table. “Good morning, Laurence; have you seen the paper? Lord Pugh has finally managed to marry off his daughter; Ferrold must be desperately hard up.” This piece of gossip, concerning as it did people whom Harcourt did not know at all, left her outside the conversation. Before Laurence could change the subject, however, she excused herself and slipped away from the table, and he lost the opportunity to further the acquaintance.
The few days remaining in the week before the excursion passed swiftly. The training as yet was still more a matter of testing Temeraire’s flying abilities, and seeing how best he and Maximus could be worked into the formation centered on Lily. Celeritas had them fly endless circuits around the training valley, sometimes trying to minimize the number of wingbeats, sometimes trying to maximize their speed, and always trying to keep them in line with one another. One memorable morning was spent almost entirely upside down, and Laurence found himself dizzy and red-faced at the end of it. The stouter Berkley was huffing as he staggered off Maximus’s back after the final pass, and Laurence leapt forward to ease him down to the ground as his legs gave out from under him.
Maximus hovered anxiously over Berkley and rumbled in distress. “Stop that moaning, Maximus; nothing more ridiculous than a creature of your size behaving like a mother hen,” Berkley said as he fell into the chair that the servants had hurriedly brought. “Ah, thank you,” he said, taking the glass of brandy Laurence offered him, and sipped at it while Laurence loosened his neckcloth.
“I am sorry to have put you under such a strain,” Celeritas said, when Berkley was no longer gasping and scarlet. “Ordinarily these trials would be spread over half a month’s time. Perhaps I am pressing on too quickly.”
“Nonsense, I will be well in a trice,” Berkley said at once. “I know damned well we cannot spare a moment, Celeritas, so do not be holding us back on my account.”
“Laurence, why are matters so urgent?” Temeraire asked that evening after dinner, as they once again settled down together outside the courtyard walls to read. “Is there to be a great battle soon, and we are needed for it?”
Laurence folded the book closed, keeping his place with a finger. “No; I am sorry to disappoint you, but we are too raw to be sent by choice directly into a major action. Still, it is very likely that Lord Nelson will not be able to destroy the French fleet without the help of one of the Longwing formations presently stationed in England; our duty will be to take their place, so they may go. That will indeed be a great battle, and though we will not participate in it directly, I assure you our part is by no means unimportant.”
“No, though it does not sound very exciting,” Temeraire said. “But perhaps France will invade us, and then we will have to fight?” He sounded rather more hopeful than anything else.
“We must hope not,” Laurence said. “If Nelson destroys their fleet, it will pretty well put paid to any chance of Bonaparte’s bringing his army across. Though I have heard he has something like a thousand boats to carry his men, they are only transports, and the Navy would sink them by the dozens if they tried to come across without the protection of the fleet.”
Temeraire sighed and put his head down over his forelegs. “Oh,” he said.
Laurence laughed and stroked his nose. “How bloodthirsty you are,” he said with amusement. “Do not fear; I promise you we will see enough action when your training is done. There is a great deal of skirmishing over the Channel, for one thing; and then we may be sent in support of a naval operation, or perhaps sent to harass the French shipping independently.” This heartened Temeraire greatly, and he turned his attention to the book with restored good humor.
Friday they spent in an endurance trial, trying to see how long both dragons could stay aloft. The formation’s slowest members would be the two Yellow Reapers, so both Temeraire and Maximus had to be kept to that slower pace for the test, and they went around and around the training valley in an endless circle, while above them the rest of the formation performed a drill under Celeritas’s supervision.
A steady rain blurred all the landscape below into a grey monotony and made the task still more boring. Temeraire often turned his head to