and the carpet rolled up and thrust into a corner.
“Lieutenant John Granby, unassigned,” the dark-haired man said. “Have you just arrived?”
“Yes; Captain Will Laurence, on Temeraire,” Laurence said, and was startled and not a little dismayed to see the smile fall off Granby’s face, the open friendliness vanishing at once.
“The Imperial!” The cry was almost general, and half the boys and men in the room disappeared past them, pelting towards the courtyard. Laurence, taken aback, blinked after them.
“Don’t worry!” The yellow-haired young man, coming up to introduce himself, answered his look of alarm. “We all know better than to pester a dragon; they’re only going to have a look. Though you might have some trouble with the cadets; we have a round two dozen of ’em here, and they make it their mission to plague the life out of everyone. Midwingman Ezekiah Martin, and you can forget my first name now that you have it, if you please.”
Informality was so obviously the usual mode among them that Laurence could hardly take offense, though it was not in the least what he was used to. “Thank you for the warning; I will see Temeraire does not let them bother him,” he said. He was relieved to see no sign of Granby’s attitude of dislike in Martin’s greeting, and wished he might ask the friendlier of the two for guidance. However, he did not mean to disobey orders, even if given by a dragon, so he turned to Granby and said formally, “Celeritas tells me to ask you to show me about; will you be so good?”
“Certainly,” Granby said, trying for equal formality; but it sat less naturally on him, and he sounded artificial and wooden. “Come this way, if you please.”
Laurence was pleased when Martin fell in with them as Granby led the way upstairs; the midwingman’s light conversation, which did not falter for an instant, made the atmosphere a great deal less uncomfortable. “So you are the naval fellow who snatched an Imperial out of the jaws of France. Lord, it is a famous story; the Frogs must be gnashing their teeth and tearing their hair over it,” Martin said exultantly. “I hear you took the egg off an hundred-gun ship; was the battle very long?”
“I am afraid rumor has magnified my accomplishments,” Laurence said. “The Amitié was not a first-rate at all, but a thirty-six, a frigate; and her men were nearly falling down for thirst. Her captain offered a very valiant defense, but it was not a very great contest; ill fortune and the weather did our work for us. I can claim only to have been lucky.”
“Oh! Well, luck is nothing to sneeze at, either; we would not get very far if luck were against us,” Martin said. “Hullo, have they put you at the corner? You will have the wind howling at all hours.”
Laurence came into the circular tower room and looked around his new accommodation with pleasure; to a man used to the confines of a ship’s cabin, it seemed spacious, and the large, curved windows a great luxury. They looked out over the lake, where a thin grey drizzle had started; when he opened them, a cool wet smell came blowing in, not unlike the sea, except for the lack of salt.
His bandboxes were piled a little haphazardly together beside the wardrobe; he looked inside this with some concern, but his things had been put away neatly enough. A writing desk and chair completed the furnishings, beside the plain but ample bed. “It seems perfectly quiet to me; I am sure it will do nicely,” he said, unbuckling his sword and laying it upon the bed; he did not feel comfortable taking off his coat, but he could at least reduce the formality of his appearance a little by this measure.
“Shall I show you to the feeding grounds now?” Granby said stiffly; it was his first contribution to the conversation since they had left the club.
“Oh, we ought to show him the baths first, and the dining hall,” Martin said. “The baths are something to see,” he added to Laurence. “They were built by the Romans, you know; and they are why we are all here at all.”
“Thank you; I would be glad to see them,” Laurence said; although he would have been happy to let the obviously unwilling lieutenant escape, he could not say otherwise now without being rude; Granby might be discourteous, but Laurence did not intend to stoop to the same