His heart sank further as Powys said, “Now then; we must send you to Loch Laggan,” for it was the place Portland had mentioned, and been so anxious about. “There is no denying that it is the best place for you,” Powys went on. “We cannot waste a moment in making you both ready for duty, and I would not be surprised if Temeraire were up to heavy-combat weight by the end of the summer.”

“Sir, I beg your pardon, but I have never heard of the place, and I gather it is in Scotland?” Laurence asked; he hoped to draw Powys out.

“Yes, in Inverness-shire; it is one of our largest coverts, and certainly the best for intensive training,” Powys said. “Lieutenant Greene outside will show you the way, and mark a covert along the route for you to spend the night; I am sure you will have no difficulty in reaching the place.”

It was clearly a dismissal, and Laurence knew he could not make any further inquiry. In any event, he had a more pressing request. “I will speak to him, sir,” he said. “But if you have no objection, I would be glad to stop the night at my family home in Nottinghamshire; there is room enough for Temeraire, and deer for him to eat.” His parents would be in town at this time of year, but the Galmans often stayed in the country, and there might be some chance of seeing Edith, if only briefly.

“Oh, certainly, by all means,” Powys said. “I am sorry I cannot give you a longer furlough; you have certainly deserved it, but I do not think we can spare the time: a week might make all the difference in the world.”

“Thank you, sir, I perfectly understand,” Laurence said, and so bowed and departed.

Armed by Lieutenant Greene with an excellent map showing the route, Laurence began his preparations at once. He had taken some time in Dover to acquire a collection of light bandboxes; he thought that their cylindrical shape might better lie against Temeraire’s body, and now he transferred his belongings into them. He knew he made an unusual sight, carrying a dozen boxes more suitable for ladies’ hats out to Temeraire, but when he had strapped them down against Temeraire’s belly and seen how little they added to his profile, he could not help feeling somewhat smug.

“They are quite comfortable; I do not notice them at all,” Temeraire assured him, rearing up on his back legs and flapping to make certain they were well seated, just as Laetificat had done back in Madeira. “Can we not get one of those tents? It would be much more comfortable for you to ride out of the wind.”

“I have no idea how to put it up, though, my dear,” Laurence said, smiling at the concern. “But I will do well enough; with this leather coat they have given me, I will be quite warm.”

“It must wait until you have your proper harness, in any case; the tents require locking carabiners. Nearly ready to go, then, Laurence?” Bowden had come upon them and interjected himself into the conversation without any notice. He joined Laurence standing before Temeraire’s chest and stooped a little to examine the bandboxes. “Hm, I see you are bent on turning all our customs upside down to suit yourself.”

“No, sir, I hope not,” Laurence said, keeping his temper; it could not serve to alienate the man, for he was one of the senior commanders of the Corps, and might well have a say in what postings Temeraire received. “But my sea-chest was awkward for him to bear, and these seemed the best replacement I could manage on short notice.”

“They may do,” Bowden said, straightening up. “I hope you have as easy a time putting aside the rest of your naval thinking as your sea-chest, Laurence; you must be an aviator now.”

“I am an aviator, sir, and willingly so,” Laurence said. “But I cannot pretend that I intend to put aside the habits and mode of thinking formed over a lifetime; whether I intended it or no, I doubt it would even be possible.”

Bowden fortunately took this without anger, but he shook his head. “No, it would not. And so I told—well. I have come to make something clear: you will oblige me by refraining from discussing, with those not in the Corps, any aspects of your training. His Majesty sees fit to give us our heads to achieve the best performance of our duty; we do not care to entertain the opinions of outsiders. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly,” Laurence said grimly; the peculiar command bore out all his worst suspicions. But if none of them would come out and make themselves plain, he could hardly make an objection; it was infuriating. “Sir,” he said, making up his mind to try again to draw out the truth, “if you would be so good as to tell me what makes the covert in Scotland more suitable than this for my training, I would be grateful to know what to expect.”

“You have been ordered to go there; that makes it the only suitable place,” Bowden said sharply. Yet then he seemed to relent, for he added, in a less harsh tone, “Laggan’s training master is especially adept at bringing inexperienced handlers along quickly.”

“Inexperienced?” Laurence said, blankly. “I thought an aviator had to come into the service at the age of seven; surely you do not mean that there are boys already handling dragons at that age.”

“No, of course not,” Bowden said. “But you are not the first handler to come from outside the ranks, or without as much training as we might care for. Occasionally a hatchling will have a fit of distemper, and we must take anyone we can get it to accept.” He gave a sudden snorting laugh. “Dragons are strange creatures, and there is no understanding them; some of them even take a liking to sea-officers.” He slapped Temeraire’s side, and left as abruptly as he had come; without a word of parting, but in apparently better humor, and leaving Laurence hardly less perplexed than before.

The flight to Nottinghamshire took several hours, and afforded him more leisure than he liked to consider what awaited him in Scotland. He did not like to imagine what Bowden and Powys and Portland all expected him to disapprove so heartily, and he still less liked to try to imagine what he should do if he found the situation unbearable.

He had only once had a truly unhappy experience in his naval service: as a freshly made lieutenant of seventeen he had been assigned to the Shorewise, under Captain Barstowe, an older man and a relic of an older Navy, where officers had not been required to be gentlemen as well. Barstowe was the illegitimate son of a merchant of only moderate wealth and a woman of only moderate character; he had gone to sea as a boy in his father’s ships and been pressed into the Navy as a foremast hand. He had displayed great courage in battle and a keen head for mathematics, which had won him promotion first to master’s-mate, then to lieutenant, and even by a stroke of luck to post-rank, but he had never lost any of the coarseness of his background.

What was worse, Barstowe had been conscious of his own lack of social graces, and resentful of those who, in his mind, made him feel that lack. It was not an unmerited resentment: there were many officers who looked askance and murmured at him; but he had seen in Laurence’s easy and pleasing manners a deliberate insult, and he had been merciless in punishing Laurence for them. Barstowe’s death of pneumonia three months into the voyage had possibly saved Laurence’s own life, and at the least had freed him from an endless daze of standing double or triple watches, a diet of ship’s biscuit and water, and the perils of leading a gun-crew composed of the worst and most unhandy men aboard.

Laurence still had an instinctive horror when he thought of the experience; he was not in the least prepared to be ruled over by another such man, and in Bowden’s ominous words about the Corps taking anyone a hatchling would accept, he read a hint that his trainer or perhaps his fellow trainees would be of such a stamp. And while Laurence was not a boy of seventeen anymore, nor in so powerless a position, he now had Temeraire to consider, and their shared duty.