Laurence was better pleased, for his own part, to find Nelson not offended in the least at whatever whispers and comparisons had been put about between them; that gentleman was rather as amiable as anyone could wish, offering his good hand. “William Laurence; you have gone a long way since we last met. I think we were at dinner together on the Vanguard in ninety-eight, before Aboukir Bay: how very long ago, and how short a time it seems!”

“Indeed, sir; and I am honored your Grace should remember,” Laurence said, and at his request rather anxiously took him back to be presented to Temeraire, adding, when Temeraire’s ruff ominously unfurled at the name, “I hope you will make his Grace most welcome, my dear; it is very kind of him to come and be our guest.”

Temeraire, never very tactful, was unfortunately not to be warned by so subtle a hint, and rather coldly asked, “What has happened to your medals? They are all quite misshapen.”

This, he certainly meant as a species of insult; however Nelson, who famously preferred only to win more glory, than to speak of what he already had gained, could not have been better pleased at the excuse to discuss the battle, told over so thoroughly by the public before ever he had risen from his injuries, with an audience for once innocent of the details. “Why, a rascal of a Spanish fire-breather gave us a little trouble, at Trafalgar, and they were caught in the flame,” he said, taking one of the ample number of vacant chairs at the table nearby, and arranging bread rolls for the ships.

Temeraire, growing interested despite himself, leaned in closely to observe their maneuvers on the cloth. Nelson did not flinch back in the least, though the onlookers who had gathered to observe took nearly all of them several steps back. He described the Spanish dragon’s passes with a fork and much lurid detail, and further rescued his character, in Temeraire’s eyes, by concluding, “And very sorry I am that we did not have you there: I am sure you should have had no trouble in running the creature off.”

“Well, I am sure, too,” Temeraire said candidly, and peered at the medals again with more admiration. “But would the Admiralty not give you fresh ones? That is not very handsome of them.”

“Why, I consider these a better badge of honor, dear creature, and I have not applied for replacement,” Nelson said. “Now, Laurence, do I recall correctly; can I possibly have read a report in the Gazette that this very dragon of yours lately sank a French ship, called the Valérie, I believe, and in a single pass?”

“Yes, sir; I believe Captain Riley of the Allegiance sent in his report, last year,” Laurence said uneasily; that report had rather understated the incident, and while he was proud of Temeraire’s ability, it was not the sort of thing he thought civilian guests would find reassuring; still less so should any of them learn that the French, too, now had their own Celestial, and that the same dreadful power might be turned against their own shipping.

“Astonishing; quite prodigious,” Nelson said. “What was she, a sloop-of-war?”

“A frigate, sir,” Laurence answered, even more reluctantly. “—forty-eight guns.”

There was a pause. “I cannot be sorry, although it was hard on the poor sailors,” Temeraire said, into the silence, “but it was not very noble of them, stealing upon us during the night, when their dragon could see in the dark and I could not.”

“Certainly,” Nelson said, over a certain murmur from the assembled company; he, having recovered from his surprise, had rather a quick martial gleam in his eye, “certainly; I congratulate you. I think I must have some conversation with the Admiralty, Captain, on your present station; you are on coastline duty at present, am I not correct? A waste; an unconscionable waste; you may be sure they will hear from me on the subject. Do you suppose he could manage as much on a ship-of-the-line?”

Laurence could not explain the impossibility of a change in their assignment without revealing the secret; so he answered a little vaguely, with gratitude for his Grace’s interest.

“Very clever,” Lord Allendale said grimly, in conference with them and Wilberforce, when Nelson had gone away again, nodding his farewells in the most affable manner to all who sought his attention. “I suppose we must consider it a badge of success that he should prefer to send you away.”

“Sir, I believe you are mistaken; I cannot allow his motives on this matter to be other than sincere, in wishing the best use made of Temeraire’s abilities,” Laurence said stiffly.

“It is very boring, always going up and down the coast,” Temeraire put in, “and I should much rather have some more interesting work, like fighting fire-breathers, if we were not needed where we are; but I suppose we must do our duty,” he finished, not a trifle wistfully, and turned his attention back to the other guests, who were all the more eager to speak with him now in imitation of Nelson’s example: the party most assuredly a success.

“Laurence, may we fly over the quarantine-grounds, as we go, and see how comes the pavilion?” Temeraire asked, the next morning, as they made ready for the flight back to Dover.

“It will not be very far advanced,” Laurence said; Temeraire’s ulterior motive, to look into the quarantine-grounds to see Maximus and Lily, was tolerably transparent: there had been no reply to the letters which Laurence had sent, either to them or to their captains, and Temeraire had begun to inquire after them with increasing impatience. Laurence feared Temeraire’s likely reaction to seeing them so reduced by illness as he supposed them to be, but could think of no very good reason with which to divert him.

“But I should like to see it in all its stages,” Temeraire said, “and if they have made any mistakes, we ought to correct it early, surely,” he finished triumphantly, with the air of having hit upon an unanswerable justification.

“Is there any reason to fear infection in the air?” Laurence asked Dorset quietly, aside. “Will there be a danger to flying over the grounds?”

“No, so long as he keeps a good distance from any of the sick beasts. It is certainly the phlegmatic humors which carry the infection. So long as he does not put himself directly in the way of a sneeze or a cough, I cannot think the danger substantial, not aloft,” Dorset said absently, without much consideration to the question, which did not fill Laurence with great confidence.

But he settled for extracting a promise that Temeraire should stay well aloft, where perhaps he might not see the worst of the ravages which had been inflicted on his friends, nor approach any dragon in the air.

“Of course I promise,” Temeraire said, adding, unconvincingly, “I only want to see the pavilion, after all; it is nothing to me if we see any other dragons.”

“You must be sure, my dear, or Mr. Dorset will not countenance our visit; we must not disturb the sick dragons, who require their rest,” Laurence said, resorting to stratagem, which at last won Temeraire’s sighs and agreement.

Laurence did not truly expect to see any dragons aloft; the ill beasts only rarely left the ground anymore, for the brief showy patrols which Jane continued to use to keep up their illusion of strength for the French. The day was cloudy and drear, and as they flew towards the coast, they met a thin misting of rain blowing in from the Channel; the exertion surely would not be asked of the sick dragons.

The quarantine-grounds were inland of Dover itself, the borders marked off by smoking torches and large red flags, planted into the ground: low deserted rolling meadows, the dragons scattered about with little cover even from the wind, which snapped all the flags out crisply and made them all huddle down small to escape. But as Temeraire drew near the proscribed territory, Laurence saw three specks, increasing rapidly into three dragons: aloft, and flying energetically, two on the heels of a much smaller third.