is orders for us, and we cannot carry them out without knowing what they are; so either you had better tell us, or go back and see what this Wellesley fellow wants you to do: but if you ask me, he would only be annoyed you had wasted so much time going back and forth."
Hollin shrugged helplessly, but this argument carried the day: he broke the seal and read aloud, "'You are requested and required, to proceed without the loss of a moment to Coventry, and resume your duties in guarding the withdrawal, instead of - '" He paused in his reading, and then clearing his throat finished, "' - instead of whatever damned fool start you have gotten into your heads now. If you have forgotten the end of our last conversation, I haven't, and if you want pay for your damned beasts, you will keep them at their work.'"
"I do not see why everyone assumes that we are just dashing off madly, without thinking where we are going," Temeraire said, exasperated. "Of course we would be doing that, if Iskierka had not got herself captured, but she has, so Laurence has had to go rescue her; and we cannot go right away, because they are not back yet."
"Some of us might go back and join them?" Perscitia suggested, rather hopefully.
"No, we are staying all together from now on," Temeraire said, "and Arkady and Iskierka and all of the other ferals will fly out in front where all of us can see them, as they cannot be trusted to behave properly," and he translated this for Arkady's benefit.
"Bah," Arkady said, with a dismissive sniff, "you would have done the same, if you were not trying to play at being a human, and flapping along as slow as if we had to creep on the ground like them. They have nothing to complain of, we did not leave them in any danger. We would have seen if this Napoleon's army were chasing them as we came towards London, and there has not been any sign of them."
"I would not have done any such thing," Temeraire returned smartly, "because I would have had better sense than to go wandering off for no good reason and no particular notion of what to do, just to please myself - "
"We had very good reason," Arkady said, "we went to bring food back for everyone, that the French were stealing - "
"You did no such thing!" Temeraire said outraged. "Wringe told us, you went to get prizes for yourselves, and you did not mean to share with anyone at all."
Arkady had just enough grace to look momentarily uncomfortable, but no more than that. "Well, it was Iskierka's idea," he said, with a flip of his tail, and Temeraire snorted in disdain.
"But anyway," Temeraire said, turning back to Hollin, "that much is true: we have not seen Napoleon's army on any of the roads at all to-day, and we would have, flying back this way, if they were in pursuit. So he needn't worry..." He trailed off; Wellesley might not need to worry, but Temeraire realized he himself had every cause: Napoleon's army must be somewhere, and if it were not on the road to London, most likely it was all in London: where Laurence was, and Granby.
Of course he still could do nothing but fret: even if they had set off right away, there was no chance of getting to London before it was quite dark, and he did not need Perscitia's anxious whispered hints to know that it was mad to go trying to fly into a French camp at night when they had Fleur-de-Nuits about. "But in the morning - " he said, and then put down his head without finishing. There would still be guns, and thousands of men, and who knew how many dragons: it would still be quite useless.
"Perhaps he will be back before morning," Perscitia said in a tone so gloomy it left no doubt of her skepticism on that point.
"Well," Temeraire said to Hollin, "you had better go back and tell Wellesley that we will come as soon as I have got Laurence back, and he should not worry about the men, unless of course Napoleon has flown all his soldiers ahead to attack him," he added, hopefully: perhaps that was what had happened.
"We should have seen them going by, if that is what they were doing," Perscitia pointed out depressingly.
After Hollin left, the hours dragged. Temeraire