that is very good, he ought to double that,” Celeritas said, and he rubbed the side of a claw over his forehead thoughtfully. “So. All is as I had heard. Good. We will be pairing Temeraire with Maximus, the Regal Copper currently here in training. The two of them together will serve as a loose backing arc for Lily’s formation—that is the Longwing there.” He gestured with his head out at the formation wheeling in the valley, and Laurence, still bewildered, turned to watch it for a moment.
The dragon continued, “Of course, I must see Temeraire fly before I can determine the specific course of your training, but I need to finish this session, and after a long journey he will not show to advantage in any case. Ask Lieutenant Granby to show you about and tell you where to find the feeding grounds; you will find him in the officers’ club. Come back with Temeraire tomorrow, an hour past first light.”
This was a command; an acknowledgment was required. “Very good, sir,” Laurence said, concealing his stiffness in formality. Fortunately, Celeritas did not seem to notice; he was already leaping back up to his higher vantage point.
Laurence was very glad that he did not know where the officers’ club was; he felt he could have used a quiet week to adjust his thinking, rather than the fifteen minutes it took him to find a servant who could point him in the right direction. Everything which he had ever heard about dragons was turned upon its head: that dragons were useless without their handlers; that unharnessed dragons were only good for breeding. He no longer wondered at all the anxiety on the part of the aviators; what would the world think, to know they were trained—given orders—by one of the beasts they supposedly controlled?
Of course, considered rationally, he had long possessed proofs of dragon intelligence and independence, in Temeraire’s person; but these had developed gradually over time, and he had unconsciously come to think of Temeraire as a fully realized individual without extending the implication to the rest of dragonkind. The first surprise past, he could without too much difficulty accept the idea of a dragon as instructor, but it would certainly create a scandal of extraordinary proportions among those who had no similar personal experience.
It had not been so long, only shortly before the Revolution in France had cast Europe into war again, since the proposal had been made by Government that unharnessed dragons ought to be killed, rather than supported at the public expense and kept for breeding; the rationale offered had been a lack of need at that present time, and that their recalcitrance likely only hurt the fighting bloodlines. Parliament had calculated a savings of more than ten million pounds per annum; the idea had been seriously considered, then dropped abruptly without public explanation. It was whispered, however, that every admiral of the Corps stationed in range of London had jointly descended upon the Prime Minister and informed him that if the law were passed, the entire Corps would mutiny.
He had previously heard the story with disbelief; not for the proposal, but for the idea that senior officers—any officers—would behave in such a way. The proposal had always seemed to him wrong-minded, but only as the sort of foolish short-sightedness so common among bureaucrats, who thought it better to save ten shillings on sailcloth and risk an entire ship worth six thousand pounds. Now he considered his own indifference with a sense of mortification. Of course they would have mutinied.
Still preoccupied with his thoughts, he walked through the archway to the officers’ club without attention, and only caught the ball that hurtled at his head by reflex. A mingled cheer and cry of protest both went up at once.
“That was a clear goal, he’s not on your team!” A young man, barely out of boyhood, with bright yellow hair, was complaining.
“Nonsense, Martin. Certainly he is; aren’t you?” Another of the participants, grinning broadly, came up to Laurence to take the ball; he was a tall, lanky fellow, with dark hair and sunburnt cheekbones.
“Apparently so,” Laurence said, amused, handing over the ball. He was a little astonished to find a collection of officers playing children’s games indoors, and in such disarray. In his possession of coat and neckcloth, he was more formally dressed than all of them; a couple had even taken off their shirts entirely. The furniture had been pushed pell-mell into the edges of the room,