“Good, good,” Lenton said. “Three weeks, then, if their original estimate holds true. Well, gentlemen, I have changed my mind; I am going to send Temeraire out on patrol every day during her recovery, rather than giving him and Praecursoris turn and turn about. You do not need the experience, Choiseul, and Temeraire does; you will have to keep Praecursoris exercised independently.”

Choiseul bowed, with no hint of dissatisfaction, if he felt any. “I am happy to serve in any way I can, sir; you need merely direct me.”

Lenton nodded. “Well, and for now, stay with Harcourt as much as ever you can; I am sure you know what it is to have a wounded beast,” he said. Choiseul rejoined her by the now-sleeping Lily, and Lenton led Laurence away again, scowling in private thought. “Laurence,” he said, “while you patrol, I want you to try and run formation maneuvers with Nitidus and Dulcia; I know you have not been trained to small-formation work, but Warren and Chenery can help you there. I want him able to lead a pair of light-combatants in a fight independently, if need be.”

“Very good, sir,” Laurence said, a little startled; he wanted badly to ask for some explanation, and repressed his curiosity with some difficulty.

They came to the clearing where Excidium was just falling asleep; Captain Roland was speaking with her ground crewmen and inspecting a piece of the harness. She nodded to them both and came away with them; they walked back together towards the headquarters.

“Roland, can you do without Auctoritas and Crescendium?” Lenton asked abruptly.

She lifted an eyebrow at him. “If I have to, of course,” she said. “What’s this about?”

Lenton did not seem to object to being so directly queried. “We must begin to think about sending Excidium to Cadiz once Lily is flying well,” he said. “I am not going to have the kingdom lost for want of one dragon in the right place; we can hold out against aerial raids a long time here, with the help of the Channel Fleet and the shore batteries, and that fleet must not be allowed to escape.”

If Lenton did choose to send Excidium and his formation away, their absence would leave the Channel vulnerable to aerial attack; yet if the French and Spanish fleet escaped Cadiz and came north, to join with the ships in port at Brest and Calais, perhaps even a single day of so overwhelming an advantage would be enough for Napoleon to ferry over his invasion force.

Laurence did not envy Lenton the decision; without knowing whether Bonaparte’s aerial divisions were halfway to Cadiz overland or still along the Austrian border, the choice could only be half guess. Yet it would have to be made, if only through inaction, and Lenton was clearly prepared instead to take the risk.

Now Lenton’s design with regard to Temeraire’s orders was clear: the admiral wanted the flexibility of having a second formation on hand, even if a small and imperfectly trained one. Laurence thought that he recalled that Auctoritas and Crescendium were middle-weight combat dragons, part of Excidium’s supporting forces; perhaps Lenton intended to match them with Temeraire, to make a maneuverable strike force of the three of them.

“Trying to out-guess Bonaparte; the thought makes my blood run cold,” Captain Roland said, echoing Laurence’s sentiments. “But we will be ready to go whenever you want to send us; I will fly maneuvers without Auctor and Cressy as time allows.”

“Good, see to it,” Lenton said, as they climbed the stairs to the foyer. “I will leave you now; I have another ten dispatches to read yet, more’s the pity. Goodnight, gentlemen.”

“Goodnight, Lenton,” Roland said, and stretched out with a yawn when he was gone. “Ah well, formation flying would be deadly boring without a change-about every so often, any road. What do you say to some supper?”

They had some soup and toasted bread, and a nice Stilton after, with port, and once again settled in Roland’s room for some piquet. After a few hands, and some idle conversation, she said, with the first note of diffidence he had ever heard from her, “Laurence, may I make so bold—”

The question made him stare, as she had never before hesitated to forge ahead on any subject whatsoever. “Certainly,” he said, trying to imagine what she could possibly mean to ask him. Abruptly he was aware of his surroundings: the large and rumpled bed, less than ten steps away; the open throat of her dressing-gown, for which she had exchanged her coat and breeches, behind a screen, when they first came into the room. He looked down at his cards, his face heating; his hands trembled a little.

“If you have any reluctance, I beg you to tell me at once,” she added.

“No,” Laurence said at once, “I would be very happy to oblige you. I am sure,” he added belatedly, as he realized she had not yet asked.

“You are very kind,” she said, and a wide flash of a smile crossed her face, lopsidedly, the right side of her mouth turning up more than the scarred left. Then she went on, “And I would be very grateful if you would tell me, with real honesty, what you think of Emily’s work, and of her inclination for the life.”

He was hard-pressed not to turn crimson at his mistaken assumption, even as she added, “I know it is a wretched thing to ask you to speak ill of her to me, but I have seen what comes of relying too heavily upon the line of succession, without good training. If you have any cause to doubt her suitability, I beg you to tell me now, while there still may be time to repair the fault.”

Her anxiety was very plain now, and thinking of Rankin and his disgraceful treatment of Levitas, Laurence could well understand it; sympathy enabled him to recover from his self-inflicted embarrassment. “I have seen the consequences of what you describe as well,” he said, quick to reassure her. “I promise you I would speak frankly if I saw any such signs; indeed, I should never have taken her on as a runner if I were not entirely convinced of her reliability, and her dedication to her duty. She is too young for certainty, of course, but I think her very promising.”

Roland blew out a breath gustily and sat back in her chair, letting her hand of cards drop as she stopped even pretending to be paying them attention. “Lord, how you relieve me,” she said. “I hoped, of course, but I find I cannot trust myself on the subject.” She laughed with relief, and went to her bureau for a new bottle of wine.

Laurence held out his glass for her to fill. “To Emily’s success,” he proposed, and they drank; then she reached out, took the glass from his hand, and kissed him. He had indeed been wholly mistaken; on this matter, she proved not at all tentative.

LAURENCE COULD NOT help wincing at the haphazard way in which Jane threw her things out of the wardrobe and into heaps upon the bed. “May I help you?” he asked finally, out of desperation, and took possession of her baggage. “No, I beg you, permit me the liberty; you may consider your flight path as I do this,” he said.

“Thank you, Laurence, that is very kind of you.” She sat down with her maps instead. “It will be a straightforward flight, I hope,” she went on, scribbling calculations and moving the small bits of wood which she was using to represent the scattered dragon transport ships that would provide Excidium and his formation with resting places on their way to Cadiz. “So long as the weather holds, less than two weeks should see us there.” With so much urgent need, the dragons would not be going by a single transport, but rather would fly from one transport to another, attempting to predict their locations based on the current and the wind.

Laurence nodded, though a little grimly; they were only a day shy of October, and there was every likelihood at this time of year that the weather would not hold. Then she would be faced with the dangerous choice of trying to find a transport that might easily have been blown off-course, or seeking shelter inland in the face of Spanish artillery. Presuming, of course, that the formation was not itself brought down by a storm: dragons were from time to time cast down by lightning or heavy winds, and if flung into a heavy ocean, they could easily drown with all their crew.