you not fly with us as far as Dover?’
‘No; Victoriatus will not last the week; I will wait and attend the dissection with Dr. Harrow,’ Keynes said, with brutal practicality that made Laurence flinch. ‘I hope we may learn something about the characteristics of the disease. Some of the couriers are still flying; one will carry me onwards.’
‘Well,’ Laurence said, and shook the surgeon’s hand. ‘I hope we shall see you with us again soon.’
‘I hope you will not,’ Keynes said, in his usual acerbic manner. ‘If you do, I will otherwise be lacking for patients, which from the course of this disease, will mean they are all dead.’
Laurence could hardly say his spirits were lowered; they had already been reduced so far as to make the doctors loss make little difference. But he was sorry. Dragon-surgeons were not by and large near so incompetent as the naval breed, and despite Keynes’ words Laurence did not fear his eventual successor, but to lose a good man, his courage and sense proven and his eccentricities known, was never pleasant; and Temeraire would not like it.
‘He is not hurt?’ Temeraire pressed. ‘He is not sick?’
‘No, Temeraire; but he is needed elsewhere,’ Laurence said. ‘He is a senior surgeon; I am sure you would not deny his attentions to your comrades suffering from this illness.’
‘Well, if Maximus or Lily should need him,’ Temeraire said, crabbily, and drew furrows in the ground. ‘Shall I see them again soon? I am sure they cannot be so very ill. Maximus is the biggest dragon I have ever seen, even though we have been to China; he is sure to recover quickly.’
‘No, my dear,’ Laurence said, uneasily, and broke the worst of the news. ‘The sick… none of them have recovered, and you must take the very greatest care not to go anywhere near the quarantine-grounds.’
‘But I do not understand,’ Temeraire said. ‘If they do not recover, then—’ He paused.
Laurence only looked away. Temeraire had good excuse for not understanding at once. Dragons were hardy creatures, and many breeds lived a century and more; he might have justly expected to know Maximus and Lily for longer than a man’s lifetime, if the war did not take them from him.
At last, sounding almost bewildered, Temeraire said, ‘But I have so much to tell them – I came for them, so they might learn that dragons may read and write, and have property, and do things other than fight.’
‘I will write a letter for you, which we can send to them with your greetings, and they will be happier to know you are well and safe from contagion than for your company,’ Laurence said. Temeraire did not answer; he was very still, and his head bowed deeply to his chest. ‘We will be nearby,’ Laurence went on, after a moment, ‘and you may write to them every day, if you wish; when we have finished our work.’
‘Patrolling, I suppose,’ Temeraire said, with a very unusual note of bitterness, ‘and more stupid formation-work; while they are all sick, and we can do nothing.’
Laurence looked down, into his lap, where their new orders lay amid the oilcloth packet of all his papers, and had no comfort to offer: brusque instructions for their immediate removal to Dover, where Temeraire’s expectations were likely to be answered in every particular.
He was not encouraged by their arrival at Dover. They reported their presence directly after they had landed, but Laurence was left to cool his heels in the hall outside the new admiral’s office for thirty minutes, listening to voices by no means indistinct despite the heavy oaken door. He recognized Jane Roland shouting; the voices that answered her were unfamiliar too, and Laurence rose to his feet abruptly as the door was flung open. A tall man in a naval coat came rushing out with clothing and expression both disordered, his lower cheeks mottled to a moderate glow under his sideburns; he did not pause, but threw Laurence a furious glare before he left.
‘Come in, Laurence, come in,’ Jane called, and he entered the room. She stood with the admiral, an older man dressed rather astonishingly in a black frockcoat and knee breeches with buckled shoes.
‘You have not met Dr. Wapping, I think,’ Jane said. ‘Sir, this is Captain Laurence, of Temeraire.’
‘Sir,’ Laurence said, and made his leg deep to cover his confusion and dismay. He supposed that if all the dragons were in quarantine, putting the covert in the charge of a physician was the sort of thing that would make sense to landsmen. The notion had once been advanced to him by a family friend seeking his influence on behalf of a less-fortunate relation, to put forward a surgeon – not even a naval surgeon – for the command of a hospital ship.
‘I am honoured to make your acquaintance, Captain,’ Dr. Wapping said. ‘Admiral, I will take my leave; I beg your pardon
