The pleasure lasted until their return to the courtyard. Rankin was standing by the side of the courtyard, wearing evening dress and tapping the straps of his personal harness against the side of his leg in very obvious irritation, and Levitas gave a little alarmed hop as he landed. “What do you mean by flying off like this?” Rankin said, not even waiting for Hollin and the cadets to climb down. “When you are not feeding, you are to be here and waiting, do you understand me? And you there, who told you that you could ride him?”
“Levitas was kind enough to bear them to oblige me, Captain Rankin,” Laurence said, stepping out of Temeraire’s hand and speaking sharply to draw the man’s attention away. “We have only been down at the lake, and a signal would have fetched us in a moment.”
“I do not care to be running after signal-men to have my dragon available, Captain Laurence, and I will thank you to mind your own beast and leave mine to me,” Rankin said, very coldly. “I suppose you are wet now?” he added to Levitas.
“No, no; I am sure I am mostly dry, I was not in for very long at all, I promise,” Levitas said, hunching himself very small.
“Let us hope so,” Rankin said. “Bend down, hurry up about it. And you lot are to stay away from him from now on,” he told the cadets as he climbed up in their place, nearly shouldering Hollin aside.
Laurence stood watching Levitas fly away with Rankin on his back; Berkley and Captain Harcourt were silent, as were the other dragons. Lily abruptly turned her head and made an angry spitting noise; only a few droplets fell, but they sizzled and smoked upon the stone, leaving deep black pockmarks.
“Lily!” Captain Harcourt said, but there was a quality of relief in her voice at the break in the silence. “Pray bring some harness oil, Peck,” she said to one of her ground crewmen, climbing down; she poured it liberally over the acid droplets, until smoke ceased rising. “There, cover it with some sand, and tomorrow it should be safe to wash.”
Laurence was also glad for the small distraction; he did not immediately trust himself to speak. Temeraire nuzzled him gently, and the cadets looked at him in worry. “I oughtn’t ever have suggested it, sir,” Hollin said. “I’m sure I beg your pardon, and Captain Rankin’s.”
“Not in the least, Mr. Hollin,” Laurence said; he could hear his own voice, cold and very stern, and he tried to mitigate the effect by adding, “You have done nothing wrong whatsoever.”
“I don’t see any reason why we ought to stay away from Levitas,” Roland said, low.
Laurence did not hesitate for a moment in his response; it was as strong and automatic as his own helpless anger against Rankin. “Your superior officer has given you orders to do so, Miss Roland; if that is not reason enough you are in the wrong service,” he snapped. “Let me never hear you make another such remark. Take these linens back to the laundry at once, if you please. You will pardon me, gentlemen,” he added to the others, “I will go for a walk before supper.”
Temeraire was too large to successfully creep after him, so the dragon resorted instead to flying past and waiting for him in the first small clearing along his path. Laurence had thought he wanted to be alone, but he found he was very glad to come into the dragon’s encircling forearms and lean upon his warm bulk, listening to the almost musical thrumming of his heart and the steady reverberation of his breathing. The anger slipped away, but it left misery in its place. He would have desperately liked to call Rankin out.
“I do not know why Levitas endures it; even if he is small, he is still much bigger than Rankin,” Temeraire said eventually.
“Why do you endure it when I ask you to put on a harness, or perform some dangerous maneuver?” Laurence said. “It is his duty, and it is his habit. From the shell he has been raised to obey, and has suffered such treatment. He likely does not contemplate any alternative.”
“But he sees you, and the other captains; no one else is treated so,” Temeraire said. He flexed his claws; they dug furrows in the ground. “I do not obey you because it is a habit and I cannot think for