Hollin shrugged helplessly, and her 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 Tuxford, and resume your duties guarding the withdrawal, instead of—’ He paused in his reading, and then clearing his throat finished, ‘—instead of whatever damned fool start you have got into your heads now. Be assured that if you have forgotten the end of our last conversation, I have not, 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 and rescue her. 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 together from now on,’ Temeraire said, ‘and Arkady and Iskierka and all of the other ferals will always fly out in front where we 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, 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 you, and there has not been any sign of them.’

‘I would have done no such thing,’ Temeraire returned smartly, ‘because I would have had better sense than to go wandering off for no good reason, with no particular notion of what to do, just to please myself—’

‘We had very good reason,’ Arkady said, ‘we went to bring back the food that the French were stealing—’

‘You did no such thing!’ Temeraire said outraged. ‘Wringe told us, you went to get prizes for yourselves and that you did not mean to share with anyone at all.’

Arkady had just enough grace to look uncomfortable for a moment, 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 today, and we would have, if they were in pursuit. So they needn't worry—’ He trailed off; Wellesley might not need to worry, but Temeraire realized that he himself had every cause. Napoleon's army must be somewhere, and if it were not on the road to London, it was most likely in London, with Laurence and Granby.