the ground; he had been too interested in the process to mount up himself. He turned, but before he could clamber onto the harness, Temeraire reached out carefully and put him aboard, mimicking Laetificat’s action. Laurence grinned privately and patted the dragon’s neck. “Thank you, Temeraire,” he said, strapping himself in; Portland had pronounced his improvised harness adequate for the journey, although with a disapproving air. “Sir, we are ready,” he called to Portland.
“Proceed, then; smallest goes aloft first,” Portland said. “We will take the lead once in the air.”
Laurence nodded; Temeraire gathered himself and leapt, and the world fell away beneath them.
Aerial Command was situated in the countryside just south-east of Chatham, close enough to London to permit daily consultation with the Admiralty and the War Office; it had been an easy hour’s flight from Dover, with the rolling green fields he knew so well spread out below like a checkerboard, and London a suggestion of towers in the distance, purple and indistinct.
Although the dispatches had long preceded him to England and he must have been expected, Laurence was not called to the office until the next morning. Even then he was kept waiting outside Admiral Powys’s office for nearly two hours. At last the door opened; stepping inside, he could not help glancing curiously from Admiral Powys to Admiral Bowden, who was sitting to the right of the desk. The precise words had not been intelligible out in the hall, but he could not have avoided overhearing the loud voices, and Bowden was still red-faced and frowning.
“Yes, Captain Laurence, do come in,” Powys said, waving him in with a fat-fingered hand. “How splendid Temeraire looks; I saw him eating this morning: already close on nine tons, I should say. You are to be most highly commended. And you fed him solely on fish the first two weeks, and also while on the transport? Remarkable, remarkable indeed; we must consider amending the general diet.”
“Yes, yes; this is beside the point,” Bowden said impatiently.
Powys frowned at Bowden, then continued, perhaps a little too heartily, “In any case, he is certainly ready to begin training, and of course we must do our best to bring you up to the mark as well. Of course we have confirmed you in your rank; as a handler, you would be made captain anyway. But you will have a great deal to do; ten years’ training is not to be made up in a day.”
Laurence bowed. “Sir, Temeraire and I are both at your service,” he said, but with reserve; he perceived in both men the same odd constraint about his training that Portland had displayed. Many possible explanations for that constraint had occurred to Laurence during the two weeks aboard the transport, most of them unpleasant. A boy of seven, taken from his home before his character had been truly formed, might easily be forced to accept treatment which a grown man would never endure, and yet of course the aviators themselves would consider it necessary, having gone through it themselves; Laurence could think of no other cause that would make them all so evasive about the subject.
His heart sank further as Powys said, “Now then; we must send you to Loch Laggan,” for it was the place Portland had mentioned, and been so anxious about. “There is no denying that it is the best place for you,” Powys went on. “We cannot waste a moment in making you both ready for duty, and I would not be surprised if Temeraire were up to heavy-combat weight by the end of the summer.”
“Sir, I beg your pardon, but I have never heard of the place, and I gather it is in Scotland?” Laurence asked; he hoped to draw Powys out.
“Yes, in Inverness-shire; it is one of our largest coverts, and certainly the best for intensive training,” Powys said. “Lieutenant Greene outside will show you the way, and mark a covert along the route for you to spend the night; I am sure you will have no difficulty in reaching the place.”
It was clearly a dismissal, and Laurence knew he could not make any further inquiry. In any event, he had a more pressing request. “I will speak to him, sir,” he said. “But if you have no objection, I would be glad to stop the night at my family home in Nottinghamshire; there is room enough for Temeraire, and deer for him to eat.” His parents would be in town at this time of year,