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.”
“At this rate, I suppose I shall be arrested for teaching you seditious thinking,” Laurence said, amused. “You sound 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.”
“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, 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