hurry,” he said. “I would like to go up to those mountains. And I could just eat those,” he added, looking at a team of carriage horses standing nearby; the horses stamped nervously as though they had heard and understood perfectly well.
“Oh, no, Temeraire, you cannot just eat anything you see on the streets,” Laurence said in alarm. “Wells will bring you something straightaway.” Turning, he caught the third lieutenant’s eye, and conveyed the urgency of the situation; then with a final dubious glance, he went down the gangplank and joined Riley.
Admiral Croft was waiting for them impatiently; he had evidently heard something of the fuss. He was a tall man and a striking one, the more so for a raking scar across his face and the false hand which was attached to the stump of his left arm, its iron fingers operated by springs and catches. He had lost the limb shortly before his promotion to flag rank, and since had put on a great deal of weight; he did not rise when they came into his stateroom, but only scowled a little and waved them to chairs. “Very well, Laurence, explain yourself; I suppose this has something to do with the feral you have down there?”
“Sir, that is Temeraire; he is not feral,” Laurence said. “We took a French ship, the Amitié, three weeks ago yesterday; we found his egg in their hold. Our surgeon had some knowledge of dragonkind; he warned us that it would hatch shortly, and so we were able to arrange—that is to say, I harnessed him.”
Croft sat up abruptly and squinted at Laurence, then at Riley, only then taking notice of the change in uniform. “What, yourself? And so you— Good Lord, why didn’t you put one of your midshipmen to the thing?” he demanded. “This is taking duty a little far, Laurence; a fine thing when a naval officer chooses to jump ship for the Corps.”
“Sir, my officers and I drew lots,” Laurence said, suppressing a flare of indignation; he had not desired to be lauded for his sacrifice, but it was a little much to be upbraided for it. “I hope no one would ever question my devotion to the service; I felt it only fair to them that I should share the risk, and in the event, though I did not draw the lot, there was no avoiding it; he took a liking to me, and we could not risk him refusing the harness from another hand.”
“Oh, hell,” Croft said, and relapsed into his chair with a sullen expression, tapping the fingers of his right hand against the metal palm of the left, a nervous gesture, and sat silently except for the small clinking noise which his fingernails made upon the iron. The minutes dragged, while Laurence alternated between imagining a thousand disasters which Temeraire might precipitate in his absence, and worrying what Croft might do with the Reliant and Riley.
At last Croft started, as if waking up, and waved his good hand. “Well, there must be some sort of bounty; they can hardly give less for a harnessed creature than a feral one, after all,” he said. “The French frigate, a man-of-war, I suppose, no merchantman? Well, she looks likely enough, I am sure she will be brought into the service,” he added, good humor apparently restored, and Laurence realized with mingled relief and irritation that the man had only been calculating his admiral’s share in his head.
“Indeed, sir, she is a very trim craft; thirty-six guns,” he said politely, keeping several other things which he might have said to himself; he would never have to report to this man again, but Riley’s future still hung in the balance.
“Hm. You have done as you ought, Laurence, I am sure; though it is a pity to lose you. I suppose you shall like to be an aviator,” Croft said, in tones that made it quite plain he supposed no such thing. “We have no division of the Corps locally, though; even the dispatch-carrier only comes through once a week. You will have to take him to Gibraltar, I imagine.”
“Yes, sir, though the trip must wait until he has more growth; he can stay aloft for an hour or so without much trouble, but I do not like to risk him on a long flight just yet,” Laurence said firmly. “And in the meantime, he must be fed; we have only managed to get by so long with fishing, but of